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rumors & libel : nasty things with nasty teeth & with nasty wants. it had taken years for erwin to sift through his father’s office, through the piles & records of his life stacked through his office drawers, through linen closets, through things stashed beneath the bed.

the man always imagined himself tidy. erwin always thought of his father tidy, too. he was precise with the extent of records & lists he kept — he kept three calendars pinned to the wall; he kept a scattering different paper lists stuck to the refrigerator.

it’s easy to remember the pattern : one calendar for work, one calendar for personal, one calendar for obligations.

by work, his father referred to a mix of self-set deadlines & meetings & travel dates. short-hand that erwin spent hours trying to decode without asking.

by family, his father referred exclusively to appointments made on erwin’s behalf —- to days that he called erwin’s aunt for for support because she knew erwin will enough to watch him. he took better to her than other guardians. & frankly, she took better to him than most.

by obligations, his father referred more generously to bills & appointments about logistical affairs that erwin tried too make his own. these are the tedious things, his father explained. the things that need to get done. the things that you can only sometimes control.

in comparison, the scattering of paper lists on the refrigerator were disorganized & neat. they were a mix of phone-numbers : handymen, erwin’s school, his school, doctors’ offices. they were a mix of scraps of life : grocery lists & school photos & strangers’ wedding invitations & newspaper clippings.

never did they hang school reports or artwork. but even now, erwin tries to forget old school photos with curling corners that found a magnetized home at the corner of the refrigerator.

nowadays, erwin keeps bryn’s photo on the refrigerator. bryn's photograph shows a child capable of big smiles & greedy smiles; their photograph shows a gap in the teeth.

it had taken years for erwin to sift through his father’s office, through the piles & records of his life stacked through his office drawers, through linen closets, through things stashed beneath the bed. it had been a time-consuming task. even if he had known immediately that he would needed to sell what he could, honor the rest.

he’s bad at sentimentality. there is no efficiency that comes from keeping memories through material goods. he’s bad at sentimentality because it feels like a type of stagnancy.

as a child, he stares at dates & tasks & living to-do lists in a way that helps him keep himself in motion. as someone grown, he makes plans & controls for chaos & enlists & never stops moving.

erwin’s father dies with scandal kissed toxic against his veins. his father dies from god damned shock, from illness exaggerated by stress. he dies from decisions that erwin should have known better than to risk & consequences of truth swept away. he had died from the product of rumors & libel : nasty things with nasty teeth & with nasty wants

anyone who tangentially touches the death of another harbors a type of guilt & self-blame & survival —- it’s a biased perspective, & erwin is not immune. it turns into something motivating, unprocessed, always grieving.

his father’s possessions have been sifted & sorted. his father’s property has been handled. that was years ago. whatever loss he feels with his father is not a closed wound, & it does not determine the unfolding of his days.

erwin smith is motion. he keeps himself continuous with three calendars : work, personal, & obligations. calendar pages turn, & he memorizes items on his list & in his own shorthand. all things in motion have to start somewhere.

he is still bad at sentimentality. he is still bad at stagnancy.

he is awful, too. all things in motion have to start somewhere, but momentum builds through changes in weather, in pacing, in posturing, in gambles made. he’s terrible at loving & terribly he loves. this is the product of a self-guided, bureaucratic evolution. this is the product of man prone to competition.

truthfully, he’s a sore winner. it shows itself in the way that he arches his eyebrow & smiles behind the purse of his lips against a teacup’s rim. levi flusters. red still stains his cheeks as a residue, & there’s a nervousness in his the way that he chews his lip — levi flusters, & mostly it looks like he’s mourning what could have been a much easier night.

erwin had planned to spend his evening with his glasses of wine, with a podcast, with chores. it would have been an easier night, certainly. still, erwin supposes that a person cannot miss what they do not know.

levi flusters & mostly, it comes off like grousing. it’s a type of inexpertly wielded honesty. it occurs to erwin absently that it may be things like this that make bryn so ready to trust levi, to take to him so easily. to his calendar of personal items, erwin makes note that he should thank levi properly. for his consistency.

the thought is enough to flicker the arrogance from his small-stakes victory. he turns thoughtful & amiable & pleasant in a way that sometimes reflects the best & worst of him. it turns his speech unhurried. it turns him into temporary respite : ‘ oh, is that the reason you opened a cafe ? & not a restaurant ? ‘

a nudge for more, a nudge for personal — even if levi is grousing defiance & honest charm. why a cafe ? why tea ?

still, erwin breezes past it. nudges can be ignored when languor carries conversation with a type of tidal hum. ‘ certainly, i’m one of those people. i’ve always been that way. i’ll admit that parenthood has made me more appreciative of caffeine, but i can’t claim it as a new vice — if a vice it be. ‘

mildly, erwin considers to himself that if he were to weigh his vices & virtues — that his caffeine consumption might be ranked among his virtues. inexplicably so, but he thinks that it might be the mildest of his flaws.

but he looks at levi, flicks his gaze over him ( in the same way that levi did to him hours ago, standing in a grocery store ) & finds himself appreciative. levi flusters & mostly, it comes off like grousing. it’s a type of inexpertly wielded honesty. & still, discipline rings around him. erwin decides that levi is the type of man that wakes up in the morning without an alarm, that only drinks tea for its flavor, who has fixed rituals for meals & movement throughout the day.

through practice, erwin has learned discipline. he performs routines admirably, & they still do not come naturally to him. the prospect of laziness always tempts him, even if he believes that it would make him miserable. he is still bad at sentimentality. he is still bad at stagnancy.

so languor dissipates & leaves him curious at the space of rebound. it is not always dating apps & hooking up & impulse met at clubs. sometimes, it’s just coping.

‘ just curious, ‘ he offers. it’s not apology. but levi wanted it to be an apology, it could be.

though, erwin supposes he ruins its potential as an apology when he lets a laugh ricochet past his lips. the sound startles him too, even though the sound is well-intentioned. erwin raises his hands in surrender. ‘ all right, then. you didn’t invite me here to fuck you. you invited me because you could & to see if i’d respond to the prospect of an invitation. ‘

he leans forward & sets his tea down & answers cleanly : clearly, i’d respond.

truthfully, he’s a sore winner. he tries to shake it off. just a little. ‘ regardless, i’m glad you invited me. i don’t blame the people who come for your dashing good looks & . . . specific type of conversation. it’s a winning combination to win regulars. ‘

of course, that raises the stakes.

‘ it’s also a winning combination to find rebounds, sexual rendezvous, or general interests. whatever you like. well done. ‘

of course, this raises the stakes.

he has been raised by a single mother who had a profession that followed her, that dug its nails in & refused to actually let go. she has never refuted the rumors that were spread about her –– levi had never stopped trying to refute them. he had never stopped throwing fists into faces on the playground. he had never stopped trying to fight for a woman's honor who never wanted it to begin with.

but it was not always sunshine & rainbows & perfection. no, kuchel was great at raising him. she cared about him immensely; she held her son close when he cried & read him to sleep every night, tucking the blankets up to his chin & chasing the demons under his bed away. but she was not perfect by any means & old habits managed to die hard at times. there were relapses –– the times when he would wake up in the middle of the night to her & kenny fighting; she had gone out again, had come back with wads of cash –– she had turned tricks. levi had rubbed his eyes & pressed himself against the wall & listened to threats of being taken away. he had listened to his mother cry & heard his uncle's heavy sigh before he would pull her in close & let his sibling instinct take over. levi would quietly settle himself back into bed & stare at the ceiling for hours.

when he got a new toy that week, he would try hard not to think about where the money for it came from.

kuchel would be clean of it for years. it would be until he was a teenager that she relapsed into old habits again. he never brought it up. he never looked her in the eye across the table over dinner & called out the black eye that she was sporting. nor did he call out the grinding of his own teeth whenever some strange men would come sniffing around their door & his mother would throw herself at them & give him the firm command to go out for a little bit.

kuchel was a great mother. she cared for her son deeply. but it also bit into his soul in a way that something like that only can –– he has formed his own sort of unhealthy relationships. he had found his own weird sort of solace in the abyss that was bad bad bad. the only one that had ever been healthy had been farlan & he had slipped through his finger tips, shattering at his feet.

levi was good at bad. he was good at attracting what he shouldn't. but he was horrible at keeping good.

there was a time when he had thought that him & farlan would be forever. when he would curl up against him in the middle of the night & count his breath & found himself dreaming. dreaming of something good, of something perfect –– but then he had ruined it. he had ruined it because they were good. he had ruined it because farlan had taken a look at him & known.

farlan deserves nothing but good. levi has always been bad.

healthy attractions & relationships are far out of his depth. inviting someone back to his cafe is out of his depth –– there are apps for hooking up, apps for finding lovers & having it last. but levi had chosen something stupid & inorganic & while he stands there, stirring the tea, he bites his lip. he gets that sinking feeling that he does when there is good & he wants to run.

there are moments when levi realizes just how far out of his depth he actually is –– this is one of those moments.

" technically, you're right. guess i'm not much of a dinner making person. it's why i opened a cafe, not a restaurant. " he can cook fine –– he learned to do it young, copying what his mother would do. that's what most of him is –– mimicking his mother's mannerisms, mimicking her love for tea & elegance, mimicking her ability for discontentment & bad relationships. the patience for baking though, that part is all him. kuchel fidgets too much to keep herself in the same space. she looks too much at a ticking clock & wants that instant gratification. levi is patient & stares through the oven door & watches his creations rise.

he crosses his arms over his chest, raises an eyebrow at the blonde. " if you're complaining though, you don't have to eat them. "

nose scrunches at the confession, a blanch crossing his face. " you're one of those people, huh? " there's judgment in his voice, but there's a melting into a slight smile as he sips his tea. he lets the lemon warm his tongue & the honey ease his throat; he likes black tea's best. they're more soothing to him & not so abrasive as green. " i can't blame you. i'm that way with coffee. i just like the smell of coffee. " he prefers not to drink it if he can, but there have been times when eren was far too proud of a concoction so he thought better of it & tasted it. his heart hadn't stopped racing for at least two hours –– apparently three espresso shots & way too much sugar will do that to a person's body.

he swirls his tea for a moment, glances into the cup & watches his muddied reflection stare back. " i'm told people come back for my dashing good looks & charming conversation. " it's dry, but there is a slight smile that he hides behind the edge of his cup. there's a warmth that curls into his chest –– this feels natural & it scares him. the last time this type of back & forth felt natural, it had been with farlan. the bitterness of how it had ended still settles on his tongue when he thinks that he's over things.

he's good at pushing people away. if people had super powers, he's pretty sure that would be his. but he tries not to focus on it, tries to sip his tea & allow himself to lull into the thought of maybe it's not so bad when erwin's around. someone with a child wouldn't have been his first choice, but he supposes that you can find attraction in all the strangest of ways when you least expect it. & just because it's attraction doesn't mean that it has to go somewhere. this could be as far as it went & levi would have to be okay with that. even if there's a small annoyance that thrums through him when he thinks about the possibility of erwin actually coming in with someone else to pick bryn up.

he's quick to push the thought away. his head trips & tries to get too far ahead of him. he's been working on that ––

a harsh cough leaves him, sputtering on the tea that went down the wrong way as slate eyes widen. they quickly shoot to erwin, the words playing around in his head, rattling him. it's been a long time since someone has tripped him up. he swallows hard & tries to will his throat to stop spasming as he stares the other down. " rebound? who the hell said this was a rebound? "

there's soft curiosity that settles in his features, though. rebound isn't something that he had thought about –– is that what this is supposed to be? levi hadn't even been looking for something. he had just been hanging out with farlan & erwin had happened to walk in & capture his attention slowly over time. that's…not a rebound, is it? rebounds are dating apps & hooking up & that's….

his cheeks flush red, the tips of his ears heating up. " i didn't invite you here to fuck me. " his voice raises a couple of octaves as he squirms in his seat. yeah, it had been something that had crossed his thoughts a few times like it would anyone when they looked at erwin of all people. but that wasn't what this was about. was it?

teeth drag into his bottom lip & he swallows thickly. there's the soft pain from the sputtering still as he tries to wrap his head around it all. " i invited you here because –– " the words stick. it's like they refuse to get off the roof of his mouth or the tip of his tongue. he forces his eyes closed. he is not a teenager. he is a grown man & he can talk about these things, damn it. " i invited you here because i'm interested in you. not because i wanted to hook up. i mean i'm not going to say no because i mean, look at you. but that –– " a groan leaves his lips as he digs his fingers into his temples.

it's like he can hear farlan's howling laughter all around them.