Chapter Text
The twirling ballet of snowflakes through the glass had something hypnotic about it. Sitting on the windowsill, his warm cheek pressed to the frozen glass; he watched the white dance, fascinated, as intermittent fog bloomed and faded on the pane with his warm breath.
He had never seen snowfall before. There was no snow, underground. He had heard about it, though. Isabel hadn't been able to shut up about it the first time she had witnessed it. He could still remember the crimson hue of her cold, round, pretty cheeks as she endlessly babbled about the beauty of the white flakes falling over the river, and over the green lands of the Survey Corps headquarters’ park inside Wall Rose.
“They say it was about time it started snowin’—that it’s probably the last snowfall of the season—that it had been a long time since they’d seen a winter with so little snow!”
The excitement in the young girl’s voice had warmed his heart, melting away the tension that had lingered in his shoulders then.
“You had to get yourself thrown into a cell at the worst possible moment,” Furlan murmured beside him, a poorly hidden smirk on his face. "Couldn't even fake some respect for hierarchy, for once.”
Levi snorted but didn’t reply. It was true. Three days in a cell—“for discipline,” they said—had made him miss the snowfall entirely. He could only admire the white blanket on the landscape now. And yet, despite the missed opportunity, his lips stretched into a faint smile as a snowball narrowly missed him and came thudding into Furlan’s scarf. The faint smile turned into a real one when Furlan started chasing after Isabel, the two of them ending up rolling in the snow.
As a particularly well-formed snowflake landed just before his eyes on the other side of the window, keeping its shape intact in all its perfect beauty, he recalled with perfect clarity what he had told his friends when they explained that it was very unlikely to snow again that year, and lamented that Levi hadn’t seen any of it.
“Not a big deal. We’ll see it together next year.”
How wrong he had been.
More than a year had passed since they had joined the Survey Corps. Less than a year had gone by since the early spring expedition—their first one—when everything had fallen apart.
The grief, which at first had been as painful as a dagger driven straight into his heart, had eventually faded, leaving behind nothing but a constant heaviness settled in a corner of his mind.
“If you begin to regret, you’ll dull your future decisions.”
His silent sigh left a heavier trail of fog on the cold glass.
Don’t start thinking about him.
Something stirred inside his chest, something foreign to the heaviness of grief. Something else entirely—that he was certain he had not yet fathomed, had not grasped, made his own, or tamed within himself.
He wasn’t sure how it had happened. The change now seemed to him to have crept in insidiously, viciously. How could he have gone from deep hatred to—whatever this was he was feeling now for this colossus of a man?
Yes. That day, he had decided he would follow this man, who was gazing up at something he couldn’t see. He had decided it, even as the steam, remnants of the blood of the Titan who had killed his friends, had not yet fully evaporated from his skin.
Not everything had been easy since then. Not that anything ever was. It had been a long time since he had felt this lonely.
Loneliness.
One might say he should be used to it, Underground dog that he was. Another might say loneliness was an illusion in the Survey Corps, where no one seemed to grant him a single moment of peace.
And yet.
When was the last time the corners of his lips had lifted into even the faintest of smiles?
The warmth of a hand on his shoulder put an abrupt end to his thoughts.
“You’re not listening.”
The voice was as warm as the touch—both quiet, a gentle pressure, a low murmur.
Since when had Levi been the kind of person who paid so little attention to his surroundings that he hadn’t heard him approaching?
To be fair, as quiet as the dance of snowflakes outside the window—or the echo of his thoughts—was, the room itself was anything but.
Everyone in the room seemed to be trying to speak louder than the next, in a debate to which Levi was completely deaf to in that very moment.
The meeting had, once again, dragged on. Levi was no man of strategy. He didn’t even really understand why his current squad leader insisted on having him there. Most of the time, he ended up like now, in the far corner of the room by the window, silent and inattentive at best.
But usually not so inattentive that he failed to notice exactly where Erwin Smith was.
That same Erwin Smith who was now staring at him intensely, with those damn piercing blue eyes.
Levi blinked once, slowly, before realizing too late that he’d been caught staring back.
The other man simply offered a faint smile before returning his attention to the meeting, his hand still resting on Levi’s shoulder.
Levi sensed it when the fingers twitched slightly, almost imperceptibly, against him.
It wasn’t the first time Erwin had touched Levi. The truth was, Erwin Smith was a “toucher”. A reassuring hand on a shoulder when someone faltered, a brief clap on the back to celebrate a small victory, a guiding grip on an arm when showing the way, or a firm pat on the shoulder to offer silent approval—all gestures Erwin was keen to offer anyone, really.
The slow movement of a thumb, tracing the beginning of a faint, but burning caress on the cloth over his skin—that, on the other hand, was entirely novel.
Levi’s body wasn’t used to novelty. And in a rare moment of betrayal, he reacted to the touch in the worst possible way.
He shivered.
And in the endless second that followed, the slow caress of the thumb froze for a heartbeat—just long enough to make Levi’s insides writhe before the warmth on his shoulder disappeared.
The snowflakes continued to brush tirelessly against the freezing glass. For the rest of the meeting, Levi couldn’t think of anything but how to survive a world in which Erwin Smith had felt him shiver at his touch.
—
The following evening, the snow was still falling, steadily but more discreetly, and the landscape was draped in a heavy white blanket.
Levi ran a tender hand beneath the mane of his mare, where the animal’s warmth gathered most. He was used to the cold. The Underground was bitterly cold in winter. But a full day spent training in the snow had caught him off guard. He had naïvely thought the snow wouldn’t soak his clothes quite so thoroughly.
He had been wrong, of course. He wouldn’t admit it out loud under any form of torture.
“Levi?”
He didn’t startle. He had heard the footsteps entering the stables long before the voice had left the speaker’s lips. He had even recognized who it was from the weight of the stride alone.
"Hange," he sighed half-heartedly. He already knew what was coming.
And sure enough, the footsteps quickened, stopping just outside the stall.
“So this is where you were hiding!”
He didn’t bother turning around, continuing to gently stroke the mare’s under-mane.
“I wasn’t hiding.”
Hange let out a very inelegant snort. “Yeah, right. You’re not getting out of it this year, you know.”
This time, he groaned. “I don’t see anything worth celebrating.”
“Oh, drop the killjoy act for two minutes, will you? Besides, you promised me.”
“Tch.” That was, unfortunately, true. He had promised. He sighed longly. “Alright.”
The walk back to the barracks reflected the dynamic that had slowly developed between the flamboyant—and totally eccentric—squad leader and him. Hange Zoë talked excitedly, as if they didn’t need to pause for breath between sentences, while Levi listened in silence.
Maybe it was because the nonstop chatter eased, if only briefly, the loneliness and heavy melancholy that Levi let them talk without shutting them up. He’d never stopped to consider how much patience he actually had for it.
He didn’t see the point of dwelling on that kind of thought anyway.
The Scouts’ Yule feast was not something Levi was thrilled to attend.
He didn’t know exactly what to expect when he pushed open the doors to the Mess Hall. He had managed to avoid it the year before. He couldn’t even recall what excuse he’d used at the time. All he remembered was that he had spent that night stargazing with Isabel and Furlan on the highest roof of the Headquarters.
They used to do that a lot. There were no stars to gaze at in the Underground.
When he stepped into the large room, about thirty scouts were already seated at the tables. The hum of conversation blended with the clatter of cutlery. Levi glanced, unimpressed at the temporary decorations brightening the hall, then let his gaze drift back to the tables, which had been pushed together into one long stretch so everyone could sit together. He paused for a brief moment, taken aback by the number of scouts present. He wasn’t even sure he would call it a large number, compared to the several hundred scouts currently in the Survey Corps.
Though he felt several pairs of eyes turn toward him, there were no welcoming cheers, nor frowns either, as he crossed the hall to join the table.
All things considered, that was an improvement. There used to be a lot of frowns directed his way back in the day.
He took a seat at the end of the table beside Nanaba. Hange sat across from her, and the two of them waved enthusiastically at Levi. Mike, seated next to Nanaba and opposite Hange, simply acknowledged him with a brief nod. Beside Hange sat an already quite drunk Moblit, cheeks flushed, eyes unfocused. The seat across from Levi was empty.
He sat down without a word, merely nodding back at them. His tablemates—perhaps one day he would finally call them comrades—quickly resumed their lively conversation, while Levi scanned the rest of the table with mild disinterest.
Nanaba caught his look and smiled. “First time?”
He barely nodded again and, grabbing a piece of bread, replied flatly, “I don’t know whether I expected more or fewer people.”
“All the scouts who still have family went home for the holidays,” Nanaba said. “Some were invited by friends’ families too, so the ones left really are the strays.”
Her smirk softened into a smile as she added more quietly, “There’s also some who do have family… and chose to stay anyway.”
Her gaze shifted not-so-subtly to Mike. The man merely snorted as he swallowed an impressively large piece of meat—something rare among the scouts’ diet. Immediately, though, his expression softened when he exchanged a look with Nanaba.
Levi’s right eyebrow lifted slightly.
So fraternization did exist within the Survey Corps, after all.
He supposed that brushing up against death every day spent beyond the walls made the risks of breaking military fraternization rules rather pointless. Obsolete, even.
Probably no one lived long enough to get caught and judged anyway. Most likely no one really cared.
For a while, he ate in silence, listening to the conversations without joining in. Voices overlapped, laughter burst out from every direction, and the atmosphere was far more frivolous and lighthearted than usual. Alcohol levels were higher, too. It was strange. Not unpleasant. Just unfamiliar.
Maybe Isabel and Furlan would have enjoyed the Yule feast after all.
His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the Mess Hall doors opening once more, and one of the scouts in the room yelled, “Squad Leader Smith! Nice to see you join us tonight!”
Levi’s shoulders tensed at once, and he made a point of not turning around. Still, he heard with perfect clarity the footsteps approaching—those of the very man he had managed to avoid for the entirety of the rest of the day after the meeting.
Circling the end of the table, Erwin took a seat with a smile, carrying the easy confidence of someone who knew he was fully welcome.
The seat across from Levi’s. Of course.
He remained perfectly still, his eyes fixed on his meal, offering nothing more than a barely polite, acknowledging “hmph” in return to Erwin’s greeting. He could feel the man’s eyes on him—or maybe he was just imagining things.
He didn’t look up.
“Ah, Erwin—just the man I wanted to see!” Hange’s enthusiasm seemed to double with Erwin’s presence. “I wanted to talk to you about a point from this morning’s meeting—”
Nanaba all but growled. “Hange, we’re off duty, please…”
That didn’t stop Hange’s rambling, which went on for several minutes, asking questions and answering them themselves, never once giving Erwin the chance to reply. Levi couldn’t help but snort, which didn’t go unnoticed.
Hange cast Levi a mischievous glance. “Not that humanity’s strongest soldier present here deigned to listen to a single word this morning.”
They turned back to Erwin with a wide grin. For a moment, Levi considered slapping a hand over their face. Too bad they were too far away for that. Hange’s wild grin suggested they were thinking exactly the same thing.
Levi stole a glance at Erwin—only to find him smiling back at Hange. For a moment, Levi allowed himself to study the man’s face. The squad leader’s severe posture seemed more relaxed tonight. Maybe the most relaxed Levi had ever seen him. And smiling suited him, Levi realized absentmindedly.
Erwin turned his head toward Levi, and their gazes locked. Levi didn’t look away. Looking away would have meant he’d been caught staring. Which he surely was not.
Not really.
“Well,” Erwin drawled, his eyes still fixed on Levi, “I’m sure that, with time, Levi will find more interest in those meetings.”
Levi’s right eyebrow lifted just slightly.
In answer, the corner of Erwin’s mouth curved into a faint smirk. “That is,” he continued, in the same slow and calculated pace, “an obligatory step toward the goal.”
“What goal?” Nanaba interrupted, curious. Everyone else in their little end-of-table committee was listening closely now.
Erwin paused, seeming to weigh his next words. He slowly raised his glass to his lips, took a small sip, then carefully set it back on the table before announcing, in a measured tone, “I intend to make Levi a Captain.”
The statement caused a small stir.
“A Captain!” Hange cheered immediately, while Nanaba let out a gasp of surprise, reaching her mouth with her hand.
Levi’s only reaction was a slow blink. Erwin was still watching him closely.
“Captain isn’t even a rank in the Scouts,” Mike muttered around another piece of meat. He didn’t seem particularly bothered by the news. Levi wondered if he already knew about Erwin’s plans.
Levi certainly didn’t.
“Precisely.” Erwin’s smirk shifted into a broader smile, and Levi blinked again.
He didn’t quite know what to do with that information. Partly because he didn’t really know what it meant—Captain really was not an official rank in the Survey Corps—but also because he’d never once considered the possibility of a promotion.
But at least now, he knew where his own squad leader’s insistence on making him attend the meetings was coming from.
“He’s not even Commander yet,” Hange sneered, before finishing their drink in one go with a disgraceful slurp. “Not that it even matters anyway,” they slurred, “we all know it’s just a matter of time before old Shadis passes the torch on to you.”
Erwin’s smile only broadened, but he neither confirmed nor denied Hange’s declaration.
“Well then, to the future Captain!” Hange shouted, raising their (already empty) glass cheerfully.
Levi rolled his eyes, but everyone followed suit. He watched Erwin lift his glass to his lips, still observing Levi calmly over the rim. There was an unmistakable spark in those sharp blue eyes.
Levi scowled. Erwin’s lips twitched at the glass, the smile returning as Levi clicked his tongue in a quiet and dismissive tch.
Fortunately for Levi, Hange’s enthusiasm quickly steered the conversation toward yet another completely different subject.
Throughout the meal, Levi discreetly watched Erwin interact merrily with the others. He had never seen him drink before—had never, in fact, seen him display anything that even bordered on carelessness.
The man’s usual severity really seemed softened that night, as though even the formidable Erwin Smith could allow himself a touch of end-of-year frivolity. Even so, he remained measured and composed, as if the idea of drinking to the point of drunkenness were beneath him as a squad leader. Hange and Mike, however, clearly didn’t share that view.
As his comrades grew louder, Erwin grew quieter, increasingly mirroring Levi’s own silent, observant demeanor.
The table descended into an endless clamor of conversation, one Levi found impossible to follow with any real focus.
At some point, a very tipsy Hange squinted at Erwin’s glass, then at Erwin himself, then back at the glass. “That’s it?” they asked incredulously. “That’s all you’re drinking?”
Erwin glanced down, then back up at them, unfazed. “I find it sufficient.”
“Sufficient!” Hange shouted, throwing their hands in the air. “It’s Yule! You’re supposed to drink until you forget why you’re stressed all year!”
Then, leaning forward conspiratorially, they slurred, “Seriously, though—what’s the point of Yule if not drinking?”
Nanaba shrugged. “Tradition?”
“Wrong answer!” Hange cheered, waving her arms. “Mike?”
Mike simply gave an exasperated wave of his hand, while an even more drunk Moblit moaned in defeat, “Just Dr–drinkin’, Hange.”
Hange snorted and then turned to Erwin, expectantly. The table fell silent as Erwin paused, considering seriously. “Historically, end-of-year feasts serve to reinforce group cohesion, reward the resilience everyone has shown during the year, and—”
Levi closed his eyes briefly.
“—remind participants of the value of collective survival,” Erwin finished calmly.
There was a beat.
“For fuck’s sake,” Levi muttered. “That’s a way to kill the mood.”
Erwin tilted his head slightly, watching him. “I was invited to contribute.”
Nanaba burst out laughing. Mike followed, shaking his head.
Hange clapped. “See? This is why you’re indispensable, Erwin. Indispensable, and terrifying.”
Erwin merely shrugged, smiling calmly, his gaze still fixed on Levi—and for the second time that evening, Levi stared back, silent still.
Mike let out a low chuckle beside Hange, lifting his own mug in agreement. Moblit tried to do the same, misjudged the distance, and sloshed ale onto the table.
Levi winced and looked down at his plate, tearing his eyes away from the trap that was Erwin’s gaze. “Definitely a very fun evening,” he muttered.
Out of the corner of his eye, he caught the barest twitch of Erwin’s lips.
Hange beamed, throwing their arms up in triumph—an enthusiastic gesture that sent nearly half their drink sloshing onto themself and the already stinky wet table. “See? Even Levi agrees with me tonight. Miracles do happen!”
Levi shot them a glare. “That’s not what I meant.”
Levi heard it then—the low, unmistakable chuckle. It took him a second too long to turn his head toward Erwin, genuinely taken aback. It was not a common thing to witness, Erwin Smith laughing. Particularly not like that. Not that softly. Not as if it had slipped out of him rather than being deliberately produced.
Erwin met his look and offered him another disarming smile.
Levi categorically refused to call it tender—because Erwin fucking Smith didn’t smile tenderly. And certainly not at him.
And yet.
Levi could not have explained why, but he stayed until the very end of the feast. Erwin did too, surprisingly.
And by some stupid twist of fate, when the group finally spilled out of the Mess Hall toward the barracks, Levi found himself square in the middle of a full-blown snowball battle between all the remaining Scouts—of all things.
For a moment, he remained frozen in place, memories of another similar scene haunting him fleetingly, red and blond hair running in the snow and laughing—
A snowball hit him square in the face. He almost squealed.
He scowled immediately at the culprit—an extremely drunk and far too alcohol-emboldened Miche—and unleashed a string of curses worthy of the underground thug he had been. Or was. He wasn't sure anymore.
“Stupid mutt,” he finally grumbled as icy snow melted down his collar, seeping into his clothes.
Hange exploded into delighted laughter just as their snowball slammed right into Erwin’s chest.
Levi quickly turned his head, refusing to catch Erwin’s reaction—whether he laughed, retaliated, or merely endured it with that infuriating composure of his. Instead, Levi turned away and walked faster toward the barracks, boots crunching hard against the snow, jaw tight.
He was suddenly very aware of the cold. Of the wet fabric clinging to his skin. Of how long the evening had stretched already. He was feeling tired. He was always feeling tired.
“Ah, Levi—before you go.”
Of fucking course.
He stopped despite himself.
Erwin’s voice was calm as always. Levi had to crane his neck to look Erwin in the eyes.
“Let’s take a detour by my office, if you please. I have something to give you.”
Just that.
No explanation. No preamble. As if it were perfectly normal to ask this of him, here, now, in the snow, surrounded by drunk and merry scouts, after the already surreal evening.
Levi clicked his tongue.
But somehow—against his better judgment, against every instinct that told him not to—he followed the taller man without question.
The first thing Levi noticed upon stepping into Erwin’s office was the frost creeping across the window, etching delicate, intricate patterns that caught the dim light of a surviving lamp. The room was small—smaller than Shadis’s, yet noticeably larger than those assigned to the other squad leaders. It was arranged the same way as the commander’s quarters, with one corner set aside as a modest living space: a fireplace, a few full bookshelves, and a simple couch.
Levi went straight to the fireplace, stoking the embers back to life. Anything to keep his hands occupied while the other man entered the room behind him in silence.
All his senses were focused on the man behind him. He didn’t turn around to look, but he could follow Erwin’s movements by sound alone. He heard a drawer slide open, followed by the soft noise of rummaging.
He was so cold. The dampness of his clothes stuck to his skin, and a tremor ran through his body—which reminded him of another recent shiver. His heart started to beat slightly faster as behind him, footsteps slowly approached him.
He tensed even more.
“There.”
Erwin stopped right beside him, and Levi could no longer ignore his presence. When he turned to face him, he found the man holding out a small package in his hand. Momentarily at a loss, Levi took it, unsure of what to do at first—until a simple lift of Erwin’s eyebrow prompted him to begin unwrapping it.
It was a sachet of tea.
Levi studied the sachet in his hands for a long moment, silent and motionless. Only the crackle of the fire in the fireplace broke the silence.
Next to him, Erwin shifted. Levi’s nostrils flared.
“You bought tea.”
A silence, then.
“I bought you tea.”
“You bought me tea.”
He was still observing the tea, expressionless. His mind was strangely quiet.
Erwin cleared his throat. “I heard from Hange you were a tea appreciator.”
Levi lifted his eyes from the sachet, but not all the way to meet Erwin’s gaze. They stopped halfway—level with Levi, somewhere around Erwin’s chest.
Erwin shifted position again, slightly balancing on another leg. “Was I wrong?”
Levi’s eyes were staring at Erwin’s chest without really seeing anything.
“Wrong about what?” Even to Levi’s own ears, his tone sounded distant.
Another small silence.
“The tea.” Erwin’s tone was quieter. Softer.
Levi’s ears started to buzz. He blinked furiously then, and suddenly raised his eyes to finally meet Erwin’s gaze.
“No.”
Erwin seemed slightly taken aback. It was Levi’s turn to clear his throat lightly. He shook his head and clenched the sachet in his hands.
“No,” he repeated, lowering his eyes again.
He brought the package up to eye level and began to decipher its contents.
“Berga—” He frowned—he was a slow reader, always had been.
One wasn’t easily taught how to read properly in the Underground.
“Bergamot,” he finished.
He lifted his eyes to Erwin once more. The man simply raised his eyebrows.
“Do you appreciate this flavor, Levi?”
“I don’t know.” Levi frowned. “Never tasted it.”
“How about we taste it now, then?”
It wasn’t a question. Erwin reached toward Levi to take the sachet, and Levi instinctively recoiled, clutching the tea tighter in his hand. Erwin’s eyebrows rose further, and Levi eventually handed him the sachet.
They didn’t talk as Erwin slowly prepared the drink, boiling water in a kettle next to the fire.
Without thinking, Levi sat down on the couch. Internally, his mind was frozen solid.
Since when did Erwin Smith spontaneously offer him tea?
Since when did Erwin Smith spontaneously offer him anything, actually?
Since when did anyone spontaneously offer him anything, since—
Darker thoughts were snatched away before they could even form by the whistle of the kettle.
The first sip of tea scorched his palate. It was exactly what he had been seeking, the thing he loved most about tea—the intense, almost overwhelming warmth, teetering on the edge of unbearable. It had always been such a comfort, a sharp contrast to the miserable cold of the Underground.
They drank in silence. The fire was just far enough away from the sofa to prevent Levi's clothes from drying quickly, but at least the tea was hot.
And delicious.
Levi didn’t remember closing his eyes, but the low sound of a chuckle made him snap them open again.
“I’m not asking if you enjoy it.”
Levi’s first reaction was to snap—but something in Erwin’s voice stopped him.
It was too soft. Too—tender.
There was that damn unrequited tenderness again. Levi didn’t know how to handle tenderness.
“Tch.”
To avoid the man’s gaze, Levi turned his attention to the fire. Another soft chuckle escaped from the man beside him, and Levi’s jaw tightened as Erwin rose from the chair to set his empty cup on the small table between the sofa and the fireplace.
Erwin circled the table and approached the fireplace, bending down to add a log to the flames.
It would be a lie to say Levi didn’t stare.
When Erwin straightened and turned around, Levi didn’t look away immediately, and their gazes met again. They said nothing, just watching each other in silence. Erwin’s hand rose slowly, fidgeting with his collar as if it were bothering him, and for a moment, Levi was distracted by the movement of his fingers brushing against the exposed patch of skin.
Then Erwin began to unbutton his shirt, and Levi nearly choked on his tea.
Erwin politely pretended not to notice, but Levi was beyond hiding his fluster.
“W–what are you doing,” he stammered—Levi never stammers.
Erwin just smiles back at him—infuriatingly calm, as if it was the most normal thing in the world.
“Changing. My clothes are freezing wet.”
Levi felt his cheeks burn as Erwin calmly but surely finished unbuttoning his shirt, gradually revealing the skin underneath, until—
Levi jerked his eyes away, averting his gaze, cheeks burning even hotter.
Out of all the things, Levi never, ever, blushes.
But then, he had never seen Erwin Smith naked. The man didn’t use the communal baths—squad leaders all had private quarters with their own amenities.
That didn’t, however, excuse his virginal reaction at the sight of a mere bare chest.
Erwin took his time finishing undressing, and Levi watched from the corner of his eye as he grabbed a chair and moved it toward the fire to lay his shirt and undershirt out to dry.
The man moved as if his sudden half-nudity didn’t bother him at all—which was probably true. After all, this sort of exposure was nothing unusual during military training.
Erwin was a handsome man.
Levi struggled to swallow his tea. His throat felt knotted, his posture stiff and awkward. He must have looked ridiculous. He was grateful Erwin didn’t look back as he momentarily stepped out of Levi’s line of sight.
But when Erwin reappeared in his line of sight, it was even worse. Erwin settled directly across from him, in front of the couch. Levi had to crane his neck again to look at him, struggling to ignore the view below the other man’s eyes level.
Levi’s cup hovered near his lips, forgotten. He was frozen.
Was Erwin drunk, after all?
He didn’t look like it. Maybe his eyes shone a little more than usual. Levi couldn’t be sure—Erwin was too close, and Levi didn’t dare hold his gaze for long.
But as soon as Levi averted his eyes, Erwin lowered himself.
One knee to the floor.
Directly in front of him.
“Are you wet, Captain?”
The tea nearly slipped from his cup as Erwin moved closer, kneeling in front of him and placing his hands on Levi’s sleeves—definitely wet—around the wrists that still held Levi’s cup.
“Yes, you are—you’re trembling, from the cold. Allow me—”
Yes, it was undoubtedly the cold that made Levi’s hands shake like a newborn foal’s legs.
His hands never tremble.
Erwin softly took the cup from Levi and turned briefly to set it on the coffee table.
No one had ever dared take the tea from Levi’s hands.
Levi didn’t know what to do with those hands, as Erwin slowly turned back toward him, still kneeling. So they remained raised, fixed, as if they were still holding the tea.
He had to move them aside, though, when Erwin’s own hands reached toward him, resting over the first button of his shirt near his collarbone.
Levi stopped breathing.
Erwin began unbuttoning him then. One button at a time, steadily. Neither slow nor fast.
Levi didn’t move an inch.
By some miracle, Erwin’s eyes weren’t staring into his own—they were fixed on the task at hand.
The last button came undone and Levi’s shirt began to open, revealing bare skin to the chilling air.
He should move. Take control. Finish removing it himself. Or rather, get fully dressed again.
But he was frozen.
“I’ve been wondering…” Erwin murmured, barely above a whisper.
Levi didn’t move. Not a muscle, as Erwin’s hand moved again, placing itself agonizingly slowly against Levi’s skin, palm pressed directly over his heart.
Erwin leaned slightly closer. Kneeling like that, their faces were almost level.
Slowly, Erwin’s fingers curled, brushing lightly against his chest.
Levi couldn’t help it.
He shivered.
And he hated himself for it.
“Ah,” Erwin murmured, nothing more than a bare audible whisper.
Ah… what? Levi wanted to shout, but he stayed silent as Erwin’s thumb began to trace along his bare skin, tracing a scar along the way from his chest down to his stomach—and at a pace so slow Levi might have called it languorous, if he were a more romantic man.
There was no world in which Erwin couldn’t feel Levi’s heart stutter.
“This morning…” Erwin whispered.
Levi tensed, and for a brief moment, Erwin’s thumb froze against the end of the scar around his navel, as if afraid Levi might finally pull away.
But he stayed silent and still, like prey under a predator, knowing any move now could be his end.
And after a moment that felt infinite, the slow caress of Erwin’s thumb resumed, rubbing, tracing, teasing.
When Erwin spoke again, his voice sounded hoarse to Levi’s ears.
“This morning,” he repeated. “I’ve been wondering… I wasn’t sure… I thought about it all day.”
Levi finally croaked, a weak “What?” escaping his lips.
“You’re trembling,” Erwin said, and there was something in his tone—something akin to fascination—that made Levi’s knees weak.
Panic surged. It’s the cold! It’s the cold! He wanted to yell, anything, for any reason—but Erwin’s next move left him utterly speechless.
Erwin’s other hand settled on his nape, pressing gently. Levi recoiled at the contact, only to sink further into the couch. Erwin’s hands followed him.
Levi’s gasp sounded loud in the office’s silence. There was no denying his body’s reaction.
“You’re trembling,” Erwin repeated, “under my touch.”