Chapter Text
Levi’s lips are soft and dry against your own. He doesn’t react, doesn’t push against you eagerly or pull away in disgust, so you stay there for a long moment and let the softness quiet your mind.
When you do pull back and open your eyes, you see his own are closed. Your thumb, still resting gently on the point of his chin, moves to chuff at his lower lip, exposing the tiniest sliver of his wet, pink mouth.
His eyes open slightly and kickstart your heart into a frenzy with how beautiful they are in the dim light.
“Kid.” His voice is halfway stuck in his throat.
“Don’t call me kid when I’m kissing you,” you whisper, and indulgently pull at his bottom lip again, exposing teeth and tongue that your eyes track with a lazy hunger.
You can tell he’s fighting something in him for a long moment as you stare at his mouth and he stares at you. Distantly, you wonder if you’ve been imagining things, if he really doesn’t feel the same. But you know, so wholeheartedly that it makes you dizzy, that he does feel the same, that you can’t have been imagining something more behind the kindnesses he’s paid you in the last month. There was love there. Intentionally.
You watch his internal battle in the flicker of his eyes and the flexing of his hand against your duvet and wonder if he’ll have the guts to admit it to you.
He does.
After that, there’s nothing dry about kissing Levi. He pushes his whole weight into you when he kisses you again, tilting his head so he can catch you deeper and open-mouthed. It forces you back onto the pillows, and he pins you with his hands and tongue. You can feel his desperation making you hot all over, chasing his fingertips under your shirt. A gasp forces its way between you when you slip a hand into his silky hair, fallen from his mouth and against yours.
You grin up at him, giddy, then lead him into another series of slick kisses, teasing at his teeth with your tongue. Whimpering when they catch at your lip.
For all the bravado he’s put into kissing you, his trembling hands tell a different story. The one that’s not braced by your head is skating along your ribs, just under your breast. It tickles, and you have to squirm against the sheets to repress the giggles in your chest.
You take your own hand and encourage his to be bolder, cupping it around your tit and squeezing gently. Hot breath is wet against your lips when Levi pulls back to stare at you, his cheeks flushed red and his pupils blown wide.
You sigh softly when his thumb catches on your nipple.
“Yeah?” he breathes, and it’s all the warning you get before he’s ducking his head and pushing your shirt up above your breasts.
He pinches your left nipple and watches as you gasp and arch, tempting him into licking a long, fat stripe between your breasts. It makes you shudder and twist both hands into his hair as his face comes back to yours.
Your legs have fallen wide to make room for him, slotting his hips against yours in light, unintentional friction that you squirm to deepen when you feel the teasing bulge of him. There’s so much sensation, and you drink it down in greedy gulps, selfish tugs of your hands finally against his narrow hips. Guiding him into a delicious grind down in the cradle of you. He gasps against your cheek and repeats the motion, earning a stuttered moan.
It’s been so long since you’ve felt someone against you like this, and it feels so good you can barely keep yourself contained. Can barely keep up as Levi nips down your neck and sucks at the jut of your collarbone, his mouth and hips drawing downright embarrassing sounds from your chest.
It continues like this for a time you’re not entirely cognizant of. All you know is that his hands are finally on you, and your legs are around him, and pleasure is sparking in your gut, frustratingly tedious.
“Off,” you say at one point, hands pulling his t-shirt up and over the mess of his hair.
He ducks away for a moment to shuck off his shirt and toss it somewhere onto your floor, then his hands are back on you, pulling apart your tenuous self-control. You sit up to meet him, shrugging out of your unbuttoned flannel and shifting into his lap all in one. Here, from this angle, he looks so much more familiar, looking up at you with those unfathomable, slate-grey eyes. Looking up at you with what you now recognize as wanting.
Your hands settle at the base of his neck, fingering lightly at the short hair there, your mouth open as you drink him in. The momentum you’d been building is shivering at your fingertips, teasing in his palms against the plush of your hips.
“Levi— if it’s okay—” your voice is unfamiliarly husky, “if it’s okay, there are condoms in the drawer.”
The suggestion hangs between you for a moment, stutters uncertainly in your chest.
“But, we don’t have to—”
“Shut up,” he growls and surges up to kiss you so hard it might bruise. Not soft and dry like before, but aggressive. Claiming.
You break away after not too long, a ridiculous smile stretching your lips.
He gets the condoms.
--
The snow shuts you in for three full days, though it doesn’t feel nearly long enough. There’s still something unspoken between you, still a lack of clarity about what exactly it is you’re doing, but you find yourself too caught up in this new intimacy to care.
The big picture doesn’t change. You still wake up with your face mashed against a pillow, breathing in deep lungfuls of Levi’s scent, and roll out of bed to find him making tea in the kitchen. You still bicker over what to watch that night, and he still makes that little pout with his mouth when you suggest Gilmore Girls.
“It’s not what it sounds like, I swear it’s actually good!”
“It sounds like a pile of dogshit.”
“You have no taste, I swear.”
“Don’t go talking about taste when you think Happy Feet is a cinematic masterpiece.”
“Just say you hate cute animals and go.”
But now, he’s curled up on the couch with you instead of over in the chair, sprawled out across your chest and between your legs. He sighs and stretches up to press his lips to the underside of your jaw.
“I hate cute animals,” he deadpans, looking straight into your eyes, then settles back down to pillow his head on your chest.
“You’re awful,” you say, turning your attention back to the TV.
On the second morning, you make him pancakes — the only recipe you remember making as a family, though you still have to text your dad for the recipe. He replies with a picture of the old recipe card taped to your fridge at home, covered with your mom’s slanting handwriting in blue ink, as well as a selfie of him and his new girlfriend. They’re under the giant neon sign outside your favorite diner back home, pointing up at it with wide grins. He’d wanted you to come home for the holidays, claiming that she wanted to meet you, but you’d feigned too much schoolwork to make the trip. She seems nice -- has stuck around for longer than you expected -- but you just can’t bring yourself to make the effort.
You trace your finger down the line of your dad’s nose, reply with a heart, and then start gathering ingredients on the counter.
Levi putters around the apartment while you work. It’s soothing to have him in the periphery, folding towels and dusting behind the TV and doing god knows what other chores you’re not even aware exist. There was a part of you that worried you would lose this natural existence, a little voice in your head screaming not to be rash for fear of losing everything.
You’ve never been happier to ignore it, especially when Levi is pressing up behind you to reach for more paper towels from the cabinet. A grin teases its way onto your lips as he presses one kiss to the back of your neck and then is gone, disappeared into the bathroom once again.
The whipped cream in the door of the fridge turns out to be almost completely empty, fallen victim to your frequent hot chocolate cravings, so you top the pancakes with butter and cinnamon sugar instead. Levi’s not overtly vocal in his appreciation for your food, but he gives a nod of approval and hooks his ankle with yours under the table while you eat. Plus, you get the distinct pleasure of brushing stray cinnamon sugar from his top lip, so all’s well that ends well.
It’s almost disgustingly domestic.
---
On the first day without new snow, Levi wakes up to find you gone. You’re not in bed, and you’re not in the kitchen, and you’re not in the shower, and he has to stare at himself for a long minute in the bathroom mirror to remind himself this doesn’t mean anything. He’s not your keeper-- you can come and go as you please. You don’t owe him jack shit. This means nothing.
He’s just barely convinced himself of it, forcing himself into a normal morning routine, when he finds a sticky note on the tea kettle.
Gone out for a bit, will be back for lunch! :)
The exhale of relief he lets out is embarrassingly deep.
--
The barista at your favorite coffee shop looks haggard when you step through the door, doing your best not to bring too much snow in with you. She’s split between steaming milk and listening to some guy leaning over the counter, so you give her a wave and step over to the side to look at the pastry case until she’s done. You normally get the muffins here, but today you find yourself wondering what Levi would like. Is he a cookie guy? Does he like more savory things? You’ve never met a soul who doesn’t like a croissant, so that’s a safe bet--
Your pastry ponderance is cut off by Reiner’s voice behind you.
“Hey,” he says, and you turn.
“Hi. Thanks for meeting me.”
“Of course. Always.”
He looks tired. A little strung out. It’s been weeks since that argument in your apartment, and your heart pangs at seeing such a familiar face after such a length apart.
You swallow, mouth suddenly dry, and gesture towards the register where the barista is ready to take orders again.
“You’re getting coffee?”
“Yes,” he laughs a little bit, mouth twitching at the corner, “always.”
It’s not long before you’re both clutching steaming mugs of coffee; his, a Colombian light roast, black, and yours, a Mexican dark roast with cream and sugar. It feels right to have the rich coffee smells floating between you again.
You take a deep breath.
“Thank you for meeting me,” you say again, staring into your mug so you don’t have to look at him. “I talked to Annie a few days ago.”
“Oh,” is all he says.
“Yeah. She, uh, she cleared up a few things,” your fingers start tapping rhythmically, a calming strategy, “for me, and said you would appreciate having a chat….”
There is a quiet moment between you, backgrounded by the thudding of a milk pitcher against the countertop. You finally look up at him.
“I would appreciate it. What exactly did she tell you?” He’s keeping his tone neutral, clearly not wanting this conversation to be over before it’s really started. Reiner is usually much less calculated in his wording, at least with you.
A long exhale leaves your life, before, “She told me about Marcel.”
“Oh,” he says again, and this time you see the careful neutrality crack a little and a sadness enter his eyes.
“Yeah. I’m really sorry,” you say, and mean it. “I can imagine what that must have been like for you all, it’s not easy to lose someone like that. And I understand why you didn’t want to talk about it… why you didn’t tell me, but,” you exhale again, “but, you could have. You could have talked to me.”
He fidgets a little in his seat, knees knocking against the underside of the just barely too-short cafe table.
“I didn’t,” he starts, then stops, then looks at the ceiling. “I’ve never been good about talking about that stuff.”
“You mean grief? Loss?”
“Yeah, that… stuff. And everything.”
There’s another pause, during which you ease back in your seat, consideringly. You’re about to speak again, but he beats you to it.
“And you’re always so good at talking about it, about your mom, and stuff. Grief,” his eyes flash to yours for a moment as he half smiles again, “and stuff.”
You laugh, quiet.
“I don’t get how you do it, it’s actually something I admire about you a lot, I just,” he sighs, “have never gotten there. With everything about Marcel.”
“Do you know how I got there, Rei?”
The nickname catches him, holds his gaze to yours as he shakes his head “no.”
“Therapy.”
He dips his head, nodding. “Yeah. Who’d’ve thunk.”
“Who, indeed.”
You’re not about to hold his hand through coming to terms with addressing his own mental health -- he’s a grown adult, for fuck’s sake -- but you feel it’s your due diligence as a person who was once his partner to at least point out the obvious.
“Therapy helps. It doesn’t fix everything, and it takes time, but just talking to someone really, truly helps.”
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. And we talked about other stuff, too. Like what I saw the night before we broke up.”
“Oh?” he says, for a third time, as you take a sip of coffee and settle in for another re-hash of events you’d rather leave completely un-hashed.