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The little cellar was never meant to be an air raid shelter. Too shallow, too poorly excavated. Barely big enough for even the two of them to fit comfortably for a night.
It was all they could afford, being new to the country. Every time the sirens went off was a time to pray for luck.
Now the luck has run out.
The flat, Erwin surmises, has probably collapsed entirely above them. The door to the upstairs buckled long ago, spilling an impregnable path of debris down the steps, shaving away what little room they already have.
Shadows flicker from above, flowers of fire blooming, no doubt burning their few possessions. The few they’ve acquired in their time here, the even fewer they were able to bring across the channel.
Levi coughs. The movement rattles both of them, pressed close enough together to feel their synchronized heartbeats.
“Breathe,” Erwin soothes him. He works hard to smooth the ragged edge to his own voice. The smoke scratches at his lungs, but he refuses to let it claw up his words. Levi will not hear that.
“Is,” Levi rasps. Clears his throat. “Is this any better?”
Erwin doesn’t have to consider his answer at all. “Yes. Anything is better.”
“Two years.” Levi sighs. Bitterness bites into his words. “We just borrowed two fuckin’ years, and now the bastards have come to collect.”
Erwin is silent, remembering the nightmarish circumstances that brought them to this new country. A continent on the brink of war. Compromises. Treaties. Surrenders. A growing unease. Eyes everywhere, on the lookout for anything deemed unworthy of such a great nation.
Levi felt the eyes first, but being so attached to his side, it wasn’t long before they poked at Erwin too.
Rumors flew, of separation, of soldiers herding people out of their homes, of worse. What else was there to do but flee?
They were lucky. Erwin knows how few got as far as him, as Levi. How many were turned back at the border. How many were arrested before they could even pack their suitcases.
And while their new neighbors are hardly any more friendly, any more trusting of their thick accents, their almost-touching hands, there is no secret police here to turn them in to.
But luck only goes so far, and whatever god might have once been in the world looked at the carnage wrought by the blitzkrieg , and turned his back in heartbreak and sorrow.
He can’t help them. Or won’t. Or both.
There is no way to safely shift the debris so they can climb out. The openings are too small, the weight of an entire flat on their spindly, precarious wood and stone shoulders. There’s no guarantee they can be found by anyone wandering about the burning ruins. The night is young, and many more shells will likely fall before the sun is up and the rest of the city rises to search for survivors.
There’s no telling how much air is left down here, how long before their own breath chokes them. How long before the fires reach them. How long before a single beam shifts and crushes them outright, instead of this slow squeeze of death.
“Did you know,” Levi begins. His cheek presses into Erwin’s chest, breath from his words spreading little pockets of warmth into Erwin’s knit shirt. “I used to imagine they came here just for me.”
“Really.”
“Chased us across the damn channel and started dropping bombs to smoke us out. This is what happens when you try to leave. Or— we’ll stop this, only if you come back. ”
Erwin bends forward, pressing his lips to Levi’s head. There’s blood in his hair.
“Felt like every new bombed-out building was my fault. Every damn shell that ruined someone’s home, or killed a fuckin’ kid, had my name on it. And everyone knew it.”
He stops to cough again, an ugly, frightening hacking cough that schlocks up his throat and rattles something in Erwin, something deeper than his heart, his bones.
“Stupid, I know. This shit world doesn’t revolve around me.”
“No.” Erwin runs one soothing hand over Levi’s slim back, fingers skimming against the dips and curves of his spine. Levi has finally started to gain some weight back, he notes suddenly, incongruously. The stress of those months before they left home carved chunks, hollows, out of him until he was as light and breakable as a bird with bones built for flight.
Levi can’t fly, though.
And this is their home now—collapsed on top of them, dooming them to be crushed under the heels of hell.
Fire and ash—and explosive shells from home, come to burn the new haven they’ve found.
Erwin breathes deep, the thick smoke burning black in his chest. “I’ve never regretted a thing. Nothing. I would do it all over again, even if I knew…this.”
A loud thwack sounds above them. Something collapsing.
The fire hisses. Seems to sneer.
“Such a saint,” Levi mutters. “You’re always such a fuckin’ saint.”
“I have to be,” Erwin teases, “to put up with you.”
“And don’t saints get killed in the shittiest ways, too. Strung up on a cross, burned alive, buried under stones .” Levi’s voice cracks. He flinches.
Even after so many years together, time enough for Erwin to feel the echo of Levi’s pulse beside his own, Levi still fights against his own vulnerability.
He’s human, Erwin has to remind him. You’re not made of clay, Levi.
“God. I don’t want—” Levi wavers. He hums, voice high and thin as a string. “I don’t wanna fuckin’—”
Something pinches at Erwin’s throat, and this time it’s not the smoke. “Yeah. Me neither.” He shifts on the stone floor of the cellar, tightening his hold on Levi.
“Just…” Levi burrows closer. His arm locks against Erwin’s waist. “Just hold me. I want you to be the last thing I feel.”
Erwin can imagine the expression on Levi’s pale, smudged face. To any casual observer, he’d appear unconcerned. Only Erwin could read the spark of panic behind his eyes, the delicate, horror-struck o of his mouth.
“I’m here,” he says into Levi’s bloodied, dusty scalp. “Until the end, I’ll be here.”
Levi does not say thank you . He doesn’t have to. It’s written into every word he says, every act of service he performs. It’s etched into every fingerprint he’s left on Erwin’s skin.
“Remember—” Erwin begins, and stops. He cannot mask his own cough this time, a protest against the smoke they cannot escape from. “Remember when we talked about knocking out the wall to make the bedroom bigger?”
Levi laughs once, quick and sharp and sardonic. “Guess this is one way of doing it.”
“We didn’t need all that closet space, anyway.”
“Well. Maybe with time.”
“Maybe. Or we could have just moved.”
“Yeah. To another affordable, shitty dump. This time, with a slightly bigger bedroom. And flame-proof.”
“Indestructible. Sounds perfect.”
They’re quiet for a time, the echo of the air raid sirens filling the silent space. Somewhere in the distance, another shell goes off.
“Fuck,” Levi says as if suddenly remembering something. “I used to want to smash your face in with a brick. Wish fulfilled, I guess.”
“Oh? When was this?”
“Years and years ago. When you followed me home.” His voice is fainter. It scares Erwin.
“Oh, yes. You forgot your lunch tin. I had to return it.”
“That was your excuse the first time. Your excuses got shittier and shittier after that.”
“Nonsense. I’m a great liar.”
“Only to yourself.”
A ragged inhale. The world seems to spin.
“You…you wore that stupid hat.”
Erwin tries to ignore how Levi slurs over the word stupid. “And you looked like a schoolboy. Too small for your suspenders.”
“Yeah. Wanted to smash that stupid, smug face in.”
“You didn’t say ugly, though.”
“It was ugly.”
Above them, another wooden beam snaps. The crack of it sends a spider of chills skittering down Erwin’s neck.
“You must like ugly. Enough to kiss this ugly face.”
“Mm-hmm.”
Erwin thinks back to their first kiss. Almost twenty years ago now. Both of them a little drunk. Both a little lonely, having each lost a parent in the preceding months.
Levi tapping his slim, beautiful fingers against Erwin’s cheeks. Freckle. Freckle.
Erwin fighting to keep the laughter out of his voice. Yep. I have those.
Their faces so close together their noses brushed. Erwin taking the leap and closing the gap. Levi’s breath hitching in surprise. His arms locking around Erwin’s neck nevertheless.
Every kiss after that just as magnificent. Every night. Every touch. Every moment of their lives together leading to this one.
“Do you think we’ll be fired for missing our shift tomorrow?” he muses. The foreman seems to have been itching for an excuse.
Levi is quiet.
“Maybe the yard was hit, too. Maybe everyone will get a day off. They can come searching for us instead, huh?” Erwin laughs softly, a sound that seems to put thirty years of cigarette smoke in his voice.
“Hey. Levi?”
He’s still.
“ Hey . Levi.”
He jostles him a little, dread seeping like poison in his stomach.
“Levi.”
His arm falls free, dropping from Erwin’s waist.
“ Hey .” Erwin feels stuck in a skipping record, doomed to repeat only those two words. His voice is scratchy, cracking like a brittle piece of pottery. He shouldn’t sound so affronted , so offended. “Levi.”
It doesn’t make sense. Levi shouldn’t, he can’t—
It’s incalculable that he would—
That he would fade away while Erwin still breathes. To leave so quietly. That strong heart of his just…
The heart he gave to Erwin. The heart they share.
It doesn’t make sense, yet here it is.
Erwin holds him close, still. It’s with almost a dogged determination that he clings to Levi, to Levi’s…
Don’t leave. You can’t leave, not without me.
It won’t be long. It can’t be long.
It shouldn’t hurt. Or maybe it did, and Levi hid the pain. He was always exceptionally good at that.
It’s just like falling asleep. Drifting off, in each other’s arms. They’ve done that plenty of times before.
It should feel like a dream. Maybe all this is a dream, anyway.
And when they wake up, everything will be…
…