Chapter Text
It is cold when the people in strange attire come to pick him up.
The damp walls of his Mother’s room indicate that it must be sometime in midwinter; the wet frost framing the singular door only supporting that theory of his. He is used to the cold, by now, it’s all he’s ever known, really.
There is no sun down Under, he had learned over the years, the sun is solely reserved for those who deserve to bathe in it, up Above. Sometimes you can catch a glimpse of it through the cracks of the high ceiling towering over the poor excuse of a marketplace littered with the Homeless and the Addicted. However, even those pitiful cracks in the ceiling are reserved for someone — for someone who isn’t him. He understands why, he understands every single little precious ray of sunshine is to be given to the ones who need it the most: the ones with legs that won’t move any more despite it all, the ones with bones so brittle they can hardly take a step without their skeleton cracking even further.
By now, he has grown painfully used to seeing and experiencing the same tragic things every day, every night— but sometimes, they would dare to visit down Under. Tall, broad men dressed in clothes he had never seen before. He struggles to remember faces, is never sure whether he has seen some of them before or whether they are new kinds of people every time, but it doesn’t matter because they are fascinating all the same. There just are no men like them in the Underground. Tall people, strong people, with sun-kissed skin tones and determined features. His Uncle Kenny is tall, he knows, but his build is rather skinny nonetheless, and his arms are only half as big as those men’s are. His Mother’s features are determined sometimes, he thinks, but not in the way those men’s are.
Mother, he thinks dearly and shudders with the sudden weight of it all. It has been a while since he had last seen her, come to think of it. He is not good with measuring time in his mind. It has always been so difficult to remember how many minutes are in one hour or how many days are in one month, especially when everything just feels so much slower to him than to everyone else, it seems. His Mother used to make him count to one thousand quite often, would tell him that it is the equivalent of about sixteen minutes which would excite him for some weird reason. He would sit in his very own closet, the space designed just for him, his own little sanctuary, and count to one thousand just like his Mother had asked of him. No matter how many times he did it, it never seemed to lose its appeal — it was the same thing over and over, but it never ceased to amaze him how he basically had control over the time. In his young mind, sixteen minutes passed because he counted to one thousand, because he made those sixteen minutes pass. Never mind the fact that they would have passed regardless, never mind the fact that deep down, he had always known it was just a creative way of distracting him from seeing or hearing things he wasn’t supposed to at his fragile age.
The last time he saw her, she had been sleeping peacefully in her murky bed. He found her there, kissed her cold nose good night and slipped through the creaky door. They had painted it a dark red some time ago, he recalls, but doesn’t know why, doesn’t even know who They are. He didn’t dare ask why, then, for his Mother has carefully taught him that he is not to speak unless spoken to — for his own good. He didn’t question it, he never questioned anything his dear Mother said or did, for she always knew what was best for him. She will always know everything, he thinks, even now. But when he returned with a small loaf of bread — never mind the way he acquired it — she was already gone from her bed. So how long has it been, then? He’s counted to one thousand at least one thousand times, it feels like, but he can’t count higher than one thousand, so doing it over and over again is the only thing that he can spend his time with.
He‘d just reached nine-hundred-eighty-six when They breach the red door.
It irks him, for just a second, because now he has to start all over again, has to start over from one and he has already lost count of how many times he has counted to one thousand but now it is going to be even worse, even more unnerving —
“Levi,” the tallest of the men speaks with a deep voice which would have struck him with fear, were the circumstances any different. Maybe he would have been scared by the sound of it if he had been born Above where all the sun-kissed people reside. He imagines no one there ever uses such a harsh voice but then again, the very man standing in the middle of the too-small room presumably comes from Above himself and his voice sounds very mean. His skin doesn’t look sun-kissed, it has a green tint to it, similar to the skin of the poor beggar woman his Mother sometimes shares her bread with. His eyes are laced with dark circles. His hands are wrapped tightly around some kind of weapon. His fingers are long and big-knuckled. Levi wonders whether his own hands would ever be as big and draws the conclusion that it isn’t likely.
The man is in the company of a woman. Levi has grown up around all kinds of women, big, small, skinny, curvy, but none of them looked the way this woman does. Her hair is neatly tied back but you can still see that it’s very long and healthy. It’s a colour he has never seen before, but he thinks it resembles the way a fire looks. It resembles the way the door looks, he sees, now that she is leaning against it with an impassive look on her face. There are dots scattered all over her face and he wonders if she’s ill with something. But her face doesn’t look as pale as sick people’s skin tends to look. She’s tall as well, but not as tall as her companion. Her hands are small, Levi notices, for she struggles to hold her weapon with one hand, and instead uses both. She looks about as old as his Mother. Come to think of it, where is she? She would be quite displeased knowing that there were unannounced visitors during her time away.
“He’s not going to speak,” the woman snarls and Levi is horrified, yet not surprised, to learn that her voice is just as harsh as the man’s, “they never do.” She takes a couple steps toward him and the candlelight illuminates her features more clearly. He notices her face may seem impassive but it really isn’t. He has seen impassive — time and time again, throughout his entire life. His Mother plays the part exceptionally well whenever she — works. The Uncle he rarely ever gets to see doesn’t, however. He wears his heart on his sleeve, his Mother used to say with a huff. It makes him weak.
The woman looks like Kenny, upon second glance. Not in the way siblings look like each other but more so in the greater sense. Her eyes are the same green but everything else about them looks different at first. However, their eyebrows twitch in the same way, betraying their stoic expression greatly. Their chins tremble in the same manner, their shoulders are hunched similarly. Even the lips — hers are just as thin as his, Levi notices.
The silence is pierced by a sound resemblant of a sigh. The man speaks: “I suppose you are right. Why do I even bother,” and he steps closer to Levi as well, even kneels down to speak to him on eye level. It unnerves him greatly. He has grown so accustomed to seeing the world from below, to look at everyone from the same angle. Seeing another person like this is … strange. He only ever sees his Mother like this. He doesn’t want to look at anyone else in the same way he looks at her. So, he looks away to escape his probing gaze.
“You know your Uncle Kenny?” The man asks, his somber voice rattling Levi’s small bones. What a stupid question, Levi thinks, but doesn’t dare say. He only nods in reply. He hasn’t spoken in so long, he’s not sure a sound would come out if he tried. The man nods as well, seemingly pleased with the hint of a response. “Well,” he continues, hands having released the weapon long ago, “he sent us to get you.” It’s all the information he gives him, but it is not enough to satisfy Levi’s need for answers. But he can’t ask, doesn’t know how to, doesn’t know how to voice his own thoughts. He only blinks dumbly, staring right into the man’s aquamarine eyes. He’s never seen anyone with this eye colour, he muses and scolds himself for losing track of his own thoughts for a second. “Do you know what this means?”
Frankly, he does not. He only knows how to count to one thousand to make time go by. He has stopped counting for a bit now, so surely time has been standing still since then? He worries his Mother might not return quick enough if time stands still for much longer, so he resumes counting inside his head, one, two, three — “I told you, already, he’s not going to speak.” The woman’s annoyance is clearly visible, and she doesn’t kneel beside the man. “Stop trying to hold a tea party with the boy and just get him, we don’t have all day.” Eleven, twelve, thirteen — “You’re right, yeah — you’re right,” the blue-eyed man seemingly snaps out of it — whatever it was — and stumbles onto his feet. His initial tough demeanour had changed subtly, for his facial expression has twisted into something Levi can’t quite place. Twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty-five — “Come on, boy, come on,” he wraps his big hands around Levi’s comically small wrist in one not-so-gentle move and pulls him onto his wobbly feet. Immediately, the woman joins him at his other side and wraps her wiry fingers around his left wrist, though her grip doesn’t feel half as strong. It only feels cold.
Levi doesn’t fight or try to pull back from either of them because he has seen how that kind of thing ends up around here. They pull him out of the damp room he had grown up in, urge him out of that red door, out of the cool hallways filled with screams of pleasure and pain, the ones he has gotten so used to. He doesn’t stop counting, not even when familiar faces perk up outside the house he was just taken from, not even when one of the other kids yells out his name and not even when that one homeless man outside laughs at him with vicious intent, claiming it was only a matter of time before they finally went to catch that wretched whore son — whatever. All of them are whore sons around here, everyone he grew up with is. It’s nothing but a statement, a matter of fact, a sober truth he has never once minded in his life. Two-hundred-twenty-seven, two-hundred-twenty-eight, two-hundred-twenty-nine —
If anyone is bothered by the sight of two officers scurrying a child away from his own home like a convicted criminal, no one shows it. Time continues to pass on around him, as it always does. I have to keep counting, he thinks quickly, I have to keep counting, so everything stays in order. The stairs are long and hard to climb. He doesn’t know where they lead, doesn’t know anyone who has ever had the right amount of money to find out. He has never really wondered where they lead, for Mother has always told him it is no use to wonder if they are never going to see for themselves, anyway. It is better to concern yourself with things that are necessary for your survival, he has been taught. There is no time to wonder about fantastical things when it is uncertain if there is going to be anything to eat for dinner that night. It had been an easy thing for Levi to accept. He had never truly wondered about anything, really.
It is bright — so, so bright and — painful. He must have let out a scream or something because the woman on his left is shushing him. Her grip is still ice-cold, but now it is a blissful thing to concentrate on when his skin is damn near sizzling under the, the — sun? He’s never really seen it before. Only through small cracks of that dark damp ceiling he‘d grown up under. But never like this, in all its glory.
It’s so big, he notices, and round. It looks a bit like a gold coin, and he wonders if that’s why they made the coins look like that in the first place. The sun gives life, he has heard a couple of times, but so does money, doesn’t it? After all, he has survived without the sun for this long, but he knows he would have had more trouble if he’d never had any money at all. He comes to the conclusion that the sun is unnecessary and not as great as they make it out to be. If anything, it hurts greatly, like being beaten with a leather belt. Almost worse, actually. It hurts so bad, it makes Levi forget about having to count.
“You can open your eyes, kid, we’re inside now,” the shrill female voice speaks to him, but he doesn’t obey right away. He feels that they are moving; they must be in some sort of carriage or something. He knows that if you shut your eyes, you see darkness. Not quite black but still — darkness. But now, when he closes his eyes, he sees something else, and he cannot quite make out what it is that he is seeing. It’s not dark, or black, it’s lighter. He keeps his eyes squeezed shut, tries to make out what he is looking at on the insides of his eyelids. It comes to him after another couple seconds, then, it looks just like the red door in his Mother’s room. It’s not quite the same shade of red, but it’s red nonetheless, and it calms him down, somehow. Frankly, he didn’t even know he needed to be calmed down to begin with.
When he finally dares to open one of his eyes, he doesn’t know where to look. The two strangers are seated across from him, on some sort of bench. He is seated on the same kind of bench, but they’ve had the grace to let him sit alone. “You’ve never been Above, huh?” The man wonders, head cocked slightly to the right. Levi only shakes his head, slowly. He’s met with a scoff, but it doesn’t sound the way a scoff should sound, he notices. People would scoff at him all the time, back home. Whenever he would step out, they would scoff and turn up their nose at him in the streets. There goes the cockroach, they would say. Nothing ever kills him.
They always said it with disdain in their voices, and he could always tell they meant it by that look in their eyes. But this man’s eyes are different — they aren’t accompanied by furrowed eyebrows or an upturned nose. He is looking at Levi the same way he looked at him when he had kneeled down to meet his eyes in his Mother’s room. It’s an expression Levi just can’t place, and it keeps unsettling him, making him nervous.
It’s not a sad expression by any means, Levi knows what sad looks like. But it’s similar. His eyebrows are shaped the same way and his eyes are slightly downturned. But there are no tears, no trembling chin or lips, the corners of his mouth are still angled upwards. He decides he prefers to look at the woman. She doesn’t share that strange, unfamiliar expression — he knows what his Uncle Kenny looks like. So her face isn’t all that unfamiliar.
By the time they arrive at the place they arrive at, Levi has counted to one thousand about seven times. He had not let himself be disturbed this time, he notes with a sense of triumph. Despite the two people having tried to talk to him, he had remained concentrated on the task at hand. He needs to make time move, so everything can be in order. So his Mother can return home. And maybe get him from wherever They took him to, if she so decides to make time for it.
The carriage ride doesn’t take as long as Levi had expected it to. “Your Majesty,” the woman sing-songs and it startles Levi. For a second he wonders whether she’s been replaced with some other woman that just so happens to have the same uncommon hair colour. Her face isn’t familiar at all anymore, no one Below ever looks the way she does now. Her eyes are wide and open, as is her mouth as she continues to speak. She’s saying something about him, something about his Mother, even something about Uncle Kenny but Levi is struggling to pay attention. The way she speaks is foreign to him, almost like she is speaking in an entirely different language. She enunciates her words differently and her sentences are so long, full of words Levi’s never heard before in his life. It feels strange to not be able to understand someone — he’s never experienced that before. He’s learned to speak, hasn’t he? So why can’t he follow this conversation? Frustration continues to grow inside of him, so he just resumes to counting, to make time go by, to make things orderly again —
“Levi, is it?” Suddenly, a voice calls out to him, and he can’t quite place where it comes from. It takes a couple looks across the hall before his eyes land on the source of sound. It’s the voice of an old man sitting on something like a chair. But it’s much, much bigger than any chair he’s ever seen before in his entire life. It’s big and red and — and it looks like it’s made of the same material coins are made out of. A chair made of coins, he thinks and wonders why anyone would ever waste coins on something so redundant. You can sit on the ground, too. His Mother and him have never had a chair before, and they’ve been fine without one.
He is shoved in the side by the woman on his left and he would lie if he said it didn’t hurt at least a little bit. Speak, she hisses in a voice so quiet he knows no one else in the room has heard besides him, only because he is right next to her. They’re both standing, but his head only barely reaches her waist.
His voice is barely louder than a rat’s squeak. “Uh-huh,” he whispers and is once again shoved in the side. “Speak up!” The woman demands rudely and threatens to lose her composure around him. “Yes!” Levi obeys, properly obeys this time around. He doesn’t know where to look, so he looks at the floor, the way his Mother has taught him. But the man in the fancy chair seems greatly displeased with that decision. “Look at me, son,” he demands in a low rumble and it reminds Levi of the way the man on his right approached him in his Mother’s room — how long ago? Probably about ten one-thousand-counts.
He looks at the man and is surprised to find that his facial expression doesn’t match the hostile tone of his voice. He looks old, and sick, and weary. But he also looks important, Levi can tell from the funny hat he‘s got on his head. It’s shiny and big and it looks quite heavy. He must be strong if he can balance it on his almost-bald head like that.
“Do you know why you are here?”
Levi shakes his head but then remembers the woman’s words and flinches instinctively. “No,” he replies honestly. He wishes his voice wasn’t as high-pitched, he wishes it would sound more like the man’s voice does. But he knows he’s not old enough yet. His Mother would always tell him that his time would come, too, someday. She would tell him all about how his voice would change and he would grow taller, as well, probably even taller than her. That mental image has always seemed so silly to him — how could he ever be taller than his beloved Mother? She knows everything and she is so strong and Levi knows he could never be as big or as strong as her. Not even in a thousand years.
The man in the chair seems to think about what he should say next. He looks over to the two people that had brought Levi here but they don’t seem to know, either. Everyone is looking back and forth at each other for what feels like forever and Levi wants to say Hello, I’m here, too! but his Mother taught him to only speak when spoken to, so he waits, impatiently.
He is not sure how much time has passed when that boy steps into the room, face red with whatever emotion he is feeling at the moment — Levi can’t really tell what it is, as per usual. The boy looks like he could be about his own age, but Levi can’t really judge that kind of thing. He hasn’t looked at himself that often before. Sometimes he would catch glimpses of his own face in the small basin of water his Mother would prepare for him but he never really indulged in it that much. It is of no interest to him, really.
Yet, he can‘t help but think that he would feel different about looking at himself if he had that boy’s face instead. His skin looks just like the sun-kissed skin people from Below love to talk about so much and his nose bridge is splatted with the same light brown dots he’d noticed on the face of the woman with the ice-cold hands. He is taller than Levi and his hair is a lot lighter, but Levi finds the red hue tinting his cheeks and the tip of his big nose somewhat ugly. It takes away from the colour of his skin, he figures. And it makes him look stupid. He wears his heart on his sleeve, he remembers his Mother’s words and he thinks those words might apply to this stupid boy as well.
They’re talking about something again, he realises, and yet again, he cannot really follow the conversation. The man in the chair is calm but tired and the boy is fuming, his high-pitched voice reaching new octaves as their squabble inevitably evolves into something more explosive. He can make out chunks and pieces here and there — something along the lines of the boy not needing anyone to spend his time with and the man in the chair insisting that he does, but Levi doesn’t understand the context at all.
He sort of comes to understand the context later that evening, when he is shown to his quarters, as they call it. It is a room much bigger than the one he had grown up in and it doesn’t smell like mould. There is a closet there as well and he climbs into it immediately, rightfully claiming it as his. The woman who’d walked him there only furrows her eyebrows at the sight. “No,” she tries, but her voice sounds hesitant, “that’s not where you are supposed to sleep.” Levi doesn’t really understand. He had always slept in the closet beside his Mother’s bed. Is the bed in the room not for her? If not, then who is it for? He doesn’t understand, but the woman carefully pulls him out of the closet and guides him to the bed next to a huge window.
“This,” she explains, slowly and carefully, her eyes never leaving his, “is where you will sleep, from now on.” Levi lets his hands touch the textile and he cringes at the softness of it. There is no textile on his Mother’s bed. It’s just a bed, with nothing on top. This bed is different. There are two little squares and one big rectangle and he doesn’t know what to do with either of those things, has never seen them before.
He must look stupid or lost because the woman smiles at his silence and removes the rectangle a little bit, exposing a big textile sheet below. “Lay down,” she orders, but it sounds more like a suggestion, “lay down, will you?“ Her voice is sweet and quiet and it makes Levi want to do what she says, so he does and he lays down on those silly squares, feels the way they press into his back. The woman laughs softly and helps him, positions his head on the squares and folds the large rectangle on top of him. For a second, he panics and he is sure he is going to suffocate under the weight of it all, but the woman lays her hand on top of his forehead in a soothing manner. His Mother does the same thing sometimes, he thinks, and his panic subsides at least a bit. The woman’s face changes into that same unreadable expression the man had had when he’d ripped Levi away from his home and it is unnerving him, once again.
“Quit starin’ like that,” he snarls, uncharacteristically. His words seem to work though, because her face changes right away and is suddenly painted with confusion. It’s much better than that unsettling expression everyone seems to look at him with lately. “Like what?” She asks, seemingly puzzled, as she continues to rest her hand on his forehead. Her fingers twist around the tips of his hair, but not in the way Kenny’s used to when Levi’d done something wrong. The touch is gentle and unfamiliar and it makes him feel queasy.
“Like, like —“ the words don’t come out the way he wants them to, they never do. He is not good with words, has never really needed to be. His Mother always understands him without words, the other kids never listen to his words anyway, so he’s never needed to use them. He huffs instead, frustrated with himself and stops trying to speak.
He stops trying to speak for quite some time, but he is not sure for how long, exactly. The boy with the heart on his sleeve keeps trying to talk to him but Levi barely understands his speech. It is laced with words he has never heard before and so he doesn’t even bother to try and understand what he is trying to say. That seems to upset the boy even more and his face only grows redder and redder with every passing day, until it eventually reaches the shade of deep red his Mother’s door has been painted as.
But then, one day, the boy’s words start to make sense in his mind. He is unsure of how much time has passed since the woman with the kind touch had showed him his quarters, but he figures he could have counted to one thousand at least ten thousand times. He is unsure how much that is, but it seems like a lot. It certainly feels like a lot.
He still doesn’t indulge in the habit of looking at himself in reflections often, but he has to whenever he is told to wash. It makes him feel uneasy, to look at himself that often, to see his body change and his limbs fill out. He finds he reminds himself of the blonde boy with the short temper and red face. Erwin, he’d learned, by now. That sort of name isn’t common where is from, so it is hard to remember. Levi’d forgotten it a couple of times and it had always made the boy yell. Not really at him, just — at anyone who’d listen, he’d supposed.
The boy — Erwin, Levi struggles to remind himself— yells a lot. Frankly, Levi is used to all sorts of yells, but Erwin’s yells are — they’re different.
There is never a real reason, Levi thinks, as he continues to watch his loud outbursts time and time again. One time, he’d yelled at the woman with the gentle touch only because his bath water had been too cold. By the time he’d finally calmed down, Levi had already sat in it and had finished washing himself, quietly. It had not been cold, at all. It had been steaming.
Levi can still remember that his Mother had never bathed him, at all. He’d never seen anyone bathe in a basin as large as Erwin’s before coming here, before being forced to endure the boy‘s tantrums.
Another time, he had yelled at the man who always brings them their breakfast, lunch and dinner. Levi still isn’t taking his food three times a day, he deems it unnecessary. Erwin had yelled about his chicken leg being too crunchy, so Levi gave him his own. Erwin had complained about his potatoes being too hot, so Levi blew on them to cool them down. He would do anything, if only to shut him up, he realises, that same evening.
That same evening the two boys are in the stables. It had been so long since Levi had been taken here, he lost track of how many times he could have counted to one thousand. He knows it’s a lot of times — but he doesn’t know numbers that well. Taking care of the horses is his job, now, or so he has been told. He feeds them, keeps them clean, grooms them, brushes their coats, oils their hooves, mucks out their stables and puts down new bedding, so they sleep sound at night. It’s the most fun he’s ever had in his life.
Erwin only ever watches him when he lays out new hay every single night, never dares say a word. Levi figures it’s because he probably does have some sort of conscience, somewhere in that stupid, comically large skull of his.
Erwin has grown into his features by now, but Levi finds he hasn’t changed much, himself. It used to upset him in the beginning, when they would wash together, and Erwin had changed some more over the course of a single week, whereas Levi had remained exactly the same. He never lets it show, never wants to be seen throwing the same kind of tantrums as Erwin. He only continues to suck it up, claws at the borders of his heart with vicious fingers, tries his hardest to keep everything right there, to keep his bothers from leaking through his chest and bleeding onto the people around him.
But people like Erwin whine and bitch and moan and complain about everything and anything, seeking sympathy, expecting empathy, trampling on Levi’s stuffy heart with dirty shoes they couldn’t be bothered to take off at the entrance. People like Erwin sob loudly, reach down their own throats, pull out all of the grime from inside, violently stuff it right down Levi’s, where all the bothers lay, neatly tucked inside his heart.
Even when there are fine little hairs littering the blond’s jawline, he still continues to wear his heart on his sleeve like Levi’s Mother used to say — just how long has not thought about her, now? — openly disregarding everyone’s obvious discomfort with the way he acts. One evening, he joins Levi in the stables again, much to the boy’s — or more so, the young man’s — dismay. As always, he is blabbering on about something he’d read or something he‘d heard, Levi doesn’t really care. Levi can’t read and doesn’t want to learn, either. He doesn’t want anything, he’s learned by now. Erwin is greatly upset by this.
“Why are you never interested in anything I ever say?” He asks, visibly agitated by the stable boy’s impassive face. Levi’s had this conversation about a thousand times by now. His grip around the pitchfork he holds only tightens as he tries to swallow his anger down, but it seems that he’s tried this too many times, has tried to keep himself at bay for too long, because he finally erupts.
He tells him about how much he’s hated Erwin from the second he’s laid eyes on him, from the very first time he’d heard his bottomless complaining, how many times he’d wished death on him, despite his Mother having taught him that this was an unacceptable thing to wish for. He tells him about how he’d dreaded having to see him every single day ever since he was placed in whatever this stupid place is, tells him about— he doesn’t really tell him about anything else, because before he can, he feels Erwin’s body pressed against his own. Strong hands cup his cold cheeks and rosy lips are laid plush on his own while he hangs limp, utterly useless. He continues to be useless even when Erwin’s hands reach down to roam his body, even when he unbuttons his shirt and his pants and he is useless the whole way through. He supposes he is still somewhat useful in the way he moans and breathes Erwin’s name over and over again because he looks like he enjoys hearing it, and if Levi is being honest, he is enjoying it, too.
Despite being generally useless, he enjoys it when Erwin holds him close and bends him over, he enjoys it when Erwin takes him to the bath or to bed and he enjoys it when Erwin whispers to him in the dark, muffled only by needy licks and passionate kisses.
Strangely, he keeps enjoying it for quite some time. By now, Erwin’s changed into a completely different man — not a boy anymore, but a man — and even Levi looks different, more grown, at least that’s what he tells himself to feel better about everything. He is still comically short, his head barely reaching Erwin’s shoulder, even if they both stand up straight. But his cheeks have slimmed down quite a bit and not in the way they were when he was first brought to the palace.
He’d been brought into the palace, he knows now. The man on the fancy chair back then hadn‘t just been some ordinary man, but the king of their homeland himself. When he first found out about it all, he had been so, so — giddy. How badly he’d wanted to share this information with someone else, someone who hadn’t been brought up inside the palace, but someone he’d grown up with.
But as time went by, memories of those very kids grew hazy until they finally disappeared altogether. The thoughts about his Mother and his Uncle Kenny started to fade until they’d subsided almost completely. He can’t even remember what they’d looked like, he’d realised just the other day.
Even the memories of how Erwin used to be when they had first met are nothing but a blur, now, for it has been far too long for Levi to remember such an unnecessary thing. He is so different now. So, so different now.
He doesn’t bitch or whine anymore and he takes his food without complaints like any normal person would and he accepts his bath water at any temperature, as long as he gets to wash with Levi. The king doesn’t hide his son any more, he makes him go out, show his face at whatever gatherings he needs to show his face at and Levi is always there to listen to him tell him all about it as he mindlessly oils the horses’ hooves in the evenings.
He likes listening to Erwin’s voice, he‘d come to realise. While he doesn’t particularly care for his stories — he finds them incredibly hedonistic, but would never dare say — he lends him an open ear to please him. Naturally, he wants to please him, always.
He pleases him in more creative ways, now, than he used to when they had both been younger, when they had walked the tightrope between being a boy and a man. Now, he lends him his hand, his mouth, his behind, anything he wants, how often he wants, during any time of any day. Funnily enough, Erwin thanks him every damn time, shows him his gratitude always, but Levi just insists that he doesn’t have to. I do this for my own pleasure, too, he thinks, but doesn’t say, because he is incredibly embarrassed by his own hedonism.
He never used to be like this, when he had still been back home, he thinks, but doesn’t really remember what he used to be like, at home. He can still vaguely remember a certain red door, a sleeping woman on a mouldy bed, but there’s hardly anything positive he recalls about his childhood.
He knows he never used to wash back then, but his hair was always cut. He never had enough food, but he always had water that ensured his survival. He never had a bed, but he had a closet that he could hide in, that he could call his own. Maybe his childhood hadn’t been so bad, he thinks, now, maybe this palace has just spoiled him too much.
“If picking up horse shit all day is your definition of being spoiled, then I don’t know what to tell you,” Erwin grins, visibly amused, and Levi realises he must’ve thought out loud. He only rolls his eyes in response. “The king wouldn’t be too happy with you cursing like that, P—“ but his words are cut off by a loud groan. Well, actually— Erwin still whines sometimes. Some habits are just too hard to break.
“Please, I already told you to stop calling me that, what— at least a hundred times—“ this time, his words are cut off by Levi’s scoff. It’s his version of a laugh, Erwin had mentioned once and Levi finds it sort of true. “You’re too easy to rile up, you know that?” He turns to look over his shoulder, steel gaze landing on Erwin twirling a piece of hay between his long fingers.
It’s an image that’s been engraved into his memory by now, he thinks, because he sees it practically every single day. He keeps wondering how one person could be so awfully lazy, to always hang around Levi like that, to always follow around the useless stable boy during every single free second. But he never asks Erwin that, because he’s scared Erwin might start to think the same way and stop visiting him altogether. He wouldn’t like that, Levi decides. He wouldn’t like that at all.
“I’m always riled up watching you in those tight white pants, you know that?” Erwin counters, mocking Levi’s tone of voice in a sarcastic manner. He flicks the strand of hay somewhere and Levi rolls his eyes at the sultry remark, but his white pants do grow a little tighter nonetheless. “Shut up,” he shakes his head and tries to get back to work, but Erwin wraps his arm around Levi’s waist and effectively drags him on top of himself. What was probably meant to be a swift motion turned into Levi’s body crashing Erwin’s in a mess of tangled limbs and bruised elbows. “You’re so stupid, you’re an idiot—“ Levi groans in annoyance but hearing Erwin’s laugh takes away every hint of scorn he’d felt just a second ago.
Every time he laughs, it reminds him of the very first time he’d come Above, two Military Police Officers by his side, like he was some kind of criminal. The light was blinding and had hurt his skin and he’d suffered a slight sunburn which Erwin had ridiculed him for, back then, but despite everything, it had been beautiful. That’s exactly how he feels about Erwin’s laugh: it’s blinding and loud and it hurts his ears in an unpleasant way, but despite everything, it also fills his chest with warmth. Despite everything, he likes hearing it.
“But you still enjoy my presence—“
“You asshole, I only endure it—“
“You enjoy my presence, Levi,” Erwin corrects him and he pushes his hand under Levi’s shirt when he does, caresses his back and traces the sides of his body, like he knows all of its curves and crevices — which he does, actually, “don’t you?” He asks, then, kisses his jawline, his throat and moves further down, boldly, across his pale, yet flushed, chest, visible through his slightly-unbuttoned shirt. Levi doesn’t say anything in response, doesn’t want to give him the satisfaction of it, at least not yet. But Erwin is an impatient man, so he plays dirty. “Hm?” He presses, unbuttons his shirt all the way down, loses one button somewhere in the hay. Levi silently condemns him for it, knows he will have to look through the whole damn haystack, later, but then those big hands fiddle with the front of his pants and cup him between his legs and all thoughts leave his mind for the time being. “I know you have a beautiful voice, Levi,” Erwin mutters in between kisses and licks and rubs. “I want to hear you say it.”
Levi knows he blushes with his whole body, but he still tries to hide his face in Erwin’s chest, doesn’t want him to see the red tip of his nose, the blush spread all across his cheeks and throat. It’s stupid, he knows, Erwin has seen every single part of him, over the years, over time, and yet, he doesn’t want to showcase his vulnerability, not like that.
“I—,” he begins, but his breath hitches when Erwin pulls him out of his pants, smears his thumb across the head of his cock like it’s nothing, like what they’re doing isn’t filthy or improper at all. “I,” he tries again, this time with a little more composure, “I enjoy your presence.”
It’s not really a confession as much as it is fuel to Erwin’s already ginormous ego, but it still feels like exposing himself. It seems to please him, however. He hums contentedly, continues to rub between Levi’s legs using a firm grip, a steady pace. “Let me hear you then,” Erwin probes, gently biting at Levi’s earlobe, hot breath against his sensitive neck.
“They’ll hear us,” Levi reminds him breathlessly. He closes his eyes for a short moment and his breath hitches once again, but he catches himself, turns to look at Erwin’s face, notices his enlarged pupils, neatly framed by a ring of light aquamarine. “They’ll hear us and catch us—“ Erwin only picks up the pace of his hand, shushes Levi in his own way. “They never have— in all those years, they never have,” a quiet moan slips past his lips from seeing Levi’s arousal leak out of him, “so, let me hear you, come on.”
Levi obeys, then, not being able to hold in the sounds of pleasure Erwin so desperately wants to hear. He calls his name the way he knows he likes it — what a big, fucking ego, but with big, fucking hands, and a big, fucking — “Erwin!” Levi gasps one last time, quiet enough so no one is prone to hear, and unceremoniously comes into Erwin’s hand.
Erwin wipes his hand on the hay below them, as he always does, and wraps Levi into a warm embrace, doesn’t even bother to tuck him back into his white linen pants. Levi’s head is swimming for a couple minutes more before he seems to remember that he’s not the only person in the world. “Do you—“ he begins, but his voice is croaky, so he coughs and tries again, “Do you want it, too?” He expects a nod, Erwin always expects something in return, but this time, he only shakes his head. “No,” he clarifies and his voice sounds truthful. “No, this is fine.” He finally tucks Levi into his pants and draws the strings to secure them in place. “No?” Levi wonders and is suddenly struck by fear. “Why not?” He asks, then, looks up at Erwin’s face with an expression that must look shocked, because Erwin soothes him with a kiss on the forehead.
“I have business in Mitras, tomorrow,” he explains, but Levi only scoffs in response. “We are in Mitras,” he reminds him, proud of himself for having listened to Erwin’s lessons about geography. He was born in the Underground, he’d learned. That meant he was born below Stohess, right below the feet of the Wealthy. When he first found out about it all, he’d thrown up for days. It made him sick. He still can’t talk about it.
“Well, you’d be correct, but, I actually have to leave the palace for once is what I mean,” Erwin smiles, twisting a strand of Levi’s hair in between his fingers. “Alongside the king, actually. He wants me to meet some people, I suppose, you know he hasn’t been too well, lately.” Levi nods understandingly. He knows the king is quite sick, but no one outside of the palace knows and no one ought to know, or so he’s been told.
“Anyways, I was just — I was wondering— if, you know—“
Levi furrows his eyebrows. It’s rare for Erwin to stutter around like that, he’s usually such a smooth talker, Levi finds.
“I was wondering if you would like to come with me.”
Levi looks up at him, in bewilderment. “I’m a stable boy,” he deadpans. “Why would I ever accompany you to a royal event?” If Erwin is hurt by the tone of his voice, he doesn’t show it. Instead, he smiles apologetically, his eyes crinkling slightly. “You’re right,” he sighs, but it doesn’t sound all that sad, “I suppose your place is here, with the horses—“
“I like the horses,” Levi reminds him, sitting up. “I like caring for them and spending time with them. I like it more than spending time inside the palace.”
Erwin nods, Levi’s words obviously not being news to him. “I know, I know,” he smiles fondly, his hands still in his hair, “I just like having you around me, is all.”
Levi doesn’t know what exactly Erwin means by that, but he finds he likes being around Erwin, too, at least most of the time, when he isn’t bitching or moaning which has thankfully become rarer as time went on.
“I’ll wait for you here,” Levi promises him, then. “I’ll be right here, where I always am. Cleaning horse shit,” Erwin can’t help but laugh at Levi’s crass choice of words. “Yes,” he agrees, “I’ll come see you when I return, then. Will you wait for me?”
And Levi rolls his eyes, then. “Well, what other choice do I have, my Prince?”