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“It says here that your kind are bad luck, you know.” Erwin’s nose is long and crooked and buried in a book. These are things that Levi typically loves about him-- his nose, his books, among an endless list of other things. But this is not how Levi had hoped to spend his afternoon.
“Hm.” He hums, disinterested, and picks at the sand he’d gotten caught under his fingernails when he’d pulled himself onto shore. There’s a breeze today, a gentle one that pushes the tide forward so that it laps at the ends of his tail and mist dusts his cheeks. It dusts Erwin too, and the sunlight seems to dance around his golden skin and golden hair. He looks the way Levi imagines a god must look, the way one of the immaculate statues he’s found on the sea floor must look if all the life and color were brought back to it. He considers batting the book out of Erwin’s hands. “You don’t say.”
“And here, it says that perhaps you’re not even real.” Erwin chuckles a little at that and shakes his head, the way he might at a precocious child. There’s an air of importance in his voice. There always is, because he is important and he knows it.
“Uh-huh.”
“Some people are convinced that you’re what they call a sea cow.” If Erwin can see the way Levi’s eyes narrow into slits, he doesn’t acknowledge it. He doesn’t seem to notice anything at all even as he peers over the edge of the book to add, unhelpfully, “A sea cow is another word for a manatee, by the way.”
That does little to ease the insult.
“Are we going to do this all day?”
“Of course not, Levi.” Erwin says, and turns the page. “I can’t stay here all day.”
“Of course not.” Levi agrees, mocking. The someday-king hums, his eyes greedily scanning line after line, consuming something that Levi can’t understand and frankly, doesn’t want to. Letters mean nothing to Levi, though he’d tried to be a good student when Erwin would still bother trying to teach him. Truthfully, he likes to listen to Erwin read more, to hear how his voice tilts downwards at the end of each sentence. He likes it when the book is interesting, that is. When it doesn’t go out of its way to hurt his feelings. A sea cow. “You know, I have shit to do, too, Erwin.”
He tries to imagine telling Farlan about this, and the way Farlan will scoff and cross his arms across his chest. How Farlan will tell him that he told Levi so about humans being self-centered, about Erwin being the worst of them all, and how Levi will weakly protest without any real defense because he knows Erwin better, perhaps, than anyone else on land or sea.
He imagines his uncle, horizontal scars lining the left side of his face, and how he got them trying to protect his sister, Levi’s mother, from something far worse than a human’s selfishness before Levi even had a chance to hatch. ”You keep away from them, Levi. They won’t do you any good.
And maybe Kenny is right, too, about other humans. But Erwin, self-centered as he is, he’s not like the others. That much Levi is certain of.
“Ah! This is interesting.” says Erwin, thick brows raised. He lowers the book into his lap with great finality. Levi rolls his eyes, resting his head against his hand as he leans back against one of the great rocks that line the shore. “It says here, that merpeople are quite dangerous to us humans. They sing-- seductively-- to lure unsuspecting sailors to their deaths.”
Levi can stomach being called a sea cow, if he must. He can handle being the harbinger of bad luck, or whatever, because he doesn’t even believe in luck. Things either happen or they don’t. But there’s a line he draws, suddenly and angrily, with Kenny’s voice and Kenny’s scars and his own dead mother in his head, at being called dangerous. He grits his teeth, ready to… to do something. Anything. Instead, he only glowers, drinking in the question sitting plainly on Erwin’s face, the one that Erwin thinks himself too polite to ask out loud.
“First of all, what the fuck is a merpeople?” He asks, his tail lashing at the water. He pulls himself forward, mostly because all he wants to do is shrink back.
The thing about Erwin is that he speaks like he knows everything, carelessly, like the things he finds in his books can give him the answers to all the universe. Usually, Levi doesn’t mind it so much. He’s even caught himself before, edging forward, breathless and wide-eyed, desperate for Erwin who has never left his castle by the sea to tell him about the world. They’re lies, mostly, those books. Levi knows. He’s seen so much more of the world than he’d ever admit. They’re lies, and he often finds that it doesn’t matter to him at all. He’d let Erwin feed him lie after lie, if it meant spending just a little more time beside him.
“Well, you. Your people. That’s the word for you.” Erwin frowns, like this should be obvious. It is obvious, and it only makes Levi angrier. He loves to hear Erwin lie, but not when the lies are about him. His uncle. His mother. Not when he would tell Erwin anything he could ever want to know, if Erwin would only think to ask. “Truthfully, the word the book uses is mermaid, but you’re not a woman, and you’ve told me about your friends, so I know you’re not the only male--”
“That’s not what we call ourselves.” Levi snaps, and for a moment, Erwin’s face falls, as if he’s realizing he’s being caught speaking on something he knows nothing about. But Erwin is never apologetic, no. He’s bothered. He’s bothered by not being all-knowing. He’ll be king someday, after all, and kings are meant to know everything. Levi snorts, and flicks a pebble between his thumb and index finger into the water, watches it skip once and then sink. “And that’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. What, we’re supposed to be singing people to death? I picked up a new-- what’s it fucking called-- a new shanky under the docks the other day, would that do it?”
“Shanty.” Erwin says sullenly. He lowers his eyes toward the book, his shoulders sinking. The future king is a pouter. Sometimes it’s endearing. Right now, Levi is struck and mortified by what a spoiled child he can be. If Farlan could see the two of them now, he’d probably laugh himself sick. He’d tell Isabel, and Isabel would tell everyone else, and Kenny would have all kinds of things to say about it, and Levi would just have to take it because he chose to love a spoiled pouter. It makes him feel childish right back. It makes him want to be mean, because sometimes that’s the nature of pain. “It’s called a shanty. And you don’t sing people to death, you--”
“Who cares. What happens if I burst into song? Do you drop dead on the spot, or is something supposed to happen first?”
“Alright, leave it already.”
“No, I wanna know, Erwin, do you get all… rashy or something?
“I said leave it.”
The way Erwin’s gaze suddenly lashes into Levi is bruising. He swallows, rubs at his wrist as if slapped. He looks away, because he doesn’t have to see it, that look. He’s not obligated. What right does Erwin have to demand anything of him? What does a prince of the land have over a creature of the sea?
“Apologies, your highness.” He mutters. He imagines flinging that stupid book into the sea.
He had done it once. Not flinging one of Erwin’s precious books, but rather… drowning it.
It hadn’t been on purpose, was the thing. The book Erwin brought that day had been beautiful, bound in deer skin, with delicately drawn pictures inlaid with gold, and Levi had only wanted to look at them longer. To take it back to Farlan, maybe, and show him what wonderful things humans could create. He had only wanted to borrow, not take. He hadn’t known that the book would grow thick and weak underwater, that it would fall apart the way it had. Erwin had been kind about it, but Levi could see something wilting behind the schooled, closed-mouthed smile he’d given.
Erwin had shared something special with Levi, and Levi had ruined it.
He’d felt shame then, had gone home feeling heavy and sick. But this book-- he could drown this book and feel nothing at all but some vague, smug satisfaction. He could rip it from Erwin’s grasp and tear it to shreds.
He flicks another pebble. It skips, it sinks.
Erwin is still pouting, head bent over the sparsely illustrated pages. So this is how it’s going to be, neither of them speaking, neither of them willing to be the first one to just leave. Somewhere overhead, gulls squawk, and the breeze keeps pushing the tide, and the sound of the waves moving in and out should be peaceful. This could have been a perfect day. The sunlight dancing around Erwin’s perfect golden hair--
“I thought you’d like it.” Erwin says, finally. It’s not often he’s the first one to admit defeat. Levi is stubborn, maybe stupidly so, but Erwin can be more-so, especially when they fight. What Erwin fears, first and foremost, is being wrong. What Levi fears is Erwin walking back up the long and rocky cliffside to his beautiful white palace and never coming down again. “A book about people like you.”
“What do I need a book for?” Levi asks without any real venom. So maybe he is pouting too, just a little. It doesn’t matter. He’s no king-to-be. He can pout if he wants, he can be childish. “I’m me every day.”
“That’s true.”
“What if I brought you a book all about… all about how stupid and annoying princes named Erwin are, huh? Would you like that? A whole book about Prince Erwin the pigheaded idiot who cares more about a book than his--” He falters, waving a hand around uselessly. He can feel his face growing red, and flinches. When they were children, it was easy. They were friends. It’s more complicated than that now, and it has been for a long time, and Levi prefers to pretend that it’s not so horribly temporary. “--me.”
“Than his you?” Erwin’s voice is soft, so soft it makes Levi’s shoulders tense, and he tries to remember what that human saying is about your whole face turning red, what food they say, and he’s certain it’s not a cucumber--
“Shut up.”
“Is that what you think? That I care more about…” Erwin laughs, humorlessly, and Levi squeezes his eyes shut. “Of course you wouldn’t say it if you didn’t think it. I wouldn’t like that book much at all, Levi, because it wouldn’t be true.”
“Yeah, well.”
“I know you’re not wreaking havoc on the open sea. You’re not… singing sailors to death, or cursing all those who look upon you, or--”
“Sea cows.” Levi finishes, voice weak. How humiliating, being this worked up, all because a stupid book made him sound like some kind of monster. But Erwin was the one who brought it to him, who told him what it said. Who looked at him like he was wondering, like a traitor.
“I know all of that.” But he doesn’t, because he wondered. Because he brought it down to Levi for a reason. Because there is something in his voice that sounds like he’s trying to convince himself more than he’s trying to convince Levi.
“My mother,” Levi says, and he’s surprised at himself for saying it. He keeps his eyes closed, determined not to see how Erwin looks at him. He has never been ‘poor Levi’ with Erwin, not once, the way he is at home, and Erwin never shakes his head in shame thinking about the half-crazy uncle who raised him. If Erwin looks at him the way the others do, Levi is certain he’ll wither and die right here. “I never met her. I was still… I hadn’t hatched yet. And my uncle doesn’t like to talk about it, but I’ve pieced enough of it together to know that what happened to her was ugly, and evil, and it almost killed him too, when he tried to save her from them. Those men. Human men. He’d hate me, I think, if he knew I was coming here every day. You don’t know how many of us just… shit, Erwin, I don’t want to know what humans think we do, alright?”
“Levi…” Fuck, but he can hear the pity in Erwin’s voice, and he hates it. He’d take the pouting to this. He’d take nearly anything. “I didn’t think… I didn’t know--”
“Yeah. I know. Just, let’s forget about it. We can do that, can’t we?” Erwin’s hand gripping his is impossibly soft. Large. Erwin has the biggest hands Levi has seen in his life. On better days, Levi likes to lay their palms flat against each other, so that he can watch the tops of Erwin’s fingers curl around his own and marvel at the difference. Right now, his own hands are shaking. He opens his eyes against his will, desperately seeking some kind of confirmation in Erwin’s solemn features. “Can’t we, Erwin?”
“I don’t think we should.” Erwin says, earnestly. He’s so earnest in everything he says, truth or lie. He believes every word that comes out of his mouth, and it makes Levi want to believe them too. “Levi, someday… someday I’ll be king, remember, and things will be different then. For you, for all of them. I’ll make sure of it.”
It almost makes Levi laugh. He wonders if there had been other someday-kings before Erwin who had thought, foolishly, that they could make things better for anyone other than themselves. It seems impossible, as impossible as it is to imagine a world before Erwin.
“How?” He can’t help asking. After all, Erwin is different from the other humans, Levi is sure. Erwin isn’t like the men who took away his mother. He isn’t like anyone anywhere.
“Well, I’ll be king. What I say is law.”
“People break laws all the time, Erwin. Your word doesn’t… bend someone’s will.”
“Then I’ll have them punished.” He says it with such conviction, so wholeheartedly, so seriously.
This time, Levi does laugh, an almost barking kind of laugh that must startle Erwin, because he jerks his head back and looks at him wide-eyed, wounded all over again.
“What’s funny about that? I’m being serious.”
“Yeah, I know.” Levi says, nodding his head and trying to match the seriousness on Erwin’s face. Another laugh tears out of him instead, shaking his shoulders and making his eyes sting. “So what about you then?”
“Me?”
“You wanted to know if it was true. The things in that book. Right? You wondered. Maybe you still wonder.” For a long moment, Erwin says nothing. Levi wipes his eyes with the back of his hand and lets his head fall to the side, watching as Erwin’s brows furrow together, as something like understanding starts to sink into his features. Like shame. He doesn’t make Erwin say it. “You could have just asked. If you were curious.”
I would tell you anything. He wants to say. I would give you everything, everything, everything. He swallows it instead, leaning over Erwin with a hand outstretched towards the book.
“There’s a story,” Erwin starts, his voice soft as Levi flips through the pages looking for pictures, the fish-like beasts pulling terrified men from their boats. “In there. It… well, I suppose it scared me. I haven’t been able to stop thinking of it. There’s so much we don’t know, and I-- well-- ”
Levi runs a finger across the creature’s face, taking in its piercing fangs, its violent eyes, Erwin’s words sounding further and further away. He has never seen his mother, but he has seen his own face, and Kenny has always said they look alike. When he was small, he would point to his eyes, trace the shape of his nose, hold up his ten chubby fingers, asking again and again which parts were hers until Kenny couldn’t stand to look at him anymore.
Without thinking, he tears the page from its spine. He will not cry for a mother he’s never met, but he will destroy for her, ripping pieces into pieces until there is nothing left.
“Hey,” Erwin’s hand is on his arm and still he tears, the shredded remains falling around them and scattering with the wind. He can feel Erwin’s hand sliding up, around to the back of his neck, Erwin’s large, thick fingers finding the curve of his spine and running along it. Up and down, up and down, until his body feels heavy and tired and his tail stops thrashing and he lets himself sink back into the touch. “Levi, hey. Hey, it’s alright.”
He can feel himself being shifted, Erwin’s other hand snaking itself underneath him and lifting him onto his lap as if he weighed nothing. For a moment, he squirms, the feeling of human skin rubbing against the scales of his tail strange. Erwin always feels so hot, as if Levi is wrapping himself around the sun itself.
“It’s alright,” Erwin says again, his breath on Levi’s neck, his nose burying itself in his hair.
With a long, trembling breath, Levi lets his hands fall to his sides.
“Sometimes, with you, it’s easy to forget,” Erwin’s voice is low, quiet, each word spoken directly into the shell of Levi’s ear so that even the gulls can’t hear them. “You’re so strong, Levi. Sometimes I forget what we’re capable of. Humans, I mean. I forget how cruel we can be, how… domineering, and destructive. Even me. Especially me.”
Levi wants to turn, to take Erwin’s face in his hands. He wants to say ”Never you. Never, ever you” even if it’s not the truth, to lie the way Erwin can lie and believe it wholeheartedly. Instead, he lets his head fall back on Erwin’s chest, lets his eyes close and listens to the steady beat of Erwin’s heart against his cheek.
“Tell me the story. The one you can’t stop thinking about.”
And really, it’s a silly story. A stupid one, the way everything else in the book is silly and stupid and insulting. Levi tries to imagine himself as this creature, this girl-thing, with two legs and no voice and pathetically in love with a man who will marry someone else. He tries to imagine himself standing over Erwin’s bed with a knife and wonders if he would plunge it into his chest to save himself.
It makes his skin itch. It makes him feel dry, maybe, or like he can’t breathe, but he can breathe anywhere he is, and he is here with Erwin, which is the best place to breathe of all.
It is only a story, and it is a story from that book, and so it is stupid and he tells Erwin so, tilitng his head up to look at him from behind, from his place in Erwin’s lap.
“We’re wasting a perfectly good day,” He complains. “All because of this dumb thing you brought down here.”
“Yes, you’re probably right.” says Erwin, but his eyes are downcast, they won’t meet Levi’s, and he looks worse than wounded. He looks… “It frightened me, is all.”
“Erwin, the only scary thing here is that you believe a word of this shit.”
He wants Erwin to smile. He wants to be the one to make Erwin smile, with his biting words and his jabbing and nagging. He wants to save this, somehow, so that Erwin will always, always come back to him.
“What happens then,” Erwin asks, the words coming out slowly, as if he is worried about insulting Levi further. It is probably a wise choice, to be careful. “If your heart breaks? What happens to you?”
Levi thinks of the girl-thing in the book, who’s prince does not love her, because she isn’t him and her prince isn’t Erwin, and how she turns into seafoam, into nothingness. He has never known someone like him to fall in love with a human before. There has only ever been Erwin, and everyone else, all of them a danger.
“Are you planning on breaking my heart?”
“No, but--”
“Then don’t, and we won’t have to find out.”
He nudges Erwin playfully. He wants to say ”forget it all, forget this book and everything we’ve said. We can save this day, the sun is out and I need you to come back to me.”
“Idiot human,” he tacks on instead, but it doesn’t change the look on Erwin’s face. It doesn’t relieve the dread that’s building in Levi’s chest. “Erwin, c’mon. We don’t have all day, rememb--”
“You’ll outlive me. Won’t you?” Erwin says it like it is an undeniable truth. It is. Unless something horrible happens, like it did to his mother, it is the undeniable truth. One that Levi has never let himself think about before, but truth nonetheless. “What happens then, Levi? When I get old and sick and I die, while you could go on for centuries more, what happens to you then?”
Absently, Levi wonders how long this has been plaguing him. How long has Erwin been staring at the pages in that stupid book, looking for answers it couldn’t provide, worrying and saying nothing?
”Hopefully I turn to foam. He wants to say. ”There is no me if there is no you, you fool, you human fool, you--
“Nothing.” He says, because it’s the only word his mouth can form. Erwin’s brows raise, the crease between them easing like the slow parting of clouds after a storm, and he lifts his gaze to meet Levi’s, at last.
“Nothing?” Erwin asks, and Levi’s chest aches at the way he sounds hopeful, relieved. Like Levi is promising him the world. Like Levi isn’t telling him a lie.
“Nothing happens, Erwin. Nothing at all.”
The sun is still high in the sky, the breeze still blows around them, and Erwin turns Levi in his lap to kiss him, his hand at the back of Levi’s head, cupping it like he is precious.
“Nothing happens. Nothing.” Levi says again, and he can feel Erwin nodding as he presses desperate, hungry kisses down Levi’s throat, so Levi allows himself to forget about the book, and the girl who turns to foam, and how he shares a face with someone he’ll never get to know. He forgets, just long enough to be lost in Erwin, Erwin, Erwin.