Chapter Text
Levi gets closer to Erwin over more time. They acknowledge what they have after the confession, and Erwin asks if he wants to make something official. Levi does, so they do, and it feels nice.
He feels better now. Erwin cooks and teaches Levi how to cook a few things, and they go out for dinner another couple of times. They spend Christmas together – Erwin face times his family in Germany and introduces Levi, and Levi phones Farlan and then Isabel, apologises for being distant and describes, briefly, what’s happened but how he’s fine now, good now, and they make plans to meet the next time they’re nearby.
Erwin gets Levi a violin on Christmas day. It’s a surprise – Erwin wakes up early, hushes Levi back to sleep saying he’s getting groceries, and then he waits in the living room until Levi wanders inside with sweatpants low on his hips, hair a mess, and eyes tired with sleep, to point at the new case on the couch, and Levi gapes at him, wide awake, curses at him and hits his shoulder for spending so much money on him, but he can’t stop smiling when it sits perfectly in his fingers, under his chin and Levi plays as many songs as he wants for him. The strings are familiar under his fingers and he spends many hours playing it, playing familiar songs, making new ones. He teaches Erwin how to play the piano, and Levi ends up starting that idea of tutoring with Sina Academy that he and Erwin spoke about. He brings in a fair amount of money, and he feels normal again.
He performs once in the theatre in the town, and then again, and again, and again, and then in a theatre in the city a few hours drive from home. Erwin sits in the crowd and watches Levi play with something sparkling in his blue eyes.
They adopt a cat, and Levi spends a lot of time picking up all the stray hairs it has and complaining about it, but Erwin never tells him about the photos he has where the cat is sleeping across his chest or stomach or lap and Levi’s asleep with his hand mid-stroke on it.
Levi sees Isabel and Farlan again, and they go out and have dinner, and Levi brings them back to his and Erwin’s home, introduces them and makes their situation known with a simple kiss on his cheek, and Isabel interrogates them for every aspect of their relationship while Farlan apologises for her boldness.
Levi sleeps in a tangle of his and Erwin’s limbs, and Erwin laughs in the mornings when Levi insults his morning breath but kisses him anyway. Erwin, at some point, tries to grow out his beard and Levi shaves it off him again after two weeks.
Levi sorts stray ends with his divorce. He’s civil when he sees her and her new husband again, and Erwin holds his hand while they meet and helps him sort out his belongings and take them back to his house and sets all his old family photos and friend photos with him, and more join the collection – him and Erwin at a Christmas market in Berlin, Erwin grinning brightly with an arm around Levi, Levi with a red nose, face half hidden in a scarf, but eyes bright and happy; him and Erwin at the Eiffel tower, Levi in a shirt and formal trousers, an arm around Erwin’s hips, other hand in his pocket; him and Erwin asleep on the couch when Isabel and Farlan slept over and Isabel took the creep-shot of them, Erwin’s head on his chest and Levi’s fingers in his hair. Erwin puts a photo of Levi sleeping with their cat on his stomach on a shelf that he can’t see or reach, and Levi doesn’t find it. Levi makes Erwin get more art for the house, saying the walls are horrendously empty, and they breathe life back into the house, make it a home.
Levi donates money to homeless charities and mental health organisations and those aiming to help rehabilitate drug addicts. During the holidays he volunteers at a soup kitchen, and he’s asked to talk about his own experiences, motivate others that there’s always a choice, that there’s always a future.
Sometimes Levi has nightmares. He wakes up in a cold sweat and shaking, gasping for air when he’d been choking moments before, his nose burning with traces of well-remembered cocaine, his mind melting with the effects of everything, disorientated with a soft mattress under his back rather than stones and broken glass. Erwin holds him close, reassures and hushes him, traces shapes on his bare skin until he stops shaking and slides back into his side, listens to his sturdy heartbeat under his ear until his breathing matches it.
Sometimes they watch movies and do nothing; Levi drapes his legs over Erwin’s lap and lets him play with his hair while they watch some old or new movie with remnants of a takeaway on the plates in front of them and their cat sapping more of Erwin’s heat from his side.
Sometimes Levi kisses him until they’re breathless and Erwin’s knees hit the edge of his large bed, and they don’t get back out until next morning.
After two years, during Christmas, they go on a trip. They go to Amsterdam, because it’s some place they always wanted to go, and they walk through streets bundled in thick jackets and scarves and they warm up in coffee shops with hot chocolates and tea, and they stand on a bridge over a canal and look at the Christmas lights flashing in the reflection of the water, hear faint Christmas music and street musicians and people laughing and talking, and Erwin gets on one knee and pulls out a little blue velvet box and Levi says, yes, of fucking course, yes.
Their marriage is a quiet one. They go away for a couple of weeks and travel a few countries, see new things, and then come back home, the place Levi really feels is home, and they get another cat and bring more pictures back to set around the house.
Erwin’s students awe at them when Levi comes into the school to see him, and his students get them a cake and somehow also a bottle of wine – Levi’s began to appreciate wine more recently – and they have both at home. Erwin insists on doing some dumb shit like feeding bits of the cake to Levi, and Levi lets him because his cheeks are flushed and his hair is slightly messy and the young smile it brings to Erwin’s face is worth it.
At one point, a couple more years down the line, Erwin says the word kids and Levi thinks for a long time about that, and they talk about it a lot.
Levi thinks back to a few years ago, when he was ready to spend Christmas on the floor of a crack house, overdosing.
Their daughter is called Sofia Ackerman-Smith.
Levi doesn’t often think back anymore. He focuses on the mornings he wakes up to Erwin kissing his forehead or cheek, or trying to be gentle as he untangles himself and goes to make some breakfast. He focuses on getting Sofia ready for school, on watching her grow up and talking to Erwin, who is petrified when she grows up. He focuses on helping her through her first heartbreak, her first night drinking, her drama with friends. He focuses on making fun of Erwin for the grey hairs that start to appear, but says he ages like fine wine, and kisses him again.
But when he does think back, on the rare few occasions, his heart swells for Erwin who gave him a chance to live, and he realises he’s living the future he thought he wouldn’t live to see.