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If there was anything Levi hated, it was dirty things, and this hovel was fucking disgusting. Bad enough that the dick physician who owed him a favor ran out on the apprenticeship contract and managed to hide for near on eighteen years, but to track him down here in the middle of a crappy little swamp? This was just insulting. Sweeping himself a little higher off the ground, he maintained the energy needed to control his broom's levitation while calling up an appropriately angry, thunderous storm around the tiny hovel.
Dr. Jaeger had some explaining to do and Levi would just as soon the man was scared shitless while he did it, for all the trouble he'd caused. The black-haired witch was just about to call the man out in his most foreboding voice when a frisson of unfamiliar magic skated over his nerves, sending a chill down his spine; impressive considering the magnitude of power he contained himself.
A hint of blonde in the corner of his eye made him spin, taking in the blatant interloper who dared approach on a horse of all things, despite how terrified the poor animal looked. Another caster, that much Levi knew, but this one was weird. Prim, starched collar, impeccable blond hair and faint, intricate tattoos showing on the hands and throat, presumably continuing beneath the concealing folds of thick, voluminous blue robes. "Hail," the newcomer called, tall and blonde and stupidly, impossibly handsome. He looked the part of a High Court magister; all in all he was damned annoying.
"Take your hail and shove it up your ass, I'm working here. Back off," Levi growled, body visibly tensing under his own tight black clothing.
"Well, that's an interesting coincidence, as I have business here, too." Completely unruffled and with a nobility that somehow suited his stature, the blonde magus pulled a rolled sheaf of parchment from his robes. "There is an overdue contract on the firstborn child living here; I will be on my way once I have collected him."
Levi gaped, the squall overhead thickening with an ominous black-clouded roar. "How dare you. That brat belongs to me and I've been chasing the asshole delinquent father for almost two goddamned decades; I will be collecting him and you can fuck off."
The creak of the door interrupted what looked to be a very displeased answer from the blond as a teenaged boy popped his head out of the hovel's front door. Messy longish hair that fell over his face, tan skin and striking, beautifully mismatched eyes; the left bright gold and the right vibrant teal, with small freckles of the opposite eye's color flecking the edges of the irises.
If anything could christen a child as being born to belong to a witch-caster, those eyes were it.
Distracted, Levi started on his broom as the boy looked at them both and said, "Oh, good, you're here. I've already packed, be just a minute."
"Ah? How unusually cooperative," blonde witch said contemplatively.
"Yeah, well, my dad took off with a letter saying to expect two spellslingers to come get me in a few days since his hiding charm finally wore off. That was a week ago, so you're both late and I've been bored stiff." The boy disappeared, returning with a knapsack slung over his shoulder; his very nice shoulder, Levi noted, which was part of an overall very nice body. Shit, he'd forgotten to calculate the fact that the boy would be a strapping seventeen-year-old by now. It was easy to forget how quickly human children aged when one was over 400 years old.
Wait. "No, you're coming with me, that guy's trespassing on my claim," Levi growled, jerking a thumb at the blonde, who simply smiled.
"Ah, introductions," he said warmly, completely ignoring Levi's statement. "I am Erwin, given the rank of danchou by the Circle of Magi in the city of Sina. I am a specialist in the studies of time manipulation and dimensional energy."
"Eren Jaeger," the young man replied, one eyebrow lifting at Erwin's title. "I have wild magic and something weird with navigation and stars, but I don't know how to use it. Teach me?"
"He couldn't possibly teach you wild magic," Levi growled, arms crossing as he glared at Erwin. "Circle of Magi means he's a wizard, all of his magic comes from book learning and wild magic refuses to let itself be taught like that." Eyes narrowing, he tilted his head back proudly. "I am Levi, son of none, the Black Witch of the far North. I don't know what the shit your dad said, but he bartered away his firstborn to me in exchange for me not taking off his head, and I'm here to collect; you're coming with me."
Erwin hummed, lifting on hand to lean his chin on. "That makes things rather difficult, as I was promised the firstborn of this boy's mother. And a Primal caster like yourself may be far more in tune with the wild things, but navigation and astronomy are my forte. Speaking of your mother, Eren, how is Carla?"
Eren flinched, staring off into the brush; visible emotion tightening the lines of his jaw. "She died, six years ago."
"Oh, I apologize." Erwin settled back on his horse, somewhat stymied.
"Well, in that case, her vow is null and void," Levi pointed out, though his voice gentled a little at the grief on display.
"Actually, her vow is still intact, as she did have a child before her unfortunate passing," Erwin countered, tone just as delicate.
"I don't care, asshat, I got here first anyways." Levi bristled, only to blink as what seemed to be an acorn knocked into the side of his head.
"Oi, quite arguing over me like I'm meat," Eren growled, a wisp of green light curling around his fingers where another acorn sat at the ready. "I'm the firstborn of both people and neither of them are here to explain themselves, so I'm making the choice."
Erwin hummed, head tilted. "Well... I suppose that's fair enough."
It rankled, but the kid wasn't exactly an infant to sweep away. Levi sighed. "Fine. Pick one, then, and hurry up."
Eren looked at him for a moment, then back at Erwin, seeming to mull the idea over. "Both of you," he stated a moment later.
Levi squinted. "Wait, what?"
"You both have claim and you can both teach me something I want to know, and probably more besides. You're a hell of a lot older than me, so you can share."
"Interesting idea, but my lodgings tend to change as I travel from college to college; I would just barely have room for you, let alone you and a Wildwitch. Unless..." He paused, eying Levi in consideration.
Bristling at the implication, Levi hissed, "Oh, fuck you, no! I'll barely be able to stand one of you, with how much mess people make. If you don't have room for him, relinquish your claim!"
"I will not. If you refuse to have us as guests, then relinquish yours," Erwin countered, still unruffled.
"No!"
Eren heaved a sigh, shoving himself away from the hovel and walking past both of them. "God, stop arguing. We'll just find a spot and built a house we can share, then. Or is that too simple for you two all-powerful magic users to handle?"
Levi twitched, thinking of the massive gardens he'd carefully tended and cultivated for the last several centuries. "I can't just move..." Shit, there really was no choice. "F-fine... you can both stay, BUT!" He glared at Erwin. "You keep your wizardy shit in your room so it doesn't piss off my charms, and you both clean up after yourselves! If I find dirt I will mop it up with your dead bodies, do you understand?"
"Graphically," Eren drawled as Erwin stifled what looked like a laugh behind his hand. "Indeed."
Levi heaved a sigh. This was going to be a nightmare.
---
It was not a nightmare, but the first week he spent most of his time either chasing Erwin away from touching poisonous sharp things growing in the gardens or rescuing Eren from getting too friendly with the wild beasts that lived in the massive, ancient forest Levi's property was nestled into; the boy just couldn't seem to stay away. He and the other caster kept an uneasy truce, of sorts, on the mutual agreement that whoever struck first had lost the game of getting on their charge's good side.
The second week saw Levi and Erwin unexpectedly in agreement, however, as they both mended the scratches and cuts all over their mutual charge from his continued attempts; they both insisted that was it, no more, enough. The rebellious tilt of the boy's mouth didn't bode well for that dictate to be followed.
On the first morning of the third week, Eren was found playing with on the rear lawns with a pack of wolves the size of horses, as if they were all crazed puppies; watching from the doorway, Erwin heaved a sigh as Levi groaned and let his head fall against the blond's arm in defeat. "Fucking brat is going to drive me to my grave," he muttered, not bothering to move despite how near they were; he felt Erwin's hum of agreement as much as he heard it, but it didn't seem such a bad thing.
Three months to the day of when they had reluctantly settled into cohabitation, Levi woke to the sound of hushed whispering and what sounded like an argument, prompting him to slip out of his bed to the light creeping under his door.
"But Erwin, it was a gift for earning their trust, I can't just give her back-"
"Eren, it's not a pet and you're far too young to take a familiar; besides which, Levi will-"
"Levi will what?" He asked dangerously, tossing the door open and scowling furiously, in complete defiance of the fact that both of the people he glared at were taller than him; they still jolted in terror and that was good enough.
Except that Eren was even more scratched up than usual with leaves stuck in his hair and a massive ball of black something or other curled in his arms, seeming to be asleep. "Well, er... hopefully you won't kill me?" He offered nervously, as the mass of what looked like scales shifted to level a protective glare at whoever had woken her up.
"You cannot be serious," Levi deadpanned, staring at the dragon hatchling as if she would vanish if he looked hard enough.
"He's serious," Erwin replied, looking just as disbelieving and rather underdressed... wow, that was a lot of gorgeous skin on display...
Levi blinked, looking back at Eren. "You can't keep a dragon in my house, she'll burn the shit down."
"I'm not giving Mikasa back," Eren growled, holding tighter to the sinuous coil of muscle, who gave an emphatic flap of her tiny wings and curled closer to his body heat with a low hiss.
An hour of arguing later, Mikasa was curled up on foot of Eren's bed and Eren had three full pages of conditions for how much of her care and education he'd need to provide; dragons were not, after all, mere beasts to play at being pets and she would have a voracious appetite for knowledge as she grew older; for now, she merely had one for biting the legs off of Levi's furniture.
"I can't believe I agreed to this," Levi muttered, staring at the shape of their newest household member as the first blue hint of dawn crept over the horizon.
"Thank you so much!" Eren of course responded by flinging arms around his shoulders and hugging him until Levi was certain he couldn't breathe; oddly enough, despite the brown hair in his face and the smell of another person's skin this close, Levi didn't mind.
"Yeah, it's fine," he muttered, flushing as Eren eased back. "But you're carving new legs for every chair she destroys.
"Yes, sir!"
As Eren ran off to cuddle his new familiar, Erwin smiled at Levi in a way that made his skin prickle and his face heat up more; he crossed his arms defiantly. "What?"
"You're kinder than you pretend to be," Erwin mused, before brushing one hand over Levi's shoulder. "I'll gather some eggs for breakfast."
Levi, left alone in the doorway of Eren's room with a sense of warmth tangled up in his stomach, huffed angrily and stomped off to make breakfast in his sleeping shirt and underpants. Neither of his pain in the ass guests could cook without either using the wrong herb and nearly killing everyone (Eren) or setting fire to the kitchen in its entirety (Erwin). How they survived without him was a mystery.
But perhaps he didn't... necessarily think they should have to.
---
"Easy on the energy flow," Levi cautioned gently, watching with banked pride as Eren coaxed rain from the sky for the first time; the boy had a lot more than beast magic, even if it had taken three years to unlock some of his other potential abilities. Curled up under the umbrella of energy Levi had up, Mikasa watched the proceedings with interest but cringed at the droplets falling near her; water couldn't hurt her but she still seemed to dislike it. Levi couldn't blame her, it was damned cold this time of year, even for the North.
Thunder cracked in the sky above, a sign of Eren's excess energy use, but a moment later the spell snapped into being and the boy slumped, no longer the conduit as the rain became self-sustaining. "I did it..." he whispered in awe, mismatched eyes wide as he grinned at Levi.
Gods, he was beautiful. "Yes, you did it," Levi said, unaware of how soft his voice had gotten. The now-familiar warmth tugged at his guts, but the moment was broken as Erwin came walking out to check on them and Eren took off at a run towards the blonde. Shouting happily to announce his success, Eren followed what was habit with either of them and leapt up to hug Erwin excitedly, babbling loud enough to hear even over the pouring rain.
"Typical," Levi commented to Mikasa, who was curled up under his broom. "We sit out here with him for the hours of practice but Erwin gets the hugs."
She snorted, in agreement he liked to think, and levered her sleek body off the ground to trot after her human, despite the cringe visible in her shoulders once the rain hit her scales. The wings she could have shielded herself with were instead folded over the gold and white form of the small hawk that Eren had found injured and nursed back to health last year; despite most witches only needing one familiar at most, he now had two, and neither Armin nor Mikasa would leave his side for hell or high water, Levi had found.
---
Not even to sleep, they all found out the hard way when the tugs and glances and soft touches finally resolved themselves late one evening, all three of them caught in a spell of tension that broke abruptly to the movements of fingers plucking at laces and lips opening over warm skin.
Had anyone told Levi that his search for a delinquent apprentice contract would lead him to being tangled naked between two warm, beautiful bodies on the rug in front of his living room fireplace, he would have not only disbelieved them but also hated the sheer idea of sex on the floor in general.
The reality, fortunately, was much more appealing than the abstract concept, as Eren and Erwin were both all too happy to show him.
And that was that, the three of them finding themselves yawning and sprawled in Levi's massive bed not long after, clean from a bath that had gotten entirely too recreational and required a lot of water to be wiped up after, but had done the job and worn them out even further. Or rather, that should have been that. The soft flutter of feathers as a tiny hawk settled onto Levi's headboard was all the warning the trio had before the incredible weight of a young dragon heaved onto the bed, sprawling over the three of them in a possessive black-scaled blanket.
"Holy fuck, Mikasa, really?" Levi mumbled, only to hear Eren choke a moment later. "What?"
"She says no complaining or next time they're not waiting for the 'heaving' to be over with," Eren managed with an embarrassed squeak.
"In that case," Erwin mumbled, sleepy and amiable as always, "We shall simply make the bed bigger tomorrow. Goodnight."
"Night," Eren chuckled, curling a little closer so his head was tucked onto the blond's stomach, legs tangled with Levi's where the dark witch was curled against him.
Mikasa and her great heavy sprawl of powerful coils snorted genially, possessing the entire bottom half of the bed even after she curled tightly around herself; the soft ruffle of feathers as Armin settled for sleep was the last sound before their breathing began to even out and sleep took them one by one.
It was far from what he'd expected when signing a contract for a doctor's firstborn, Levi mused, the last one awake; even still, it wasn't bad. No, it wasn't bad at all.