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This is the end, on a stiflingly hot summer night. Levi balances on the stone of the bridge, his shape hidden from any late night traffic behind it. He looks below, his apathy swelling like the river’s water levels this year. Earth is dying and so is he, but he’s not important. He’s a single speck of nothing in the vast universe, and he doesn’t matter enough for his life and death to affect anything in the grand timeline. In the long run, everything will turn out the same whether he lives or dies tonight. He’s worthless, he’s insignificant. He has no purpose in living.
He won’t keep pretending to be things he’s not: a burden, an irritant, a parasite. Here and now, he’s ready to put a stop to this life. He doesn’t want to be this way anymore, to be stuck in this life after all the shitty choices he’s made, all the mistakes that pile up like used razor blades.
The waters below will be cold, but hopefully, his neck will break on impact and he won’t quite feel the shock of it. He really hopes so, because the idea of drowning terrifies him, ironically.
Levi teeters on the edge before standing on shaky legs. Heights always turned him to jelly. All he needs to do is climb over the railing and let go. That’s all. No fighting, no working for it, just letting go.
Taking a deep breath, Levi grips the rail and prepares to hoist himself up—
Something takes hold of him around his throat and pulls him back, choking him, as a cloth covers his mouth and nose. His body ignites in panic at the lack of airflow, at the fear, at being... at… being….
Pain is all he comprehends before he even understands that he is still alive. He is alive, he didn’t jump— he didn’t jump, because—
Levi’s head throbs worse than anything he’s ever experienced. He goes to rub his eyes, and swats himself in the face with bandages. Why are there bandages on his hands, he slowly wonders, as he looks.
His fingers aren’t there.
Levi studies his hands before he truly realises— his fucking fingers aren’t there . He’s screaming then, something too weak to be considered such, more like whimpers. His body is weak. He wants to squirm but he can barely jerk his body around— what the fuck kind of fucking nightmare is he trapped in, why can’t he fucking move, why can’t he scream?? What the fuck--?
“Stop squirming,” comes an irritated order. The voice letting him know that he’s not alone causes Levi to freeze, his mouth open in another pitiful would-be scream.
For a moment, all he can hear is the way his breathing comes to the cusp of hyperventilation, and then there are footsteps, the kind that sound like shoes on a hard surface. In fact, now that he’s paying attention to his surroundings, he realises that he’s laying on hardwood. He’s… in a living room, with sofas and bookshelves and pictures on the walls. Someone’s home. Levi turns his face, trying to find the source of the noises, but he’s immobilised by the sole of a shoe on the side of his face.
“You listen to me, pathetic boy,” the voice orders, and Levi’s panic won’t let him keep silent. He can’t take this silently, and when the whimper becomes a moan, the foot on his head presses down until his world erupts into impossibly more painful throbbing. It feels like this will kill him.
“I know you,” the voice tells him. “I know you don’t wholeheartedly want to die. So I know you’ll be a good boy for me.”
The pressure on his head eases slowly, and then it disappears. When a more gentle touch comes to replace it, Levi flinches at first, until he realises that the new touch is soothing his pain, not adding to it. As fingers run through his hair, Levi lets his body relax-- muscles that he didn’t even know he was holding tense now falling out of that state.
“There there, good boy.”
Levi lets the strength in that deep, firm voice wash through him. He doesn’t understand why it feels good to earn that praise, or even why it robs him of the tall spikes of fear that want to impale him. There’s still an alarm ringing in his throbbing head, warning him of danger, but on the surface of his consciousness, he feels like he’s safe. It feels like he’s going to be alright. If this man wanted to kill him, he would have done that. He would have killed Levi or let him fall off the bridge or let his wounds bleed him dry, but instead, Levi is here with bandaged hands being pet and praised, and he wants to grasp that feeling of safety.
“You belong to me now.” The voice shifts from firm to gentle. “I took you off the bridge, and I removed your fingers and larynx as thanks. You won’t need them anymore.”
The man rises and steps away, and as if it’s a second thought, says, “If you really want to die, you can die by my hands. There’s no purpose in killing yourself, but I can give your death a purpose, if you choose it.”
Something in this threat steals the air from Levi’s lungs; he doesn’t move, doesn’t breathe, fear too intense. He’s a deer in the headlights of eternal darkness.
The footsteps come closer once more, and then Levi briefly glimpses gloved hands as a shadowbox is set on the floor in front of his face.
“These are yours,” the voice explains. “They’re lovely, and if you still want to die, then I’ll polish all of your bones and display them.”
These are his fingers. Levi can’t connect the fact, not yet. He can’t believe it. Not long ago, these were inside his body, and now they’re in a box looking back at him, detached from him and immortalised. His bones are set in the case as if he were holding his hands out in front of him and studying them, the two thumbs together in the middle. The voice is right, they are lovely. They’re lovelier outside of him than they ever could have been inside of him. Do they bring this man pleasure to look at, is that their new purpose? Is that the purpose all of Levi’s bones would play?
-
“Give me your hands.”
This is routine. Levi raises his hands, and the owner of the voice takes them to change the dressings. Levi has yet to see this man, or, who he assumes is a man. The voice doesn’t sound altered or recorded, it sounds real, right there in the room with him. Authentic. Genuine.
Levi focuses on the feeling of gauze being unwound by steadfast fingers. He’s happiest in these sparse moments, when the man comes home, blindfolds him, and removes the shock collar that zaps him whenever he gets too close to doors and windows.
“You won’t need dressings any longer,” the voice tells him. “The skin is closed up and healing into scars.” A pair of fingertips travel down from his palm, along his forearm and poke at old slashes. “Much more beautiful than these.”
Tucking his chin to his chest, Levi bites at his bottom lip.
-
Weekends together are surreal. Without fingers, Levi can’t unfasten and remove the blindfold, so he spends the time depending on this man for everything. The entire first weekend, Levi had sunbathed in a drugged haze, barely recalling anything other than the man promising him that he should get plenty of sunlight for healthy bones.
The second weekend, Levi is set to sunbathe again. Even though he spends his days alone in this home, free of the blindfold, he’s not sure enough of its layout to feel confident moving around when he can’t see. The man guides him and it makes him feel like a child, to have his hand held as he walks.
Levi can’t see, but he trusts. Somehow, his trust doesn’t feel ingenuine, despite the forced and unbalanced circumstance in which it has grown. This man does not mean him any malicious harm. This man took Levi’s fingers and larynx as payment for saving Levi’s life, because that’s what he did. Levi would have jumped from the bridge because he didn’t know what else to do, so fucking overwhelmed and caught in the storm, but he was pulled back from his demise. By saving his life, this man has erased all of Levi’s worries. So Levi trusts him. This man has only brought him benefit.
“Here now, pet,” the man instructs. When his hand is released, Levi feels around with his palms until he finds the little bed. He can already feel the promise of sunshine on his skin, can feel the bed having absorbed it, too. He settles in on his side, a loose curl of his body. The bed seems to swallow him, and with hands petting his hair, he finds himself falling into the maw of small oblivion.
-
Sometimes Levi thinks about sneaking a look at this man who so obviously does not want to be seen, but then, the guilt is too consuming.
This man has brought Levi into his home. He feeds him and clothes him, and Levi only had to give a small part of his worthless body as payment. The rules are few and simple. To disobey would be spitting on this man’s kindness, and the Levi who would have spit until his mouth ran dry, that Levi died on the bridge. This Levi understands that his insignificant life is not worth the trouble he causes and that this man has undertaken the trouble regardless. Levi is nothing. He is the vessel that carries the bones this man will one day have displayed.
-
Levi hates the time alone. He has his sight restored, and though he can move around the house as he pleases as long as he doesn’t set off the shock collar, the loneliness is suffocating. He longs to have the man back so that he can hear his voice talking to him.
The man is a surgeon. He told Levi that because at bedtime, he brushes Levi’s damp hair and talks about his day while Levi listens intently. Most of the time he’s gone for the day, but Levi knows that when his schedule fills up, he will be gone much longer. Without fingers, Levi relies on the bowls of food that the man leaves out for him. Some days, like today, there’s unexpected extra time away. Levi hears the automatic garage door open, and he scurries to get into place, distracted from his growling stomach by excitement.
“I’m sorry,” the man says as he comes in through the door. Levi is facing away from him, eyes squeezing shut like a good boy. “There was an emergency.”
It’s okay, you’re here now, Levi would say if he could speak. He’s adjusted to the loss of his vocal cords better than he expected, because it feels like this man knows exactly what he’s thinking.
“You’re so understanding, pet,” he coos. Behind Levi, there are the sounds of unwinding: a coat being hung up, a briefcase finding its place on the side table, shoes being removed, keys clinking in their dish. In anticipation, Levi waits for the blindfold, but it never comes.
“I was going to ask if you’d like to see my face.”
Levi’s not brave enough to move, and the voice continues, “You see, my trusted colleague gave me the most wonderful idea, and I was hoping you’d make a deal with me.”
Trusted colleague?
“He has a girl. She was much like you, pet. She was tired of living. So he abducted her, even though she was very willing,” the voice chuckles at some inside joke that Levi doesn’t understand. “And now he keeps her teeth in a display.”
Levi swallows, shoulders bunching up. You want my... teeth?
“What’s the matter, pet? I think they would be lovely. We could hang them in the dining room. And then you wouldn’t need to be blindfolded all the time anymore.”
Levi doesn’t want to dwell on this and end up making the wrong decision, so he slowly twists around to take in this man with his own eyes. It’s a small price to pay, isn’t it? And besides, one day, this man will have his teeth in a shadowbox anyway, so at least if he chooses this, he can see how it will look now. He won’t be able to see them when he’s dead.
The man… He’s… Levi can’t find a word that really embodies him. Handsome isn’t enough. He’s perfect, he’s… He’s God. That fits. God smiles down at him with bright blue eyes and majestic blonde hair and a strongly structured face chiseled from marble. “Very good choice, pet.”
-
Levi can’t even comprehend that he’s awake. He’s dreamy and he’s high as fuck, but he forces himself to focus on the way this man looks at him like he’s worth something, like he’s not a burden or an irritant.
“You please me,” he thinks the man says.
-
His jaw is numb, and he tries to eat neatly, but the man chuckles at how often he needs to wipe Levi’s chin while feeding him. But Levi doesn’t feel laughed at. He feels taken care of. He can’t take his eyes away from the beauty of this man, and he thinks the man can read it all over his face because all his smiles are soft and sweet when Levi can’t keep oatmeal from sliding down his chin.
-
“This is the first creature I tortured. She taught me how much I enjoyed it, so I kept her bones and fur in thanks.” The man has snuck Levi into his office in the hospital today. He’s on a twenty-four hour shift and Levi needs painkillers mashed up in applesauce every four hours. “She’s the reason I decided to become a surgeon.”
Levi looks up at the ornate arrangement, a shrine to the unfortunate circumstance of a teenager discovering his taste for blood and suffering. The man would do this to him, too, if he chose it. But lately, Levi’s been feeling that he doesn’t want to die. If he dies, then he can’t be with this man anymore. He’s not really sure what he wants.
When he wanted to die, it was because he felt that the world would be better off without him. There is no world outside anymore. There’s just this man, this man is his world and he never treats Levi like he’s unwanted.
This really isn’t so bad. He’s taken care of. The feelings of worthlessness and hopelessness are quieting, and though still drenching him, he might one day dry off. He might. If he stays with this man, he believes he could because he’s starting to care about himself again.
Levi eats his applesauce from the spoonfuls this man offers, and as he lets the dreaminess overtake him, he looks upon the fox, her delicate fur in the case above her bones. He dreams of the forest.
-
The intensity of the backslide is astounding; Levi finds the tsunami of it flattens him, leaves him hollow in it’s retreat. With it, it takes his energy and his emotions. He’s empty like he was for a long time, but this time, he’s not left to his own self-destructive devices.
He doesn’t even know what sets off the bombs strapped to the pillars of his mind, why they blow in rapid succession and bring him to complete collapse, but he lays in the rubble of destruction and doesn’t care to dig his way out. He wants the weight to crush him.
Levi lays still for a very, very long time, tucked on the sofa beneath a heavy blanket. He stops eating and drinking so that he doesn’t need to get up at all. What little bit of hope for himself that he nurtured withers.
“Come now, pet, you must eat,” the man encourages. Levi looks away from the perceived scolding, from the bowls of food still waiting for him on the kitchen countertops. He grinds his gums. He’s agitated from being drawn from his sofa and into the kitchen just for this. It’s pointless. He’d rather have his bones in shadowboxes if that meant he could rest in the arms of nonexistence.
“Pet. Look at me.”
Levi only looks out of the corner of his eye, and it’s clearly not enough judging by the way the man grips his chin and repositions Levi to face him.
“There,” the man coos softly, a soft smile on his soft lips, the hand that grips Levi’s chin skating up to cup the side of his face.
Somehow, that single word calms a little bit of Levi’s agony, even though all his misery is rooted in his own insecurity. Something about having this man looking at him calms him on a primal level, as if some ancient part of his brain responds only to an unexplained connection between them.
Being in the center of this man’s gaze feels like sunbathing. He craves that warmth.
“Let’s eat,” comes the request and Levi is burning, an ant under a microscope. A little dumbly, he nods. He can’t resist.
-
“Pet,” his man croons to him. He removes the needle from Levi’s basilic and presses down a cotton ball that he keeps in place with his thumb so that he can dispose of the needle. Levi sways forward, his forehead coming to rest against a strong shoulder. His man chuckles and a firm hand cradles the back of his head to keep him there. “Let it take you.”
The pet tries to nod. He can’t quite describe how it feels once the chill of the introduced fluid dissipates in his bloodstream. It’s like floating through desire, maybe. He can feel his hips begin to rock, searching for something he’s never known.
“You want to know my name that badly, don’t you?”
Levi whimpers, pushing his nose into a collarbone.
“Soon,” his man promises. The drug courses through Levi, saturates him, and he can’t even nod at this point. An embarrassingly frightened noise escapes his throat when he’s lifted up because he feels so out of control— and he likes it. He likes the promise that he is even more vulnerable to this man now, that he cannot stop whatever will happen. He wants this, he wants to hand over his autonomy to someone strong and steadfast and worthy.
The pet is aware of hands on his body, supporting his neck and head for him since he can’t do it for himself. He’s warm, so unbearably warm, and when cool air meets his suddenly naked skin, he arches up to greet it. Levi belatedly realises the bite of rope into his skin when he goes to squirm and finds himself locked in place on a solid surface.
He can hear his man’s voice but he can’t comprehend the words. They come echoing into his brain and he wants them in his mouth so badly, he lets it hang open in the hope that he’ll receive them.
Something skates over his lips and pushes his jaw so that his mouth closes. Like a voice that rings over mountains, Levi hears, “Relax.”
Following the order, the pet lets go of his body and it falls. The last threads of control he held all snap and he drifts out of his mind and body, falling down into darkness.
Eventually, he drifts back in, though the world remains dark. He can feel himself blinking, but it does nothing to clear the dim blurriness that is now his vision. He’s traded his eyesight for this without regret. Never again will he see this man’s face, but he’s not worthy to look upon his God anyway, so it doesn’t matter. This is how his man wanted the pet to show thanks for being given his name, and the deal is made.
Above him, lips press into his forehead and he weakly pushes up in feline theft of a kiss.
“Erwin,” his man gives him.
-
Adjusting is frustrating. The pet feels like he should be able to rub his eyes to clear them of the blur, but even when the skin of his eyelids is raw from doing so, he knows nothing will change. If he still had fingers, he might pull at his hair in frustration, so instead, he grinds his gums together and whimpers in anger. Being alone makes it worse. There is so little that he has to occupy his time now, and he feels trapped inside himself as he crawls around on the floor feeling for the sunbathing bed with his palms. When he finds it, he undresses completely and curls up tight.
But as soon as Erwin comes home, the pet feels soothed. Just the sound of Erwin’s car up the street plucks a string in his heart that vibrates with a cheerful sound. Without his sight, his hearing is strengthening.
“Your eyes are so much more beautiful now,” Erwin tells him. He holds his pet’s face between his hands. “Milky grey.”
Like your morning tea , Levi thinks. He wants his man to drink up every last drop of him.
“And you greet me naked today,” Erwin chuckles. Amusement sounds like rustling bedsheets. “Do you want me to touch your body, pet?”
Levi can not hide his expression, whatever it is, and there is a pleased-sounding hum that he earns in response.
“How will you thank me?” Erwin asks patiently, his voice very close to Levi’s ear.
The pet thinks for a moment. The pleasure of Erwin’s hands is enormous, and he craves more than the gentle, sparse brushings. He wants to be felt and coddled and fondled. He wants, he thinks with a rapid flush, to be fucked.
Carefully, Levi raises one of his palms to his hair and shakes it out.
“I suppose,” Erwin hums. “You have lovely black hair. But I can see in your blush how you want me to touch you and I assure you, pet, that it will cost you much more than that.”
When a kiss is pressed upon his ear, Levi flenches without meaning to, and he knows Erwin felt that by the way he brings a hand to the other side of Levi’s head to hold him securely in place.
“Don’t be afraid, my pathetic pet. You would have killed yourself had I not saved you. How is anything I do to you worse than that?” Another kiss on his ear, then lips brushing against it as Erwin continues, “You don’t want to die, I know. I won’t kill you, pet. You’ll live a long life in my care, if you promise to become all mine. I’ll feed you by hand, I’ll bathe you, I’ll dress you.”
Am I not all yours? Levi wonders on a shuddering exhale.
“No, you’re not all mine yet,” Erwin reads his mind so clearly. “I want to possess you completely. I want you to need me, pet. I want you to have nothing but what I give you.”
It frightens him, the conviction and desire in Erwin’s voice as he uncovers the depths of his darkness. Levi wishes he could still see so that he could glimpse Erwin’s expression.
Levi doesn’t let himself think at all before he gives himself over to his God. Twisting to face Erwin, Levi catches his man’s lips in acceptance.
Whatever you want of me, he thinks with surrender, take it.
-
Erwin strokes Levi’s hairnet, forehead to forehead, as he explains the procedure. He’s being assisted by the trusted colleague and the colleague’s toothless girl.
“Count to three, pet,” Erwin orders him, but Levi barely makes it to two before he falls under.
-
The pain drags him up to consciousness. The pet can barely move or make a sound, but instantly, there are hands in his hair and on his neck, soothing him.
“You’re going to be okay,” a small female voice tells him. The speech is distorted and Levi realises it must be the toothless girl. Within a few moments, Levi feels the pull of heavy painkillers on his brain, the maw of artificial sleep rising up to swallow him whole.
Before he even knows that he is awake, the pet knows that Erwin is in the room. His God’s voice, caught in hushed conversation with another man, leads him back to the land of the living. Erwin saved him from death and brought him true life, and how fitting it that he should surrender everything to Erwin.
“You’re awake, pet,” he says after the door closes. Levi tries to nod. There’s what feels like an oxygen mask strapped to his face, covering his nose and mouth. “You’ve been sleeping for an entire week. Did you dream?”
Levi has enough strength to shake his head a single time. He can hear Erwin stepping closer, and then there’s weight in the bed, right where Levi thinks his hand will be.
“I missed you so much,” accompanies the touch of forehead to forehead. “I took vacation time to be able to tend to you, and I forgot how empty this house is without you following me around everywhere. You’re going to look so cute crawling around in a couple months.”
-
In a rare share of personal details, Erwin explains, “My mother killed herself when I was very young.”
Polished bone rubs against Levi’s cheek. Erwin is letting him feel them before they’re put in the display. When the rounded tip of a joint prods at Levi’s mouth, he shyly opens up and licks it. It doesn’t taste like much, but it feels smooth and unbreakable.
“She abandoned me, pet,” and the first hints of anger lace those words. “Oh, how I hate those weak scum who take their own lives. But not you, you didn’t really want to kill yourself, you were only tired of your life. You’re different, pet. And you’ve made me love you.”
Erwin presses the sawed end of a bone into the skin over Levi’s heart. “And you love me, too, don’t you?”
The pet nods eagerly.
-
The recovery is smooth and relatively quick. Erwin praises the pet, calls him exceedingly healthy for adjusting to a limbless life and relearning how to use his body through physical therapy. At the end of every day, he aches with every fiber of his being, too exhausted from the strain and needing Erwin to carry him to their bed.
It feels like forever but before he knows it, the pet is crawling around the house alone during the day. He spends the majority of his time on the sunbathing bed, listening to audiobooks and plays and musicals. When Erwin comes home, he knows exactly where to crawl to get to the door that Erwin enters through.
“Oh, pet,” Erwin says when he’s in the mood to fuck Levi half to death, just like he says today. It’s been raining, so Levi has stayed in his sunbathing bed and revelled in the warmth of the space heater that Erwin left on for him. Coming out from the under the covers to greet his God has covered him in gooseflesh, and he shivers with the way Erwin picks him up and carries him without another word or warning. When Erwin throws him, Levi feels no fear, and just as he expects, he lands on Erwin’s king bed with a few ginger bounces. Still, his reflexes move his muscles as if he even has arms to catch himself with.
This is what the pet craves, to be consumed and used. He loves when Erwin presses him down face first into the bed, suffocates him on the blankets and pillows with a hand holding too much weight on the pet’s nape, a near threat to snap it.
“Feel that, pet?” A wide sting prods at his entrance, still stretching around only two digits. Erwin will make him take four before he pounds him. “This will be inside you soon, no need to mewl.”
His stumps muss up the sheets as he pants, his hair thrown over his face. He’s electric with pleasure, his sensitivity severely exaggerating, like mercury breaking through the glass top of a thermometer. On the introduction of a third finger, his back bows and he cums so hard that his ears ring for a moment until he can hear Erwin’s praise fading back in.
“There there, pet,” Erwin coos but doesn’t stop fingering him, not even when the overstimulation makes him seize and hyperventilate. Mercilessly, ruthlessly, Erwin makes him take it, works him through until he drools into the sheets and gets hard again and cums again, and only then does he mount him. Levi can feel both hands on the small of his back, can feel two strong thighs cradle around his torso and he moans in relief when Erwin seats himself fully in one fluid motion. Gravity aids his man in ruining him.
But Erwin doesn’t just leave his pet in his own mess when it’s done.
They bathe together, back to chest, the pet fully dependent on Erwin so as not to slip under the water and drown. When he has his bath alone, the pet can sit up, but Erwin likes to hold him against his chest when they’re together, and the pet appreciates the closeness of it.
-
Erwin sneaks Pet into his office on his twenty-four hour shifts. He has a large L-shaped desk, so there is plenty of space for a basket with lots of blankets in the hidden footwell. When it’s just the two of them alone, Erwin will read aloud his paperwork. Often, Pet listens to Erwin speaking with his colleagues.
When Pet is alone, he listens to the life within the hospital. The mornings start quiet, with activity peaking through the middle of the day and then trickling out in the later afternoon. He learns the names of the staff and the more regular patients, each voice and pattern of footfalls unique, and Erwin’s unique noises supersede all others in his attention. By evening time, Erwin is spending longer stretches in his office unless he’s needed for an emergency.
Pet snuggles down into his sweater, listening to the sounds of the night shift making their rounds. Erwin has left on a series of podcasts today just to give Pet something to keep from getting bored because he has spent almost the entire day out of his office. Just when Pet’s thinking that he should sleep instead, his brain picks out Erwin’s footsteps and he snaps to alertness once more, lifting his head from his blankets to listen a little better.
The door opens, and Pet stays quiet because Erwin isn’t alone. He listens to his surgeon detail a post-operation plan for a patient with gallbladder removal to the tending nurse, and when the door closes, he croons, “I’m sorry for being gone, Pet.”
He can hear Erwin washing his hands in the private toilet room here in his office, and then warm, damp hands are taking hold of Pet. It’s his turn on the toilet now. It used to embarrass him to have Erwin watching him expel his waste and cleaning him, but with the assurance that it helps Erwin track his health, Pet has gotten over it. When they’re all done, Erwin carries Pet out to the desk and holds him in his lap, chin resting on top of his head, one arm curled around his waist. Pet sighs contentedly, turning his nose up to nuzzle the underside of his God’s jaw. He feels and hears the rumble of a chuckle.
“Do you feel frisky?” Erwin is writing something with his free hand, the scratching of pen a little too loud. “Do you want me to fuck you?”
Pet pulls his bottom lip in to gnaw it between his gums, giving away his thoughts with the way he squirms.
“You do,” Erwin teases. “You want me to spread you out on this desk and squeeze my cock in that needy little hole of yours.”
Pet whines quietly and Erwin’s arm around his waist tightens threateningly, promisingly sweet.
-
They sleep in all day together. Erwin spoons Pet, his head cushioned by Erwin’s arm beneath it. The long shifts are exhausting for both of them. He wakes up first, revelling in the heat of his God wrapped around him, listening to his breathing and feeling his strong heartbeat.
In these quiet and gentle moments, Pet thinks that this is exactly what he needed. He needed purpose, and Erwin has given it to him by taking his body apart. He needed to surrender, and Erwin has taken control of him. He lives and breathes and eats and sleeps all by Erwin’s mercy because somehow, in some unknown way, Erwin finds him worthy. In just three months, Pet has been redeemed from the worthless parasite he spent so many years as. He’s thankful that Erwin took him from the bridge; he didn’t know it that night, but he would rather live this life here at the mercy of Erwin. Back then, he just needed someone to show him that the future would be better, and then Erwin came along with a chloroform rag and showed him just how good life could be.
Cuddled and loved, Pet sleeps a little bit longer.