Author notes: Okay so um. One could say it's a sort of a tiny warm-up before nanowrimo (because I have finally come to decide that fuck everything, I'm gonna participate even if it kills me), but the truth is I was just suddenly struck with the urge to write something along these lines so I did. Something about how, when you try to push feelings down, they just surface right back up and bubble in your chest until you feel like you're suffocating, that sort of feeling? This in turn I blame on the massive waves of nostalgia hitting me as of late so you might or might not expect me to return to some of my previous fandoms

But until then, I thought I'd entertain the swirling thoughts and musings I had on Shingeki no Kyojin and, well, this just kinda flew out. It... is messy and might not make much sense and sound awkward as hell at points but I'd like to believe there's a method to my madness, badly stylised as it is in this case haha. So pardon the run-on sentences (for once done on purpouse) and the weird spacing between paragraphs (it seemed to just not work right without it) and I'm sorry for being awfully vague with what I wrote. It just seemed right that way, and who am I to argue with the voices in my head haha.

So without further ado, I present to you my first proper drabble for Shingeki no Kyojin, an Ereri one, mind you, and the M rating is mostly to be safe but we all know Levi has one full mouth on him and there are things heavily implied in there, so I thought it's better safe than sorry after all.

And obvious disclaimer is obvious (for fuck's sake this site is called fanfiction net for a reason!), I do not own Shingeki no Kyojin nor its settings nor its characters.

Chest Swelling

His chest felt as though it was swelling, and the more time passed, the more prominent it got. At some point it became so strong it hurt physically, it seemed, and he began to wonder if one of his scars perhaps, one of the countless lines marring his body, started acting up. It wouldn't surprise him, he's heard of and witnessed people experiencing it - both back in his times in the underground and in the years in the military. And that would have been a sufficient enough answer to the dry question of "why" that kept appearing in his mind now and then, because he was far from young and the marrings were far from few, and it's not like a few of them weren't from when he almost got stabbed through the heart, literally.

But something in the back of his head told him that, hah, no, it's not the age nor the scars nor the stress, and you're well enough aware of it.

And then he'd always scoff when alone, dismiss the thought with another one along the lines of it's never happened before so it shouldn't now or it's never happened so how would I know with such damn certainity, shut the fuck up, stupid head.

Somehow the fact that he was conversing with himself in his own brain didn't bother him at all.

The persistent feeling in his chest did, though, and it did so to a great extent. Maybe it would have been more bearable if it was just that discomfort, but it wasn't, because he came to notice that as it spread, it seemed to eat away at something inside him, at long established restraints, pushing him towards the urge to shout it out, to get out of his system that- that something, and he would have none of that.

So he did what he did best, next to killing titans. He glared. Eyes hardening, the lines around them turning seemingly deeper and the stare boring into the trigger of the feeling. Yes, trigger. Though he might have not known much (or pretended not to, at least) about the odd sensation, he knew that it had a trigger, and what that trigger was exactly. How? Because he wasn't shit-headed like most of the people around him.

It was as easy as two plus two, the fact that it appeared most often when around the aforementioned trigger, at the memory of teal-green eyes with occasional specks of gold in them, at the ghost of a voice that only just reached maturity.

Well, and there was also the fact that the swelling never occured before he encountered the trigger face to face for the first time, though back at that moment and for the first weeks that followed it was still only a small, easily ignored tingle.

With that in mind, he kept glaring, and glared his hardest. And it worked just fine at first. The trigger would notice it, stir, and avert his own gaze, but kept enough determination and confidence to not falter when they had to work together. Ah, but that was expected of him, after all (and that was also, his mind noted, why it was a trigger in the first place, probably). But the feeling in his chest did not subside with time, as he expected it to. Quite the contrary, it started growing from the initial tingle into the swelling he was dealing with now as time passed. So not only did the chosen method fail to reach its primary goal, it also started turning ineffective outwardly quite soon, if the fact that now his glares were met with a stern look of whatever emotion chose to settle in the teal eyes or with a glare of trigger's very own.

He slumped back in his seat, letting out a deep sigh as the cup he was holding was set on the table with a tap of porcelain against polished wood. He was seriously beginning to ponder if, perhaps, he actually had some heart disease. The timing then would be a mere coincidence, and even if it wasn't, for fuck's sake - the brat could turn into a fucking titan, whoever said he couldn't give people heart attacks just as well?

Bullshit, his head spit at him, and he simply spit back a bitter shut the fuck up.

Two more hours until the soldiers were back from maneuver practice.

And the swelling persisted.

His heart must be really fucking constipated.

.

.

.

He wasn't good with alcohol. He never liked it to begin with, taste-wise and all, but the effect it had on him made his loathing towards alcoholic beverages all the worse. The heat coming from spirit would melt the walls he so carefully built around himself, make the remaints of his facade slide down his throat alongside the stinging taste and his muscles relax the tiniest bit - a great achievement considering how tightly wound-up he normally was.

But worst of all was, she knew that all. The damn shitty four-eyes knew that and she didn't care about his opinion regarding the matter when pulling at his arm, making him stumble to his feet (masking a wince when he rested the full weight of his body on his injured leg in result) and down the halls towards the empty mess hall, illuminated solely with the oil lamp she held in her free hand. There she'd push him down into a chair and skip happily to grab a few bottles of wine and two cups and he'd accept the drink pushed in his hands, taking a tenative sip, nose scrunched up in disgust. He'd accept it, he'd accept it because he'd prefer a night-long suffering of his own loathing and inner turmoils and demons eating away at the stone in his chest over having her nag at him for the few days at the damn least.

So one could say he was simply choosing the lesser evil, he reasoned, swallowing the bitterly sour taste of dry wine and letting himself cringe, almost making a show of it just so the hyperactive woman sat across of him could see how displeased with the idea he was.

.

.

And so he was now mildly wondering if that was, perhaps, the reason why he was currently senselessly pressing his lips against an equally eager pair, struggling to keep his eyes open just so he can watch a pair of shining half-lidded ones, his very own pair of hands fisting the rough material of a thin linen shirt as he felt another pair tug at his own upper clothing, irked with how it got in the way of the heated touches.

Perhaps it might have also been the reason why the swelling in his chest was now spreading out, through his entire body, enveloping him in warmth (and he had to wonder that, ah, maybe the whole titan shit is infective or something), the root of which did not lie in alcohol coursing through his veins, the tingle making tips of his fingers oversensitive and ears picking out every single sound they made in the dark, every rustle, and every gasp (source of which he could no longer be sure of because somewhere along the way it seemed as though two pairs of lips became one).

An accident, really. A simple random encounter in the dead of the night after his forceful drinking partner passed out atop a table in the mess hall and the encounter just happened to have trouble sleeping. And yet the back of his head kept whispering that it seemed suspiciously too much as though it's been orchestrated from behind the shadows lurking around the cold castle walls, one of which he just so happened to be pinned against now for a change (the hard matter feeling freezingly cold against his heated back) and it was as though the roles from earlier reversed, because he was not the one yanking and pushing anymore, quite au contraire really.

But then the pair of lips on his left to let a hot puff of air out against his flushed cheek and along with it he picked out on the sigh that sounded suspiciously much like "Corporal...", and that was when his reason flew out the window (though, looking on the bright side, the snarky part of his brain followed suit, shutting up for what must have been the first time in months). And from there on out it was descension into chaos and debauchery and limbs tangling with limbs, blunt nails scratching angry marks down a hard, skinny back, marks that they both knew would fade in a few minutes, but it didn't matter anymore - because the movement was mimicked and then evolved, calloused fingers digging into his hips, pulling him flush against heat that could only be rivaled by a titan's flesh (and, to an extent, was one, actually), and holy fucking shit. He had no idea when they shifted, when from the interwined mess on the hallway's floor they were suddenly moving (rushed steps resembling some complex, fucked up dance so much more than walking), nor did he know when they reached the door (something he realised only once he was shoved against it, a hand next to him blindly feeling around for the knob), and then before he could properly notice, they were falling against something softer, something that sprung slightly under their weight with a screech of protest from the rusty springs and a rustle of sheets.

It was then that he came to realise that, ah, perhaps that was why the shitty four-eyes persisted so much.

After all, the woman knew knew it all, she knew exactly what alcohol did to him, and she just might have picked up on how he was wound up tighter than usual as of late. This had to be it, all the damn freak's fault, definitely.

That thought, too, however, was discarded when he heard a possessive, gutteral groan from above him, from where the pair of eyes shined almost gold in the light of an oil lamp as they seemed to devour him, it was discarded with the hiss that left his lips in response.

And throughout the night, he let the swelling grow, turn every inch of his being boneless in the inexperienced but oh so skilled hands of the other, and consume him until there was nothing left.

.

.

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That was, of course, until the dawn came, and a certain trigger of a brat found himself kicked awake to let the body next to him move, low, slightly raw voice grumbling about a need of a shower and, damn, his head hurt from the hangover but so did his leg (a remainder of the sustained injury that was the reason why he still wasn't back in full commission and he wondered just how badly gone he - they - were to disregard it through all that), his hips, and places he'd rather left unmentioned for what was probably the first time in his life.

Because shit is supposed to come out, not go in, he mumbled groggily, eyes still heavy with sleep, the usual bags darker than ever, and he could only glare over his shoulder as he got up from the bed when his words elicited a low chuckle and a pair of teal eyes regarded him with a swirl of emotions - feelings he'd rather not pick apart if he could help it. But one of them was definitely amusement, and he had to huff and turn away and make his way to the small bathroom adjacent to the chamber because he could feel his face twisting, and more than the other's feelings the expression he himself made at that soft laugh was something he would rather be left blissfully unaware of.

.

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For the next few days he found that, for once, having made a habit of wearing a cravat through all those years proved to be useful.

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He also found that the damn glass freak probably had some special filters in the goggles she always sported, because the first thing she uttered the next day to him was a (almost indistinguishable through the badly-masked fit of giggles) all-too-giddy for his liking "At least they're placed low enough to cover them up easily~"

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She was, he decided then, the main reason for the fuck-up and oh, shit would go down.

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That is, until someone, looking way too pleased with himself, approached him (with surprising discrecy), leaned over ever-so-slightly when no one watched, and muttered "Next time please let me do it when you're sober, Corporal," and bold of a statement as it was, it still came across as almost shy (if not for the smirk playing around the shitty brat's face).

.

Change of plans.

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The brat was going down first.