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i.
Your eyes wander from face to face as some rich donor drones on about the last mission’s failures and successes. These sorts of meetings never fail in boring you nearly to tears; nothing is said of value, and you’re certainly not there to contribute. The donors like when the Survey Corps brings female officers to meetings; it makes them slightly more pliable and willing to throw money at missions when they have a pretty face to look at. You’re willing to plaster on a smile and wear your hair down at these things if it means better gear for your squad.
Now, Commander Erwin is speaking, his deep baritone capturing the attention of the whole room. Your gaze slides to him and your brain finally catches up to what you’re hearing.
“We thank you for your continued support, and hope you can rest assured that the Survey Corps is doing our utmost to prevail in the fight for humanity,” he finishes. The donors grunt, satisfied, and begin conversing amongst themselves.
You stretch subtly in your seat and hide a yawn behind the back of your hand. A man seated across the table from you leans forward with a leering expression, surely meant to be flirtatious.
“These things must simply bore you to death, dear, I can’t imagine why the Commander expects you to be here.” His voice is arrogant and nasally, and you force yourself not to cringe. Instead, you wave a dismissive hand and smile.
“Oh, I don’t mind. It beats the paperwork I’d be doing otherwise,” you say with a light laugh.
He laughs as well, then takes a breath to say something else demeaning, but you quickly stand up to avoid more conversation.
Too quickly, it turns out. Along with the scrape of your chair comes a wave of dizziness as your knees buckle under you and your vision whites out.
Sound enters back into your consciousness first: a deep voice saying your name, a shocked gasp, an incessant ringing. Then, your eyes flutter open and you’re staring into the baby blues of your commander.
He says your name with a concerned furrow of his prominent brow. “Are you okay?”
“Uhm,” you start, then realize he’s holding you on the floor in his strong arms and all the breath leaves your lungs. By the Walls, he’s pretty, you find yourself thinking as you stare and your cheeks heat up in embarrassment.
His concern only grows when you don’t answer him, and he says your name again in a low voice.
“Oh, uh,” you try again, sitting up and shaking the ringing out of your ears. He helps you, large hands stable on your shoulders, and you manage to smile gratefully. “I’m okay, I just think I stood up too fast.”
He smiles back, relieved, and helps you to your feet like a perfect gentleman. When you’re standing, you notice nearly everyone is staring at you in either shock or concern. You laugh nervously and wave a hand through the air.
“I’m alright! I must’ve forgotten to eat breakfast.”
Indulgent chuckles pass through the room and the moment passes, conversation resuming and people starting to filter out of the room.
You busy yourself with fixing your uniform and brushing off imaginary dust while avoiding Erwin’s gaze. You can feel him hovering just within reach at your elbow as though expecting you to collapse again. The moment stretches and tenses, and finally, you look up to meet his eyes.
“Really, I feel much better. Thank you for catching me,” you murmur, only for him to hear.
He chuckles and nods, eyes never leaving yours.
“You’re welcome. Let’s get some lunch in you.” With that, he turns towards the door and places a hand lightly at the small of your back, and if you didn’t know better you’d interpret it as almost protective.
The pair of you exit the meeting room and head towards the mess hall, your head swimming with both the aftereffects of fainting and the nearness of him.
ii.
It’s winter at Survey Corps HQ, snow falling in fat peaceful flakes on top of already set ice. The thin layer of snow underfoot deafens footsteps as your squad crosses the courtyard.
You’re back later than expected, cheeks rosy and voices loud from drinking. Today was a precious day off, and you’d taken your squad out to a bar in thanks for their hard work.
“Thank you for tonight,” Octavia leans around Davis, whose arm is looped over her shoulder in drunken affection, to give you a warm, slow smile. “I think it’s exactly what we needed.”
“To our fearless Squad Leader!” cheers Amelie, who’s hanging off your arm, a wide grin spread across her freckled face. Your squad “huzzahs” and yells in response as you laugh in thanks.
“Alright, alright, you ruffians, off to bed. I want to see you bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at breakfast!” you warn fondly before passing Amelie to Octavia and sending them off to the barracks. Sven raises his arm in a good-natured goodbye and you smile to yourself as you watch their four retreating backs.
You sigh once, tucking your hands deep into coat pockets. This year had been tough on your squad, losing more than one member to the seemingly endless battle against the titans. They deserve a break, and your heart aches that you can’t give them more.
When will this end? The bloodshed, the death, the sacrifice. When does someone decide-
A hand landing on your shoulder cuts off your train of thought and you turn sharply in surprise. The twist of your body and awkward foot placement on ice makes you slip, falling until you’re caught against someone’s solid chest. An arm snakes quickly around your waist, holding you steady against a body.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you,” the someone says. It’s Erwin; you’d recognize that voice anywhere. “I said your name but you must not have heard me.”
“It’s okay,” you mumble into his wool-coated shoulder before grasping the fabric to help right yourself. You expect him to immediately let you go once you’re set back on your feet, but his firm grip lingers on your waist as you look up at him through snowflake-catching eyelashes. It’s unexpectedly intimate, the way he’s holding you to him, your hands on his chest and his arm around you.
Since your fainting incident at the donor meeting, there seemed to be a certain gravity between the pair of you. On a few occasions, he had specifically asked for your opinion in strategy meetings, intelligent eyes holding contact with yours as you responded. When Nanaba invited you out for drinks with the other officers, he sat next to you the whole evening, thigh heavy against yours under the table. He had even noticed you were awake late one night doing paperwork and brought you a cup of tea in your office. He had become a subtle constant in your life, and so you weren’t particularly surprised to find him here.
“Are you alright?” His question breaks you out of your thoughts and you nod.
“Yep,” you say with a pop of the “p.” You might be a little drunker than you thought because you snort a giggle. “I’m a little tipsy,” you confess.
Amusement quirks Erwin’s lips as he studies your face. “A little, huh?”
“Yep,” you pop again and dissolve further into your fit of giggles, burying your face into his chest. At this, he laughs openly, rumbling through you and making your chest feel light.
“Let’s get you to bed,” he says, affection tinting his tone of voice.
He walks you all the way to your quarters with an arm around you. You rationalize that he doesn’t want you to slip again, but you also relish in the warmth he radiates like a furnace. In a nervous compulsion to fill the silence, you ramble about your evening out: how Sven had struck out with the barmaid within twenty minutes of being there; how you discovered Amelie’s vice for cards. Erwin chuckles in all the right places, and you find yourself relaxing into comfortable banter.
At your door, you unlock it, then turn back to face Erwin with your back against the dark wood, looking up at him through your lashes again. You study each other for a moment in the low light of the oil lamps along the wall. His blonde hair shines in the flickering light and that amused, affectionate smile still plays on his plump lips. He stands casually, hands in the pockets of his wool coat, but still exudes the authority of a man who holds lives in the palm of his hand every day.
Time stretches languidly here, and you would be happy to just look at him for eternity, but after a moment of comfortable silence, he ducks his head.
“Goodnight, darling.” The endearment makes your breath hitch in your throat and your heart thud as Erwin begins to turn away.
It’s a split-second decision, a dare and a bet made with yourself, before your hand reaches out to pull him back to you. Pushing up onto tiptoes, you thread a hand into his silky blonde hair and crash your lips to his. He makes a surprised little “mmph,” but winds his arms around you and tilts his head into the kiss. Your eyes close as you savor the softness of him and you practically melt in his arms. He shifts, pushing you backward until your back hits the door again, and the combination of his full weight against you and the decadence of his lips makes your head spin.
When you break away in a gasp for air, you open your eyes to find his dark with conflict. Your fingers tangle further in his hair, and you lean in again, but he gently pulls away, a hand pinning your shoulder to the door. He closes his eyes, and it looks as though he’s in pain as he reaches to remove your hand from the back of his head. He takes your hand in his, presses a soft kiss to your knuckles, then murmurs against your skin.
“I’m sorry. That was wrong of me. I’m your superior, and you’re drunk.” His voice is low, but you catch every word as clearly as if he were shouting.
Before you can formulate a response, he steps back and gives you a pining look before turning and walking off in the direction of his own quarters. You’re left against the door, staring at his broad retreating back, lips parted and eyes wide in bewilderment.
iii.
The second your ODM gear sputters its way through the last drops of gas in your tanks, you’re resigned to your death. You hang in the air for a moment, then start falling in an arc towards the tree where your anchor is hooked, wool cloak flapping up around your head and wind whistling in your ears.
You know the titan chasing you wasn’t far behind, and you also know your squad is safely ahead of you. They should be able to make it to the horses in time if the titan slows to eat you. At this thought, a sob forces its way from your chest: half relieved, half utterly terrified. The sound is lost behind you as you hurtle towards the tree trunk. You’ve twisted in the air, and your back slams hard into the trunk, knocking the wind violently out of you. Dazed, you shove your cloak out of your face to meet your fate.
The titan is lumbering towards you, arms flapping at its sides and dull eyes fixed on your limp body.
When you joined the Survey Corps, you always figured you’d die in this way. You just hoped you’d have a little more time. Time to be with your friends, to help the cause. To kiss Erwin again. Too late now.
You wheeze with each painful breath and fumble with the grip of your sword. If you’re going to be eaten, you may as well waste the disgusting thing’s time. You wait until you can feel the heat from its outstretched hand, then take a steadying breath before releasing your hook from the tree at the last possible second.
You’re falling again, face upturned to the branch-crossed sky. This time, you allow yourself the indulgence of closing your eyes in resigned acceptance.
But the expected ground-shaking impact doesn’t come.
Instead, you collide with another body flying through the air, a strong grip encircling your middle and hefting you deftly over a shoulder.
Saved.
You let out a hysterical sob of relief and bury your fingers and face into your savior’s green cloak as they carry you away from a tragic fate.
It’s only a few more moments of swinging through the trees, then the light shifts and you’ve reached the edge of the forest. The pair of you land clumsily on the wooden slats of a wagon, and you slide off their shoulder, landing on your back with a breathy whine of pain.
Looking up through lidded eyes you finally see it’s the Commander who saved you. It’s Erwin who looped back. It’s Erwin, the perfect angel in both countenance and personality, who caught you in midair.
He quickly straightens up from his crouched position next to you and thunders the order to retreat to Wall Maria. The wagon begins rattling and moving under you as the sound of hoofbeats picks up all around.
At long last, you allow yourself to suck in a deep breath and cover your face with shaking hands. Adrenaline is making your heart beat a mile a minute; you can hear the rush of blood thundering in your ears.
Gentle hands grasp your wrists and pull them away from your face. Erwin is crouched over you again, a storm of emotions playing on his stricken face.
“Squad Leader,” he admonishes in a harsh hiss. “How could you be so reckless?”
You sniff, suddenly tearful, and choke out, “I ran out of gas, there was nothing I could do.”
His grip tightens on your wrists and he practically growls as he says, “There is always something you can do. You never just give up like that, you never stop fighting. Understood?”
The ferocity of it scares you, and all you can do is shake your head and blink back tears.
“I made a judgment call, I-”
He barks out your name. “You. Never. Stop. Fighting.” Then, softer, “You come back to me. Got it?”
This knocks the wind out of you for a second time, and you gape up at him for a long moment.
After he solidly rejected you outside your quarters last winter, you tried to put all romantic thoughts about him aside. It had hurt, viscerally, to convince yourself that you must have been imagining his affectionate attitude towards you, but you had managed by throwing yourself into your work. And he had backed down too: no more cups of tea delivered to your office, no more joining you and the officers for pub night. At least you thought that’s what he was doing.
You swallow thickly and nod.
“Got it.”
At that, he swears under his breath and releases your wrists in favor of bowing his head low and pressing the palms of his hands into his eyes. Slowly, ignoring the ache in your spine, you push up to sitting and place a hand on his shoulder.
“Commander?” you whisper into the space between you. He raises his face to look at you, dregs of fear and guilt and love in his eyes. “Erwin?”
The sound of his name from your mouth breaks the last of his resolve, and he leans forward to gather you to his chest. Strong arms wrap around your trembling body and he buries his face into the crook of your neck.
“You always come back to me,” is mumbled there, into the skin just below your ear, as your fingers find the short hairs at the nape of his neck.
You spend the rest of the way back to the wall embracing him and staring wide-eyed at the sky as your brain wraps itself around the fact that maybe, just maybe, Erwin Smith loves you back.
iv.
Erwin’s tongue is slippery against yours as you kiss under the shower spray. You whimper when he bites your lower lip gently and skims his hand down your back to grope at your ass. You thread both hands in his wet hair, just as you had all those months ago when you kissed against your door.
Upon your return to HQ after the mission, he had ordered you straight to the infirmary, hovering by your side the whole time the nurse poked and prodded at you. When it was determined your only injury was two broken ribs and a nasty bruise, he tugged you by the wrist to his office and kissed you fiercely, pouring a silent apology from his lips.
Now, his other hand skims down your side and leg, encouraging your knee over his hip. This grinds your aching clit against his hard dick, earning him another whimper from your lips, which he swallows hungrily.
It’s desperate in the way you grope and suck and press against each other, as though you’re making up for lost time. You take a shuddering breath as he starts expertly licking and kissing along your jaw, your pussy growing slick with need, and you rake short nails down the planes of his chest.
“Mmm, Erwin,” you breathe when he sucks a particular spot at the base of your throat, causing him to growl and roll his hips against yours deliciously.
“You make such pretty sounds, darling,” he mumbles into your skin. Then, he ducks down, suddenly sucking a nipple into his soft mouth. You gasp and cry out, steadying yourself on his broad shoulders because your knees are trembling, threatening to give out. He lets your leg drop and you find your balance again as his hand instead comes up to massage your breast.
You tip your head back into the warm spray of water as your breathing goes ragged. His big hand frames your breast, resting on your ribcage, and you suck in a harsh breath as pain radiates through your chest. His blue eyes flick up to yours, apologetic and tender, checking that you’re okay as he pulls his hand away.
“I’m sorry, love, I should be more gentle.” Then, before you can tell him that it’s okay and he could do anything to you right now and you’d thank him, he’s kneeling on the shower tile.
You look down at him in bewilderment, a question just behind your lips, but suddenly he’s hooked one knee over your shoulder and his mouth is on your clit, and, and, and,
You can’t think straight because his pretty lips sucking on your little nub and his fingers spreading your pussy lips open and his muscular arm holding you up at the hip is all too much.
“Yesyesyes, please, ” the beg falls from your lips involuntarily and your eyelids flutter in ecstasy.
He doesn’t wait to oblige, licking a broad stripe up your pussy before circling your dripping hole with a thick finger. He inserts it slowly, achingly, teasing you open as he gives your clit soft kitten licks. He relishes in the silky clenching of your walls, pulling back to watch your pretty face.
Your hand is braced against the shower wall, the other groping your own breast, eyes closed and brows knit together in pleasure. The sight of you makes Erwin’s cock twitch heavy against your leg, and he dives back in, determined to make you fall apart.
His mouth is back on your clit, licking and sucking, and he eases another finger into your aching cunt to rub against that spongy spot that makes your toes curl. Curses and pleas slur from your mouth as your stomach tightens, reaching for climax.
“Fuck, shit, fuck, Erwin , that’s so good, don’t stop, don’t stop-- ” you end in a keening whine as your whole body shakes and your pussy clamps down on his fingers, juices gushing over his face and hand. Your knee finally does give out as your eyes roll back, but Erwin doesn’t miss a beat, sliding his body up yours and wrapping his free arm around your back to support your whole weight. His fingers in your pussy don’t stop, fucking you through your orgasm as he lowers your body to the tile floor.
“That’s it, pretty girl,” he coos against your ear as you twitch through the last of your orgasm. “Good girl.”
He finally removes his fingers, only to coax your jaw open and slip them, dripping, past your lips. You moan in tandem as you suck the taste of yourself gently off his skin.
You cup his face in both hands and finally sit up, wet skin sliding against his, and murmur against his lips, “Erwin….”
He catches your mouth in a kiss, and it’s so soft you think your heart melts to your toes.
“Yes, my love?”
“Erwin,” you push on his shoulders and maneuver so that you’re straddling his muscled thighs. “Erwin, I’m in love with you.”
Your soft confession whispered against his cheek makes his breath catch and his smile spread like afternoon-soft butter. He murmurs your name and kisses the corner of your mouth. “Sweetness,” and a kiss on your forehead. “Darling,” and a reverent echo, “I’m in love with you.”
v.
Your scream echoes off the stone walls of the courtyard, louder even than the many horse hooves against cobblestone, shriller than the tinkling crash of the glass vase dropped from your hands.
His face is pallid, sweaty, eyes barely lucid where he sits tall atop his horse. The bloody stump of his arm, tourniqueted and wrapped, is in sharp focus, even across the wide space between you, and it makes your stomach roll violently. You’re used to gore, but usually it’s titan flesh split under your blades and not the limbs of your husband.
Even before the last pieces of glass settle to the ground you’re sprinting to him, eyes wide and breathing ragged.
“Get the doctor,” you shout to no one in particular, but a soldier hurriedly slides off her horse and runs inside at your order. The rest of the Survey Corps, or what remains of it, streams in after their Commander, some sporting injuries of their own, all their faces tired and serious.
You reach his horse just as he starts to keel over towards you, muscles slack and eyes drooping, and you catch his full weight with a grunt, his chest against yours. You’re strong, toned from years of service, but Erwin is two hundred pounds of muscle and dead weight, and you stagger back, dragging him with you. Before you land flat on your ass, some of the weight is taken by another soldier and you both manage to lower him to the ground.
“Erwin,” you slap his face lightly, “Erwin, wake up! Wake up.” His head is heavy in your lap, eyelashes fluttering against his cheeks. You press practiced fingers to his neck and find a weak pulse, a jarring contrast to your own pulse pumping in your ears. You let out a shaky sob and brush away a sudden rush of tears from your cheeks before looking up at the soldier, who’s kneeling beside you.
“What happened?” Your tone is sharp, business-like, and they flinch under your harsh gaze.
“It’s a long story, ma’am, but a titan got him by the arm. Bit it clean off. He kept fighting, though, got it tourniqueted, probably wore himself out getting us all back here.” Their eyes are dull and tired, but there’s a glint of admiration in the way they speak of the Commander soldiering on.
You suck in a breath and focus on the stump. The flow of blood is stagnant, and it looks fairly straight across, like someone cut him out of the titan’s mouth. He’ll survive.
You’ll survive, you’re alright, it’s just an arm .
You bow your head low and press your forehead to his, hissing through gritted teeth, “Don’t die, you big brute. I won’t allow it. I’ll kick your ass if you die today.”
Smoothing hands over the planes of his handsome face, scratchy with stubble, you lower your voice and murmur into the shell of his ear, “I’ll kill you myself if you never get to meet your child."