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Erwin counts the knots in the floorboards and connects the city lights tumbling beneath them and around them, his breath hesitant.
Winter is almost unbearable in Levi’s apartment — a tiny block in a high rise with a beautiful view and floor-to-ceiling windows that fog up around the corners when the heater is up too high. The windows are the selling point, the reason why Levi had insisted on this place, and not somewhere cosier, warmer, closer to the ground.
It really is a pretty view.
The entire place is pretty. It’s pretty, small, cozy, and undoubtedly Levi , all the way down to the exposed brick wall that the bed is pressed up against. Erwin likes it better than his own apartment, which is less of a home and more like a checkpoint to Erwin now. A place where he showers and changes clothes, though most often he just stops home to pack another bag to bring to Levi’s.
Erwin exhales quietly through his nose, and cards his fingers lightly through Levi’s soft hair, twisting some of the ends together between the pads of his fingertips, before repeating the process, still staring out the window.
Even with two blankets and being stuck to each other like velcro, Erwin still feels the cold from outside settle into his bones, coax his anxiety to the very surface of his skin. He’s just glad he can pass the goosebumps off as a chill.
He’s being ridiculous. Erwin has nothing to be worried about at this particular moment in time. His relationship with Levi has been nothing short of a dream ever since they met (Erwin owes Hange the world for introducing them to each other), and Levi has been nothing short of a dream. Initially, Erwin had been a bit put-off by the aura that Levi emits.
Despite being small, Levi looks quite scary sometimes, but the ice had immediately melted away not even five minutes into their first conversation, when Levi blossomed into kind, subdued smiles and deadpan humor that left Erwin gasping. Levi cares a lot about the people who are closest to him, and from the very start, Erwin had wanted nothing more than to be one of those people.
He did, of course, become a close person in Levi’s life, and Levi has become nothing short of Erwin’s world.
It is a bit terrifying, to think that he has fallen so hard so fast for somebody, when he hasn’t felt even a semblance of love or attraction or even just comfort since his last relationship imploded. With Levi, most of Erwin’s fears seem conquerable, defeatable even. Levi hadn’t even blinked upon seeing Erwin’s missing arm when they first met, his shirt sleeve dangling uselessly, emptily by his side. He didn’t stare or ask invasive questions, didn’t prod until Erwin decided of his own volition to tell Levi the story.
“Don’t you want to know?” Erwin had asked one evening, during one of their stay-in nights. Levi is very introverted, his social interaction meter drains quickly, and when it starts to run low he prefers to stay in. Erwin has never really minded.
Levi had barely blinked at the question, but he had stopped flipping through his Netflix queue and looked at Erwin, staring at him for a long while. His gaze had felt like a blanket, draping over Erwin’s shoulders and suffocating any fear or doubt.
“Do you want to tell me?” Levi responds, voice kind and calm and so entirely considerate of Erwin’s consent and will that if Erwin weren’t already in love, he definitely would’ve tumbled right over the edge then and there.
Erwin shrugs, smiling at Levi, his eyes wrinkling around the corners. His missing arm doesn’t bother him anymore, and neither does the story behind it, and he tells Levi as much.
In response, Levi sets the television remote down on the coffee table — some reclaimed, rustic looking thing that looks like it was made by hand. It wouldn’t surprise Erwin if Levi made it himself — and pulls his legs neatly up on the couch, sitting cross-legged and facing Erwin completely. His face is blank, but his eyes are kind as he gives Erwin his full attention, wordlessly offering himself to hear the story.
It isn’t that mind-boggling. How else does a person lose their arm? In a war, of course. It got crushed when his unit’s vehicle had rolled after an explosion in Afghanistan, the on-site medics having no choice but to amputate. Recovery had been made easier once Erwin learned that nobody else in his unit had gotten seriously injured.
“Rather an arm than a life.” He tells Levi, and at this, Levi smiles solemnly, nodding and reaching for Erwin’s hand, giving it a tender squeeze. A tug down from his memories and back to the couch.
Erwin tentatively mentions that the accident had taken more than just his arm. Levi isn’t stupid, he probably knows about the nightmares and has seen Erwin’s slight jumpiness in cars that need their suspension fixed. He can probably connect the dots that having a limb blown off in a war might have traumatic consequences, even fifteen years down the line.
Levi doesn’t seem phased or like the revelation of Erwin’s post-traumatic stress disorder makes him want to run for the hills. Instead, he lets go of Erwin’s hand, and very neatly begins to fold and tuck and tie away Erwin’s dangling shirt sleeve, making it look nice and neat under what is left of his arm.
“There.” Levi says, tightening the knot that he has made with the fabric until it is secure under Erwin’s stump. “That’s been driving me crazy since we met.”
Erwin stares at Levi, a slight smile playing his gaping lips, and he shakes his head softly, scoffing with laughter. “That’s it? That’s what you want to do with all of the shit I’ve just told you?”
Levi nods and shrugs like it’s no big deal. Like Erwin has just told him that he prefers Thai food over Japanese food, or something else mundane and easily to accept — something else that is not a total dealbreaker for hundreds of other people, like post-traumatic stress disorder and the bellman cart of baggage that comes along with it.
“I like you.” Levi says, taking Erwin’s hand again. He is so sincere, so serious that it takes Erwin’s breath away.
“And this ,” Levi gestures to Erwin’s arm. “Is just another part of you.”
Erwin could cry — he honestly could, because he’s more emotional than he lets on, and Levi is so minimal but so sweet and sincere that Erwin has no doubts about a single syllable as they fall from his lips, so he just squeezes Levi’s hand back and nods, too afraid that he’ll tear up if he says thank you outloud.
“Besides,” Levi readjusts himself on the couch, so he’s no longer holding Erwin’s hand, but now curled up against his side — the stumpy side no less — with his legs folded neatly under him. “If it really bothered me, do you think we would’ve gotten this far?”
Erwin snorts and leans forward to grab the television remote, resettling back on the couch beside Levi and pressing a kiss to his forehead.
“The sleeve has bothered you this whole time and we got this far.”
Levi elbows him in the side and rolls his eyes.
“Yeah, and I’ll fucking fix the rest of your shirts too.”
Levi had .
Fixed the rest of Erwin’s shirts, that is. As it turns out, Levi is quite skilled with a needle and thread, and over a few weekends had tailored all of Erwin’s long-sleeved shirts so that they no longer dangled aimlessly at his side, but stopped neatly where his arm did. Erwin prefers them that way, and had been so happy that Levi took the time to make alterations like that. He even does it for any new shirts that Erwin buys.
Levi does so much for Erwin, more than he could ever know. He doesn’t get bothered when Erwin gets neurotic and prefers that they walk instead of take a car (his days like that are few and far between, but Levi is accommodating), he isn’t upset when Erwin jolts out of bed in a cold sweat, stays patient when a rough night impacts Erwin’s attitude the following day, but Levi will be quick to shut him down the second he gets needlessly disrespectful or cross, which Erwin also appreciates greatly.
Levi has done everything for Erwin, and Erwin fears he cannot fill the same voids in Levi’s heart.
At his side, Levi sighs in his sleep and curls up a little tighter, his legs tangling with Erwin’s, a hand draping across Erwin’s chest. Erwin does his best not to move. Sleep is precious for Levi, who is an insomniac, and Erwin treasures the moments that Levi sleeps soundly and goes to extremes to ensure that Levi doesn’t wake prematurely, even if it means laying perfectly still in less-than-comfortable positions.
Not that Erwin is uncomfortable now. Levi doesn’t like the way it feels to sleep with an arm under his shoulder or back, and Erwin doesn’t like waking up with a dead arm, so Levi sleeps on the stumpy side. It all works out.
Levi makes another soft noise, and Erwin watches his forehead crease up severely and resists the urge to press out the wrinkles with his fingers. Levi works himself back to peace, anyway, sighing and releasing all tension in his body when he does so, seeming to fall back into tranquility. Erwin turns his attention back to the window, staring at the other insomniacs down below in their cars, driving without direction through the winding city streets.
He watches the flashing of brake lights and traffic signals, sometimes hears the faint honking of horns and sees the occasional police lights flash on from the alleyway. It does magic to soothe his aching. He never would have thought that living in a city full of noise would be so kind to his mind, because his own apartment is in the quieter suburbs.
Maybe the quiet is what drives him crazy.
The throbbing insecurity that beats in his chest is only a hum when he’s with Levi, though lately it has been growing louder.
The accident didn’t just give Erwin post-traumatic stress disorder and take away his arm, though he wishes it had.
Some people are like Levi. They don’t mind the scarred, stumpy arm, the expensive and unsightly prosthetic that he wears when he works out, the nightmares and irrational fear of cars and loud noises. Some people can look past all of that, can adapt to it the same way Erwin has. His girlfriend at the time of the accident, Marie, had no issues coping with Erwin, had no issues supporting him through the amputation and physical and mental therapy, just like Levi doesn’t have any issues doing the same things now.
But what most people can’t get over, what most people can’t adapt to, what Marie couldn’t adapt to, was the sudden and permanent change to Erwin’s sex drive.
The accident had dialed him down to zero.
Below zero, actually. Since Afghanistan, Erwin not only has had no real desire to have sex or do anything remotely sexual, but even the handful of times that he had wanted to have sex, he couldn’t get it up.
He can’t get it up, even now, fifteen years later, and he has wondered for years what is wrong with him, why he can’t get hard, and why most of the time, he doesn’t even want to.
It hasn’t bothered him too much — he didn’t really start thinking about it again until he started dating Levi, and now his little problem has grown into a big problem, because they’re seven months in, Erwin has unofficially moved in with Levi, and they haven’t done anything even remotely sexual.
They’ve kissed, of course, but even their kisses are PG-13, never really evolving into full on make-out sessions (Erwin feels way too old for that, anyway), and hands never seem to wander the way they would if a sexually active, sexually healthy couple were to kiss.
Erwin is worried that Levi is going to end up like Marie. Patient and understanding with everything except this , and it will end up destroying their relationship, and God, he doesn’t want that. As premature as it might be considering they are only seven months in, Erwin has a feeling that Levi will be his last. Levi is the one he was supposed to be with, maybe this whole time, even before Afghanistan.
Losing Levi to his broken prick would be the nail in the coffin of Erwin’s love life, and he had been fine with the idea of being perpetually single before meeting Levi, but now that he has been with him, Erwin never wants to be without him.
“You’re thinking too loud.” Levi murmurs sleepily against his chest, drawing Erwin out of his reverie.
Erwin jumps a little, unaware that Levi had woken up, and also unaware of the amount of tension he had been holding in his body.
God, no wonder Levi woke up — Erwin must feel like a rock with a racing heart.
“Sorry, Lee.” Erwin frowns, running his fingers through Levi’s hair again. It calms him in the same strange way that letting water pass through his fingers does. He feels like he has secrets to spill, and he does have secrets to spill, but he isn’t so sure he’s ready to lay his cards out on the table.
Marie had bailed after realizing that the no-sex thing was permanent — who is to say Levi won’t do the same?
Erwin has more faith in Levi than that. Even if he isn’t actively aware of it. Levi is different in so many ways — he’s quieter, more open to listening. He has only known Erwin after the accident, whereas Marie would only ever compare Erwin to the man he used to be, with the naïve hope that he would be that man again. It strained their relationship and put pressures on him that he refused to give into, because he knew that he would never be the same, and she didn’t. Arms don’t grow back, Marie had known that, but mental illnesses were curable in her mind. All of Erwin’s barriers, aside from adjusting to life with a single arm, had been mental. Breakable.
They aren’t, though. They’re adaptable , but not breakable. Only when he met Levi did his aliments feel truly defeatable.
“You’re still thinking too loud.” Levi says, but it isn’t mean. There are layers of concern woven into his words.
He should just tell Levi. Tell him now before they’re both in too deep. It’s the right thing to do.
Still, Erwin dances around it.
“Yeah,” He clears his throat, not used to being so unsure. He is quite literally fumbling in the dark.
He feels Levi’s toes curl and pull closer to him under the blankets.
Levi doesn’t say anything, always so good at sensing when Erwin just needs to work through his words without any interference.
“We haven’t had sex yet.” Erwin blurts out and immediately wants to cover his face with his hand. How graceless — there absolutely must be a better way to go about this.
Levi braces his hand on Erwin’s chest and sits up in bed, the blankets draping around their bodies. He leans close to Erwin’s face and stares at him in the darkness, his eyes catching the flashing advertisements from the buildings outside that reflect into their room.
He looks like their fucking cat ( Levi’s fucking cat, but she does this exact thing to Erwin every morning) perched on his chest like this, and Erwin can’t help but laugh.
Levi doesn’t seem as amused and blinks a few times. “What?” He asks, incredulous. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
Erwin drapes his arm around Levi’s waist and pulls him back down to the bed because he’s letting the cold between the sheets.
“I’m just saying,” Erwin tries to play it off like this is normal. Like it’s totally normal to be up at three in the morning thinking about why he hasn’t had sex with his boyfriend. “We haven’t had sex.”
Erwin makes it a point to avoid Levi’s eyes, even in the darkness, and watches the cars beneath them a little more. The flow of traffic reminds him of water flowing through his fingers.
“So?” Levi grumbles as he starts to get comfortable again.
So.
So shouldn’t they be having sex? Shouldn’t they be doing things that are even a little sexual? Shouldn’t Levi have alarm bells going off and red flags waving around in his mind right now? Instead, he seems more preoccupied with trying to squish up against Erwin as close as humanly possible, which Erwin honestly doesn’t mind at all. He thinks it’s cute that Levi is so surprisingly cuddly.
It almost takes his mind off of his broken dick.
Almost.
“It’s weird. That we haven’t fucked.”
Again, graceless. Erwin is not used to being this graceless.
Levi huffs beside him. “You only have one arm and I have OCD. There are a lot of weird things about us.”
“ Levi,” Erwin groans. Okay. This is going nowhere, and Erwin isn’t getting any calmer, any less anxious, and he closes his eyes tightly until there are wrinkles in his forehead and around his eyes. If his arm weren’t a stump, it would probably be squeezing Levi, too.
Levi sits up again. This clearly isn’t just a normal late-night musing. Something is bothering Erwin and Levi hates it when Erwin is bothered or upset, because he’s the selfless superhero type — the kind who doesn’t admit he’s hurting so he doesn’t burden others, which Levi thinks is a load of bullshit, and wants to beat the hell out of whoever gave Erwin such a complex.
“It really bothers you?” Levi asks, his voice soft, just a whisper in the room. If a car had honked, Erwin would’ve missed it.
He meets Levi’s eyes and hopes the darkness conceals all of the unspoken uncertainty within, and simply nods.
It doesn’t bother Erwin that they haven’t had sex. It bothers Erwin that it might bother Levi that they haven’t had sex.
“Listen,” Levi sighs. “We can fuck right now if you want.” He doesn’t sound too enthused at the prospect, and it makes Erwin’s heart drop, both at the tone and the words.
That is absolutely not what Erwin wants. God, no! He was psyching himself up to tell Levi that he’s defunct, not give a demonstration and relive what felt like hundreds of failed attempts to have sex with Marie.
Levi misreads the silence as something different — something he isn’t quite sure of. This is a place in their relationship that they haven’t explored, and Levi had been just fine with leaving it in the dark.
“Erwin, what the fuck ,” —
“I’m impotent.” Erwin rushes out before Levi can say anything more, can do anything more, like initiate sex.
The silence that follows is deafening. A car lays on its horn on the streets below but neither of them hear it. Levi stares at Erwin in the darkness, reflected only by the lights coming from the windows. His eyes are comically wide and surprised, his lips parted like he was just about to say something, but Erwin had winded him.
And Erwin wishes he hadn’t said anything at all. Telling Levi how he lost his arm had been nothing, telling Levi about the phobias and nightmares had been something, but even that seems like nothing compared to this. He feels like he has dropped a bomb and blown their relationship.
Fuck .
His anxiety is closing in on him, or maybe he’s having a real heart attack this time, and he’s about to push out of the bed with his tail between his legs and have his freak-out with dignity in the bathroom or something, when Levi, in all of his sleepy-headed glory, starts laughing .
He starts honest to God laughing , and Erwin feels even worse. Levi has such a great laugh, so contagious because it’s so rare that he genuinely laughs the way he is right now, and Erwin really does want to go back to his too-quiet, suburban apartment, because Levi’s great, contagious, rare laughter is directed towards him.
Erwin is starting to feel tendrils of anger seize his heart, and he starts to get up, when Levi finally says something, and it’s the exact opposite of what Erwin was expecting to hear.
“Oh thank God. ” Levi exhales on a breath of laughter, smiling so sweetly and looking so truly relieved that it has to be sincere.
Erwin feels like he’s being punked.
“What…?” He gapes, dumbfounded.
Thank God? What? What the fuck?
Levi pulls Erwin back into bed, laughing softly still. “My God, Erwin,” he gestures to himself with one hand. “I’m asexual, for Christ’s sake.”
Relief courses over Erwin like warm water, reprieve from the cold that has surrounded him for fifteen years, and it’s his turn to sit up in disbelief and stare at Levi.
“Are you serious? You’re not fucking with me.”
“Completely serious.” Levi looks cozy in the sheets, smiling so contentedly like he has gotten something wicked off of his chest, and it takes a minute for Erwin to realize that he feels the same relief. The pressure that he had nearly bucked under is gone, replaced with the same silly, stupid contentedness that is reflected on Levi’s face.
Erwin feels more than content. He feels strangely overjoyed. He feels like he has just sealed his fate with Levi in the best way possible, and he gravitates back down, back beside Levi, and throws his arm around his boyfriend, pressing his nose against Levi’s cheek to hide his stupid smile.
“You’re an asshole for not telling me.” Erwin grumbles, feigning it all the way, but making it clear by kissing Levi’s cheek.
Levi squirms, his legs tangling back into Erwin’s, and he slaps his chest with a light hand.
“Oh, and you just weren’t going to tell me your dick doesn’t work?”
If anybody else had said that, Erwin would’ve gotten angry, rolled his eyes and retorted just as snarky, but Levi has a way of insulting with love, bantering with people he cares about, and Erwin is honored to be one of those people.
He’s honored to be with Levi, his perfect piece, his last and his forever.
Erwin is going to owe Hange for the rest of their lives.