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Laughter drifts from the stables, so tangible that Erwin thinks he could bottle and drink it. It is the sound of easiness, youth-- familiar, the way Marie’s hands are familiar or Nile’s grin is familiar. Mike’s barking laugh, the smell of tobacco, the coolness of the water at Hidden Creek--
Erwin lights a cigarette. It’s not as glamorous as when he was young. Back then, a cigarette meant freedom, and the infinite possibility of choice. He is old now, and a cigarette is nothing more than a vice. When he smokes he is often tired and alone, his friends either dead and buried or past such indulgences.
Erwin is a different breed. Erwin carries the world on his back, drags the weight of every single man’s hopes and dreams behind him. Summer nights and easy laughter are memories, another life. Another man. A boy, really--a boy with placid smiles and the time to slow dance.
He sighs, back pressed against the stable door. Pulls in, exhales. Closes his eyes.
Levi is talking fast and loud. It’s a side of Levi that Erwin has never seen before. Through the gap between the barn doors, Erwin can see Levi leaning against a stall, a bottle held lazily in his left hand. In the other is a cigarette, and he is smiling when he takes a drag.
He’s having fun, Erwin thinks, and feels ashamed, though he doesn’t know why.
“So then this fuckin’--this fuckin’ kid he looks at me, looks me dead in my eyes! And pisses. Just pisses, all down his fuckin’ leg,” Levi says, rubbing at his nose. A bit of ash falls onto his tee-shirt, but he doesn’t notice. Doesn’t think to worry.
“God, that’s awful,” says Hange, but Erwin can tell they are amused, maybe a little drunk. They are leaning beside Levi, one leg crossed over the other, hair down. Beside them, Moblit is playing with their fingers, seated on an upturned bucket. He is smiling, too. The mood is relaxed, easy.
Erwin can’t remember the last time things felt easy.
“At least he didn’t piss all down your leg. There’s a god after all.”
Erwin clenches his jaw. Of course Dresch is hanging around with Levi and Hange. Dresch is always encroaching where he doesn’t belong. Always stepping into Erwin’s space, and then having the audacity to be kind. Erwin can’t see him, but he can picture him: hazel eyes and that crooked smile, always gentle. Always soft.
“If he’d pissed down my leg, titans would be the least of his worries,” Levi says. Erwin drinks in his smirk, the way his mouth pulls up at the corners and his left eyebrow lifts. Dresch laughs.
“I don’t doubt that, Squad Leader .”
“God, don’t even start with that. It’s insane that he promoted me,” Levi tells Dresch. Erwin frowns.
He’d promoted Levi to Squad Leader two weeks ago, and for damn good reasons. Levi is simply the best the Scouts have to offer, and if Erwin had to twist Keith’s arm a little to get him the recognition he deserved, so be it. Nevermind that they’d lost thirty percent of their veteran forces on their most recent expedition, even with Dresch around--and besides, if Levi is uncomfortable with the increase in his responsibilities he certainly has never mentioned it.
“I agree, it’s absolutely insane,” Hange says, and Levi side steps to kick them in the ankle.
Dresch chuckles.
“I think it’s certainly well deserved. You saved a lot of lives last week,” he says, and the childish part of Erwin wants to loudly agree and then list more amazing things about Levi than Dresch could possibly think of.
“Tch. Kissing my ass won’t convince me you won last round. You still gotta pay up, Mats,” Levi says, and Hange cackles, accidentally kneeing Moblit in the shoulder. He yelps and his beer spills, amber liquid flooding over the sawdust floor.
It’s at that moment that Dresch moves from his perch, which Erwin realizes too little too late is the inside of the stable door. Without the added weight of the man’s body, it swings in on its hinges, making a loud creaking sound as it goes.
Erwin is left exposed, standing in the orange glow of the oil lamps, a handful of moonflower hanging limply in his fist. He feels self conscious in his uniform, all buttoned up and tightly pressed. Maybe ten years ago, he would have been lounging in his slacks and shirt, hair ruffled with his own beer sweating down the back of his hand--maybe he’d have been with them already, standing around the stables and playing cards.
“Erwin?” Levi says. His eyes are wide and he looks more shocked than Erwin has ever seen him.
“Levi,” Erwin breathes. The urge to hide the flowers behind his back is excruciating.
“Wh--” Levi begins, but Hange interrupts, leaping forward and blocking Levi from Erwin’s view.
“Well, howdy, Captain,” Hange says, unruffled. They smile, gesturing to a flat of bottles that is propped on an upturned crate, “Help yourself.”
Erwin is painfully slow to adjust. For a while, he just stands there, like a child caught out of bed. He recalls an afternoon long ago, standing just the same, watching the backs of two MP’s receding, carrying with them the secrets his father had so delicately entrusted to his care. He recalls his desire to run after them, to take it back, to say it was all a lie. Even then, his fear far outweighed his kindness.
It isn’t any different now, he thinks, standing in the lamplight, holding moonflowers in his fist. If Erwin were a kind man he would cross the divide between himself and the man he loves and fall to his knees. He would press his cheek to Levi’s belly and whisper comforts and sweet nothings, would say I saw your lamplight from my window. I worried you were missing that damned horse.
He wouldn’t lower his head, cheeks hot with envy, and stare at the floor as if it were something interesting.
“Have a beer with us, Captain.”
It’s Dresch, of course. He is standing beside Levi and Hange now, careful not to step in Moblit’s spilled ale. His face is soft, sincere--as if he would love nothing better than to sit down with Erwin and have a beer.
Erwin swallows thickly, too embarrassed to decline. His feet are finally moving, but not towards Levi. In just four strides he has walked the length of the barn. In four more, he has begun to cross the training field. The moonflowers have been crushed between his clumsy fingers, most of their stems bent or broken. He drops them, wiping the sap on his waist guard.
“Erwin, wait,” Levi calls after him.
Erwin doesn’t. He keeps walking, knowing his legs are longer. Knowing he can get back to his office before Levi even makes the stairs of headquarters.
“Idiot, please!”
Levi is running. Erwin can hear it in his voice, in the way it quivers with the effort. Against all his finer instincts, he stops walking. He closes his eyes.
When he opens them, the world is still black and blue. The moon is white. Levi is standing too close to him, arms folded and face flushed pink.
“What the hell was that?” he demands. If Erwin didn’t know better, he’d say Levi is angry. He does know better, though. He can hear the way Levi’s vowels pinch, the slight uptick on the last syllable. Worry. Care.
“I didn’t realize you had company,” Erwin says. He knows he sounds like an ass, but doesn’t know how to stop himself.
Levi exhales. It’s a sigh, one of his pale hands pushing his hair back from his face as if he’s just explained something very simple to a smart man for the millionth time.
“Erwin--I’ve already told you--He isn’t--We’re--”
“It’s not that,” Erwin says sternly. Levi frowns. He searches Erwin’s face, a wrinkle forming between his eyebrows. Erwin might smooth it if he weren’t a fool. He might reach out his hand and press his thumb to his lover’s forehead, and rub in slow circles until all that’s last is the softness of their eyes and lips.
“What is it, then?” Levi asks. He sounds desperate. Erwin wonders if it exhausts him--the loving. Erwin would not want to be his own lover. He is difficult, and petulant, and self centered, and oh so very afraid all the time. What kind of man could he be? What kind of partner?
It always comes back to devils and angels, and very little else in between.
“I thought you might want me,” Erwin says softly.
Levi frowns.
“Of course I do, Erwin.”
“I meant, tonight. I saw your light. From my window. I thought you might want company. I thought you might be sad”
Something like understanding washes over Levi’s face, and he softens again. Levi is a good man, and he is full of kindness, and he is always brave. He closes the gap between them in four strides, butting Erwin’s chest with the top of his head.
“I did. I was,” Levi says, slowly, as if he’s talking to a wall made of bricks, “Hange saw it, too. They wanted to cheer me up. That’s all.”
“Ah,” Erwin says, because he is always making a fool of himself.
“You could have just joined in, dumbass,” Levi chides. He nuzzles deeper into Erwin’s chest, arms wrapping around the narrow curve of his waist. Levi always holds him like that. Like a man might hold a woman. Like Erwin might hold Levi.
“I don’t think anyone would want to drink with their commanding officer,” Erwin explains. Of course, he knows plenty of senior officers who drink together with their subordinates. In the Corps, there are no guarantees. No tomorrows, or next years--there is only now, and together, and before I go.
Comradery is what keeps them human. It’s why they are still alive.
“Dresch doesn’t even like men, Erwin.”
“I don’t care about Dresch. It’s not about that,” Erwin says. He realizes that this is true as he says it. It has never been about Dresch.
“You can’t be jealous of Hange,” Levi says dryly.
Erwin shakes his head. He doesn’t know how to make Levi understand. With Marie, things had been simple. She had asked him what he could offer, and he had told her the truth: nothing. He was a soldier, a scout. A man drowning in his own debt.
I owe this to my father. I owe him my heart, he’d told her.
She’d married Nile within a month.
Levi persisted. No matter how many times Erwin showed his hand, Levi went all in. Even if Erwin was cruel, and pigheaded, and arrogant. Even though Erwin had dragged him up from the underground, had stolen his freedom. Had killed his friends.
Erwin slumps, glad to feel Levi’s weight against his ribs. That’s it, really. There is the world he is fighting for, and the world he already has between his hands. For the first time in his life, the choice he must make isn’t easy.
He wants to offer Levi the universe, and more. Erwin sighs, letting his eyes flutter closed again. In the silence, he can feel Levi’s heart beating against his diaphragm.
“You’re pulling me in half,” Erwin says, after a while. It comes out quiet, so quiet he worries Levi won’t hear him at all.
But Levi lifts his head, and Erwin opens his eyes. Levi’s are soft, brimming with life. Their life. A life they could have together. There are mountains and lakes and warm apartments, flower beds and stacks of books on tables. A cabinet just for tea. In the evening, two comfortable chairs. A turntable for music.
Erwin longs to reach out and grab hold of it. For Levi, he could.
“I like these flowers, Erwin.”
Levi holds out his hand. The moonflowers don’t seem so bad, now that Erwin looks again. A little bent, but not broken.
“They only bloom at night. Only in the summer.”
“That’s kind of sad,” Levi says, caressing one of the white blooms in his palm. Erwin exhales, the tension leaving his shoulders. He reaches out, cupping Levi’s pale chin in his palm.
“They’re beautiful in their time,” he says. Levi smiles.
The training field is lush with the scent of summer blooms, a warm breeze tickling the backs of their necks. Lifting their hair. Erwin thinks he’s never seen anything so beautiful in all his life.
Levi sighs, content, and leans his weight back on Erwin’s chest. He looks again at the flowers in his hand.
“I think so, too.”