Author's Note: As a gay individual myself, I can't wait to welcome you all into this story. While my assignment of Erwin's initial str8 partner will likely make you grimace, I promise that it's purposeful. Dive in and ache your chest with us ♥️
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The winds of Paradis were changing. Shifting westward, they hardened their edges cool towards autumn. Lately there was an itch under Erwin's skin he couldn't shake, a creeping he couldn't follow. More than longing, it snaked deeper than his senses, aching the space behind his ribs hollow and dissatisfied. He had tried to feed the feeling full, drown it with whiskey, even bury it in sex; nothing helped. Laying sweating and naked in the dark while his partner Petra sighed and crooned in afterglow, he was still aroused, still empty.
"Baby... Erwin... Do you feel good?"
He hated how he could never seem to answer in time.
"... Of course."
Frustrated to the point of bad temper, he had resorted to walking. He walked at night while Petra slept in his chambers–though they were more shared than strictly his anymore– wandering in laps around the compound or escaping the gates to imprint the grid of the town. Down the empty streets the shadows hovered like slicks of oil over the cobbles, vanishing just as he drew near enough to catch them. He was exhausted; tired of snapping at Jean's minor errors in the field, at Hange's digressions during briefings, at every simple lapse he'd previously entertained with grace and good humour. He was snagging. Turning sharp at the edges. Mean with drought. He only wanted to feel at ease again.
Up on Wall Rose this evening, the wind met him like a shove, howling cold against the broad of his chest. He pushed forward, leaned in, pretending like he was finally getting somewhere. Spotting someone standing near the outpost not far ahead, he quickly recognized his Captain and quickened his pace. Levi's cloak rippled green over the gust, the usual tidy of his black hair straying across his forehead abandoned as wild grass as he looked beyond the wall.
Erwin opened his mouth. "Lev—"
His voice stuck in his throat as suddenly his cheeks prickled, warming unbidden. Something about Levi had snagged at him tonight, wrapping his breath up tight as a fist. The easy confidence of the Captain's slender body, the sureness of his gaze felt like a slap as Erwin watched him, resentment sharp as wild thistles thorning between his ribs. He blushed harder, ashamed. He'd looked at his Captain countless times before and never been envious; if anything, Levi's jaggedness and chronic melancholy reinforced his own suitedness to leadership.
Still, whatever it was he was seeing in Levi now, he was certain he'd never seen before tonight. Even the air around him seemed poised and sure, and that, that Erwin wanted.
The hollow behind his ribs murmured a low drum.
"Erwin."
"Hm?" Erwin blinked as Levi was suddenly before him, lean arms folded across his chest.
"You were staring."
With a clear of his throat, Erwin adjusted himself taller. "Was I?" he said, pulling his gaze away. "I was thinking of something else." Beyond the wall, the conifers juddered their branches in a secret code over the wind.
Levi tipped his face. "Not like you to lose your bearings. Was there something you wanted to say?"
"If I did then I would have said it."
Erwin watched as the whites sprang up around Levi's eyes. Then, lifting a long, black eyebrow, the Captain looked at Erwin in a way he instantly despised; a creeping, itching look that found out the tremor in his lips, his throat, his chest drumming louder.
Invaded, the Commander's pride rushed hot into his ears. "What?" he snapped.
A cold gust lifted their cloaks like bedsheets on a line. "Nothing," said Levi, going smoothly around Erwin along the wall. He waved back an easy salute. "Goodnight, Erwin.."
Erwin's chest held on tight, a catch of oxygen stuck low in his blood like bubbles unable to surface. Pushing forward into the wind he carried on walking in the opposite direction for a while, but soon abandoned the pursuit, whirling back sharp on his heels for headquarters.
It had bothered him the entire day. Levi had the most atrocious interpersonal skills of anyone in his regiment—how had he seen through to Erwin's unease so effortlessly? Standing behind the cloisters that afternoon, the Commander watched as Levi drilled the cadets through a series of ground formations. Was it perhaps because Erwin was a man that the Captain had an upper hand? He certainly tended to be harder on his male subordinates, watching them with a hawklike scrutiny; even now he was razing Eren for a mistake Erwin had seen Sasha make only moments before. There was no doubt Levi had seen it too. Was it because he was... that way?
With a flush, Erwin hurried back to his office. Levi's intimate preferences were no secret, at least amongst the officers. They weren't discriminated against, per se, but they weren't discussed either. Certainly not while Erwin was present. Still, the whole subject made the Commander uncomfortable, like there were ants running beneath his skin. To be gay... he couldn't only imagine how out of control it must feel to discover one was of that sort. And as a soldier, especially one of Levi's rank and calibre, the admission must have been that much more mortifying.
Closing himself into his office, Erwin sat in behind his spread of maps and resumed planning for the next expedition, his leg jostling beneath the desk like the sputter of an uneven flame.
That evening he climbed the endless flights of stairs to the top of Wall Rose again, berating himself with every step. Levi was standing by the outpost, just as Erwin had assured himself he wouldn't be, just as he hoped he would. The hour was the same as yesterday but the sun was already lower in the sky, blinking redshift over the horizon of sharp black pines. The days were narrowing in.
Erwin walked nearer, stepped in beside the Captain, said nothing. A burst of sunset ached the sky fuscia and gold.
"Are you restless these days?" asked Levi, not turning his head.
Erwin did the same, holding his gaze out long. "Must I be?"
"You've made the climb up here twice now without operational necessity. I've never known you to do anything without a reason."
Forcing down a blush with sheer will, Erwin cooled his tone to a frost. "Are you here so often?"
"Often enough to know you're not."
Erwin felt the Captain's gaze turn onto him like a torch, making his spine jut up taller. Looking down on Levi from his full height, Erwin replied, "Do you not trust the Garrison?"
Levi snorted and looked out again. "The military's last, drunken line of defence? No, I do not."
There it was. The Captain was up here doing reconnaissance of his own volition. Erwin knew it; Levi could never manage to keep his nose out of anything once his ego had locked on. He was like a dog with a nose too sharp for its own good. Even if he had sniffed through Erwin once, his senses would only ever get him in trouble.
"Levi, you are not authorized to carry out any inter-military operations beyond your assignment, especially those calling into question the efficacy of another unit. You should know this—"
"—Erwin," interrupted Levi, looking at the Commander with a creeping smirk, "it was only a joke."
Clapping his mouth shut, Erwin seethed with embarrassment, momentarily considering whether or not he could fabricate grounds enough to slap the Captain with a citation.
But Levi was already looking past the wall again, his eyes low and dim, soft as the clouds turning indigo under the shell of oncoming night. "I come up here to remind myself what I already have," he said.
Erwin turned the sole of his boot over the stones beneath. "Safety?"
"Safety, certainly," echoed the Captain. "But more than that." He looked at Erwin again, his dim eyes even dimmer under a resigned upturn of his lips. "It reminds me not to be greedy. Or hope for too much."
Hope. Duty. These were the central pillars of being a soldier, and Erwin knew very well that Levi possessed both. He had demonstrated both over and over in battle. Looking at Levi now, though, Erwin understood that the hope the Captain spoke of had nothing to do with the military. For the first time since they'd known one another, Levi had revealed a gap, a socket dark and intimate as a missing tooth. He couldn't have done so unknowingly - so why? Why was he—?
The drone of hunger beneath Erwin's skin burst into a furnace, ravenous. That look in Levi's eyes. The fissure. He wanted to put himself there, force his hunger inside, make it all go quiet and and black as midnight. This was madness. He felt mad, out of his mind. His heart was drumming again, pushing on his ribs, urging him closer.
"Levi—"
"It's late, Commander. Won't Petra be waiting?"
Erwin flinched invisibly, as though his insides had been doused in river water. Commander...? Since when did Levi call him—
Sewing on a deft smile, Erwin tugged the lapels of his jacket neater. "You're right," he said.
"Goodnight then," said Levi, lifting his face toward the first stars poking through the dark.
Erwin watched him for a moment, then stepped back from the edge. "Goodnight. Captain."
Following the wall back the way he'd come, Erwin gripped tighter to the railings as he descended the stairs, certain that the steps beneath his feet were unsteadier than when he'd climbed them before.
Something is creeping in the forest. I steal forward in the dark, holding my breath, my eyes darting between the trees. A flash of movement. I jump, my pulse falling as I spot a small red fox. It looks at me, then turns and runs deeper into the woods. Frightened, I follow.
It leads me further, deeper and darker as the trees swell their trunks gigantic, stretching up into forever. The darkness here is close and murky, my boots crunching deep over grass and deadfall. I've lost the fox's trail. I stop, spin a circle, my heart beating louder in my ears. There's a rustle to my left; something is coming, racing through the leaves. A rush, then a strike. A tight and dreadful squeeze.
A monstrous snake has me in its coils, thick and smooth, black and gold. Strung upside down like meat to be butchered, I hang, gasping.
I see myself coming towards me, my broad form both alien and too familiar, striding tall and loose. Arrogant. I come right up below myself, stare myself in the eye as I hang serpentine and helpless.
"What is this!" I choke.
It's not me anymore. Instead, I'm looking into the smirking face of Captain Levi.
He grabs my chin, gives my face a shake, his touch bursting my skin into shivers. "Why would I spoil the surprise?" he grins. He seals his mouth upside-down over mine, kissing me hot. Hard. Smooth as scales.
The world flips, inverts, rolls north-to-south as my back presses into the cold blue-tile wall of my apartment bathroom. Sitting on the edge of the porcelain tub, my toes curl under the water. Pleasure. It blooms like a current from my hips, throbbing wild up my cock, stiff and swallowed by a wet, stroking heat. I touch his black hair, peel it back soaking from his face. Tongue out, he teases my head until it twitches and leaks, then swallows me so deep I shake, curl, grip onto his shoulders. He looks up at me.
Levi. His eyes glitter awful with knowing.
"Erwin!" Petra was shaking him.
Shooting upright from dreaming, Erwin grabbed out for her hands. "What—what's wrong??"
"Hey, whoa... You just cried out – were you having a nightmare?"
"Oh." Erwin fell back against the pillows with a gust, dragging a large palm down his face, damp with sweat. "No. I'm not sure." His mind was sticky with sleep. Spinning. There had been forest... a snake. Levi's eyes flashed suddenly across Erwin's mind, staring up from between the thick of his legs, and a shudder bolted sudden up his spine, hip to nape.
"Oh my god, baby, you're shaking!" Petra grabbed around Erwin's chest. She moved her body closer, wrapping her leg across him in a swaddle.
Erwin's hardness jumped as it was grazed by her thigh and he cringed, blushing naked and mortified in the dark.
"Mmmm..." she murmured, sliding her hand down the length of his abdomen. "Was it a good dream..?"
Guilt burst across him, his skin recoiling instantly at her touch, and he snatched at her wrist. "I'll be right back," he said, and planting a fast kiss on the top of her head he swung his hips away and out of the bed, escaping the rumple of covers as he rushed for the bathroom.
Latching the door behind him, Erwin exhaled, bracing his upper body over the sink. The memory of Levi's mouth lipped at him again, tugging low in his balls, and his erection twitched against the cold porcelain sink. His heart pounded. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been this hard; arousal like hot oil swimming through his blood, blurring his reason to raw hunger. Turning the tap to full, he covered himself in noise and sat at the edge of the tub, in disbelief as he gripped the edge with one hand and his leaking shaft in the other, beginning to stroke.
"You're off, Commander Erwin," interrupted Shadis in the middle of briefing some days later.
Erwin jerked his hand over the map of Karanes, bristling at the challenge in front of his officers. "I beg your pardon?"
"You not sleepin? Drinkin too much? Actually—" With a noisy exhale Shadis lifted himself from his chair, spinning his head around the room. "Where's your whiskey at?"
"It's just behind you, Commander," clipped Petra, her defensiveness on Erwin's behalf only making him spine more.
"I'm quite alright, Shadis, thank you."
Shadis laughed as he pulled a full decanter up from the bureau against the wall. "Well you sure haven't been into this! Christ, maybe you oughta drink more."
"You do look tired, Commander," piped Hange.
"See?"
Erwin blinked, baffled by exactly where he'd lost control of this meeting. Unconsciously his eyes darted to Levi, sitting reclined with his arms and legs folded in typical fashion, looking deadly bored. While the Captain's demeanour bordered on impertinence most days, this morning it was a mercy.
"He's fine," huffed Petra.
"Petra."
"Trouble at home?" Shadis eyed between Erwin and Petra, jiggling his glass behind her back.
Petra spun in her chair with a snarl. "Shadis, so help me—"
"Petra." Erwin flushed to his toes.
Jean threw up his hands. "Oh my god, can we just do the briefing?"
"If the Commander's up for it." Shadis made a face over the rim of his drink, and Levi dropped his head back against the wall.
Clapping his hands over the desk, Erwin silenced the room. "Enough! I am perfectly well, thank you all. I haven't been sleeping my best, but that is neither here nor there."
"Is it the syphilis?"
Jean snorted then dropped his chin, ducking the blistering stare Erwin turned on Shadis.
"Just some strange dreams, Shadis, thank you."
The room settled, and Erwin took a long inhale as he straightened, preparing to resume.
"What kind of dreams?" blurted Hange.
"Obviously nightmares."
"You've been having nightmares?" Petra frowned.
".. syphilis nightmares."
Erwin was slipping. What the hell was happening? "Not nightmares," he fumbled. "Just.. dreams."
"About what?"
Erwin's eyes darted again to Levi who was watching him now, his black gaze narrow and paring beneath the skin.
Erwin looked away. "Nothing," he replied. Then, "Snakes."
Petra and Hange touched glances. "Oh. Okay." The truth sank naked and unremarkable between them, deflating the room.
This had to be their worst meeting yet.
Hange tapped her lip then, saying, "I remember reading that the ancient Paradisians believed that snakes came as omens of transformation. Or death—" She stopped herself. "Ah..."
A shadow walked cold through the room.
Turning back to the map, Erwin struck it sharp with his finger. "Here is where we'll split. Hange, Petra, and Jean, you'll follow the treeline east towards the Wall. Moblit and Levi.. with me."
The land rumbled, threatened as the squad parted at the woods, and Erwin put the second team's faces out of his mind as he, Levi and Moblit charged forward into the trees. The air turned quiet and cool, the drumming of hooves and the panting of the horses all they could hear with the strain of their ears.
"Shit!" yelled Levi as they rounded the first bend of Hawthornes, reining a hard left around the Titan that appeared just ahead. His horse's shoulder slammed into Moblit's mare as he leapt up onto his lines. She bolted, the whites of her eyes flaring wide as gibbous moons, throwing Moblit off into a crash of brush.
"Get up!" Erwin shouted at Moblit as he triggered his grapples, lifting into the trees and leaving his horse to turn and run. Ahead, Levi was already slashing into the Titan's thick, pink neck, the air erupting sour with blood.
"Three more north!" shouted Erwin, riding his lines towards them. Up again, Moblit came flying behind him as Levi stayed low.
There was a flash of skin as a monstrous arm came barrelling out from the cover of the trees, slamming at Erwin's thigh. He went down, a blinding pain exploding across his back.
Then there was dark.
Sunlight stabbed at Erwin's eyes, shifting hazy through the canopy above.
"Commander?" Moblit's face was over his, hands shaking at his chest.
Erwin's mind was a fog. He went to sit up. Nothing happened.
...What?
"Why can't I move..." he mumbled numbly.
Moblit looked away from him. Anxious.
"We'll have to carry him until we're out of the trees," said a voice, thin and hard. "We can lay him down on the knoll."
That voice...Levi's voice. Erwin exhaled. He must be safe. Sinking down, the Commander fell heavy back into the shadows.
Erwin roused with a groan. He hurt.
"Levi..." he said, mumbling the nearest word on his mind.
"I'm here, Erwin."
Ah. The sky stretched blue across Erwin's eyes as he unstuck them, broken only by the cloaked green of Levi's back. Grass poked at his palms.
"Take it easy," Levi said. "Moblit's gone back to Rose to fetch the field medic."
Erwin's legs were wooden as logs. With a grit he attempted to shift, but nothing, nothing was moving.
"You got thrown pretty hard into the trees," said Levi, too calm. "Gotta get you checked out."
Erwin's eyes darted, rushing his senses down his body. He could feel his legs, he decided with some relief, just not use them... Resisting the urge to panic, he steadied his breathing, dragging his focus back.
"What about the Titans?"
"Forest's cleared. Couldn't let you get gobbled. Just rest."
Yes. Rest. Tensing would only make things worse. Ordering his body to relax, Erwin glued his gaze to the sky, watching it sink and swirl blue into blue like a mirage. Blue like his shower tiles, and suddenly the memory of his dream flashed through his mind, as unwillingly he saw himself lean to scoop Levi's wet, black hair away from his face. Porcelain under his palms, he felt Levi's mouth around him; hot and wet. Dangerous.
With an involuntary jerk Erwin squeezed his eyes shut tighter and clenched his fists, militantly refusing the rush of excitement over his hips. Gritting a silent exhale across his teeth, he focused all his will on breathing. In and out, in and out, slow, slow, slower.
Soon enough, he was back asleep.
He awoke again tight. The sun had moved into the west, staring bold through the squint of his eyes. Though his back throbbed hot and mean as a poker, he was relieved to find his legs responsive again, taking the chance to point and flex his toes in his boots. Levi turned his head.
"Improvement?" asked Levi, and it occurred to Erwin that the Captain was sitting much closer than he had been before, their hips practically side-by-side.
"Ngh," winced the Commander, dragging his elbows beneath him. "I think I can just about sit up now—"
"Nope." Levi's hand planted heavy at the centre of Erwin's chest. "You're staying down until they look at you."
Retreating to the grass, Erwin's blood ached, desperate for Levi to remove his hand.
"That's right.. good man." Levi ruffled his hand over Erwin's chest strap before turning back around, and Erwin clenched his jaw in tight, his entire body lighting up like a spark of coal. This couldn't be more absurd, he berated himself, grass roots snapping under the dig of his fingers. He was behaving like a goddamn teenager; or at least his body was.
Levi withdrew a cigarette from his jacket breast and lit it. "This might be the most important job of my military career," he said, exhaling a narrow of smoke across his lips.
"What is?"
"Being in sole charge of the Commander's body."
Erwin's pulse leapt even higher.
"Entirely responsible while he lies broken and useless on the ground." Levi sucked, then smirked another cloud of smoke over his shoulder.
"Hardly broken," Erwin scoffed, looking elsewhere.
"Just useless." Levi tapped his cigarette over the grass and lifted it up to his lips again, pausing. "No retort?"
Sighing, Erwin unfurled his palms to the sky. "I suppose am useless so long as I'm not allowed up. So, no."
"Hmh." Sitting forward again, Levi finished off his smoke and stubbed it into the ground. "How's the pain?" he asked.
"It's fine."
Looking over, Levi reversed his hips toward Erwin's shoulders and leaned in close, too close, slipping his hands around both sides of the Commander's neck. "Do you have feeling back in your fingers? Any tingling?" Gently, firmly, he fingered the back of Erwin's neck up and down, feeling along the vertebrae. Shivers exploded across Erwin's skin.
"Erwin," Levi repeated, "any tingling?"
Yes. Everywhere.
"No. I can feel them fine." After wiggling his fingers over the ground to demonstrate, Erwin hid them deeper into the grass. He was shaking. He needed Levi to stop, now.
"Does that hurt?" Levi paused his hands, rocking his fingers at the base of Erwin's skull. His fingers were hot. Or perhaps that was Erwin's own skin.
Erwin pressed his eyes shut. Blinded himself. "No."
"You're flushed. I can stop."
"No—Unless you're done. Then..."
Levi withdrew his touch. "Well, at least we know you can turn..."
Feeling more out of control than he had in his entire life, Erwin stared into the dark behind his eyelids, praying for the sound of Moblit returning with the medic. He wanted more, more fingers, more palm, more pressure sinking down. He hated this. Hated himself.
Suddenly there was a hand on his thigh and Erwin gasped, ripping his eyes open. Squeezing, Levi trailed his palm upwards, trapping Erwin's frantic gaze in his.
"What are you doing?" Erwin scraped.
Levi was watching him, his eyes narrowed in dark and obscure. "An experiment," he replied, sliding his hand further, higher up Erwin's thigh.
Blood was rushing Erwin's lower body, dangerously close to revealing his shame. In a burst of fury he twisted up, snatching hard at Levi's wrist. "Levi, stop!" His spine screamed, muscles trembling.
"Oi, your back," said Levi. "Lay down."
"Who the fuck do you think you're talking to—"
Erwin faltered as Levi's hand closed in, sliding his fingers long and gentle between his own. A helpless breath fell past his lips. Why... Why was Levi doing this to him, another man? Though Erwin had subtly acknowledged Levi's sexual preference over their years together, none of that should have mattered because he himself was with a woman. He wasn't... wasn't like that.
Levi tapped his index at Erwin's grip still around his other wrist. "Let go, Erwin. Now." Above the Commander his face was pale and smooth, his eyes dark as the steam from a river at midnight.
With shaking fingers Erwin released him, collapsing his spine back to the ground as Levi's palm drifted higher towards his crotch. "Levi... stop, please." His voice was breaking.
"That's what you really want? For me to stop?"
Erwin's whole body shivered, racing unbridled. "...I—"
In one deft motion Levi slipped his palm up over Erwin's hips, capturing him through his pants, the bulge of Erwin's hardness trapped firmly under his hand.
"Thought so."
A sound between a groan and a cry split from Erwin's throat. His whole body jerked, curling up under the Captain's grip.
"Lay. Down."
Erwin fell back, the wail of his injured back nothing compared to the humiliation flooding every cell of his body hot and throbbing. He wanted to die. Even to weep.
Levi squeezed his fingers tighter around Erwin's, stroked him with his other hand. "Ohh, Erwin.."
Eyes cemented shut, Erwin thought for an instant about choking him. Silencing him for good, burying this moment so deep underground that it would vanish from existence. Levi was a subordinate. He could do it. There were places in the woods where no one dared tread. He could write a letter to Pixis, he could make it all vanish...
The weight of Levi's straddle came in fast as suddenly the Captain's mouth closed hard over Erwin's, driving his head back into the grass. Hot... His lips were hot. Firm and smooth. His tongue... So wet, it was unreal.
Like a flood, Erwin came undone. With a groan his hands rushed to Levi's hips, hungrily, pulling hard against hard, parting his lips greedy to Levi's, giving way to invasion. Eyes open he looked at his Captain, devouring the sight of his black lashes, his cheekbones, his raven hair falling around their faces like a shade. Levi looked back at him and withdrew his kiss, thumbing down Erwin's lower lip as he slid his fingers into the Commander's mouth. Split desire from mind, Erwin sucked his fingers greedily, holding Levi's wrist tight as he slid his tongue down to the base of the man's knuckles, his cock straining ravenous against the straddle of Levi's legs. Pulling Erwin's hand down between his hips, Levi pushed his own bulge into Erwin's palm.
Unable to restrain himself, Erwin moaned like a woman, his neck arching over the grass, muscles throbbing. Levi's hand wrapped the Commander's throat, pressing his pulse louder under the grip of his fingers as he pushed his cock harder into Erwin's hand. "You like that, don't you?" he rasped, his breath hot over Erwin's jaw, making him jerk.
"G–od!" Erwin gasped, his mind thick from lack of air. Every cell in his body rose, lifted, juddered chaotic with desire.
"Shit," Levi said suddenly. Releasing Erwin's throat, he clapped his hand over the Commander's mouth, drawing up tall as he listened to something in the distance. "That's them." Jumping to his feet he walked a few steps toward the sound, and Erwin craned his neck looking with him, blushing as he adjusted his noticeable erection.
"Lay down," Levi snapped.
Erwin did, breathing hard.
Levi raised a signalling hand as the sound of the cart carrying Moblit and the medic drew closer. "Here!" he called. Then, low over his shoulder to Erwin, he said, "I'll come to you tonight."
Erwin's heart thumped louder than the roar of his body. "—What!"
"Make sure you're alone."
"No. Levi you can't—"
But the Captain was already gone to meet them.