Author's Note: I swear I ship Ereri. I don't know how this came to be. DON'T LOOK AT ME LIKE THAT.

Fun fact: the idea for this fic came from me typing "I'm not mentally destructive" and "eruri that isn't as mentally destructive as eruris are" into my Evernote.

there was a can of minced beef.

Levi gave him one scathing look (and for a moment Erwin wondered why he felt like he was in the wrong when he really wasn't) before leaving the can on the table and promptly sashaying out of the room.

Erwin was torn between feeling exasperated and amused. On one hand, as much as he appreciated initiative and care, he would also appreciate it if, for once, Levi just did what he asked without argument. Well, fine, it's not as if the man disobeyed orders every single day – it's just, when he did, there was no bending his will.

He is the literal embodiment of an iron will.

However, on the other hand, the way Levi was walking, the sudden swishing of hips, complementing his petite frame-

Of course, nobody would know that the Commander secretly referred to Levi as petite – he had a feeling he wouldn't live to tell the tale-

But had he always walked like that?

Why the hell was Erwin observing how Levi walked, anyway?

He looked away, feeling a blush creep up his neck. Suppress it, suppress it – there's nothing for you to be embarrassed about.

And then, Levi was at the door, one hand on the handle like he was about to push the damned thing open, when he turned his head minutely around – just enough to lock gazes with Erwin – before exiting their makeshift mess hall.

Erwin stood stiffly, like he was back in his trainee days, standing at attention.

That look- there was something about that look he just can't-. He shook his head. He was a forty-year old man, goddamn it. He shouldn't feel breathless over a look.

"So you lied to your superior?"

"Do you like it better when I lie or when you starve?"

"I won't starve, Levi. I only gave them a portion of my meal."

There was another Look, but Erwin stood his grounds because he was the Commander, and he was not going to be reduced to a stammering mess from a look (no matter how withering or scornful). He had his pride to consider.

Erwin sighed as he waited for Levi's gaze to soften.

On the Scouting Legion's 54th expedition outside the walls, they ran out of food. True, Erwin was normally an extremely insightful planner. However, even he had his limits – he had failed to account for the sudden titan rampage that would occur on their way back when he decided how much food to bring.

As Commander, he felt responsible and guilty, so he offered a part of his rations to the legion while they were hiding out in a temporary shelter. Everybody was wary about eating the Commander's share – well, everybody but Hanji, who slammed open the double doors of the hall, making a grand entrance, and waltzed straight in the direction of Erwin's food before greedily snatching the plate away.

Levi watched the scene quietly, processed it, then walked to Erwin's side and told him he had an extra can with him, so here, take his. Naturally, Erwin refused. Adamantly. Even when it hadn't occur to him that Levi couldn't possibly had brought an extra can with him because Levi was all about efficiency. But then came The Look and Levi practically rammed the can onto the table and strutted away.

His gaze never did soften.

Erwin continued, "How is Humanity's Strongest Soldier supposed to represent the Scouting Legion if he isn't fed properly? How would it look if you collapsed mid-battle?"

Levi shrugged, "How would it look if the Scouting Legion's Commander got devoured by titans because he didn't have the stamina to escape?"

"Levi."

"I suppose then 'Humanity's Strongest Soldier' would have to babysit you and swoop in to save the day- and your ass- and carry you on his horse for the rest of the journey."

"Levi, I swear-,"

"Sorry to spoil your fantasies, but I didn't sign up for a babysitting gig - not for you, anyway."

"My services are only for the titans."

Erwin wasn't sure if he heard something that might have been playfulness or if he was imagining things.

Either way, at this point, Erwin wasn't even going to bother responding.

(mad with frustration)

there was a half-eaten loaf of bread.

"Erwin," Levi barged through the door leading into Erwin's office and was about to give the blonde a very explicit piece of his mind regarding the new toilets in the Officers' Barracks when he saw what Erwin was doing and stopped in his tracks.

The man in question had a plastic of bread in his hands. It was knotted and Erwin seemed to be having difficulties trying to open the package.

"What the fuck are you doing?"

"Levi," Erwin greeted, fair-mannered as usual. "I'm trying to eat lunch. What do you have for me?"

Levi frowned, which was really just the deepening of the already present lines on his forehead, and placed the stack of paper in his hand on Erwin's desk.

"The toilet," he began, "What in Maria's name were you thinking, you dimwit? Why would you- For fuck's sake, just give me the damn thing!"

Levi snatched the bread from Erwin, realizing that he wouldn't pay any attention to Levi's complains if he was distracted with opening the plastic (which meant Levi was going to have to re-explain himself, and he really wasn't up for that).

The shorter man, or as Erwin had phrased it, the petite man stared at the bread for a second before working at its knots with deft fingers. He began pulling at the looped plastic and Erwin watched, amazed, as it loosened up.

When Levi handed him the (now open) half-eaten loaf of bread, Erwin could only nod mindlessly in thanks as he imagined how those fingers would feel like . . . elsewhere.

He was squirming in his seat throughout their entire, drawn-out conversation on toilets and he could tell Levi was pissed because he thought Erwin wasn't taking this seriously but Maria, wasn't it his fault in the first place that Erwin was like this?

"Yes, okay, I'll do something about the toilet."

"Toilets."

"Uh-huh, that's what I meant. Toilets."

Levi looked unconvinced, but decided to let Erwin off the hook today, and left.

Erwin sighed. He seemed to be doing that a lot lately, especially around Levi. Only around Levi.

He sighed again.

(mad with want)

there was a glass of melon juice.

At that moment, there was nothing more that Erwin wanted than for Levi to try out everything he had eaten growing up. Hell, there was nothing more that Erwin wanted than for Levi to be able to live the privileged childhood he had, even if it meant a divergence from his current path in life as a Lance Corporal.

He wondered what Levi might've been. Some hotshot businessmen, he supposed. Then, he thought of the Scouting Legion sans Levi and cringed. How many more men would have to be sacrificed that way?

(And besides, if he had been born into a wealthy family and hadn't joined the Scouting Legion, Erwin would never have met him).

(Commander as he might be, he wasn't beyond being selfish when it came to personal matters).

(Like Levi).

It started when he was supervising the cleaning up of Wall Rose – the insides of Wall Rose, that is – and a crate of mysterious somethings were being pulled out from under a pile of bricks and average-sized boulders. It was surprisingly intact, considering how it had been crushed a mound of stones for quite a while.

Erwin stood on top of Wall Rose and although he knew he should really be overlooking the whole process, his attention was captured by the round, plump, green and rough-looking globe being hauled out of the wooden box.

It looked like, dare he say, a melon.

The Legion feasted on melons and melon juice the next day.

Well, Erwin wouldn't exactly call it feasting, not really. It was more like the Legion gave everyone a highly limited share of the fruit, but since almost everyone hadn't had the luxury to try it before, the mood was quite festive.

He plopped down beside Levi and Hanji as the black-haired man took a sip of his juice, the one he had been eying suspiciously moments ago. At the first gulp, his eyes widened (minutely – one would need to know all of Levi's quirks to catch that) and he eyed the melon juice again, but not with suspicion - with a sort of reverence.

Erwin chuckled, causing Levi to fix his stare on him – this time with less reverence and more annoyance.

"What?" He snapped.

"Nothing."

The feigned innocence in his voice was so apparent even Eren would be able to tell he was lying, much less Levi.

"What?"

Erwin held both hands up, in front of him, like he was surrendering or protecting himself against the immense wrath of a certain un-immense man.

"Really, it's nothing."

Levi scoffed and turned back to his juice, the one he might just enjoy better than his black tea because it didn't remind him of his previous life and it tasted like hope, like they weren't doing this titan-killing thing for nothing and one day it would be possible for humans to drink this shit anytime they wanted to.

Erwin regarded Levi before he got up and headed towards the recruit handing out everybody's quotas. He hadn't claimed his portion yet, so that's what he did.

"Juice, please."

"Here you go, Commander," she smiled kindly.

"Thank you."

He settled back into the seat beside Levi and offered him the juice.

Levi grabbed the thing – practically ransacking his glass mid-air. Then, without a moment's worth of hesitation or a show of gratitude towards Erwin, he swallowed the contents of the cup.

Now, he had another reason to enjoy melon juice.

A reason that went by the name of his Commander.

(At that moment, there was nothing more that Erwin wanted than for Levi to try out everything he had eaten growing up).

(mad with determination)

there was a mug of beer.

Erwin was drunk.

To be fair, so was Levi, but he was less drunk because he was better with his alcohol. Well, anybody was better with their alcohol when compared to Erwin. Levi was convinced it was simply due to how Erwin wasn't 'cut out for the rough beer life' and was more suited to the 'soft (sophisticated, Erwin insisted) wine-tasting life'.

They did this every so often – go out with the intention of getting drunk. Not too drunk – not to the point where they wouldn't even remember their names and their mother's names and how Erwin had seen Levi drool in his sleep once and had kept it as blackmail material since then – not that drunk. After all, they still had keep up their appearances and, as an extension, the Scouting Legions'.

But drunk, nonetheless.

They would pick a random bar (random, they promised every time. But somehow they always ended up going back home, with Erwin's heavy ass of an arm draped around Levi, from their usual haunt over in Wall Rose's Klorva District).

The both of them were currently at said haunt.

Erwin had his head leaning against a balled fist, an elbow propped up on the table, while Levi had his back against the bar, both elbows raised up on the table to support himself.

"I swear," Levi drawled, "if shitty-glasses messes with the latrines one more fucking time-"

The blonde chuckled to himself and waved Levi's comments off, "Relax, your babies aren't goin' anywhere."

"They sure as hell aren't because-"

"Yes, yes, because you will-"

"Kill."

"Yes, kill, the next titan she catches."

"In the most brutal and torturous way she could think of."

"Well, technically, it would be so brutal she wouldn't even be able to imagine how brutal it would be so she wouldn't actually be able to think of it but, you know, figuratively speaking, she would," he added as an afterthought.

There was a pause before Levi abruptly said, "I want to drink melon juice."

He turned to Erwin, "Get me some juice."

"And where should I find melon juice," he half-slurred.

"Does it look like I give a fuck where you find the shit? Just give it to me."

Detachedly, Erwin thought of how awfully wrong snippets of their conversation would sound like to eavesdroppers (and also about how Erwin would very much like to give Levi a different kind of juice and please, please Levi, please accept).

Instead of voicing out his thoughts – and thank Maria and Rose and Sina altogether that he still had the wits to filter his words – he chose to down another shot.

A few more conversations about the awesome, super-clean and super-hygienic toilets of the Military Police and how Levi was so going to slaughter the living hell out of Hanji and some inappropriate thoughts on Erwin's part later (all interspersed with beer), they were making their way back to headquarters – with Erwin's arm around Levi in the usual manner, of course.

Erwin sighed and wished he could receive body contact with the petite man every single day. Then, without any reasonable justification, he received The Look from Levi. He wasn't quite sure because he was really out of it now, but the words "petite man" had probably stumbled out of his mouth. That, or he had just said his wish aloud.

Fortunately, they had already entered Erwin's quarters and Levi was kind enough to dump him onto the bed rather than the floor.

"Join me," Erwin called out as Levi prepared to leave. The blonde lifted his covers and pointed to the space beneath them, "Here. Inside. It's warm."

Sina knows why Levi found himself facing Erwin horizontally on soft sheets, an hour later, after both of them had shifted here and there to hopefully find a comfortable position but had discovered they could not.

Erwin sighed, bringing two things into Levi's awareness: one, no wonder he seemed to be aging much quicker, he was sighing too much. Two, "Your breath reeks of alcohol."

"You're one to talk," Erwin said gently while huffing. It was a weird combination.

They settled down shortly afterwards and Levi was about to drift off – he was literally this close from falling asleep – when Erwin stated, with as much shame as Hanji had, which meant none, "You're going to age with grace."

And it was so fucking tender Levi seriously contemplated kneeing him in the goddamn face.

The emotions in his eyes were worse, though. They spoke of yearning. A soothing, cooing kind of yearning, the kind that croons at you and sings you lullabies. And there was something else Levi was unfamiliar with, even though the equally unfamiliar feeling in his gut gave him a good idea of what it was.

Really, though. Age with grace? Who thought up that kind of bullshit?

(mad with poignant dreams of the future,

with unobtainable desires)

there was a bundle of limbs, double the amount he was used to.

Erwin never slept around. Ever. He hadn't the time for it and even when he did, he couldn't bear to just sleep with a random stranger. He'd tell himself that he didn't want to impregnate someone by accident but the sensible part of his brain would tell him to go do it with another man, then.

It wasn't because he secretly believed in true love or anything like that, no. He just – well, maybe he was kind of waiting on Levi, but his affections aside, he was also past the age of strong, surging libido.

So it was a given that he would be pretty startled when he woke up and felt the bed dip further than it should go and that the sheets were warmer than it should be and there seemed to be a body – an actual, breathing, living body, holy shit – beside him. It was the strangest thing ever and he snapped his eyes open and there was Levi, just eying him lazily and calling him an idiot because if it was him, the great and mighty human with inhuman instincts, he would've kicked the idiot right out of bed right after figuring out there was an idiot who wasn't supposed to be in bed with him, in bed with him.

Not that he was in the idiot in this case.

Somehow, Erwin managed to disregard the monologue Levi had given and said, "So this is how you look like with bed head."

There was The Look. Then, "The fuck are you going on about?"

"I never knew what you looked like after you woke up."

"Why the hell would you?"

"We've known each other long enough," Erwin said as he flipped over to his back.

"Shut up."

Levi was on his back as well. They stayed like that for a while, just staring at the ceiling, doing nothing, and Erwin wished they could spend all their mornings like this – peacefully and together.

"What time is it?" He asked, eventually.

Erwin was reluctant to break the silence but he knew they would miss the hot water if they dallied any further.

"Who knows," Levi answered.

Which honestly shocked Erwin because he thought Levi would harbor more concern for his bathing schedule than this.

"Stop looking at me like that, you perverted bastard."

With anyone else, Erwin would've pulled the exhibitionist joke slash retort, but since this was Levi and he had access to gear (stowed right beside the bed), Erwin didn't think that was very wise.

It was funny because Erwin wasn't close enough to anyone to joke around with them like he could to Levi but, ah, some jokes were better saved for drunken nights, when he had an excuse for saying things that might've otherwise gotten him killed.

"Is something the matter?" Erwin asked instead.

"No."

Erwin nodded understandingly, then laughed once, a breathy noise. And warm, like under his blanket, beside him.

"You are such a softie in the morning. You should act more like the mysterious, cold, badass you are."

"Careful now, I have point blank aim on your groin."

Erwin laughed again and took one, good look at Levi. He wanted to hug the man. He thought about what Levi would do – worst case scenario was if he chopped Erwin's balls off, though he probably would apologize for it later on, after Erwin explained his feelings. He wasn't sure if the prospect of an apology was supposed to make him feel better. Best case scenario would mean- well, it would mean finally getting a lot of the things he wanted.

After he ascertained that, yes, Levi would probably understand and would not send him flying with the slightest hint of physical contact (and the gain was, in fact, worth the pain), he advanced and wrapped his arms around Levi and pulled the man in and the biggest question of the day was, who was more shocked because Erwin was shocked that Levi was actually letting him do this and Levi was so shocked that he tensed up for a second, before remembering that this was the man he had maybe pined for over the course of a year, and relaxed his muscles.

In reality, neither of them should have been shocked. Levi's hints were obvious (if by hints he meant being less foul-mouthed and if by obvious he meant being less foul-mouthed) and so were Erwin's, though Levi had always thought the older man was merely playing him.

Most of all, Erwin just figured he should be grateful – grateful that Levi was finally where he wanted him to be (though maybe there was one more activity they could do on the bed that they are, for some god forsaken reason, not doing right now) and he should never let him go. Ever.

(mad with love)

finally, there was mind-blowing sex.

(mad for levi)