13thcommander | Labrynthum Inbox

A kiss is exactly what he wants. Something soft and grateful comes into his eyes as he leans into that hand and into that kiss, and it's the most perfect one they've shared, just as the next will be more perfect than this.

Had we but world and time enough

They have both. It isn't the world they know, but it's enough, and every day is likely more time than they'll ever have, which so often both feels like more than and never enough. But in this moment, it is.

Levi takes his time with the kiss, lets everything outside this room fall away as his hands press to Erwin's skin again, memorizing the sensation of his warmth and solidity. Sightlessly he retraces some paths he'd found before, palms shifting a little wider now to push fabric out of the way. But as his left hand comes up to Erwin's right shoulder, he pauses, waiting to see if Erwin will stop him and take over. If not, he'll continue, sliding the shirt and empty sleeve away to let it fall behind that broad back. The other hand will do the same, leaving the garment to hang from the crook of Erwin's elbow until he's ready to finish the rest.

All the while, Levi never stops kissing him. Soft, lingering meetings of lips, each like a little, unspoken promise. Only here. Only now. Only this.

Finished with his task, he shifts closer, neatly slotting their hips together. It's not possible to tell if there's any signs of physical interest in him just yet, but he settles his left hand at the side of Erwin's neck, fingertips sliding against the tingly softness of his undercut. Levi finally tears himself away from Erwin's lips long enough to trail his own up towards his ear and mutter lowly:

"Tell me a poem, Erwin."

When Levi's hand reaches his right shoulder and pauses, Erwin moves with it, helping Levi push his shirt off his shoulder. He's not embarrassed of his stump; not here, not with Levi. When they're together like this, Erwin swears he can feel his vanished arm, like nothing ever happened to it, and he wraps it around Levi's back. He knows it's an illusion and it's something his mind has conjured on its own, but it still feels like it's there.

Levi slides onto his lap and Erwin groans softly against his lips; Levi is putting pressure on his cock again and the weight is immense and teasing. He keeps his own hips still, though; Levi wants to lead the charge today, and Erwin is letting him. He's doing wonderfully so far--the man has a real knack for edging, it turns out--and Erwin is going to see where this all leads.

He laughs when Levi asks for a poem, breathy and disbelieving, and slides his hand from Levi's cheek to behind his head. Erwin moves so that his mouth is beside Levi's ear, and whispers into it.

"Coming together
it is easier to work
after our bodies
meet
paper and pen
neither care nor profit
whether we write or not
but as your body moves
under my hands
charged and waiting
we cut the leash
you create me against your thighs
hilly with images
moving through our word countries
my body
writes into your flesh
the poem
you make of me.

Touching you I catch midnight
as moon fires set in my throat
I love your flesh into blossom
I made you
and take you made
into me."

It's a new poem he read here, and memorised immediately. He hopes Levi likes it.

The words seem to alight onto his skin as Erwin speaks, written in the low, velvet tone of his voice. It prickles pleasurably along his spine, tingling at the base of his neck and out to his fingertips and he presses them in harder where they hold. Warm breath caresses against his ear, spirals over his neck and a shiver flutters down his back, unfurling like wings.

They're pressed so close now, chest to chest, heart to heart, and as Erwin holds him with just one arm, Levi could almost swear he can feel the other curling around his back, enveloping him in their whole embrace. He has never known a place safer or more peaceful than this.

Although perhaps a bit less peaceful now, as everything together seems to set his senses alight in a way he's never experienced before, had only had a faint inkling of in the kitchen earlier when Erwin had set lips to his throat. Heat seems to ripple into his veins like fire catching kindling, and as Erwin finishes the poem Levi exhales a low, shuddering breath. Moon fires in his throat indeed.

I made you, he'd said, and Levi feels his heart answer: you did. This is the man who had taken him out of the darkness and gave him sunlight. This is the man who had looked at him and had seen more than a gutter rat and a criminal and given him real purpose, who could envision a future Levi couldn't even begin to comprehend but could do nothing but be compelled to follow. This is the man who gave him a place and acceptance and, unfathomably, love.

His breaths come a little heavier now, thighs flexing as he seems to try to press even closer, molding himself against Erwin as though he could be taken made into him that way. Cheek to cheek, he turns his head just enough to make sure his lips are at Erwin's ear in in response.

"Not bad," he breathes, his voice rougher than before, "husband."

Hot kisses follow, trailing along Erwin's jaw back to his lips. Levi's not any more hurried than before, but there's a distinct increase in pressure and heat that's never been previously present.

It's probably safe to say that he liked it.

Oh no, what has Erwin done? What has he created? Is Levi a poetrysexual now?

No, actually, that's fine. Erwin's got a lot more where that came from.

He laughs softly at Levi's reaction, but his breath hitches when Levi calls him husband. Erwin has been tossing that word around left and right, using it whenever he can, but this might be the first time he's heard Levi use it. It sounds different when it comes from Levi, more weighted with connotation and meaning. It sends little ripples of heat up and down Erwin's spine, and his hand shifts from Levi's face to the small of his back (only pausing to shake his shirt off and let it fall aside), pressing him against Erwin's chest.

"Had we but world enough, and time,
Loving you, my husband, would be no crime..."

There's no need to recite the rest of it. Erwin knows Levi will understand what he means.

Erwin likely will never fully understand the power of just the sound of his voice. It's deep and rich and just soaks into Levi's core, reaching all the way through him. It always has. Levi could listen to him recite the most inane bullshit for hours (and has, sometimes, considering some of the things that they manage to find in the library here), and would be perfectly content (or, admittedly, asleep, but soundly resting). He manages to put so many different meanings into just the subtle changes in the way he says his name, and Levi understands every one implicitly.

Those words curl around his heart, the only things containing it, and Levi just sinks into Erwin, arms looping around his neck and toes curling at the heated press of skin to skin. A soft noise looses from the back of his throat, as he just kisses him thoroughly, hunger slowly building with each one.

He can still feel Erwin's need beneath him - Levi certainly hasn't forgotten about that, even if he still hasn't quite decided on a strategy yet. But after a few moments, he starts to shift and slowly roll his hips against that hardness, bracing himself on Erwins shoulders for a little leverage.

While Erwin is aware of Levi liking the sound of his voice, he has never realised just how much he likes it. He knows he has the power to get Levi to relax, and even fall asleep sometimes, just by talking, but he will likely never quite understand how it affects Levi on other levels. To him, it's just his voice.

Which manages to go up an octave or so when Levi starts rolling his hips forward, pressing against him. Erwin can't help the breathy little yelp that escapes, a sound decidedly less sexy than his poetry recitation. He's still very eager and very turned on, and getting that direct pressure is like a cool drink on a hot day. His hand falls to Levi's thigh and grips, holding there so he doesn't try to yank Levi up against him again.

That's precisely it - it's Erwin's voice. No one else could ever have quite the same effect on him. Of that, Levi is certain.

He moves, slow, deliberate, leaving butterfly kisses on Erwin's throat, pressing his lips over a scar and feeling the pulse there. From then until now, he has followed him, in search of a future that only Erwin seemed to be able to see. Neither of them could have foreseen that they would land here, or any place like it. Perhaps they wouldn't have guessed, wouldn't have dared to imagine they would end up here, like this. Only in their most-secret hearts, and even then...

His hands slide over heated skin, smoothing over Erwin's broader chest, around the curve of shoulders. The fingertips of his left hand skim just above the jagged edges of Erwin's right arm, his gaze distracted with more kisses and grazes of teeth. Levi isn't entirely sure what is welcome when it comes to the injury, so he skips past it and back to his chest, exploring and tracing downward.

After a few moments, if Erwin doesn't resume his own touches, Levi will pull back, concerned, and a little confused.

"What's wrong?"

It's for the best that Levi doesn't touch Erwin's stump. He's one of the few people who could without advance warning, but now is not the time. Erwin doesn't know if he'll ever reach a point where he'll be able to view the stump as something worthy of love and affection, but that point certainly isn't now. Him touching it would also ruin the illusion, fragmentary and only in Erwin's head as it is, that he still has both arms and can hold Levi with both at once.

Erwin laughs a little when Levi pulls back and shakes his head. "You're doing too well." He leans back in, nudging Levi gently with his nose and kissing him at the corner of his mouth. "You keep grinding on me like that and this is going to be over fast."

Is Erwin enjoying being edged? Yes, maybe ~~a little~~ ~~A LOT~~ definitely. He's trying to keep things in his pants and go at Levi's pace, but it's getting progressively more challenging.

It's not the injury that's worthy of love and affection, it's Erwin, and Levi knows that he still complicated feelings about it and probably always will. That's fine, but if there's any worry in Erwin that it somehow makes him less, Levi wants to banish that.

"...oh," he says, perhaps a little awkwardly, shifting back. He feels a little at a standstill. Wasn't that kind of the point?

Levi thinks a moment, hands splayed wide on Erwin's chest, just settled there. The bruises from the maneuver gear have long faded from his body, though some permanent marks and roughened skin remain. He traces one such spot idly with the pad of one finger, back and forth, and finally seems to come to a decision as his gaze travels back up to Erwin's.

"Lie back." And he accompanies the words with a little push to Erwin's chest.

"I want you to be having a good time too." Erwin lies back without complaint, but feels the need to explain himself as he lowers down to the mattress. "This has been all about me so far."

Is he too hung up on dicks? Yeah, probably. Erwin learned about sex in a certain way, and the fact that Levi hasn't responded to him in the way he expects is baffling. He doesn't want this all to be for his benefit only!

Levi sweeps his gaze pointedly over Erwin's naked chest and torso, eyes returning to his face as he cocks his head in a way that looks almost challenging.
"What makes you think I'm not?"

The man he's followed for years now, as bright and beautiful as the sun is half undressed on the bed before him, his lips are swelled softly with kisses and his hair lightly mussed already. Erwin has given him so much already - a purpose beyond mere survival, a place at his side, bathed in light. He built him up, gave him wings and let him be surrounded by people who didn't see him as just a violent gutter rat. He's lost an arm, risked his own life for the whole of the Survey Corps and will probably turn the world completely on its head one day.

And after all of that, Erwin gave Levi the remaining pieces of himself, to cherish and carry, and to allow at least some part of him to be loved.

Which is so much more than just dicks, even when it comes to sex, as far as he's concerned.

He slides his palms down over Erwin's chest, then up again, tracing, feeling the rise and fall of his breath. His thumbs circle slowly over dark nipples, teasing briefly before continuing upward again, where he cups his palms to Erwin's face, leans up to take over the whole of his vision, and kisses him.

Maybe Erwin will understand all of this someday, but the way Levi feels about him is a permanent blind spot. He doesn't think he did anything all that spectacular; he found someone who could be a valuable asset, attained that asset, then trained him up and made him a Survey Corps member. Simple, really. And then, somewhere along the line, Levi lost his mind and decided he loved Erwin. Erwin knows that part is true--Levi isn't nearly a good enough liar to pull it off if it weren't--but the whys and hows of it will always elude him.

Levi sees sunshine where Erwin sees a monster, and that's not something likely to change.

Erwin still doesn't quite understand what Levi is getting out of this, but he's not willing to argue. He simply looks up at him, eyes wide and vaguely confused, but he nods. All right, Levi; he trusts you. If you say you're getting something out of this, Erwin will believe you.

Erwin lifts his head a little to watch Levi's hands on his chest. He hisses in a sharp breath when Levi touches his nipples; he'd never thought about them as being sensitive before, but that's another mystery solved today. As it turns out, they are, and tighten to attention under Levi's fingertips.

When Levi goes in for a kiss, Erwin meets him gladly, his cheeks flushing faintly under the intimacy of both Levi's hands on his face. His hand moves from Levi's thigh to the small of his back, pressing him in against Erwin's abdomen, and damn if it doesn't feel like Erwin's ghostly right arm is moving again to join its partner in holding Levi.

He didn't lose his mind. Erwin has been the only thing he's ever been so sure about in his entire chaotic existence. Levi tethered himself to his cause, but through it came to understand the man. It isn't just that Erwin turned him into more than he could have hoped to be on his own, but also that Erwin has never once degraded him, never derided his origins or his intelligence or his experience. Even in those early days when Levi acted out, still had so much difficulty navigating a new set of seemingly inexplicable and unspoken social rules, Erwin never once made him feel lesser. After scraping to survive in the bottom dregs of society for most of his life, how could Levi not love him for that?

Their bond didn't spring inexplicably from nowhere.

The kiss is slow, but heated. He strokes thumbs over Erwin's cheekbones, delves deeply into his mouth with tongue and teeth, as though he could fill him up with all that he means to him from between his lips. The hand on his back is wide and warm, and Levi allows himself to be pressed close, making a soft noise at the back of his throat to encourage more touches to his skin.

Sadly, Erwin lacks the number of hands to do what he really wants, which is to touch Levi everywhere, all at once, to cover his skin with Erwin's hands and hold him close at the same time. He'll settle for keeping his hand pressed on Levi's back, drawing him in close and then holding him there.

The kiss and Levi's hands on his face has Erwin's head swimming. He's never been kissed with such intent, with such purpose, before, and he's the one that's forced to break it. He has to come up for air, and he laughs, breathless and a little giddy.

"And here I thought I'd be the one teaching you." Turns out that Levi's very astute physical instincts apply here as well!

A frown flickers over his face. "I told you I know how it works..."

It isn't all that complicated to figure out, really, is it? Even if he doesn't end up taking it up the ass (definitely not something he's prepared to do right now anyway, for a dozen different reasons) or even letting Erwin get him off, there's still many more options to be had.

And if there's one thing that Levi has learned in these last few months, it's how Erwin likes to be kissed. He's not starting from scratch like some kind of sheltered, clueless virgin.

His hands slide down to just rest on Erwin's chest as he sits back, brows drawn and feeling a little self-conscious.

"Why, what were you expecting?"

For the record, Erwin has no intentions of putting anything up Levi's ass, certainly not today or any time in the near future. His own ass, on the other hand, is fair game, now and always. But they'll get to that discussion later.

Erwin tilts his head when Levi sits up. How is it that it's Erwin who keeps making stupid mistakes today and putting his foot in his mouth? Perhaps this whole interaction has been evidence of how, while he's no virgin, Erwin has also never been in a relationship. This navigating of emotions is still new to him, and his usual silver tongue speaking skills have abandoned him.

"I thought I'd be the one leading things." His hand slides to Levi's hip and gently caresses there. "I should have known better. Whatever you try, you excel at it. I don't know why I thought this would be different."

...something about those words hits uncomfortably.

At first, he's not really sure what it is. The frown already half-set into his brow deepens, gray gaze shifting away. Sure, many physical skills come easy to him, like an intuition that extends throughout the whole of his body. But the implication that he would of course be naturally good at sex has him shifting awkwardly.

Perhaps he inherited some of her skills.

The memory tightens his chest briefly, but Levi attempts to dismiss it with an impatient huff. Of course he knows (he knows) that Erwin hadn't meant anything like that.

"You could be leading," he intones dryly, shifting his focus back to Erwin. "Seems like you got confused when I didn't want you touching my dick right away, though. What's the matter, can't figure out how else to have fun?"

Erwin would never! He knows how Levi feels about his mother, and he's pieced together enough details to know about her profession. It wasn't terribly difficult; there are only so many things a woman alone can do in the underground. He has wondered if she had the same strange, powerful strength as Levi, but he has to assume she didn't, or didn't know how to access it.

Later, Erwin will realise how his words could have been misconstrued, and he'll be kicking himself. A fancy new soap is going to appear in their bathroom in a couple of days, as a mute apology.

For now, though, all he hears is Levi saying you could be leading. Suddenly, Erwin is sitting up in one fluid motion, his arm going around Levi's waist and clamping down. In the same movement, Erwin uses his legs to push up from the mattress and roll. He's on top now, with his elbow braced on the bed near Levi's head, filling his vision and with his weight pressing down on Levi's legs.

"I've got some ideas." The first of which involves dropping his head to kiss along the column of Levi's throat.

Levi has also more than likely told Erwin about his mother directly - it's not something he's ashamed of, for himself or for her; she'd done what she needed to to survive. As far as he's concerned, sex work is just another sort of occupation, one that some willingly choose and others do out of desperation, like other things. She had been an ordinary person; perhaps if she'd had a moment of awakening in the way that her son and brother did, she would still be alive, and things would be different...

He'll never know.

But wherever that heightened intuition came from, Levi feels it prickle just before Erwin moves suddenly and rolls them both over. He tenses, managing to fight off the instinct to dodge the grab of the arm around his waist because it's Erwin and there's no killing intent behind any of it. It still sends a jolt through his body, his pulse spiking, although from adrenaline or from arousal, it's impossible to say.

And for a few of those rapid heartbeats, Levi stares up at him in a quiet anticipation, back pressed to the soft mattress, legs pinned beneath Erwin's heavier weight. His hands are still flat against that broad chest, though not pushing away. Briefly, he wets his lips, mouth suddenly dry, waiting-

...and then warm lips are against his neck again, sending tendrils of pleasure all throughout his veins. A shuddering breath breaks free when Erwin's mouth passes over his pulse, fingertips pressing against warm skin before one hand finds its way into soft blonde hair, and his chin tilts upward in implicit permission for more. Dark eyelashes flutter against pale cheeks.

"Good-..." he manages, voice rough. Such a simple thing, yet it seems to be having quite the effect. "...about time."

Getting too physical with Levi always carries an inherent risk; Erwin has seen him lash out at other people enough times, and been on the receiving end of it a time or two himself, to not understand the danger. As far as he's concerned, the danger is half the fun, along with the fact that he knows and trusts Levi won't harm him. Dancing on the edge of getting thrown across a room is hot, and no one will ever convince Erwin otherwise.

He lifts his head just a little, his mouth still close to Levi's skin, just above one of the pulse points in his neck. "Can you put the pillows under my right shoulder, please?"

Being on top when you only have one arm to support yourself is difficult, and the pillows will help Erwin keep his balance.

Meanwhile, he turns his attention back to Levi's throat, trailing long, soft kisses down the length of it. When he gets to the base of Levi's neck, where it joins his shoulder, the kisses get harder, more insistent. Erwin isn't biting, but odds are Levi is going to have some bruises there come tomorrow morning.

For Erwin, it's knowing that Levi could and doesn't, and for Levi it's ceding that vulnerability, allowing him close, that he still has the strength to move him, to use his heavier weight to hold him in place. It's nothing he couldn't break free of if he truly wanted, but it's the fact that he doesn't want to is the thrill.

He breathes, and manages to shift and grope around enough to get the extra pillows stacked for Erwin to rest against, feeling perhaps a little guilty in an odd way that he's in an uncomfortable position - but it was Erwin who had brought them here, so Levi isn't going to fuss about it. The man could just fully collapse on him, for all he cares right now.

One palm rests at the back of Erwin's neck, fingers absently swathing through the short fuzz of his undercut, the sensation sweet and grounding even as his mouth continues along his throat. Levi shivers hard, a stifled groan eliciting from the back of this throat when those kisses turn into something harder. If Erwin does try to set teeth into skin, he'll flinch and try to push him back with a hiss of not that. But otherwise, a flush is creeping over pale skin once again, his breath coming in slower, heavier pants.

Give it a little more time, and Erwin probably will just collapse on Levi. For now, though, the pillows help, and he breathes a word of thanks against Levi's neck. If this is going to be a recurring thing, they're going to need some wedge-shaped pillows to prop up Erwin's right side.

Erwin pays close attention to every sound Levi makes, every motion of his hand on the back of Erwin's head. He doesn't use his teeth on him, but his lips press harder, more insistent, as he works his way back and forth across Levi's collarbones. As he does, Erwin shifts his legs, moving them so they're not completely pinning Levi's any longer. Then, using his knee, he tries to nudge one of Levi's legs up, into a bent knee position, between Erwin's legs.

It's not hard to decipher those physical cues, tangling their legs and bringing his knee up to fit between Erwin's, pressing firmly against the bulge between his legs that must surely still be there. He shifts experimentally, seeing if it's possible to give him a little bit of friction by rubbing there, and shudders when those insistent lips find another sensitive bit of skin. Every so often he noses Erwin back, seeking lips for lips and a brief reprieve from the attack on his clavicles. The hand at the back of his neck stays there, thumb stroking idly along the line of skin just under his ear, while the other slides over that broad, beautiful back, feeling old scars and the length of his spine and the movement of muscles under skin. He can't quite reach his ass - damn his long, gorgeous upper body - but he can scrape nails against ribs or over vertebrae.

Levi exhales, gray eyes slipping closed just to concentrate on the sensations, of the feel of the man beneath his fingertips that alights little fires on his skin.

Erwin's ass is a disappointment anyway, as Levi probably knows by now. He doesn't so much have an ass as he has a lower back that simply runs into the tops of his thighs. One would think his thick, heavily muscled thighs would translate into a juicy, considerable ass, but they do not. ~~He can't help it, he's just drawn that way.~~

Erwin is more than happy to come up for air whenever Levi nudges him, turning the tide of his attack on Levi's collarbones to his lips, and then trailing it down his neck again after a few slow, drawn-out kisses. Is he rutting his erection shamelessly up against Levi's thigh while he does so? He absolutely is! Edging is fun and all but if this goes on too much longer, he's going to explode.

Unfortunately, Levi is rather distracted by lips on his neck again, not quite realizing how close the other man is. It seemed as though Erwin had wanted to draw things out, since Levi had been too good earlier, he's not really sure if he should be doing anything to help him along yet. In truth, he's lost a bit of the thread of expectations here, just keeping his thigh in place for Erwin to rub against, since this seems to be what he wants. But surely Erwin will at least say something before he just creams himself in his pants...right?

Maybe they made this too complicated - maybe he should have just gone for it right there in the kitchen and shoved his hand in his pants and helped him along. But he'd been too - unsure.

Slowly, one hand leaves off to snake between them, attempts to catch Erwin as he ruts against his thigh, rubbing him with his palm for a few strokes (fuck he's thick and hard, and it's gotta be uncomfortable with something like this still trapped?) before popping the button of his pants.

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