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There is a certain truth buried deep within the trenches of Eren’s bruised and battered soul, woven into him on a cellular level, intertwined and interlaced. One so terrifying, so utterly disgusting, he’s never inspected it too closely, but one he’s been aware of vaguely, detachedly, ever since he was nine with his small hands wrapped around a dull knife, covered in the blood of others and shaking uncontrollably. Not from fear, though, or terror at having gutted two human beings like pigs. Not from adrenaline, either, because up to that point and since then, he’s never been calmer.
Though, maybe, more accurately, it is not a truth, but a sickness. A wrongness etched into his very being, carving him out from the inside. Slowly, surely, it spreads, has been, ever since he was nine and shaking from pure unbridled excitement. But then again, there is a truth to that, to that wrongness. Perhaps he is wired incorrectly, the synapses in his brain skewed and queer. Perhaps he was born like that, coming out of the womb erroneous and bad, despite his mother’s words of No one gets born wrong, Eren. He used to believe her, take salvage in her steadfast belief and gentle voice. Now, he knows it was merely a mother’s inability to see her child’s faults. Morbidly, he’s relieved that she died before she could realize what a monster he really is.
Because that’s what he is, isn’t he – a monster. A feral beast; impetuous, irascible, insatiable.
He notices the second time when he is ten, watching his city fall, the place where he grew up in torn apart and painted in red, and something frightening crawls up his spine. Something primordial, something ancient; like a reflex he doesn’t remember learning, his teeth gritting painfully with the urge to bite and tear and rip apart. Something familiar, too, tugging at the edges of his consciousness. An impulse, of sorts, that surges through him, the same one that made him grab that knife a year before.
Eren notices, then, just like he noticed a year before and will keep noticing for the ones that come after, that something is wrong with him. Deeply, fundamentally. Something must be, he just doesn’t know what it is yet. He thinks he prefers not knowing, too much of a coward to face the answer, so, in a weak and, admittedly, childish attempt at shielding himself from acknowledging something too monumental for his fragile mind to handle, he simply – ignores it. Ignores the urges and the impulses that rattle at his bones; denies himself to give into the discomfiting itch underneath his skin whenever he witnesses bloodshed and death; pushes against the violent something running through his veins, threatening to make his body burst. It is a losing battle from the beginning, though, as wilful ignorance is admittance in and of itself, and averting his eyes from something does not make it go away.
Eren is nothing if not stubborn, though, single-minded and hard-headed, a master in suppressing everything heavy into bitter nothingness, and he somehow manages to evade facing the truth within him for years.
Then, everything goes to shit.
xx.
He gets his first erection when he’s fifteen and getting the shit beaten out of him in a room full of people that want him dead while in so much pain that he truly believes he’s going to die. His first ejaculation follows shortly after when his childhood idol steps on the side of his face, pressing it unforgivingly against the grimy floor that is splattered with his own blood.
His first orgasm is accompanied by pain and the distinctive taste of iron. It’s sudden and abrupt and he doesn’t even know that it’s happening until it is already over. The curled over position his body is forced into, there is not much range for a physical reaction to give him away, and with someone stepping on his head, whatever facial expression he is making can easily be mistranslated. No one notices, he doesn’t think; even the sharp moan can easily be interpreted as one of pain Which it is, in some way. Not from his knocked-out tooth, though, or the broken ribs or the hematoma littering his skin.
The pain comes from deeper, like it’s pumped from his heart through his every vein, into every capillary, suffusing his alveoli, until he’s filled with the ache of knowing indisputably, inarguably, that he’s – wrong. Different. Deviated.
He isn’t given any time to ponder about it, barely even enough time to process it properly, because everything happens very fast after that.
He’s allowed to live. He’s allowed to join the Survey Corps. He’s allowed to fight. Captain Levi sits down next to him afterwards, close, too close, his arm nearly touching Eren’s shoulders. Do you resent me? His own tooth is held out for him, even though the gap has already filled without him noticing. No, sir. I understand why it was necessary. He’s brought to the castle, the headquarters, and not even his confinement in the basement is enough to tamper down on the sheer excitement. Then he’s cleaning, for a week straight, and then he’s training, and then he’s biting his hand bloody uselessly, and then he accidentally transforms, and then he finds himself on the receiving end from raised weapons. Again.
A lot’s going on, is the thing, and Eren’s never been too skilled at multitasking, so he lets everything unnecessary blur into the background until he nearly forgets about it again.
The why and the how and the what the fuck do not get answered until a few weeks later when he’s standing in the carcass of his steaming titan, blood-soaked and so hard that it hurts. Memories of ballistic, barbaric slaughter rush back to him, the remnants of thoughts of killing, killing, killing faintly echoing against the blank walls of his consciousness, and then he comes into his pants, untouched and unprompted. Unlike the first time, it’s shuddering through him violently, shaking his tired bones with a force he wasn’t aware was possible.
Whining and writhing, he hunches forward, into himself and into the bare muscles of a gigantic neck, burrowing himself into the disgusting mess of anatomy he never wanted to experience so vividly. The muscles twitch around his body, searing hot and stimulating. It reeks of death and decay, the unmistakable taste of iron making his mouth stale. Makes it water, too, a little. In a surge of moremoremore, he opens his mouth and bites through sinews and nerves. There’s an animalistic sort of satisfaction when his teeth rip apart skin and flesh that is kind of his own, in a weirdly convoluted way he currently doesn’t have the brain space to dissect.
His jaw only unclenches when he hears distant shouts of his name, and he remembers sort of abruptly where he is. He tries to wrench himself free from dissolving muscle keeping him in the nape of the monster he has become – the monster he is, and has been, and always will be – before anyone can swing up and cut him free. It takes a few attempts, the gore and blood too slippery to properly brace himself, but he manages. Everything is a little hazy, his thoughts not yet quite right again, but he notices his squad – the people tasked to protect or kill him, whichever is necessary – keeping a certain distance. They always do, after he transforms; not out of mistrust, but fear.
Everything stays hazy, for a while after that, all through someone getting him down from the big pile of monstrosity and heaving him onto a horse (Who? he really cannot tell, everything’s blurry, though they’re shorter than him, by a lot, and probably stronger than him, by a lot), and leading him back to the castle, to the basement, to the confinement.
Maybe for the first time, he is glad to be locked up. Thinks he deserves it, now more than ever before.
His head is spinning, half-formed thoughts whirring around his mind so fast, he cannot quite grasp them. Every nerve inside his body is trembling with leftover adrenaline, his skin feeling itchy with the phantom feeling of being encased like a rarity behind glass and his hands shaking from the violent urge to bite himself again. The open wounds in the shape of his teeth are gone already, his skin unblemished again without the faintest indication that they were there in the first place. He kind of really wants to rip himself open again, just to see whether he’ll still bleed red or if there’s nothing but a muddy black substance going through his sick body.
He has been on the brink of realization ever since he was nine, teetering dangerously close to the truth that he has always tried so hard to bury. Has tried to repress, restrain. Rein in, in the moments where it’s threatened to seep through the cracks the carapace for his disgusting little feelings. He reaches down into his pants numbly, meeting an uncomfortable wetness that feels strangely accusatory, and something simply breaks. An inner crutch slips, the floodgates break open.
“Ha,” Eren laughs, though it is more of a broken exhale than anything else, ugly and choked.
His pants are sticky because he came, back there, in the middle of a battlefield, in the aftermath of the havoc he caused. Untouched. The first time around, there was at least some physical contact involved – Captain Levi beating the shit out of him, granted, but still. It could’ve been written off as some slight sexual deviation, something inane and easily forgotten. Being a masochist would have been better than – than this. This. Getting off not from pain and humiliation – which would have been pride-demolishing but bearable –, but from bloodshed. Specifically, bloodshed that he has brought. Chaos that he has unleashed. Brutal, graceless killing, done by his own hands that are shaking pathetically right now has made him come so hard he very nearly passed out.
He would love to blame the shifting, his body changing into a monster, into something that isn’t quite him. Would love to absolve himself from the blame, lessen the burden on his conscience, but – the feeling itself, it’s not new, is it, even when his body’s reaction certainly is.
He probably would have gotten hard when he killed those bastards, too, if his prepubescent body would have been able to, and the realization has Eren holding a knife to his own throat, contemplating whether he deserves the cowardly way out of this. The blade is razor-sharp – Captain Levi drilled into him the importance of keeping his weapons well-taken care of, so he whets them at regular intervals, even the pocketknife he never uses –, it could cut through his veins without any effort at all, and he feels himself stirring in his pants. He lowers the knife and thinks about castrating himself instead. There is no point, he knows; it’d just grow back. There is also the potentiality of him liking cutting off his own dick. Proven right in his fears immediately, his cock twitches, very clearly less horrified by the situation than he is.
He throws the knife against the wall.
Then, he rises from his bed, tearing off his shirt and steering to the wash basin with the intention of rubbing at his skin until there’s nothing left.
xx.
“I should be the last person to say this,” a voice sounds from behind Eren, bone-deep and perfectly monotone. “But ease up with the scrubbing, Jaeger.”
Eren doesn’t need to turn around to know who it is, which is good, because he’d really rather die than have to face Captain Levi right now. Involuntarily, heat spreads underneath Eren’s skin, embarrassed and ashamed to be caught like this. Embarrassed and ashamed, like he always feels around his Captain, with varying degrees of intensity.
Even after four weeks – a measly four weeks since the tribunal, nothing at all in the grander scheme of things, but it feels like a small eternity –, he hasn’t gotten used to Levi’s… well, everything, really. Levi’s sharp eyes that always seem to see too much, Levi’s bone-deep voice that always sounds a little mocking, Levi’s presence that always threatens to suffocate him.
Eren still flinches, still recoils into himself, still feels profoundly inadequate. Defective. Deficient. An imposter next to humanity’s strongest, a little kid in the face of Captain Levi, a fucking coward whenever subjected to that steely stare.
Albeit embarrassing, the skittishness is not wholly unjustified, he thinks, considering that Levi’s own team tends to circumvent him by a respectable radius. It certainly does not help that he vividly remembers how Levi’s boot felt against the side of his face, how the lugs dug into his cheek and left angry imprints on his skin; the taste of iron on his tongue, salt-tinged with his own tears as his face got pressed into the stone floor; the distinctive smell of leather and polish and copper, sharp and strangely soothing, and then something else when Levi fisted a hand into his hair and yanked his head up, something clean and fumigated, the inimitable scent of Levi that accompanied Eren’s first –
A wave of nauseated arousal hits him as he looks down at his skin, rubbed raw and bloody. He still feels dirty. Filthy, disgusting, vile –
“Sometimes,” Levi says, abrupt enough to startle Eren out of whatever self-pity revery he nearly got lost in. Then, he pauses. Levi does not pause, is the thing; does not hesitate, or halt. That small hitch in breath, disruptive of his usual unapologetic tenacity, is enough for every single bone in Eren’s body to lock up with dreadful anticipation. “Sometimes, I feel like – there’s a sheen of something filthy all over my body. Like a second skin, or a layer, of sorts. Except that it’s not from the outside. What’s the word for an inner layer? Lining? Inlay? Doesn’t fucking matter. I feel disgusting, but from the inside. Do you know what I mean?”
“Yeah,” Eren says, voice thick with something unspeakable on his tongue. “Yeah, I – I do.”
“Doing that,” Levi says, pausing again, deliberately this time, and Eren knows that Levi is levelling a pointed look at his back, can feel it bore into his raw skin, “will not help. I know that because I tried.”
Eren does around, then. He looks at Levi casually poised against the opened cell door – when has he opened it? – and really sees him for the first time. Levi’s perfectly pressed and spotless uniform, Levi’s hands that are always a little red from washing them so often, Levi’s genuine look of disgust whenever he spots even a modicum of dirt, and Eren realizes that the constant, nearly neurotic need to be clean must come from somewhere. No one loves cleanliness that much, no one cares about orderliness that much. There is a reason for that, just like there’s a reason why Eren is scrubbing at his skin like a maniac.
Trying not to sound as small as he feels, Eren asks, “What will help, then?”
“Nothing,” Levi says, and although Eren knows he’s not a liar, he wishes that Levi did lie, just this once. How foolish of him, to expect Levi to break his slightly skewed but fierce morals for someone like him. As if he’s deserving of comfort and consolation after – after. Either oblivious to or uncaring of his despondency, Levi continues, “You’ll never fully get rid of it, tell you that much.” At Eren’s wince, the sharp, knife-like edge of Levi’s voice dulls. “But it gets easier to live with, at some point.”
And Eren doesn’t quite believe him – can’t, when everything feels so world-shatteringly monumental –, but he wants to. Wants to believe so badly that it gets easier, lighter to carry, less suffocating. Wants to believe in Levi, at least, even when he cannot believe in anything else. Maybe he puts too much weight into Levi’s words, maybe he trusts too much, but Levi is not a liar, he wouldn’t say something he didn’t mean, and it’s almost enough.
“Dry off,” Levi says, throwing a towel at Eren’s face with surgical precision and far too much force, “and come with me. I’ll make you tea.”
xx.
The tea helps. That first night, and all the other nights that Levi catches him furiously clawing into himself. It develops into a pattern, after the fifth consecutive day. Eren will be out of his mind with disgust, shame crawling underneath his skin like maggots, breathing harshly, and he’ll start scouring at his skin with ice cold water and the roughest cloth he could scrounge up until Levi finds him. And Levi always does. Find him. Somehow, Levi always finds him, curled into himself and hyperventilating; will throw a towel at him, order him to Dry off and come with me, and he’ll never ask.
Levi never asks, not that first night nor the ones that follow. His narrow-eyed glares remain too sharp, too harsh, without the slightest trace of sympathy or pity. He speaks to Eren like he always does, which is – not a lot, still, but when he does, it’s with the usual monotony and indifference. Levi seems utterly uninterested in any kind of explanation, doesn’t ask for a reason, merely offers Eren reprieve with a hot cup of tea in his office. Levi’s own blend, the expensive one from the inner walls; the only luxury Levi is known to allow himself, and he shares it with Eren.
He tries to protest, that very first night, and Levi says, “Shut the fuck up, it’s my tea and I can do with it what I damn well please.”
Eren doesn’t try to protest, after that. Doesn’t protest Levi interrupting the pathetic – and ultimately futile – attempts at self-cleansing, doesn’t protest getting a towel thrown at, doesn’t protest when Levi shoves expensive tea at him. After a while, he goes from merely not protesting to kind of looking forward to it. Each time the urge to cut himself open to clean his skin from the inside gets physically overpowering, he knows he’ll be found and dragged away into the little sanctuary of Levi’s office and Levi’s tea. That knowledge is the only thing that manages to ease the ferocious burn of shame, spares his skin from splitting and his mind from splintering.
It helps, weirdly enough. The soothing scent of tea and the soft glow of the candlelight; the absence of judgement, of any kind of opinion; the tranquillity and quiescence of Levi’s presence. It’s soothing, like putting ice on a bruise. Like getting a kiss on a scraped knee as a child.
The tea can’t help forever, though. The soft candlelight is not enough to keep the shadows away.
xx.
He’s standing in the carcass of his steaming titan, splattered with the blood of his comrades, ornamented with their guts, on top of a mountain of corpses like some twisted mimicry of a god. He’s still holding Captain Levi’s heart in his hands, securely and close to his chest, hating himself for wanting to bite into it.
He’s alone, because –
He killed them all.
Titans, humans, he didn’t differentiate. Enemies and comrades and completely uninvolved, innocent lives; the women, the children, the animals. Everything that was in his way. He killed them all. He didn’t mean to, it just happened. Something snapped, and now everyone lays slaughtered beneath his feet. Levi, too, even though Levi promised he’d kill him if the situation ever required it.
Humanity’s strongest, huh, is the last coherent thought before giving into the urge and sinking his teeth into Levi’s still warm heart –
His eyes snap open, the phantom taste of iron on his tongue.
Eren wakes with the sort of disorienting abruptness that is not at all unusual for someone who just dreamed – that. That. He can barely think about it without bile climbing up his throat, without his mouth fucking watering. He really should not be salivating over the mental image of eating a human heart. Captain Levi’s heart, no less, which carries a whole lot of different troubling connotations he does not want to dissect right now. Or ever, really.
It’s weird, and disgusting, the things his sick mind conjures up when it is completely untethered from reality, free to wander as it pleases. There are feverish images, feverish feelings, and there’s always, always blood. Disembowelled bodies, fallen walls, destruction, mayhem, blood, blood, blood. He dreams of making good on the promise he made down in that dungeon and killing all the titans until the world is freed, through the semi-conscious haze of within his titan or by his own two hands. Dreams of murderous rampages, elimination of all monsters, of humankind, of existence itself. Dreams of freedom, ultimate and unconditional. Dreams of –
Levi, too.
Levi, specifically
Levi, covered in blood – titan blood, human blood, Eren’s blood –, his pristine skin tainted with his filth, painted in his ugly desires, ruined and debased; Levi’s blades buried in his chest, wedged between his ribs, cutting out his rotten heart, ruthless and merciful all at once; Levi’s piercing eyes, recondite and dull and furious and lifeless; Levi’s usually impassive face reflecting distaste, disdain, disgust, the ever-composed façade cracked open, finally looking at Eren with something besides cool indifference.
Levi is in a lot of them – all of them, really, went from infrequent to constant at some indefinite point in time after he started offering amnesty with tea. His guardian and his executioner, unknowingly drenched in the depravity of his sick mind, and Eren hates himself. Hates the dreams – the nightmares –, hates that he even produces them, hates what they mean. Hates the desecration of his idol and hates that he isn’t as appalled as he should be. Detests, despises, with every fibre of his pathetic being.
The unbidden conjurations echo for a long while after, resounding mockingly while he stares down loathingly at his straining pants. The urge to touch himself is unfamiliar, and he ignores it with a ridiculously pointed resoluteness, as if his refusal to give into these urges would be enough to erase them. It’s nothing more than a weak attempt at feeling better about himself, nullified by fact that he’s still hard. Achingly so.
He has never had to deal with this before. Feeling like this, light-headed from the blood in his cock instead of his brain, his hands clenched into the sheets from the effort it takes not to shove them into his pants. Has never even spared a single thought about taking himself in hand before, his needs reduced to the few things essential for survival. Too distracted by his own immature wish for revenge, tunnel-visioned with ire and odium, his bodily urges have simply not been important in the grander scheme of things. Masturbation, sex, hurried handjobs in the barracks – it never interested him. Mildly grossed him out, honestly, whenever he would catch a glimpse of someone in the hallway on their knees or bent over a desk in an empty classroom. Touching someone and be touched, in turn, never appealed to him. Still doesn’t, though, maybe, he is starting to understand why his comrades would rut against each other like feral animals every chance they got.
The need for release is overwhelming, distracting, annoying. Not even Eren’s singlemindedness is enough to keep his hand from wandering, surreptitiously, like he could somehow absolve himself from the guilt of touching himself if he simply didn’t look at it. That is not how it works, of course, and a nauseating wave of shame crashes over him at the first tentative prod against his erection. The way his hips jolt in response feels like an abject iniquity against his dignity, but he doesn’t try to stop it. His body seems to know what it is doing, disconnecting from the last vestiges of his stubborn rationality, operating on instincts he didn’t know he had.
Wrapping a hand around himself is strange, the weight of his cock unfamiliar and unnerving when it’s hard, the veins startingly prominent against his fingers. It is more fumbling than anything else at first, a trial and error of adjusting his grip, the pressure, the pace. His movements are clumsy, unsure with the lack of experience and uncomfortably damp with nervous sweat, but a searing heat is steadily building up at the base of his spine, anyway, despite the ignominy of it all.
There is an unmistakable wetness leaking out of his cock, making the increasingly frantic glide of his hand smoother, easier, better. Whenever his nails scrape across his sensitive flesh, more of it dribbles onto his lower stomach, the pain bleeding into a tingling sensation in the blurry haze of pleasure. Repeating it more deliberately, digging his nails in a little harder on the upwards stroke, a sound claws itself out of his throat that he does not recognize as his own voice. It’s high-pitched, a pathetic whining noise bordering on a sob, and it echoes shamefully from the walls of the dungeon. That should probably be cause for concern; it is morning, or somewhen close to it, and someone will come down to unlock his cell soon. He doesn’t care; cannot, with his hand around his cock and pleasure crawling underneath his skin, wrapping around his bones and incensing his nerves.
His jaw is clenched, his teeth gritted painfully against the intrinsic impulse to bite. His free hand is raised halfway to his face before he remembers why that would not be a very good idea, so he turns his head and sinks his teeth into his pillow instead, imagining the rough fabric to be smooth skin. Pale skin, translucent and always a little cold and littered with scars, tearing between his sharp canines. Tries not to put a face to it, but when his whole body convulses, hips undulating into his hand, it is with a broken chorus of Levi’s name on his lips, despite his best efforts.
Contrary to the previous times, it is slow and drawn-out, every drag of his hand ripping out another torrent of titillation, mind-numbing and overstimulating. Each stroke coaxes another spurt out of his pulsing cock, soiling his stomach and chest, until there is nothing left except mildly painful oversensitivity. He dips his fingertips into his own spend, rubbing the foreign consistency into his skin. With a detached sort of curiosity, he brings his fingers to his face, too numb to even hesitate, and wraps his lips around them.
Disgusting, he thinks, not necessarily referring to the taste, and goes to scoop up some more.
Disgusting, filthy, obscene, ringing inside his head as he licks himself clean, sounding more and more like Levi in his own head which, tragically, does nothing to dissipate the shameful arousal.
xx.
When he was younger, smaller, too small to contain all the big ugly feelings in his chest, climbing up his throat, he’d – hurt himself, for a lack of better word. Not inflicting harm on himself as an act of self-punishment or because of self-hatred or anything, nothing as noble as that. He doesn’t feel enough remorse for that, never has, and he wasn’t trying to punish himself as much as he was distracting himself. From the anger, the terror, the bloodcurdling feeling of rage. He used to feel it a lot, when he was younger, smaller, and everything seemed a lot bigger. Everything’s even bigger, now – the world, the outside, the responsibility –, and much more tangible, far heavier. Too heavy, perhaps, bowing his shoulders with the weight of being humanity’s last hope.
He used to dig his nails into his palms until the skin split whenever he felt like lashing out, bit his tongue bloody whenever he wanted to scream and yell and be loud. Sometimes, he would bite at his fingers, his palms, his wrists, would tear himself open as if that would somehow release all the feelings he was too inept at handling. Like letting off pressure, venting the anger that never had anywhere to go on himself. It was a stupid strategy, unreasonable and unhelpful, merely inflicting a smaller pain to distract from the bigger one, but he remembers that it felt good.
Obviously, he cannot do that now. Eren’s already transformed once accidentally, and he’d rather not have a repeat performance of that. He wonders whether Levi would stand between him and raised blades again, and then he tries to calculate the chance of him surviving if he really were curious enough to try something as foolish as that again.
No, an ugly little voice inside his head says, he’d fucking kill you.
The voice isn’t wrong, exactly. Levi would kill him. Will, somewhere down the line. In the near future, even, if he doesn’t get a hold of himself soon. So, he shoves his hands under his thighs or between his knees when he’s sitting, grips the straps of his gear with the leather material acting as a shield for his clawing nails, clenches his jaw and grits his teeth and narrowly suppresses the urge to bite. Desperately, he tries to contain himself, the urges, the need.
Desperately, but not very successfully.
The sleeplessness certainly doesn’t help. After the last nightmare that had Eren choking on his tears and shamefully rutting against the mattress until he physically could not go on anymore, he made the executive decision to avoid sleep altogether. It has only helped in as far as assuaging his guilt and suppressing his libido, even when it makes everything else a lot harder.
Eren will deal with it, though. The heaviness in his bones, the fuzziness of his mind, the constant and continuous exhaustion weighing him down; he’ll deal with it.
He has to.
xx.
“You look like shit,” Levi says, and it’s the first time he’s ever acknowledged. Cold dread settles somewhere in Eren’s stomach, his shoulders tightening with the sudden urge to run away. Fleeing is not exactly viable, though, nor is it possible; he wouldn’t even make it halfway to the door. Levi’s fucking fast, and, empirically, so much stronger than him it’s not even close. If Levi wants him to talk, he could make him do so very easily. The thought, albeit fucking terrifying, has Eren feel warm – simmering, searing, scalding. “You don’t have to tell me. I won’t force you.”
Eren feels something akin to disappointment at that, cursing himself a little for it. In a way, he wants Levi to force him, not because he would enjoy it – although he most likely would –, but because he’s too much of a coward to say it himself. He’d rather be sliced open by Levi’s piercing eyes and bleed out his ugliness than try to articulate it. Couldn’t communicate himself properly, anyway, as he’s never been too adept at putting his fragile feelings into coherent little words.
Not wanting to lie to Levi – not that he convincingly could –, he settles for a half-truth. “It’s just – dreams. Nightmares.”
Levi hums in response, a certain sense of understanding etched into his frown.
“Wanna talk about it?” he asks, simply. Of course, he must think Eren is referring to nightmares about man-eating monsters or the blood-covered faces of his fallen comrades, like any sensible soldier suffers from. That would be the normal thing. What kind of face would he make if he knew that Eren dreams about eating his heart and then fucks into his fist like a dog in heat?
Hopefully, Eren will never find out.
When he shakes his head ruefully but decisively, Levi hums again, and doesn’t ask.
xx.
The debauchery is starting to bleed into his consciousness, his mind unregulated with sleep-deprivation. The control over his thoughts slips away with every passing day, his self-imposed restraint crumbling with each night spent staring blankly at the stone ceiling of his cell, increasingly impuissant against the myriad of gut-wrenchingly vile thoughts and the self-abhorrence that follows. Where he could previously put the blame onto his subconscious, now, he is forced to face the severity of his atrocious mind while fully aware. No thinly-veiled excuses, no hiding behind delicately stringed along reasonings of It’s just dreams, it’s not my fault, stripping him of all plausible deniability.
No matter how hard he tries to escape from his own thoughts, they always catch up to him. In the worst fucking moments, too.
He will be doing whatever obligatory thing he needs to be doing, and something dark creeps up from behind, a whisper of a thought itching at the back of his mind. He will be scrubbing the floors under Levi’s sharp scrutiny, his knees bruised and his back aching, and he’ll feel a spark of something heated and horrified underneath his skin. Or in midst of combat training, everyone too afraid of him to properly give him a challenge, and he’ll remember how thoroughly Levi beat him up, a shameful excitement licking up his spine at the memory. During experimentation training, too, he will be biting his hand bloody, the taste of blood making his mouth water, his skin tingling from Levi’s heavy stare.
It happens most often around Levi, which is not exactly surprising but not at all helpful.
Sometimes – more than that, embarrassingly frequently –, Eren will catch himself staring at Levi, very nearly salivating at the mere sight of the man, his thoughts spiralling out of control, and he’ll snap himself out of it, penitence forcing him to look away. Despite the guilt spreading beneath his sternum like a disease, his gaze will circle back to Levi, always, without fault, every time. To Levi’s small but strong hands, wondering how they would feel wrapped around his throat, whether he would be able to distinguish the callouses from years of hard work. To Levi’s pale skin that would look glorious littered in bruises in the shape of Eren’s mouth, surely, or with bloodied streaks left behind by Eren’s clawing nails. To Levi’s piercing eyes that always find him, somehow, lethally sharp and horrifyingly knowing.
There is no redemption for him, his mind already too rotten. There’s no saving him anymore, it’s too deep-rooted. What he can do, however, is at least save Levi from his disgusting eyes. Avoiding the guy who is in charge of him – in charge of his whole life, without exaggeration –, is probably not the smartest thing to do, but Eren’s never really been that smart, so he does it, anyway.
He stops his nightly ablutions in hopes of getting picked up by Levi, and he makes an effort not to look directly at his Captain even while speaking to him, and he avoids being alone with him. It’s pointless really, and probably very childish, but it makes him feel – not good, exactly, but better. Makes him feel less like a monster, a little less sick. Although far from enough to atone for his sins, it feels like… taking accountability, in the miniscule way he can.
So, he keeps his eyes averted and himself at a distance, taking whatever little control of the predicament he can and clinging to it like a lifeline.
xx.
His abilities still are too unreliable, the crystallizing barely under his conscious control, let alone the coordinate, so Hanji reckoned more training would be in order. Levi was sent as sole supervision, the preparations for the next mission too overwhelming to expend any more soldiers. Eren was both delighted at the prospect of being undisturbed by Hanji’s excited screeching and the squad’s watchful eyes clinging to his every move for once, and dreadful to be alone with Levi after he’d tried so hard to avoid him.
It was supposed to be a simple training exercise. Quick, easy, spanning a few hours to potentially a day at most. The objective was simple: transform and make use of the coordinate. Even if he’d only manage to control one titan for one second, it would be a success, Hanji said. They probably meant well, not wanting to put too much pressure on him, though it had the opposite effect on his already miserable mood.
The objective was simple, at least in theory.
Maybe it was the sleep-deprivation catching up to him, maybe the exhaustion had seeped too deep into his bones, but something went wrong. The last thing he would remember later is being encased in searing heat, cushioned by pulsating muscle and nerves, and he would swear he only closed his eyes for half a moment. Then everything went kind of hazy, distant, far away. Like having his head underwater, sinking deeper, the pressure mounting, and right before he inhaled a lungful of water, everything went black.
xx.
The first thing cutting through the blurred mess of his mind is pain. A stabbing, unbearable ache in his wrists, his skin feeling too tight, too restrictive. A headache, as well, keeping him from opening his eyes just yet with the knowledge that no matter what time of day – or night, potentially – it is, it would still be too bright. Opting to first take account of his own condition, he tries moving his hands, first his fingers, then rotating his wrist, and finds that there is no response back – probably cut off. His elbow bends and upon pressing his arms down, he can feel the sensation of the hard ground up to his forearms – only his hands, then.
How long was he out of it when his arms already generated up to the wrists?
He is not sure what happened, only that it could not have been very good. Nothing ever ends well when he loses control, so much so that he has to be cut out of his titan –
His eyes snap open with the realization that he was cut out, reminding him that he wasn’t alone when everything went dark. He jolts up, intending to push himself up but forgetting that he doesn’t have hands to support himself with. Leaning onto his stumps like that also hurts like shit, and he falls backwards before he’s even made it halfway. Instead of hitting his head on the ground like he expects, small but strong hands wrap around his upper arms.
“Easy,” Levi says, voice gravely and even hoarser than usual, pulling him upright.
Eren gets a little light-headed from the sudden back and forth in momentum, and he deliriously feels the urge to hold onto Levi to steady himself. That is not exactly something he can do, though, having no hands and all, so he settles for leaning forward until his forehead knocks against Levi’s shoulder. It’s certainly a bold move on his part, initiating physical contact with a man who is known to punch people in the face for merely breathing in his direction. But Levi doesn’t punch him, doesn’t even push him away, so he decides to take it as permission to wait out his vertigo.
“Did I lose control?” Eren asks when it doesn’t feel like he’s on the brink of throwing up, and he knows it’s a stupid question the moment the words leave his mouth.
“No, Jaeger. You went so batshit crazy, the weather changed,” Levi says, and although his inflection doesn’t change, Eren winces from his tone anyway.
“What, uh…” What happened seems like such a stupid question, one that Eren is not supposed to be asking because he should already know; because he shouldn’t lose control like that, anymore. A hot surge of embarrassment rushes through him, making his face feel too warm. He’s glad he is out of Levi’s view. “Happened,” he finishes lamely, trying not to choke on the heavy something lodged in the back of his throat.
“That’s what I’d like to know, as well,” Levi says, and he’s still not raising his voice, even though he should be yelling at Eren, screaming, cursing. “You went quiet shortly after transforming, and creepy fucking still. Weren’t reacting to my voice, or any attempt at making you listen to me. Which, by the way, I’m going to beat you for later.” Eren nods against Levi’s shoulder. Whatever punishment Levi sees fit for him, he will accept it and take it graciously. Levi’s hands tighten around his arms before he continues. “After a while of futilely trying to get you attention, you – you screamed something between a wounded animal and a war cry. And then the earth started to shake, because every single titan in a ten-kilometre radius came running towards us. On the bright side, now we know that the coordinate works, so at least this was not completely pointless.”
Eren’s heart drops, his stomach knotting itself up the more he hears. This is the first time he hears a candid recount of what happened when he lost control. Usually, people spare him the details – or they don’t talk to him at all, afterwards. He’s glad for Levi’s bluntness, even when it is a little hard to hear.
Frankly, he couldn’t care less what happened with the titans he summoned – already has a pretty good guess. There’s only one thing he wants to know, the only thing important.
“Did I hurt you, sir?”
“Me? No. In fact, you were strangely gentle when you grabbed me and flung me away,” Levi says, relaying that new piece of information with the nonchalance of talking about the weather. As if reading his mind – or, more likely, feeling Eren go rigid in panic against him –, Levi adds, “I’m not mad about that, by the way. You kind of threw me away from immediate danger, which was appreciated.” Eren’s shoulders drop in relief, and Levi snorts at him. “But you absolutely pummelled every single titan that came running. I’ve never seen anything like it. You were slaughtering them, one by one, methodically and enthusiastically. The steam wafting off of you was so severe it started raining. Do you know how jarring that was to watch? I really thought ‘That’s it, this is the day I have to kill him’.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No,” Levi says, firm and unremorseful.
With no small amount of emotional resistance, Eren forces himself to lean back and sit up properly. He instantly misses the proximity, the steadiness Levi’s hard body provided, but he wants to see Levi’s face when he asks, “Why?”
“Gut feeling, educated guess, neither, both,” Levi says, shrugging one shoulder. Not even bothering to shrug both, as if the question of Eren’s life were a minimal matter to him. His eyes are hard, though, decided and unapologetic about it. “Maybe I wanted to see what would happen, maybe I trusted you, maybe I just didn’t want to kill you. Pick one.”
Against his better judgement, something in Eren’s chest swells and clenches all at once, his mind blanking out in its efforts to process Levi’s words.
“How did you subdue me?” Eren asks in an attempt to deflect from the rapidly rising warmth within him. Levi tilts his head inquisitively, and he lifts one of his steadily steaming stumps in elabortation. “I wasn’t releasing myself.”
“Oh, no, I didn’t have to, you were behaving perfectly after you were done,” Levi says, as if talking about a dog, not the mindless killer machine that he is. “Made it easier to be precise when I was carving you out, although… not perfect. Sorry about your hands.”
“It’s alright, they’re already growing back,” Eren says, going to wave his hand dismissively before remembering how that would be difficult. Expectedly, Levi wrinkles his nose in response, never as enthusiastic about his regenerative abilities as Hanji. Eren can’t really blame him, the whole process is kind of freaky, so he doesn’t feel offended by it.
Now that the panic-induced haze has settled, Eren can focus on more than just his own distress. Upon throwing a cursory glance around, he realizes that they’re in a forest, most probably the one next to the clearing they started the training exercise or somewhere close to it. Which means they are not exactly out of danger, technically, but then again, he apparently pummelled every titan in a wide radius. They wouldn’t be here if Levi didn’t deem this place as safe enough in the first place, and Eren lets himself relax with that knowledge.
“Listen, it’s not my place to ask, so tell me to fuck off and I will,” Levi says, and he pauses there as if to emphasize the importance of that. He must know that Eren would never tell him to fuck off, but it’s quite sweet of him to give him the option, anyway. It’s uncharacteristic, being given the choice instead of being ordered to answer, and cold apprehension settles in Eren’s stomach. “When I cut you out of that titan – which was fucking gross, by the way, you’ll be washing the blood out of my uniform when we get back –, you were hard.”
And because Eren’s mouth has always been faster than his brain, instead of defending himself or, more likely, sputtering pathetically, he asks, “Were you looking at my crotch, sir?” The corner of Levi’s mouth twitches. Downwards; displeased, shit. Eren scrambles, fumbling for conversational purchase, “That’s not – I’m so sorry, sir, I don’t know why I said that–”
“I was,” Levi says, simply, and it’s unfair how nonchalantly he says it. Not a trace of shame at the admission, not a hint of pity for Eren’s embarrassment. “It was also kind of difficult to ignore when I had it poking my back while I was carrying your useless ass to safety.” Not even Levi’s casual delivery, dismissive and disinterested, manages to dissipate the hot shame surging through Eren, his face heating up. “I really don’t care what it is, your sexual proclivities aren’t of any importance to me, but if it is in some way connected to your abilities, you need to at least tell Hanji about it.”
Eren wishes he could say that it is. Wishes it were just some weird adrenaline-induced phenomena, not the vile thing that it is in actuality. He knows he should not lie about anything concerning his abilities, but he seriously considers latching onto the excuse Levi’s just offered him. It would certainly be the easy way out, though then he would be subjected to Hanji who already is far too comfortable asking invasive questions. Honesty is the most rational way to go, he knows that, but he still hesitates.
There is no way to deny one thing without admitting to another – no way to appease one concern without raising another.
“It’s not a shifter thing,” he breathes more so than says, starting to feel dizzy again. “It’s not an adrenaline thing, either.”
“You,” Levi starts, and then stops. His steely eyes narrow and then widen so abruptly, it would be funny under different circumstances. Realization slices through the confusion, and Eren can see the exact moment Levi understands the severity of what he just admitted, even if he cannot know the extent. “Huh.”
Nonsensically, Eren feels relief before anything. Before the mortification, the humiliation, the damnation, he feels free, for one moment. All the pain from hiding away such a detrimental aspect of himself dispelling upon being discovered for one blissful second before everything else comes crumbling down around him.
He knows, he thinks, panic rising up his throat like bile. Maybe it is bile, Eren certainly feels like throwing up at the moment. He’d kill me if I vomited right now, is the second, more hysterical but no less accurate thought.
Eren has never felt mortification like this before. Has never felt fear like this before. Not even when he watched the maw of a titan close around him, not when he had thirty barrels pointed at him, not when he had to watch people argue over his life, not when he was beaten within an inch of his life. It all pales in comparison to the terror he feels now.
Eren wants to die. Not from embarrassment, although that certainly plays a part, but just in general. Genuinely, sincerely, he wants to fucking die and get it over with. The pain, the humiliation of merely existing in the fucked-up way that he does – he wants it to stop. Wants to slit his own throat, rip out his heart, wants do wither and wane and wilt like a normal person, like a human, but not even that is granted. He’d just heal, his body fixing itself back together before he could even pass out. He hates it. Hates his cursed ability, bestowed upon him by some cruel god, hates his innately rotten body, hates the sickness he can’t prevent from spreading. He hates himself, so much that it’s getting hard to breathe.
“Eren, breathe,” Levi’s disembodied voice says from somewhere outside the haze of Eren’s blacked-out vision. He’s hyperventilating, probably, his lungs clogged up with shame and self-loathing, and he can’t even enjoy Levi calling him by his name, rare as it is. “In your nose, out your mouth, come on.”
Usually, he’d stumble over himself to follow Levi’s orders, eager and clumsy in his neurotic need to prove himself, to please. Now, he can barely even focus enough to register the words spoken to him, his vision spotted and his mind blurry. Faintly, he hears a little noise that sounds a lot like Levi clicking his tongue, but softer, hushed. Then, suddenly, his nose is pinched shut, his head forcefully tipped back. Eren goes easily, the lack of air and reason making him pliant, and he hears that noise again, much closer now, much more alarmed. Something warm and rough places itself along the edge of Eren’s jaw, cradling his face with undeserved gentleness, and something presses against his mouth.
Mere moments before his mind whites out completely, he feels – pressure. Pressure from outside, pushing into his mouth, feeling both invasive and so relieving. The world – or the abstract idea of it – starts to take shape again, slowly but surely, like waking up from being half-asleep. With the haziness clearing, he makes a few belated realizations: Levi is close, Levi is holding his face, Levi is close, Levi is giving him mouth to mouth.
Levi is pressing his mouth against Eren’s, which must be torture for someone as averse to bodily fluids.
The thought snaps Eren back into himself, and he rips his face away from Levi so sharply, something in his neck cracks. Frantically, he blinks, trying to get rid of the residue blurriness, staring uselessly at Levi who is still holding his face, who’s still close. Levi’s lips are glistening, and Eren is horrified to know that it’s his spit. He wants to reach out and wipe his filth form Levi, clean him up and grovel at his feet for tainting him.
“Are you done trying to suffocate yourself?” Levi asks roughly, harshly, but his hands on Eren’s face are gentle. Calloused, rough, marred with age-old scars, but gentle. Eren nods, a miniscule movement as not to shake off Levi’s touch. Levi scoffs at him, clearly unconvinced, but nods back, anyway. “Never fucking do that again. Especially not over something so inane.”
“Inane,” Eren repeats, voice flat with incredulity. He wants to scream and cry and bash Levi’s head against the ground. Simultaneously, he wants to grab Levi’s gorgeous, blissfully unimpressed face and kiss him until they’re both breathless.
“Insignificant, inconsequential, inane,” Levi says, slow and pronouncedly, like he is trying to teach Eren new words in a different language. In a way, he is – Eren has never been blessed enough to know the meaning of inconsequential. There has always been too much on the line, for him, too much to lose. Now, too – now, especially –, he cannot understand how these words could somehow apply to the situation, how Levi could possibly think of this as a non-issue. Maybe it reflects on his face, the incredulity of not being shoved away and spat on, because Levi rolls his eyes at him. “So what if you’re a little fucked up in that department? Who fucking cares.”
“I care,” Eren says forcefully, his voice breaking with all the humiliation he’s felt over the past weeks, the shame that’s been carving him out from the inside, the agony of it all making it supremely difficult not to scream. It’s too open a display of raw emotion, the kind of outburst he’s discouraged from having because it scares the other soldiers. Levi doesn’t flinch, or wince, or react at all. Usually, he would at least narrow his eyes disapprovingly, click his tongue derisively, all shows of useless authority, more for everyone else than Eren. They’re alone now, though, and Levi never pretends to care about his little acts of insubordination when no one is watching. For once, Eren wishes he did. Wishes he would be reprimanded, scolded, punished. “I fucking care, and so should you, because – I’m not ‘a little fucked up’; I’m incredibly, irrevocably deranged.”
Levi sends him a look, flat and unimpressed. “Hanji gets off on titans. Erwin gets a boner every time I report the casualties of a mission to him. Getting a hard-on from battle is not that weird, given the circumstances, so don’t worry about it.”
“But I do!” Eren says, insists. What exactly he is trying to achieve with his insistence, he’s not even sure. Maybe he just wants Levi to stop acting like anything about this is even remotely normal when he hasn’t felt normal in weeks, months, years. “I do worry! Every second of the day, I’m worried!”
“Good,” Levi says. Bizarrely, his lips curl one-sidedly, like the beginnings of a smile before he beats it into submission. Even more bizarrely – absurdly, nonsensically –, he looks pleased, in the same subtle, silent way he does when Eren flawlessly executes a complicated manoeuvre or when he’s cleaned a room adequately. Eren is either still hazy from near self-induced asphyxiation, or Levi is even more complicated than he originally assumed, because he’s certain there is absolutely nothing to be pleased about. Eerily perceptive as always, Levi clicks his tongue at Eren like he’s annoyed at having to elaborate, but does so, anyway. “Shows that you still have a conscience. Shows that you’re still human.”
Eren remembers being shouted at, the same question over and over again, Are you human? and he shouted back Yes, asshole! with unrelenting ferocity every time, indefatigable and impetuous. Steadfast and impervious in his belief. That conviction has been faltering recently, crumbling underneath the abomination. And here Levi is, saying – telling him – that he still is despite the abnormality. It’s comforting. It’s soothing, the certainty with which Levi speaks to him, and Eren hates himself a little for putting so much weight on his words. Giving him so much responsibility, as if Levi isn’t busy enough without having to handle his pathetic little feelings.
Levi’s face does a complicated little thing, his eyebrows furrowing and the corner of his mouth twitching downwards. It’s the same kind of look he gets when he’s turning a risky battle strategy over in his head, weighing the pros and cons. Constipated, a little voice in the back of Eren’s head says, sounding far too much like Levi.
Ironically enough, the eery imitation in his mind almost makes him miss when the very real Levi says, “I got hard while strangling a guy once.”
“You,” Eren starts, and stops. Can’t continue, either, wouldn’t know how, because it feels like his reality is being overwritten, like the universe is tilting. Just slightly to the left, slightly off with that new shred of information about the man he’s adored and admired so much, for so long. He’s staring, has to be positively gawking, because Levi is doing the thing where he is almost smiling but trying very hard not to. He’s probably trying not to laugh at Eren, sparing him further indignity, which is oddly considerate of him. “Really?”
“Are you accusing me of lying?”
“No!” Eren says quickly, still not quite caught up. Levi raises an unimpressed eyebrow at him. Belatedly, he adds, “Sir.”
“I was – shit, I probably was around your age,” Levi continues, idle and utterly unbothered by what he’s saying. Absently, he brushes his thumb over Eren’s cheekbone, and Eren’s sure he’s forgotten that he’s still holding his face. Eren’s certainly not going to remind him. “The guy in question – it doesn’t matter what he did. He was a fucking piece of shit, he deserved to die like a dog, so I strangled him with my bare hands. Watching the life drain out of the fucker was so satisfying, I had to jerk off right then and there, next to his corpse. Is that insane?”
“A little,” Eren wheezes more so than says, and he tries very hard not to think about Levi jerking off, really, he tries. It is a futile attempt, though, a lost battle from the very beginning, and his thoughts latch onto the provided mental image instantly. Will probably never forget again – Levi, shit, I was probably around your age, jerking off next to someone he killed, he deserved to die like a dog, sounding like an unremorseful slaughter machine, and fuck, Eren has never found him more attractive.
Levi exhales in a way that could maybe count as a laugh, a little snort at the very least, amused by whatever expression Eren is making right now. Something very embarrassing, he’s sure.
“We’re both a little insane, then,” Levi says simply. Says we, referring to them as a collective, like this is something they’re in together. He tightens his hold on Eren’s face, then, slightly, just enough to tilt his face and make him look hm in the eyes. Didn’t forget that he had his hands on Eren’s face, but kept them there, anyway, and Eren tries – and fails – not to marvel at that realization. “Insanity is not a bad thing, Eren. It’s essential, really, doing what we do. To choose what we’re doing, in the first place – you need to be at least a little crazy for that. And if you weren’t before, you will learn to be, after a while. There’s absolutely no chance of you remaining completely stable with all the – y’know, bullshit; the fear, the guilt, the grief. Seeing so much death, feeling so much loss. You’d deep-throat a barrel and pull the trigger if you stayed sane.”
Levi is trying to – reassure him, he thinks. In a cynical, brutally honest kind of way that only Levi could pull off so flawlessly sincere. Something aches in Eren’s chest, right beneath his sternum, making his ribcage feel too small, like stab, or a pang. A painful twinge of something. Gratitude, maybe. Adoration, most definitely.
“Hanji told me – they tell me a lot of shit, and sometimes it’s even useful, can you imagine that?” Levi says – asks, although it’s not really a question. Not a genuine one. He asks those types of questions a lot – rhetorical, he remembers Armin saying – to which Eren never quite knows how to answer. He’s not supposed to, he knows, but he’s inclined to always answer to Levi, so he nods. Levi snorts again, equal parts amused and bemused. Taps a fingertip against the edge of Eren’s jaw which feels both like reprimand for being stupid and praise for the attentiveness. “They told me that the brain makes some sick connection between death and arousal. Something about the fear of mortality and the need to feel alive. Whether that is true or just some poetical explanation for some weird kinks, I don’t know. Point is, the human psyche is fucked up. Your psyche’s probably even more fucked – no offense, I’ve never met more of a feral beast than you –, and that had to manifest itself in some way. Bloodlust with emphasis on lust, in your case.”
Eren can’t help it – he gapes, just a little. He thinks he’s well within his rights, though, considering – well. Everything. This whole predicament is strange enough already without Levi making a joke. A pun, more precisely, and a very bad one at that, which only makes it that much more surreal. And then he just laughs, because at this point, he might as fucking well. Levi looks a little pleased again – a twitch of his eyebrow, of the corner of his mouth –, and he graciously allows Eren to have his little moment of hysteria.
“Why are you,” Eren starts when he gets enough air again, though his voice breaks off before he can finish. It is a small mercy; he wouldn’t know what to ask or how to do it. There are too many words and too little coherency in the maelstrom of his mind, everything too fast and too slow simultaneously.
“How do you think I felt when I had to stuff my cock back into my pants in that alley?” Levi asks back, and Eren doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to Levi just saying things like that, outrageously vulgar and with the easy nonchalance of someone talking about the fucking weather.
“Not,” Eren says, pushing against the sudden surge of hormones at the mere mention of Levi’s cock, “good. I’d assume?”
Usually, Levi would roll his eyes, would maybe say something sarcastic and sardonic, something along the lines of No shit or What do you fucking think?, and Eren would probably be more adept at handling mildly mocking words.
“I’ve done a lot of fucked up things in my life, and I’ve never felt particularly bad about them,” Levi says, sure, unremorseful, with the certainty of someone who’s had to make decisions and live with the consequences. “That, then, made me feel like a fucking monster.”
Eren has been feeling like a monster, too, recently, hasn’t he. It is truer for him than for Levi, literally and figuratively, and Levi must know that, he has to, but he still insists on – whatever he’s insisting on. He’s still here, talking; hasn’t cut Eren down yet, hasn’t shoved him away in disgust. Discloses something about himself, even, giving up something and being vulnerable, just to make Eren feel better. He doesn’t deserve this, any of it – Levi’s rough hands cupping his face so gently and shreds of Levi’s life and blunt reassurances, and Eren wants to cry.
He is crying, actually. Probably has been for a while, without noticing, judging by the mild but increasingly prominent look of disgust on Levi’s face. Because of course, he wouldn’t as much as wrinkle his nose when Eren’s shamefulness was laid out in front of him, unbothered by Eren’s psychological filth, but bodily fluids are too much. Instead of pulling away and wiping his hands clean like he ought to, Levi starts dabbing his perfectly pressed sleeve against Eren’s cheeks and jaw and chin and nose. Ruining his shirt – Levi would never keep something that had snot on it, he will probably burn it after this –, just for Eren.
Eren kind of wants to laugh again, but he only starts sobbing harder.
“Cry baby,” Levi says, his brusque tone softening into something near-unrecognizable.
“I’m sorry, sir,” Eren says – tries, but his throat feels too tight from both from sobbing and the sheer force of raw emotion shaking through him. Levi clicks his tongue at him, faux-annoyed, and pulls Eren closer by the belt across his chest. For a gut-wrenching moment, Eren thinks his ugly crying has fractured whatever delicate moment they were having, and Levi is going to headbutt him back to his senses.
Levi gently touches their foreheads together, instead.
“Don’t,” Levi scolds, still soft, too soft. “You apologize too much. For every little thing, too. My tea is too cold – I’m sorry, sir. My gear is faulty – I’m sorry, sir. That one time when I walked into a table – I’m sorry, sir. You weren’t the one who put the table there, Eren, and even if you had, you’re not responsible for my actions. Stop taking the blame for things that are out of your control.”
“Yes, sir. Sorry, sir,” Eren says, nodding and inadvertently nuzzling against Levi’s forehead in the process. Levi exhales harshly, more exasperation than genuine annoyance, and his breath fans over Eren’s face. It reminds him how close they are, much closer than they should, and with the abating of fear-induced adrenaline and the slow unwinding of the maelstrom of conflicting feelings, the proximity is – too much. “Does Hanji really,” he says kind of abruptly, as a means to distract himself before tempted to do something stupid, and then he remembers that he probably shouldn’t ask about his squad leader’s preferences. It’s not that he has never wondered before, though. It certainly would… explain a few things.
“I caught them rubbing off on one once,” Levi says. Eren involuntarily wrinkles his nose, although he has absolutely no ground to stand on in matters of deviation. Rather than reprimanding him for the disrespect against his superior, Levi nods in solemn sympathy. “Nothing is worse than that, so you’ll be just fine, yeah?”
Eren feels the defiant urge to argue, to protest. Wants to spill his guts, right here, to Levi, just to prove that it can definitely be worse. The words are halfway out his throat, but he cannot bring himself to give voice to them in the end, too much of a coward. Maybe it shows on his face, both the desire to speak and the inability to do so, because Levi frowns at him.
“What, is it really that bad?” Levi asks. Eren hesitates, briefly, trying to gauge the risk of being dishonest. Not that he particularly wants to lie to Levi, but truthfulness, in this case, is simply too fucking terrifying. Levi would see right through him, though, so he just closes his eyes and nods in defeat. “Bet it’s nothing I haven’t heard before.”
Eren’s eyes snap open again. Levi’s lips curl, half smirk and half genuine smile. Panic rises in his throat, choking him. “Sir, please don’t make me say it–”
“Make you?” Levi interjects immediately, only sounding mildly harsher than before, but the contrast is so severe, Eren winces from the tone anyway. Levi frowns, and when he continues, his voice sounds less like a slap across the face. “Eren, that would be terribly inappropriate. I – or any other superior officer, for that matter – cannot make you say shit. Is that clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
“If you want to tell me about your fucked up fantasies, though, you have a safe space with me.”
“Safe space,” Eren repeats, sort of slow with incredulity.
“Isn’t that what it’s called?” Levi says, his eyebrows furrowing in a rare display of confusion.
“No, it is,” Eren says in a rush, nearly stumbling over his words in his haste to reassure his Captain, probably the only person more socially inept than him. “I was just surprised you knew what a safe space was.” Levi frowns deeply at that, eyes narrowing in a clear attempt to figure out whether he was insulted or not. As per usual, Eren’s mouth is faster than his brain, but just as incompetent, “With all due respect, you just don’t seem like a person who… would know. Sir.”
“Oh, that is rich,” Levi scoffs, snorting a derisive laugh. “The guy who gets hard from death wants to psychoanalyze me.”
Eren can only sputter pathetically in response, and that’s that.
xx.
Weirdly enough, that is that. Nothing much changes after that. Completely unexpected; he thought the revelation of his sick inclinations would be met with disgust, repulsion, maybe even literal expulsion. Someone as sick as him shouldn’t be allowed in the military, surely. He thinks getting boners from death is kind of unethical, especially in this particular line of work, and he would deserve being kicked out for it. But alas, he’s still here. No one is looking at him differently, Hanji hasn’t pestered him with any profoundly personal questions – yet, but Eren doubts they would have the patience or self-restraint to wait this long, so they probably don’t know. No one does, apparently.
Because Levi didn’t tell anyone.
Safe space.
xx.
The dreams don’t stop. Get worse, if anything, in both intensity and degeneracy. Every night, he is awoken by an onslaught of tangled up desires, his chest tight, his cock hard, his mind splintering. Like a dam has burst, he’s overflooded, drowning in himself. Buried underneath the misery his own mind creates for him.
The descent into madness is inevitable, he knows, his teeth incessantly on edge, his knuckles white and his gear worn thin from clenching his fists all the time. His skin feels too tight, too stretched, just about ready to burst and spill all of his ugly desires over whoever is in close vicinity.
It’s not whoever, though, is it, it’s even worse than that.
Why Levi? How could he have been audacious enough to reach out with his filthy hands and touch Levi? How dare he, really, tainting humanity’s strongest with his disgusting desires? How ungrateful does one have to be, to defile their saviour like that? There are no answers. Not good ones, anyway. Not ones that could in any way justify.
The delicate truth of the matter is actually very simple.
If he were normal, maybe he’d dream about holding Levi’s hand, kissing Levi, maybe fucking him – or be fucked, Eren thinks he’d prefer that –, like any normal teenager would. Would dream of winning Levi’s heart instead of eating it. Even if the manifestations are a bit fucked up, they stem from the same place, born from the same feeling. Underneath all the filth of his mind, behind all the violent projections of his desires, somewhere deep within his ribcage, there is something soft. Much softer than he ever thought he was capable of.
He’s probably naïve to think that it’s love, but that’s what it feels like.
Not that he has any frame of reference for that.
There are only two reasons why his heart would beat like that around Levi, though, and he certainly isn’t scared of him, even though that would probably be the much more sensible emotion to have.
He doesn’t think loving Levi is any better lusting after him. It feels almost more disrespectful, in a way, because who even is he to think that he can love anyone, much less Levi. His captain, his superior, both hierarchy-wise and just in general. He doesn’t even know him, not really. Doesn’t fucking know anything about him, actually, not even his last name, knows nothing except –
Except that Levi is strong – the strongest, even! –, and fast, and a little bit of an asshole sometimes with a humour that is either very crude or very hard to understand or both, and he likes his tea sweet despite his, as Levi said himself, ‘bitter personality’, and he’s a little bit of a clean freak but greatly objects being called a clean freak, and he’s nonjudgemental even when seeing people at their worst, and sometimes he offers those people reprieve with expensive tea in the middle of the night without asking for the reason why he picked them up mid-panic attack.
Eren doesn’t know much, except that Levi is probably the kindest person he’s ever met. In that very specific way that is inherently Levi – harsh but sincere.
In the end, it doesn’t really matter. Whether he loves Levi or not, it makes no difference. Either way, he should not be feeling like that; shouldn’t feel anything at all, really, except respect and an appropriate amount of admiration, maybe. Should not look at Levi like – well, that. Like that; ravenous, rapacious, like he wants to devour him. He shouldn’t be dreaming about him, much less consciously fantasize about him, and he should definitely feel a lot more ashamed about it.
Knowing what he should do does nothing except pile onto the guilt, bowing his shoulders and making his knees buckle from the sheer weight of it.
xx.
Eren isn’t sure what exactly prompts him. Maybe it’s a spillover of adrenaline of the dream that startled him awake, or the knowledge that Levi is already aware of his filth, albeit only vaguely. Maybe it’s just a sudden bout of false bravado in the face of having nothing else to lose that has him marching to Levi’s quarters in the middle of the night. It’s way past curfew, and he’s not supposed to leave his cell until morning. A rule he’s been breaking regularly, for the past few weeks, but Levi never started locking him up again. It’s basically permission; an invitation, even. His reasonings are, of course, completely insane, more mental gymnastics than actual logic, but at this point, he is not above grasping at straws.
Unsurprisingly, there is light coming from underneath Levi’s door, indicating that he’s still awake. Although that was expected – Levi never seems to sleep, or, at least, significantly less than everyone else does –, Eren’s heart drops right into his ass. A small part within him wished – hoped, prayed – there would be no light, and therefore an excuse not to knock. A reason to turn back and forget about the whole thing before he manages to fuck up even more spectacularly than he already has.
“I can see your shadow,” Levi’s voice sounds from within the room, the amusement thick enough to carry through the closed door.
So much for turning back.
Gathering whatever pretence of false confidence he can – straightening his back, squaring his shoulders, setting his jaw –, Eren pushes the door open. All pretence falters when he sees Levi sitting at his desk, chin poised delicately on his knuckles, looking like he’s been expecting this. Maybe he has; after all, he has always seemed to see right through Eren.
Sensibly waiting until Eren has closed the door and leaned against it, Levi asks, “Nightmare?”
Eren shakes his head. Cuts himself off mid-movement and nods instead. Such a simple question, disyllabic and succinct, having such a convoluted answer. It’s difficult to say whether it was a nightmare. It certainly scared him a little, on the purely physical level all nightmares generate a panic response from the body, but it scares him even more how little it scared him.
Levi hums. “What was it about?” he asks, voice even and monotone, not sounding particularly interested in the answer. Perhaps, he’s trying to ease Eren’s frayed nerves, make this easier for him. Perhaps, he simply doesn’t care all that much.
Either way, it manages to ease Eren’s locked up bones enough to say, “You.”
At that, Levi, maybe for the first time, looks surprised. At what, exactly, Eren cannot be sure; at the answer itself, or the fact that he answered at all. Seamlessly, in the time it takes for Eren to blink, Levi’s face is a clean slate again, expression carefully regulated. He hums again, the sound lower, pensive.
“Want to tell me about it?”
“Not… particularly.”
Levi’s eyebrows furrow; bewildered, confused. Wondering, maybe, why Eren would have come here just to not talk about it. Then, the beginnings of understanding, smoothing out his forehead again. “Is it, per chance, related to the not-shifter thing? Is that why you’re reluctant?”
When Eren nods with a firmness that is commendable for how unsteady he feels, Levi tilts his head; inquisitive, intrigued, and Eren wonders when he’s learned to read the minimal lines in Levi’s face and subtle gestures of Levi’s body so accurately, when Levi used to seem like a steel door of a person a few inane months ago. Though maybe it is to be expected, considering the truly absurd amount of time Eren’s spent looking at him.
“You don’t have to tell me, I’m not going to force you,” Levi says, repeating the words with the same sincerity he did the first time, but now there is an unmistakable glint of curiosity reflecting in his recondite eyes.
And Eren knows that he doesn’t have to. In fact, he knows he shouldn’t. Should just keep his big mouth shut, tuck his tail between his legs and leave. He’s already been brazen enough, has already gotten away once. This is a line he hasn’t crossed yet, one he can never walk back. If he really is about to bare his soul, confess to his sins, he will never be able to take it back again. If it changes the way Levi looks at him, if it shatters whatever illusion Levi might still have about him –
Well, there is no use worrying about that now. Eren’s already made up his mind, and he will stick to his decision, whether it’s the right one or not.
“I think I’d feel better if I told you,” Eren says. Not quite a lie; a half-truth. He’s terrified, on one hand, of the reaction, the consequence, but on the other, he remembers how light he felt when his weird inclination was revealed the first time. That one moment where the weight fell of his shoulders before the fear set in. Maybe he will fuck everything up, whatever strange, inchoate, fragile thing they have, but at least he’ll feel relief, even if just for a moment.
“Sit,” Levi says, nodding his chin towards the chair in front of his desk. Eren takes the invitation, too relieved not to be turned away to even feel offended by being talked to like a dog, finally pushing himself away from the door. He stumbles over with the elegance of a newborn fowl, his legs shaking and trying to make it seem like they aren’t. Levi leans back in his seat, steepling his hands in his lap, posture uncharacteristically open and unguarded, as though he’s trying to look nonthreatening.
“I dreamed of – of you,” Eren says, repeating himself like a fucking idiot. That is something Levi would usually make a snarky comment about, not to mention the stutter. For once, Levi does not.
“What did I do?” he asks instead; even, smooth, indifferent. Perhaps a little curious, but hiding it well. Almost well enough to be unnoticeable, but unfortunately for him, Eren has made a habit of staring at his face and deciphering every small little line, so he sees the slight hint of intrigue, anyway.
“You killed me.”
“…Oh.”
“And then you – ah, what is the workplace appropriate way of saying ‘fucked my corpse’?”
“Fucking hell,” Levi says, his tone falling flat from sheer surprise for once, not from conscious effort. Eren finds a strange sense of accomplishment at being the reason for Levi’s impassive façade to crack. After he’s gathered himself, Levi’s face settles into something that is not entirely put off, surprisingly, but his voice sounds hoarser when he says, “Desecrate would be the correct term, I believe.”
“Yeah. That.”
Eren doesn’t offer up any more explanation. He can see that Levi has questions pressing against the back of his teeth by the way Levi clenches his jaw shut, like he only does when refraining from speaking out of line during meetings. It’s quite strange to see; Levi is not exactly known for holding his tongue.
“Do you have dreams like that often?” Levi asks after a while of thinking, maybe, what question to ask first. That he would settle on such a trivial one is both weird – surely, there are much more pressing ones that need answering – and completely unsurprising. Asking about the frequency of the dreams is, presumably, a lot easier than addressing the abhorrent nature of them.
“That was, uh, a little more extreme than usual,” Eren says, secretly a little relieved that he doesn’t have to lie about that. “But it always kind of goes in that direction.”
“Necrophilia?”
“Um?”
“Fucking corpses.”
“No,” Eren says emphatically, waving both hands frantically in his haste to deny it. Despite the disturbing nature of his dreams, it feels important to let Levi know that he’s not actually – interested. In that. Gesturing wildly might only make him seem more guilty, so he stuffs his hands between his thighs, trying to force the shaking into submission. “God, no, that was just…” A one-time thing, he wants to say, maybe to reassure himself, maybe to convince Levi. Although it would not be a lie, the bitter taste of dishonesty clings to the back of his throat, anyway. It was the first time he ever dreamed of – of that, yes, but how can he in good conscience say it will not happen again? “That’s not what I meant.”
“Can’t say I’m not at least a little relieved to hear that,” Levi says, easily accepting Eren’s conversational fumbling and seemingly taking his words at face value. Why he would do that, Eren doesn’t know. While he’s never really lied to Levi, not directly, not in any way that matters, he still believes Levi should mistrust him a lot more. Should be more cautious of him, wary like everyone else, not sit there across from him, completely unimpressed. “Which direction did you mean, then?”
“Just… death, in general,” Eren starts, and stops. Aware that his answer is vague, ambiguous, but unable to find the proper words. “It’s difficult to explain. It’s always a… specific kind of death? Slaughter, mostly, and it’s usually me who’s doing it. Sometimes, I’m in my titan form, and sometimes it’s just me. I kill – well, kind of everything. One time, I dreamed I extinguished the whole of humanity with an army of titans, that was crazy.”
He laughs, there, the sound coming out more choked than intended. Considering the controversy of his entire existence, it is probably unwise to talk about eliminating humanity, even if it was merely a dream. All it would take is a pair of ears attached to the wrong person, and he would get executed within the week on grounds of Subconscious Desire to Commit Treason Against Humanity or something similarly ridiculous.
“As if you could do that with your piss-poor control of the coordinate,” Levi says, scoffing exaggeratedly, but there is a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. Just like that, the fearful apprehension that’s been clinging to Eren like a second skin bleeds away.
There have been quite a few potential ways this conversation could have gone, a multitude of diverse reactions he could have gotten, and none of them are overly positive. That’s what he thought. Despite Levi’s easy acceptance of Eren’s very much not normal disposition, there was the very real chance that it would change upon knowing that Eren directly involves him in his sick preferences. Unconsciously to his knowledge, but still. Even the most optimistic part within Eren expected to be punched, spat on, insulted.
Though, he supposes, he did get the insult.
“I’m sorry, sir,” Eren says, having to force himself not to smile at the way Levi’s eyebrows pinch together in annoyance at the apology. “I promise I’ll get it under control soon.”
“I know you will.”
xx.
Since that night of shedding light on his sins – Levi would probably whack him over the back of his head for the dramatics –, Eren’s been skipping the whole clawing at himself part and has gone straight to Levi’s office after a nightmare. Not – not straight after, not immediately upon waking, because it probably wouldn’t be very appropriate to show up at his superior’s office with an erection. Then again, Eren is unsure about the propriety of going to his superior’s office at all. After curfew. To talk about the haunting manifestations of his subconscious that are always weirdly sexual and monumentally fucked up.
Levi never says anything, though. About potentially overstepping, about exhausting the already blurry boundaries between them. Always seems to wait with a miraculously hot pot of tea and two cups on his desk, his paperwork already pushed to the side. Eren maybe would have felt embarrassed at being so predictable if he weren’t so grateful for the sight every time.
The reluctance ebbs away a little more every time Levi doesn’t throw him out of the office. The tight knot of anxiety lodged in the back of his throat eases with every time Eren is not repudiated, making it easier to breathe. Making it easier to talk, too, loosening his inhibitions, and he is horrified how easily the words come when it’s only them. When it’s only Levi. Who should be the absolutely last person to know about what’s going on in Eren’s mind, given that there is a reoccurring and very incriminating theme. And still, he doesn’t cease his visits, returns to Levi every night, a new nightmarish vision haunting him from the corners of his eyes and the taste of acidic arousal on the back of his tongue as he spills his guts.
And Levi always listens. No matter what kind of depravity Eren brings into his office in shape of words stuttered in embarrassment or sobbed in shame, Levi listens with a patience that is wholly out of character. Sometimes, he will ask for elaborations, and then he’ll again quietly listen. Sometimes, he offers quiet exclamations of Holy shit or Fuck me in response to particularly horrendous details, but it never sounds condemning or even judgemental.
The closest to judgement Eren ever comes is when a very honest, very stunned Something’s wrong with you leaves Levi’s mouth, closely followed by a snort of amusement, because Levi always seems to find humour where Eren would never even have thought to look.
It’s… good. Comforting, in a way, to be able to speak his mind without having to fear the repercussions.
xx.
“Do you have,” Eren starts to ask and immediately cuts himself off. He looks down at his cup sharply, frowning at his own boldness. It’s true that he has been confiding in Levi almost every night since that first time, and Levi has always listened patiently and with an unchanging indifference, but it has been less of a conversation and more just Eren one-sidedly venting. He’s not even sure whether he is allowed to ask about things as mundane as Levi’s favourite blend of tea, much less something as profoundly personal as dreams. Nightmares.
Asking about the deep trenches of one’s unconscious mind, the fear it dredges up, is just about as tactful as telling someone to take their pants off. Not that he would ever ask Levi to take off his –
“Nightmares?” Levi says, his voice snapping Eren back into himself before he can fully spiral. He stares stubbornly into his cooling tea, afraid that if he looked up Levi would see it in his face that he just pictured him with his pants off. Either uncaring of or weirdly sensible about Eren’s refusal to look at him, Levi adds, putting more bewilderment into his voice than usual, “Eren, have you met me?”
Eren supposes that’s fair enough, considering… well, he doesn’t really know about Levi’s past, only the vague summary Petra gave him and the shreds of whispered conversations he shouldn’t have listened to, but he knows enough to be sure that Levi’s accumulated a lifetime supply of nightmare material. No one goes through so much and comes out the other end unscathed, either physically or mentally, or, in most cases, both.
“Of course, I don’t doubt that you have the types of nightmares every soldier has, sir,” Eren says, hoping his question didn’t come off as an accusation, as if he believed Levi so heartless not to suffer like everyone else. Despite the, admittedly a little embarrassing, hero worship, Eren is not foolish enough to think that Levi is somehow above nightmares. Being the strongest doesn’t exempt him from being human, Eren has learned. “But that’s not what I meant.” Stops, swallows. Tries searching for the right words that won’t make him seem as intrusive as he is. Levi regards him with mild interest, inclining his head to signal that he’s listening. As always, his subtle encouragements make Eren stupidly bold. “I meant like… the types I have.”
“You mean fucked beyond repair?”
“…yeah.”
Eren chances a glance upwards, catching a flicker of something on Levi’s face. Something he is not very familiar with seeing, something like… doubt, or hesitation. His eyes are sharp, though, dark and disconcerting, slicing right through Eren. Cutting him open, assessing his inner workings, and he cannot quite help the shiver that rattles through him. The corner of Levi’s mouth twitches, almost seeming a little triumphant, and the hesitancy vanishes with it.
“A few years ago, I used to have a reoccurring dream,” Levi starts, and it’s all Eren can do not to scoot forward on his seat like some overeager kid who’s about to hear a bedtime story. Then again, he is an overeager kid, at heart, and even more so when Levi has apparently decided he is – whatever, worthy enough to share something personal with. Trustworthy, to some not insignificant extent.
Eren tries not to let his chest swell at the notion that Levi trusts him. Tries, fails, and he’s filled with pride and adoration until his ribcage feels too tight.
“Not quite a nightmare in the traditional sense, but certainly not a nice one, either,” Levi continues. Eren nods sympathetically, far too familiar with unconventionality so extreme, it is hard to tell what exactly it categorizes as. “It always started out the same: I would walk through the doors of the brothel, knives in both of my hands, and I’d go from room to room and hack down every single one of these disgusting pigs. Slit their throats and stabbed them in the back while their cocks were still inside the whores. Sometimes, I’d cut their dicks off before I killed them, which is fucking disgusting, I realize.”
No amount of spending time with Levi will ever be enough to get accustomed to the way he speaks. Graphic, vulgar, and so very nonchalant. He still doesn’t know whether Levi is just laying it on thick to embarrass him, specifically, or if that’s just how Levi is.
“You never killed the, uh…”
“Whores?” Levi calls them whores with the same tone he uses when he calls his subordinates soldiers; acknowledging their profession, without condemning them for it. “No.”
“Why?”
“Fuck, I don’t know,” Levi says, lips one-sidedly pulling into a frown. “Why would I kill the men? They only wanted to get their dicks wet. Paid for it and everything. It’s not even like I have a particular aversion against the business in and of itself.” Eren finds that hard to believe, given Levi’s penchant for cleanliness. Then again, Levi is not one to let his personal feelings affect his judgement, so maybe he really is perfectly fine with the concept of transactional sex. “In the dream, I’m angry. So, I kill them. Try psychoanalyzing that.”
Eren knows that Levi is merely trying to be an asshole, not actually challenging him to try. Eren cannot help but feel a little challenged, anyway.
“Why that specific brothel?” he asks, and Levi’s eyebrow raises questioningly. “You said the brothel, not a brothel.”
“I…” Levi starts, trailing off and blinking. His eyes flicker upwards towards the ceiling, eyebrows pinched in concentration, as if attempting to remember something. When his eyes snap back again, narrowed and sharp, Eren’s breath hitches, feeling strangely chastised even though he doesn’t think he has done anything to deserve that look. “I lived in a whorehouse, for the first few years of my life. I… forgot, about that.”
Maybe mentally better people would wonder how one can forget that they lived in a brothel. Eren, however, understands; not remembering certain things, especially the ugly and raw ones, is probably one of the most merciful things your mind can do for you.
Against his better judgement – and whatever miniscule sense of self-preservation, but most of all against his manners –, Eren asks. Digs his fingers into the small opening, pries open the gap, and asks Levi about his time at the brothel. And against all odds, Levi answers. Insanely, he does not get kicked in the face for his audacity, but he gets indulged. Or, humoured, at the very least. And Eren keeps asking, and Levi keeps answering.
While having no recollection of how he landed there, or why, or how long exactly he stayed, or any of the substantial information – there are obvious gaps in Levi’s memories, and Eren never pushes for something he knows is buried too deep –, Levi responds to the subjective questions a lot more. When Eren asks how it was, purposefully keeping the question broad and open, Levi says it wasn’t bad. Exactly like that: It wasn’t bad. Dirty, disgusting, and not at all a place for a child. But the whores were nice. And when Eren makes an awful – and honestly pretty untasteful – joke about the potential origin of Levi’s neurotic need to be clean, Levi laughs.
And when Eren goes on speculate whether Levi’s dream stems from some sort of repressed need for revenge for the women who raised him, Levi gapes at him.
“Psychoanalyzed,” Eren says.
“Fuck off,” Levi says, with emphasis, but he’s trying very hard not to laugh. Eren can tell by the way Levi is biting the inside of his cheek, making his cheekbone look even sharper, lips stubbornly pressed together in a thin line to repress even a modicum of a smile, and – maybe Eren has been looking too much.
“Is that an order?” Eren asks, feeling oddly emboldened.
“Insolent,” Levi drawls, for once leaving out the brat that usually follows. Eren doesn’t know if it’s on purpose, if it means something, because he never quite knows with Levi.
One thing he does know, however, is that Levi is right; he is impertinent, audacious, too fucking bold for his own good. He’s always been more the do first, think later type of guy; head through the wall and deal with the consequences afterwards. He’s never been particularly apologetic about that trait of his, it’s gotten him this far already.
It’s probably never gotten him this close to actually dying, though; even with all the abysmally bad decisions he’s made up until now, leaning across the desk and kissing Levi is probably the one that will forever count as the worst. The most dangerous one, too, because he’s seen Levi beat the shit out of people for much less.
Except – Levi doesn’t punch him.
Instead, Levi just laughs against Eren’s mouth. It’s a helpless sound, startled, like Levi himself cannot quite believe he’s laughing. If it weren’t for the fact that this is the first time he’s seeing Levi laugh – really laugh, openly and unrestrained –, he’d be a little pissed off at the interruption, already feeling the adrenaline give way to unbridled dread. His bones lock up with the urge to go, run away, remove himself from the situation.
From Levi, who’s still just laughing.
“What’s so fucking funny,” Eren snaps, too harsh with insecurity. Levi snorts right into his face, never one to take his little outbursts to heart. Finds them amusing, probably, mildly entertaining at the very least, and the knowledge does nothing to dissipate the combination of annoyance and fear coursing through his veins.
“Nothing, absolutely nothing about this is funny,” Levi says – or wheezes, really, because he’s still not done laughing. In any under circumstance, Eren would have marvelled at the sight of Levi laughing so openly, so freely, but as it stands, it’s on his expense which makes the whole experience a lot less enjoyable. “It just makes a lot of sense, now.”
“What does?” Eren asks, not quite able to keep the petulance out of his voice.
“Your little crush on me,” Levi says, cruel in his nonchalance. Eren bristles and deflates, denial and resignation in quick succession. He’d like to argue, at least protest to the semantics – because it’s not little, whatever the fuck he’s feeling for Levi, and it’s definitely too violent to carry such a childishly innocent name. But arguing would mean admitting, and although Levi already knows, he still cannot bring himself to say it out loud. “Of course, you’d latch onto me with those sick little fetishes of yours.”
Eren’s mouth opens in instinctual defiance, a rebuttal already on his tongue. Not to defend himself, obviously, the hole he’s been steadily digging for himself is already too deep to climb out again, but to at least contest to the notion that his feelings are merely a projection of his sick little fetishes. He clicks his mouth shut again. Making big declarations about love would only make him seem more of a child than he probably already does. Levi probably wouldn’t believe him, anyway.
Unfortunately, he has never learned to back down even if it were the most sensible thing to do, so he opens his stupid mouth again. “Sir, with all due respect–”
“You’ve never finished that sentence with anything even remotely respectful,” Levi interrupts, and then he twists a hand into Eren’s collar and yanks him forward again.
Despite the initial forcefulness, Levi is much more mindful of the pressure than he was, almost gentle in the way he brushes their lips together. Having Levi actually kiss back is – a lot. To process. Too much, in ever capacity. He is so very clearly more adept at this than Eren, moving with a finesse that is both shocking and wholly unsurprising. Eren feels like a fish out of water, comparatively.
Not that something like that has ever deterred him.
With the same kind of lethal recklessness that has gotten him here, he pushes back against Levi, kissing back with obvious clumsiness but double the enthusiasm. His hands find their way into Levi’s cropped hair, not wanting to be rough but too excited to regulate himself, which elicits a vague groan of dissent. Too impatient to wait for an invitation, he licks over Levi’s mouth, graceless and greedy, elated to taste the sweet remnants of tea on Levi’s lips. He’s not trying to make this good for Levi, selfish as it is; only takes, takes, takes, trying to get as much as he can before Levi will inevitably push him away. He wouldn’t know how to make it good, anyway, having absolutely no experience to tap into, so he relies on stubbornness and slightly skewed instincts.
“Fucking dog,” Levi mutters, pulling away to wipe Eren’s spit from his mouth with his uniform sleeve. The audible hint of disgust in his tone combined with the insult has heat pooling low in Eren’s gut. Before he even has time to be embarrassed about that – because, really, there should be a limit of discovering things about himself –, Levi tugs at his hair, consequently tilting his head further down. It causes Eren to lean even further over the desk, forcing him to grip the edge of it to keep himself up. “Open your mouth.”
The authoritative tone cuts through the directionless haze of Eren’s mind, and his mouth is open before his brain has even given the order. After making a heart-sweepingly pleased little noise, Levi leans in again, licking into his mouth. He does so much more adroitly than Eren’s clumsy attempt, less graceless slobbering and more expert exploration. Nearly bursting from sheer need to reciprocate but sclerotic from Levi’s order, Eren obediently keeps his mouth open and pliant, letting Levi run his tongue over his lips, his teeth, seemingly trying to map out his entire mouth.
Only when he feels a sharp canine nipping his lower lip, he feels justified to retaliate. He nearly topples over and off the desk in his haste to lean forward, wanting to kiss, needing to bite. He does neither, opting to instead suck tea-tinged saliva from Levi’s tongue, trying to focus on the taste and not the obscene wet sounds echoing in the silence of the office.
With a well-placed hand on Eren’s chest, Levi shoves him back, causing him to nearly fall flat on his ass. The sight of his usually so composed Captain, hair a mess and lips spit-shiny and kiss-swollen, makes Eren forget to even feel despondent at the abrupt end.
“You know that this is not gonna work?”
“Yes, sir,” Eren says, too dazed with the phantom feeling of Levi’s lips burning on his to even think of disagreeing. It wouldn’t matter much even if he did, anyway.
“And you know why it’s not gonna work?”
Eren grits his teeth. “…yes, sir.”
He is not naïve enough to try to argue about that.
There is no possible way anything between them would work out in the long-run. Or the short-run. In any run, really. There is no aspect about their situation that is in their favour, the nature of their circumstances against them from the start. There is probably a whole subsection in the rules that forbids relationships between superior officer and subordinate, and that doesn’t count in the fact that said subordinate is over a decade younger, only semi-human and an imminent threat to humanity. Factoring in the inherently messed up position Levi holds over him as his protector and executioner, as well as previous hero worship, it spells out inappropriate, imbalanced, wrong.
Eren’s not stupid enough to ask for something impossible, either. Although he has never been too adept at giving up, would usually maybe try to fight his way through this obstacle with sheer obduracy, he is definitely too prideful to beg for what’s already been denied.
“Why would you kiss me just to reject me?” The question is out before he can even attempt to stop it. Not stupid enough to beg, but apparently stupid enough to ask for hurt, anyway.
“Curiosity.”
“That’s cruel.”
“Probably.”
xx.
They don’t talk about it.
Every time Eren thinks of doing so, he’s cut short by a narrow-eyed glare, as though Levi is reading his mind and pre-emptively cutting him off before he even has a chance of opening his mouth. So Eren doesn’t ask any of the questions whirring around his head like flies to rotten meat; not necessarily because he is particularly intimidated by Levi anymore, but because he does not really see the point.
At the end of the day, Levi’s right – it’s not going to work. It cannot.
There is no point in pondering about Levi’s specific choice in words when he rejected him –It’s not gonna work, not Because I don’t want you. Not a definite no, but an explanation of why it can’t be a yes. Pinning down semantics and giving them more hopeful connotations will not really do him any good. Will only make it hurt more, if anything, when the last ember of naïve hopefulness gets stomped out by the inevitable, inarguable fact that he still got rejected. And yet –
Levi said curiosity, even though he could have chosen not to say anything at all. It wouldn’t have been the first time he blatantly ignored a question and let Eren ruminate in his own embarrassed stupidity. Despite the bluntness, the rudeness, Levi is, always has been, particular about his words. While he generally seems to make a point in always choosing to speak in the most indecorous manner possible, he never says anything he does not mean, and he is honest in a brutal sort of way, and it makes it supremely difficult for Eren not to… wonder. Wish. Go completely insane with the insinuations he isn’t sure are there or only born out of his desperation to hear them.
Curiosity implies an interest, an urge to know. Levi was curious. About him. About kissing him. Enough so to disregard the rules and indulge it, even.
It could mean absolutely nothing, just another one of Levi’s weird whims that shouldn’t be inspected too closely, but it also could mean – something. And that miniscule potentiality that it does mean something – whatever that may be, he will take anything – is enough to make Eren’s pathetic heart flutter, always one to force hope where there isn’t any.
xx.
“I dreamed of you again, sir.”
It is not a lie – he has not had a dream that didn’t involve Levi in weeks, but that is as far the honesty goes. In actuality, he dreamed of losing control, going ballistic, driving humanity to extinction and having his head severed from his body. That would be a lot less appealing as an image, though, and therefore completely counterproductive to what he’s trying to do here.
He decided that tucking his tail between his legs is not going to be the end of this, that it doesn’t suit his usual slightly suicidal stolidity, anyway, and Levi never explicitly ordered him to stop his nightly excursion to his office. So, Eren’s here again, with an inchoate plan that consists of one step and is held together by a truly irrational amount of hope, wholly reliant on some wild speculation about Levi’s inner workings.
Levi, who is about as readable as a book in a foreign language.
“How did I kill you this time?”
“You didn’t.”
“Oh?”
“You didn’t hurt me at all, actually,” Eren continues, starting to choose his words a little more carefully. Sounding confident while also shaking like a leaf is a difficult task, though, and he probably doesn’t appear as casual as he wanted. If Levi sees through the façade – which he most certainly does –, he doesn’t show it; merely inclines his head in acknowledgement.
“That’s rare,” Levi says, huffing out a breath that is both amused and sarcastic. Truly nonchalant about that, which is a little insulting, considering that Eren has been coming here, night after night, describing the sick manifestations of his mind that have exponentially increased in insanity. From decapitation to dismemberment to disembowelment, and every disgusting thing in between. Maybe Levi has gotten too used to Eren’s personal brand of insanity, got immune to surprise. “What did I do, then?”
Levi is so going to punch him in the face. Eren can already feel the phantom pain burning underneath his skin, can nearly hear his nose break under Levi’s knuckles.
Well, he’ll heal.
“You – you fucked me, sir,” Eren says, stumbling over his own false bravado and stuttering like an idiot. Testing a theory about the potential – and realistically very unlikely – attraction his superior officer might hold for him without said superior officer noticing while also not being the least bit enticing as a person is not the hardest but definitely the most embarrassing thing Eren’s ever tried. Where would he be if he let something like that stop him, though? Absolutely nowhere, so he barrels on with unwarranted confidence. “It was – do you remember the tribunal? Yeah, in my dream, it was there, but instead of beating the shit out of me, you fucked me.”
Levi stares at him, eyes wide, lips parted; surprised, stunned, shocked. It’s more of a reaction than Eren’s ever seen on him, and he feels a little proud of himself. A saner man would probably be more horrified of the consequences of shocking Captain Levi. A saner man would also not get a little turned on by the prospect of those consequences, but Eren’s never been sane to begin with.
“In front of everyone?” Levi asks. At Eren’s nod, he shakes his head incredulously. “Fucking hell, Jaeger. Exhibitionism, too?”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“Fuck me,” Levi says with no small amount of exasperation, reaching up to pinch the bridge of his nose.
“Yeah, I’ve dreamed about that, too,” Eren says, choosing to ignore the unspoken but uncomfortably obvious reaction to his nescience, because one, he wouldn’t know how to address it without making himself sound more like a child, and two, he might as well go all in. There is probably a proper way to seduce somebody, one that involves a lot more suaveness and subtlety, but unfortunately, he possesses neither of those qualities. “It always felt kind of wrong, though.”
“Yeah? Prefer me doing the fucking, do you?”
“…yes.”
“Yes, what?”
“I’m not speaking to you as a subordinate right now, so I’d like to omit the ‘sir’,” Eren says. Levi narrows his eyes, looking both annoyed and mildly impressed by his audacity.
“Very well. Let’s speak eye to eye then,” Levi says, moving to stand. Just like everything he does, the movement is smooth, almost elegant. With his palms on the desk, he leans forward, for once being able to look down at Eren. “What are you trying to do here, Eren?”
“I think you know,” Eren says ambiguously, still holding on to the last remnant of plausible deniability. He also kid of really enjoys seeing the truly annoyed way Levi squints his eyes at him at the refusal of a straight answer. Pissing off humanity’s strongest is probably one of the stupidest things to be excited by, but Eren has never had a healthy sense of self-preservation to begin with.
“Apologies, I’ll rephrase,” Levi says, snappish, neither confirming nor denying. Which can only mean that he does, he does know, but he is, for some reason, reluctant to say it out loud. Seems like Eren is not the only one trying to protect himself with vagueness. “What are you hoping to do?”
It’s a good question, a fantastic one, even, one that Eren would love to know the answer to.
What is he hoping for? For Levi not to laugh at his pathetically clumsy attempt at propositioning, for Levi not to kick him in the face, for Levi to meet the bold invitation that goes against about a thousand rules with acceptance instead of court-martialling.
Maybe for Levi to let him kiss him again.
Deciding to hope against hope, Eren lifts his chin in overexaggerated confidence and says, “I’m hoping to give us something we both want.”
“What a presumptuous thing to say,” Levi scoffs, and he’s not exactly wrong. It is a rather bold move on Eren’s part to make the assumption he’s not the only one who wants. Accusing Levi, his superior officer and his guardian, of wanting something so outrageous is probably already cause enough for expulsion. A disciplinary action, at the very least, on grounds of defamation and slander and slight sexual harassment, and Eren would probably deserve whatever is the punishment for that. It’s not that he is unaware of the consequences or anything like that, and it’s not that he doesn’t care, either, but he’s already dug his hole, might as well step in and hand Levi the shovel.
“Is it?” Eren asks. Thinks back to all the silent nights spent in Levi’s office, the tea they shared, the scattered and scarce words exchanged in appropriately low voices. Thinks back to all the times Levi didn’t push him away. Thinks back to the way Levi allowed himself to be kissed, and the way Levi kissed back. No, he doesn’t think he’s being very presumptuous at all. “You said you were curious. I can satiate that curiosity.”
“You can’t even satiate yourself, what makes you think you could satiate me?”
It’s a bad choice of words, purely accidental in their suggestiveness, but they slice through Eren, anyway, chopping him up into tiny little pieces, leaving him raw and aching. Though, knowing Levi, maybe it wasn’t so unintentional at all.
“I’d like to try, anyway,” Eren says, aware that he sounds like a stubborn brat more than anything else. Stubbornness is the only thing keeping him going, though, the only thing that’s held him together for so long, and he will take any momentum he can get, even when it is just grasping at straws and clinging to his resolve.
Levi is just staring at him. Watching him, studying him. It makes Eren feel like an insect on a wooden board, wings spread and pinned down by the sharp metal of Levi’s eyes, helpless to do anything but let himself be poked and prodded and pierced.
“What do you want, Eren?”
The question is sincere, not one of those not meant to be answered. A chance. An opportunity.
“I want,” Eren says – heaves, rasps, chokes, but ultimately leading nowhere.
There are a lot of things he wants, desperately, simultaneously, but nothing he could say out loud. Nothing he could even begin to formulate. He wants to touch, to worship, to devour. He wants to tear Levi apart with his hands, his mouth, his teeth; wants to completely dismantle him. Wants to taint Levi’s pristine skin with marks of his existence in the shape of his sharp teeth, and wants to be tainted – graced, honoured, blessed – in turn. He wants to fuck Levi and he wants Levi to fuck him; either, both, it doesn’t matter. He wants to cradle Levi in his arms, and he wants Levi to slap him across the face. He wants to kiss Levi’s boots, and he wants Levi to kick him in the face for it. All of it, everything, at the same time.
There are a lot of very specific urges tearing at him, pulling him in every direction at once. Possessiveness, protectiveness; the need to consume warring against the want to cherish.
“I want to desecrate you,” Eren says, hoping to somehow convey the complicated mess of his emotions without sounding too pathetic.
Levi’s eyes glint, just like they did back in that dungeon when he made his embarrassing declaration of eliminating every single titan. “That is the most tempting offer I’ve gotten in years.”
The muscles in Eren’s jaw that were previously nearly snapping from tension go slack so abruptly, his mouth drops open.
It’s not a no.
Eren very nearly lunges across the desk in his haste to round it, on Levi in a matter of seconds. His enthusiasm causes them to collide almost violently, their teeth clicking together when their mouths meet in a clash of desperation. Well, desperation on Eren’s part, and surprising compliance on Levi’s. Compliance is good, though; it’s not resistance, it’s not rejection, it’s not a no. A not-no is practically a yes in Levi-speak, the proof right there in the shape of Levi’s lips moving against his own, Levi’s hands in his hair, Levi’s tongue in his mouth, and yet it feels too absurd to accept. Too good to be true, literally, and for a moment, he’s deathly afraid of the possibility that this is all just another elaborate scheme of his mind to torture him.
Dream or not, Levi is right there – right here, with Eren, reciprocal instead of disgusted – and he is planning to take full advantage of that.
As always, though, Eren’s mouth is bigger than his brain, and he does not actually know what desecrating Levi would entail (even though defilement is inevitable as long as he is involved). There are certainly… ideas, albeit tainted by some of his darker desires, neither apposite nor appropriate to speak out loud, much less to implement into reality. They are purely derived from dreams and some mild fantasizing done in the cover of night, therefore making all the things causing his hands twitch in anticipation not exactly realistic. His lack of participation in the age-old tradition of whoring around in his trainee days leaves him bereft of any sort of frame of reference, too, no way of knowing how to do any of this. He barely knows how to kiss, much less would he know how to fuck; operating on some vague instincts he didn’t know he possessed can only get him so far and he is rapidly reaching his wit’s end.
Thankfully, he is spared from embarrassing himself by fumbling around when Levi disentangles his hands from his hair in favour of gripping him by the hips and pushing him against the desk. It’s – rough, less guiding and more shoving, the edge of the tabletop colliding painfully with Eren’s tailbone as a result. It’s rough, unrestrained, as if Levi is too impatient to be careful, and Eren is nothing short of delighted.
“Up,” Levi says huskily, one hand leaving Eren’s hips to rap his knuckles against the surface as if Eren needed visual and auditive stimuli to understand like a dog. No matter how patronizing the gesture feels, making instinctive indignance flare up, he cannot help but feel a little grateful. His mind is shattered into pieces, scattered all over the place in tiny little fragments, and the only thing holding him together is Levi’s voice, guiding him, instructing him, liberating him from the responsibility of thinking.
He does as he’s told, pushing himself up onto the desk, trying and failing not to cringe when he hears paper crinkling beneath his ass. For once, maybe for the very first time, Levi does not seem to care about the potential mess, about his usually immaculately organized paperwork getting crumpled or the teacups that are clattering precariously. Merely crowds between Eren’s legs and kisses him again.
Eren doesn’t know what to do with his hands. Levi is kissing him – not only kissing him back but kissing him first –, standing between his spread thighs like every wet dream he has had in the past few months – minus the blood and death, granted, but just as good –, and he doesn’t know what to do with his hands. His clawing, ripping, bloody hands, so undeserving of being placed upon Levi’s pristine skin but so desperate to touch.
Hesitation is not usually something Eren bothers himself with, is not usually something he can afford, but now it is filling up every crevice of his mind. He is – not scared, not exactly, but doubtful. Unsure. Whether he can touch Levi without hurting him. Whether he knows how to be gentle, or if he will rip Levi apart like he’s so often imagined.
Despite everything, the dark desires and fucked up fantasies, Eren doesn’t actually want to hurt him. Not too much, at least. Not in a way that would cause real harm. He would rather be hurt, anyway, which is certainly something Levi could do. Levi could hurt him so good, so bad, so fantastically, and maybe he wasn’t wrong to think that that plays a part in Eren’s misplaced feelings.
“Touch me,” Levi says, and again, his words are Eren’s saving grace, cutting through the muddled haze of his mind and giving him – an order, but also permission. How Levi always seems to know exactly what to say, what tone to use, how to lower his voice just so to untangle the complicated knots of Eren’s emotions, he will never know. He is horrified to think that he’s just that easy to read; not embarrassed, necessarily, but afraid of what else Levi might see.
An order is an order, though, and Eren has always been embarrassingly eager to please Levi, so he lays down any lingering doubts and puts his hands on Levi’s body. Not sure where to start but determined to leave nothing untouched, he splays his hands over Levi’s ribcage, mapping slightly protruding bones as he drags them down slowly, almost passing out when he feels Levi’s thin waist wrapped in his hands. His thumbs dip into the ridges of Levi’s abdominals, his breath catching in the back of his throat when he feels the muscles tense and shift underneath his fingers.
Not bothering with any pretence of grace, he slips his hands beneath Levi’s shirt, gasping at the first touch of heated skin. The slip is immediately exploited, Levi’s tongue pushing between his parted lips, licking at his teeth until he gets the message and opens his mouth. The faint taste of tea Levi pushes into his mouth momentarily distracts him, the wet glide of Levi’s tongue against his too good to concentrate on anything else. After getting shocked back into the moment by Levi’s sharp teeth nipping at his lower lip, he tries to get it together enough to at least properly unbutton Levi’s shirt, so he can fully – selfishly – touch Levi’s body. His hands are shaking and the buttons are too small, so he ends up ripping some of them off.
“He–y,” Levi starts to complain, just for his tone to fall flat when Eren, recklessly brazen, grabs at his chest. Fascinated by the noticeable shiver that runs through Levi, emboldened by the way Levi’s nipples harden underneath his palm, he stomps out the last embers of hesitation and continues his exploration.
His movements are – frantic, probably, too fast and too careless to be very pleasant, but Levi hums contentedly like it is, anyway. Like Eren’s touch is… good, and not destined to end in pain.
Eren can feel his cock twitch – he’s somehow missed it getting hard in the first place, although it was inevitable from the start – and he’s not sure what it’s caused by. Levi’s deep voice vibrating through his chest, or Levi’s hands touching him in turn – bruising his hipbones, kneading his thighs, gripping his ass –, or the realization that he is capable of tenderness where he thought to be only violence, or maybe a combination of it all.
It doesn’t matter. Not when he can feel a corresponding hardness against his own. Proof that this is not a one-sided thing, a favour or out of pity. Proof that, on a rudimentary level, Levi is enjoying this as well, absolving Eren of the lingering feeling of selfishness.
The illusion that he can actually do something for Levi other than blindly following along makes him bold, stupidly so. Makes him reckless, makes him feel like there will be no consequences tomorrow. The concept of a tomorrow at all is far, far away right now, just like everything else that isn’t – Levi.
He lets his hands wander down Levi’s back, dipping his fingertips into every dent of his spine, marvelling at the feeling of the powerful muscles of his back shift underneath his touch. Lets his hands roam, completely disconnected from his brain, until he feels the curve of Levi’s ass against his palms – barely realizes what he’s doing until it’s already happened, and he surprises himself with the gall. It’s not like he can help himself, though; he has been plagued by dreams for weeks now, causing him to be riled up and foolish, and those tight uniform pants are certainly not helping.
“I dreamed of eating your ass once,” Eren says, distractedly. Admitting to fantasies about cannibalising the person he is trying to seduce is probably very low on the list of things he should be saying. It slips out before he can stop it, though, his tongue loosened by countless nights of putting his horrifying thoughts into words, too accustomed to acceptance to even attempt to hold anything back.
Levi’s eyes widen, lips parting around a soundless response; speechless. At Eren’s audacity maybe, or a belated realization about how fucked up Eren really is. The tips of his ears turn a little red, which is quite a strange sight; Eren’s never seen this man flush, not even from exertion after a day of excruciating drills, much less from some clumsy, albeit truthful, words.
“Oh, you,” Levi says, and stops abruptly. He runs his tongue along his teeth, curling it around his sharp canine, which is very distracting to Eren’s already reduced mental capacities. “You mean that literally, don’t you.”
“Yes?” Eren says, looking up to meet Levi’s eyes again, not even trying to pretend that he wasn’t just staring at his mouth. At this point, he is long beyond embarrassment, something like the vague pretence of dignity would only hinder what he’s trying to do here. Shamelessness has brought him this far already, so he might as well. “What else could I mean?”
“Maybe I’ll show you sometime,” Levi says, the promise breathed into Eren’s mouth, invigorating like either the first or the last intake of air in his life. Although he doesn’t know what, exactly, Levi is promising him, he can feel a surge of excitement coursing through him, short-circuiting him with the notion that there will be a next time. A separate one from this, somewhen in the future. Maybe there will be more times, a third and a fourth and a fifth –
Promises are not good. Mere adumbrations are enough to make Eren’s mind to go crazy with the possibilities, quick to latch onto the idea and blow it out of proportion.
It’s like a valve has broken – built up pressure from weeks of agonizing longing, yearning for something so impossible, so unreachable, the desperation and resulting resignation, pouring out of him at such a high velocity, he couldn’t even begin to try to hold it all back. From a slow seeping through the cracks of the carapace for his ill-advised feelings to a bursting through open floodgates, just like that, with a mild insinuation that there will be more.
Eren nearly falls off the edge of the desk with how fast he leans forward, mouth already half-open when it meets Levi’s.
Eren could spend every remaining second of his life kissing Levi, and it still wouldn’t be enough. He could eat Levi whole, bones and hair and everything, and still not be satisfied. Levi was right about that, too, just as he’s always right about everything; he is voracious, edacious, nothing will ever be enough. And even while knowing that, Levi still indulges him. Bizarrely, insanely, Levi does, and even though Eren is not sure why, he would rather bite off his own tongue than ask. To ask would mean to stop kissing Levi, and that is out of the question. He isn’t sure whether he will ever be able to pull away again.
“Slow, boy,” Levi says, the words meant to be authoritative, probably, maybe even condescending, but they are nullified by the breathless note in his voice. Eren doesn’t think of slowing down, doesn’t think he would know how to, and he ducks his head to mouth at Levi’s jaw instead. The skin is taut across his sharp jawline, not giving at all when Eren sucks at it. Before he can even fully wonder whether the skin of Levi’s throat would be better suited for leaving marks, his hands are already tearing at Levi’s cravat. “Eren.”
Levi’s serious tone falters underneath the weight of a chuckle, seemingly a little amused by his impatience, and it doesn’t manage to deter Eren at all.
When his impatient grabbling finally pays off and the soft material of Levi’s cravat falls away, he immediately latches onto the pale skin of Levi’s throat, delighted to feel Levi’s quickened pulse underneath his lips. Eagerly opening his mouth, he gracelessly runs his tongue along the flushed, warm skin, repeating it a bit more confidently once he hears Levi’s quiet gasp. Expectedly, Levi tastes clean, sort of flowery from whatever ridiculously expensive soap he uses, and Eren tries not to be too disappointed at the lack of sweat, because that would be weird.
“Don’t you dare leave a mark,” Levi says just as Eren grazes his canine against his fluttering pulse.
“But then you’d actually have a reason to wear that ugly cravat.”
“Excuse me, asshole? It’s not ugly–”
Eren cuts off what surely would have turned into a strangely childish tirade about functionality and keeping up with appearances, Jaeger, not that I would expect you to understand by biting down, not hard enough to break skin but close enough to be worrying. He sucks Levi’s skin into his mouth, fully intending on bruising it to highest capacity. Not only aware that this will be a problem tomorrow but wanting it to be one. Wanting it to be reminder, for Levi, for himself, that this happened and wasn’t just a fever dream. He hates that he has to put that responsibility on Levi, but his own body is not reliant in that regard; no matter what will happen to it, he’d be fully healed by daybreak as if nothing ever transpired.
Levi’s hips cant forward, his voice breaks around a pained groan. “Fuck, Eren.”
Eren stills. Freezes. Realizes just how tightly his jaw is clenched at the same moment he tastes iron on his tongue. Panic and arousal surge through his veins simultaneously, urging him to both let go and bite down harder.
Eren jolts back as if burned, scared of himself and even more scared for Levi. His eyes zero in on the dark bruise, on the ripped skin in shape of his own teeth on Levi’s neck. A horrifying sight, attest to his lack of control, and so, so arousing, he has to swallow multiple times to get rid of the rapidly accumulating saliva in his mouth.
“I–”
“Don’t apologize.” Eren clicks his jaw shut immediately, pressing his lips together sheepishly, and Levi sighs at him. “Do you think I would have let you do that if I didn’t enjoy it? You know I can stop you if necessary, so stop worrying so much.” Then, he lifts his chin so he can look at Eren down his nose, always managing to make Eren feel small under his gaze. “Or do you honestly think you’re stronger than me?”
It’s a difficult question, for Eren. Is he arrogant enough to think he is stronger than Levi in a purely physical sense? Hell no; he might be a little crazy but he’s not delusional. Despite Levi’s… shorter disposition, Eren would not stand a single chance. Even if there weren’t a not-insignificant amount of hero worship at work, he would never even dare to compare, mainly because the difference would be humiliatingly severe. Levi is every bit of a soldier, battle-hardened and ferocious, and not even his height disadvantage is necessarily a disadvantage at all. Levi has cultivated a certain skill of turning his weaknesses into strengths, whereas Eren has barely any strengths to begin with.
Does Eren think he’s stronger? No. Does he think that he could kill Levi, if he really wanted to? Potentially, in the right circumstances. The wrong circumstances. There is only one instance he would ever kill Levi, and he would succeed. Mainly because the alternative would be Levi killing him, and Levi won’t be able to do it. He knows that, is sure of it, the certainty of that laced in between his bones as if he’s already lived it before, though he does not know where that certainty comes from.
There is a discomfiting itch at the back of his mind, a sharp and simultaneously dull stab of pain at the base of his skull, like something is trying to fight itself up to the surface.
“Eren,” Levi says, snapping Eren back into himself, tethering him to reality again. “Be serious. You couldn’t even take me in your titan form.”
And just like that – poof, gone. The hesitation, the apprehension, the reluctance. A few words from Levi are enough for Eren’s mental faculties to completely shut down, giving way to something more… primal. Unthinking, uncontrolled, he lurches forward, too abrupt, his momentum all off, and if it weren’t for Levi already expecting it and bracing against him, he probably would have sent both of them to the floor with his inexorable enthusiasm. Levi grunts in displeasure, winding a hand into his hair again and pulling. Eren’s head gets yanked back, the pain in his scalp immediately translating to a throbbing in his cock, and he groans, loudly, the sound almost animalistic in its rawness. Levi’s eyes darken, and he repeats the motion, a little harder, just so, and Eren nearly comes right then and there.
“Down,” Levi demands, tugging Eren to the edge of the desk by his beltloops with his free hand.
“Stop talking to me like a dog,” Eren says, the defiance automatic, but he obeys like a dog, anyway, sliding off the desk before he’s even finished his sentence. His knees nearly buckle underneath him, his bones jittering and useless, and he has to hold onto the edge of the desk to avoid toppling over.
“Stop looking like a starved stray every time I do,” Levi snaps back, and there is really no good retort to that. Far too late for any kind of denial, seeing how Levi’s words only make his cock harder. “Now be a good boy and take off your pants.”
Eren is ridiculously, pathetically turned on, and he scrambles to unbuckle his belt. His hands are shaking – not from fear, not even from nerves, but sheer excitement – and it takes him an embarrassing long time before he finally manages to pull down the zipper. The moment he does, he tugs down his pants, along with his underwear, not even pausing to feel ashamed of his own eagerness. Instead of impatiently kicking them off like he intended to, he is rudely reminded that he is still wearing his boots which makes hurriedly getting rid of his pants a lot more difficult than originally thought, and there is not enough blood in his brain to gracefully solve that problem.
Levi raises a hand to cover his mouth, undoubtedly attempting to hide his amusement at the sight of Eren’s awkward predicament.
“Here,” Levi says after regaining control over his facial muscles, and it is truly unfair how quickly he manages to compose himself when Eren is already a shaky mess. He crouches down, and Eren has a supremely difficult time not to choke on his own spit at the sight of Levi… not quite on his knees, but eye-level with his hard, leaking cock, making a myriad of filthy images flicker behind his eyes. “Let me.”
Without sparing Eren’s erection a single glance, seemingly utterly unaffected by the proximity to it, Levi skims his hand along the exposed skin of Eren’s thigh, the touch feather-light and unassuming but still enough to make goosebumps spread like the plague. If Levi notices – and he does, if the pleased quirk of his lips is any indication – he mercifully doesn’t say, merely continues to drag his fingers down to curl them around Eren’s still clothed and booted calf. He taps his fingertips against the leather, prompting Eren to lean back against the desk and lift his foot. With his free hand, Levi hooks his fingers into the top of Eren’s boot, easing off the malleable material agonizingly slowly, the hand around Eren’s calf working on pulling down the pants. With every new inch of skin exposed, Levi leans in to kiss at it – Eren’s knee, his shin, his ankle, the arch of his foot.
It’s – sweet, in a way Eren didn’t expect and kind of feels guilty for. Here Levi is, littering his skin with a gentleness he definitely does not deserve, and all he can think about is how it would feel to have Levi’s mouth around his cock. Ungrateful and greedy, still wanting more when he’s already received infinitely more than he is worthy of.
By the time his boots are off and the bothersome clothing is finally out of the way – ever the overachiever, Levi’s made quick work of his shirt, as well –, Eren is just about ready to burst, reduced to a tight bundle of nerves and anticipation. Standing there naked while Levi’s still fully clothed is not as unnerving as it maybe should have been. Not comfortable, exactly, but not too far away from how Eren often feels around Levi – stripped, bare, vulnerable. A little exhilarated, against his better judgement.
After straightening up again, Levi knocks his knuckles on the desk again, and like a trained dog, he hops onto it again. Spreads his thighs, without prompting, and Levi slots himself between them with an appreciative hum. Levi’s hands run up his naked thighs and he tries not to shudder too pathetically.
“…I don’t have any oil.”
“…what?”
“Oil,” Levi repeats, a little louder. “Fuck’s sake, you’ve had the talk, haven’t you?”
“Yes, I was just surprised you were so unprepared.”
It’s meant to be as much of a jab at Levi’s thoroughness in all things, ranging from expeditions to something as mundane as meal preparation, as it is revenge for Levi’s hint at his inexperience, but it doesn’t land like he wants it to, and instead of laughing, Levi’s eyes narrow.
“I wasn’t exactly planning on fucking a subordinate today, so fucking excuse me for being unprepared,” Levi says back mockingly, his inflection just exaggerated enough for Eren to recognize it as the diversionary tactic it is, one that Levi uses not infrequently to shroud whatever complicated thing is going on inside of him he doesn’t want anyone else to see. There is an uncomfortable twist to Levi’s mouth, his jaw tensing with discomfort at his own words.
Eren sees it, because he is always watching, observing, looking, memorizing every hard line on Levi’s face and miniscule twist in Levi’s expression, but there is nothing he can do about it; there are no pretty lies to tell, no loopholes, no justification for what they are doing here. Maybe if Eren were a little more eloquent and a lot more dishonest he could string something together to make Levi feel better, to reassure him. But alas, he is clumsy with his words and a shit liar.
So, instead, Eren just kisses him again, forceful and bruising, pressing all of his pent-up feelings into it and hoping to distract Levi with his desperation. Wraps a hand around Levi’s throat, just threateningly enough to get Levi alert and attentive. Hooks an ankle into the back of Levi’s knee to pull him closer, lock him in. Grinds their cocks together inelegantly and, hopefully, pointedly. Tries to physically imprint his want onto Levi, like the kind of reassurance he cannot give with words.
The apprehension bleeds out of Levi slowly, his muscles tangibly untensing one by one with every roll of his hips. Coaxing Levi back into mindlessness can only work for so long, as there is still an impending issue that hasn’t been solved. Despite his inexperience, Eren isn’t stupid, and he is very aware of the issue a lack of lubricant poses here.
Levi mentioned oil, probably for consistency reasons, and Eren can for the life of him not come up with any adequate substitutes. Leather polish, or blade oil? Doesn’t seem like it would be very favourable to have in any bodily orifice. Impossible to clean, too. Spit? Could work in copious amounts, but Levi would probably prefer to avoid copious amounts of anything, not to mention that it would dry far too quickly.
Something wet, something slippery, something that would facilitate –
“…blood,” Eren says, remembering all the times he slipped on his own gore and viscera. It’s a weird suggestion, unconventional at best and utterly disgusting at worst, but it’s sincere, nonetheless. Disregarding the mess – which is stupid, honestly, considering who he’s dealing with –, it would stay wet and, consequently, slick for a lot longer than spit. “Blood would work.”
“You cannot be serious,” Levi says, tone flat with genuine disbelief. Unfortunately, Eren is being serious; the mere notion of using blood in lieu of a proper lubricant makes his cock throb with ardent, acrimonious arousal. The thought of being cut open to provide that blood, maybe ripped, maybe bitten, to have his blood misappropriated for something so sinful, it’s… well. Overarchingly overwhelming. In a good way, tragically. Levi blinks at him, seems to see the glaring lack of humour, and groans. “God, you are serious. You’re a sick bastard, Jaeger.”
Eren knows that, of course. Has been forced to acknowledge it some time ago and is halfway to acceptance already – he’s sick. There is something wrong with him, irrevocably, inextricably. And still, in spite of that fact, Levi is here, holding him, kissing him. And still, despite having every reason to, Levi doesn’t shove him away, or punches him, doesn’t even laugh, even when he has every right to do so.
Instead, Levi reaches down and pulls out a knife, seemingly out of nowhere, but Eren knows it’s the one he keeps tucked in his right boot because You can never be too prepared, Jaeger. He spins it between his fingers and flips it open with practiced ease, casually displaying his immaculate control over the blade. Not to show off – Levi simply is not the type, nor does he have anything to prove – but a demonstration, an asseveration that, if he were to indulge Eren, he could do so safely.
“You won’t transform if I do this, will you?” Levi asks, sceptically letting his eyes roam over Eren’s body, as though he is already thinking of where to cut him. Eren shakes his head vigorously, trying – and most likely failing – not to look as eager as he feels. “You’ll tell me if you ever start to feel light-headed or want to stop. That’s an order.”
“Yes, sir,” Eren says, the response instinctive and dutiful, and he watches as Levi’s eyes darken, steely silver getting pushed back by a void of black that is as terrifying as it is unambiguous. Averse to the problematic nature of their dynamic but apparently still aroused by being called sir; Levi truly is an enigma. An unexpectedly easily readable enigma, but obfuscating all the same.
“On your back,” Levi says, roughly pushing Eren flat back against the surface of the desk before he even has the opportunity to follow the order. Eren barely has time to bristle when Levi grabs him by the back of the knee and pulls his leg over his shoulder. Before he can even start to be embarrassed about the position, he feels Levi drag the flat of his knife along his sensitive inner thigh, teasing, taunting, letting him feel the cold sharpness of it without cutting him yet. “I hope you know that you’re going to clean up the mess yourself.”
“I’ll lick your office clean, if necessary,” Eren says breathlessly, trying not to squirm and accidentally slit himself open. It would probably dampen the mood a little if he nearly killed himself in the middle of this.
“Don’t give me any ideas,” Levi says warningly, though there is an unmistakable twitch of his lips, amused, maybe even intrigued, and Eren files it away for later use. While he wasn’t serious, he also was not exactly unserious, either – he would gladly spend hours on his knees to clean up his own blood with his tongue until it is raw and bleeding and making a mess again if Levi so wished. He would probably do a lot of repulsive things, if Levi asked, which is not something he can ever say out loud. Levi would only misunderstand, would probably think he’s forcing Eren or taking advantage or something equally stupid and untrue.
Levi angles the knife, the razor-sharp blade digging into his skin, a miniscule movement away from breaking it. Not hesitating as much as giving Eren the option to change his mind. As if there were any universe where Eren wouldn’t respond with an overly enthusiastic yes.
“Please,” or desperate begging, apparently.
Levi’s eyes sharpen with the same kind of fierce focus before launching into a complicated manoeuvre, and with a short nod, he slices the blade along the inside of Eren’s thigh, quick and sure. The pain is sharp, instantaneous. And line of fire cuts across his thigh, and he feels the uniquely strange and unfortunately very familiar sensation of blood gushing out of his body. Under different circumstances, maybe he would have been worried about one of his major arteries being severed or something. But when he looks up at Levi and sees not a hint of concern but something else entirely, something like reverence and hunger, he cannot really care all too much. Potentially bleeding out does not seem so bad as long as Levi is looking at him like that.
Wide-eyed and slack-jawed, he watches as Levi brings the knife to his mouth, running his tongue along the sullied blade, licking it clean of Eren’s blood. The sight alone is nearly enough to send Eren over into madness territory, forcing a groan out of his throat that is as involuntary as it is desperate. Having Levi not touch his blood but ingesting it, voluntarily and without scowling in disgust, consuming a part of him, it’s – too much.
Levi grimaces, face scrunching up in a manner that is too adorable for a man his age, and Eren can’t help but laugh a little.
“Not to your liking, I take it?”
“No,” Levi says bluntly, casually. “Reminds me too much of the battlefield.”
Levi’s answer is real in a way Eren was not prepared to deal with, so he just blurts out, “I’m sorry,” like a fucking moron. He half-expects to be whacked over the back of the head for his stupidity, or at least for the disregard of an order.
Instead, Levi turns his face to kiss the side of his knee. Says, softly, “It’s not your fault.”
It’s soft, and sweet, the moment hanging between them, heavy with – something. Sentimentality, maybe, or a shared kind of understanding between soldiers. It’s somehow more intimate than being naked, more vulnerable than laying on his back with his legs spread.
It’s short-lived, too, disrupted by Levi running his fingers along the deep cut, careful not to touch it directly, probably not wanting to effectuate any additional discomfort despite the fact that he was the one causing it in the first place. The cautiousness is as endearing as it is unnecessary, the wound already letting off a steady stream of hot steam in its effort to heal, but Eren gets too distracted by the sight of Levi coating his fingers with his blood to say anything.
Levi’s fingers are long, thin, weirdly elegant for a soldier but still just as rough. Pale, too, startlingly so against Eren’s thigh, exacerbated by the deep dark red tainting it. How many times has he dreamed about seeing Levi splattered in blood, in his blood, and now here he is, applying it onto his skin himself. Very clearly less into this than Eren, an insistent little frown pulling at his lips whenever, Eren assumes, blood drips onto the floor, probably thinking about the messy aftermath, but still doing it. With a lot less repulsion than Eren expected there to be.
Then again, he didn’t really expect anything in the first place. Has hardly even dared to imagine, even in his most shameful nights. It’s a bruising experience, getting something he has already resigned himself to never exist outside of his head.
When he sees blood-slicked fingers wander further down, Eren can’t take watching anymore and snaps his eyes back up. Looking at Levi while he feels Levi’s finger probingly press against his asshole is honestly not much better, nor any less embarrassing.
“I really fucking hope for you that you’re clean.”
“Yeah, I – um,” Eren starts, and stops, going from earnest to embarrassed within the same heartbeat. Arousal-unrelated heat floods his face, and he prays to a god he doesn’t believe in that his skin is tan enough for it not to be too noticeable. Starting to blush now seems kind of redundant, considering… well, everything, really. “I did. Clean myself. Thoroughly. Just in, uh, just in case.”
“Bit assumptive, wouldn’t you say?”
“Well, apparently not, sir,” he says, pressing as much provocation into the title as he dares. If he were any less of a coward, he would pointedly look down to where Levi’s fingers are continuously circling and prodding against his hole, but he doesn’t think his overloaded brain could take seeing Levi’s hand between his thighs.
Levi’s right eye twitches at Eren’s indignant tone, but so does the corner of his mouth, hinting at a smile that will never come. It’s a conflicting amalgamation of genuine annoyance and – whatever, pridefulness, probably, at Eren’s lack of fear to defy him.
Maybe reassured, perhaps just feeling vindictive, Levi pushes a little harder, pressing his finger into Eren slowly but relentlessly, a smooth glide courtesy of the slickness Eren’s blood provides. He doesn’t stop until his knuckles are nestled against Eren’s taint, pausing there to give Eren some space to breathe. He is grateful for it; the feeling is… not painful, but strange. Foreign. Invasive. And yet, he cannot help but clench around Levi’s finger when he feels it slip out slowly, nor can he suppress the high-pitched moan when it gets stuffed back into him a split-second later. Levi repeats the motion several times, steadfast and increasing in confidence every time his ministrations are met with a broken whimper instead of resistance. Not that Eren would have stopped him even if he were in unbearable pain.
“Ah, Captain–”
“Levi.”
“Levi,” Eren corrects himself, the name feeling foreign and fantastic on his tongue. “More.” Levi stills, narrowing his eyes down at Eren, and he adds, “Please.”
“This is your – this is the first time, yeah?” Levi asks, the abrupt change in trajectory and the unusually connotational nature of his words not lost on Eren. For someone who is known for his unapologetic vulgarity, the hesitation to say your first time is both funny and a little gut-wrenching.
“So?” Eren says, unable to hide the slight petulance when forced to acknowledge his inexperience.
“So, I could hurt you.”
“I’ll heal,” Eren says, leaning his head back against the desk and staring up at Levi. Where he once couldn’t even glance in Levi’s direction without breaking out in cold, nervous sweat, he now meets Levi’s eyes dead on, unwavering and unyielding. It feels imperative not to cower, right now, essential to show his willingness, no matter how embarrassed he will be later at his own openness. He can take a little embarrassment, for Levi. “It doesn’t matter.”
It is meant to be as much as a placation to ease Levi’s lingering inhibitions about… well, everything, as it is an attempt to show his acquiescence. As per usual, however, Eren’s clumsy, albeit well-intentioned, words have the opposite effect.
Levi’s eyes darken, though not with desire this time.
“Of course, it matters,” he snarls, baring his teeth at Eren. The sight should make him tense in apprehension, tremble in the face of Levi’s impermanent but intense incensement. He definitely should not zero in on the sharpness of Levi’s canines, much less shiver from the mere thought of having them sink into his flesh and rip open his skin. His musing is cut short when Levi’s free hand grabs his jaw, fingers digging unforgivingly into his cheek. “You might get off on it, but I don’t want to hurt you. Now shut up and let me prepare you properly.”
Caught off-guard by the tenderness underlying the words and a little turned on by the commanding tone with which they are delivered, Eren nods mutely, not quite trusting himself not to moan if he were to open his mouth. Apparently pleased by his lack of fight for once, Levi hums, the harsh grip on his face loosening to instead cradling it. The softness of the gesture is immediately counteracted by Levi pulling out his finger, just to press in two.
Eren moans, loud and sharp, more out of startled surprise than pain, and Levi takes advantage of his parted lips to push his thumb into his mouth.
“Quiet,” Levi says, all traces of his previous harshness gone from his voice, replaced by something deep, dangerous, vibrating all the way down to Eren’s bone marrow. “You don’t want anyone to barge in here, do you? Although… knowing you, you’d probably enjoy that.”
Eren would love to protest, defend himself. There is nothing he could say, though, not when Levi already knows of the truth of his statement, not after Eren admitted to dreaming of that exact scenario. So, instead of futilely trying to preserve the last vestiges of his dignity, he seals his lips around Levi’s thumb, contenting himself with the pleased curve of Levi’s lips when he does.
When Levi starts to meticulously and methodically open him up, a routine of pumping his fingers into him, spreading and scissoring them in even intervals, Eren is glad that his mouth is otherwise occupied. He is not sure whether he would not be able to look at himself in the mirror if he’d let out the noises clawing at the back of his throat.
Then Levi curls his fingers, barely, just so, and all of Eren’s efforts are out the window.
He groans, biting down on Levi’s thumb, causing Levi to groan, as well.
“Here?” Levi asks, and before Eren can even trying to figure out what he means, he pushes his fingers a little deeper, a little harder, crooking them upwards.
There is a spark of – something. Something. Like liquid fire, searing, scalding, scorching, pooling low in his guts and threatening to burn him from the inside out. Not unlike the antepast of pleasure Eren’s experienced so far, but distinctly different, disconcerting and discomfiting with the sheer force of it. His back arches with it, his hips jolting involuntarily, as if his body cannot quite decide whether to push back into or pull away from the sensation.
A pleased little hum is the only warning he gets before Levi presses his fingers into that spot again. And again, and again, and again, until Eren forgets to be quiet, nearly forgets his own fucking name in the onslaught of pleasure Levi’s fingers are coaxing out of him.
“I would have expected you to be more used to this, for all that fucking bravado you waltzed in here with,” Levi says, not even sounding slightly out of breath for all he punches the air out of Eren’s lungs with every stroke against his – whatever the fuck it is that is making him see stars at the ceiling of Levi’s office.
“Le – ah, fuck! – Levi,” Eren says – or, tries to say, his voice coming out in scattered and wrecked little fragments. His brain is too scrambled for coherency, not even sure if he wants to tell Levi to stop or to keep going, completely overwhelmed. Everything is coiling tightly inside of him, every muscle tensing to the point of nearly snapping, but just before he can embarrass himself by coming all over his stomach, Levi – stops. Eases out his fingers slowly, leaving Eren dismayingly empty.
The complaint when Levi’s hands leave his body gets stuck in his throat when Levi instead starts to work on opening his pants, seemingly uncaring about the streaks of red he stains the white fabric with. Eren fights himself up onto his elbows to watch, eager to see and not even ashamed about it. Levi, of course, does not struggle with undressing as much as Eren did, his movements steady and efficient. When his pants are unfastened, he hooks his thumbs into the waistband, pulling them down agonizingly slowly over his hips, making something as boring as undressing positively drip with sensuality, and Eren’s mouth immediately fills with a truly disgusting amount of saliva at the sight.
It’s justified, he thinks, to be stunned into very aroused silence by Levi’s body. The sharp cut of his hipbones, the hard lines of his abdominals peeking through from his open shirt. Pale skin stretched over powerful muscles, marred with countless scars but no less beautiful for it. Every new exposed inch of skin feels like a privilege, one Eren doesn’t know think he’s earned but is thankful for, nonetheless.
Levi’s pants are barely below his ass when Eren’s already thinly stretched patience snaps, pushing himself into a half-sitting position again to tug down Levi’s underwear himself.
Levi’s cock is – big. Much bigger than Eren would have thought. Big enough to look slightly disproportional, curved to his toned stomach and a very pretty shade of pink. Eren didn’t think he’d ever find a dick pretty – didn’t think he’d ever see one that isn’t his own, period –, yet here he is, staring, salivating.
“Can I…” Eren sort of abruptly remembers the disgust he felt whenever he saw someone on their knees in the hallways – the way he’d think They’re animals with no small amount of contempt –, and he gets a little choked up over his own hypocrisy, the words trailing off. So arrogantly disdainful a few months ago, just to now fight the urge to drop to his knees, and he almost laughs at the irony.
Levi snorts right into his face. “You’re cute if you think I’ll let my cock anywhere near your mouth with your little biting problem.”
Usually, Eren would bristle and protest at the accusation, at the patronizing tone and the way it, again, makes it sound like Levi is talking to a dog. But now, apparently, his brain is not being able to differentiate between what is being said from how it’s being said, anymore, and all he hears is cute, wrapped in the sinful timbre of Levi’s voice. A word not befitting of him at all – Eren is a lot of things, but he is certainly not cute –, and yet it makes his face heat up, makes his dick twitch. Unfortunately for him and the last remnant of his dignity, Levi clocks both of those things.
“What, you like that? ‘Cute’, that’s doing it for you?” Levi asks, tone slightly mocking, but Eren can hear the genuine hint of curiosity behind the words.
“I think… I think it’s just you that’s doing it for me.”
And maybe that is too honest, too close to a very uncomfortable truth they have tactfully circumvented until now. Even with Levi’s awareness of Eren’s little crush – clandestine devotion, more accurately – they have never… talked. About it. Not explicitly, not in any way that would be substantial. Not in as many words, because Eren is sure he would spontaneously combust if he ever said. Ridiculous, really, to be bashful about three little words when he’s revealed much more sinister things about himself these past few weeks with a lot less reluctance.
“You have bad fucking taste, then,” Levi says, shaking his head slightly in bewilderment.
There is probably a joke in there somewhere, something suggestive to say, something stupid, something like Let me taste you, then. But Levi’s tone suggests nothing but absolute sincerity in that statement, like he genuinely believes he is… whatever, undesirable. Unusually self-deprecating and heartbreakingly serious about it.
Eren wants to protest, mainly because Levi is plain wrong and he would love to be the one to correct him for once, but that would come dangerously close to admitting to the one thing he cannot bring himself to give voice to. Without a shadow of a doubt, he would derail from reassurance into rhapsody embarrassingly quickly. Not that it would be unfounded – Levi deserves all the uncomfortably truthful and disgustingly saccharine things Eren feels about him.
There is no way to do that without incriminating himself, though, and he has never been adept at putting his feelings into words, anyway, so he does what he does best – head through the wall, worry about the hole later.
Quite a bit more aggressively than he’s been thus far, he reaches out for Levi again, wanting to cradle his face and pepper it with kisses but uncertain whether that is allowed. Are open shows of affection permitted or do they go against some weird etiquette for fucking Eren is not aware of? Deciding to play it safe, lest he’ll get himself kicked out of the office before they even got to the good part, he hooks an arm around Levi’s neck, pulling him close. And then even closer, leaning back against the desk and pulling Levi with him. On top of himself, and fuck, does it feel good to have Levi’s weight pressing down on him.
“Eren–”
“I don’t know about taste and whatnot,” Eren says, cutting off Levi’s complaint at the sudden change in position by rolling his hips up into him. The motion causes their cocks to grind against each other, and Eren tries – really, he does – not to feel too smug when Levi drops his head onto his shoulder, groaning deeply. “All I know is that I want this–” Another purposeful grind upwards, another deep sound as a reward. “– inside of me.”
“Shit,” Levi curses softly under his breath, too softly to be intended to hear. His arms are shaking slightly next to Eren’s head where he’s propping himself up, and it certainly is not from exertion. “Where did you learn to talk like that?”
“I think you can take a guess.”
Levi lifts his head just to glare at him and Eren doesn’t even try to bite down on a grin.
“Fine, if you’re so desperate for it, who am I to deny you?”
In one single, smooth movement, Levi has pulled back, grabbed Eren by the hips and turned him onto his stomach. It’s so quick, it is a little disorienting, suddenly having his cheek pressed against the polished wood of Levi’s desk. Were he any less turned on by the manhandling, he would probably be profoundly embarrassed at the position, would maybe even protest at not being able to see Levi’s face. But at least like this, Levi won’t be able to see his face, either, which suits Eren just fine. God only knows what terribly unattractive expressions he’s going to make.
His attempt to turn his head to see at least partially what’s going on is cut short by a strong hand wrapping around the back of his neck, holding him down not painfully but insistently. Whatever whiny protest he was going to give curls up and dies in his throat when Levi starts rubbing soothing little circles into the sensitive skin underneath his ear. The gesture is sweet, soothing, and with every brush of Levi’s thumb, whatever residuum of tension bleeds out his body. Which, apparently, was the goal, because Levi hums approvingly, letting his hand wander down when Eren makes no other attempt at moving. Not dissimilar to what Eren did to him, Levi delves his fingertips into every vertebra of his spine, brushes them down over his ribcage as if wanting to memorize his bone structure by touch alone.
The gentle ministrations are countervailed when, suddenly and with absolutely no warning, he feels the hard length of Levi’s cock along the cleft of his ass. His hand continues its leisurely way down Eren’s back, though, blunt nails lightly scratching over his skin and leaving goosebumps in their wake, unhurried and languorous. Eren has to bite his tongue as not to moan at the slight stimulation. Or to beg for Levi to dig his nails in harder and slice him open. Somehow, it feels like he’s already reached his quota for making demands.
“I’ll have to cut you again,” Levi’s voice sounds from somewhere above him, neither delighted by nor particularly deprecating of that statement. More thoughtful, if anything, the contemplative lilt in his tone suggesting that he’s already considering the best place to lay his blade. “Here?” A singular finger draws a vertical line across Eren’s spine, just above his tailbone. “Or… maybe here would be better.” Another touch, just as light, just as teasing, gently indenting the flesh of Eren’s hips. “What do you think?”
The ghosting of Levi’s fingertips over his back, hips, ass is making it supremely difficult to stay still, the anticipation paired with his lack of sight causing him to shift against the desk despite his best efforts. Consequently, his restless squirming causes him to push back against Levi, subsequently against Levi’s cock, resulting in Levi making a sound somewhere between a groan and a growl.
No matter how obtuse in interpersonal affairs Eren may be, that sound is perspicuous enough.
“I don’t know,” he says, trying to keep his voice even and devoid of the grin he can feel tugging at his mouth, lest he’ll mess up his – second, and hopefully more successful – attempt at allurement. “Don’t care, either,” he adds, arching his back inconspicuously and grinding his ass against Levi’s dick more deliberately. The hitch in Levi’s breath is all the confidence boost Eren needs to be bold, to do good on the first nickname Levi’s given him and be a brat. “Slit my throat or do it dry, as long as you finally get a move on and fuck me.”
Were it not for the choked noise escaping Levi, he would have felt silly, stupid, scant. Thankfully, his efforts seem to be adequately in the realm of salacious, the proof of that in shape of Levi’s hands splaying over his ass and gripping hard. Before the half-startled and half-pleased gasp can even fully leave Eren’s mouth, Levi uses his hold on him to pull him back harshly, rolling his hips against Eren’s ass at the same time. The glide is divinely smooth, courtesy of the blood that previously dripped down between Eren’s thighs, and they both groan in unison. Well, Levi does; Eren kind of just whines at the teasing drag against his hole.
“I would have thought you were more the type to beg, not demand,” Levi says, voice rough, not sounding put-off at all. “You just keep surprising me, Jaeger.”
“So, you thought about it.”
“About what?”
“Fucking me.” Levi’s hips still abruptly, his hands tightening on Eren’s ass with bruising force – god, he hopes it will leave bruises, even when they won’t last for very long –, completely freezing up. The guilt emanates off of him so severely, Eren doesn’t even need to see it on his face to know that it’s there. Trying to take some of the blame, no matter how much of a naïve attempt, he turns his face to look at Levi over his shoulder; says, “It’s fine, I did, too.”
Levi stares, then blinks, then snorts. The tightly coiled muscles of his body untense, like he’s breathing out the apprehension. “I bet,” he says, relaxing his hold on Eren to instead palm at his ass gingerly, as if to apologize for the rough, albeit short-lived, treatment. “What disgusting things did you think about?”
“I think you can make some guesses,” Eren says, purposely vague, because one, it is true – Levi already knows of the atrocities his unconscious produces, knows too much, honestly, so it wouldn’t be too hard to make some estimates about what his fantasies look like when he’s awake –, and two, he would rather save the talking. He’s done enough of that already to last him several lifetimes over.
“I can,” Levi agrees, but for once, he does not back off at Eren’s obvious attempt at a dismissal. He resumes the gentle rocking of his hips against Eren’s ass, keeping his movements vexingly slow as if trying to frustrate him back into garrulity. “I’d rather hear it from you, though.”
And what is Eren supposed to do? He wouldn’t deny Levi anything, especially not when the request is delivered as just that – a request, born out of personal interest, not a barked-out order.
“I…” For once, he doesn’t trail off because of his own reluctance but because he just doesn’t know what to say. He has made a conscious and semi-successful effort to keep himself from fantasizing, and the few times he did, it wasn’t anything too noteworthy. Tame, considering what his mind is capable of. Boring, even, in comparison. “I mostly thought of – kissing. You.”
Levi halts again. “Just that?”
“Well, sometimes I imagined you punching me for it.”
“That’s…” Levi’s voice wears off before the words have a chance of being heard. It’s not necessary for him to finish it, Eren already has a pretty good guess what it could’ve been. Pathetic, pitiable, piteous – “Pessimistic,” he finishes, far kinder than Eren would have been.
Sooner than Eren even has the time to find his voice to argue – it’s not pessimism as much as it is being realistic –, Levi curls over him until he can feel the hard muscles of Levi’s chest along his back. One of Levi’s hands sneaks underneath his chest to wrap around his throat, not using an ounce more strength than necessary to tilt Eren’s head to his liking. The difference in their heights makes the position slightly awkward, the stretch from craning his neck a little uncomfortable, but then Levi slots their lips together, and nothing else even registers anymore. The world is reduced to Levi’s mouth and the heat steadily building between their bodies, every point of contact burning. Eren barely has the brain space to wonder whether it will always feel like this. More electrifying than transforming, more terrifying, more enlivening. He doesn’t think he could get used to that.
He doesn’t think he would want to.
Levi kisses and kisses him, until he can feel the saliva drip from the corner of his mouth, but any concerns he would have usually had about sullying Levi’s desk are furthest from his mind.
“You should be more optimistic,” Levi says against his mouth, nipping at his lower lip. “You’re humanity’s hope, after all.”
“Am I your hope, too?”
“Don’t get sappy with me now.”
Levi straightens sort of abruptly, the absence of warmth startling, the lack of weight on his back unsettling. Eren doesn’t know what was wrong about what he said, except that it was a supremely stupid question. But he’s asked a plethora of stupid questions before, and Levi never regarded him with anything other than a patient sort of exasperation.
The feeling of cold, sharp metal pressing against the outside of his thigh saves him from overthinking the sudden feeling of distance in the minimal space between them. The cut is just as quick and certain as the one before, but the fact that it’s given without warning makes the pain feel more biting. Eren hisses in pain and his cock throbs in delight, the reactions as contradictory as they are complementary. There’s a soft thud when Levi, presumably and uncharacteristically, drops the knife to the floor in favour of cupping a hand over the wound. To soothe it, or to catch the blood, or both.
Eren can hear the obscene sounds of Levi slicking himself up – with his blood, how mind-fuckingly hot is that? –, nearly shaking apart at the seams in sheer anticipation. When he feels the foreign but unmistakable sensation of Levi’s cockhead pressing against his hole without pushing in quite yet, it’s all he can do not to scream. In frustration of Levi’s ever-present cautiousness, in delight at being given something he thought he’d never get, in impatience, in joy, in a myriad of tangled up emotions he couldn’t even begin to unravel.
“…Eren–”
“Yes,” Eren interjects, not needing nor necessarily wanting to hear Are you sure? – he doesn’t know how he can explain to Levi that the answer will always be a resounding Fuck yes! in a way Levi wouldn’t misunderstand.
To his credit, Levi only hesitates for half a heartbeat before finally – finally – pushing in. The initial stretch is – painful, difficult to accommodate but not unendurable. It knocks the air out of Eren all the same, leaving him in a choked wheeze as Levi spreads him open on his cock. His restless squirming is kept to a minimum by Levi’s hands on his hips, caught between Levi’s solid body and the unforgiving wood of the desk.
“So desperate for it but struggling so hard,” Levi says, honest to god cooing down at Eren. He must really enjoy being able to do that, for once not having to tilt his head back to look up at Eren. If Eren were only a smidgen more tired of life, he would say so, but stringing together words at all is too big a task for his muddled, lust-hazy brain, so he contents himself with – well, whining pathetically, which only makes Levi coo again. “Relax, you’re doing good, you almost got it.”
Despite the brief shot of panic at the word almost – it already feels kind of like he’s going to tear apart, and he’s supposed to take more? –, Eren melts under Levi’s soothing words, at Levi’s soft tone; relaxes, just like Levi’s told him to, which earns him an appreciative tap on the ass and another inch of Levi’s cock.
Not once has he ever felt a sensation quite like this – stretched, filled, teetering on the precipice of unbearably painful and mind-blowingly good. His hands scramble to grip the edge of the desk opposite to the one he’s pressed against, fumbling for purchase, for something to dig his nails in. Something to tether himself before his mind splits apart.
“Breathe, Eren,” Levi’s voice sounds from startingly close, his breath hot in Eren’s ear. The soft-spoken order jolts him back into his body, realizing that Levi is plastered along his back again, hips flush against him, fully inside of him.
“Are you gonna give me mouth-to-mouth again if I don’t?”
“Of course,” Levi says with a huff, as if the mere notion that he wouldn’t greatly offends him. “Would rather avoid it, though. I don’t have the best vantage point from here.”
That is probably the closest Levi has ever come to acknowledging their – honestly pretty severe – height difference. It’s not like he’s wrong, either; even if he craned his neck, his mouth would only reach the juncture of Eren’s neck and shoulder, maybe his jawline. Eren can’t himself – he laughs.
Levi makes a strangled noise, burying his face into Eren’s shoulder blade to muffle himself. “F-Fuck, don’t do that–”
Eren is not sure what he means until he feels Levi’s cock positively pulsing inside of him. Coming already? No, Eren expects his Captain to have a little more stamina than that. Close to coming, then. The thought of almost causing Levi to prematurely ejaculate by laughing nearly sends him into another hysterical giggle fit, but he bravely refrains.
“Sorry,” he says, though he cannot force himself to sound very apologetic at all.
“Not your fault you feel so good,” Levi grits out, voice rough with poorly repressed arousal and breathing rugged from the effort it takes to, presumably, not come on the spot. The praise is like an adrenaline shot directly to the heart, and Eren can feel his face heat up with pleased embarrassment. “Just – give me second.”
Trying – and failing miserably – not to feel too flattered, Eren does. Give him a second, gracious as he is. It also gives him the opportunity to let himself really feel Levi, the length and girth of him, now without the veil of the initial pain. It is… well, it’s really fucking weird, is what it is. Unmoving as they are, there is no stimulation, no friction, no distraction from the impossible stretch, the weight of Levi’s cock and the way it is kind of pressing against his bladder from the inside. It’s weird.
It’s also kind of the best thing Eren’s ever felt. Every miniscule movement elicits a spark of electricity at the base of his spine, the slightest drag against his insides causing heat to pool low in his guts. In spite of his earlier acquiescence, impatience starts to mount with every palpable twitch and throb inside of him, and he starts to rock back against it, desperate to feel more of it.
A sharp intake of air, a growled, “Eren,” probably meant as a warning, but it only feeds into Eren’s confidence.
“Levi,” he says back, marvelling at how easily the name rolls over his tongue already. Not wanting to ask to be fucked, again, for the third time, he opts for pushing back against Levi more firmly, trying to coax him into moving without having to beg for it.
Levi groans, though Eren cannot tell whether it’s out of pleasure or annoyance. Both, maybe. Either way, his endeavours seem to finally be rewarded, as the hands on his hips adjust their grip, tightening, the only warning before he feels the strange sensation of Levi pulling out of him. It’s slow, agonizingly so, each inch leaving Eren disconcertingly empty. Levi, at least, doesn’t seem to intend to let him suffer for very long, either finally accepting Eren’s willingness as fact or simply at the end of his saintly patience, as he almost immediately pushes in again. Hard. Not necessarily brutal – despite all the evidence that would point in the opposite direction, Eren doesn’t believe that there is a single cruel bone in Levi’s body – but definitely forceful enough to punch the breath out of him which is quickly becoming a reoccurring theme.
For all the incipient cautiousness and carefulness, Levi appears to have laid down whatever lingering inhibition for he starts a rhythm that is, for a lack of a better word, ruthless. No slowly easing Eren in, leaving no time for adjustment, just fucking into him hard and deep. The feeling of being split open, then left void and uncomfortably empty, just to get stuffed full again is – it’s overwhelming, mind-numbing, stupendous. Each time Levi pushes into him, his cock grazes that one spot without fully hitting it, and it’s as pleasurable as it is torturous.
Every thrust has Eren gasping for breath, his knuckles turning white from where his hands are gripping the edge of the desk, now more so for stability than distraction. A point of leverage to push back against Levi – and also to avoid getting his hipbones shattered from being urged against the unforgiving wood repeatedly.
The pace keeps steady – too steady, almost, suspiciously so. Of course, Levi would keep himself measured and controlled, even during something like this. It’s only to be expected, honestly, the man is the acme of self-restraint, but the itch of irritation is unignorable, and some stupid – and probably very masochistic – part of Eren longs to break that control. To see it crack, break; to be the reason for it and get punished for it.
He could maybe try to make Levi angry; lure out the brutality, the violence that is dormant until it is necessary. That would be very ineffective, though, considering that making Levi genuinely angry is, against popular belief, nearly impossible, and even if Eren manged it, Levi would only feel guilty about it afterwards. Mentioning his near-indestructible body would be counterproductive, as well, judging by the reaction he got when he tried the first time.
As much as Eren dreads it, blunt honesty seems to be the only way to get what he wants.
“L-Levi–”
Without even the slightest hitch in rhythm, Levi acknowledges, “Hm?”
Pushing himself up to his elbows to catch Levi’s gaze over his shoulder – because Levi seems to like that, even though the position makes it rather difficult –, he says, demands, with more confidence than he feels, “Harder.”
Levi’s movements stutter to a halt almost immediately. “Eren–”
“I can take it,” he says, mentally patting himself on the back for how steady his voice sounds. Levi’s eyes narrow and his mouth opens to probably reprimand him again, so he changes gear. “I want it. Please?”
Levi regards him with that piercing, narrow-eyed stare, most likely trying to assess his sincerity. His neck is starting to ache from the awkward way he’s peering over his own shoulder, but he ignores the discomfort to let Levi search for whatever he’s looking for.
“You’ll tell me to stop if it gets too much for you,” Levi says, slow and intent. Not a question, not a request, but an order. The usual response of bristling and instinctively resorting to defiance is notably absent when he picks up on the sharp edge of worry laced between the words, and Eren nods enthusiastically, too elated to rein in the eagerness. One of Levi’s hands returns to Eren’s nape, gently nudging him flat against the desk again. “Relax. It’s gonna make it easier for you.”
The words sound more like a threat than reassurance, and Eren cannot help the excited shiver rattling through him, very nearly disassembling him with the force of it. He does as he’s told – or, tries, going through a cycle of inhaling deeply, holding it and breathing out. Only when his exhales are steady and even, no longer shaking on their way out, does Levi move again, resuming the previous pace seamlessly, increasingly picking up in strength. There is clearly still some lingering hesitation in his movements, though it dissolves with every little moan that is getting punched out of Eren.
If he thought the rhythm before was ruthless, this, now, is very nearly back-breaking. Levi is pounding into him faster than Eren even has the time to breathe in between, the loud – and quite frankly, obscene – sounds of Levi’s hips snapping against his ass overriding even the blood rushing through his ears.
In this position, cheek pressed down on the polished wood of the desk and the edge of it painfully digging into his hipbones with the way Levi is holding him down, Eren is helpless to do anything but accept the torturous pleasure Levi is forcing into him with every thrust.
It is quite literally the material of his dreams – being held down, forcibly taken until he feels bruises bloom on his ass and thighs and everywhere else Levi’s hands wander to. He doesn’t think that Levi is doing it on purpose; Levi is not the type of person to purposefully hurt someone, unless absolutely necessary, not even in the name of pleasure. But maybe, he is the type of person to forget himself. Forget his near-inhuman strength, the sheer power running through him, or maybe he remembers that Eren can take it, that the bruises will not last long on his skin, anyway. Though, maybe, far more likely, Levi just hears Eren’s loud, shameless cries each time Levi digs his fingers a little too hard into his flesh.
Torrid titillation is rapidly building up at the base of his spine, spreading outwards, filling up every crevice of his body, interlacing with his bones and nearly bursting his organs with the sheer amount he’s feeling. He is way beyond the point of words, his vocal cords producing nothing but shameful noises of pained pleasure he couldn’t hold back even if he tried.
Then Levi angles his hips, nailing straight into that spot that has Eren sobbing. His vision is starting to blur around the edges with what may be either tears or the beginnings of a blackout, his mind blissfully quiet for once as he gets the brain fucked out of him. Distantly, he thinks he hears a pleased, dangerously deep sound behind him, thinks he might feel Levi’s cock pulse and throb again, and the mere notion that he might be making Levi feel even a fraction as good as he’s feeling is enough.
If all the other times he shamefully wrapped a hand around himself felt overwhelming, this, now, feels like dying, comparatively. When orgasm slams into him, it’s violent, ruthless, very nearly tearing him apart with the force of it. He keens, wails, clutching at the edge of the desk as Levi fucks the come out of him with precise, unrelenting thrusts. Doesn’t stop, either, even when Eren is empty and writing from oversensitivity.
Casting aside his penchant for melodramatics, Eren thinks he might actually be on the verge of death. He has always known – hoped, prayed – that he would die by Levi’s hands. Dying by his cock is honestly not a bad alternative at all, and he would be glad to lay down his life, right here, on this desk. Dying with a happy ending, so to speak, which is more than he could ever hope for himself. Definitely more than he deserves.
It is all worth it when he feels a stutter in Levi’s rhythm, getting rattled by two, three more thrusts, hearing a low, uncharacteristically loud groan, and then feeling the uniquely strange but not at all unpleasant sensation of being filled. With Levi’s come, and fuck, it’s almost enough to get Eren hard again.
Despite the fact he is softening, Levi doesn’t make a move to pull out of him yet, neither does he pull away. Instead, he bends over Eren again, pressing his chest to Eren’s back, burying his face in the juncture of Eren’s neck and shoulder. His breaths come in harsh pants, his arms trembling slightly when they snake around Eren’s waist, and Eren revels in the knowledge that he made humanity’s strongest lose composure.
“…I’m sorry.”
The apology doesn’t surprise him, but he meets it with earnest indignance, anyway. “No, what? Why?”
“Shouldn’t’ve been so rough,” comes the unexpectedly soft response, accompanied by the distinct feeling of Levi’s chapped lips dragging along his skin, from his shoulder to his nape to the sensitive skin right beneath his ear.
Knowing reassurances about how much he liked it would get him nowhere when Levi’s already locked his jaw around the belief he was too rough, too brutal, he merely turns his head to catch Levi’s dark eyes – still so dark, recondite and a little apprehensive – and smiles.
“You can make it up to me next time.”
Against all odds, because the universe is not yet done torturing Eren, Levi smiles back. It’s a small, clumsy thing, like he’s forgotten how to do it properly, but it’s still the most beautiful thing Eren’s ever seen.
“Next time.”