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One day, the radio makes a sound of its own accord.
Levi almost drops the wooden spoon, grip faltering mid-stir. Fingers twitch for a weapon before his mind catches up with the instinct, head snapping toward the source of the noise.
He knows immediately. The way you know a storm is coming before the first raindrop falls. The way fog lifts to reveal a mountain that had been there all along.
His feet move before he decides to move, rushing to the ledge of his platform. He peers through the fixed binoculars, hands steady on the cold metal.
The man on the other side is tinkering. Hunched over a table strewn with bits of machinery, mess of a restless mind at work. Levi can’t make out the details, only the shape of movement, the focus in the posture. He leans forward, arm outstretched-
A sharp burst of static rips through the silence of Levi’s tower, an intrusion where there should be nothing.
He turns, stares at the radio like it’s grown a mouth and started whispering sweet nothings. It wasn’t supposed to receive anything beyond that one scheduled transmission—once a month, two sentences, exchanged like contraband. Just enough to confirm he still exists, just long enough to remind him another lonely thirty days have passed.
The evening air creeps in through the open door, but Levi doesn’t notice. He steps closer, careful, almost reverent.
His fingers twitch, but he doesn’t move to adjust the dial immediately. The voice is low, so much so that it doesn’t quite seem to belong to the airwaves at first. It slides through the static, smooth and almost careless, like it’s familiar with the broken sound of this place.
“Is it a waste of time to ask how you’re holding up?"
Levi freezes. His heartbeat drumming louder than the faint crackle. No call sign, no protocol, no rank. But meant for him. Words left hanging in the air, as if shared over a cup of coffee.
He doesn’t answer. He can’t. His hand hovers, just above the receiver, an involuntary barrier against what feels like a breach- like he’s stepped into something he’s not meant to be a part of. His training screams at him to cut the transmission, to report it. To shut it down, because this? This is dangerous. This is wrong.
But he doesn’t. Not yet.
The voice, steady and measured, continues.
"Well, well. Looks like you’re still there. I wondered if anyone was left."
Levi hesitates. It's not the words themselves—it’s the tone. Not disbelief. Not fear. Amusement. Like whoever this is has been watching him all along. Like they knew he was there before he even knew existed himself.
His throat works around a dry swallow, an uncomfortable feeling settling in his chest. The gravity of hearing another voice after all this time pulls at him.
It’s been so long. Too long. The only voices Levi’s heard are his own, and the mechanical hum of the tower’s systems. The days bleed into one another. The lack of noise stretching until it becomes gaping enough for his night terrors to catch up to him. A presence of it’s own coming to haunt him. He’d almost forgotten what it was like to hear someone speak. To hear a tone, a shift in pitch, a hint of emotion outside of himself.
But the voice? It doesn’t feel comforting. It doesn’t feel like a lifeline. It feels like something else entirely—something unsettling, uninvited.
Still, it’s human.
And for the first time in a long time, Levi is excruciatingly aware of the weight of that.
"What’s it like over there?" the voice continues prodding, almost gently.
Levi's breath catches in his throat. The question hangs in the air, unexpectedly vulnerable. Levi can hear the fatigue in the man’s voice, feel the weight of it even through the static. He knows that exhaustion all too well—the kind that settles deep in your bones, in the spaces where you can't reach, where the silence makes the distance feel like it’s suffocating you.
It's too familiar, almost like it’s been spoken to him before. Maybe in another life. Maybe in the days before the gorge swallowed his life whole.
His instincts war against the quiet pull in his chest. He shouldn’t respond. He knows the rules, the protocol. Knows the risk. And yet.
His fingers tighten around the receiver.
"Same as it always is." His voice is rougher than he expects, scraping from disuse. "Cold. Lonely."
He didn’t expect to answer. Didn’t expect it to feel like something that mattered.
There’s a pause. Then-
"Funny. I thought you would be quiet type."
It’s casual. Too casual, burrowing under Levi’s skin. He’s not sure what’s more jarring—the fact that they’re talking, or the fact that this stranger on the other end of the line somehow seems to know him better than anyone has in years.
Levi isn’t sure how to respond, so he doesn’t. His fingers drum against the radio, his mind racing. He never thought he’d be this eager to hear another voice.
“I count cracks in the walls. Passes time better than anything else. Soviets? They were not so good with concrete. Explains why everything is falling apart my side of the curtain."
Levi exhales, surprised by the small, involuntary smile pulling at his lips. The babbling of a stranger. A fresh sip of water in the Kandahar desert.
“The iron curtain fell in 1989.”
“Did it?”
It falls short of a tease. They both know it. The old world order still lingers for men like them—men with guns and ranks and only their lives to loose.
Levi’s voice steadies. "You're not supposed to be able to tune into this frequency. And we’re not allowed contact."
"And yet."
The voice lands softer this time, curling at the edges like smoke from a dying fire. It’s closer now—impossibly so. It feels like something stepping over a threshold, something slipping past the spaces that should keep them apart.
"A man shouldn’t face the night alone, my friend. Especially in this neck of the woods.”
Levi lifts his head.
Across the divide, the figure is the only point of light. Soft. Warm. A low, golden glow spilling across the cluttered table, pooling around the man’s turned face, his dark hair.
Levi stays where he is, still wrapped in the darkness of his tower. The night has long since taken hold, the cold pressing in, the walls around him unchanged.
Caught between them, the gorge moans through the ravine.
They make small talk, sometimes. Nothing that matters, really. But with each exchange, each laugh, each word that’s almost too soft to hear, something shifts.
And Levi starts to look forward to it.
He starts to look forward to the sound of the man’s voice cutting through the silence. The way it lingers in his mind long after the radio crackles off, leaving a faint warmth behind. It’s dangerous, this connection—too fragile, too human.
There’s a price for this that hasn’t revealed itself yet- whatever this is- a thread woven between them, fragile but undeniable.
For now, though, Levi let’s the man’s voice push out the silence.
“What’s your name?”
“Levi. You?”
“Long time ago, I made it a rule only to tell my name to a man I can look in the face.”
“Why’s that?”
“Too many men spitting my name like a curse before they tried to put a bullet in me. Tell me, would you?”
“I wouldn’t miss.”
“You are a funny man, Levi.”
“Not how most people would describe me.”
“Well, they are wrong. Just because they are scared it does not mean you are not funny.”
Levi let the words sit between them, heavy in the silence. Fear and humor—two things that never quite belonged together, and yet the voice spoke like they were one and the same.
He leaned back in his chair, staring out into the gorge, its depths a sea of shifting fog. His rifle rested within reach, his radio crackling in his ear. He should’ve ended this conversation already. Should’ve let the quiet settle back in.
Instead, he asked, “That rule of yours—ever break it?”
An exhale, something like a sigh wrapped in static. “Once.”
“And?”
A pause. Then the voice dropped, quiet and edged with something unreadable. “He didn’t live long enough to say it face to face.”
Levi’s fingers flexed against the arm of his chair. He didn’t know what to say to that. It wasn’t an invitation for sympathy—he knew that much.
So he kept his voice steady. “Guess I’ll have to earn it, then.”
“We have 247 days left to see how you try.”
The morning air sat thick and still, pale mist rising from the gorge like the breath of something ancient and awaiting. Levi’s boots crunched over frost-stiffened dirt, his fingers moving numbly as he worked. The sentinels were finicky bastards, always the last line of defense, always needing a fresh charge.
Across the abyss, keeping pace with him like a shadow cast too far, was the man who wouldn’t give his name.
His voice crackled through the radio strapped to Levi’s chest, a low drawl, half-bored, half-amused, and just enough to make Levi’s pulse do something inconvenient.
“When these things are not crawling out of this hell hole, I am bored out of my damn mind, Levi.”
Levi smirked to himself, flipping the last switch. The light on the sentinel flickered, hesitated before finally holding. “Well. You could always try reading. I’ve got a stash of books here.”
“Books? In a place like this?”
“Yeah. Got a few old ones.”
“Hah! All I have are dusty Cold War survival manuals and mechanic guides. You know: ‘How to Fix Soviet Tank with One Wrench and Willpower.’ What kind you got?”
Levi adjusted the strap of the radio, stepping over a tangle of dead brush. The sky was still gray with morning, and everything- his voice, his movements, even the cold bite of the air-felt just a little muffled. Like the world wasn’t quite real this morning.
“The kind that make you forget where you are. Stories that make the universe feel a little bigger. Or at least, they used to. Now, it’s all I’ve got left.”
A pause. Then, softer: “I could use that. Something to hold onto- other than your voice, you capitalist pig.”
Levi smiled, barely. The taunt had no teeth, just the lazy curl of humor, a vague thought of a smirk he has never caught sight of. He reached the next sentinel. The man’s voice followed.
“A dollar for your thoughts?”
Levi hesitated, fingers curling tighter around the strap of his bag. He should lie. Keep it surface-level. Instead, he watched his slow breath ghost into the cold.
“Trying to think of what I’d do if I weren’t here. It…” He shifted his weight. “Feels like a wasted thought.”
Static hummed between them for a beat. Then:
“Pretty words. You should write poetry.”
The compliment fluttered something forbidden and relentless in Levi’s gut.
“I do. Even took a class, once. It’s... not great. Just scribbles, you know?”
A sharp tsk. “You have talent, I can tell. Don’t hide that. Maybe I like to hear some, sometime.”
Levi paused mid-step, looking across the chasm again. The man on the other side was adjusting something on his pack, his face unreadable at this distance. He swallowed against the odd tightness in his throat.
“You want to hear my poetry?”
“I am even offended you never thought to share, my friend! Maybe if I give you something of my own…”
Levi scoffed, half-laughing. “So, what, you were just sitting over there, listening to me talk about poetry, secretly writing your own?”
“Did not seem fair. I like hearing you talk. Thought I let you go first.”
Levi faltered. Just slightly. “You like hearing me talk?”
“Mhm. It’s… nice. You have good voice.”
He said it like a fact. That made it worse, somehow. The brief hum of static between them stretched long, heavy with something threatening to break Levi’s skin.
“That surprise you?”
“Yeah,” Levi admitted, adjusting the dial on the sentinel just to keep his hands moving. “A little.”
“No one ever said that before?”
“No.”
Silence. Then, like it was the simplest thing in the world:
“Then I am first.” A beat. “I like firsts.”
There was something self-satisfied in the way he said it, something easy, like he enjoyed the way it sat between them. Levi doesn’t think he’s ever met a man with more confidence in his life, and startled himself by responding before he could think better of it.
“I know a line when I hear one.”
“And? Is it working?”
It was. Of course it was. But Levi isn’t ready to admit that to himself, other than the fleeting relief that hits him when he hears that radio crackle during those sleepless nights, when neither of them can get any shut-eye. Right now, he swallows the feeling.
The radio cuts off with a resounding click as he flicks the switch with practiced indifference. He pretends not to notice the silhouette on the other side, now falling out of step with him.
The radio crackles to life again, slicing through the stagnant night air. Not a tactical update. Not a routine check. Something else. Something that doesn’t belong in the dead hours of a post-shift haze.
A voice slides through the static, deep and deliberate, meaning to find him. Like it has always been there.
"I was thinking," the man on the other side says, the syllables rolling out slow, almost lazy, as if he’s savoring them. "You still got that homemade vodka you talked about?"
Levi shifts in his tower, the old wood creaking beneath him. He hadn’t expected this question. Not now. But the mention of it brings a flash of warmth to his chest. The homemade vodka was his one indulgence, something he’d kept hidden away for days just like this, when the silence was too much and the weight of solitude pressed down harder than usual. That too, seemed to be a recipe the occupants of this tower had passed on for generations.
"Maybe," Levi responds, low and controlled, though a flicker of amusement lingers beneath the surface. "What are you planning on."
There’s always a plan. Levi knows this much. Knows that somewhere across the gorge, in that crumbling outpost swallowed by darkness and distance, he’s there—lounging back, a ghost of a smirk playing at his lips. A smirk Levi has never fully seen, yet somehow feels.
The man is older, sure, but there’s something reckless in him, something sharp-edged and laughing. A man who’s stared down the worst of the world and decided to live fast just to spite it. They are polar opposites in that.
The radio crackles again, a slow, static-filled breath before his voice slides through, lighter now- as if leaning into the mic.
"Maybe," he repeats, teasing. "Good to have a drink tonight, yes? You know... something to pass time. Better than books. I’ve heard stories about your stash. Thought I’d see if you’re man of your word."
Levi exhales a quiet chuckle, one he doesn’t mean to let slip. Stories. The word settles over him, its implications pressing at the back of his mind. He’s been watching. More than he lets on.
Not surprising.
So has Levi.
"Think you can handle it?" Levi’s voice drops just a touch, the challenge in his words unspoken but clear. "Not exactly your store-bought brand, you know. If you’re asking to take the edge off, be careful what you wish for."
For a moment, nothing. Just dead air. And then—
"I’m not worried. I can take whatever you throw my way." The certainty smooth as silk, warm as the promise of a slow-building fire. "You should see what we drink on my side of this shit-hole. It’s a miracle I’m still standing. What about you, big boy. Let me guess your regular. Three ounces, like Americans say?"
Levi imagines the stranger’s lips right now, pulled into a smirk. Imagines the shift of his shoulders, the easy confidence of a man who sees the abyss and literally winks at it.
It’s strange, this closeness—the familiarity that comes from never meeting, never seeing, only speaking into the void and finding someone speaking back. How close it feels, talking to a man he’s never met but somehow knows so well. Levi wets his lips on his cup for the first time, answers.
“Three and a half.”
"Alright, then," the crackling voice says with finality in his words. "Get comfortable. You are going to need it."
A clink of glass. The faint scrape of a cap twisting off. Levi exhales, imagining it— the eastern European mirroring his own movements, two men separated by a half mile of nothing nightmare, yet closer than either of them should be.
"To survival," the man says, voice low, edged with something Levi can’t quite name. A challenge. A promise.
For the first time in longer than he can remember, Levi truly smiles.
"To survival," he echoes, lifting the glass to his lips, drinking deep.
As they drink in their separate towers, the foggy secret between them doesn’t feel quite so heavy anymore. The conversation drifts like wind through the treetops—light, playful in places, but never quite careless. Just enough to keep the silence from creeping in too deep.
The voice crackles back through the radio, just a bit warmer, like the alcohol’s finally threading its way through his system, too.
“So, how long has it been since you had real company?”
The words land almost too casually, but Levi hears what lingers beneath. A quiet hook. A test. They both know the game. They’ve been playing it from the start—circling the truth, skirting the fact that neither of them has had much of anything but ghosts for years.
Levi leans back against the cold wall of his tower, listening to the steady thrum of his pulse in his ears. The vodka is starting to settle in, a slow burn in his stomach, making everything a little lighter, a little sharper. He tilts his head back, eyes tracing the jagged outline of the cliffs, the darkness swallowing everything beyond.
“Don’t go getting too smug about it, but you’re the closest thing to a real conversation I’ve had in years.”
A laugh filters through: low, easy, like they’ve known each other forever instead of just a handful of stolen hours across the gorge.
“So this is what passes for real company in your capitalist paradise,” he muses. Levi imagines him leaning back too, kicking his boots up onto some half-rotted crate. “I’ll take it. Less lonely.”
Levi’s breath catches, just for a moment. There’s something in the tone that makes him pause—something in the way he says lonely as if he knows it too. Knows it too well.
“I make do,” Levi mutters, voice tight, like he’s trying to tuck the feeling back into its place. “I’ve got the job.”
A soft hum from the other end. A thought. A long exhale.
“Ah, yes. And what a job it is. Nothing like the grinding war machine to distract you from what you really need.”
The words land hard, like a sucker punch wrapped in velvet. Levi’s stomach tightens. Bold. Too bold. A truth spoken by someone who’s carved it into his own weary skin.
Levi exhales slowly. Feels his pulse quicken.
The vodka is doing its job—loosening him up, making his thoughts slip, spiral. Liquid sin, dissolving walls he’s built, prying open doors that should stay shut. The heat he’s been ignoring, the slow, creeping flush, is suddenly burning at full force. He shifts in his seat, too aware of his own body, as if the liquor is pulling something out of him—something he’s spent years keeping buried beneath duty, discipline, denial.
It’s the devil in the bottle, he tells himself. That’s all. That’s It’s why his skin feels too tight, why the smooth, rhythmic cadence of that voice curls around him like temptation. That’s why it suddenly feels like he’s swaying, even though he’s sitting perfectly still.
Coaxing in his head to test the edge of his restraint.
“You’re drunk,” Levi says, rougher than he meant to, like he’s trying to drag himself back to solid ground. “Don’t go overanalyzing me just because you’ve had a few swigs.”
A quiet laugh filters through the static, almost teasing. “Maybe,” he says, dragging the word out, smooth as silk. “Or maybe I’m just paying attention. Or maybe it’s just really good drink.”
Levi feels the burn again—sharp, biting—and it’s not from the vodka. He closes his eyes for a moment, willing himself steady. Trying to put distance between the radio whispering temptation and the way his chest is starting to tighten, his thoughts tangled and dangerous.
“It’s the vodka,” he mutters, mostly to himself. He knows that trickster is probably smirking on the other end of the line, knows he’s playing with him, circling closer. “That’s all it is. Just the drink. Nothing more.”
The response drags out, and for a long moment, Levi wonders if he’s gone quiet in that way he does when he’s searching for his English words. But then, a new question slips through the crackling silence.
“Is that really what you believe, Levi?”
Softer, this time. Almost careful.
Levi doesn’t know how to answer that. Not in words. Not in any way that wouldn’t unravel the illusion of reality he’s barely keeping stitched together.
So, instead, he picks up his glass and takes another long, steadying drink, hoping that the warmth will drown out whatever is making his heart pound a little harder than it should.
Levi’s vision is starting to blur at the edges now. Mind slipping in tight, dizzying loops. The static from the radio crackles differently now, pressing in like a whisper at the nape of his neck.
There’s a nagging in the back of his mind. Combat-readiness, discipline, the simple fact that they shouldn’t both be drinking, but they’ve been way past that two drinks ago.
Then that voice comes through again, smooth, syrupy, dangerous. Slower now, deliberate. Sinking into something deeper, something that has nothing to do with the alcohol and everything to do with him.
“You know…” The words stretch out, indulgent. “It’s been so long since I’ve had a good look at you.”
Levi leans forward, elbow pressed into the cool metal of the table, listening. There’s something in that voice—teasing, laced with challenge, like a game Levi doesn’t quite understand but already knows he’s losing.
It’s ridiculous, really. He’s supposed to be a soldier, not a man who’s feeling warm under the weight of a thousand little touches in another man’s voice. He feels like it may be time for a reminder.
“Bullshit,” Levi grunts. “You already know what I look like. You’ve had plenty of time to check me out through the scope.”
“No. Not the same, if you are not looking back at me. You haven’t picked up those binoculars in a while, have you?” he says, and it slingshots right through any remaining resolve Levi has. “And I’m thinking—maybe you want to look at me. Just a few clicks away. Far enough to be safe, you think?”
Levi freezes. His pulse hammers in his throat. The words hang in the air like a dare, like a cursed invitation Levi doesn’t know how to refuse. He swallows, throat tight, and feels the weight of the binoculars in his hands before he even moves further.
“What’s your game, huh?” Levi mutters, even though he already knows the answer. He’s not an idiot.
Levi’s treacherous heart does this strange flutter in his chest, as though strong hands somehow reached through the radio and tangled their crisp fingers around it. He grips the binoculars tighter, trying to steady his breath, trying to push down the fact that his pulse is racing, that the air feels suddenly too thick, too close.
“I have had enough of games, Levi. No more games.”
Levi doesn’t respond right away. Instead, he slowly brings the binoculars to his eyes, half-expecting to see nothing—half-expecting the whole thing to be some elaborate joke, some way for his opposite to laugh it off and pretend this never happened.
“What are you waiting for, Levi? Look at me.”
And then—there he is.
Standing in front of the window of his own tower, shirt discarded, bare skin catching the backglow of his living room light. He’s looking right back at Levi. And the expression on his face? It’s not playful anymore. Piercing eyes. Something that Levi can taste tangy on his heavy tongue.
The man’s lips curl into something slow, lazy—a smirk that’s all confidence and no hesitation. He lifts his radio to his mouth.
“Tell me what you see,” it comes through the radio again, demanding.
Levi’s hands do the impossible: shake slightly as he tries to hold the binoculars steady. His mind is racing now, scrambling for some sort of rational thought, some excuse to pull back, to shut this down before it becomes something he can’t control.
But he hasn’t been in control for a long, long time.
The alcohol is humming in his blood, making everything feel sharper and fuzzy at the edges. And that voice is smoother now, like it’s slipping inside him, twisting around every part of him that’s already been loosened by the drink.
“What do you see, Levi?” it asks asks again, rougher this time, the question sliding through the static with an intimacy that makes Levi’s breath catch in his throat.
Levi’s mouth goes dry. He doesn’t know how to answer.
Levi’s grip tightens around the binoculars, his knuckles white against the cold metal. The shift in his body is impossible to ignore, an unmistakable ache that rises from somewhere deep inside him, something he thought he could ignore, something he thought he could compartmentalize and bury beneath layers of duty and resolve.
But now, with that eastern devil standing there, daring him to look, daring him to feel, it’s all slipping away. Levi could have lied to himself before, told himself that this was just another game, just the heat of a long stretch of time spent alone in these damn towers. But now, it’s undeniable. He’s rock hard, the sharp tug in his groin burning beneath the fabric of his uniform.
Levi’s mind spins, each thought a jagged shard of confusion. This isn’t right. He knows it isn’t. This is insane—there’s no room for this in their world, not in this place, not with everything on the line.
But it’s too late. The moment is already stretching out in front of him, too thick to slice through with rationality. That half-naked man is still there, waiting, looking at him with that damn smirk that Levi is starting to hate and love all at once.
Levi can’t help himself. He lowers the binoculars just enough to catch a glimpse of his own reflection in the glass, the way his face is flushed, eyes wide, lips parted, the hint of his breath unsteady. He’s never been this out of control before. Never been so exposed, so… raw.
“I see,” he mutters into the radio, voice rougher than he means it to be. It feels like a confession, like he’s admitting to something bigger than this game, bigger than the words passing between them. “Exactly what you want me to.”
“Good,” he says, stretching the word out like he’s savoring it. “And you like what you see?”
The question lingers, and Levi feels the weight of it, feels his body’s reaction deepening, a flush of heat that spreads from his chest down to his stomach, his pulse thudding in his ears. In his dick. The room around him feels smaller, the air thicker, every sound amplified by the silence that follows.
Levi closes his eyes for a second, fighting the urge to respond, to push back, to remind himself that this is wrong, that this isn’t real. But not for the first time, the man is there, threading himself through the quiet, too close, too present.
“Don’t you dare try to pretend you don’t want this,” the voice bites. “I know the truth. It is in your every breath, Levi. You cannot lie to me. You and I, we are two sides of the same coin. Two men that need to do the dangerous to feel the spark.”
Levi breathes out a slow, shaky breath, his mind a war zone. Every part of him is telling him to shut this down, to pull back, to bury it and walk away. Every muscle in his body is locked in conflict- reason against need, control against surrender. Everything is spiraling.
And the worst part is, he doesn’t care.
“I shouldn’t.”
“No, you shouldn’t. But you will.”
The truth comes in the form of a command, liberating Levi from responsibility.
His breath shudders out of him, sharp and unsteady. The binoculars slip from his grasp, hitting the floor with a dull thud. His free hand drags down the length of his thigh, slow, testing, his fingers clenching over the dark fabric as if he can keep himself from moving further. His eyes slip closed, his breath heavier. And the voice comes back, burrowing into those parts of his mind he thought locked away.
“Unzip your pants,” the voice speaks steady and taunt, intimate despite the distance. “And think of my hands on you instead.”
His shaking fingers slide up, leaving a tingling trail on his painful member. The zipper clicked as Levi deliberately pulled it down, relief coursing through his tights as a hand slips inside his briefs.
“My breath on yours, god I’m hard just thinking of it. Such a pretty boy you are. ”
Levi bites back a curse, because that shouldn’t make him this hard, shouldn’t send a full-body shiver down his spine. But it does. He’s hooked on the feeling, the low baritone of that commanding voice. Pushing, wanting. Levi pants as he palms himself.
“I’d take you apart piece by piece. Take all thought from you, make you mine. Bend you over and dig my fingers into your hips.”
Levi’s breath hitches. His grip tightens. “And right now?” His voice is wrecked, barely a rasp. “What do you want to do right now?”
“Murder every single one of those gorge fuckers just to kiss you, Levi.”
Levi has never come this hard in his entire life.
His hand stutters, his whole body seizing as pleasure crashes over him, sharp-edged and violent. A cry catches in his throat, strangled somewhere between pain and release, his breath fracturing as heat pulses through him. And he feels it- hot, slick, hitting his chest, his entire lower body burning into that shot.
Levi gasps for air, riding it out, the overstimulation bordering on agony. His fingers flex around his length, a shudder wracking his frame before the intensity becomes unbearable, too much, too sharp. He tears his hand away as if burned, gripping the edge of the table like it’s the only thing keeping him tethered to the world.
The room evens out. Sweat clings to the nape of his neck, beads along his brow. His limbs, once coiled with tension, now feel boneless, weightless.
His fingers twitch as he drags a shaky hand over his brow- only to freeze, realization slamming into him. He looks down at his palm, at the mess staining his skin, and something cold settles deep in his gut.
“Fuck.”
The radio crackles. A breath. A beat. Then—
“Good boy.”
The voice slithers through the static, rough with promise, with satisfaction, with something dark and knowing. Levi’s stomach tightens.
“Tomorrow, I make true on my promise.”
Levi exhales, long and slow, staring at the ceiling as the weight of it all settles over him. The things he’s done.
The things he’s going to do.