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karikarasuno · 20 days

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sonder ch. viii

Pairing: Erwin Smith x Fem!Reader x Levi Ackerman

Rating: Mature/Explicit

Warnings/Tags: Lack of Communication, Flirty Behavior, Masturbation, Eavesdropping, Descriptions of Sex, Too Many Feelings

Word Count: 5.6k

song(s) for the chapter: my all by mariah carey

chapter vii | chapter viii | chapter ix

Pandora’s box. That was what Moblit and Hange were currently trying to pry open from you with their bare hands. When you agreed to take a late lunch with Moblit, you hadn’t realized that your chicken caesar wrap would be accompanied with a side of interrogation. All lighthearted and well-intentioned, but you’ve been unsurprisingly irritable lately. Your newly realized feelings for Levi and Erwin left you emotionally drained and physically tense. Not that it was anyone else’s fault but your own. Moblit, though, was not helping the situation. And Hange’s erratic commentary was truly the cherry on top.

“I’m just saying you all seem awfully close,” Moblit said. He was teasing you and it was clear, but you couldn’t help but bristle at his words.

“Friends fuck sometimes and that’s okay,” Hange added, thoughtful and serious, which made your jaw drop and your food bitter in your mouth.

“Hange, please,” you said, pushing your half-eaten wrap to the side and taking a sip of your iced hibiscus tea instead. “We’re not,” your lips refused to fix around the word fuck out loud, “sleeping together.”

“So then what are you three doing together all the time?” Moblit asked innocently. The innocence was a mere facade, though, since you knew he was simply trying to fish for information.

“Hanging out. Y’know, like we are, right now.”

“Right,” he said unconvinced. “So you expect us all to believe you’re not dating?”

“Yes, exactly that. Because it’s not a belief if it’s a fact,” you bit out, your eyes narrowing at him when he smiled and shrugged.

“So you and Erwin are just hanging out as friends this Saturday?”

“How the hell do you even know about that?!” You whispered loudly, leaning towards him and snatching a potato wedge from his plate as payment for your distress. Levi had asked a favor of you yesterday when he had to take a last minute shift for Saturday since one of his regular patients needed an emergency session. Erwin’s father and his fiancee signed up for a dance lesson for their upcoming wedding and invited Erwin and Levi to join them. But given Levi’s schedule change, he asked you to join them in his place. You said yes (obviously) because you said yes to all of their requests, even if it was at your own emotional expense.

“Levi told me,” Hange said casually. “He only feels a little bad over it because he hates dancing.”

“Of course he did and of course he does,” you responded grumpily as you slouched back in your seat and looked out the window you were seated beside. “This is just a favor anyway, nothing else.”

“Not a date,” Moblit nodded, as if he was agreeing with you when in actuality he was pressing you further.

“Do you think my first date with someone would be a double date with his dad and his dad’s fiancee?”

“Sounds romantic enough to me,” he grinned, swiping the uneaten half of your wrap and taking a large bite in retaliation for the wedge you stole. You stared at him for a minute, observing the tiny moments of intimacy he always shared with Hange. The light grazing of his fingers on the back of their neck or the way they always made sure he had enough to drink in his cup. It seemed so easy. Fluid. Envy turned in your gut and it was only worsened by the knowledge of knowing your friends bore witness to your complicated relationship with Levi and Erwin, but knew you couldn’t do anything about it.

“I don’t see what your point is,” you mumbled, glancing away from them again as Hange took a napkin and cleaned the corner of Moblit’s mouth that had a smear of caesar dressing left there aggressively. You fought a disgusted sneer at the softness between them to not come off as bitter. Which you definitely were.

“My point is, if it sounds like dating and it looks like dating,” he said it slowly as if you were beyond the capability of comprehension. “It’s dating.”

“Well maybe you should break it to your buddies that according to you they have a girlfriend,” you said with an annoyed eye roll. “Because as far as I know I am their neighbor who also happened to turn into a friend.”

“I hope you don’t take this the wrong way,” Hange started, leaning forward with their elbows on the table. “But we’ve known Levi and Erwin for a long time and all we’re trying to say is it’s worth a conversation.”

“What conversation is there to be had?” You whined in exasperation. The memory of your almost kiss with Levi popped into your mind without your consent, the skin of your neck and chest warming up at the thought. That was a conversation that definitely needed to be had, but it had already been weeks since that night and neither of you made a move to bring it up. And with all your dinners together since then another incident like that hadn’t happened again. So, you forced it from your mind and refused to dwell on something that may have meant nothing at all.

“The one regarding your feelings,” Moblit emphasized.

“What feelings?” You said stubbornly, arms crossing and an agitated huff released from your lips. You were starting to hate how easy it was for Moblit to read you. He had an uncanny ability of seeing straight through you. His intuition was nearly always right, especially when it came to the sticky complication of the emotions you swore you hid quite well.

“You’re hopeless,” Moblit shook his head, placing your wrap back on your plate with a large chunk missing. Thankfully, they dropped the topic after that. But your mind couldn’t help but toss the concept around in your head for the rest of the day.

They made it sound so simple. So normal. As if you entering an already established relationship with two men wasn’t odd or complicated. And it wasn’t as if you were any sort of advocate for traditional relationships. It was just something you never considered. A relationship with one man nearly broke you in two. And almost a year later, you were still reeling from the aftermath. It was hard enough grappling with the fact that you were falling in love with two people at the same time. You recognized long ago that you had the capacity for it. Loving people with your whole being was not a foreign concept to you. But extending that love, acting on that love, that you held for Levi and Erwin seemed crazy in a way that you couldn’t imagine.

If one man had the capability to crack your soul in half so deeply the damage seemed irreparable, you could not fathom giving your heart away to two. Surely, the loss of their friendship alone would leave you raw and exposed. It would reverse all the work you had done this far. And you were afraid of the person you would become if you faced another loss like that. You felt jaded and cynical enough. If you handed your heart over to them, only for it to be returned in pieces seemed like a fruitless endeavor. Stupid, even.

So you kept it exactly where it was. In the center of your chest with a stitched crack down the middle.

“Erwin, we’re going to be late,” you called for him from his doorway. He was adamant on finding his black t-shirt, which you didn’t realize was even a remotely big deal. But, apparently it was and you had to be at the dance studio by 5pm. Currently, it was 4:36pm and it was a 20 minute drive.

“Just a second! I found it,” he yelled back excitedly and you couldn’t hold back your loud sigh because you really did hate being late to things like this. It always made you anxious. Another minute passed as you began to tap your heeled foot against the concrete step outside his door because you were convinced that if you stepped inside he wouldn’t feel your obvious sense of urgency.

“Erwin!” You shouted again, pulling your phone out of your purse to double check the time.

“I’m coming,” he rounded the corner breathlessly, black shirt fitted around his torso with a zip up slung over his shoulder since it was still chilly outside this early in the new spring season.

“You looked fine before,” you complained, grabbing his forearm and tugging him outside when he was close enough. “I don’t know why you needed to change.”

He locked the door behind himself, bounding down the steps to meet you at the gate. His hand found the small of your back then as he guided the two of you to his car, “I wanted to match.”

He grinned down at you with pleasant sincerity. As if matching with you was a necessity to this particular outing, and if he didn’t he would’ve ruined the entire thing. “You’re kidding.”

“Nope,” he smiled again and opened the door for you. “What’s the point in going to a couples dance class if we don’t match?”

Your jaw ticked at the word couple, your muscles spasming in your lower back when his hand disappeared and left you cold and tense. He was excited, but you could sense his nervous energy the moment you were in the car and driving towards your destination. This wouldn’t be his first time meeting his father’s fiancee, but it was still evident that he struggled with the idea of his dad getting remarried. And in typical Erwin fashion he played everything off as if it didn’t truly bother him. But knowing him for almost a year now, you could sense the tiny cracks in his facade. The fractures in his usually ebullient personality were starting to become more and more apparent. You wanted him to feel comfortable in your presence. And at present his nerves were crackling off of him like sparklers in the hands of a child on new year’s eve.

“Are you nervous?” You asked, eyes tracking a couple on the sidewalk beside the car as they walked their dog.

“About?” His tone was hesitant, like he could sense you calling him out on his anxious energy. But instead of confronting him like Levi probably would have, you allowed his feign on indifference to steer your conversation.

“Stepping on my toes,” you said with a teasing smile at him. He stopped at a red light, turning to grin at you–teeth white and smile blinding.

“Oh sweetheart,” he replied in playful condescension, “I’m a terrific dancer.”

“We’ll have to see about that,” you responded snidely, expression unconvinced as you turned to look at him just as the light turned green. He released a loud laugh, his hand moving from the gear shift and hovering above your knee for a second. You were curious as to what he was about to do, your thigh tensing involuntarily before his hand landed on your knee and he squeezed. Your breath was held tightly in your chest, your cheeks growing warmer (a constant, uncontrollable reaction you were becoming increasingly more irritated by), and when his hand didn’t move for the rest of the drive every attempt you made at relaxing only made the discomfort fester more beneath your skin.

The studio was small and on the second floor of a renovated townhome with a cute bookstore on the first floor. On one side of the room were floor to ceiling windows with a perfect view of the park that was just across the street. The lights were golden and dimmed to create an intimate and private atmosphere. Before you entered the studio, your short heels clicking satisfyingly against the glossed wooden floor panels, Erwin’s phone rang and he stepped back out, leaving you to greet the instructors alone.

They were an older couple with thick accents that you could only attribute to an eastern European country, but you weren’t sure which one.

“Hello, pretty,” the woman greeted you first, leaning over to press her cheek against yours. She was beaming at you, her eyes sparkling with excitement and you couldn’t stop the sheepish smile from stretching your lips in response. Her husband, you assumed, extended his hand to you in a warm handshake.

You heard Erwin finally walk in behind you again, tugging on your purse to slip his phone inside before he said, “Looks like it’s just you and me. That was my dad and he said he can’t make it.”

“Is everything ok?” You said with a note of worry, but also the itchy feeling of anxiety stirred in your chest because this truly was a date now. Whether you wanted to admit that or not.

“Yeah, he’s okay. I refused to ask what he was up to considering the fact that he was out of breath.” He shivered at the thought, and you laughed at the grossed out look on his face.

“I don’t blame you,” you said, stepping aside so the instructors could introduce themselves. You had to suppress an eye roll when Erwin kissed the older woman on the cheek and she pulled away blushing. Someone had to be immune to his charms and it was unfortunate that it wasn’t you.

“You two make such a beautiful couple,” the lady said warmly as she led Erwin further into the room and you saw his face light up in the mirror that was parallel to you.

“Oh, we’re n-”you started, but was swiftly interrupted by Erwin’s appreciative, “thank you.”

Maybe it was easier to indulge rather than explain in a roundabout way to strangers that you weren’t actually together. And that he actually had a boyfriend. Both of which you spend an alarming amount of time with.

“If it sounds like dating and it looks like dating. It’s dating.”

Moblit’s words clanged around your skull like a ping pong ball gone rogue. The sharp sounds rang in your ears and you were dumbly frozen in place until Erwin turned towards you with an outstretched hand and a teasing, “are we gonna dance or are you too worried about stepping on my toes?”

Embarrassingly enough, you did step on Erwin’s toes. Not because you lacked the coordination or balance or rhythm, but because you were stiff as a board. He was impossibly close to you. One hand on the small of your back applied enough pressure to keep your bodies pressed together while his other hand held onto yours securely. It was a simple waltz, but you couldn’t concentrate on anything besides the way his firm body felt pressed up against the softness of yours.

Finally, when you were awarded a short break as the instructors went over to choose another song, you all but pushed Erwin off of you so that you could inhale a breath that wasn’t stained with the smell of his cologne. He was smiling as if he was thoroughly enjoying himself. And looking at you as if he was privy to some sort of damning information about you.

“You need to loosen up,” he said while stepping back into your space, his hands swiftly finding your shoulders and massaging the very present tension there. You sighed, the knot that settled near your neck forever ago being worked out by his attentive and strong fingers. “You know Levi can massage this out for you,” he added when he felt the obvious discomfort in your shoulders.

“I’m not gonna bother him with that,” you shrugged Erwin off as you said it, inhaling another steadying breath.

“It wouldn’t be a bother,” he chuckled, “we have a massage table in the guest room for a reason.”

You had never stepped foot in their guest room so that came as a surprise. “I’ll think about it,” you said, waving off the suggestion because downright refusing would only trigger his more persistent side.

“Ok! Back to positions,” the woman called out, hands clapping together giddily. You recognized the song immediately. The first sounds of My All by Mariah Carey delicately filled the room and your spine tensed once again. You stopped yourself from groaning because out of all the songs this one had all the romantic yearning you could possibly imagine. And with Erwin’s hands on you again and your chest firmly secured against his, you had to close your eyes to steady the racing of your heart that you were sure he could feel pounding against his rib cage.

“Relax,” he leaned over and whispered in your ear, his lips dangerously close to touching the shell of your ear as he squeezed your hand in an attempt to be reassuring. “Stop concentrating and let me lead you.”

You allowed your forehead to fall to his chest and swallowed down the apprehension that wasn’t allowing you to just enjoy the moment. Regardless of what Moblit said or how you felt for Erwin or Levi, you shouldn’t ruin the fragments of familiarity and intimacy offered by them. Whether it was their strange way of extending friendship or something much more complicated, you took it. You let Erwin lead you in a waltz. You relaxed your shoulders and when you took one last breath and looked up at him he was staring down at you with affection. Maybe tonight you would pretend– just as he had when you stepped in the room– that you really were a couple. That tonight instead of going home to a bed alone, you would feel the safety of two bodies beside you. In an ideal world it would be that simple.

But reality had a sick way of reminding you that nothing was ever that simple. But a girl could dream.

“Oh my god, look!” You said as you made your way to the car. There was a flower beginning to bloom right beside a tree. And even though snow hadn’t fallen in weeks, the dreadful chill persisted. And while the sun set hours later, spring had yet to reveal herself to you.

Erwin stopped suddenly beside you, his arm bumping into your back from the abruptness of it. You were pointing excitedly at the flower. It was a tiny little thing with white petals. Nothing worth noting, really, but the stranger of hope began to introduce herself to you again. It was odd how something so seemingly insignificant made your heart grow in your chest.

“Oh would you look at that,” he said, following the line of your finger with his eyes, “Levi’s gonna be happy about this. He’s been grumbling about his plants for the last month.”

“It’s how he relieves his stress,” you teased, smiling at the memory of Levi fussing over his herbs that sat in the kitchen window and cursing winter for overstaying its welcome.

You heard Erwin scoff out a laugh beside you while unlocking the car as you approached. “I, personally, could think of far better ways to relieve stress,” he said as he reached around your shoulder to open the passenger side door for you. There was far more suggestion in his tone than you appreciated. And with how close his voice was to your ear again, you couldn’t suppress the shiver that went straight down your spine and scattered frenetically across your skin.

The initiation of temptation had to be purposeful on his end. The lingering touches and over-indulgent words couldn’t be a coincidence and you were beginning to wonder if this was some game or if all three of you were treading across a tightrope that got thinner and thinner the further you balanced across. Someone was bound to fall first. And you were afraid it just might be you since you were barely hanging on as it was.

But the fear of breaking after such a long fall was what kept your core tight and your body forcing your feet to remain unsteady on the rope. You were starting to believe, though, that neither Erwin nor Levi had those same priorities. Especially when, as you were stepping into the vehicle, Erwin leaned over and pressed a chaste kiss to the side of your head. It was so unexpected that it gave you pause, your foot braced on the floor of the car as you whipped your head to face him. He was smirking at you expectantly, eagerly awaiting your reaction like he was trying to bait you into something.

And in your disheveled state most of the words you knew seemed to escape you. Yet, the only thing you could manage was a petulant, “leave that man and his hobbies alone. Don’t be nasty.”

His grin grew wildly into something wicked. Your stomach flipped and desire swirled around dangerously low in your gut. He nudged you into a seated position, your head bumping against the head rest before he grabbed the seatbelt and clicked it into place for you. When his face was merely a few inches from yours, his breath casting puffs of air across your lips, you were taken back to the evening on your couch with Levi. And you wondered if he knew what almost happened that night. But as much as you wanted to look up into his eyes for some sort of confirmation, they refused to stray from his lips.

“Fine,” you saw his lips shift around the word seductively, “but just know my idea of stress relief is much more fun.”

He pushed himself off the center console, ducking out of your door and then shutting it behind him. You were startled in a way you couldn’t really describe. Desire flowed through your veins like fear. Lust drove through your heart like anxiety. And it was the most conflicting set of emotions you have ever had the displeasure of feeling. Because now he wasn’t even being secretive about it.

And for the first time since befriending the neighborly couple, you were beginning to feel like you may be in over your head.

“Ok,” you started as you strode into Moblit’s office at 8:06 am, exactly two minutes after you saw him enter the office. He barely had his things set down before you shut his door and closed the blind to the small window he had that overlooked the cubicles.

“What’s with the secrecy?” He said, a bit concerned, but mostly amused. He was still shrugging off his coat when you started to pace. Which you knew wasn’t the best look, but after your evening with Erwin and then stealthily avoiding them for the rest of the weekend to protect your sanity after what you overheard after he dropped you off at your door. You knew you weren’t crazy regardless of how you absolutely, positively felt crazy.

Erwin wouldn’t intentionally fuck his boyfriend loud enough for you to hear through the wall that separated your living room from their bedroom. He couldn’t possibly know you were even laying on your couch that night because you were too lazy to get up and drag your ass to bed because strangely enough the arches of your feet were sore from dancing in heels for an hour and a half. It had to be another coincidence. But you knew the mood Erwin was already in when you left the studio. He had reckless energy coursing through him the entire drive home. Even when you stopped to grab takeout on the way home, he still possessed that crackly, staticky spirit that had you shifting in your seat expectantly.

So, you could confidently assume that he was horny. Especially with the way he carried himself with a sense of emboldened carelessness. He kissed you again on your doorstep, this time on your cheek and narrowly missing your lips so much so he might as well have kissed them. So, it shouldn’t have come as a surprise when you were startled awake from a sleep you hadn’t realized you fell under to a thud. It was muffled and distant sounding. You knew it couldn’t have come from inside your apartment so you decided to ignore it and chalk it up to the sounds of the city. But then, as sleep threatened to pull you under again, you heard a groan and a creak. Realization flooded over you like a bucket of cold water. Goosebumps rose on your skin in recognition of what was occurring on the other side of the wall and a fierce blush blossomed on your cheeks. Your whole body rising in temperature and that strange feeling returned to your gut.

The heels of your palms pressed into your eyes and you knew you should probably gather yourself and head to your bed. But when you heard another moan, this one longer and needier than the last, you struggled to come up with a good enough argument to actually get up. One that based itself on something other than this probably being morally wrong. Eavesdropping on your friends while they were clearly getting hot and heavy was not an appropriate way to end your evening, but the weight of your touch deprivation was burying you into the cushions beneath you. You couldn’t even remember the last time you touched yourself. With the chronic stress and anxiety that exhausted your body it was difficult to conjure up the energy to even get yourself off.

But this, this fervent desire that had rooted itself in your bones hours ago due to Erwin’s blatant teasing, was nearly suffocating you. Maybe you shouldn’t have allowed your hand to trail down your abdomen, smoothing over your sleepshirt and slipping hesitantly between your thighs. And you shouldn’t have matched the pace of your fingertips rubbing greedy circles against your clit with the way their headboard thumped against the wall. You muffled your own moans with the back of your free hand, merely mimicking what you knew to be Levi’s voice groaning alongside what you could only assume was Erwin fucking him.

Your imagination, as vivid as it was, was running away from you. The idea of Erwin and Levi together in any position you could pull from your own memory was sending a hurried flush over your skin. Lips on heated skin, hands kneading at reddened flesh, it was too much. You already knew how pretty Levi looked with rose-tinted cheeks and wine-stained lips, and you could nearly feel Erwin’s strong body cradling yours. Being held by him without the layers of thin clothing separating your sweat-dampened skin. It was surprising how close you were to finishing with only a few sticky strokes to your clit. The pent up sexual frustration evidently brought to its boiling point.

All you could hear, all that was replaying in your mind as you came over your own fingers was Levi whining out Erwin’s name in desperation. The sound of his release was obvious when Erwin could only respond with a “yes, Levi” and the pace of the headboard hitting the wall quickened for a few seconds before everything went silent.

You lied there in astonishment and shame. Your fingers wet with your own release and your body slightly sweaty from unexpected exertion. How were you going to face them again after that? When all you would be able to hear when they spoke to you was the gruffness of their moans and the noises they made as they came?

It would surely haunt your every conversation and interaction from now until forever.

“Are you gonna talk or would you prefer to burn a hole into the rug with your incessant pacing?”

Moblit’s voice startled you straight out of your memory. Your orientation returned to you once you remembered you were in Moblit’s office on the verge of a nervous breakdown instead of post-orgasm and spiraling out on your own couch after listening to your best friends have sex. When you met Moblit’s gaze, his amusement diminished in favor of true concern. Maybe you also looked just as crazy as you felt.

“I’m in big trouble,” you said, arms crossing and eyes averting to look out onto his view of the lake that was miles away but still visible through the spaces between the high rises.

“Legal? Do you owe someone money?” He said, hands leaning onto his desk and it should’ve sounded like a joke but he was being utterly serious.

“I don’t want to know why that was where your mind immediately went. Quite frankly, it scares me,” you said, expression a mixture of confusion and astoundment. “But no, I don’t owe anyone money. I just maybe haven’t been completely forthcoming about my current situation with Levi and Erwin.”

“You totally fucked, didn’t you?” He smirked at you like he knew it all along. Like you couldn’t possibly keep anything from him without him finding out in some way. Which should’ve agitated you more than it did, but you were too wrapped up in your mess to scold him over it.

“No!” You said louder than you intended, so you lowered your voice when you added, “we didn’t fuck. At this point, I think that would be the simpler situation.”

“I have a feeling you’re being a little dramatic,” he said softly, again acting as if having a threesome with your two closest friends who were in a years long relationship didn’t have the potential to ruin things to an atomic degree.

“Ugh,” you sighed, deciding to sit down in one of the chairs in front of his desk. “A couple of weeks ago Levi and I almost kissed, and up until my date on Saturday with Erwin I was under the impression that he didn’t know about that given the fact that Levi and I have pretended it never happened. We were also high so I kinda thought he didn’t remember it.”

“So it was a date,” Moblit grinned, leaning back comfortably in his office chair as he looked directly at you.

“Can you believe that his dad canceled on us at the last minute?” You complained, throwing your hands up in exasperation. “So, yes it very much felt like a fucking date. And it really messed with my head, especially because Erwin was being so…”

You allowed the sentence to hang there, not sure how to really describe Erwin’s behavior towards you that night. He was treating you like it was the early stages of a relationship. The unmistakable air of a date, the touching, the closeness. It was all so real and unplatonic-like. You groaned into your hands while your body fell deeper into the seat.

“What do I do?” You emphasized whinily, peering at Moblit’s smug face between the cracks in your fingers.

“Did Erwin make a move on you?” He asked simply, and you scrunched your face up in thought because the answer in your mind was yes, but the lines were blurry and you couldn’t see them clearly enough to come up with a straight answer.

“I mean, how would you define ‘making a move’?” You thought back to the kisses he left on your temple and cheek, which he has done before. And the way his hands never strayed far from your body, whether it was your waist or the small of your back or even when he rested it on your knee on the drive there. You thought of his reassuring words and how he put your seatbelt on for you once you left the dance lesson. Those all felt like moves, but they also all felt like Erwin.

And Erwin was handsy and clingy.

“You know exactly how I would define it,” he replied dumbly and you fought the eye roll that always followed you whenever you spoke with Moblit. You loved him, but weren’t always too fond of him calling you out on your bullshit.

“Fine, then yes, he was very,” you made weird grabby hands at Moblit, who frowned and tilted his head but seemed to understand what you were trying to convey.

“Did he kiss you?”

“Not exactly.”

“Not exactly?”

“He kissed me like right here,” you pointed to the corner of your mouth and refused to make eye contact with him. You felt so juvenile and ridiculous. This was so much harder than having a teenage crush. So much worse too.

And it was made even worse when you heard Moblit stifle a laugh. When you glared at him, he couldn’t suppress the cackle where it was currently lodged in his throat and slipped out in one absurd sound.

“You’re so annoying,” you grumbled as you rose to your feet, fully intent on trudging back to your office and hiding out there for the rest of the day.

“Wait,” he called after you, and you stubbornly turned around to face him again. “I’m gonna suggest something a little crazy… talk to them.”

“Why can’t you just let me be difficult?” You had to stop yourself from stomping one of your feet on the ground petulantly.

“Because this isn’t as difficult as you’re making it, I promise.”

You heard the earnestness in his voice. He truly believed that this thing between you, Levi, and Erwin would work out. And you weren’t sure if he was delusional or if you were oblivious. But the ache in your chest only ever subsided when you were with them. The feelings you harbored could be one-sided but as each day ended and another began that didn’t seem like the case. Fear gripped you, though, tightly around the neck, squeezing your vocal cords together and refusing you to utter a word about your love for them. Your very real, awful, tragic, beautiful love for them.

“What if I ruin it again?” You said barely above a whisper. You wanted to shrink into yourself. Nothing but raw insecurity ripped through you. “I can’t do that to myself again.”

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