Dear courageous (Eruri, Erwin x Levi) EXPLICIT

Part Nine: Beast

Erwin furied through the weeks ahead without Levi, refusing to acknowledge the tectonic loss of him behind the armour of his justness. Zeke Yeager remained their guest as Erwin followed orders to make him welcome for the sake of armistice, though he suspected every ounce of the foreign man's intent as he sniffed and slid nearer and nearer to Levi, easily making himself more obvious than Erwin had ever been free to.

Erwin drank every night now; Petra too, sharing bottles of whiskey across the living room until they were both sick and bleak, glasses tipping sloppy from their hands. Malignant, Erwin had banished Levi's picture into the bitter shadows of his dresser drawer, walling it away tight as his heart. He had worked, struggled, sacrificed his entire life to be here, Commander of the elite Scouting unit. He wasn't about to throw it all away for one man, or anyone for that matter. Levi's expectations were selfish and unfair, he glowered, tipping yet another drink as images of the Captain in his ceremonial uniform filled his brain. Erwin imagined taking his hand, pulling him behind the heavy curtains of the assembly, kissing him until he was flushed and reeling. He thought of holding Levi's hand beneath the regimental dinner table, watching him speak, imagining how his chest would swell as the Captain held them all in awe of his sharpness, his poise.

But that wasn't the reality. It couldn't be. They would never accept Levi and him – accept Erwin this way. They would, would...

Gripping the edge of the bar cart, Erwin kicked his boot as hard as he could into its leg. The glassware rattled and rang, and he roared.

"What is wrong with you?!" shrieked Petra.

Erwin raged back, out of control. "Everything, everything is wrong with me, Petra!"

"Fuck you, Erwin!" Drunk, she grabbed her glass and hurled it at him. It missed, exploding against the wall. "God, I fucking hate you these days!"

That made two of them. Erwin left, slamming the apartment door behind him and stalking down to the stables where he passed out drunk on the bales near where months ago Levi had held him. He hated Levi for doing this to him. He hated himself more. He wanted to die.

Lately Levi had become increasingly hard on the cadets, raising his voice to berate them even while they sat to eat in the mornings. No room was clean enough, no formation sufficiently tight; nothing made him happy. The mood among the team soured, and Armin's glaring eyes always seemed to find Erwin. Zeke was always near Levi now, watching him closely, and then soon, touching – grazes across Levi's side, his shoulders, his hands. Unable to look away, Erwin's mind raced with images of the two of them behind closed doors, the two of them as he and Levi had been, coiled skin to skin, breath on breath, desperate. Then one night after an endless dinner of Zeke's hinting, Levi invited him to his office for a drink, and as Erwin watched the two of them disappear from the hall together his mind split, spilled from his skull as though hewn.

He needed whiskey. He needed numbness, now. Rushing upstairs to the apartment, he froze in place as he swung the door open to a chaos. Every drawer in the apartment hung open, every closet and fissure pulled apart; his belongings heaped over the floor like so much wreckage. Heart slamming against his ribcage, he knew that this was it.

In the bedroom, Petra sat still as a statue on the sheets, a debris of torn envelopes around her, and in the center, Levi's photograph. Erwin stalled in the doorway, sick with terror from his skull to his toes.

She didn't look at him. "How long?" she asked, her voice hollow.

For a moment he thought about lying, about running, about keeping on as he had for the last ten months.

"Since September," he said finally. "Since my injury."

"Are you in love with him?"

Erwin breathed, forced himself to keep breathing. "...Yes."