Work Text:
Erwin knows his people.
Each one of them is important. He takes the time to learn how they react to stress, particularly the frustration that comes from not completing mission objectives. When even small victories cost lives, failure becomes a special kind of torment.
Officers handle it better than most. They have to. If they didn’t they would not have survived to be promoted. Mike meditates. Hange has experiments. Erwin works on reports and future mission planning. Sometimes Levi will join him and they collaborate over paperwork, or Levi will find something to tidy elsewhere—in the past anything from dusting shelves to imposing and supervising a mandatory cleaning overhaul of every soldier’s 3D maneuver gear. Most everyone has an interest they can safely lose themselves in when they need to.
So when they return from one particularly bad mission, Erwin notices that Levi is not quite himself. It shows in small ways. If Levi paces, then it is measured, directed. Yet his gaze hardens at the organized state of places he has already cleaned, and when he finds nothing to correct he moves to the next room in annoyance.
After seeing it a few times, Erwin returns to his office. To say the least, the new reports are lacking in good news. He stares at his completed paperwork, even though he knows there’s nothing more he can do.
Erwin turns away from the desk. He has decided on a course of action and sends a messenger to fetch Levi. Then he strips down to his clothes and waits. After a moment, he also crumples his collar and shakes a hand through the back of his hair.
When he opens the door to Erwin's office, Levi takes one step forward and stops. His eyes narrow. He looks from Erwin’s lack of gear to the collar to his head, three parts of a controlled once-over that make the hairs on Erwin’s arms stand on end.
Without looking, Levi kicks the door shut behind him.
“I thought,” Erwin says as Levi advances on him, “if nothing else required your attention, that we could—”
Levi reaches up, grabs Erwin on either side of the face, and pulls him into a kiss.
Sorrow. Rage. All deep and unseen: an officer's frustration. There is not a mote of desperation to be found on Levi but there is pain in the way he kisses, grasping Erwin too tight, straining upwards like he has thought of what it would be like to not have this again. Erwin closes his arms round Levi’s shoulders and holds him, opening his mouth to let Levi in.
When Levi pulls back—his breathing uneven, the only time Erwin truly gets to hear that—Erwin bows his head and continues planting kisses on his neck. Offering.
A hand pulls at the upset strands on the back of his head.
Levi says in his ear, “Did you make yourself dirty for me, Erwin?” and Erwin considers admitting it. Levi adds in a low, dangerous voice, “You did kind of a shitty job.”
Erwin frowns. “Did I?”
In answer, Levi casually knocks Erwin’s legs out from under him and pitches him onto the office cot. The hand stays behind Erwin’s head to save it from knocking against the frame, but then Levi leans back, one knee bent and straddling Erwin’s waist.
“I know,” he says, straightening Erwin’s collar, “a thing or two,” unbuttoning and wrenching the shirt open, “about messes.”
Erwin’s clothes can come off fast, if need be. That’s why he removed his 3DMG in advance, even if he feels more exposed without it than he does naked. When he reaches for his shirt to help, Levi seizes the wrist and forces it above Erwin’s head. His nails dig into Erwin's skin. He follows through with a kiss that wrenches a moan from the back of Erwin’s throat. That sound from his own mouth is shocking but Levi seems to like it, humming back a questioning noise, an Oh yeah?
Erwin lifts his other arm without being asked, letting Levi slide the shirt over his head. The twist and turning becomes a thrust, a desperate roll of his hips.
Levi rides the suppressed writhing, rising up and down. “I could have been here sooner,” he says to Erwin, accusing. Questioning. His mouth is tight with the underlying strain that has yet to release. “You already hard?”
“Yes.” There’s no point trying to hide a shudder from a man sitting on you. Erwin’s been hard almost since the door slammed, and Levi’s body isn’t long enough to sit over Erwin’s lap and hold his wrists above his head at the same time. The weight is a solid, welcome resistance, and Erwin still pushes up without meaning to, seeking friction and finding only air.
“Don’t come,” Levi says without looking. “I haven’t even touched you yet.” He snaps the wrinkles out of the shirt and does something else that Erwin’s eyes don’t follow. When Levi throws the shirt over his shoulder it lands obediently folded on the desk.
Levi can have a shocking mouth in bed, and this relative civility seems like proof his attention is elsewhere. He braces his palms against Erwin’s chest and pushes back, dragging himself over Erwin’s cock with sudden fierceness. To Erwin’s surprise the rest of his clothes aren’t removed for folding. Levi simply unfastens Erwin’s pants and reaches in, takes him in hand with a firm, possessive grip that makes it difficult to breathe.
It turns into a perfectly controlled increase in pressure that leaves Erwin gasping. Levi pitches forward, watching Erwin's face. He drags his thumb over the head of Erwin’s cock, insistent, and after a moment of strain, of trying to hold out against it, Erwin feels himself unfurl. He keeps his arms above his head, stretching out and making an offering of himself, opening in every way he can. The pulls on him are hard, little twists and strokes that are almost too rough—and then Levi is doing it faster, just how he knows Erwin can’t take for long, and Erwin lets himself react to it. He clenches his fists and groans and tosses his head because he knows Levi wants it. Levi wants it and it’s in Erwin’s power to give it to him.
“Levi,” he says, a ragged warning maybe, and then he’s coming between Levi’s fingers, the onset so fast it leaves him feeling washed over, unraveled.
After a few slower milking strokes the hand releases him. Levi exhales. Erwin blinks, focuses on him—Levi sitting on his heels, quiet, head slung back like he’s staring at the ceiling. The tension slowly eases from his shoulders, and Levi gazes around the office as though seeing it for the first time that day. He looks like Erwin feels. Like he can’t decide if he’s calmer or simply exhausted.
Erwin takes it as a good sign that Levi seems as unimpressed with the room as ever.
With detached clinical curiosity, Levi lifts his hand to examine the come on his fingers.
Erwin has seen similar expressions inside Wall Sina, from jewelers coolly inspecting their rings. He lets his head fall back on the cot. “I saw the towel earlier,” he says, gathering the energy to look.
“It's under the cot.”
With no change in expression, Levi brings his hand to his face and starts to lick his fingers.
There aren't many things that can truly catch Erwin off guard. The unexpectedness of Levi mouthing come from his fingers is so thorough it can’t even register all at once. Erwin's eyes widen. For a long second he doesn’t move, then he raises his hand. “Levi, you—”
“Yeah?”
Levi glances down at him, unimpressed. Daring. There’s a challenge in it. Erwin remains transfixed. He's going to be hard again with near-embarrassing speed.
“I didn't think it was something you,” he says, then worms his fingers under Levi's thigh straps and tries again, “The towel under the cot?”
“The towel that hasn't been washed since last time,” Levi corrects, like that’s all there is to say. He draws one last finger past his lips, and then plunges Erwin into exquisite shock by lowering his mouth to Erwin’s stomach.
From the first touch, Erwin aches. He's shaking from the effort of not planting his heels and pushing toward the source of that gracious, unmerciful heat. Levi licks a hot path up his middle, wet laps and open-mouthed suction that feel almost like kissing, tracing Erwin’s scars, tongue dipping around trembling muscles. Erwin must force himself not to grab the back of Levi’s head. Instead he clenches at one of Levi’s thighs and runs his other hand over Levi’s back, rubbing circles across the straps, needing to touch him. Erwin closes his eyes. He breathes through his nose when Levi palms his cock again, holding it aside to lick around the head. The edge of a lip grazes the shaft when Levi moves down and Erwin feels himself twitch, hardening under the warmth of exhales, and Levi must notice—he grinds on Erwin's leg, making a sound like he could get off just from licking the come off Erwin’s skin.
As soon as Levi finishes, Erwin pushes them up. His hands aren't steady. He kisses Levi deep enough to taste himself.
“My turn,” Levi says, mouth soft against Erwin’s.
Together, they begin carefully removing Levi's jacket.