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"You must fu- kkkkk-rrring... kidding me!"
"Please, Daddy, please! Do it!"
"Yes, Daddy. Let's see how brave you are."
Erwin's gaze shifted once again between his husband and son, unable to comprehend their request.
"I am enough brave. Why should I pierce my ears?"
"To show your son," Levi said nodding his head at the small, blond boy in his arms, Armin, "that it won't hurt and he just exaggerates."
"Armin, baby boy," Erwin coaxed and bent slightly to get on his son's level, extending a hand to brush his hair. "If you don't want this, we can go home."
"No! No. No. I want to pierce my ears like Dad! But- I.. I'm afraid that will hurt." Armin closed his eyes and buried his face into the crook of Levi's neck, his blond locks like a curtain covering his face. He was embarrassed. Armin used to act like an adult. 'A prodigy' his teachers were saying. 'A little gentleman' others. Armin was smart. He was enough mature for his early age. But he was still a child. A seven years old boy- his baby boy. And he was scared right now.
"It won't hurt, Armin. I did it myself," Levi once again explained, giving a kiss on his son's temple.
"I don't believe you. Daddy must do it."
Levi glared at Erwin, his usual 'if-you don't-do-anything-i-will-kill-you' glare. Erwin opened his mouth to protest but Levi frowned and Erwin knew that the end was coming. He sighed in defeat.
"But, baby boy, I am a professor. I can't show up to university with a piercing."
"Daddy must do it first," Armin insisted.
"Maybe Daddy is afraid too, Armin." Levi knew where and how deep could dig in the blade into Erwin's wounds.
"I'm not afraid. Don't be ridiculous. It'll just be absurd for a professor to have a piercing."
Levi snorted. "This is bull-ssshrimp... and you know it, Erwin. Admit it. You're scared of a small needle."
"Am not!"
"You are. You're worse than a child."
"That's it. I'm doing it! You won."
Armin raised his head, grinning widely at him. Honestly, Erwin would do anything to see his son smile and be happy. Love takes sacrifices. What was a small earring? No one would notice...
They entered the shop and approached the counter where the earrings where.
"What should I choose?" Erwin questioned to himself out loud. There were too many options. He couldn't decide. Levi was even the one who bought clothes and shoes for him. He wasn't a 'fashion icon' as his ex-goth husband put it.
Levi had lots of tattoos and piercings. His hair was still shaved, keeping his well-known undercut. Sometimes, when suits weren't needed, he wore worn out black jeans, so skinny that defined perfectly his little pert ass, and leather black boots. He was putting his hair at the side, adding too much amount of hair gel for Erwin to brush his fingers through it as he loved to. Levi was different, unique- a contradiction in this world. He dared to speak out and say what he truly felt and believed. He gave all his heart and being into the things he worked hard on. He lived without any restrictions. And, maybe, that's why Erwin loved him. He was making his life, healthier, less boring, more livid. Life was Levi's drug and Levi was Erwin's.
He couldn't get enough of this man.
So, he rebelled and stood up and out. He fell in love with his student and mute every other judgmental voice. He flipped everyone off and follow Levi to this small riot.
Having a secret relationship with your student is hard and scary. But he felt young again when Levi winked at him from across the classroom, when he grasped his hand and dragged him out of the class room to get him trapped into his own office; locking the door behind and sucking him off. He felt young, careless, free. Everything was a risk; from a small peck on the lips in strangers' offices to dinners out.
Erwin had been thirty and Levi only twenty-one. Erwin was his English Literature professor and Levi was his student. If you had asked back then Erwin if this 'flirt' would last, he would have laughed it off. Now, Erwin is thirty-eight and Levi twenty-nine. Erwin is still a professor at a different university and Levi a journalist and they have a beautiful angel.
"Which one should I choose?" he questioned again and looked at his two boys, raising an eyebrow emphatically.
"That one!" Armin exclaimed and pointed with his little finger, tapping it against the protecting glass. "We should all wear the same earring!"
That was a bad idea. That was the worst idea. He, a Literature teacher, to wonder around the streets and university with a pink flower earring on? No. No. No.
"Excuse me, Sir." Levi asked the young worker to help them out. "We'll get three of this one."
"Levi, you're okay with this?" Erwin almost shouted, not believing in his ears or eyes.
"What?" Levi shrugged. "Flowers are punk."
"Yeah, flowers are punk," Armin echoed cheerfully and smiled, showing off the gaps into his mouth, where white teeth used to be.
He would do anything to see this smile every day...
So, Erwin had a piercing and so had little Armin. The three of them exited the shop, two men holding Armin in the middle, swinging him up and forth. Armin's laughter embraced him and warmed him like beams of the sun. He stared at his two boys, wondering how much lucky he was. He smiled and walked forward with his own flower-punk gang.