I wanted some Levi/Eren care before they got together

Levi POV

I had no fucking clue what I was doing. I had never been in love with a transgender person before. Ever since his panic attack, I was worried about pushing him again. I didn't want to ever hurt him again. That in and of itself was scary enough, but I also wasn't too eager to ask Eren for help. I felt like to be a good enough partner, I should just know. I should know how to take care of him.

I remembered Erwin's words about making better and better decisions with him, and I hoped that was true. The more time I spent with him, the more the chance of me hurting him went up. I was his senior officer, and his protector, and so I had a lot of power over him. I didn't want to misuse that power, even unintentionally. I watched my every move, studying his reactions carefully. My first decision came when he had woken up in the middle of the night after falling asleep on me.

Something was moving on top of me, stirring me from my dreams of Eren… I opened my eyes, and it turned out to be Eren. He was struggling to get out of my arms. When I realized this, I immediately let him go.

"Levi, I need help." He rasped out.

"Anything, Eren, name it."

"My chest," he gasped, "I fell asleep in my binder. Help me sit up." He was laying with his back against my stomach now, his body shaking and his head just below my chin. I sat up slowly, taking him with me.

He trembled.

"I can't move my arm," he sniffed. He was gasping and crying and shaking and I needed to figure out how to help him now.

"How do I help?" I was begging at this point; I loved him.

"I hate to ask you, but-"

"Eren, I'll do it. Whatever it is, I'll do it."

"Take my binder off. I – I can't do it myself, I can't move my left arm and I feel like my ribs are cracking."

"How?"

"Take my shirt off, then pull the binder over my head." He was gasping.

I slowly slid out from under him, propping him up on his pillows and balling his blankets under his head to keep him in a kind of make shift position.

I tugged up his shirt, not pausing when I reached his binder. I helped him slip his right arm through the sleeve then pulled it over his head so it was gathered around his limp left arm. I slide it down the arm and tossed it behind me. The binder was the tricky part. I slid my fingers under the bottom of the compression fabric, wincing as I heard him whimper.

"I'm so sorry, Eren."

"Just hurry." I tugged the fabric over his chest, revealing another layer of black fabric. He was shaking even harder now. I tried to prevent the fabric from rolling in on itself, but in my hurry, it did exactly that.

"Sor-"

"Get it off me now, Levi!" He gasped.

I held his limp arm above his head, and he raised his other arm. I pulled the fabric as hard as I could, and it came flying off.

His chest bounced out and he gasped for breath. I placed his arm back down, and he clutched his left shoulder with his right arm.

I sat on the bed beside him, his binder thrown behind me like his shirt. After a few minutes of my worried watching, his breathing settled and I asked what I had been dying to know.

"Are you okay?"

"I should be fi-" he cut off in a coughing fit.

"What's happening, Eren?" My voice sounded tight, even to me. I was helpless and I hated it. "Do you need Erwin? Hanje? Hanje has some medic-"

"No!" He cried out.

"Okay. Okay. Just-" I leaned forward and clutched his limp, clammy hand. His other hand was hold the end of the blanket over his chest. "You have to help me, Eren. I don't know what to do. I don't know how to help you."

"I just- Falling asleep in a binder is dangerous, okay? I pinched a nerve in my left arm, so it's not working right now. Fluid is filling up my lungs, which is gonna take a while to cough out. My ribs ache like fuck because they weren't designed to take pressure like that for that long of a time. My chest feels like a bruised apple. I can feel my fucking stupid tits pounding in pain like you had slammed me into a wall chest first a couple hundred times. Fuck, Levi, there's nothing you can do." I swallowed hard when I heard all this. I looked away.

"Look, Levi, all we can do is wait. You can, ummm, help by, ummmm – Oh! Get me my shirt!" I was off the bed and feeling around the dark floor before he could say anything else. I could manage this. I found the still warm fabric and brought it over to him.

"Do you need help putting it on?" I asked. He nodded.

As I helped him put on his shirt, I stole a few looks at his chest. His breasts look to be about an A cup, certainly not very big at all. That was with that black fabric thing on him though. I was suddenly worried that that was another binder. I paused pulling the shirt down his body.

"Is this another binder?"

"Yeah." He said weakly.

"Does it need to come off, too?"

"No!" He cried out.

"Eren, I won't do anything without your permission, I just want you to be safe." I pulled his shirt down his toned stomach, which I noticed had a slight feminine curve to it. I wondered how he felt about that.

"Levi, will you," he paused, biting his lip.

"Yes, Eren. I will. Whatever it is, if it's in my power, I'll do it."

"Just, um, holding me might make me feel better?" It came out like a question.

"Can I change my clothes, first?" I had fallen asleep with him in the white jeans and white shirt I usually worse. I had removed the belts early last night, but even my cravat was still on.

"Yeah." He said.

"Will it make you uncomfortable if I change in here?"

"No." He squeaked.

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah. It's dark; I can't see anything." It was quite dusky in the room. The curtains were pulled back, and so long as I avoided that strip of moonlight cutting the room in half on the floor, I should be unseen.

"I don't care if you look, Eren." I said gently. I didn't care if he saw me naked; I wasn't really the type to be shy about my body when in front of someone who I felt attracted to.

"I – I won't. I don't want to." I was a little hurt. He didn't even want a peek? I wondered if he was even gay. Maybe he didn't like to see other men like that.

"Alright." I crossed over to the dresser and pulled out my pajama bottoms. I walked to the darkest corner of the room and stripped silently. I slipped on my pajama pants, and carried my clothes to the dresser. I didn't bother to put a shirt on. I glanced over at Eren and saw he had put his hands over his eyes. What a fucking cutie.

"Eren, I'm dressed now." I stood at the dresser, folding my clothes. I occasionally glanced over to him, seeing him watch me in the dusky room. I couldn't see his eyes, but I wondered where they were on me. Was he looking at my chest? My face? My ass? I didn't know. I finished folding my clothes on the dresser. I sat my cravat out to the side. I would wash them in the morning.

"Is it okay if I spread this blanket out?" I tugged on the blanket that I had propped him up with, which was still pretty much there, minus the corner he had used to cover up his chest.

"Y-Yeah." He said, and I pulled the blanket out and spread it over him. I crawled under the covers and reached out to him, pulling him to my chest. He nuzzled into my neck, and I felt him splay his fingers on my chest. I loved this skin to skin contact. I wondered how he felt about it, but there were more important things to talk about.

"Are you okay now?"

"My arm is starting to feel better. It's prickly, but no longer numb. My chest aches less, too."

"Good." I inhaled his scent from the top of his head and hummed in appreciation.

"May I ask why you're not taking off the second binder? Isn't that one dangerous, too?"

He shook his head.

"This binder is different. The other one was really tight, this one is gentle compression. It doesn't hurt me. I can wear it at all times, no problem. The other one can only be worn, say, eight hours a day before it gets dangerous. It's the kind the girls wear for training." Oh. It's an active bra. I had never seen one up close before.

"It's an active bra?"

"I don't like the word 'bra'." He nuzzled deep into my chest. "It's too feminine."

"Sorry." Stupid, Levi, stupid! Of course he wouldn't like the word bra.

"It's okay. You didn't know."

"What are some other things I should avoid?" He stiffened. I regretted saying it, even though I felt I needed to know. "I just don't want to hurt you, Eren."

"Um, looking at my chest, touching my chest… things like that."

"I'm sorry for tonight. If me touching you-" I started.

"It was a medical emergency, Levi. I couldn't do it myself. Anytime I tell you to touch my chest, it can only be a medically necessary thing." He stated. I pulled him closer, shifting my legs under him so that he settled between them.

"Hmmm… just calling me a girl or implying that I'm a girl," he started again, "Also, saying that I'm associated with girly things."

His voice turned sour when he said the next one, "Saying I'm confused or that I don't know what I'm doing."

"I won't ever do those things then, Eren." I hoped he hadn't been around many people who did those things.

"Also, saying things that imply that gender equals sex. I'm a man with a vagina. There are others who may be women with penises. There are non-binary people of all kinds, too." He said.

I nodded, taking the opportunity to pull him closer and dip my head closer to his.

"Hanje told me about this before. They're non-binary, and explained it to me when they told me."

"That's how I didn't need to explain what transgender meant?" He asked.

I hummed, moving my face closer to his in the darkness. I wanted to kiss him.

"I like Hanje!" He said, his voice perking up suddenly.

I laughed a bit, shaking him.

"Levi." He said shocked.

"What is it, Eren?"

"That's the first time I have ever heard you laugh, Levi." He sounded like a kid just given a lollipop. "It's beautiful." Fuck. This fucking brat.

"I don't laugh a lot, brat."

"So we're back to brat now, huh?" I could tell in the darkness that his face, and lips, were tilted up toward me.

"Eren," I said gruffly, suddenly aware of how hot his hands were on my bare skin.

"Levi," he teased, apparently not getting the change in my mood. He laughed a bit, send rumbles though me.

"Can I kiss you, Eren?" I asked him gently. He froze. His laughter stopped.

"Y-yes." That was all I needed. I closed the distance in the dark, finding his soft lips. Just a peck, just a little token of my affection… I hoped he could feel I was promising him so much more.

I looked down into my cup of tea. I swirled it around a bit, before gulping the rest of it down. I had been thinking for so long that I my tea had cooled. It had been about a week since our kiss. We hadn't shared a bed since. It was so awkward in our room now.

I wondered what Eren was talking about right now. I had given Mikasa and Armin permission to visit him in our room. I knew that they knew, (why else would they put his binder in his clothes so sneakily?), and I figured they were discussing me right now. I was sitting in Hanje's room with the door open. I would occasionally hear laughs coming from the other side of the hall. Hanje was sitting next to me, staring at me. We had been like this in silence for ten minutes.

"Can I fucking help you?" I said, not looking over to them.

"You kissed him."

"Yes I did." How does they always know?

"Do you love him?"

"Fuck off."

"That means you love him." They sat back, looking triumphant.

"Fuck. Off."

"Love that boy."

"Hanje." I growled.

They just laughed.

I was so fucked.

Remember kids, binding is dangerous. As a transman, I can vouch that you will get hurt if you sleep in it. I once pinched a nerve in my left arm so bad I thought I was going to have permanent damage. Took forever to get feeling back.