Archive of Our Own

Being a Vampire Hunter isn’t as glamorous as it sounds. 

Erwin blames shit like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Twilight for that misconception. (Sparkling vampires? Really?). In reality, it’s a taxing job and exhausting as hell. He has to be one of those guys who’s at the gym every morning, without fail, at six sharp—and even then, the strain it takes to keep up in close combat with creatures with double the speed and triple the stamina of a human never really gets easier. He just gets better at managing it. And then there’s the overhead—if you thought managing your time and money as a freelancer was bad, imagine that nightmare plus having to account for specialty supplies that the agencies have commandeered for themselves, making the price point for a set of industry standard wooden stakes more astronomical than his electricity bill. 

But that’s why Erwin carves his own stakes, anyway. He exchanges the ability to keep his lights on for painstaking time and labor, but his clients appreciate the personal touch of a freelancer.

There’s a reason Erwin Smith is the most highly coveted Vampire Hunter in the greater Orleans parish area, after all. 

Stakes and gym membership and non-sparkly vampires aside, Erwin likes his job. He really does. 

But it’s nights like this—with only a flimsy layer of resin alongside a bath of dragonsblood between him and the heebie-jeebiest big-wig nasties in New Orleans proper—that he seriously considers the benefits of an early retirement. 

It’s a miracle none of them have caught on—the mask only covers half his face, and he’s already sweating through his three piece black velvet suit in night air so thick he could swim through it, if not cut it with a knife. He suspects the only reason his disguise is holding up is because everyone around him is more focused on what lies at the end of the queue snaking around the corner. 

Erwin fishes the invitation out of his pocket to read it for the hundredth time, even though he had it memorized by the thirtieth: 

you are cordially invited to

- the party of the century-
a birthday celebration

at

eleven o’clock on september third
1315 first street

invitation only 
black tie attire, masks required

If it hadn’t arrived anonymously to his work PO Box, as most of his jobs did, he would have never pegged it as an invite to a monster ball. If anything, it was designed more like an exclusive modern wedding invitation, all black with minimal gold foil type letter-pressed by hand and smelling faintly floral. 

But hell if he was going to miss an opportunity to go undercover into the den of beasts. His knowledge of the hierarchy of New Orleans’ monster population outside of the vampire community is severely lacking, and he’s hoping for proof of an alleged workers’ union whose existence has only been alluded to in passing by other Hunters, but he’d be happy with a confession from one of the suspects he’s got on the Evans missing persons case, or even just a crumb of insider info on how vamps tick—not that there’s much he doesn’t already know. He’s the number one Vampire Hunter in all of New Orleans, and he didn’t get that way by not risking his life to get exclusive information from big-bads.

Including his number one rival, his most elusive mark, the maddening, infuriating, ever-ephemeral—

Erwin shakes his head, realizing that he’s fallen behind in the line. He steps forward, and focuses on looking as if he belongs, taking in the view as he inches toward the gate. 

The lot must take up at least a quarter of the block, and the foliage that fills it looks too lush, too dark under the moonlight, to be the work of a mere common gardener—magnolia trees brimming with gargantuan, fragrant flowers, palm trees reaching for the sky, jimsonweed gasping for air between endless ferns, flashes of white and purple against the dark, jessamine choking the navy blue wrought-iron gate—and cocooned within, separated from the sidewalk by twenty yards of long dirt pathway lined with freshly bloomed devil’s trumpet, is a manor. 

Standing at two tall stories, it’s painted the palest pink with faded blue shutters and rows of intricately filigreed balconies on one side that match the gate, boxes of ferns affixed to each one. A warm glow emits from the tall windows and from the set of french doors propped open, welcoming in the line one monster at a time. A steady, driving beat pours from the house, muffled by cicadas trilling in the trees.

Erwin had expected parapets and gargoyles, turrets and arches, doom and gloom and the creeping, prickling sensation down the hairs on the back of his neck to run. But this—this is…this is just—

This is a house.

Albeit, a big one. And—a pretty one.

Maybe I’m the one who’s been watching too much of The Addams Family, Erwin thinks as he steps up, through the threshold of the gate. He gazes up at the house and wonders, not for the first time tonight, what the hell he’s gotten himself into. 

He spends the remainder of his time in line inching forward and utilizing the movement to check himself as surreptitiously as possible—straightening the satin lapels of the suit, pressing his ankle against the side of his black military boots to test the comforting weight of the stake hidden there, placing his fingers on the Venetian mask hiding his upper face save for one eye, dripping down his cheekbones like gilded black ore—and straining to listen in on the conversation of the creatures around him to no avail; the couple ahead of him are talking in one of the few languages he doesn’t speak, and the group behind him are commenting mildly on the weather. 

The cream shirt under his suit jacket is sticking to his skin by the time he reaches the french doors, and has a moment of panic wondering how long it’ll take to soak through the scent of dragonsblood—

But the attendant at the door takes his invitation wordlessly and smiles benignly, welcoming him with a hand into the manor. Not even a pat-down. 

Surely, Erwin thinks, the cobwebs and dark walls and the smell of death that he’d expected would be found upon entry to the charming pink house on the corner. 

But what he finds instead is…well. He might very well describe it as Anthropologie-chic. 

He’s standing in a wide foyer with creamy walls, lined with green velvet couches and adorned with tasteful art in ornate, golden frames—the one nearest him is a haunting collage of illustrations from Gray’s Anatomy. A glance up reveals a glimmering, golden chandelier dimmed to a tasteful cocktail party level of light, and a glance down reveals black and white marble checkerboard tile that extends left and right, wrapping around the courtyard nestled smack dab in the heart of the house—and indeed, the heart of the party.

Another set of French doors lies just ahead, leading out into the courtyard, framed by enormous kintsugi planters of blooming white bird of paradise. His feet are glued to the floor and his collar is glued to his neck, a stubborn rock in the steady stream of guests eager to enter, paying him no mind. 

Erwin takes a steadying breath, straightens his lapels once more for good measure, and orders his feet to walk him into the belly of the beast. 

Erwin realizes with a start that the source of the bass is a DJ in the corner of the courtyard, and a lively number from the new Beyoncé album thrums through Erwin’s chest, echoing against the four walls and up into the starry night sky. The courtyard is dotted with various seating areas: black and white striped couches and white wrought-iron garden benches spiral out across the cobblestone floor from the center of the courtyard, which houses a live oak, sprawling branches dripping with spanish moss and dotted with warm lanterns.

Erwin tries to walk as if he belongs, as if he knows exactly where he is and whom he’s with. It would be easy to mistake his wandering eyes as searching for friends, he thinks, as he drinks in the crowd around him. 

Some of them are in rare form, warts and all: he spies a clan of hobgoblins in the corner, decked out in tuxedos and lion masks and cackling over a tray of shot glasses filled with a dark liquid that Erwin doesn’t want to think too hard about; to his right, a couple of banshees in ballgowns hover morosely by the wall, hollow eyes (or the lack thereof) behind masks of bone-white staring (or not) as they lean together and whisper, pointing at various groups around them; just ahead, an ogre in a comically small mask struggles to balance four drinks in its arms, slopping some down the front of its suit as it side-steps Erwin to return to its party. 

But most of the guests look—if Erwin didn’t know any better—human. 

Some of them whisper and laugh and point down from the second floor wrought-iron balcony, twined with jessamine, overlooking the courtyard; Erwin can see that it’s lined with baskets of ferns and a door or two on each wall that lead to what must be rooms in the upper floor of the house. Still more are gathered around the more plush seating areas surrounding him, holding court and conversing raucously. 

Erwin’s getting close to the oak, and figures now’s as good a time as any to find a group to assimilate into. He studies the individuals around him with more scrutiny, noting the pointed ears of an especially ethereal-looking group and thinking better of it, catching the tell-tale sign of gills peeking out of someone’s collar and passing them by, making uncomfortable eye contact with a set of identical twins with no white in their eyes and gulping, fighting a blush, nodding politely and pressing forward—

Erwin’s heart rate spikes, and a shiver spider-walks down his spine. 

Just under the oak, there is a man sprawled across a wrought iron bench as if it’s a fainting couch, looking like he was born to lounge in the meticulously tailored jet black tuxedo, white shirt unbuttoned several buttons too many to be considered anything but rakish, fingers tapping to the beat of the bass, conversing with someone in a red dress. The mouth of an ornately painted kitsune mask covers only the bottom half of his face, single-handedly making a mockery of the art of the masquerade. Erwin’s brows crease under his mask, because he’d know that frame anywhere—that elegant undercut, those pale fingers, those gunmetal grey eyes—

That cut directly over to meet his. 

Erwin turns abruptly, gritting his teeth. 

The maddening, infuriating, ever-ephemeral—

Levi Ackerman. 

All at once he abandons his sleuthing and stalks through the closest set of French doors, into the manor, to find a drink. 

If Levi is here, that makes this stealth mission a whole hell of a lot more complicated—he shudders at the mere thought of Paris two years ago—Because none of his future marks know he’s after them, and none of his past marks remain alive…

Save for, of course, Levi Ackerman.

Sweat beads his temples as he passes by a bartender pumping a cocktail shaker at a bar set into the corner of the hall—but the framed menu perched by the tip jar advertises only corpse revivers, bloody marys, and el diablos. His stomach turns as an unearthly shade of neon pours from the shaker, and he hurries past. 

Of course. Of-fucking-course he’d run into Levi.

He wishes he was surprised to find his arch-nemesis here. If this is the “party of the century,” as the invitation so stated, then it was bound to happen but hell if he wants to maneuver around the one monster at this party that would recognize him—nay, the one vampire he’s been unable to Stake, the one red stain on his otherwise unblemished and unbroken streak—

Erwin sucks in a breath. He might as well be sucking water through a straw for how thick the air is, despite the couple degrees of relief the halls contain. 

He straightens his lapels, and continues on. 

He passes by a harried-looking bigfoot in coattails with a tray of highball glasses filled with what Erwin thinks might be spinal fluid, topped whimsically with crazy-straws. He stops by an open door to a bathroom in which two mermaids are supposedly concocting “bathtub gin,” although the mischievous looks they exchange after Erwin asks leaves him with more questions than answers. He expertly dodges an open-air parlor with plush seating occupied by patrons looking… intimately close, attended by a maniacally smiling individual in a suit, spectacles, and wild hair with a tray of tiny crystal vials containing so-called “Vamp Venom.”

What the hell does a man have to do around here to get a Sazerac? 

After exhausting the east and west wing, Erwin finds the north wing—farthest from the entrance to the house—abandoned, and so he has no choice but to return to the courtyard, hotter and stickier than he left it. 

Within seconds, a fae man sidles up to him with a tray of—oh thank god—

“Pimm’s Cup?” The waiter smiles politely. 

Erwin hesitates. “What’s in it?” he chances.

“Pimm’s, sparkling lemonade, lemon, strawberry, and basil,” the waiter rattles off.  

Erwin huffs out sigh of relief and takes a glass, thanking the waiter as he turns to the crowd before him. 

Immediately, hound-to-game, moth-to-flame, yin-to-yang, Erwin’s eyes find Levi’s.

He’s now on the east side of the courtyard—standing amongst a group of what might pass for humans, were they not half-transparent—staring at Erwin, face utterly unreadable behind the mask. 

Erwin glares back.

Levi raises a brow, and lifts his own Pimm’s Cup with a wink. 

Erwin flips him the bird, turns on his heel, and slips into the crowd, willing the brand of Levi’s pale white face to fade from the inside of his eyelids.

If this night goes to shit, he’ll be blaming Levi fucking Ackerman.

☆

“Another show about vampires that didn’t get it right.”

“I mean. I hope to god they never get it right.”

“But it’s not even good—”

“It’s not about it being good or bad, queer women deserve a space in the genre—”

“They deserve a quality space—”

Erwin finds his eyes wandering from an elusive pair of vamps that have been on his to-do list for a while now—they seem more fixated on one of the dime-a-dozen new Netflix shows that premiered over the summer than revealing the existence of of a monster union (or lack thereof) to a total stranger. 

Go figure. 

As the owl-masked one tries to convince the raven-masked one that queer representation alone isn’t enough to warrant praise—and Erwin isn’t quite sure he agrees with her—he scans the crowd for a more promising conversation to insert himself into. His feet are too hot in his boots, and his shirt is soaked through in several places now—

His stomach jolts when he spies Levi several yards away, near the back of the crowd surrounding a duck-walking troll on the dance floor, side-eyeing him slyly over the kitsune mask. 

“What do you think, blondie?” 

Erwin snaps his attention back to the vamps at hand. 

“Queer representation should be normalized regardless of the quality of the writing,” he decides.

That gets the Owl riled, and the Raven jumps to counter her, and once they start going at it they forget Erwin’s presence entirely. 

He turns back around, scanning the crowd.

Levi has vanished. 

☆

“It was brutal, dude.”

“I was convinced he was done for, absolutely torn to shreds—”

“I was surprised he didn’t die right then and there, honestly—”

Erwin holds his breath, taking a sip of his second Pimm’s Cup. 

“He never stood a chance with her then, and he sure as hell doesn’t now.” One of them shakes his head. “Not after she called him out for making her wedding about him—”

“I can’t believe he badmouthed her dad like that—”

“To say all that shit to the maid of honor—”

Erwin stifles the disgruntlement threatening to claw its way out of his throat, pasting a look of incredulity on his face as the pack of werewolves he’s slipped into fills him in on what he now realizes is not a murder confession, but simply a biweekly gossip session. So much for a lead on the Evans case.

He thinks he’ll need pliers to unstick his sweaty underwear from his ass tonight.

They’re all fighting for dominance of the conversation now, and so Erwin takes the cacophony as an opportunity to check the time on his phone—only to find that it has disappeared from his back pocket.

Ah, shit.  

As he’s racking his brain for where the hell he could have left it, he feels a sudden, insistent pressure at the base of his skull that has him turning before he realizes he’s doing it. 

Levi is leaning on the balcony just above, looking down at him. The way his cheekbones lift despite the kitsune mouth—Erwin can tell that he’s smiling.

Erwin’s heart skips a beat—he takes an even breath to quell the fire in his chest, to channel it all into the narrow passageway of a glare, before turning back around to find a way back into the conversation. 

The pressure at the base of his skull persists.

☆

Erwin is starting to wonder if this mission is a bust. 

His phone is still nowhere to be found, and it’s just a burner but he hates having to replace them. The evening only seems to be getting hotter as it goes on and sweat is slipping down his neck into his collar, his shirt is soaked all the way through now, and if all that wasn’t bad enough—after six conversations Erwin is beginning to get the distinct and uncanny feeling that he’s at a happy hour event in the French Quarter, the only difference being that the majority of the individuals he’s making small talk with could swallow him whole if they so chose. 

But even that is up for debate. Erwin squints through his mask at a goblin passing by on his way to a third Pimm’s Cup and really, truly wonders if it’s just an impressive application of prosthetic skin. 

He finds the handsome fae who seems to be the designated Pimm’s-bearer for the evening, and steals a glass with a passing, “Thanks.” He turns, sighing, and sizes up the so-called creatures around him, rolling the dice—

And finds himself ten feet from Levi, lounging once more on that wrought-iron bench under the oak, nursing an identical drink. 

Erwin’s pulse spikes and he swallows the nausea and ignores the prickling under his armpits, turning tail quickly, making to leave before—

“I can smell you a mile away, Smith.” Levi gestures a hand lazily without looking at him, voice muffled under the mask. “Even under all that ghastly shit you soaked yourself in.” 

Erwin gives a long-suffering sigh and resigns himself to his fate, trudging across the distance between them with as much dignity as he can muster. 

“Fancy seeing you here,” he manages. 

Levi arches one perfectly sculpted brow.  

“How’d you get in?” 

“What, like I need an invitation?” Erwin can’t quite help the way his mouth quirks up at the corner. 

Levi rolls his eyes.

“I don’t know why I expect your humor to evolve after so many years of the same tired material,” he drawls. “Go on, do the one about the holy water.” 

“You don’t seem all that surprised to see me.”

“Well, you have a delightful habit of turning up to ruin a good time, you see,” Levi retorts.

“Funny, I thought the exact same thing at Mardis Gras last year,” Erwin snaps.

“I thought we weren’t talking about Mardis Gras last year,” Levi quirks his brow, and there’s laughter in his voice. Erwin would like to strangle him.

“Maybe I’m here for you.” Erwin smiles sweetly. “Maybe this is the endgame, the night that I Stake you for good.”

“All that effort for me?” Levi flutters his eyelashes and presses a hand to his chest. There’s a knowing sparkle in his hooded eyes, and Erwin can practically hear the simpering smile under the mask. “I’m flattered, Erwin.”

Erwin fumes, heat rising to his cheeks. Don’t fall for it.

“You’ve been avoiding me tonight,” Levi scolds him. “What is it that you’re hoping to accomplish here, chit-chatting with all my esteemed colleagues?” Levi tosses a dirty look at the hobgoblins in the corner, who are well and messy drunk now, singing bar songs that Erwin can only partly decipher.

“Gathering intel,” Erwin admits.

“On me?” Levi croons.

Erwin scoffs. “Don’t flatter yourself.”

“You’ve already done that for me,” Levi reminds him, and before Erwin can retort, “but surely you can’t think you’ll gain any more information about us here than you’ve read in all your silly little books?”

“That’s—”

“You’ve memorized them all, by now. Aren’t you supposed to be the number one Vampire Hunter in all of New Orleans?”

“Don’t—”

“No one’s listening,” Levi waves him off, and it sends a surge of irritation burning through Erwin’s chest. “No one cares—you humans, always so self-centered—I keep telling you we’re the same, you and I, at the end of the day. But you never listen, do you?”

“Except for the fact that you eat people, you sanctimonious piece of shit,” Erwin finally hisses. 

Levi gives another dismissive wave, and oh, Erwin could just throttle him—“You all kill animals to eat them, don’t you?” 

Erwin is sick of this line of debate, is sick of debating it with Levi, again and again and again. He rattles off, by default, “Animals aren’t able to distinguish right from wrong, don’t exercise higher thought—”

“And you do?” Levi raises an incredulous brow. 

Erwin halts, mouth open, fury flashing hot. 

“Don’t flatter yourself, Erwin.” Levi chuckles. 

Erwin’s hand twitches toward his boot. 

“Ah ah ah,” Levi tuts, eyes following the motion. “I wouldn’t, if I were you.”

Erwin closes his eyes, counts his breaths, loses count around two or three, gives up, and rolls his eyes toward the starry sky. “You infuriate me, Ackerman.”

Levi raises his glass, accepting victory with all the grace of a viper. “Likewise, Smith.”

But when Erwin turns his heated gaze toward his, Levi breaks eye contact first.

“Well. If this is truly the night I finally meet my demise under your hand…” He rises from the bench, effortless as always. “I have some final goodbyes to make, debts to settle, etcetera. If you’ll excuse me—” 

His jacket sleeve just barely brushes Erwin’s as he departs, and Erwin catches the scent of magnolias and tonka on the warm breeze. 

He wedges a finger under his collar. God, it’s fucking hot. 

☆

After his fourth Pimm’s Cup, Erwin is pleasantly buzzed, and he’s feeling lucky. 

He’s given up on his lost phone entirely—he was already putting together an Amazon order anyway—a jazz band has traded places with the DJ, setting up shop in the corner of the courtyard, and he’s managed to snag several helpings of hors d’oeuvres that he’s deemed safe for human consumption.

He’s been working up the courage to confirm his theory that the seven-foot figure skulking in the corner of the courtyard is a dragon, and he thinks he’s got just the right amount of liquid courage in his system to get it done. 

He polishes off the sausage and potato from his fourth crawfish boil mini-skewer, and marches fearlessly forward.

“Hello,” he gives a little half-bow.

They slowly turn their head toward him, and make a point of looking down.

“Huh,” they say. Their voice rumbles like hot, shifting coals. 

“Enjoying the party?” Erwin tries. 

They shrug one, sharp-shoulder-padded shoulder, and do not elaborate. 

“Right,” Erwin nods, undeterred. “So. What do you do?”

Their eyes narrow behind the scaly, spiky mask. “Um.”

Erwin flashes what he hopes is a disarming smile. 

They smirk. “Hm. A little bit of this and that.”

“Wherabouts?”

“...Mostly based in Egypt.”

“Fascinating,” Erwin says, flipping through his internal rolodex of dragons to try and identify who this might be, and coming up blank. “I only get to travel for work once in a blue moon.” 

They raise an eyebrow. “You’re local, then?”

“I’m a freelancer.” It’s his go-to happy hour line. 

“Is that so.” 

“It keeps the lights on,” Erwin grins. 

“And what,” they smirk at him, “do you freelance?” 

Erwin smirks back. “A little bit of this and that.” 

They huff out a humorless laugh, and a small plume of smoke escapes their nose. Yes. “You look familiar, small one.” 

“I’m six-two,” Erwin protests. 

“Yes—that would be about right,” they ponder. “And blonde. And blue-eyed…galivants about, Staking vampires…” 

Fear stabs its way through Erwin’s chest. 

He frowns to cover it up. He once again wonders how long dragonsblood baths last in sweltering heat. “I’m not sure I know who you mean.”

The dragon smiles. “What is it that you freelance, again, little one?”

“Well,” Erwin begins, wheels turning at full speed, “you see, I—”

“There you are, Win—I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”

Erwin starts as he catches magnolias and tonka on the breeze, as ice-cold fingers, cold even through the fabric of his jacket and his shirt stuck to his back with sweat, snake around his waist. He bristles at the nickname, bristles the smell, bristles at the weight beside him, crowding in close—

“Levi.” The dragon narrows their eyes. “How good of you to join us. This creature here was about to tell me all about what it does for work.” 

Their lips curl into a ferocious smile around razor-sharp teeth. Erwin gulps. 

“Was he?” Levi notes, breezy, light. “I’m so sorry to interrupt, only that this is my favorite song, and Win promised me a dance—didn’t you, Win?”

Indeed, the band has started up a jovial tune that sounds suspiciously like a Doja Cat, albeit with New Orleans big band pomp and circumstance. Erwin forces himself to meet Levi’s gaze, planting a smile across his face. 

“Of course,” he grits out through clenched teeth. 

He barely gets out a haphazard apology to the dragon before Levi is strong-arming him across the courtyard to where the jazz band honks out their saucy tune in front of a whirling crowd. 

“Don’t call me that,” he hisses as soon as they’re out of earshot. 

“What the fuck else am I supposed to call you then, number-one-Vampire-Hunter-in-all-of-New-Orleans?” Levi snaps. 

“Smith is a common enough last name,” Erwin says. 

“Great—are you really that fucking dense, Smith?” Levi growls, tugging him further into the crowd of dancers. 

“I was doing just fine without you,” Erwin lies. 

Levi breathes out a laugh. “You really are the most arrogant human I’ve ever known.”

He takes Erwin’s wrist to guide it to his waist with deft fingers before placing them on Erwin’s shoulder, and takes Erwin’s other hand with his own—Erwin flinches at the contact, the cold, loathe to admit it’s a relief in the heat. In nearly five years of cat-and-mouse, of back-and-forth, of push-and-pull, he’s never once found Levi’s hand in his own.

He clenches his teeth at the way his stomach flips.

“When are you going to learn to stop biting off more than you can chew?” Levi huffs.

“Ye of little faith, Ackerman.”

“Bourbon Street?” Levi raises a brow.

“That was—”

“Paris?”

“Okay, that—”

“Mardis Gras?” 

“I thought we weren’t talking about Mardis Gras,” Erwin grumbles. 

“I rest my case,” Levi levels him with a withering look.

“You’re no fun,” Erwin gripes. “How many times does a human get to talk to a dragon?” The trombone player drags out a low note that rumbles in Erwin’s gut. He chances a glance back to the dragon in question, finding their eyes latched firmy onto him still, and begins to lead Levi in a lilting rhythm. 

“A dragon—” Levi shakes his head, eyes burning. “That’s fucking Apophis, shit-for-brains. Enemy number one of the sun god Ra? Eternal darkness every night? Serpent the size of a whale? Ring a fucking bell?”

“Oh.” Erwin swallows hard. He’d forgotten that one. “Well. In my defense, I thought they’d be much bigger. Whale-sized, even.”

“Why don’t you leave dragon-slaying to the Dragon-Slayers,” Levi suggests coolly. 

Erwin spins Levi out, then back in, hyper aware of the way Levi’s skin slides against his sweaty fingers, the way it’s warmed to nearly a human temperature from their contact. “I can handle myself, thanks.” 

“You sweat through your dragonsblood about an hour ago, dumbass. You’re lucky everyone here is too plastered to notice.”

“How—” 

“Velvet in this weather, Smith? Really?”

“The invitation said black tie—”

“Nevermind that,” Levi hisses, “You are nothing. Nothing to a dragon. There hasn’t been a dragon born in over two-thousand years—”

“I know—”

“Well if you know,” Levi drawls, “then you know that there is not a dragon alive that’s less than two-thousand years old. Pray tell, how old are you, Smith?”

“Uncharacteristically gauche of you, Levi,” Erwin simpers. 

“Humor me,” Levi deadpans. 

“Thirty-two.”

“Ha,” Levi throws his head back, and Erwin uses it as an opportunity to lean him back in time to a particularly impassioned trill from the sax. “You are but a speck, Smith. A smudge, in the grand scheme of things.” 

Erwin bristles. “A smudge that will be the end of you,” he promises. 

Levi levels him with a look, and Erwin wants to scream at the condescension in it. “Erwin. Do you want to know how old I am?” 

“Desperately,” Erwin deadpans. 

“One-hundred twenty-seven.” He pauses, rolling his eyes. “Twenty-eight.” 

“You don’t look a day over forty,” Erwin retorts without missing a beat, spinning Levi out and back in so that his back is facing Erwin’s front. They sway to and fro, and Erwin thinks he might be a little drunker than he originally estimated—he feels a little lightheaded; the smell of magnolias has stuck itself in his nose.

“Smith—Erwin.” Levi takes control to spin himself back around so that he’s facing Erwin. His eyes are backlit with fury. 

Erwin smiles. “I think they’ve stopped looking now,” Erwin glances back at Apophis as he sweeps Levi across the floor. They’re bemusedly humoring the hobgoblin’s insistence taking a slice of what appears to be a twisted mockery of a king’s cake—the dragon pulls out what looks like a human finger of their slice, and the hobgoblins screech and begin to dance drunkenly around them. 

He loosens his grip on Levi’s waist, but Levi’s grip turns to steel in his hand. He whips his attention back. 

“What?”

Levi is still glaring. 

Erwin lowers his brows. “Why is this such a big deal, Ackerman?”

Levi looks down abruptly. “It’s not.” 

“Clearly, it is.”

“Do what you like, I don’t care.” 

If Erwin didn’t know any better, he’d say Levi is…pouting. 

It makes Erwin’s insides boil.

“Will you just fucking spit it out?” he snaps.

Levi’s gaze could forge a razor-sharp blade. “Because if you don’t cut the invincible Monster Hunter act, you’re going to end up dead, or worse, you imbecile, infuriating ingrate.” 

They’ve stopped spinning, frozen in the middle of the dance floor. 

“Why would you care about what happens to me?” Erwin says, low, slow. 

“I don’t—”

Levi makes to wrench his hand from Erwin’s, but Erwin holds fast. He’s got him now, the slippery bastard—his heart is pounding wildly against his ribcage at the impending victory. “Which is it, Levi? Am I a smudge? Or am I an ingrate, worthy of your concern?”

Levi sneers. “I have no concern for the pathetic, fleeting, mortal existence that you call life—”

“So then what do you care if a dragon decides to make me their dinner—”

“Because you’re mine,” Levi hisses. 

Blood roars in Erwin’s ears, pounding in his head, his throat, his chest, his fingertips. He feels sweat trickling down the backs of his thighs. The band draws their song to a close, and in the heartbeat before they start their next, Erwin thinks he might be close to passing out. 

“...To kill,” Levi finishes, belatedly. He’s staring at a point just below Erwin’s nose.

Erwin stares. 

And then, he smiles. 

Victory, he thinks, feeling faint. The air is stifling on the dance floor. His heart flutters in double-time. The high of victory is what I’m feeling. 

The band starts up a fast-paced number, frenetic and frenzied. The crowd of monsters screams and swirls around them.

“And I’m the arrogant one,” Erwin smirks.

Levi’s brow folds in on itself, and something glints in those steely eyes. 

But before Erwin can decipher what it is, Levi turns and stalks off the dance floor, back ramrod straight. 

Erwin scrambles to follow—there is no way he’s letting Levi live this one down. 

He’s fast—Erwin dodges whirling dancers, the fae with the Pimm’s tray, and drunk hobgoblins desperate for more king cake takers to keep Levi within sight. He catches the metallic heel of an Alexander McQueen arc boot disappearing through the set of french doors that lead to the north hall, and hurries to follow. 

The door clicks shut behind him as he enters the abandoned hall, only a shade less warm than the courtyard, and he turns to his left to find Levi a few yards away beside an emerald green chaise lounge, hands braced before him on the wall, staring intently at nothing. 

Oh this is going to be good.

Erwin saunters down the dimly lit checkerboard-tiled marble floor, the soles of his shoes clicking with every step. 

“You didn’t think you’d get off that easy, did you?” he chuckles. 

“Leave me alone, pest,” Levi drones, put-upon. 

Erwin stops just behind Levi, leaning in close behind his ear. “In a hundred years of dishing it, you never learned to take it?”

“A hundred twenty-seven,” Levi corrects. “Twenty-eight,” he amends.

“And yet, you yielded to a thirty-two year-old mortal,” Erwin sneers.

Erwin could swear he sees his shoulders tense. 

“Fucker,” Levi says, dangerously low. “Arrogant, self-righteous, impudent, imbecilic—”

“Used that one already.” 

Levi whirls on him. “The past five years have been nothing but playtime for me, Smith. A lark. A whim. This silly rivalry we have—as if you are my equal. As if I am not capable of squishing you like a bug in one moment, and forgetting about you in the next. It’s been fun to play, I’ll admit but do. Not. Test. Me.” 

Levi’s eyes are so wide that white shines all around his irises—livid, he is livid.  

He’s nowhere near tall enough to stand eye-to-eye with Erwin, even in heels, but his eyes, the lock of hair loose on his forehead and the elaborate mask over his mouth—the effect is potent, and Erwin finds his heart jackrabbiting in his chest, sweat trickling down his ribs. 

And yet…

And yet Erwin simply cannot resist driving the knife home. 

“A hundred twenty-eight years,” he marvels, “and I only took five to figure out how to get a rise out of you.” 

One blink and Levi is glaring daggers at him, and the next, he’s lunging. 

Erwin doesn’t think, doesn’t hesitate. 

His left arm whips out to catch Levi by the throat as his right dives into his boot for the stake—he stomps his foot back down between Levi’s for leverage and propels himself forward to pin him against the wall, fingers clutching his windpipe, stake aimed with deadly accuracy at his heart—

But Levi’s hand has his wrist in an immovable vice grip, keeping the stake from striking true.

Erwin strains against Levi’s hand, grunting with the effort, and Levi doesn’t so much as break a sweat, eyes still ablaze with fury. Erwin instantly changes tracks, tightening his grip on Levi’s throat, using his knee as leverage to grind him into the wall—

Levi inhales sharply. 

Erwin freezes, eyes snapping up to his. 

Levi is staring at him, stock-still. His eyes have gone dark, darker than Erwin’s ever seen them, silver barely visible in the low light and he isn’t fighting back, he isn’t—

Levi’s eyes slide down to that spot just below Erwin’s nose and Erwin realizes with a jolt—Levi is watching his mouth. 

Unconsciously, Erwin wets his lips. He watches Levi’s eyes darken, impossibly. 

He’s suddenly aware of just how close they are. His heart pounds, fearful, but of what he can’t quite put a finger on. Erwin could count his eyelashes, if he wanted. He could brush the lock of hair out of Levi’s face, he could learn forward and—and if the mask weren’t there he could—he might—

The clatter of the stake hitting the floor startles him out of his runaway train of thought, and his eyes never leave Levi’s as the fingers at his wrist loosen, trailing down his arm until Levi’s hand drops to his side, limp. 

Slowly, oh-so-slowly, as if at risk of spooking a wild animal, Levi raises the other one to the arm that pins him by the throat, neither pulling nor pushing just—waiting. 

Erwin watches Levi carefully, heart pounding a tattoo against his ribs. 

A great many puzzle pieces snap into place, all at once.

Supposed stalemates for five years, when Levi has been a predator for a hundred or more. 

A lazy hand, eyes glittering with mirth. 

A possessive arm around his waist. 

‘You’re mine.’

Oh.

Something in Erwin’s mind clicks and he pivots, adjusting to his new circumstances with alarming clarity. 

He shifts his grip, just so—Levi’s eyes flutter closed and there’s no mistaking it this time: he draws his inhale with a gasp. 

The sound breaks something irreparable and irrevocable in Erwin, and the last of his reservations run for the hills.

He uses his grip on Levi’s throat to twist—not to break, but to angle his chin for better access as he surges forward to press his open mouth to Levi’s throat, hot tongue soothed by cold skin where his pulse pounds, and Erwin wonders absently at it, how Levi’s heart still beats with stolen blood, how if not for the deathly cold he’d swear Levi tasted human and he inhales, high on magnolia and tonka, drunk with it—

A broken sound rips from Levi’s throat and Erwin feels it against his mouth and against his hand as Levi presses into his grip, skin warming under Erwin’s touch, giving Erwin more purchase and the sound goes straight to Erwin’s groin—this is a dream, a fever dream, a nightmare, dark magic or fantasy or god knows what and Erwin knows he should be fighting this, that he should stop, but he can’t quite remember why and he finds that he’s having trouble keeping his thoughts in order, finds them slipping through his fingers, sticky like drying blood, helpless to the salve that Levi’s cold skin offers to his fevered touch. 

Erwin presses the flat of his tongue against Levi’s throat and slides his hand away from it to wrap around his waist, drawing him closer, sucking Levi’s skin into his mouth and biting. Behind the mask, Levi utters something crossed between strangled and snarling and he seems to remember his hands—one snakes up under Erwin’s jacket while the other runs up the length of his arm, all the way up to his neck. Erwin whimpers at the cool touch at his nape, sighing and shivering as the alarm it’s been sounding finally quiets, tamed by the scratch of Levi’s fingernails. 

And then, Levi’s fingers weave into his hair and pull.

Erwin is helpless to stop the sound that escapes him at that, choked off as Levi uses his grip to tug his head sharply to the side, exposing his jugular. A jolt of panic cuts through the haze and suddenly Erwin is wondering if he’s made a very, very stupid mistake—

But Levi’s nose is a cold trail up the side of his neck, inhaling deeply. 

“You smell so fucking good,” Levi breathes, muffled still by the mask. “Even under all that shit you—you have no idea—if you could—all this time and I never—god fucking damn.”

That mask is all that stands between Erwin and a one-way ticket to hell. 

He swallows audibly as Levi tugs him down further, nose cold at his earlobe, and exhales a downright filthy sound into the shell of Erwin’s ear. 

Something dangerous and hot swoops low in Erwin’s gut, and he drops both hands to Levi’s waist to press him back into the wall, doing nothing to hide how hard he is as he grinds forward.

Erwin thinks he may already be halfway to hell as it is. 

Levi groans and abandons his grip on Erwin’s hair to cup his ass with both hands, urging him forward, impossibly closer. Erwin obliges, rutting shamelessly against Levi’s hip, panting into Levi’s ear—he thinks he might be able to come from just this, and he doesn’t recall ever being this turned on before, this helpless to it, helpless to this—this—

He loses his train of thought as Levi’s hand snakes under the waistband of his pants to clutch at his bare ass. 

Erwin growls. “Fuck, Levi—”

More.

His shaking fingers latch at the edge of Levi’s mask to rip it from his face and it goes flying who-knows-where and oh, oh—to see Levi’s mouth at last, full and shining and parted and pink and Erwin can’t resist the pull, never stood a chance, his mouth is watering and so he surges forward—

—Only to meet cold fingers at his mouth. 

“Wait,” Levi warns, chest heaving. 

His whole body has gone rigid, and Erwin pulls back, blinking, trying—and failing—to think beyond his cock.

“Ackerman—” his voice breaks, and he swallows. “What—what have you done to me?” 

Levi snorts at that, eyes fluttering closed as he leans his head back against the wall. Erwin fights the urge to lick his throat from bottom to top. 

“Nothing,” Levi reassures him. “Yet.” 

Erwin’s survival instinct, buried somewhere very, very, very deep down, reminds him of writhing bodies in the parlor, of a manic smile and tiny glass vials.

His cock twitches in his pants. He finds himself unable to look away from Levi’s mouth. 

“It’s fine,” he says, and surges forward once more. 

Levi turns his head. “Jesus, fucking—do you have a death wish, Smith?” 

He’s already come this far. “I don’t care.” 

He leans in once more, and Levi’s blessedly cool hands cup his cheeks to stop him, gently, this time. 

“Do you want this?” he whispers, finally looking Erwin in the eye. 

And despite everything, against his better judgment, against the last vestiges of his common sense begging him to walk away as they swirl down the drain—

“Yes,” he says against Levi’s lips. 

And then, he kisses him. 

Their lips slot together and Levi’s clearly got a century of experience under his belt, because it’s the best first kiss Erwin’s ever had. It’s nice, he thinks, a pleasant tingling sensation as Levi’s tongue teases Erwin’s bottom lip, and Erwin thinks it’s so nice that he opens his mouth, letting Levi angle his face to slide his tongue past his lips—

And then Erwin doesn’t think anything at all, anymore. 

Erwin’s heartbeat slows to a near-stop, and then speeds up all at once—his body temperature plunges, and it’s like taking a plunge in an ice-cold swimming pool, bone-deep relief to the point of madness. Everything is Levi. Every sense—smell, touch, taste, sound, sight—magnolias and tonka and creamy cool skin and the taste of something maddeningly sweet and savory, and he cannot fathom how he held back for so long, can’t fathom how he ever thought he wanted Levi dead when all he really wants is Levi, like this, swallowing the sounds he makes with his mouth, eliciting more as he bites down on his bottom lip, cupping the back of his neck to loom over him and dive his tongue deeper for more, he needs more and he can’t remember his own name but he knows he needs more—

“Shh,” Levi is shushing him, and he realizes absently that he’d been speaking out loud. “Shh, oh, sweet thing—” Levi’s mouth is busy now and he whines, ducking down to latch onto his throat. “So needy, and—and all for me, hm?”

But Levi’s hips are making tiny circles against Erwin’s thigh as he speaks—his breaths are coming out shaky and coming in as gasps. Erwin can’t recall ever being so hard and he meets Levi thrust for thrust, thrilling at the little sounds that elicits.

“If only I’d known,” Levi’s breath is sweet against his mouth, “that all it would take to—” Erwin sneaks his tongue back in and oh, that taste, more more more—“ Mm. To break arrogant, righteous Erwin Smith, number one Vampire Hunter in all of New Orleans, is one—”

He slides his tongue into Erwin’s mouth, and Erwin forgets how to breathe. 

“Single—”

His canines are sharp on Erwin’s lip. 

“Kiss.”

Erwin thinks that if he can’t be inside Levi, he might die. He drags a hand away from Levi’s waist to palm at his cock through his pants in an attempt to relieve the pressure but they’re so close that he feels—that’s—

Levi is so wet that he’s soaked through the crease of his pants. 

And oh‚ oh—how Erwin keens at that. 

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, Levi, please—” He abandons his cock in favor of pressing his fingers into the seam between Levi’s legs, heart stuttering at the dampness, knees threatening to buckle—if he won’t let him—if he won’t, then he’ll just have to fall to his knees and taste for himself—yes, that would be perfectly fine—to feel Levi twitching and clenching on his tongue, his own cock neglected—his need is nothing, nothing in the face of Levi’s, if he could only hear his own name on Levi’s lips like that, if only Levi would allow him a taste—it would be stronger there, he knows it—then he’d be—fuck he needs—

Suddenly, Levi’s mouth is on his again, and Erwin forgets what he’d been thinking entirely. He drinks in that sweet-savory something, drinks and drinks and drinks and is never sated, and it is ecstasy. 

Levi releases his mouth with a smack and Erwin knocks his sticky, fever-warm forehead against Levi’s, seeing two of him—he can’t seem to remember how to focus his eyes. His hips grind against Levi’s mindlessly, and he lets out a broken moan. 

“God, you’re such a good little slut for me,” Levi coos, and Erwin’s moan falls into a growl. His fingers are fumbling with the button of Levi’s pants as his other hand slides down to grasp at his ass. “You’ve wanted me this whole time, haven’t you? Just like I wanted you.”

“Uh-huh.” He finally unclasps the button and slides down the zipper, folding his fingers under the waistband of Levi’s lace boxer briefs. Just a little more—

“Ha—you sloppy thing. Come-drunk already and you haven’t even—ah,” Levi’s breath hitches as Erwin reaches down further, dipping down and finally, finally, finding slick-wet-hot—Levi is warm down here—

“Ungh…” Erwin’s tongue feels too thick in his mouth—his fingers slide until they’re coated, and he licks a slick thumb over Levi’s clit, barely-there.

“Ah! Ngh, oh, oh fuck, Erwin, Erwin—”

It’s like a key in a lock—Erwin tongues into Levi’s mouth as he reaches one finger up into him. 

“Oh…” Levi gasps into Erwin’s mouth. Erwin adds a second easily, and Levi starts fucking down onto his fingers. 

“Please,” Erwin whines, matching Levi’s pace. “Please—Levi, I need—ah, oh… ”

“What do you need?” Levi gasps. 

“Anything, whatever you want,” Erwin offers. “Whatever you like, I need it, Levi, I’m—”

“You’re what?” Levi grits out. 

“I’m a slut,” Erwin blurts, mouth open against Levi’s neck. He adds a third finger, and Levi groans. “I’m a slut for you, please Levi, I need to make you come, I’ll do anything—”

“Anything?” 

But Erwin’s words have abandoned him; he grunts quietly in time to his thrusts against Levi’s hip, in time to his fingers in Levi’s hole. Levi Levi Levi…

“Shh,” Levi breathes out, breath hot and wet over Erwin’s neck, and he realizes he’d been talking out loud again. “Poor thing.” There’s a shake in his voice as he reaches between them, fumbling with Erwin’s pants. Erwin would like to help him, but he can’t seem to stop his hips from grinding forward and—“I bet you’d love to have your cock inside me, hm?”

No, not—that’s not—he needs to make Levi understand, but he can’t think—“Just,” Erwin swallows thickly. “Don’t care,” he gasps, “whatever you want, whatever you want—I d-don’t…don’t matter, just—”

“Ah,” Levi draws him into another kiss, and Erwin’s nerve endings alight, his cock jolts, sweet-savory syrup in his veins. “Convenient for you, then.” 

“What—”

“Beg.” 

Erwin squeezes Levi’s ass as he thrusts. “Huh?”

“I want you to beg,” Levi commands, “to fuck me.” 

Erwin’s knees buckle as blood flees his legs in favor of his groin, and they knock against the floor—he doesn’t even register the pain, for the joy of what he’s been ordered to do—

“Please,” he nuzzles up into the crease between Levi’s legs, pants unzipped and black lace soaked through, moaning brokenly at the scent. “Please I—let me fuck you, I’ll never—I’ll never ask for anything ever again. If I could just—” He reaches down to his own fly to finish what Levi started, drawing his own cock out of his underwear and fisting it, squeezing—

Levi reaches down into his hair and tugs, sharp. 

“Did I tell you to touch yourself?” he says, quietly. 

Erwin’s hand leaves his cock so fast that he loses his balance, falling forward—he catches himself on the wall behind Levi and buries his nose in the front of Levi’s pants, opening his mouth and licking against the lace. “Sorry, sorry, please—Levi, please, please, ah, ah—” 

His hips fuck against nothing as he licks, tiny glimpses of that savory-sweet sending shocks of electricity down his spine. Levi releases his grip, stroking his hand down the side of Erwin’s face. 

“Such a good whore,” he says, voice like butter, and Erwin preens, leaning his head into Levi’s touch. “Such a fast learner. What do you want, pet?”

Erwin looks up at him from under wet eyelashes, tongue laving at Levi’s underwear, soaked through. 

“Please?” he asks, as prettily as he can. If he does it good, maybe Levi will let him. “Please let me fuck you? I want it so bad, please? Levi—”

Suddenly, he’s being hauled up to his unsteady feet with alarming strength, and Levi is pulling his pants and underwear down to the crease of his thighs, grasping Erwin’s cock, protruding from his fly, with deft fingers. 

“Ah…” Erwin’s voice breaks, and he thrusts involuntarily forward into Levi’s grip. He thinks he hears Levi mutter something like “Jesus, not so arrogant after all—” but it’s swallowed by blood rushing in his ears as Levi goes up on his tip-toes to line him up with his entrance. 

“Yes—” Erwin hisses, grasping Levi’s hips in a death grip, thrusting through the wet gap of Levi’s legs, impossibly slick, and so, so, so—

Levi shifts his weight, and Erwin angles his hips up and then—

Levi’s head knocks back against the wall as Erwin growls—wet-hot-tight to the hilt—and his hips stutter, feeling Levi clench and twitch around him before pulling most of the way out, and then slamming back in. 

“Mine,” he grunts, fucking in, and in, and in, and Levi gasps with every thrust. “Mine, mine, mine—”

“F-fuck,” Levi keens, draping an arm over Erwin’s shoulder and meeting him at every thrust. “Ah—so—mngh…oh…oh, you’re—oh, big, so big, fuck, Erwin—!”

His tight heat flutters around Erwin’s cock, and Erwin’s hand flies to Levi’s throat. Levi’s eyes go wide, and he presses his throat into Erwin’s gasp, mewling. 

“God, you—” Erwin cuts himself off as a shock of venom throbs loud and bright in his blood and he squeezes his hand up and in, and Levi’s eyes roll back as they flutter closed. His breaths come in short pants around Erwin’s hand, in time with his thrusts, devolving into high little breathy, strangled sounds.

Erwin’s other hand abandons Levi’s hip in favor of sliding up under his shirt, thrilling to find his nipples peaked already and rolling one between his thumb and forefinger. Levi’s voice pitches an octave higher, choked under Erwin’s ministrations, and he rolls his hips faster as Erwin finds the other nipple.

The noises Levi is making drive Erwin mad—his sweaty hands slide uselessly over Levi’s skin and he can’t get enough purchase, his legs are sliding against Levi’s, a bead of sweat rolls down his chest and it’s hot in the hall but not as hot as Levi is inside and yet not hot enough—he needs—more, more—

He releases Levi’s throat in favor for reaching up into Levi’s hair and pulling back as Levi gasps in a full breath, leaning over him to press an open kiss to his mouth—fuck, yes, electricity down his spine and pooling in his gut—before pulling all the way out and flipping Levi around, bending his knees so that he can fuck up and into him from behind. 

“Fuck!” Levi screams, and Erwin thinks that they’re definitely not being quiet, and that anyone could easily find them like this, and in the next breath, thinks that he doesn’t care. Let them see—let them find Levi Ackerman with his underwear pushed down around his knees, at the mercy of Erwin Smith, wet and shaking and tamed by a mere human, mine, mine, mine—

Levi braces his forearms on the wall and slides down, ass fucking back onto Erwin’s cock. “Never had—best lay I ever had, Win, you—your—don’t stop, don’t stop, I—”

But Erwin’s stilled his hips; he wraps his hands around Levi’s waist and uses it as leverage to pull Levi’s ass onto his cock, again and again and again. “Wanna fuck you forever,” he slurs, lolling his head back, thrusting lazily. 

“Hngh,” Levi agrees. He’s so wet that it’s starting to drip down his thighs, smearing the front of Erwin’s trousers. Erwin’s cock makes a filthy noise with every thrust. 

“And you called me a slut—” He slips his hand into Levi’s hair again, pulls up, putting a punishing arch in Levi’s back. “When you’re fucking yourself on my cock like that? You gonna come like this, honey?”

One minute Erwin is buried in Levi, and the next his arm is in an iron grip, ass bouncing down onto the chaise next to him, thighs sticky with sweat, clinging to the velvet. Levi’s boots, pants, underwear, and jacket are off within the span of one breath. 

He climbs to straddle over Erwin’s lap, swiveling his hips and hovering to balance Erwin’s cock at his entrance. Erwin is face to face with his chest, shirt still unbuttoned halfway, and his nipples are hard against it, the edge of one peeking out where it strains, pink against the crisp white edge of the fabric.

“Don’t,” Levi breathes into his lips, and Erwin whimpers, hands running up smooth, cool thighs, “call me that.” 

And then he sinks down, taking all of Erwin in one go. 

“Levi—” Erwin manages, before his grasp of speech flees him entirely as Levi licks into his mouth and starts bouncing on his cock. 

It could hardly be categorized as a kiss—Levi’s mouth is open against Erwin’s, and his tongue swipes into his mouth in time to their rhythm. Erwin’s head falls back against the wall and Levi follows, looming over him to send lightning sizzling through him at every thrust—Erwin’s hands slide down to his ass to feel it bounce. 

“Aaangh…” Erwin’s eyes roll up into his head as Levi softens, kissing sloppily and licking into Erwin with soft smacks, venomous strands of saliva trailing between open mouths as they part and rejoin. Spit is trailing down Erwin’s chin and any trace of coherent thought slides through the sieve of his mind, leaving only bright, wet, electric flashes of heat as Levi floods his body with poison, sinks down on his cock, slowing his pace. He swallows lungfuls of thick air between kisses and Erwin would be content to die like this, with Levi astride him, limbs slipping and stretching in the heat—he’d die if he ever had to spend a moment of his life not doing this, not inside Levi—hell—if Levi decided to lock him up somewhere and use him as a personal fucktoy, he’d happily sign away his life without a thought—as long as it meant this—hot-tight-wet-savory-sweet—forever, and ever, and ever, and—

Levi starts to clench around him rhythmically, in direct opposition to the way his hips stutter out of time. He breaks the kiss and drops his head to Erwin’s shoulder, breath unsteady, and Erwin’s hands tighten on his ass as his gaze drops to Levi’s nipples, hard against his shirt, rubbing against the fabric, his collar has slipped off one shoulder, exposing one to the air—

And then he feels something sharp at his neck, and the honey in his veins sings. 

“Please,” he whispers. 

“I—” Levi’s exhale is shaky against his neck, hot and wet. “I c-can’t—”

“Please, Levi—” Erwin starts thrusting up to meet his rhythm as best he can, angling his hips up to find contact with the spot Levi’s been chasing, squeezing his waist so tightly that his thumbs and middle fingers touch. He cranes his neck back and to the side, submitting—his veins throb with it, his whole being careens toward it, inevitably—“God, please—”

The tiniest, most helpless noise escapes Levi as Erwin feels the tension melt from his body, and there’s a sharp pain at the side of his throat. 

And then, the pain melts into—

He gasps, and his whole body contracts with it. The venom was nothing in the face of this—his whole body is alit with warm, white light, every cell magnetized toward Levi, every point of contact an eternity of pleasure, and where he thrusts up, multiplied, ten times over, a hundred times over, and Levi is—

Levi inhales sharply, and then groans, voice breaking. 

His mouth latches onto his throat and sucks, and Erwin feels his pulse hot and steady there, and he realizes that his heart beats for Levi and Levi alone, pumps his blood solely for Levi’s enjoyment. Levi’s hips still—and he drinks, greedily, moaning wetly as he swallows, and it goes on what feels like forever and Erwin knows now that he exists only as a vessel for pleasure and sustenance, only to serve Levi, down to his atoms, he is, and always has been—

‘Mine.’

Levi spasms—finally—around Erwin, hot-wet-tight, involuntary, and it draws Erwin’s own orgasm from him against his will—Levi picks up the rhythm once more as Erwin’s hips stutter up once, twice, and then he’s coming, endlessly, thrusting and thrusting until he’s he’s spilling deep into Levi, leaking out of him and onto his own cock as Levi fucks him through it, and he wants to feel this forever, and he thinks he might be shouting, lips lost around Levi’s name, pulse hot and loud at his throat, and he’s so dizzy that he thinks he might be dying, and it feels so fucking good that he’d be happy to, would beg to—

The hallway spins and a whimper escapes his throat at the overstimulation—or is it the blood loss?

Levi tenses above him and pulls away with a slick, tingling smack of saliva that leaves a pleasant sensation not unlike a thick layer of Tiger Balm. Erwin shudders, realizing just how sweaty and sticky and loose he’s become, taffy pulled too long. He shakes in the aftershock as Levi extracts himself from his lap and begins retrieving his haphazardly discarded clothes. 

“Holy shit,” Erwin whispers. He feels his hair stuck to his forehead, sweat dripping down his face, his neck, his chest—he stares as Levi adjusts his shirt back over his shoulder. “Holy shit.”

Levi’s eyes snap up, and he finds his own automatically snapping up to meet them. Levi looks—Levi looks wrecked.

Levi looks wrecked, because he just got through fucking Erwin.

He just got through fucking Erwin, and drinking his—

Erwin lifts a hand to the side of his throat—it’s still tingling, frigid to the touch in the sweltering air. 

Levi is turning his pants right-side-in again.

The honey is dripping oh-so slowly from his body, and as it drains from his system, Erwin realizes, with no small amount of horror—and excitement; is that him or the venom?—what he has done. 

He rushes to stand, and the room tilts violently. 

“Hey,” Levi says, and his hands are on his shoulders, urging him back down. Erwin reels at the gentleness of it, reels from—shit, from all of it. “Stay down. Ten minutes, it’ll fade.”

Erwin stares, wishing he could remember the signs of shock. His ears are ringing, his eyes are blurry—he feels fuzzy, like a beignet freshly sugar-dusted. He blinks as Levi makes a face and pulls up his underwear and pants.

“Ghastly,” he grimaces, mostly to himself, holding his bottom half strangely as he buttons his pants gingerly. It hits Erwin like a ton of bricks, and panic flashes through his stunned state—

“Shit. We—I didn’t—I’m so sorry, I—” 

His tongue is twisted up in his mouth, but Levi only raises an eyebrow to put him out of his misery.

“Erwin,” he says, using the same tone and cadence as he would with a kindergartener, “I haven’t had a menstrual cycle in several decades.” 

Erwin blushes from head to toe. Although—he might have already been blushing to begin with. “Right.”

“Are you…” Levi trails off, and Erwin is surprised to find him looking…uncertain. “Are you okay?”

Erwin feels strangely, as if he’s floating a couple inches away from his body—but the vertigo is slowly fading. “I think so.” 

“I don’t usually—” Levi bites his lip, staring down the hall at nothing. His mouth twists. “I don’t usually Feed. For that long.” 

Erwin’s brow furrows. “What do you mean?”

“It’s usually just for a moment. The older you get, the less you need.” 

“You don’t—” Erwin shakes his head. “You mean, you don’t—kill your prey?”

Levi’s brow lowers over his eyes, and he lifts his chin. “See what happens, when you make assumptions?”

Erwin blinks. 

He’s realizing that he has…a lot to think about.

“So, just now, with me—that’s not…how it usually goes?”

Levi’s eyes trail down Erwin’s body and back up, and a shiver goes down Erwin’s spine. “No, Erwin. It isn’t.” 

“Why?”

Levi swallows, and Erwin’s eyes follow the bob of his throat. “You taste better than any meal I’ve ever had.”

In over a hundred years.

Erwin manages a lopsided grin. “I do think I remember something—about being the best lay you ever had?”

And Erwin could swear he sees a blush, barely there, high up on Levi’s cheekbones. 

He hesitates just a fraction of a second too long before retorting, “I’ve had decades more sex than you have. I find dirty talk to be highly effective.” 

“Admit it, Ackerman.” Erwin feels more like himself, sliding back into the banter. “I dicked you down good.”

“Well I don’t know about all that.” Levi shrugs his jacket back on, brushing off the blush. “But I’ll give you this: that was by far the best birthday present I’ve received tonight.” 

He smirks at Erwin from under his eyelashes and it’s—it’s flirty.  

Erwin blushes, again, and feels his jaw hinge open. “It’s—it’s your birthday?”

“Not my real one,” Levi scoffs, retrieving his mask from the floor. “But after the first hundred you can choose whichever day you want. What did you think the party was for?”

Erwin stares. “This is…your party.” 

“I’d have had you over sooner, but you know…” Amusement sparkles in Levi’s eyes. “Our schedules have just never lined up.” 

Erwin is sure that he’s losing his mind. Lost it entirely, even—long gone, most likely. “This is your house.” 

“I wasn’t sure if you’d gotten my invitation,” Levi frowns, and Erwin is gaping again. “Shame on you, Erwin, for not RSVPing.”

“You invited me?”

“That’s one thing that frustrates me to no end nowadays—everyone thinks the art of the RSVP is dead.”

Erwin’s pulse is thready at his neck as a mischievous smile creeps its way onto Levi’s face. He remembers that mouth hung open to spill pretty noises for Erwin as he pressed a hand to his throat, pounding up and in—

His cock twitches feebly, and the venom in his blood thrums. He—he needs to get home. He needs to—he cringes at the idea of having to tidy up the dragonsblood (fucking useless) in the tub, but it can wait for tomorrow—he needs a good night’s sleep, and then he needs to think, and then he needs to push Levi up against the wall again, fuck into him until he screams—

He blinks away the electric aftershock, gets to his feet, and manages to stay there—albeit with wobbly legs. Levi folds his arms over his chest and assesses him clinically, waiting for him to fall flat on his face.

“What—” Erwin touches his fingers to his neck, and feels another throb of leftover arousal surge through his extremities. He pushes his sweaty hair back from his brow with a trembling hand. “Ah—shit. How long until it’s out of my system?”

Levi inspects his fingernails. “Thought you were an expert.” 

He’s gloating. Erwin privately thinks that he might deserve it. “I think it’s already been made abundantly clear that there are…gaps in my research.”

Levi rolls his eyes. “Depends on how old we are. Ripens with age—day or two, for a Fledgling.”

Erwin’s heart sinks, watching him warily. His gaze lands on his mouth. “And for someone who’s a hundred and twenty-eight?” 

Levi’s smile is positively evil. “Few weeks. Month, tops.” 

Erwin can’t seem to look away from his mouth now, remembering it on his own, at his neck. His hands itch—he catches the scent of magnolias on the breeze, and it takes every ounce of willpower not to lunge forward and grab, tear, bite, claim what’s his—

“Uh,” Erwin says. His tongue feels swollen. 

Levi takes pity on him. “You have a couple of options. Garlic helps. There’s a vendor at the farmer’s market down the street from here on Sundays—I recommend the hard-necked variety.” 

Erwin wonders if he should be writing this down. 

“It’ll be at its worst in about a week,” Levi rattles off, and Erwin thinks it sounds suspiciously rehearsed. “Find a pretty thing to stick your dick in, ride it out. Won’t be as satisfying, but more fun than having only the company of your hand.” 

Erwin is getting lost in the creamy expanse of Levi’s chest in the vee of his button-down. 

“Or.” 

Levi pauses. Erwin forces his gaze up to his eyes and—oh, there’s that glint of that something again, but Levi isn’t looking away or running this time, and Erwin can begin to puzzle through it, feeling out its edges to identify it.

Whatever it is, it’s soft.

Levi takes a deep breath. “Or—you can come back for more.”

Teeth at his throat, a surge of liquid hot-cold-sweet-savory electricity in his veins, sticky-slick mouth on his own, tight-wet-hot seated firmly around his cock, cool hands on fevered skin, magnolias and tonka trapped in his nose, surrendering happily to his every need—

Something dark and hot surges through Erwin, throbbing sweetly at his neck, nearly bringing him to his knees at Levi’s feet. 

More. 

Mine.

He’s hard again, and Levi’s gaze dips down to see it, a small smile gracing his lips. 

“Duly noted,” Erwin manages, clearing his throat. “I think—I think I’d better get home. Farmer’s market opens early. For the garlic—for the. Yeah.”

Any softness, any something that Erwin had seen in Levi’s gaze, is tucked away neatly now as he fingers the ties of his mask in his hands, laughter in his gunmetal grey eyes. “Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.”

“I lost my phone,” Erwin remembers. “It’s just a burner, but if anyone finds it, can you—”

Wordlessly, Levi dips a hand into his inner jacket pocket, and tosses it to him. 

Erwin catches it. “What—”

“You need to keep better track of your shit,” Levi mocks. “Number one Vampire Hunter my ass. Sloppy.”

Erwin’s cock twitches, and the venom turns to molasses in his blood. 

He fumbles the phone, drops it, bends down to retrieve it, and stuffs it back into his pocket. 

“Thanks,” he says, humorlessly, hiding his blush by turning on his heel to flee down the hall.

He hears quiet, mirthful laughter as he stalks all the way down the halls of Levi’s house, through the french doors, and out into the night. 

The flora around him bulges and contracts in his vision, like he’s been staring in one place for too long. Cicadas scream their mating call and the devil’s trumpet stretches down toward him, the ferns curl in toward his ankles, as if imploring him to stay, pouting at his untimely departure. New sweat beads on top of already-dried sweat, and the result is a hot-and-cold, fevered-and-chilled, clammy feeling in his extremities, like he’s too big for his own skin.

His eyelids droop, heavy and lazy in the heat, but it isn’t until he’s at the wrought-iron front gate that he flips up his phone to check the time—three in the fucking morning, so much for his unbroken attendance record at the gym, jesus—and he realizes the tiny screen is open to a new contact page.

It displays a phone number with a Louisiana area code, and atop it in benign, white text:

Levi Ackerman. 

He feels a pressure at the back of his neck and an electric thrum through his veins—but when he snaps his head around, there’s no one there. 

He fights the intense and irrational urge to turn right back around, walk back in, and fall to his knees in front of Levi, begging for more—just one more taste, exposing his neck and hoping that he’ll be deemed worthy of another feeding—

“Erwin.”

Erwin startles, rubbernecking over his shoulder.

Levi looks like the spitting image of the cat that caught the canary, leaning against the doorframe of his house, arms and legs crossed casually, making his mussed hair look more artful than Erwin could ever manage in his sorry state.

Levi smiles, and Erwin feels jimsonweed twine and bloom around his sternum. 

“See you in a week.”

Erwin rolls his eyes as Levi turns to saunter back into the party, and clenches a fist against the way the venom churns at the sight of his ass as he departs. 

But unbidden, as he strides through the jessamine-choked gate and down the sidewalk, smell of magnolias stuck in his nose and the taste of Levi lingering sweetly in the back of his throat, he can’t help but feel relieved that next time, he won’t have to beg.