Archive of Our Own

Somewhere in the heart of the French Quarter, nestled into the rows of finely filigreed, candy-technicolored, French Creole-style structures, is an extraordinarily ordinary building. 

It is sandwiched in between a set of apartments above a corner store on one side and a multifamily home on the other. From the narrow street, crowded in by oppressive heat and warm, unending rain falling from the midnight velvet sky, you’d never know it was anything other than a place of residence—warm ivory siding and olive-shuttered windows on the bottom floor, second-floor balcony lined with french doors, ferns, and blossoms on the rail—save for the faint heartbeat of a driving bassline from within its depths, steady as anything. Every few minutes, individuals in fishnet-everything or couples in straps and buckles or groups with glitter at their collarbones knock twice and, within the same breath, disappear into the bloodred front door. 

From the narrow street, eyes on the pavement stretching from Bourbon to Frenchman Street, you’d pass without a second thought. 

Unless, of course, you’re affiliated with a certain discerning flavor of clientele. 

Through the bloodred door is a room fit to burst with laughter and sound and color. Bartenders high-pour generous measures of booze into glasses from a rainbow-neon-lined bar along the back wall, crowded in by thirsty patrons—men and women and those who don’t ascribe to something as utterly human as a binary, and those with fangs and slitted pupils and otherworldly auras who cannot be considered within the category of “human” in the first place. The dance floor is an undulating, fathomless thing, joining and parting, rising and falling, pushing and pulling in time to a beat that rumbles in the base of your throat, loud and driving like a hit of something potent and euphoric. 

It is here that Erwin Smith, number one vampire hunter in all of New Orleans, finds himself at two in the morning on a Saturday night in October, folded seamlessly into the crowd of writhing bodies with a vampire’s back pressed neatly to his front from chest to toe.

His fingers claw into the hips in front of his own, swinging them in time to the heady beat of the music. One of his hands rakes up from hip to waist to chest, tearing aside fabric so he can duck down under neatly buzzed sable hairs, nosing at a pulse that’s cold to the touch despite the heat all around them. The music is so loud he’s convinced it’s inside of him, throbbing in his ears and his mind and his hands and his hips, one and the same as his pulse. 

He shuts his eyes against the blinding stutter and flash of light reflecting off disco balls of various sizes hung from the ceiling, staining the backs of his eyelids pink and purple and scarlet. All the better to taste, to smell—a deep, heady inhale of magnolia and tonka, and god he keens with how badly he wants.

Levi tilts his head back in response, and Erwin’s mouth fills with saliva—a practiced reaction, now. Pavlovian, even. He opens his mouth, waiting, and Levi acquiesces, sealing it with a kiss. 

Erwin’s eyes fly open only to roll back into his head and shut once more as the honey sings in his bloodstream, sweet and savory and electrifying. His hips stutter out of rhythm for only a moment before finding the beat once more, and the hand at Levi’s chest climbs up to claim his throat, fingers latching at his jawline. 

Levi groans into the kiss before releasing him but he doesn’t go far—their lips brush as their hips move in tandem, Erwin’s hands possessive at his throat and his stomach, pressing them impossibly closer and yet not close enough—never close enough. He grinds into Levi’s ass, and doesn’t care if Levi knows how badly he wants him. 

From the way Levi grinds to meet him, he knows it won’t be long now. 

Erwin’s heartbeat pounds in his throat, and he snakes the hand on Levi’s stomach lower, teasing into the waistband of the leather pants slung low on his hips.

He feels Levi’s inhale against the hand at his throat—feels more than hears the way his breath catches on a sigh, inaudible under the beat of their hearts and of the song. 

He sneaks his fingers carelessly lower—down under the leather of the pants and the lacy-nothing of what’s underneath, stopping short of where he knows Levi pulses warm and sweet, instead pressing bruising fingers into the skin over his hipbone to direct him lower, bending at the knee to better drive their hips in close circles to the beat. 

“Fuck,” Levi breathes, and at some point he must have tilted his head further because now his voice is high and breathy in Erwin’s ear. “Win, I—it—”

“Yeah,” Erwin agrees. His voice has been reduced to something akin to smoke and gravel.Talking is secondary to the music, and the icy fingers snaking up into his hair, and the voice in his ear and the honey in his blood and Levi, Levi Levi Levi—

The hand in his hair rakes down his neck, his shoulder, his bicep—Levi takes his wrist in an ironclad grip and suddenly Erwin is being led through the crowd of thrumming, shimmering bodies.

The dance floor and the surrounding crowd of patrons is nearly indistinguishable. Levi leads him past velvet walls adorned with boys with sequin-encrusted eyes laughing into each other’s mouths, lip-lined women with bejeweled nails, pierced eyebrows and lips and tails, drag queens painted with arched brows and full lips and feathered wings at their shoulderblades. He moves with purpose through a room that’s packed to the gills, punctuated with dancers rising above on platforms, making love to their poles, clothing an afterthought. Erwin spies a pair of milky white eyes, the flash of a second pair of arms, the sharp points of fangs in a laughing mouth—until he and Levi are relieved of the crowding on every side in favor of the door to the bathroom.

They bypass at least seven people in line, but their protests fall on deaf ears as Levi falls into the stall on the far end of the room, taking Erwin with him and locking the door behind them.

It’s dark in here—all black marble tile—and the music is just as loud, barely muffled by the door. The floor is sticky under Erwin’s shoes and sticky under his fingers as his hand braces against the wall, but then Levi is tugging Erwin’s hips to his, and then Erwin‘s lips—magnetized—find Levi’s, and then Erwin ascends.

He drinks, and drinks, and forgets himself in the wake of Levi’s undivided attention. What a privilege, to possess such ethereal perfection, to feel the details of him beneath his mortal fingers, to press him into the wall and reach under the waistband of his downright sinful leather pants and grab a handful of ass and to elicit a reaction like that—Levi’s head lolling back, the endless expanse of his neck exposed, fingers latched in Erwin’s belt loops, in his hair as he pulls his head down to make a fucking filthy noise in Erwin’s ear—

The music infects Erwin’s faculties, sinking its fingers into the folds of his mind, blinding him to his surroundings as he captures Levi’s mouth with his own once more and fumbles blindly with the button of Levi’s pants. They’re surrounded by prying ears and he knows their feet are visible under the stall and that they’re not exactly being quiet but Erwin has forgotten how to care, forgotten how to think about anything but Levi, and Levi’s mouth on his, and Levi’s hands unlatching his fly, and Levi’s finely embroidered bodysuit under his pants and further still, Levi’s cunt, warm and slick and yielding easily to Erwin’s touch. 

Levi’s knees buckle and Erwin snakes his other arm around his waist, pressing close to keep him steady against the bathroom wall, breaking wetly from his mouth and leaving a shimmering strand of venom between them, leaning their foreheads together, reveling in the salve of cool against fevered skin, breathing erratic and punctuated by noises he has no hope of reigning in. 

“Please,” he begs on a shaky exhale, against Levi’s lips. 

The queuers grumble impatiently, and the bathroom wall is sticky, and toilets flush and sinks hiss on and off and music pulses bright and hot around them but Levi only has eyes for Erwin. 

A breath passes, then two, then another kiss and—and Erwin loses track of time for much longer than the span of a breath, loses himself in Levi, saccharine on his tongue and silky-sweet-dripping on his fingers. 

And then, quick as anything, Levi pivots to face the wall, shimmies his hips to loosen his leather pants, and arches his back to press his ass into the long line of Erwin’s cock between them. 

Electricity seizes Erwin and he nearly collapses with the force of it, surging like a thunderstorm so that he’s powerless to resist finishing what Levi started—relieving his cock from the confines of his underwear at his undone fly—and powerless to resist threading his fingers underneath the thong of Levi’s bodysuit to tug it aside, to resist lining up his cock and sinking to the hilt in a single thrust. 

Levi’s gasp is a full-body thing, sending shiver from head to toe that Erwin feels mirrored in himself as he snakes one hand from Levi’s hip around to his stomach, and the other up his chest to press up and in at his jugular as he snaps his hips forward and sets a punishing pace to the beat of the music. 

Time begins to stutter, skipping in and out of its linear track and Erwin fucks Levi against the sticky bathroom wall in vignettes of sensation and noise—Levi’s moan vibrating close against his hand; feeling the bulge of his cock against his own hand on Levi’s stomach; hips circling close in time to the music; Levi’s hand pressed against the tile; burying his head in the crook of Levi’s shoulder; hot-tight-wet-honey; crowding up against the wall; covering Levi’s fingers with his own, lacing them together to seal them tight—no space, close, closer, closer—

Levi tugs their intertwined hands in close to press at his own chest and Erwin feels the way his heart beats with stolen blood, perfectly in tune with his own, with the music—badum, badum—

Erwin presses them further into the wall and Levi turns his head to the side to compensate, ivory cheek pressed up against jet-black marble, before raising their joined hands to rest on the wall just in front of his lips—he presses a kiss to the tender skin of Erwin’s wrist and waits, and Erwin decodes the cool, panting breath against his skin for what it is:

A question. 

Constellations burst to life in his head, spiraling out in kaleidoscopic patterns in his blood in anticipation; his hips stutter out of rhythm, breath going erratic against the shell of Levi’s ear. 

“Take it,” he breathes, and it comes out like a plea. It’s already yours. I have no need for it.

Before the words even pass from his lips, a canine drags over his wrist, pressing against the puncture wound from last week—the freshest one—and Erwin is nearly brought to his knees at the way it sends a jolt down his arm to the tender spot just below his navel. 

The moan rips its way out of his throat, nearly drowned out by the music, and he feels Levi’s smile more than he sees it, before he sinks his teeth in. 

Erwin’s sigh rises in pitch at the end and he buries his cock deep inside and keeps it there, the way he knows Levi likes when he’s Feeding, and the sound Levi makes echoes down through his hand to his chest and bounces off the walls of his mind, scattering his thoughts—and as Levi swallows, and as he comes on his cock, pulsing and sweet and dripping, Erwin doesn’t seem to be able to recall even his own name. 

Magnolia and tonka and the scent of sex infiltrate his mind, and honey surges in his veins, and the column of Levi’s throat shines too close, pink-purple-bright in the flashing lights. He’s suddenly overcome with the desire to sink his own teeth down, to claim what’s his, thrilling in everyone around them knowing that Levi is his, his to keep—

His teeth catch at the space behind Levi’s ear and lower, to where his pulse beats cold at his neck, and Erwin latches his mouth there, tasting for himself and it would be right, he thinks, coming full-circle, a bite for a bite, to taste Levi thoroughly and he—he could—he might—

But then Levi seals the new wound on his wrist with a swipe of his tongue—icy-hot-tingling—and Erwin startles, releasing Levi’s neck with a start. Levi leans his head back onto Erwin’s shoulder, mouth open, fluttering around his cock with the aftershocks of his orgasm, and Erwin forgets whatever it was he was thinking about before. He thrills—to be feasted upon is a privilege in itself, but to be brought to completion in the wake of Levi’s pleasure—it is ecstasy.

He accepts Levi’s mouth with all the reverence of a fanatic in the face of their god, and drinks greedily. 

The lights sear bright—too bright—and he has to close his eyes with the intensity of it, the way he pulses and fizzes and sparks, a shaken pop bottle finding release within his bloodstream. Levi’s fingers, still latched to his hand, slide down to press lightly into the fresh wound, and Erwin’s eyes roll back into his head. He makes an undignified noise into Levi’s mouth, saliva and blood and nectar leaking down his chin as the electricity that shoots down to his navel sparks his orgasm, hot and high and drawn out too long, filling Levi to the brim and then some, honey and come dripping in the shadows between them. 

“Fuck.” Levi’s voice breaks as he knocks his forehead against the wall in front of him, releases his grip on Erwin’s hand, and takes a shaky breath. 

“Oh my god,” Erwin breathes, as Levi goes on his tiptoes to pull Erwin out of him, adjusting his bodysuit back into place before pulling up his leather pants and fastening them. He spins to face Erwin and help him do the same, as Erwin is currently preoccupied with bracing his forearm against the wall, trying—and failing, miserably—to catch his breath. 

The column of Levi’s throat, pink-purple-bright—

He stares at the way Levi’s chest heaves as he works at Erwin’s belt. 

The desire to sink his teeth down, to claim what’s his—

Erwin shakes his head absently, dismissing the buzzing in his ears. 

Levi finishes, patting his belt buckle, before glancing up at him from unfairly long eyelashes. He smirks, and Erwin thinks that it’s well-deserved because fuck the things that smile does to his willpower—have done, so many times that now Erwin does not have enough fingers to count.

And yet, not enough. Never enough. 

Erwin extracts himself from Levi’s personal space and leans back against the opposite wall of the stall, suddenly viscerally aware that he is in a bathroom in a nightclub in the French Quarter, stinking of sex, dizzy from blood loss, and—

He stares at Levi, self-assured, gunmetal grey eyes sparkling, smile tugging at his lips, nipples peaked under the transparent embroidery of his bodysuit, hair stuck to the sweat on his forehead, leaning back against the opposite wall of the stall with all the grace of a man who knows exactly how to get what he wants—

—and is nearly hard again.

“Let me guess,” Levi says, barely audible over the music. “That was the last time.” 

Levi is his—his to keep—he could—he might—

“I—” Erwin begins, and then watches Levi wet his lips, and then loses his train of thought. 

Helpless to stop himself, he leans down for a final, chaste, lingering kiss. The honey in his bloodstream settles, thinning in the warmth of it, dormant once more. 

“I’ll—” He swallows, breath mingling with Levi’s. He raises a hand to touch at the porcelain of his jawline, marveling that he’s allowed to do so. 

He wrenches himself from Levi’s personal space.  

“I’ll call you,” he finishes, belatedly, and unlatches the door to the stall. 

He hears a chuckle in Levi’s exhale, and feels a flush creeping up under his collar as he makes his way around a drag queen with literal claws to hastily wash his hands. He creeps surreptitiously around the impatient line of patrons waiting for an empty stall, decidedly not obsessing over smirking lips, the ghost of a laugh, cool fingers, warm—

“Erwin.” 

He turns before he makes the conscious decision to. 

Levi’s eyes hover on his own, and Erwin sees something tentative and delicate and unspoken there—the same thing he feels thrumming just under his sternum, and his lips part, though he doesn’t know what he even wants to say—

Levi beats him to it. “Text me when you get home.” 

Erwin closes his mouth. He nods, convinces himself not to stay, and takes his leave. 

☆

He tries to limit calls to his parasitic, supernatural situationship twice a week. 

To keep up the act of resisting, to play hard to get, to salvage whatever shred of dignity he has left—call it what you want, but Erwin is doing everything in his power not to let his obsession with Levi take over his life. 

He wonders—as he stares blankly at the hundred or so unread emails in his inbox, seated in only day-old underwear at the desk in his apartment, surrounded by the detritus of various belongings that he hasn’t found the time nor energy to tidy up in weeks—whether or not he’s succeeding.

He closes his laptop, and opts for staring at the wall behind it instead. The venom laced through his veins hums, stretching its wings idly. 

One more day. His fingers find the pulse point at his wrist, and even just brushing the puncture marks sends a thrill down his spine. You can call him tomorrow.

As if on cue—to tempt him, to spite him—his phone vibrates with an incoming call. 

Levi Ackerman.

His heart skips a beat, and the venom twitches with interest, and Erwin forces himself to count to three before snatching it from the desk. 

“Hey.” He tries to sound like he was doing something very important. 

“Hey,” Levi returns, easy as anything, and the lilt of his voice—even after less than twenty-four hours—sends something in Erwin’s midsection tumbling. “Are you busy?” 

Erwin sits in his day-old underwear and stares at the wall. “A little. Why?” 

“I can leave you to it,” Levi says quickly. 

“No—it’s fine,” Erwin returns just as fast, before forcing himself to breathe. He stands and begins to pace his apartment. He pauses at his window, spattered with rain. “This is weird.” 

Levi’s chuckle brings the venom to full attention. “Why?”

Erwin can’t help but smile to himself. “Because I’m usually the one to call.” 

God, Erwin can practically hear the smile on the other line. “That you are.” 

He musters all the bravado available to him. “Insatiable, hm?” 

“Tch. Don’t flatter yourself.” 

“You’ve got a lot of attitude for someone who comes running every time I call.” 

“You’ve got a lot of attitude for someone who’s so desperate for a single kiss they revolve their entire schedule around twice-weekly booty calls.” 

Erwin opens his mouth, then closes it again. 

Levi continues in his silence. “You’re hardly in a position to banter, Smith.” 

Erwin tries to come up with a quippy line just to prove him wrong, but the venom is now making it difficult to focus, buzzing up in his head and thrumming through his extremities. He thinks he’d be happy to hear Levi, low and self-assured, in his ear forever. 

“I suppose I’m not,” he concedes on an exhale. He crosses to his couch to sit, and crosses one leg over the other to ignore the stirring between his legs. “So if not for the best sex of your life—”

“I swear to god—”

“—your words, not mine.” Erwin allows himself a smirk. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

Levi pauses for so long that Erwin wonders if the call dropped. 

“Levi?”

“I’m here.” Levi takes an audible breath. “I was wondering.” 

“Yes?”

“I’m a legacy member of the NOMA.” 

“Legacy member?”

Levi sighs. “You realize I was alive when it opened.”

“Boomer.” 

“Respect your elders,” Levi snaps impatiently, as Erwin chuckles. 

“Fine. You’re a NOMA member.” 

“And as a legacy member, I get—”

“Wait, wait.” Erwin leans forward on the couch. “Do you get the senior discount when you go?”

“I cannot believe—” 

“Sorry.” Erwin grins from ear to ear. “Done now.” 

Levi’s silence is pointed.

“I promise.” Erwin swears. 

Levi heaves a long-suffering sigh. “Certain days of the week, I get to visit for free. There’s an exhibit on ancient Hindu art that I’ve been meaning to see, and—”

He halts. Erwin finds himself holding his breath. 

“—and I was wondering if you’d like to join me.” 

Erwin’s mind flatlines. 

“You—” He swallows, and tries again. “Are you. Asking me on a—”

“Call it what you like, Smith. I thought company might be nice.”

“You sound nervous.” Something flutters in Erwin’s chest as he smiles. “Are you nervous?”

“Please,” Levi huffs, “spare me the remaining shreds of dignity still available to me.”

“I begged to fuck you in a bathroom stall last night,” Erwin deadpans. “I think we’re beyond social niceties at this point.” 

“Well. This wouldn’t involve…” Levi coughs delicately. “...getting your fix, as it were.” 

The silence shifts, and Erwin’s heart lurches. “Levi.” 

“Forget it,” Levi says breezily, “I’ll go myself—”

“I’d love to,” Erwin blurts. 

Levi pauses, as if considering this. “Are you sure?” 

“It sounds—” Erwin drops his face to his hand to rub at his eyes— “I’d—yes. Yes, I am.” 

“Without the promise of sex involved.” 

“God, how many ways can I say the word ‘yes’?”

“Alright, I get it.” Levi does a very good job at sounding exasperated, but Erwin can hear his smile.

“What day were you thinking?” 

“Right—my free day is Tuesday. Is that too soon?” 

Erwin ignores the way the venom roars—NOT SOON ENOUGH—and forces himself to pretend to flip through a calendar. “Tuesday, Tuesday…I think…yes. I think that works for me.” 

 “I’ll text you with the details.” 

“Sounds good.” 

Erwin waits. Levi takes an audible breath, but says nothing. 

Erwin smiles to himself. “No, you hang up first.” 

“God.” Levi’s eye roll is audible. “Bye.” 

“Bye,” Erwin tells the dead line. 

He stares at his phone. Levi’s voice still rings, fresh and sweet, in his right ear. 

The venom rings even louder, thrilled at the promise of meeting its maker so soon. His blood runs thick in his head, and his groin, and the pull of it draws a low groan from his throat. 

“Fuck,” he mutters, and hauls himself off the couch for the fifth cold shower in as many days. 

☆

Erwin’s nearly late to the museum, and he blames it on his uncooperative closet. 

It seems as if all the clothes he’s circulated up until this point simply aren’t versatile enough to satisfy the increasingly impossible standards of convincing a person who’s been alive longer than any living relative to have sex with him—let alone to impress him on a date. 

Luckily, today he only has to do one of those two things, and so he’s settled on a white linen shirt and a pair of blue jeans that are really, really flattering. 

He beats the venom back with a stick as he climbs out of his car and extends his umbrella into a wall of heat to shield him from the ongoing deluge. Just to remind him you’re the prize, he scolds it. No funny business.

He has a harder time scolding the venom when he comes around the bend of the fountain outside and spies Levi leaning against one of the tall pillars before the museum entrance, wearing a button-down that’s half black and half white, paired with a slim pair of rain boots and a pair of high-waisted military trousers that Erwin has become intimately acquainted with for how many times he’s admired Levi’s ass in them. 

He gulps. No funny business.

He ascends the stairs, and smiles in a way he hopes is the epitome of sexy. 

“Look at you.” He grins. “Out in broad daylight.” 

“We’ve been through this.” Levi’s eyebrows set in an irate line.

“I suppose the rain doesn’t make you melt, either.”

“No such luck, Dorothy,” Levi deadpans. “But it does keep me from sparkling.” 

Erwin’s smile disappears. “Wait—” 

“Joking. Dumbass.” Levi smirks, turns on his heel, and stalks off toward the ticket counter. Erwin tries not to stare at his ass as he goes, fails, and follows after him. 

He checks his umbrella at the counter for safekeeping, and trails behind Levi into the museum. The entry hall is all white, the balcony of the second floor propped up on pillars that lead to the staircase stretching up to the back wall. Erwin halts as Levi ascends, and marvels—a vision in black and white, a swan upon the dais. Something soars within his sternum that has nothing to do with the venom sparkling in his bloodstream. 

Levi pauses to peer over his shoulder.

“Did you get lost already?” He smirks, and Erwin’s heart does a backflip. He jogs up the stairs to catch up. 

“Just admiring the view,” he says, allowing his gaze to flick down to Levi’s trousers before meeting his eyes. 

“Now who’s insatiable,” Levi grumbles, rolling his eyes and stalking into the Renaissance wing. 

Erwin follows him and they pace the gallery side by side in companionable silence. Finally, Levi pauses at the crown jewel of the room, and Erwin gazes up with him.

“Hey.” He leans into Levi, pointing. “You didn’t tell me you knew Boticelli.” 

Levi squints at the painting, and finally sees the figure Erwin is pointing to—a small man with dark hair dancing in the background of the crowd. 

His jaw clenches, and he turns slowly to look at Erwin. 

“Are you calling me an old man, Smith?”

“The renaissance must have been a welcome reprieve after the middle ages.” Erwin fakes a shiver, suppressing a smile as he side-eyes Levi’s growing fury. “How did you survive the black plague?” 

“I swear to god—”

“You’re probably immune to every virus that’ll ever exist.” 

“I’m leaving.” 

“Do you even have to get your flu shot every year?” Erwin calls after him, grinning, and following behind. “Or do you have a legacy vax card?”

Levi storms into the next wing, and comes to a halt in front of a urinal placed unceremoniously on the floor. 

“I knew him.”

Erwin raises an eyebrow. 

“Duchamp,” Levi clarifies, huffily. 

Erwin glances around the new room, and realizes they’re in the Dada exhibit. 

“Ah.” He returns his gaze to the urinal. “This is a really good duplicate.” 

Levi side-eyes him. “It’s the original.”   

Erwin frowns. “The original was lost.” 

He glances at Levi to find him grinning slyly. 

“No fucking way.” Erwin looks to the urinal, then back at Levi. 

“I donated it.” Levi lifts his nose in the air. “It was just gathering dust in my house.”

“How did you—”

“How do you think?” Levi glances up at him, and winks as he turns to stalk across the room. 

Erwin’s gut does a backflip and he’s left staring as Levi abandons him, speechless, in favor of the next gallery. He takes one last glance at Duchamp’s “Fountain,” shakes his head, and moves to follow. 

They make it through a collection of Japanese ceramics, a gallery of newly acquired contemporary paintings, and a dark room full of black and white photography before Erwin realizes just how maddening it is—how tantalizing, how infuriating—to be in such close proximity to Levi without being able to touch him. 

The venom gathers in his fingertips and itches, desperate to reach out, to lay his hand at the small of Levi’s back, to intertwine their fingers, to tuck his hair behind his ears where it’s fallen into his face. 

And it doesn’t help that Levi seems to have no problem touching Erwin. A lot.

It has to be intentional, he thinks—the way their hands brush when they pass through the entryway into the decorative arts wing, the way Levi grasps his forearm to lead him away when he’s been staring at the Modigliani too long, the way their arms press as they share an umbrella in the sculpture garden. 

Every touch, intentional or not, makes Erwin dizzy with want. Holding back the venom is Sisyphean—his mind seems intent on recalling every detail of every encounter they’ve ever had in crystal-clear definition: Levi’s ass under his hand, Levi’s teeth at his throat, Levi’s hips pressing into his, Levi, Levi, Levi and after an hour of perusing the exhibits in the museum he feels one touch with plausible deniability away from hauling Levi to the nearest abandoned hallway to have his way with him. 

Erwin grits his teeth, and pointedly ignores the sway of Levi’s ass in those pants as he walks ahead to the Kāma exhibit. He is determined not to break—out of spite, or contrariness, or pride, or—

Levi, calling on the phone, nervous in the silence, smirking over his shoulder—

Or. 

He joins Levi at the first piece and studies his profile, glowing in the low light over the illustration. His brow folds and his eyes sparkle as he looks up and around.

Erwin twitches his gaze forward just before he’s caught staring.  

“I’ve been meaning to ask,” he says, low even though they’re the only ones in the room. “Have you found out any more about…” 

Levi turns to look at him, and Erwin gestures between them vaguely. “You know,” he finishes pointlessly. 

Levi snorts, and crosses his arms over his chest delicately. “Not yet. Working on it.” 

“After all the shit I get for relying on my books.” Erwin can’t help it, then—he reaches out to bump Levi’s shoulder with his arm. “Yet when there’s a question that needs answering…” 

Levi rolls his eyes and bumps Erwin back, sending his heart into an unmitigated frenzy before turning to walk to the next piece. “I’m not consulting books.” 

Erwin follows, a moth to a flame. “What are you consulting, then?”

“Not what,” Levi corrects, gazing at a painting of two joyfully naked women in a compromising position. “Who.” 

“So who, then?”

Levi sighs. “Do you remember when I told you how vampires have mentors?”

“At the bar,” Erwin says immediately. “The person who turned you?”

Levi shoots him a wry look. “This is the aforementioned mentor.” 

Erwin hesitates, remembering the way Levi had glared when Erwin asked for elaboration that night. “I was under the impression that your mentor was un mentionable, actually.” 

“By choice,” Levi grouses. “He’s a pain in my ass. Until I actually need him for something. Then, of course, he’s nowhere to be found.” 

“So how can he help with our—” Erwin chews on the word before spitting it out— “situation?” 

“He’s…” Levi appears to be chewing on his own words in kind. “My uncle.” 

Erwin’s eyebrows kiss his hairline. “Oh?” 

Levi slowly stalks the perimeter of the exhibit, observing drawings and texts as he talks. “Who better to ask about the oldest vampire clan in the world than your direct predecessor?” 

Erwin stops in his tracks. “You belong to the core vampire clan?” 

Levi glances over his shoulder and pauses. “The fuck are they teaching you in vampire school nowadays?” 

Erwin sighs. “I’m throwing out all my books when I get home.” 

“Finally.” Levi shakes his head. “Speaking of which.” He looks severely at Erwin. “Have you been supplementing your diet?” 

Erwin does his damnedest to look nonchalant, despite the way he flushes hot and the way the venom thrums just under his skin. “I’ve been taking iron supplements.” 

Levi frowns. “Not as good as steak.” 

“I order steak with my pad thai, Mom.” 

“You know that’s not what I mean.” 

“Don’t worry,” Erwin simpers. “I will live till your next meal.”

Levi’s glare turns to stone. He repeats, “You know that’s not what I mean.” 

“And pray tell, what do you mean?”

Levi breaks eye contact in favor of observing the painting in front of him, crossing his arms and frowning, and—if Erwin didn’t know any better—

“You tasted watered down on Saturday. That’s all.” 

Erwin dismisses the thought, and attributes the flush at the tip of Levi’s nose to a trick of the soft exhibit lighting. 

“I’m sorry that your meal was not to your liking,” Erwin says dryly.

“You’re no good to me dead,” Levi snaps, avoiding his eyes. 

Something about the way he says it makes something clench in the gaps of Erwin’s ribcage. 

“I think that had more to do with the Pimm’s Cups than my daily iron intake,” Erwin ventures, glancing sideways at Levi as he comes up beside him. 

It has the anticipated effect—Levi rolls his eyes, and Erwin’s heart does a backflip. 

“You tasted just fine at my birthday party,” Levi grumbles, uncrossing his arms.  

He’s still smiling, though. 

Erwin tries—he really, really tries—but he can’t help but reach out to grasp Levi’s arm gently. 

“I’ll eat more steak,” he reassures him. “Promise.” 

Levi watches him a moment more. Erwin suddenly remembers his commitment to not touching Levi, and realizes he’s been touching Levi’s arm for far too long. He retrieves it hastily, and clears his throat. 

Levi continues along the perimeter of the exhibit, and Erwin busies himself with observing the paintings before him rather than observing Levi. 

And it’s only then that he realizes this is an exhibit dedicated to the origins of the Kāmasutra. 

He stares at a sculpture of a man performing cunnilingus on his partner upside-down and wills the venom to recede. 

It doesn’t. 

It doesn’t, and neither does the tempo of Erwin’s pulse, and neither does the tingling in his fingers and so he is helpless to resist playing with fire, to resist returning to Levi’s orbit. 

“When you said this outing wouldn’t involve getting my fix,” he says slowly, turning from a sculpture of an intertwined couple to look at Levi carefully, “was that for your benefit or for mine?” 

Levi definitely blushes this time, and Erwin marvels at it. “I don’t see how that’s relevant.” 

And oh, how sweet victory tastes—sweet like Levi’s mouth, which twists as if he’s been caught in a trap. 

“It’s relevant—” Erwin steps forward, footsteps echoing in the empty room, crowding into Levi’s space to murmur in his ear— “because I’ve been fighting not to touch you for the better part of two hours.” 

Levi shivers, and says nothing. Erwin leans still further so that his lips brush the shell of Levi’s ear, and he feels just bold enough to tilt his head to showcase the tendon of his neck prettily, showing off the weeks-old marks still fading there.

“And the only thing keeping you from getting your fix,” he continues, voice barely above a whisper, “is my self-control.” 

Levi inhales sharply and turns his head—but just before his lips make contact, Erwin ducks out of the way. 

“Levi,” he chides, backing away toward the exit of the exhibit, grinning from ear to ear, “we’re in public.”

He turns to stalk into the adjoining hall, and the honey in his blood sings at the way he hears Levi grumble, following behind. It appears that this is the wheelchair-friendly access to the second floor—at the end of the bare hallway is an elevator. 

“I think we got turned around.” Erwin pauses, and turns back just as Levi catches up to him.

“We’re already here,” he says as he passes Erwin without stopping. 

His hand brushes Erwin’s as he goes, and it’s like time slows to a near-stop. 

In the span of a nanosecond, his eyes cut sideways to Erwin’s and Erwin nearly staggers from the heat of the smolder. In direct contrast to the near-black of his eyes, his expression betrays nothing—but his hand is electrified where Levi’s touches it and he feels faint, his entire body gravitating toward a single point of contact.

It’s over as soon as it starts—Levi’s hand brushes his own on his way past, and he continues forward to the elevator to push the button. 

It takes longer than it should for Erwin to remember how to put one foot in front of the other. 

The elevator arrives before he reaches it and Levi holds open the door for him. 

“After you.”

Erwin meets his eyes and steps onto the elevator, close enough that he catches a whiff of tonka and magnolia as he passes.

Levi steps in after him, and the doors close behind him. 

Erwin barely has time to turn around before Levi takes two steps to calmly, assuredly, crowd him up against the wall, trapping Erwin’s wrist beside his head in an iron grip. 

“You are insufferable,” Levi growls against his mouth. 

Erwin’s heart beats a tattoo against his ribs, venom churning just under the surface. He smiles. 

“I win.” 

Faster than he can draw breath, Levi adjusts his grip to press two fingers into the puncture wounds from Saturday night. 

Erwin gasps and forgets how to exhale—his eyes lose focus, mouth filling with saliva as his head falls back against the wall, neck exposed. His mind empties, buzzing like bees, humming to the tune of Levi, Levi, Levi.

He finally remembers to exhale, and it comes out as a keening, ardent thing. “Please.”

Levi leans over to punch the emergency stop button before he’s back in Erwin’s ear:

“That’s better.” 

He reaches up to tug Erwin’s hair to crane his neck further and, without any further deliberation, sinks his teeth into Erwin’s throat. 

Erwin nearly chokes as the wave of the venom crests and crashes all at once, all his blood rushing to Levi’s bite, desperate to be consumed—save for that in his cock, which is almost painfully hard. He thrusts mindlessly against Levi’s leg situated between his own, savoring the sound of Levi swallowing in the silence of the elevator. 

“Thank you,” he whispers as Levi drinks, and as his head spins. “Thank you, thank you, thank you—”

Levi seals the wound with a wet kiss and a moan, throwing his head back. 

“You—fuck, Win, you taste so—” He paws blindly at Erwin’s cock through his jeans, head thunking against Erwin’s collarbone as his words drop off into a broken groan. 

Erwin struggles to unstick his tongue from the roof of his mouth. “Had…” He pants and his eyes roll back as the venom surges again, threatening to take him back under. “Had…steak. In my pad thai.” He swallows air. “Last night.” 

The elevator spins but Levi remains in sharpest focus—Erwin sees his brows fold, watches him huff out half a laugh. 

“You fucking—” Levi releases his wrist to undo his jeans with both hands. “That’s not what I meant, you—”

Erwin falls forward clumsily to knock their foreheads together, taking a jelly-like hand up to clasp at the nape of his neck. 

“What d’you mean, then,” he slurs. He hopes Levi will ask to fuck him soon. 

“Erwin,” Levi warns. His hands pause at Erwin’s fly. His breath fans across Erwin’s cheek. 

Erwin places a slow, chaste kiss to his lips. “Tell me.” 

Levi doesn’t breathe. His fingers are tight in the front of Erwin’s jeans. “Don’t make me say it.” 

Erwin puts all of his energy into focusing his gaze so that he can look Levi directly in the eyes. 

“Then show me.” 

Levi stares at him for a long moment, grey eyes searching. 

And then, ever-so-slowly, he removes his hands from Erwin’s pants to frame his face. Erwin’s eyes flutter closed as he sighs, cool fingers a balm to his fevered skin, and Levi leans in to kiss him fully on the mouth. 

They’ve kissed countless times now—each one is seared into Erwin’s memory permanently, he suspects—but this one feels different. Even through the roar of the venom, even through the haze of want-feed-Levi , Erwin knows to catalog it carefully and thoroughly, to bring one hand to the small of Levi’s back and the other to thread through his hair. Levi’s tongue dances on his lower lip, and Erwin welcomes him eagerly and grips doggedly to the last vestiges of control in order to not fall to his knees, to not succumb to the way his blood thickens to molasses as he dips his tongue into the honeypot of Levi’s mouth, determined to receive the message that Levi seeks to impart on him. 

Levi kisses him like they have all the time in the world, and the venom hums happily, settling warm and satisfied somewhere below his navel. 

And then Levi swipes his tongue further into Erwin’s mouth, and Erwin tilts his jaw to accommodate, exhaling on a quiet groan. Levi presses further, and Erwin opens his mouth wider, and Levi begins to thrust his hips into Erwin’s in time with his tongue, and Erwin’s eyes roll back in a way that has nothing to do with the venom. 

He meets Levi thrust for thrust, drowning in how badly he wants. His consciousness narrows to this—Levi’s hands on his face, Levi’s hips against his own, the promise of Levi’s cunt on his mouth, dripping on his fingers. Levi kisses him, open-mouthed and wet and languid, and Erwin scratches down through Levi’s hair to his back so he can use both hands to pull him that much closer—never close enough.

He uses his grip to flip them, pressing Levi into the wall, bringing one hand up to cushion his head and snaking one to rest tentatively on the waistband of his pants, panting into his mouth. 

“You’re going to be the death of me,” he says, staring at the black of Levi’s eyes, the kissed-wet swell of his lips. 

“Not if I can help it.” Levi’s lips quirk up in one corner—not-quite-a-smile—and his hands slide down Erwin’s chest on their way to unbutton his own pants. 

Erwin sneaks a glance of something finely embroidered in the gap of his button fly. Not getting a fix my ass.

He takes over for Levi once the buttons are undone, and Levi’s arms wrap around his shoulders as he folds his fingers down into the seam of his pants, reaching down over his underwear.

“Fuck.” His voice breaks. “Fuck, Levi, you’re soaking.” 

Levi makes a pretty, breathy noise as Erwin sneaks a finger under his underwear to tease into the slick. “Have been.” He sucks in a breath. “Since Sunday.” 

Something satisfied rumbles in Erwin’s chest, and he smiles into Levi’s ear as he slips two fingers inside at once. “Insatiable.”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Levi huffs, in direct contrast to the way he fucks down onto Erwin’s fingers.

Erwin takes in the scene before him, more finely rendered than any of the paintings in the galleries below them: Levi pressed into the wall, a rare flush high on his cheeks, charcoal eyelashes fluttering against porcelain skin, chest heaving and nipples peaked under his shirt, fly undone and soaking wet and fucking himself on two of Erwin’s fingers.

“Trust me,” he breathes. “I feel plenty flattered already.”

Erwin adds another finger, eliciting a gasp, and invades Levi’s space to inhale deeply at his neck—magnolia and tonka, and something so distinctly Levi that makes Erwin’s head spin all on its own, blood loss or no. 

Erwin finds he can’t help but confess. “Beautiful,” he whispers. “What a privilege, to have you like this.” 

Levi’s breath hitches. “Oh.” 

“No one else sees you like this, do they?” Erwin says. “Only me.” 

“Only you,” Levi hiccups, eyes rolled back as Erwin presses up in the way he knows Levi likes when he Feeds. “Don’t—” Levi gulps. “Don’t want—anyone else, just—just…ungh…” 

Levi is dripping down Erwin’s fingers, now—the venom tingles at his nailbeds. He watches as Levi’s head drops back against the wall, exposing his neck, and something powerful thrills in his gut. 

He brings his lips to Levi’s cool pulse point, and Levi inhales sharply, craning his neck to give Erwin better access. 

Erwin uses his other arm to prop Levi up, keeping him from listing too far from the side as he’s gone boneless, hips fucking Erwin’s fingers and making tiny little sounds with every thrust. 

Erwin darts out his tongue experimentally, and Levi makes a desperate, breathy noise, fucking his hips down faster. 

“Only you,” Levi repeats. 

Emboldened, Erwin licks a long stripe up Levi’s neck. 

Levi’s orgasm hits him so hard that Erwin can practically feel it himself—he feels it in the way Levi clenches in a vice grip around his fingers for one second—two—three—he counts to six before the flutter of the aftershocks arches his back, curling in on himself and into Erwin’s chest. 

“Fuck,” Levi says, and his voice wavers dangerously—wavers so intensely that it turns into a hysterical giggle. “Oh my god.” 

“Mm,” Erwin agrees, threading his clean hand through Levi’s hair, extracting his other hand from Levi’s pants, and not trusting anything that comes out of his mouth for the way that Levi’s orgasm has left him suddenly and viscerally in need of his own. 

“Here,” Levi whispers, and he takes Erwin’s hand—dripping still with Levi’s venomous slick—to bring it to his cock. 

“Shit,” Erwin stares as Levi places his soiled fingers around his cock, and places his own fingers on top of Erwin’s. He goes on his tip-toes to whisper in Erwin’s ear: 

“Show me how you like it.” 

The sound Erwin makes cannot be considered dignified in any universe. 

“Show me,” Levi continues, “how you do it. When you think of fucking me.” 

Erwin swears, and the way his hand tugs at his cock is more a reflex than anything. 

“How d’you do it—” Levi nibbles at his ear— “when you think about me feasting upon you?” 

Erwin’s knees threaten to buckle as he brings his other wrist up to his mouth to press at the old puncture marks, keening. Levi’s chuckle sounds in his ear and he takes pity on him, bringing up his own free hand to press in himself. 

“Fuck!” The pressure jolts down to his groin and he fucks into his fist, filthy and still tingling from Levi’s venom. 

“Now tell me,” Levi breathes. “What you think about.” 

“Jesus fucking—” Erwin draws a shaky breath, turns his head, and exhales it into Levi’s mouth, stealing a kiss. Levi smiles as he breaks it. 

“Ah ah ah,” he tsks. “You’re not getting out of it that easily.” 

“You,” Erwin concedes, squeezing his warm cock, Levi’s hand cool on his own. “Fuck, Levi—your mouth, fucking—your mouth on my neck, my cock, your tongue in my mouth, it’s—” His hand quickens— “it’s unlike anything, it’s—oh…” 

He loses his train of thought, fucking his fist, and Levi has to prompt him. 

“Just my mouth, then?” 

“Your cunt, ” Erwin says, like it’s the most devastating thing he’s ever known, and it is. “You have no idea, fucking you is—god, I think about fucking you anywhere you’ll have me, I think about your ass bouncing on my cock, I think about bending you over and taking you from behind, I think about the noises you make, how you get so wet it drips and makes a mess, how you come harder when you Feed, how it feels to know I’m—I’m the only one who—it—oh, fuck, fuck, I—”

Erwin thrusts once more, twice, and then he’s coming—Levi presses his fingers into his wrist at the old marks and it stretches his orgasm into what feels like infinity, an endless, electric loop that peaks, and peaks, and peaks. Levi adjusts his hand to collect the mess as Erwin finally comes down from the high, limbs quaking, breath unsteady. 

He watches as Levi lifts his hand to his mouth and takes a long swipe with his tongue. 

“Oh,” he says helplessly, cock twitching despite itself. 

“Yum,” Levi hums, and Erwin can’t help it—he laughs. 

Levi chuckles too, and retrieves a handkerchief from his shirt pocket. 

“You just carry that around?” Erwin’s voice sounds far away in his own ears.

“Second only to the RSVP—” Levi shakes his head, cleaning up their hands and Erwin’s cock gently— “the art of the handkerchief is severely underrated nowadays.”

“I’m in no place to argue.” Erwin smiles tenuously.

As Levi’s fingers finish tucking Erwin’s spent cock back into his pants, his chuckle tickles—feather-light, syrupy-sweet, utterly maddening—in Erwin’s ear. 

“As engaging as all our encounters have been thus far—” Teeth graze against Erwin’s earlobe— “one of these days I’ll convince you to warm my bed.” 

Erwin’s exhale comes out shaky—not quite a laugh—and he leans in to capture Levi’s mouth in a kiss. 

“If I had you in a bed,” Erwin sighs against his mouth, “I don’t think I’d ever leave.” 

“Exactly my point,” Levi grins, brilliant and rakish, and Erwin fights the hysterical urge to drop to a knee and swear fealty. 

Instead, he takes Levi’s face with his clean hand and kisses him thoroughly. 

Levi sighs into the kiss, and when they part Erwin doesn’t let him go far, noses brushing. He slowly opens his eyes to find Levi gazing at him. 

“Erwin.” 

“Hm.” Erwin finally catches his breath. “Yeah.”

Levi opens his mouth to continue, but nothing comes out. Erwin fights the desire to steal yet another kiss. 

After a moment too long, Levi huffs out a laugh and disentangles himself from Erwin, taking a step back to press the emergency stop button. The elevator comes to life once more. 

Something in Levi’s expression coalesces. He smiles, and doesn’t quite touch his eyes. “I hope this doesn’t interrupt the twice-weekly schedule you’ve established.” 

Erwin laughs once, without humor. 

The elevator doors open, and Levi throws a smirk over his shoulder before exiting. 

Erwin prompts his feet to follow, and realizes with a start that despite getting swept away in between floors one and two, the venom has been sleeping peacefully since Levi sealed the new wound on his neck. 

☆

On Friday, Erwin realizes he hasn’t left the house in four days. In fact, he hasn’t left the house in weeks save for the clandestine, twice-weekly meetings with Levi. He’s been milking the Thai leftovers for days and his unread emails continue to balloon in a dusty, cobwebbed tab in the corner of his internet browser and even in his addled, existentially-fraught state, Erwin has his limits. 

So for the first time in weeks, he indulges in a guilty pleasure that doesn’t involve his body being rid of its life essence and the like. 

He spots a miraculously empty table amidst the sea of shorts-and-exercise-sneaker-clad tourists under the deep green awning at Cafe DuMonde and eases into a seat with a well-worn copy of Carmilla in hand. The din is a comfort in contrast to the silence of his apartment, and Erwin breathes in the humidity of the open patio, and feels abruptly dropped in—present in his body in a way he hasn’t in weeks, surfacing after drifting in the shallows.

A harried waiter makes a stop at his table to take his order, and returns a few minutes later to place a plate with three beignets and a styrofoam cup of iced chicory coffee in front of him. 

He sighs after the first bite of his beignet, savoring the way the powdered sugar coalesces behind his teeth. Behind him, a group of street performers starts up the band, horns weaving a brassy number through the chattering of the café. Erwin smiles and opens his book with the intention of revising his notes in the margins. He reaches for another beignet.

A whiff of magnolia and tonka is all the warning he gets before the seat in front of him is occupied. 

“Jesus,” Erwin says, through a mouthful of pastry. Some of the gratuitous powdered sugar falls onto the front of his shirt. He tries to brush it off with his hand, which is also covered in powdered sugar, and then he contemplates death, as an alternative to this. 

Levi takes pity on him, or else doesn’t acknowledge his sugary predicament. “Morning.”

Erwin manages to swallow—a feat, in his current state. “How’d you know I was here?”

“Spidey sense.” 

Erwin rolls his eyes as Levi catches the attention of a passing waiter to put in his own order. 

“You eat?” Erwin blurts. 

“Don’t have to.” Levi shrugs and leans back in the vinyl chair. “Sometimes it fucks with my digestion. Although—” A smile plays at the corner of his mouth— “it’s easier if I’ve recently fed.” 

Erwin’s fingers itch to reach up and touch the puncture marks from Tuesday. He resists—yet another feat. His self control is getting better, he thinks. 

The waiter brings Levi his beignets, and he hands them a couple bills before they take their leave once more. He picks one up with more grace than should be strictly allowed, and takes a delicate bite. 

He chews, and his pink tongue darts out to lick at the sugar around his mouth. Erwin mentally revises his theory on improved self control. 

“Mm.” Levi’s smile is back. “You have a sweet tooth.” 

“What gave it away.” Erwin gestures at the mounds of sugar overwhelming his last two beignets. 

Levi shakes his head. “My palate for food shifts depending on who I’ve…” He tilts his head. “...partaken in.” 

The venom flashes hot and green in Erwin’s chest. But before he can fight it, Levi continues. 

“I’ve had only you for months, now. I’ve been getting the strangest cravings. Pad thai, for one. Sazeracs. Beignets.” 

The venom settles, purring. 

“That explains the chance encounter, then.” Erwin nods to where Levi sits across from him, unbothered and un-sweaty as ever in the stifling humidity. 

“That.” Levi polishes off his first beignet and swallows, all without any sugar-dusted casualties, damn him. “And I wanted to talk to you.” 

Erwin’s heart leaps up into his throat. “Stalker.” 

“Do you want to hear what my uncle said or not?” 

Erwin’s stomach leaps up to join his heart. “You got a hold of him?” 

Levi nods, and starts his second beignet. “You should know…” He licks his fingers, and Erwin tries and fails not to stare. “It’s…a bit much.” 

Erwin frowns. “What do you mean?”

Levi hesitates, and Erwin is shocked to see his nose turn pink.

“Levi.” Erwin leans in conspiratorially. “We’ve been having sex in every imaginable public forum for the past two months. What could possibly be more embarrassing than that?” 

“I’m not embarrassed,” Levi says, too quickly. 

“So tell me.” 

Levi eyes him warily. Finally, he leans in to join Erwin at the table, elbows avoiding the ungovernable powdered sugar. 

“I told you at the museum about how I belong to the core vampire clan.” 

“Yes.” 

“The clan that originated vampirism.” 

“I’m misinformed, not an idiot.”

“Fine.” Levi placates him. “What do you know about how vampires came to be?” 

Erwin levels him with a look. “If this is just another excuse to patronize me—”

“Spare me the theatrics.” Levi silences him with a hand. “I didn’t know either.” 

“Okay,” Erwin acquiesces. 

Levi takes a breath. “Ackermans were created—bred—” He grimaces at the word— “to serve royalty, thousands of years ago. They were seen as…pets, I suppose, would be the most convenient translation. These ‘pets’—” The air-quotes are audible— “would Bond with their appointed royal figurehead, and they served both as companions and as fiercely loyal weapons.” 

“Bond?” Erwin interrupts. “What do you mean, bond? Like they were friends? Lovers?” 

“More,” Levi corrects. “Bond, capital-B.”

“But what—”

“Will you just listen, for once?” 

Erwin clamps his mouth shut and gestures for him to continue. 

“Thank you.” Levi glares at him. “Feudal Japan was in danger of upheaval. So killing machines that would kneel at the feet of their masters, for the small price of continued Feeding, were seen as an invaluable asset.”

“Wait.” Erwin frowns. “How is venom addiction different from the Bond?” 

Levi frowns back. “Maybe if you stopped interrupting, you’d find out.” 

Erwin holds up his hands and mimes zipping his mouth shut. Levi sighs. 

“As I understand it, the venom served as a sort of pact,” he explains. “To help the Bond take, to make it reciprocal. A sort of insurance, I guess.” 

“So their ‘pets’ couldn’t just be traded away or reallocated,” Erwin says, not without a hint of distaste. 

“I’d imagine so, yes,” Levi says. “But I can also imagine what kind of money could be made from trading a near-literal sex slave.” 

“Jesus.” Erwin cringes. 

“Yeah.” Levi looks vaguely nauseous. “I warned you.” 

“I can take it.” Erwin leans forward again. 

“So after hundreds of years—several generations—vampires inhabited most of the world. Because the bloodline got watered down over time, most vampires didn’t—and still don’t—have the ability to form the Bond. But those belonging to the original Ackerman lineage did, and they existed within Japanese nobility.” 

“And those are your ancestors,” Erwin says. 

“Yes.” Levi starts on his third beignet, and waits to swallow before continuing. “But then, there was an Ackerman who didn’t end up Bonding to their master.”

Erwin listens with rapt attention. 

“They went rogue—Bonded to someone they weren’t supposed to. They were found out, and they were both executed.” 

“Fuck.”

“They hoped it was only a fluke, but it started happening more often.” Levi swallows. “It got to the point where the nobility realized they couldn’t control their beloved ‘pets’ anymore—if such a dangerous asset could Bond with just anyone, one single vampire posed more of a threat than a thousand humans. And so—”

“They started hunting them,” Erwin breathes. Goosebumps erupt on his arms, even in the heat. 

“And not just Ackermans.” Levi’s face is grim. “Better safe than sorry.” 

Erwin feels distinctly unmoored. His beignets lay abandoned on his plate. 

“They outsourced the work,” Levi continues, “because that’s one thing a thousand humans are very adept at—committing mass murder when faced with an enemy they don’t understand.” He raises an eyebrow, and Erwin feels sufficiently cowed. “There was a worldwide campaign—all kinds of lies, any kind—spread to market the destruction of vampires. Holy water, silver, crosses, wooden stakes, garlic—everything in your precious books.” Levi smirks. 

Erwin stares at the table. 

“Fast-forward to today.” Levi smiles without humor. “Where vampire hunters are trained to execute on sight, without a second thought.” 

He pauses, and Erwin finds that he’s breathing manually. 

“Do you need a minute?”

He snaps his gaze up to Levi, who’s watching him carefully. 

Erwin shakes himself. “No. Go on.” 

Levi watches him a moment more before continuing. “Like I said, the majority of vampires don’t have the ability to Bond with the humans they Feed on. But—” He sighs— “not all of the Ackermans were eradicated. I’m one of the three remaining.”

Erwin stares at him. “And you can Bond.” 

Levi’s nose is distinctly pink again. “I can Bond.” 

Erwin feels hot under the collar himself. “And you’ve Bonded…to me.” 

“Not…” Levi’s voice sounds strangled. “Not quite. It’s—it’s a process. Apparently.” 

“A process,” Erwin repeats. 

“The Bond has been—” Levi swallows— “ Activated, I guess you could say.” He hesitates, briefly meeting Erwin’s eyes. “I think I have an idea about when—” 

Cobblestones of Jackson Square glittering periwinkle under the rain. The spires of St. Louis Cathedral clambering toward the full moon. Joints protesting, muscles screaming from pushing harder, faster than their limits, the meaty impact of skin against skin, magnolia and tonka and a swift, tireless grin disappearing, tumbling to the cobblestones. The glint of steel and pain, blossoming across his hand, blood indistinguishable from the rain. Gunmetal grey eyes wide in the moonlight. 

“Bourbon Street,” Erwin blurts, idly thumbing across the scar on his right palm. 

Levi stops short, and his—oh he’s definitely blushing now. “Bourbon Street,” he agrees quietly. 

“But,” he continues, “it grows, after being Activated. With continued Feeding, and—” He halts abruptly. 

Erwin sees a flash of Levi’s hair in his fingers, of breath at his throat and a smile in his ear. Something hooks just behind his navel and pulls taut.

“Okay,” he says, once it’s clear that Levi isn’t finishing his thought. He sits up, getting his bearings. “Okay. So we’re in the process of Bonding. That’s—that’s not such a big deal. It’s—it’s kind of—” He smiles to himself. “That’s kind of beautiful.” 

He looks up to see Levi gazing at him, eyes soft with an emotion Erwin can’t quite name. 

But within the span of an inhale, it’s gone—and Levi is breaking eye contact to stare at the table. 

“There’s…more.” 

“More?” Erwin’s face falls. “More than blood bonds and genocide?” 

“The Bond grows.” Levi picks up from where he left off. “It grows, and—it—culminates.” 

“Culminates how?”

Finally, Levi has met his match. His face falls forward into his hands, and Erwin is dismayed to see Levi under such never-before-seen duress. 

“Mngrchl.” 

Erwin leans closer. 

“What was that?” 

Levi doesn’t raise his face, but enunciates clearly through his hands. “A mating. Ritual.”

The venom surges, hot and sudden—it backflips in Erwin’s gut and burns bright in his blood, fireflies alight in his capillaries and he’s overcome with the sudden urge to kneel on the filthy floor of Cafe Du Monde—in front of fifty onlookers and harried waiters and big brass street performers alike—sneak a hand up behind Levi’s neck and wrench it down for him to bite his brand into the delicate tendon at his neck, because Levi is his and no one else can—

“Erwin?”

He blinks, and comes back to himself halfway out of his chair, hand braced awkwardly on the table near inches from Levi’s elbow. Levi stares at him as if he’s grown a third head. 

He sits back in his seat hurriedly, yanking his arm back to clench his hands over his thighs. 

“Yeah, I—” His voice breaks, and he clears his throat— “I’ve been. Getting that. Recently.” 

Levi’s eyelashes flutter on his next blink. “Oh.” 

Erwin takes a deep breath. The air is thick. His pants feel tight. “Yeah.” 

“Kenny didn’t—my uncle,” he clarifies, when Erwin looks at him blankly, “he didn’t go into much detail. Not really big on sex education, I guess.” 

Erwin laughs humorlessly.

“I gather it’s more a symbolic thing, than an actual ritual. Again, I didn’t get. Specifics.” 

“Does it involve.” Erwin’s heart leaps into his throat. “Does it…” 

He can’t bring himself to finish, and in the silence, Levi looks at him sharply.

“Absolutely not.” 

“Well, I don’t know—” 

Levi leans forward, eyes flicking to the surrounding tables before returning to Erwin. “I’m not turning you into a fucking vampire,” he hisses under his breath. 

“I wasn’t counting on it,” Erwin returns, voice low.

Levi eases back into a comfortable seat. “Good.”

Erwin relaxes his shoulders. “Good.” 

They sit in silence as the band starts a new song. A drizzle of rain begins to pitter-patter on the awning overhead.

“So,” Erwin starts, slowly, “if Ackermans are destined to Bond with humans. The mating makes it more than something parasitic. Something mutual, something like—”

He thinks of the venom at rest in the elevator, the flutter of charcoal eyelashes on porcelain skin, the rarity of that smile and the thrill it sends through Erwin’s sternum at being the one to elicit it.  

Something swells like a balloon in his chest, and he finds himself unable to finish his thought. 

“Wow,” he says instead.

Levi sighs. “Just my fucking luck,” he says, crossing his legs. “Of all the people. Till death do us part, I suppose.” He snorts. 

Something clicks.

Erwin leans forward, watching as Levi’s gaze cuts to his. “Say we…” He swallows. “Say we go through with it.” He takes a deep breath. “What happens when I die?” 

Levi sucks his teeth, crossing his arms and lowering his gaze. “I probably should have started with that, huh?” 

“What happens when I die, Levi?”

Levi chews on his words, avoiding Erwin’s eyes. “An Ackerman can’t go on without their mate.” 

Erwin forgets how to breathe. 

“But your uncle,” he tries. “Did he—”

“Yeah.”

“And his mate—?”

“Is well into his nineties, if I’ve guessed right.” Levi smiles without humor. “So I better start saying my goodbyes.” 

Erwin is stricken. “So if we—”

“I’ll die,” Levi says. Confidently, casually. 

As if the weight of his century of life and counting hasn’t been unceremoniously placed upon Erwin’s shoulders. 

“You’ll die,” Erwin repeats.

He watches Levi, surrounded by patrons laughing and spilling powdered sugar into their laps, waiters buzzing between tables. The saxophonist utters a mournful bray. For all the countless times he’s gone head to head with Levi in the past with the intent of killing—vampire hunter against vampire supreme, fire against ice—He tries to imagine Levi dead, and finds that he cannot. 

Levi’s quiet laugh shakes Erwin from his thoughts, and he returns to find Levi getting to his feet. 

“It’s funny, Smith.” Erwin blanches at the return of the old salutation. “Looks like you may have found the stake through my heart after all.” 

He’s gone before Erwin can respond, fleeing through the maze of tables, past the band, and around the corner into the rain. 

Erwin sits, among tourists and busy waiters and trumpets and forgotten beignets, the venom simmering in his gut, the Bond echoing in his ribcage, and thinks. 

☆

He thinks for a week. 

He thinks for a week, and then one week turns into two, and Erwin isn’t sure what’s more disquieting: that the venom withdrawal—historically fast-acting—is nowhere in sight, or that he can no longer attribute his longing to addiction. 

When he gets sick of staring at his phone after day ten, he deep-cleans his apartment from floor to ceiling. When he’s done scrubbing the shower for the fifth time, he opens his computer to deactivate the freelance website advertising his vampire hunting services. When he’s done deactivating the website he calls Mike to apologize, conjuring a lie about being out of the country. And when he’s done lying to Mike, he sits in the curdling humidity of his apartment, and stares out the window at the rain, and tries to count the number of vampires he’s killed. 

He loses track in the hundreds, and then goes back to staring at his phone.

He starts up his daily gym routine again. He runs on the treadmill, and he thinks. 

He thinks of Levi, a hundred years old and then some, on his knees at Erwin’s feet. He thinks of Levi, softness in his eyes, biting back words unsaid, fucking himself on Erwin’s fingers, “ Only you.”  

Powerless to decline when Erwin calls. 

On day thirteen, he dreams in black and white: a tableau of pinning his prize to the mattress, bringing his teeth to the long stretch of Levi’s neck, biting, marking, thrilling at Levi’s noises—pitchy, breathy things—until the skin under his fangs gives, tearing so sweetly and blossoming a bright, pulsing, poppy-petal red, returning to him what was stolen in an elixir of honeyed pomegranate. He drinks, and drinks, and Levi’s moans quiet, and he goes still—

Erwin wakes in a cold sweat and barely makes it to the bathroom in time to relieve his stomach of its contents, venom simmering vigorously in his veins, heart aching in its cage. 

The next day, he wakes up resolute. 

☆

It’s only fitting, Erwin thinks as he stands outside the aqua and white striped facade of Commander’s Palace, anachronistic in the heart of the twisting oak trees and stately mansions of the Garden District, that he’ll be breaking up with his vampire boyfriend on Halloween night. 

Everything in Erwin’s body, his spirit, his very being begs him not to go in. To turn right back around and drive home, to sleep on it for a fifteenth night, to call Levi tomorrow with a sorry excuse and an invitation to yet another twice-weekly booty call. 

Thunder rumbles in the distance and the air around him swells under the pressure of the impending storm, electricity implied in the way the hairs on the back of his neck stand straight up. 

Or maybe that’s just Lafayette Cemetery at his back, across the street. 

Before he can sweat through his beige linen suit, he grits his teeth against fate and walks inside the restaurant. 

He’s greeted by the hostess, donning a warm smile to match the interior—tan and ivory striped walls, white tablecloths, and windows with thick curtains drawn aside to reveal the trees swaying in the wind outside. The place might have felt stuffy, if not for the warm light from the crystal chandeliers and air conditioning shutting out the impending, oppressive heat of the storm—that, and the fact that Erwin’s been coming to this place since he was a kid. 

He’s informing the hostess that he has a reservation for two and that his date should be here soon when—speak of the devil—the door opens once more. 

Erwin turns, and fights the urge to take a knee. 

Levi is dressed in black from head to toe—Erwin’s eyes track a line down his sharp suit, collared shirt unbuttoned to reveal ivory collarbones, suede heeled boots—save for his lips, painted a rich bloodred. 

Erwin’s mouth waters.

“Hi,” he says. 

“Hi,” Levi returns. His smirk, a stunning stroke of red, doesn’t reach his eyes. 

Erwin opens his mouth, not knowing yet what will come out of it, but is interrupted by the hostess. 

“Mr. Ackerman,” she says brightly. “Good to see you, sir.” 

“You too, Sasha.” 

Levi chats idly with her about the unseasonable rain as she leads them to their table, and leaves them with their menus and a parting smile. 

“I didn’t realize you were a regular,” Erwin smiles, in direct opposition to the way his chest clenches. 

“It’s four blocks from my house, Erwin.” Levi raises an eyebrow. “I’ve been coming here since the 1920s.”

Erwin beats back the venom with a stick to say, “Not a bad place to wine and dine your prey.” 

“Mm.” 

He doesn’t even take the bait. Erwin’s stomach churns. 

Their waiter arrives to take their orders, and Erwin forces himself not to down his Pimm’s Cup in one upon delivery. Levi sips from his matching glass, and responds politely and precisely to Erwin’s foolhardy attempts at beating around the bush. When their food finally arrives, Erwin blesses an unnamed higher power for something—anything—to prolong the inevitable other than the sound of his own voice. 

He’s about halfway through his steak when Levi sets down his knife and fork. 

“This is the worst date I’ve ever been on.” 

Erwin swallows too early, and his bite catches painfully in his chest. “I know.” 

“Why don’t you just get on with whatever it is you have to say?” Levi glares. His tone is withering, to match his expression. His red lipstick appears miraculously untouched. 

Erwin sets down his own cutlery. 

“I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing here, Levi.” 

Levi inhales, just barely audible. The venom shrieks, ringing in Erwin’s ears. He ignores it. 

“I’m sitting here eating dinner with someone who’s four times my age. For the past two months I’ve been using addiction as a pathetic excuse to get your attention. Fuck—I’ve spent the last decade killing monsters, only to find that they aren’t. Maybe a decade is nothing to you but it’s an entire third of my life.” 

He takes a deep breath. “I’m a murderer, Levi. I’m the monster.” 

Levi raises that eyebrow, and this time the condescension is infuriating. “Maybe if you’d actually—”

“Don’t,” Erwin says. “I’m owning up to it now—you don’t get to hold centuries of of genocide against me.”

Levi glares. “But you get to hold it against yourself?” 

“Yes,” Erwin says. “No—I don’t know!” He moves his hand in an aborted gesture, and then starts over. 

“I want you, Levi.” 

He meets Levi’s eyes, helplessly. There is steel there, and he presents his neck for the killing blow. 

“God, I want you, that much is clearly obvious by now. But I don’t—I don’t get to. Okay? You deserve...”

He halts, blinking down at his unfinished meal, before forcing himself to continue. “You deserve better.” 

The silence is deafening. Cutlery clinks and patrons laugh, and jazz piano trills softly in the space between. 

“Erwin.” 

He looks up to meet Levi’s gaze, and finds a devastating openness, a fathomless depth pulling him forward. 

He fears the fall—then wonders if he’s already on his way down. 

“It isn’t up to you what I do or don’t deserve.” 

“But it—” 

“It isn’t,” Levi says firmly. “It’s—I’ve never—”

He breaks eye contact, folding his hands on the table. “I’ve lived a hundred years, Erwin. And I’d heard old wive’s tales about it, and—a hundred years is a long time. I dismissed them all. I’ve met—” He breathes a laugh— “I’ve Fed on hundreds, thousands. God, literally countless people. I’ve met even more than that. But you—”

He finds Erwin’s eyes once more, and Erwin can’t bring himself to look away. 

Something in Levi’s gaze solidifies, hardens. He takes a breath, and exhales determinedly. 

“I only Bond once, Erwin.” Erwin sees his hand clench on the table in his periphery. “Whether or not you decide to go through with this, whether or not you think you deserve it—this is it, for me.”

Erwin looks at him, heart swelling five times its size, aching, threatening to break his ribs. 

“I’ve been having fun with you,” Levi says. “A lot of fun. Arguably the most fun and—I wish we could continue on, like this. But this—this—” He gestures vaguely to his chest. “This thing has been brewing now. It’s been a long time coming and I...” 

He shuts his eyes, and Erwin watches him take the jump. 

“I want more.” Levi looks at Erwin, and his devastation is painful to witness. “I want more. Biologically, atomically, Erwin.” He places a hand on his chest, a mirror to the ache Erwin feels in his own. “Do you?”

This is it, for me.

Erwin watches Levi watching him, and the enormity of it settles within his chest. It tastes like powdered sugar, sweet and indulgent, collected behind his front teeth. It buzzes in his blood. It stutters in his heart, beating for something indescribably big, something that’s been a century in the making. 

God, it sings, louder and brighter than the horns on Decatur Street.

He watches Levi, still as a deer, a predator humbled in the face of his downfall, waiting for an answer. He is a portrait worthy of the NOMA, the Met, The Louvre—anachronistic in the crude architecture of modernity. 

This creature—exacting, effortless, ephemeral Levi—has chosen him, of all people. Erwin nearly breaks beneath the softness of it. He is speechless with it. 

When it is clear that he doesn’t have an answer, the steel in Levi’s eyes returns, slowly, then all at once. Erwin would like to be slain with it.

“Alright.” Levi says, tone maddeningly even. 

He gets to his feet, and Erwin stands automatically. “Wait—”

“It’s been a pleasure,” Levi says, nodding as he takes his leave. 

Erwin’s body catches up before his brain does—his hand shoots out of its own accord. 

“Levi.” 

His fingers are ice in Erwin’s, and his eyes are cold enough to match. 

“It’s—” Erwin wets his lips, and looks at their joined hands. He so, so desperately wants to get this right. He lifts his gaze to meet Levi’s. 

It’s been an honor, he thinks.

“It’s not you,” is what comes out instead.

Levi wrenches his hand from Erwin’s as if it’s been burned. 

“Fuck you,” he spits, before turning on his heel to leave. 

“No—fuck, shit—” 

Erwin digs a few bills out of his wallet and flings them on the table before taking off after Levi. 

Thunder peals outside, and the pressure makes Erwin’s ears pop. He scans the street and catches Levi stalking through the gates of the cemetery, black in the storm-violet twilight. Erwin dashes across the street, holding up a hand to a disgruntled driver and slipping through the gate. He follows glimpses of Levi’s pale neck, weaving through a maze of above-ground family tombs to catch up with his shadow. The pre-storm air presses in on all sides, making his head ache and his fingers twitch. Several times he rubbernecks to catch a glimpse of a shade that was never there. He wonders about the implications of chasing an immortal predator through a graveyard on Halloween night, and pulls his suit jacket tighter despite the warmth.

Finally, he spies his quarry through an open, empty plot. 

“Levi!” He calls. “Wait, please.” 

Levi halts. He turns, and there is murder in his eyes. 

“Ludicrous,” he hisses, head held high. “Fucking ludicrous—you can’t just leave well enough alone, can you?” 

“Levi—”

“Come to gloat, then?” Levi’s hands clench into fists at his sides. “Don’t bother. I know when I’m beaten, Smith.” Levi’s voice breaks, and Erwin’s heart goes along with it. 

“What about that conversation makes you think I came here to gloat?” Erwin feels his eyebrows knit together. 

“Because I know you, Erwin.”

“You don’t know—”

“But I do,” Levi says. He takes a step forward, and Erwin fights the urge to take a step back. Levi approaches him, feet placed with deadly precision. “All you humans are exactly the fucking same. Self-important, unreliable, arrogant—”

“You’re only proving—”

“Arrogant,” Levi cuts over him, and he’s only five feet away, now, “to assume that your morality lends any weight whatsoever to an argument built on a foundation of naïve righteousness.” 

“I’ve killed—”

“You’ve killed.” Levi silences him. “You’re a terrible person, you don’t think you deserve leniency. Let me ask you this: how many friends do you think I’ve seen die, Erwin?” 

He pauses, as if to let Erwin answer. “I don’t—”

“More than you could ever know,” Levi answers for him. “And yet you have the audacity to assume that whatever measly sum of vampires you’ve staked could possibly prove that the Bond in my blood chose wrong?” 

Levi draws up to his full height, and despite their difference in height Erwin feels distinctly small. 

“I know you feel it too,” Levi says. “Why are you so desperate to fight it? Am I that repulsive?”

And this—this is just too much for Erwin to take.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” he relents. “What do you want me to say, Levi? I’m fucking obsessed with you! I know it, you know it, so fine.” 

He cuts over whatever Levi’s response would have been, gesturing wildly. “Let’s do it! Let’s Bond! Let’s do the fucking mating ritual, for Christ’s sake—what then, huh? I wear your pin? We go steady?”

Levi scoffs. “Don’t be impudent.” 

“I move in?” Erwin continues. “We get married?” 

“It’s more than that and you know it—” 

“Exactly!” Erwin emphasizes with a hand. “You have your entire life ahead of you, and I am a human.” 

“Erwin.”

“You’ve said it before, I am a blip in your otherwise unending life.” 

“And still,” Levi insists, “I want you, and you want me.”

“So I’ll just grow old,” Erwin says, voice low, “and you’ll remain as you are? Immortal and pristine until I’m a shriveled up shell of a man?” 

“I didn’t take you to be so vain, Erwin.” Levi’s words are laced with arsenic. 

“I’m not being vain, Levi,” Erwin grinds his teeth. “It matters.”

“It doesn’t—”

“It does—” 

“I’ve lived more than a hundred years, Erwin,” Levi says, and the condescension sets Erwin’s teeth on edge. “If this is the way I go, I want to—”

“No.” 

Thunder peals above their heads. Animosity glints in Levi’s eyes. “No?”

“I will not be responsible for your death,” Erwin says, before the thought is even fully formed in his mind. 

“Don’t be juvenile.” Levi spits, sharp as a drawn knife. 

“If it means you die at my hand,” Erwin says, “I won’t do it.” 

“My, what a far cry this Erwin is to the one who wanted me dead mere months ago.” Levi’s brows fold down low over his eyes. Erwin feels the knife at his throat. The first fat drops of rain stain the dirt path under their feet.

“That’s my final answer.” Erwin lifts his chin against the way the Bond protests, against the way the look on Levi’s face could kill, the way it presses against his jugular. 

“It is relentless,” Levi growls, “Your presumptuousness , donning the holier-than-thou helm in the presence of someone with nearly quadruple the life experience that you do.” 

“You wanted my answer.” Erwin stands firm. He feels a drop of rain on his head, on his nose. 

“You didn’t answer,” Levi fumes. “I asked if you wanted more.” 

“And I decided that I can’t,” Erwin says. “Just because you don’t like the answer—” 

“I don’t like that your answer takes away my agency,” Levi thunders, “to have the privilege of deciding how and when I meet my end.” 

“Agency?” Erwin roars. “What agency, when the Bond is deciding for you?”

Levi’s eyes go dark, and for the first time in a very long while, Erwin finds himself terrified for his life. His voice drips with malice. “I’d be very, very careful with what you say next.”

Erwin takes a deep breath, and lets it out through his nose, shutting his eyes tight, feeling the knife press against the knot in his throat. 

“You will not be another vampire felled by my hand,” he says quietly, barely audible under the sound of the rain picking up. He opens his eyes to meet Levi’s, dark and violent. “Not you, Levi. Not like this.”

Levi’s mouth twists, red and so, so lovely it hurts. 

“You’re a fucking coward,” he hisses. 

And then he’s gone. 

The knife slices Erwin’s throat in his wake, and he is powerless to call out. 

The fight drains from him in one fell swoop. He sits on the edge of the empty plot, and puts his head in his hands. 

He thinks vaguely, as the deluge begins, that he will have to get his suit dry-cleaned. 

He searches for the heat of the venom in his bloodstream, desperate for the way its anger flashes red hot—better to burn than to slowly, painstakingly, glacially descend into the hole that’s opened up in his chest—but it’s gone. Banished, retreated, sulking, back to its master. 

Erwin is startled to find that freedom feels abruptly hollow. 

He presses a hand to his chest, and thinks of crushing it through skin and muscle and the bone of his ribcage to clutch at his heart—stubbornly beating despite everything. He thinks he’d like to be rid of it—to throw it to the ground and crush it. Might as well do the thing right—swifter than the way the guilt digests him from the inside out, more merciful than the fate he’s doomed himself to, more honorable than watching a man risk everything to present something delicate and fluttering, and disparaging it to assuage his own conscience. 

The rain has soaked him through in a matter of seconds. When he twists his lips to rid them of water, they come away salty. 

Erwin sits in the rain, trying and failing to convince himself that if he cannot be better off without Levi, then at least Levi can be better off without him—radiant, sharp and breathtaking as Erwin begins to count wrinkles around his eyes. He thinks about speeding the process along, thinks about the earth swallowing him feet-first into the ground, to decompose among the other sunken residents of the cemetery, to find his place among the damned and the dead, to spare Levi the shame of having Bonded to an unworthy vessel. 

He loses track of time, sitting and feeling wretched, but eventually his ass starts to ache. He heaves in a shaky lungful of air and releases it, getting to his feet. His socks squelch in his shoes. Might as well continue the pity party in the comfort of his own home. 

He turns to leave the cemetery, and pauses. 

There, sprouting from a crack in a tomb—perfectly ordinary, indistinguishable from its long line of neighbors—is a sprig of jimsonweed, one single white flower bobbing amongst deep green leaves under the rainfall. 

Erwin stares at it, and feels its twin twine around his sternum, clutching, crying. 

He takes a step back, and then another. 

And then, he turns, and walks—then jogs, stumbles—then runs, sprints, shoes spattering in the mud and concrete. The graveyard’s occupants rise up to greet him, culminating in the tailwind at his ankles, hastening his flight. 

He exits through the tall gates of the cemetery, and runs away from the direction of his car.

His heels begin to blister, and his knees ache from sitting so long, and his clothes cling to his skin and his hair sticks to his forehead and his heart beats, strong and steady—with purpose. It is euphoria, to live. To feel. 

To be chosen. 

The mansion looms ahead, two tall stories of palest pink and filigreed balconies, wrapped in a forest of magnolia trees and ferns, jessamine twined ‘round the wrought-iron gate bordering the lot. It calls to him, and Erwin answers. 

He charges through the gates and down the damp dirt pathway to the front door. The devil’s trumpet heralds his arrival, and Erwin hears the horns from Decatur Street echoing in the cavern of his chest, punctuated by the percussion of his heart against his ribs. 

He makes impact with the front door, and his momentum carries his fist to the wood. He bangs twice before peeling himself away, clutching his hand to his chest, breaths heaving. 

Ten seconds stretch impossibly. Erwin’s socks squelch in his shoes. 

And then finally, finally, the door unlatches, and creaks open. 

Levi, dry as ever, not a hair out of place, lips still stained red, gives him the once over with a sneer. 

“You’re a sorry sight.” 

The sound of his voice is enough to leave Erwin breathless. But he swallows, pressing the hand at his chest closer to his collarbone, willing his breath to return. 

“Levi,” he whispers. 

“Haven’t you done quite enough?” Levi says, glaring darkly from under his brow, barely audible over the chaos of the storm. 

“Never enough,” Erwin breathes, nonsensically. 

“Alright.” Levi moves to shut the door. “Go take your pity party and shove it up your—”

“I’m in love with you.”

Levi freezes. 

“Oh.” 

“I—” Erwin gulps. “I don’t know what it means. The books didn’t cover this—don’t—”  

Levi, who’d opened his mouth to interject, closes it promptly.

“I don’t know what the future looks like, but I—I want you to be in it, Levi. I want to figure it out together. I don’t want to—I want—” 

He tries and fails to stifle the panic rising in his throat at Levi’s stillness. 

“I need you, Levi. And not in that way, not because of—” 

His hand creeps up to the base of his throat.

“It’s you, Levi. Vampire or no, it’s—” 

He swallows again, and breathes out shakily. “It’s you.”

Levi watches him inscrutably for a moment. Two. Erwin feels his heart, delicate, fluttering, up in his throat. 

And then, he finds himself hauled through the doorway by his collar, and the door slams just before he’s thrown up against it. 

Levi’s fist is cool against his damp neck, and his eyes are sterling silver. Erwin watches them sparkle, mere inches from his own, and feels starstruck. 

Levi’s breath fans against his lips, and his gaze lowers in kind. “Insufferable,” he whispers. 

And then Levi melts into him.

Erwin’s mouth falls upon Levi’s as a moth to a flame, one hand sliding up under his suit jacket, the other up his back to his neck, threading into his hair as Levi tilts his head to angle even closer, hands pressing bruises into Erwin’s chest. Their momentum arches Levi backwards and Erwin curves over him, clutching Levi for dear life. 

Levi slams him back to the door, and slides his tongue into Erwin’s mouth. 

Erwin keens, stomach flipping in summersaults. Something intoxicating floods his veins, reminiscent of the sticky-sweet pull of the venom, but less cloying—something deeper, steadier, addicting in the way that one may be addicted to breathing or sleeping. 

Something easy to fall into, and never return. 

Levi fists a hand in his collar once more, breaking away to speak against his lips. 

“All this time I’ve been wanting to bring you home,” he says, “And you brought your damn self.”

Erwin huffs out a laugh as Levi pulls at his collar, leading him down the hall to the staircase, littering the floor with pieces of wet clothing like a trail of breadcrumbs. 

The first floor of Levi’s house is familiar to Erwin—the way the creamy walls lined with kintsugi planters and green velvet furniture of the halls wrap around the open courtyard centered around a gargantuan live oak—but he has never been to the second floor. 

He makes a mental note to catalog it later, when he’s not being dragged to the bedroom by a vampire on a mission. 

Levi thrusts him in all his underwear-clad glory through the threshold of one of the doors that line the balcony overlooking the courtyard, and flips the lightswitch behind him. Erwin catches a fleeting glimpse of white herons on black wallpaper, burgundy velvet, and glimpses of gold awash in warm light before he returns to the task at hand. 

He hauls Levi to the bed and throws him down, taking in the dark inkspot of his suit and hair against the raw silk cream of the duvet, the quirk of his eyebrow, the upward tick at the corner of his red mouth. 

Something dark and heady surges in Erwin’s gut, and he kneels before his master. 

Levi rises up to his elbows as Erwin works shaky fingers into the front of his trousers. 

“You look good on your knees,” Levi breathes, as Erwin tugs his pants down to reveal black stockings, held up tenuously by black ribbons of a garter.

“Fuck,” Erwin whines, pushing up Levi’s shirt to reveal the black band of it at his waist, the downward arrows of lace at the crease of his hips, framing his—

Erwin’s mouth waters. 

He isn’t wearing any underwear. 

He glances up, and finds Levi sporting a shit-eating grin. 

“You fucking—” Erwin’s half-formed thought abandons him as he rises on his knees and hooks his hands around Levi’s thighs, pulling his ass to the edge of the bed. Levi lets out a surprised chuckle that breaks on a moan as Erwin licks up into his cunt. 

Sweet-savory-electric melts on Erwin’s tongue and shoots directly down to his navel, ripping a groan from his gut. He buries his nose between Levi’s thighs and sweeps his tongue up and in, collecting honey and forgetting himself in the taste, the feel of silk on his lips. Levi’s noises are soft, breathy things, echoing between Erwin’s ears and making him lightheaded. Cool fingers grip his damp hair to tug, and he ascends. He licks and sucks and Levi squirms underneath him—he delves deeper, and deeper, until Levi is fucking himself on Erwin’s tongue till he’s dripping. Honey and spit slide down Erwin’s chin, glistening and sweet, and Erwin loses himself entirely in the taste and in the way Levi flutters around his tongue. His hips move of their own volition in time to Levi’s, cock painfully hard within the confines of his underwear and desperate for friction, but unwilling to part from the sweetness of Levi blossoming under his mouth. 

Levi’s cries evolve into short gasps, and his fingers clench in Erwin’s hair as his hips begin to stutter out of rhythm. He tightens around Erwin’s tongue, drawing him closer still and Erwin opens wider, thrusting his tongue in time to his hips, fucking up into nothing, heat rising, head buzzing. 

“Win, you—it—fuck, ah, ah, mm…”

Levi’s voice breaks when he comes, and the ecstasy reaches a fever pitch—Erwin’s eyes roll back as he comes too, untouched, cock pulsing and staining the front of his underwear. 

He floats down slowly, and tastes the aftershocks on his tongue before lapping up one last swipe of Levi’s slick. 

He looks up, dazed, honey glistening on his chin, to find Levi with fire in his eyes. 

Before he can tell up from down, he finds himself being hauled up onto the bed. The ceiling spins around Levi’s face—savage and beautiful in his hunger—before he leans down without ceremony and bites into Erwin’s neck. 

Erwin’s lungs empty of air all at once on a sharp groan, and he leans his neck into Levi’s bite, feeling the venom re-ignite in a chain reaction from his neck down to his chest as it arches off the bed, down to his fingers as they clench in the duvet, down to his cock as it fills once more, all the way down to his toes as they curl at the searing-sweet-savory heat. 

The room tilts severely, and Erwin thinks with a thrill that Levi is drinking carelessly, thoughtlessly, messily—his own blood warms under his neck on the duvet and his own desire skyrockets, resonating with Levi’s. He’s painfully hard—desperate for release as if he hadn’t just had his first serving mere minutes ago, venom fizzing in his bloodstream. 

The moment that Levi releases his neck, sealing it with a sloppy kiss, he grips Levi’s waist, hooking their legs to flip him, pinning him to the bloodstained duvet despite the way his arms shake, the way his head bobs up several feet above his body. Levi’s mouth—stained red with blood and lipstick—falls open, eyes unfocused. 

Something hooks behind Erwin’s navel, something impossibly more addictive than the receding venom. His cock twitches and he climbs up Levi’s body, settling with Levi’s chin in between his thighs. Levi lets out a reverent sigh, hooking his hands up under Erwin’s thighs to grip at his ass as Erwin guides his cock into Levi’s open, waiting mouth. 

“Fuck,” Erwin growls, hands falling to thread into Levi’s hair as he draws his hips back and fucks into Levi’s mouth. 

He has half a thought that he should be going slower, gentler, and it’s gone as soon as it comes. Levi’s hands dig into the meat of his ass as he fucks Levi’s throat at a punishing pace, using his grip in his hair as leverage. He watches spit leak out of the corners of Levi’s mouth until his eyes go crossed. 

“So fucking good,” he murmurs. “You take it so fucking good, honey, so desperate for my cock, hm?” Levi’s assenting moan shoots pleasure up into his gut. “Slutty mouth,” he babbles, head falling back as Levi makes a filthy, wet noise around his cock. “Slutty mouth, god you—” He picks up the pace of his hips, helplessly. “You ruin me, honey, you—I’ve never—only you—”

His orgasm hits him and sends him reeling. Levi clutches his ass to draw him impossibly closer as he spills come down Levi’s throat, and Levi groans, swallowing greedily, wetly, eyes unfocused. 

The aftershocks pound in Erwin’s head, and he shakes as he pulls out, exhaling a breathy noise. 

Levi, paying no mind to the violent shake in his limbs, turns his head to sink his teeth into the meat of his inner thigh. 

“Oh—” Erwin’s eyes slam shut as he falls forward to brace himself on the bed with a shaky arm, back arching as the venom sings sweetly, a tripping down the piano of his ribs, sugary-sweet behind his teeth. His open mouth fills with saliva, dripping onto the bed. 

His cock fills and he watches it brush Levi’s tear-stained cheek, watches him drink gluttonously, watches his blood stain the duvet, feels the venom make up for the lack of it coursing through his pounding heart and then some. 

He doesn’t wait for Levi to be finished this time, tearing himself from Levi’s grip and sliding down his body, slotting in to his side and plunging his fingers into his soaking cunt. 

“Fuck,” Levi cries, head falling back onto the bed. “Fuck, fuck, fuck—”

Erwin takes him in, splayed on the bloodstained bed, mouth wet and messy, hair spilling into his eyes, chest heaving, nipples peaked beneath his black shirt, dripping and clenching on his fingers, and feels the desire to latch onto his exposed neck come surging forward. 

Why shouldn’t I, he thinks feverishly, pressing his fingers in, and in and in, here he is for the taking, at my mercy. He wants me.

Only me.

His exhale leaves him in a whine. Not yet. 

Not yet, he thinks, as he dips his head to pull aside Levi’s open shirt with his teeth and lick at a peaked nipple. 

Levi’s voice breaks, and he arches his back into the touch. 

Erwin licks and sucks at one nipple, and then the other, as he presses his fingers up and in—the way he knows Levi likes when he Feeds. Levi’s shallow breaths turn into moans as his hips stutter, circling down on Erwin’s fingers, again, and again, and again—until he comes. 

Erwin doesn’t wait for him to come down. He removes his fingers—dripping with honey—and grips at Levi’s waist to flip him onto his hands and knees, fucking into him easily. 

“Fuck!” Levi screams, collapsing with his cheek to the bed, arms stretched before him, ass in the air and fucking back onto Erwin’s cock, making a filthy noise with every thrust. His black shirt falls askew off one shoulder, nipples chafing against the duvet as the black garters dig into the meat of his ass and the stockings up his thighs pull under the pressure, and Erwin watches him drip down his thighs, watches his hole cling desperately to his cock.

He realizes Levi is talking beneath him. 

“Love you,” he slurs, drooling on the bed beneath him. “Love you, love you, love you—”

He breaks off in a broken moan, and Erwin closes his eyes, head tilting back, his orgasm rushing up to meet him for a third time. 

Before it peaks, the world spins again. 

He barely registers that Levi’s flipped them again before he’s sliding Erwin up the bed, against the pillows at the head of it. He climbs into Erwin’s lap, sits on his cock effortlessly, and takes Erwin’s head in his hands to kiss him. 

Erwin greets him with an open mouth as Levi licks into it, drawing his hips up and sinking back down once before setting a pace with perfect rhythm. Their breath mingles, sweet and hot, and strands of saliva stretch between kisses. 

Levi parts to draw closer, to breathe into Erwin’s neck, making soft, desperate noises into his ear and something fissures within him, molten electricity pouring forth and filling him to the brim. His hand slides up from Levi’s ass and his other hand rises to meet it, fingers nearly meeting as he digs into his waist and uses a bruising grip to set the pace, fucking Levi down onto his cock. 

Erwin’s thoughts jumble, then stutter, then flee entirely, leaving only Levi’s wet cunt on his cock and his breathy noises in his ear—the way his blood boils, and surges, magnetized to its match beating in Levi’s heart. 

He releases the last vestiges of his grip on control, and falls. 

He shoves Levi forward and onto his back, never leaving more than a hairsbreadth of space between them, and uses his grip on Levi’s waist to pull him onto his cock at a savage pace, taking what’s his. 

He fucks the breath out of Levi, leaving him gasping in lungfuls of air, eyes crossed and drool leaking from his mouth, mixing indiscriminately with lipstick and blood and come, legs bouncing in the air with every thrust. 

Erwin’s words slam back into him all at once, throwing him forward to bury his nose in his hair, braced on an elbow. 

“Look at you,” he growls, words slipping from his lips unchecked. “There’s not a thought in that pretty head of yours, hm?” 

“Nuh-uh,” Levi says thickly, amidst staccato grunts. 

“Need my cock like you need fucking air,” Erwin continues, low in Levi’s ear. “Bet you think about it all the time.” 

“Yeah,” Levi keens, mindlessly. “Yeah, yeah—”

“Wet all the time, thinking of me,” Erwin breathes. “Hidden away in this pretty house, waiting for me to call, fucking yourself on your fingers—”

“All the time,” Levi mewls. “Can’t—can’t stop—”

The column of Levi’s throat gleams white against the blood on the bed beneath him, and hunger surges violently in Erwin’s gut. 

“You want me to take you, honey?” Erwin asks, mindlessly, desperately. “You want it? Y-you—”

His hips stutter out of their pace, lost in warm-wet Levi. Levi, Levi, Levi—

“Please,” Levi whispers. He is gone. “Please, please, please—”

“You’re mine to take,” Erwin growls. His hand snakes up from Levi’s waist to latch into his hair, tugging to expose Levi’s neck. 

Levi gasps, legs spreading wider, craning his neck into the touch. “Yours, Win, please—”

“You’re mine, honey,” Erwin breathes, teeth against skin, feeling the pulse against his tongue. “All mine, all mine, mine—”

He bites, and lightning strikes. 

His consciousness zooms into the taste of Levi’s skin on his tongue as he bites, sucks, the smell of him in his nose—tonka, magnolia, sex, mine—the way Erwin’s own blood in Levi’s veins surges up to meet his teeth under the skin. The Bond makes itself known, surging in the points of contact between him and Levi, swelling in his chest and popping in sparks behind his closed eyelids, an irresistible invitation—and Erwin is helpless to decline. 

His orgasm multiplies on itself, kaleidoscopic and technicolor, exponentially building under the influence of the Bond as he empties himself into Levi. As he feels Levi’s own orgasm tighten around his cock he sinks his teeth deeper, and Levi keens as Erwin draws blood, tasting the coppery tang of it, taking back what is his. 

He swallows wetly, lips bloodstained. 

“Mine,” he says, against Levi’s skin. 

“Yours.” Levi sighs his assent. 

Erwin rolls off of him and onto his back, staring as the ceiling revolves in slow circles. 

“Fuck me,” he says. He thinks his ass has landed in a wet spot. 

He hears Levi snort beside him. He turns his head as it breaks into a giggle. 

Bubbles fizz in his stomach, and he smiles. “What?” 

“Already did,” Levi says in a small voice, placing the back of his hand over his eyes and snickering. 

Erwin breathes out once, watching him, and then he can’t help it—he’s laughing, too. 

“Are you gonna tell your uncle about this?” Erwin says in between chuckles. 

“God.” Levi sobers, but remains smiling. “Don’t taint this moment with talk of Kenny, I beg you.” 

“I think it’s plenty tainted already,” Erwin agrees dryly, scooching over to confirm not without some alarm that yes, he is indeed seated in a wet spot of his own blood. 

“Fucking filthy,” Levi says disdainfully, wiping his mouth. It does very little else but smudge it further. He turns his head to Erwin. “Shower?” 

Erwin grins. “Yeah.” 

He rolls off the soiled bed gingerly—“Don’t worry, I know a guy,” Levi reassures him as Erwin glances at it warily—and follows Levi into the en suite bathroom. It’s the rose pink foil to his black and cream bedroom, fishscale tiles lining walls that contain sinks and cabinetry with gold hardware. The open window in the room reveals a quiet, post-storm night—the heat has broken and a fresh, cool breeze filters through the window. Erwin shivers. 

Levi bypasses the black clawfoot tub for the rain shower in the back corner of the room, turning on the water and adjusting the temperature. He steps in as steam begins to rise, and leaves the door open behind him. Erwin watches him for a moment—wetting his hair, rubbing oil on his face to remove the lipstick, melting it off his face and down the drain—before stepping in after him into the warmth.

Levi turns, and the way he looks up at Erwin, hair plastered to his head, grey eyes open and honest, barefoot and naked on the black tile, leaves Erwin helpless to ignore the pull in the center of his chest. He steps forward, pulling at Levi’s waist to draw him closer. 

Levi places his arms carefully over Erwin’s shoulders. 

“Hi,” Erwin says. 

“Hi,” Levi says. 

Erwin sighs into the steam, and grins. “So. When do I get my pin?”

“Tch.” Levi rolls his eyes and pushes Erwin away in favor of the shelf of bottles behind them. “Don’t push your luck”

“So now that we’re boyfriends—”

“Jesus Christ, Erwin—”

“—I have some questions.” 

Levi sighs, working in the shampoo slowly. “Fine. Let’s get this over with.” 

“First,” Erwin closes his eyes as shampoo drips onto his forehead. “When’s your real birthday?”

“Of all the questions you could ask a hundred and twenty-eight year-old vampire,” Levi says dryly, “that’s your first?”

“Answer the damn question, Ackerman.” 

Erwin can practically hear the eyeroll, and can’t help but grin. “Christmas.” 

“Why do you lie about it?” 

“I don’t get as many presents, otherwise,” Levi deadpans, and Erwin chuckles. He rinses out the shampoo, and his fingers slow in Erwin’s hair. “And…I like summer better.” 

“Huh.” Erwin glances over his shoulder to find the tip of Levi’s nose red. 

“Next question,” Levi grumbles, pressing his hand to Erwin’s cheek to turn it forward again. 

“Okay,” Erwin smiles. “What do I taste like?” 

“Blood,” Levi answers instantly, uncapping the conditioner. 

“Smartass,” Erwin shoots back as Levi digs his fingers in. 

Levi sucks his teeth. “It’s more like a feeling, than a taste. Impressions.” 

“I’m listening.” 

Levi works the conditioner into his hair as he talks. “It’s…warm. Like sunbathing in the grass. Or the beach—kind of hypnotic, like the waves. But it’s got this undercurrent to it, like a big band beat, a fullness—”

“A full-bodied red,” Erwin interjects wistfully. 

“Do you want an answer or not?” Levi tugs on his hair, but there isn’t much force behind it. 

Erwin smiles, and Levi continues in his silence, rinsing his hair clean. “It’s gentle, like jessamine crawling up a trellis. And…” His voice goes quiet, so that Erwin has to strain over the sound of the shower to hear. “It’s sweet. Like powdered sugar in your teeth.” 

Erwin’s heart takes flight. 

He turns and takes Levi’s face in his hands, and kisses him tenderly on the mouth. 

“I love you,” he says against his lips. 

“Yeah,” Levi breathes, eyelashes fluttering. “You too, Win.” 

Erwin smiles, and feels as if he could achieve liftoff here in this shower. 

He leans back, and turns Levi in his arms. “Your turn.”

“I can do it myself,” Levi grumbles, nose pink, reaching for the shampoo again. 

“Let me have this.” Erwin snatches it from his hand, and holds it above his head when Levi reaches up to retrieve it. Levi jumps and they go stumbling into the wall, and after some amount of wrestling, and slipping, and kissing, Erwin emerges victorious. 

“Ha,” he grins, crowding behind Levi to press him into the tiled wall, “I win.”

Levi shoves him backward, but not before Erwin catches his breath hitching. “Fucking insufferable.” 

Erwin pours shampoo into his palm, and begins to work his fingers through Levi’s hair, thrilling at the softness, at the intimacy, at the bruise he bit into Levi’s neck, at the way his pale shoulders loosen just a fraction of an inch under his ministrations. 

“Last question,” Erwin says, as he rinses Levi’s hair. 

“Shoot,” Levi sighs, closing his eyes. 

Erwin grins. “What were the middle ages like?” 

Levi’s eyes fly open and he elbows Erwin sharply in the ribs. Erwin laughs and wraps his arms around Levi from behind as he struggles. 

“Arrogant fucking ass shitting—lesser vampires would have you dead in an instant for such impunity—”

But his shaking and squirming has displaced his hair, parting it at a cattywampus angle. 

“Levi.” He frees up an arm to lift to Levi’s head.

“—I’ll teach you to respect your fucking elders, before you—”

“Levi—”

“—make me regret fucking Bonding with such an—”

“Stop moving, asshole,” Erwin says, and Levi pauses just long enough for Erwin to pluck the grey hair from his head. 

Levi rounds on him and freezes when Erwin holds it between them. 

The shower steam rises around them as they stare at it—this innocuous, enormous something. 

Erwin lifts his eyes at the same time as Levi, and they watch each other, realization dawning slowly. 

Levi lets out a huff, shaking his head, a smirk quirking the corner of his lips. A grin spreads across Erwin’s face. 

“I had a lot of age difference jokes lined up,” he says, placing the grey hair reverently on the soap shelf. “Back to the drawing board, I guess.” 

Levi pins him to the wall and grins against his lips. “Shut up.” 

“Make me,” Erwin smiles, reaching his fingers up to catch at Levi’s lips.

Levi kisses the pads of his fingers gently, one by one, lingering on his thumb before sucking it slowly into his mouth, lifting his eyes to gaze at Erwin from under his eyelashes. Erwin’s breath catches as Levi’s teeth scrape against the tender skin of his cuticle. 

He bites down—tenderly, reverently—and Erwin’s head thunks back against the wall, blinking away the condensation on his eyelashes, feeling the venom snap-crackle-pop gently as his cock fills. 

Levi releases Erwin’s thumb and Erwin watches as he holds eye contact, and licks a stripe up it to seal the tiny wound.

Erwin gapes, and jimsonweed blooms ‘round his heart, laying down its roots in his bones, in the space between them, in the tilt of Levi’s lips. 

Levi smirks, leaning up to whisper in Erwin’s ear.

“I win.”