Work Text:
Levi spat, rising to his feet.
Zeke was a crude mess on the ground -hair unkempt, shirt muddied, blood on his face and under his nails. His glasses were folded carefully on the ground just a few feet away.
“Get up.” Levi says, the words coming out with a heave of effort. His chest and throat felt tight, the memory of Zeke’s knee pressing into it still present in the area, adrenaline still in his limbs and chest and mind. Zeke didn’t carry that same energy, though, his arms working to push himself off the forest floor, slow.
“You’re a monster, Levi…” Zeke complains, as if it wasn’t his fault, his suggestion. A fight to get out pent up anger, he had smiled while saying it, rough each other up enough to sleep well tonight.
Levi wouldn’t sleep well, he thinks, stepping back and resisting the urge to lean up against a tree. His throat would bruise. He could feel the cooling trail of blood from his nose. His head felt loose on his shoulders. No part of him had suspected Zeke to put up a good fight, to actually earn the injuries steaming off of him currently.
“You look like shit.” Levi says. It was half true -Zeke did look gutted, but his skin was already regaining color, swollen eyebrow and lip shrinking. Zeke looked at him, pushing himself up to stand.
“You look worse.” Levi scoffs.
“Do you want more?” Levi’s voice was flat, no promise to his words, but Zeke’s eyes widened all the same.
“No, I’m fine.” Zeke went to his glasses, picking them up off the ground and wiping them on his frumpled shirt. Levi shifted his weight to one foot, feeling a strong urge to sit or to step back against the tree. He wondered briefly if Zeke would try to jump him before his fingers brushed up against cold metal, ODM gear still at his hips. The edges had dug into his side when Zeke had been on him earlier, but now he felt reassurance in the gear still being attached to him. He still had the upper hand here.
Levi stepped back, finally indulging himself as his back hit wood. The bark felt cold even through his shirt and cloak. Winter was coming soon and it was present in the air and ground and trees. He closed his eyes, taking an uncomfortable deep breath, and opened them again to find Zeke staring at him. Levi cursed internally. “ What? ”
“In pain?” Zeke asks, walking over. The steam followed him.
“What does it matter to you?” Levi says, feeling irritated that the truthful thing to say would be yes . Zeke knows that, obviously, Levi thinks, the other stopping just in front of him. Zeke had become quite good at reading him over the weeks they had been in the forest together.
“Pain is a terrible thing.” Zeke says, frowning.
“And yet you wanted this.”
“It felt good in a way, I assume for you as well.” It did. Under the pain there was a satisfaction, almost a burn but not quite -heat in his muscles. It felt almost like the pleasure Levi would get from sex -
He paused, stilling at the realization. Zeke reached out, dusting dirt off Levi’s shoulder. It felt personable but, admittedly, something Levi could imagine him doing since they got to the forest. He thought back a moment, breathing regaining normalcy, and recalled a few times when it had happened. No one had been around, but still. “Don’t do that.”
“Sorry.” Zeke’s hand fell, and the genuineness of his apology made Levi’s chest feel heavy. They were not supposed to interact like that. “I just know how you feel about dirt.”
“Do you?” Levi questions, ignoring Zeke taking a step further closer, shadowing him, as his head turns to look down the path between the trees. When his expression turns smug Levi tch ’s, looking in the opposite direction. Zeke’s hand unfolds on the wood beside Levi’s head.
“I’ve come to learn quite a few things about you.” It was mumbled, but it made Levi’s skin scrawl with something clearly not disgust -more of a mix of guilt and bit back arousal. He should kick him then, end the fight with Zeke’s smug face wiped clean in the mud, perhaps with wounds not so easy to heal - “You’re thinking awfully hard.”
“Catching my breath.” Levi lies, turning to look back up at Zeke. He’s close, enough now that he can catch a whiff of the deep red wine they had brought, and Levi’s gaze looks to the other’s lips to find it stained in red that could be either that or blood and he has half the inclination to tilt his head up and taste it himself. But he has more control than that and he stays still.
Zeke lifts Levi’s hand with his free hand, bringing it up between them and examining the reddened knuckles. Heat swims to where their skin connects. “It’s a bit swollen.” Zeke murmurs, ignoring the way Levi huffs out his nose, not liking the scrutiny. “You know, there is a way to help this heal faster.”
“Not interested.” Levi spoke as Zeke’s gaze flicked up, matching his own.
“Are you sure?” Zeke asks. His words are deliberate and laced with promise that Levi can’t help but feel curious about. “It’s painless and won’t last more than a moment.”
“...if only to shut you up.” A smile spreads onto Zeke’s face and Levi instantly regrets his choice, hand tensing in the other’s as it’s raised further up, cool lips pressing to his knuckles. A shock runs through Levi, and he feels the residual pain from their fight in the way his body tenses, stiff against the tree. Zeke takes no note of the other’s response, pulling back only to open Levi's hand up and press his lips to his palm.
Zeke’s lips travel to his wrist, his hands popping the buttons of his shirt sleeve open so his mouth can go down his forearm, and Levi doesn’t have it in him to move. He’s hot in the face, and he speaks quietly, ears keen on any sounds of someone approaching. “I’m not injured there.”
“Have to be thorough.” Zeke mumbles, catching Levi’s eyes for a moment, and then his mouth is on his neck. Levi’s hair tangles in the bark as his chin juts up, and he clamps his eyes shut as Zeke licks over the sore skin. It’s disgusting and amazing and he should complain. He should fling the other off and scrub his neck till that layer of skin is gone; but his free hand is gripping the other’s collar and his thumb is pressing up into the soft beard because of morbid curiosity he’s carried for weeks now on how it fucking feels and if it’s soft.
And the worst part is that it works -Levi doesn’t feel his injuries, just the heat of the other, the cooling of his tongue, how his own body shudders when Zeke nips at his earlobe. They might as well have just had sex with how fatigued and satisfied Levi’s body feels.
Zeke pulls back, breath heavy and spent, and it crowds the air just in front of Levi’s mouth. He hesitates -as if he wasn’t just all over Levi’s neck and hand and wrist, as if boundaries haven’t already been crossed and tainted with stupid physical desire. And Levi snaps, annoyed, meeting the other’s lips and appreciating the startled noise that comes out of the other’s mouth and lands on his own tongue. Zeke is an eager kisser. Any upper hand Levi had for a moment is lost as Zeke takes control, drops Levi’s hand to find his hip, gripping it as he digs a leg in between Levi’s and it’s too much, it’s too fucking much -
“Stop.” Levi pushes at the other’s chest, breathing hard. Zeke eases off of him, stepping back, and light falls back onto Levi’s face. His whole body is humming as he regains composure; it’s daytime, they’re in the forest, and no one should catch them kissing. He begins to button his sleeve back up as he checks the forest around them. They’re still alone. “We’ve been gone long enough.”
“You look flustered.” Levi looks up at him, finding Zeke looking smug. Because how else would he look after that? Levi narrows his eyes into a glare. “Unusual.”
“You’re annoying as ever.” Levi doesn’t bother wiping at his neck, feeling the already cooling spit over the dull pain from their fight. The residual effect wasn’t the worst thing.
“Let’s fight more, Levi, in the future.” Zeke smooths out his shirt, flicking mostly dried mud patches onto the ground.
“Why?” Levi asks, the other’s words stirring in his gut, thick with anticipation. “Want to get your ass beat more?”
Zeke just laughs at his words, hearty over all too honest words. “If it means I get to kiss you again, yes.”