Chapter Text
"Erwin!" Mike blinks at him, eyes dark in the reddish light of the bar, hands occupied with washing out glasses. "Long time no see. Heard you got hurt." His eyes dart to Erwin's empty right sleeve, the cloth pinned back on itself to keep from flapping, and the skin around his eyes goes tight in sympathy.
Or perhaps Erwin just stinks of pain. That is also a possibility; he's been doing occupational therapy and rehab for phantom limb pains since he got out of the hospital, but the void where his limb should be still vacillates between burning and itching. "My psychiatrist insisted I get out again, after I got discharged for the arm," he says as he takes his regular seat at the bar, half-turned to watch the demonstration on stage: Hanji, showing off medical play to the new members, and one of the club's professional subs writhing on a table as Hanji runs a Wartenberg wheel over the soles of her feet.
Mike grins. "Did you tell your psychiatrist you were going to a kink club?"
Erwin has to laugh at that. Dr. Arlert, while very young, is a good and accepting psychiatrist, but he'd spontaneously combust if Erwin hinted at his proclivities. "No. And I'm not going to, either. Can I have a gin and tonic?” He could ask for something non-alcoholic so he could participate, but it's been nearly a year since he's been here, and he wants to take it all in.
"If you let me stamp your hand so everyone knows you've been drinking."
Erwin offers his hand so Mike can stamp it with the red X that lets people know he's not safe to play with that night, then takes his drink with a smile. "So. What have I missed?"
Mike starts polishing highball glasses, scanning the club's booths and small dance floor as he thinks. "Bertholdt and Reiner have started dating someone new: a woman named Annie, mostly dominant. Bertholdt's got two people to order him around now, but if he likes it, I guess it's good. Nanaba got his top surgery a few months ago and is still healing up, but so far so good. Jean and Marco seem to be getting closer and closer to a collaring, though everyone's mostly just waiting for Marco to tell Jean he's ready and to do it already. Ymir did collar Krista, but Krista's still absolutely the pants-wearer outside of the club. Hanji and Rico are still friends with benefits, Sasha and Connie come in once a month to demo food play... that's pretty much everyone in the old crew."
Erwin takes a sip to give himself time to gather his thoughts. It's easy to feel a little lost, when so much has changed, but he's changed the most: become older and harder and exhausted by pain and struggling to adjust to a body that doesn't match who he saw himself as for forty years. "I see. Any additions I should know about?"
"There's Jaeger and Ackerman," Mike says, placing the glasses on a tall shelf and starting to wipe down the counter. "Nobody knows what their deal is, and Jaeger's temper is so explosive nobody wants to get too close. Ackerman's the usual ice queen stereotype, but really they're both good kids. They care. Then there's their... 'friend,' I guess, Levi."
Erwin frowns over the lip of the glass. "Not certain?"
Mike laughs. "No, it's just that if you asked Levi he'd say they were shitty-ass kids who he has the bad fucking luck to live next to and they don't know how to take 'leave me alone' for an answer."
"Charming."
"If you don't mind condescension and cursing, I guess. Levi's-" Mike pauses, glancing around to make sure none of the other bar patrons are listening in, and says, "-he's beautiful, and a lot of the unattached doms in the club have had a crack at him, but it only ever lasts a night."
"What, he drives them away?"
Mike shrugs. "A lot of them say he's a bad sub."
Erwin stops himself from clenching his jaw, but it's a near thing. "In my opinion, there's no such thing as a bad sub, only bad doms. If a sub's acting out, it's because you haven't earned their trust."
"No, I agree, I'm not saying they're right. Besides," Mike pauses, "if I weren't with Nanaba, I might try to get Levi into my bed, too."
"That good, huh?" Erwin swirls the ice cubes at the bottom of the glass, thinking. "You have a hunch about him?" Mike tends to get hunches about people, and nine times out of ten they're right, although the only thing he says about his methods is that 'the nose knows.'
A moment's hesitation. He looks up, and Mike's staring into the middle distance, frozen in thought for a moment before he leans over the bar to say quietly,
"I think Levi has a lot of issues. The sense I get is OCD, maybe anxiety, I don't know - he's completely locked in his own head, and I don't think he knows how to let go of anything. Might be a reason for his surliness. Paranoid, too - he checks rooms like you do."
Possibly ex-military, too, then.
"But I think that if somebody clicked with him, and if they could figure him out, then I think- I think they could be amazing together. The hunch I get is that Levi wants to trust somebody, he just doesn't know how."
Erwin raises a brow. "Obviously he's made an impression on everybody, if you talk this much about him."
Mike grins, suddenly, like a shark smelling blood in the water. "Let me point him out for you, and you'll get what I mean."
Well. Game, set, match.
"There he is." Mike nods at the end of the bar, closer to the stage.
Erwin follows his gaze, and is silent.
Mike had been right.
Levi is beautiful, the same way deadly things are beautiful, all coiled potential for violence: small-framed, yet broad-shouldered, the impatiently-pushed-up sleeves of his gray shirt straining about the curves of his biceps as he rests his chin on one hand and stirs the melting ice cubes in his drink with the other. His dark hair is cut short in the back - another military affectation - and his eyes, dark and sullen, betray his lack of expression: they are alive, marking all the movements in the room with precision.
Erwin is instantly intrigued. He slides off his bar stool, glass in his hand, and approaches Levi, sure to make enough sound to not startle the other man.
Levi half-turns. He looks Erwin over, gaze stopping for a moment on his missing arm. Point in his favor: Erwin would much rather people look their fill once and get it over with rather than pretend he isn't missing a limb.
"Yeah?" Levi's voice is as hard as the rest of him.
"Buy you a drink?" Erwin nods at the stool next to Levi, and Levi snorts.
"Fine, if you can pick something that doesn't taste like piss."
Erwin signals Mike for one of the more unusual microbrews, then takes a seat, momentarily unbalanced. He's still working on getting his perception of his body and motions up to date.
Levi takes the beer Mike slides him, then gives Erwin a suspicious glance. There's something feline and wary in the jut of his jaw, a warning.
"Just try it," Erwin says, grinning despite himself at the sudden obstinacy. "You might like it."
Levi takes a sip, then another, rolling it about his mouth thoughtfully, before the long graceful line of his throat bobs in a swallow. "It's not abysmal. Well-hydrated piss," he concedes, then offers a hand. "Levi."
"Erwin Smith." Levi's hand is calloused and strong, though Erwin's own massive mitt practically swallows it up. "Nice to meet you."
Levi tilts his head, assessment gleaming in his eyes. "So, how's this work? You buy me an acceptable beer and think I owe you an hour in the private rooms?"
"No." Erwin isn't stung by the comment, though it's a near thing, and he privately wonders who Levi's been talking to, if this is his perception. He lifts his hand to show the red X. "I had a gin and tonic, so I'm not safe to play tonight."
"'Play?'" Levi echoes. He turns to face Erwin head-on, hooking one booted foot about the metal frame of the bar stool. "Thought this was supposed to be serious. Most of the assholes here act like it's life and death."
Erwin manages not to roll his eyes. "Most of them don't have enough of a personality to define themselves by anything other than their kinks. This is supposed to be amusing, not a hardship."
Levi absorbs that with a moment of silence, then looks at Erwin more keenly.
Erwin wants, so suddenly it surprises him, to impress Levi, to find out what's beneath that acid shell.
"What happened to your arm?" Levi asks like it's a normal question, and there's relief in that, in the straightforwardness of him when it seems like Erwin's arm has become taboo to speak of, a void in word as well as reality.
"I was an instructor in the military for the Airborne: parachutes and high altitude egress, mostly." At that, Levi tilts his head, some expression flickering across that sullen, narrow face.
"I was assigned to be the test jumper for a new high altitude system; the contractor failed to perform due diligence on the metal frame attached to the bottom of the balloons. We were high up enough that the metal frame froze, and a wind gust came at just the right angle to shear half of the frame off. Part of the metal hit me about halfway up my upper arm." Erwin demonstrates with his hand.
"And you survived?"
"Barely. More luck than skill, really," Erwin admits, and there's another flicker of surprise in Levi's eyes. "I managed to untangle my rig and dive, and I was high enough that the cold constricted the vessels and prevented me from bleeding out. If I'd been lower I would've died." A small, grim smile. "I lost consciousness after about fifteen seconds, but my safety cord had stayed intact, so the chute deployed automatically. Frostbite and metal shards necessitated the removal of the rest of the arm, and I was discharged honorably." He shrugs. "The contractor paid me a good settlement."
“Sounds like the military, to hire a contractor with their head so far up their own ass.” Levi holds himself completely rigid, like a man who’s never given up anything in his life, or a man afraid to bend, terrified to give over and yet wanting nothing more. He’d look good in ropes, fighting the bonds until he’s convinced he’s safe, that he can’t hold any responsibility, and Erwin’s hand itches to reach out and curl about his slender, pale throat, to ease him down onto his knees and keep him there.
“You have an infantry hairstyle,” Erwin says, taking a sip. “Still active-duty?”
Levi withdraws, shoulders hunching. “No. Discharged for medical reasons.” He glances at Erwin, as though expecting to be pressed, and when Erwin says nothing, relaxes enough to take a sip of beer. There’s something dangerous in him, an awareness of space and people that speaks of violence.
Erwin notices for the first time that the hand he didn’t shake is wrapped in the style of a fighter’s, the bandages bloodied over the knuckles. A small, pale hand, and yet the blood and the way Levi holds himself makes its presence a threat.
“You’re experienced with this, then?” Levi nods at the stage, where Hanji’s moved on to drawing a dulled knife, chilled in a cup of ice, down her blindfolded sub’s back.
“I’ve been in this scene for about ten years.” Erwin finishes his drink and sets the empty glass back on the bar for Mike. “But it’s been about six months since I’ve come to the club. I was stationed out of state, and then I lost the arm and had to go through rehab. This is my first night back, actually. You?”
Levi bares his teeth in something Erwin’s hard-pressed to call a smile. “This is my fourth time here. I’m still the fresh meat.”
“I highly doubt you’re anyone’s prey,” says Erwin, amused at the idea. “Though if you’re new, got any idea what you like?”
Levi searches his face for something, and Erwin remains still, keeps his expression blandly friendly. “Not what I like, no,” Levi says after a long moment. He goes silent, as if deliberating whether to place any trust in Erwin, then continues, half-reluctantly, “I don’t like having my limbs bound. I don’t like sensory deprivation.” Another pause, another searching stare, as if trying to find something in Erwin to dissuade him.
It’s unusual, and surprisingly pleasant, for Erwin to feel like he has to prove himself. So often before the accident he couldn’t walk into the club without several unattached subs competing for his attention, as if Erwin, by virtue of being dominant, experienced, and not unattractive (then) was instantaneously worthy of trust. The role reversal is enticing.
“I despise humiliation,” Levi says finally, chin jutting out in challenge. “One of the men I met my first night here tried it. Bad fucking choice.” He’s utterly still, stiff, as if to bend the slightest bit will shatter him. “Doesn’t take me anywhere pleasant.”
“Sounds like you haven’t had many good experiences.” Erwin keeps his voice empty of judgment. Levi seems like a labyrinth, a maze trapped at every turn, but the slight tilt of his head to Erwin, baring his throat, promises reward for the one brave enough to discover the way through. He wouldn’t mind being that man.
Levi’s smile is a sneer, sick with self-loathing. “I’m a fuckton of work.”
Erwin shrugs his remaining shoulder. “And I’m no one’s idea of the perfect dominant now that I’m missing an arm. If you want me to tie you while you fight back, that’s not going to happen. Neither are several positions. Just means you have to figure out what works for you and your partner.”
“True,” says Levi. “Surprisingly realistic coming from a man who spends time with freaks dressed up like ponies and deviant doctors.”
“I served for fifteen years. If you’re not good and practical by five years in, there’s something wrong.” Speaking of practicality. Erwin fishes out an old receipt from his pocket, uncaps a pen in his teeth, and scribbles his name and phone number on it. The handwriting’s shaky, but legible; it was one of the first skills the therapists had him work on after completing the gross motor skills segment. “You’re interesting, Levi, and I wouldn’t mind getting to know you better. There’s my name; you can ask around the club to verify I’m trustworthy if you like, and really you should. Hanji knows me pretty well. If you’d like to meet up again, feel free to call.”
Levi drains his beer. Then he pushes the glass away, gives Erwin a narrow stare. “You want me to ask around to find out all your embarrassing secrets?”
“I want you to do what’s necessary to feel that I’m trustworthy.”
Levi folds the receipt between two fingers and slips it in the pocket of his sinfully tight jeans. They’re worn white at the knees and thighs, and Erwin can imagine undoing that old brass zipper and slipping his hand inside to meet an answering heat. “This you staking a claim?”
Erwin raises a brow. “Absolutely not. Just an offer. You can take it or leave it. If you just want an ear in the scene, that’s fine by me; if you want to try a scene, well, I’d prefer that, but whatever you’re comfortable with.”
“I’ll think about it,” Levi says, and that’s Erwin’s cue to saunter off to talk to some of the old regulars. He can feel Levi’s incisive gaze on his back.
Always leave them wondering.
-
Levi hurtles upwards out of terror and into wakefulness. His hand darts, without thought, to the handgun on his nightstand.
Beretta M9. Semi-automatic. Short recoil. 15 round magazine. Not the same gun he had against the Titans - he will never have that gun again - but serviceable, more than capable of protecting him should he need it.
He swings his legs out of bed and onto the floor, toes curling against the cold. The quick, mechanical motion of field-stripping and maintaining the gun is a comfort, and while he lets his hands do as they will he looks about the room. He keeps the walls bare, has removed the door so he has a clear line of sight to the front door.
He will never be taken by surprise again.
In his cell in the Titans' base, the ceiling was sixteen tiles by twelve tiles. There was a darker gray tile four tiles down and five from the upper left corner. Thirteen of the tiles had cracks. His metal bunk was six feet long, estimating by his own stride. The handcuff that had rubbed his wrist down to the bone had seventy-five scratches on the cuff attached to the bedframe.
Across the hall-
Eren and Mikasa keep making noise about invading his apartment while he's out to decorate it (with the help of Armin's so-called exquisite taste), but there's no point. If Levi ever needs to move on, escape the nightmare hounds slavering at his heels, he will without a second thought, though he'll miss the idiots two doors down.
The red door across the hall-
He jerks himself away from the intrusive thought with an effort to look down at the Beretta. It gleams, oiled and cleaned, so he slips it in his shoulder holster and pads from the room to the kitchen, pausing halfway to look at the hole he punched into the terribly shitty drywall of the hallway. His knuckles throb beneath their bandages at the memory.
It'd been a blackout, his psychiatrist said. The reaction of a traumatized mind to a stimulus that pushed him back into that cell, and those months. The worst part is that he doesn't remember what caused it, what ordinary thing displaced him from his own body, and so he's done the sensible thing: begun to count his surroundings to keep himself anchored here.
Then the psychiatrist started warning him about developing obsessive-compulsive disorder, comorbid with his PTSD and anxiety, and stuck him on yet more anti-anxiety pills, which taste like shit and keep him from eating (like he's got any fucking weight left to lose). But he takes them anyway, because he's a dutiful soldier, though the military has no place for him anymore. They have a pension, which he takes because a near-starving childhood taught him to never give away money.
One half-cup of steel-cut oatmeal.
Three-quarters of a cup of whole milk.
Three grams cinnamon.
Five grams honey.
He stirs it with one hand, maintaining a precise fifteen revolutions per minute. It's silent in his apartment, a welcome relief after the pounding bass throb of the club for so long last night. The last hour had been making a circuit of the floor, talking to some of the regulars about that man who'd bought him an alarmingly decent beer.
Erwin Smith. Tall, blond, with the deep purple shadows beneath the eyes and the thin, stubbled face of someone recovering from a long illness. Still, there'd been a presence to him, a weight to his regard that left Levi interested in what lay beneath the mild tone, though Erwin had the gravel voice of someone used to delivering orders. Erwin Smith seemed like a banked fire, interest and consideration burning in his pale eyes. Properly provoked, he could consume, and something in Levi aches for that, to be used up, forced to forget for even a moment, remade, his broken pieces stitched together.
Besides, Hanji and the other regulars had praised the man like he hung the moon and goddamn kinky stars. Clever, cruel when desired, terribly conscientious about his partner's safety, and scrupulously honest.
The other men he's tried at the club haven't been so good, and he's becoming more fucking disappointed with every trip. They expect him to bend more than he's capable, or to give up his sight and movement, and if he could just tell them it would be easier, but the shame is inked on his back for everyone to see, a voice when he can't tell the story.
The oatmeal is ready. He eats it from a plain white bowl while washing the pot he made it in, because he has to stay busy. To be idle is to invite the memories, the thoughts-
The red door, and what lay beyond it-
He scrubs so hard he dents the pot.
-
The knock at the door startles Levi out of a half-doze, and he's out of bed with the Beretta in his hands before he even registers the fact that it's Eren's characteristic three sharp raps. Not that the Titans are foolish: they could have easily found out Eren's way of knocking, and so Levi takes the gun with him. He has to rock up onto his toes to see out the peephole - fucking tall-ass architects - but it's Eren out there, Mikasa with him.
It's the work of seconds to eject the magazine and stow the ammo away in one locker, the gun in another one, and secure them both. He checks each lock five times. Levi has always been conscientious of safety, all the more so after.
Eren grins as Levi opens the door and charges into Levi's apartment like he owns the place, all whirlwind energy and strident voice. "We're going to the club tonight, want to come with? Maybe that Erwin guy will be there, the one you were interested in?"
Mikasa follows at a more sedate pace. She snags Eren by the collar of his shirt and pulls him in, reining in his anarchic tendencies. "You've investigated him thoroughly, I assume."
Levi shrugs. "All my resources say he's clean, and the people at the club talk about him like he's Jesus, so I suppose I might."
His clothes aren't impressive enough for a night out, though: the jeans he paints in (because the therapists said he needed to express his feelings) and an old blue T-shirt, too large. Not that Eren and Mikasa are fashion plates either. Eren is utterly insensible to color and shape, and would probably go to work in bile-green and orange combined if he didn't have Mikasa to tell him when he's being a fuckhead.
Which, because he's Eren, is approximately ninety-five percent of the time.
Mikasa could dress well, if she cared, but she doesn't. She became a professional MMA competitor and trainer after she left the military, so anything she wears is liable to get blood on it at the worst, torn at the best.
Still, though. There's a part of Levi, deeply hidden and strangling, that wants to impress Erwin. Wants to be thought worthy of Erwin's regard, and praised for his loyalty and cunning. He's been out of the military three months, and he still finds himself adrift, spinning wildly into his own memories without a fixed point to anchor himself, the rigid rules and reassuring fixity of life in barracks.
"Let me change shirts and ask Erwin if he's coming, and I'll join you."
Before they leave, Levi checks his front door is locked precisely twelve times, cursing himself with every time he has to turn back and verify - it's stupid, he's stupid, he knows he locked it but what if he didn't, what if the Titans find him, and if he doesn't complete the ritual the world will tilt on its axis - and Eren and Mikasa, because they are the ones who found him in that hallway with the red door, let him, and say nothing.
They take the subway, Mikasa and Eren subtly angling themselves to keep anyone from bumping into Levi. Levi isn't particularly edgy tonight, but when people have gotten handsy, their rough fingers brushing up against his scars, he roars to life like a wildfire and attacks like one, too. He doesn't deserve friends like them.
"You two got a plan for tonight?" Outside the station lights whip past their car in streaks of white against the darkness.
Mikasa shrugs, but Eren says, "Some dancing, and then we thought we'd check out the suspension workshop."
"Really. And which one of you chucklefucks is volunteering to get hung up by ropes?"
Mikasa and Eren frown at each other like they haven't even considered this yet, and knowing them, they might not have.
Neither one of them ever exerts real power over the other, and as far as either of them will say, they're not completely monogamous. Levi can't get his head around their dynamic and it seems pointless to try.
"Whichever one of us loses the coin flip, I guess," Eren says, then cuts through the crowd of people disembarking the subway, hauling the two of them after him.
Levi barely suppresses a shudder. Placing yourself completely in another's hands based entirely on the vagaries of luck - that happened once to him and those he loved. Never again. They emerge onto the city streets, and Mikasa tugs Levi a little closer, taking his arm (which is his arm, thank you very much) and draping it over her neck like some fleshy scarf. Levi leaves it.
The night hair is cool, heavy with mist, pleasant on Levi's lungs, scarred from smoke and sand and other things, but he gets little time to enjoy it as Eren presents their membership cards to the front desk attendant and leads them into the club. It's quiet tonight, the music some slow string piece mixed with the throbbing heartbeat of a bass drum. Onstage, Hanji, dressed in something approximating a masturbatory teenager's idea of a sexy scientist, is doing something deeply unscientific to a man's cock and balls, trussed up so tight they're near-purple.
"We're going to go dance," Eren says. "You've got our numbers?"
"Of fucking course I have your numbers. How else would I be able to look at my phone whenever you text me your asinine thoughts and know instantly from whose rotting skull they came?"
Mikasa ignores his irritation, as she's so very good at doing.
"We'll be expecting your check-in at midnight."
"Fine. I'm going to go find Erwin."
"Be safe," says Eren, and suddenly he's serious, a terrible light shining in his eyes. "If we don't get your check-in, Mikasa and I will be coming for you." This is, after all, the only man the Titans fear as much as they fear Levi and Mikasa. Had feared Levi's squad-
Don't think about that.
"I will," Levi manages, and escapes toward the bar. He spots Erwin and slows his pace, approaching slowly, at an angle, along the edge of the room. He keeps his back to the wall, his gaze moving, checking jackets for the lump of a shoulder holster (there are none, he knows there are, they're banned, but he can't not check). His heart beats in his ears, and his hands clench without conscious thought. He runs the thumb of his wrapped hand over his bandaged palm, counting the number of wraps in the fabric to center himself.
Erwin's talking to the bartender, Mike, his voice a gravel rumble that Levi can feel in his bones even this far away, even though he can't quite make out the words. A black suit jacket, well-cut to emphasize those broad shoulders, the right sleeve pinned back on itself. A pale shirt, open at the collar, exposing the hollow of Erwin's throat, the hard line of his neck, his collarbones, a faint glint of golden hair. His jawline, sharp, strong, is stubbled, and Levi wants -
He wants, and he has wanted so little for so very long.
"Erwin," he says as he stops behind him.
Erwin turns. There's a heaviness to his motion, a languid certainty that he can reach out and take, can do whatever he wants, a darkness in his eyes that intensifies as he takes in Levi's appearance, assessing, appraising.
Five wraps in the bandages over the palm, two of which are fraying on the uppermost side-
"Levi," he says, and smiles, and the rushing torrent of numbers and rituals slows. He slides off the stool, gingerly, carefully, and the reminder that this man is human, more human than most, can be hurt, can lose, is a comfort. "I've got us a room. I thought you might want some privacy."
"Sounds fine." Levi falls in at Erwin's right side, careful not to walk in the space once occupied by the arm, and follows him to an inconspicuous stairway, up a flight of stairs, and into a small room: number thirty-eight.
"You have a check-in set up, I hope? What time?" Erwin's fiddling with the lights, turning them down to a soft ambient golden glow.
Levi's more interested in the room. He covers his examination by texting the room number to Eren and Mikasa. Windowless. Approximately six steps from the door to the low metal-frame bed. A white-tiled bathroom to the left. A wooden trunk at the foot of the bed. A nightstand, with a lamp on it - a weapon, if necessary, looks like steel, suitable to bludgeon - to the right of the bed. Erwin's question finally filters through the paranoia, and Levi turns to face him.
"Yes. I'm not a fool. It's at midnight."
"I never said you were a fool," Erwin says, no condescension in his tone. He takes a seat on top of the trunk. "I think you're the farthest thing from a fool it's possible to be. I'm simply checking, for my own peace of mind."
Levi bites back the annoyance pushing to be let free, and approaches, settling with ill grace at Erwin's feet. The floor is uncomfortable, but that's all he has time to register before Erwin hooks a finger beneath his chin and draws his head up, forcing Levi to meet those blue, considering eyes, looking at Levi as though they can see deep into the rotten core of him and still find him worthy.
"Why'd you do that?" A simple inquiry.
Levi shifts. "Isn't this the proper way to start? I kneel, you slap me around a bit or ask me to fuck your boot, and then we go from there? Sir."
Erwin's eyes glint like pale halogen flames, and Levi stiffens, ready for pity, ready to be looked at as some pathetic thing to be coddled. Erwin only shakes his head and sits back, letting go of Levi's chin. "No. There's no 'proper way' to start, Levi. And you don't need to call me 'sir.' We're not in scene yet, and even if we were, I only want that if you're comfortable offering it."
Erwin nods at the armchair by the door. "Why don't you have a seat there? At least for the negotiation, I'm more comfortable if we do it as equals."
Levi bristles, the tense strength in his limbs reminding him of how easy it would be to explode off this floor and drive Erwin back, show him that Levi is a threat no matter where he is, incapacitate him or worse in seconds-
Another intrusive thought, another image of violence he doesn't need to see-
He gets up off the floor and takes a seat, elbows on knees, watching Erwin watching him.
"So," Erwin says, voice thoughtful, rich with curiosity, as though Levi is something interesting or desirable, "your hard limits. What are they?"
"No humiliation. Nothing that's meant to go in a toilet." Levi swallows the bile at the image, the reminder. "No knives. Nothing that cuts off my breathing. Nothing permanent. No including others."
Erwin's gaze flickers with each thing he names, and it's a strange feeling, near-tangible, to have a man's attention so completely. "All right. My hard limits mostly align with yours, with one difference. I don’t do sex on the first scene. My partner can masturbate, but I’m not a participant."
Levi raises a brow, surprised despite himself. "Thought this whole thing was about sex."
"No. It's entirely possible to have a BDSM relationship that doesn't involve sex at all. Rare, of course, but I've seen it done. I have this limit to prevent too much emotional entanglement on the first scene, since many people try out a scene and then decide it, or I'm, not for them." Erwin grins, rueful. "Saves us both some heartbreak."
"But." Levi starts, then stops, near-grinding his teeth. He wants, and yet he doesn't want to show his weakness, how easily he's undone. "You would have sex with me if we continued this," he finishes, and hates himself for the admission.
Erwin's eyes darken. Something powerful coils in him, something that prickles at Levi's skin, and Erwin's voice, when he speaks, is rough. "If you wanted it, yes. I'd have you as many ways as I could. There are so many things I want to do to you." The certainty sets Levi's bones alight, and it's a titanic effort to keep the yearning off his face. Then Erwin shakes himself, and it's that ordinary man sitting across from him, businesslike. "Soft limits?"
So much fucking negotiation. Levi wants to snap at him to get the hell on with it, but the look in Erwin's eyes, like this is something that can't be rushed because- because Levi is worth it- keeps him from snarling. "I don't want my limbs bound. With the right partner, I think I could do it, but not yet. No full-on sensory deprivation. No bondage that's impossible to escape."
"How do you feel about rope?"
Levi considers. "I'm not sure. I'm willing to try it."
"Pain?"
He has to grin at that, sharp, thin. "Good."
Erwin nods. "All right. Standard safewords, red, yellow, green?"
Levi digs his nails into his worn jeans. The precipice looms. "Fine by me."
The energy in the air changes as Erwin straightens, eyes glittering in the dim light, and Levi is transfixed. Every cell in him strains toward that certainty, the assurance that this man can hold together his broken pieces, at least for a while.
"Strip."
-
Levi rises like smoke, grace in every motion, and slips out of his leather jacket, exposing arms corded with muscle that shifts as he folds the jacket meticulously and sets it on the chair. Trying to impress Erwin perhaps, or, no, Erwin realizes as Levi takes off his belt and folds it precisely in half, he is just that organized. Another piece in the puzzle as to why Levi is so unbending, why he can't find this on his own.
A moment, as Levi unwraps his hand. His knuckles are purple with bruising, one stitched.
Levi holds his gaze, dark eyes serious, stance and expression a challenge, measuring, as he reaches for the hem of his worn white T-shirt and draws it up and over his head.
Erwin keeps his face expressionless with an effort. His sub is held together with scars. A dark line of hair beneath his navel is bisected by an angry red patch where no hair grows. Chunks of skin and muscle have been taken from his shoulders. A thick silver sea of scarring mars his left flank, and his ribs are knotted with old breaks.
'Where have you been, Levi, that someone could do this to you?'
Levi drops his hands to the zipper of his worn jeans. The click of the metal parting is loud in the silence as he draws the tab down, waistband falling open around slender hips, the deep shadows of his bones, where Erwin's hand might fit. Levi peels the fabric down his legs, toes off his shoes, nudges them beneath the chair and folds his jeans. He's gone commando, his soft cock as slender and pale as the rest of him, and Erwin could hold him entirely in one hand.
Levi's gaze stays locked with Erwin's the entire time. He doesn't pretend shyness, doesn't cover himself, or offer an explanation of the red scars lacing up one leg in a fractal tree; the remnants of a lightning strike, or - Erwin doesn't want to think it, but he's never been in the business of denial - electricity. Jaw tense, hands at his side, he stares at Erwin, daring him to ask, to be repulsed, offering himself with no pretenses. Completely still. The stillness, the expectation of pain, is almost worse than any obvious hurt.
It is entirely possible that Erwin isn't prepared for this. That he can never be prepared for this.
Nothing worth having is ever easy. So he must earn this, must focus, must find where he can push, how much Levi is willing and able to bend. He gestures for Levi to turn, and Levi does, exposing his back. He turns his head enough to look at Erwin.
Erwin takes in a deep breath. Heat throbs low in his body. For the first time in a long while, the missing arm doesn't ache. There are more scars, and yet these Levi has made beautiful, incorporated into tattoos. A black and gold fish, glimpsed between the spaces of the thick silver net of burns splashed across one shoulder blade. A small gray and white bird perches on the branches of a red tree-scar. Beneath the tree, a golden hound slumbers, muzzle tucked into tail. A lean tabby cat pads up the jagged edges of a poorly-healed wound paralleling Levi's spine, all pride and grace.
"Stay there." Erwin gets up, certainty warming him, loosening the tension he carries, and goes to Levi. He stops just behind Levi, close enough to feel his warmth, to smell him, and rests his hand on Levi's shoulder. Tense, hard beneath his fingers, like the anticipation of danger one feels when preparing to jump, trusting the chute.
Levi leans back into him. Slight, a bare shift in position, but it's a request, and Erwin grants it. He feathers his fingers across Levi's collarbones, thumb resting in the hollow of his throat to feel the fast beat of his pulse, and draws Levi into him. He fits, dark hair tickling Erwin's chin, so slender Erwin's body encompasses him, and the recognition of the difference in their sizes makes Erwin swallow. He wants to do so many things to Levi. Wants to make him strain, cry out, puzzle out the labyrinth of his scars.
Levi stands rigid for a moment, lips white, jaw clenched. Then he pushes back, hesitant. When Erwin stands firm, he exhales, a hard expulsion of air like someone has punched him, and eases, turning his head enough for Erwin to see his expression: wiped clean, blank of thought or feeling, eyes cast down.
The surge of possession, protectiveness, surprises even Erwin, used to the instant attachment such scenes can provoke. He slides his arm across Levi's shoulders to anchor him further. His fingertip dips into the deep pit of a scar, and he closes his eyes for a moment to gather his thoughts. He wishes he didn't have to ask. But if he didn't ask, he would not be who he is.
"Levi. These scars."
"Yes." Levi's voice is harsh, bitter enough to sting. He tenses once more, hard and ready as a naked blade.
"You don't need to tell me where they come from," Erwin says, gratified by Levi's surprised inhalation. "Not unless you want to. But there's something I need you to promise me for this to be acceptable for me."
"All right," Levi says, resigned. He lifts one hand to curl about Erwin's wrist, pale against the black of Erwin's jacket. His hand is yet a danger for one so small. There are nicks and old bruises on his knuckles enough to tell.
"Promise me that you aren't using me to punish yourself. For whatever happened to give you those scars, or something in your past - I don't know. But if I'm to be a stand-in for someone who hurt you, or I'm meant to hurt you because you believe you truly deserve it, then I don't consent to that."
A silence. Levi, small and unyielding and unbroken in his arm.
"This isn't punishment." Levi's lips hardly move. His voice is a whisper, dead and quiet as ashes falling. "There were- things were done to me. This is how I become myself again."
The idea of reclaiming trauma through scenes wasn't new, but this is a level of pain he might not be able to help. Still, he'd do Levi wrong to not trust his word or self-assessment. Erwin bends his head to breathe hotly across the tip of Levi's ear, arm hard across Levi's collarbones, hand curled about one shoulder.
Levi's hand clenches about his wrist. His body is rigid, the urge to shudder at Erwin's breath ruthlessly choked. He tilts his head back enough to see Erwin out of the corner of his eye, his gaze calm, wary. "So what's the plan? Gonna push me around some? I'd let you. I might even like it."
Erwin strokes one of Levi's scars with his thumb. The skin is cold, coarse, the edges ragged with savagery. Someone has done this man a great many wrongs, and those wrongs have led Levi here, into his grip, sharp-edged, so wary that to embrace him is to embrace a knife.
"Do you truly need to know the plan, Levi?" He draws the top of Levi's ear into his mouth, nips at it, eases the hurt with a soft brush of his lips over the delicate skin. He almost manages to wring a shudder out of Levi's resistant body, and the scrape of his stubble against the side of Levi's neck makes his grip on Erwin's wrist tighten further. "Or are you so ashamed of wanting someone’s touch that you want to take control back?"
Levi says nothing. The hard line of his jaw speaks for him.
"Stand there." Erwin lets go of him and moves toward the chest, pausing as he remembers something. "Turn towards me."
Levi pivots so quickly he's near a blur. He locks eyes with Erwin, nods slightly in thanks. Understandable for someone as mistrusting as he is to be relieved by being able to keep an eye on Erwin's movements. His arms are folded behind his back in military stance, chin lifted.
Erwin opens the chest and withdraws a long coil of rope: hemp, rough, dyed black. Enough rope for a simple harness; he doesn't want to push too hard, not when Levi's working so hard to trust him.
Levi's eyes darken with every step Erwin takes toward him. The muscles of his upper arms shift, as though he's winding tight, explosive, anxious violence contained by force of will. His palpable danger makes Erwin's blood heat, the urge to gentle and tame and bend to his will near tangible.
Erwin shakes the rope out, the flat slap of it on the wooden floor loud in the silence, and pulls the center of it up over Levi's head, settling it at the nape of his neck. His dark hair is surprisingly soft against Erwin's wrist. The two strands of rope hang loose over his chest, the touch of it against his skin pulling his nipples up into two tight pink pebbles, just waiting for Erwin's mouth or hand.
Levi breathes out once, hard, a warm exhalation against Erwin's chest, and tilts his head back to look Erwin in the eyes. There's a yearning in that dark gaze that Levi might not understand yet, a plea to be overwhelmed and shattered, to give over his fear and anger, and Erwin wants, so terribly badly, to give him that.
It's only then that Erwin realizes that he can't tie the necessary knots one-handed. Self-recrimination rises thick and acid in his throat - stupid, how can he hope to control anyone if he can't even tie a knot, much less hold someone down - but he readjusts after a moment of blank misery. He's adaptable. He'll survive.
"You're going to tie the knots," he says, and is proud that his voice betrays nothing. Really, though, this is better. This makes Levi complicit in his own bondage, every knot a sign of his willing submission.
"Clever," Levi says. He unbends enough to reach for the ropes, and looks to Erwin for direction, this savage creature held willingly captive.
"Tie one here." Erwin runs one callused finger up Levi's sternum, taps the sweet hollow between his collarbones. One day he'll lay his own mark there, the center of a necklace of bruises from his mouth. "And here." He spans his hand between Levi's nipples, circles his thumb outward over scars and soft skin. The press of his thumbnail into that rose pebble wrings a shudder - a small shiver, fought back near-instantly- from Levi, whose hands falter in their work.
Sensitive. Good. Erwin does so like clamps.
"Here." Just beneath the sternum, in the soft valley between the ribs, Erwin scratches once, hard, thin lines of red rising in his wake.
Levi gasps, a low, drawn out hiss, rocks forward, recovers.
"Here." Erwin indicates three more spots for Levi to tie knots, and turns back to the chest. He selects a few black zip ties and sets them aside on the chair atop Levi's clothes. Levi's done the knots, and now waits. There's sweat gathering at his temples, the first hints of a flush on his sharp cheekbones.
"Good," Erwin says. "Very good."
Levi's hands, loose at his sides, curl. He licks his lips, and at that unconscious seduction Erwin can't wait any longer. He cups his hand about Levi's head and bends to kiss him.
Levi is no passive ingénue; he opens to Erwin instantly, near-devours him, straining upwards onto his toes for more sensation. Still, he's clever, leaves his hands at his side, only the way he bites Erwin's lip telling of his fight for control.
Erwin closes his fingers into a fist, yanks Levi's head back, and when Levi gasps, an involuntary cry, Erwin strikes again, kissing him hard, tightening his grip further and pulling every time Levi tries for control. He will have Levi quiet and easy by the end of this night.
Levi learns, sinks back down onto his feet, and allows Erwin free reign.
"Good," Erwin whispers against his panting mouth, brushes his lips across the red stain on his cheekbones. Levi's eyelashes flicker. He sways forward, unconscious, and catches himself, manages not to betray his own surrender.
Erwin picks up the two ropes, and in one sudden motion runs them between Levi's legs, the black hemp a tempting sight against the rose flush of Levi's half-hard erection, and up, between his cheeks, along his spine. At the tug of rope against delicate skin, Levi hisses between his teeth, a thin sound, and clenches his hands into fists.
Erwin passes the ropes over his shoulder. "Hold this."
Levi does, allowing Erwin to run a proprietary hand down the range of his spine. The textures of scar tissue - smooth, rough, ridged- pass beneath his fingers, and as he passes the curling end of the tabby cat's tail, he digs his nails in and scratches hard horizontally.
Levi jerks. The rope pulls taut, abrading his most sensitive parts, cutting white into the soft rise of the base of his spine, and he hisses again, yet refuses to reach for Erwin, or loosen the rope.
"You're a slut for pain, aren't you," Erwin says, fond despite himself, resting his hand on Levi's ass. He digs his fingers in hard and pulls, exposes Levi's entrance, tiny, red, abraded raw by the rough kiss of the hemp.
Levi turns his head enough to glare. His dazed eyes, soft with want, betray him. "You got a fascination with my ass?"
The crack of Erwin's hand on pale skin rings loud. The red hand print is already rising as Erwin hits him again. "I do have a fascination," he says, rubbing one calloused thumb against Levi's hole, hot and puffy. "I'd kiss you here, fuck you with my tongue until you whine, until you beg me to stop. Force you open on plugs and dildos and vibrators, keep you there, stretched wide, push my fingers in until you're gasping, until I can get my whole hand in there, and you'd love it, I'd make you love it."
Levi moans, a hurting, harsh noise, and rocks back, gasping, pulling the rope tighter. "Hit me again, come on-"
He quiets as Erwin rests his fingers lightly along the column of his throat, shudders as Erwin bends to whisper in his ear,
"You mark so beautifully, and you love all the hurt I give you, don't you? You'd let me turn you black and blue, because you want it that badly, you dirty beautiful thing."
Silence. Levi keeps the rope taut, avoids Erwin's eyes. He's suddenly rigid, and worry threatens to choke Erwin.
"Color," Erwin says as he grabs two zipties.
"Green." He says it like it hurts, the word hard and cold as stone.
Erwin has to trust him. He marks the knots with zipties he trims with safety shears, not remarking on the heavy weight of Levi's sac on the back of his wrist as he marks a knot between cock and balls, or the way Levi's slender, pretty cock jumps and lets loose another pearl of slick as Erwin's forearm brushes it.
"Tie knots where I've tied the zipties."
Levi obeys, and hands the ropes back to Erwin without a word. He groans again and rocks up onto his toes as Erwin settles the knot in between his cock and balls and runs the two strands to either side of his sac, creating a crude ring. The hemp is rough, scratches his delicate white skin pink and red, yet the jut of his cock is proof of his masochism.
The last knot settles just above Levi's entrance, and Erwin presses it inward just a bit with his thumb. He'd never push it in, not now, when Levi's still untried and not exclusive, but the threat, or promise, can be enough.
Levi's stiff, still, silent. His soft panting is the only sound in the room, the only sound that breaks the rush of Erwin's blood in his ears.
"Yes?"
Levi swallows. His voice is hoarse. "Yes."
Erwin kisses his shoulder, can't not. "You're lovely," he whispers, and twists the knot, moves it to and fro until Levi's skin is red, raw, so hot he can nearly feel it. "Perhaps some time I'll push this inside you, pull it back out, 'til you're crying with it, you wanton."
Levi's toes curl, his fingers, too, until his arms are corded and tense with strain. He shudders.
Erwin leaves the knot there and pulls the rope up over Levi's spine. "Arms back. Hold these."
Levi obeys, reaching behind himself to keep the ropes in position next to each other as Erwin picks up the first of the black zip ties he's put aside. He loops it behind the ropes and ties it off in an ersatz knot, then tugs the right rope free from Levi's fingers and passes it around his side, then the left. "Pull these through the lowest section of rope, then pass them back to me."
The room is quiet, Erwin's focus narrowed down to the ropes and Levi, willingly pliant in his hands. For the first time since the scene's begun, he isn't thinking about his missing arm, the absence, all the ways he'd once had to act that he will never have again. This is a place where he's whole, where Levi helps him to feel whole, and that trust is such a gift. When Levi gives him back the ropes, he pulls them tight, and the first set of diamonds in the harness flower over Levi's sides, the black rope's contrast against his pale skin making Erwin's hand clench.
He kisses the back of Levi's ear, and in silence they work together to finish the harness. Erwin ties it off at the neck, and steps back, resting a proprietary hand just above the knot. "Good?" he asks in a low murmur.
Levi's nod is slow, a little dazed.
When Erwin steps around to face him, Levi gazes at him with such calmness, that terrible ferocity in his expression muted if only for a moment. He's standing loose now, relaxed into the harness, as if the ropes hold him up, together. His mouth shines soft, lips red. He's hard, a delicate pink shading to deep rose, and Erwin's mouth waters. Still, he has his scruples, and so turns back to the trunk. There's several sets of clothespins tied onto lengths of cord, and these he lifts into the air for Levi to look at.
Levi swallows. "Yes. Please."
Erwin grins and kisses him again, and Levi lets him, holds still, arms at his side, following his lead.
"Pinch there." He taps the skin above Levi's right hipbone, and as Levi does, sets the first clothespin about the thin fold of skin and muscle and eases his grip. The wood tips close, and Levi hisses, fingers shaking.
"Color?"
"Green," Levi whispers, and without prompting pinches the section of skin above his left hipbone and offers it for the next clip.
Erwin smiles. The part of him that gets off on control, on making someone hurt because they want it, rolls in savage delight low in his belly.
Levi's breathing, controlled, kept even with an effort, fills his ears as he builds twin vertical lines of clothespins up Levi's sides, between the ropes. Why Levi feels the need to hold on, to impress even at this point, is beyond him.
"Levi."
Levi blinks, looks at him with undisguised annoyance, and if Erwin's knocked him out of the beginnings of a drop he will just have to go home and flagellate himself. Still, Levi says nothing, only arches an eyebrow.
"I don't want, or need, you to control yourself." He flicks one of the clothespins for emphasis, and a shiver runs hard up Levi's spine, peters out in the twitch of his mouth, the blink of his eyes. "You can endure pain, you've shown that. If I were to cane you, clamp you, I don't doubt you'd endure it, but I don't want you to endure it. I want you to know you, better than you know yourself, know exactly what you look like when I touch you, and when it hurts, I want you to show me."
Levi tenses, hunches into himself, fingers curled into fists. A weapon again, his gaze swarming with demons. He swallows. "Yellow," he spits, and nearly sags, as if to betray himself even that much drains him.
Someone has hurt him. Someone has taught him that to show even an ounce of hurt is to open himself for more pain than he can bear, and Erwin wants, even more than before, to win his trust, to prove himself worthy.
He steps back behind him, chest to back, and closes his fingers about the top of one of the ropes holding the line of clothespins together. He pushes his knee between Levi's, and Levi gasps, scrambles onto his toes, a shocked sound, grabs backward for his shirt and rocks down onto his thigh, rope scraping against his trousers.
"Want to come?"
"Yes," Levi hisses, head tilted back against Erwin's chest, eyes closed, teeth bared in savagery, some strange and terrible creature caught in his power.
"Right hand on the top of that line of pins. Left hand on your cock. I'm going to start pulling the left ones off, and with every one I pull, you do the same. If you can't come before I pull the last one off, I'll send you home aching." Erwin waits a beat, then asks, "Color?"
Levi's slender hips grind back into him, Levi's voice a wild snarl of, "Green, green, green, you fucker-"
The first pin rips free of his skin, leaving a deep red bruise behind, and Levi groans. He tears the right pin off, and strokes his cock slowly, head peeking between pale slick fingers. His eyes press tight, mouth half-open, hips twisting as the pain builds and crests.
Erwin tears the next one free.
It takes Levi a moment to catch up, fingers fumbling, a thin, high sound pushing free of his control, but he gets the next clip off, and his hand darts to Erwin's side once more, slender fingers digging into his hip in a bid for stability, reassurance. He keeps stroking himself, faster, sharp breaths beating hot against Erwin's chest. A red flush spreads down his neck, stains his sharp cheekbones, and Erwin would bend him over right here, spread him open, lick into him until he's sobbing with it-
"Hand on the clip, Levi," Erwin says, stern, and digs his fingernails into the stretched-thin skin around the second-to-last clothespin.
Levi swallows, forces his mouth shut, his panting inhalations hissing through his nose. He obeys with shaking fingers.
"Good." Erwin rewards him with a slow kiss to the ear, stubble scraping against the delicate skin of his neck, and as Levi relaxes, the pain ebbs, tears the pin free.
Levi follows, a hoarse shout ringing in the still air of the room. He trembles in Erwin's grip, not writhing even though he's near-vibrating with the need to twist, to move. The hand on his cock stutters, the heel of his palm bruising where it digs into the top of Erwin's thigh.
"Last one." A few moment's wait, so the pain melds, builds to a roaring crescendo. Then he pulls it off Levi's hip.
The ropes of clothespins clatter to the floor, and Levi freezes. His hand tightens on himself, and he comes, near-silent, stiff in Erwin's grip, eyes blind and beautiful. Then, on a hoarse sigh, he collapses into Erwin's chest, lax hands fumbling at his sides to hold himself up.
Erwin gets his arm about Levi's shoulders and half-guides, half-carries him to the bed, lays him down on his side, and undoes the slipknot about the rope circling his throat with shaking fingers.
Levi half-curls into himself, then stills, breaths controlled once more.
Erwin nearly reaches out to touch, then stills. Possibly he doesn't want to be held yet, or ever. Instead, Erwin busies himself with the safety scissors, cutting the zip ties and undoing the harness. The red imprints left in the rope's wake are beautiful, though he's not surprised - Levi seems made for ropes, for the red marks of hand and mouth and tools.
Levi moves sluggishly to help, half-rolling onto his front so Erwin can pull the rope free of him and toss it to one side for the cleaners, then back onto his side. Like this, he seems fragile, small and slender and vulnerable, though he may not want to seem so.
Erwin lies down behind him, propping his head up on one arm, and says nothing for a bit, letting Levi get himself together.
At last, Levi rouses enough to roll to face him, gaze blurred. He rests one thin hand in the center of Erwin's chest, and that small, solitary sign of trust makes Erwin's eyes burn.
"Not bad," Levi says, ironic, soft, and then lapses into sleep.