The important thing is that he backs down when asked; a touch, a shrug of his shoulder, pulling back. It's rare that Finnick doesn't realize that Levi needs space, which feels like a fucking goldmine, somehow. People who are as touchy as Finnick seems to be tend to be annoyingly oblivious to the concept that not everyone is as happy to be pawed at all the time. He never pushes, and he never ridicules.
Truly, some part of him is waiting for the other shoe to drop. But so far there's been no hint of it. Not even a shadow.
Levi can't see what Finnick is doing well enough to mimic it, and the description is a little confusing. Pursing his lips, he tries to move out to a little bit deeper water, throat clenching a little, but Finnick's hands at his waist are a somewhat reassuring safety net.
Which is good, because the first time he tries it he's definitely not doing something right, as he starts to sink almost immediately, sucking in a somewhat panicked breath as the water rises toward his head.
"Fuck-"
they all got mad dissolved minerals so ya, buoyancy bay bee
"Breathe. I have you," Finnick says firmly, immediately, as Levi starts to panic. His hands tighten slightly around Levi's small and dense waist, holding him afloat, his chin above the surface. Due to their height difference, Finnick's feet are still planted, so he can hold Levi mostly still.
"You can stop moving completely. See? You won't go under. Stay still for a sec and get used to it."
He looks into Levi's eyes, his gaze encouraging and steady, and breathes loudly enough for both of them to hear.
"Panicking wastes your energy and increases your risk of drowning. So focus on your breath. Whenever you're ready, start to kick. You want to push the water downward under you with your hands and feet."
It might seem that someone with his capabilities and all of the shit that he's been through that nothing would scare him. But Levi has his fears just as anyone else, and even if he does have generations of instincts packed into the strange power in his blood, it doesn't mean he automatically knows how to swim.
And frankly, it's fucking terrifying feeling water start to close over your head. Probably then that preternatural instinct would have taken over, and he would have figured out something on the precipice of life and death. It's a shitty way to learn, though.
This is better.
Strong hands clasp at his middle, holding him steady, but his own still rest on Finnick's biceps, fingertips pressing in for stability. Levi stops as instructed, feeling his pulse beat a little too strongly in his throat from that spike of adrenaline. For a few seconds he hangs there, letting the younger man take his weight, feet dangling. It's a little like being suspended in midair by the gear, but even that realization doesn't quite alleviate the anxiety of deep(er) water.
Yet Finnick's calm, firm voice and clear direction are grounding, and as Levi holds that aquamarine gaze, matching their breaths, he visibly settles again.
Push the water downward.
"Right." He takes another breath. "Got it..."
Over the next few minutes, he tries a few different motions - the first are too literal, almost like a stomping motion, too difficult to maintain easily. But eventually he finds a gentler, more fluid motion, a bit like walking. This feels maybe like it's working, more natural...but he doesn't let go of Finnick just yet.
As strange as it is to see Levi scared, Finnick knows no one is immune to fear. Even the most psychopathic victors he knows have a soft squishy spot in them somewhere. A vulnerable moment or two. He holds eye contact with Levi steadily, barely blinking, as though to prove to him that his attention won't waver, that no distraction can make him lose his grip. That this is more important than anything else. He continues to breathe audibly with Levi, nodding slowly as he calms and begins to move.
It's awkward and jerky at first, but he catches on quickly, and soon he's got enough propulsion that the weight starts to come up off of Finnick's arms.
"Good. Just like that. You feel lighter already. Try adding your hands, I've still got you."
A small smirk.
"Just imagine... You're a fish... Shitting all over the pool."
When he feels a little more stable, more confident, his hands finally slide away from Finnick, pulling them back to try mimicking what he had seen him do earlier, little wiping motions with his arms...he might be imagining wiping a window.
Levi snorts at that description, his concentration more on moving his hands back and forth, feet still cycling gently. "Better be glad I don't need to act out my imagination." Otherwise that could end up awkward and gross for both of them.
Once he finds something that works, he definitely seems to figure it out quickly; he's always picked up physical skills quite fast, and this is thankfully no exception. It's still undetermined how he feels about deep water in general, but at least now maybe he won't sink and drown immediately.
"...okay," he says after a few minutes. "Try letting go."
He's not entirely sure of himself yet, but stubbornly wants to see if he can manage on his own.
Still...having Finnick's hands on his waist is...nice...
If only Finnick could have thought of the window-wiping analogy... It's perfect. But Levi seems to figure it out on his own, thankfully, so he doesn't feel too bad for being a shitty teacher.
He laughs softly.
"Yeah, don't actually do that please."
He observes Levi closely, and soon he's swimming enough that Finnick barely needs to hold him.
"That's great. You got it."
Barely touching him anyway, it's hardly even noticeable when he removes his hands, though he watches like a hawk for any sign of sinking, still at the ready to grab him if need be. But Levi stays afloat.
"Look at you. You're swimming. You're a fast learner, I'm impressed." He smiles at him, a satisfied grin.
It's hard to teach something that comes so easily, especially if you can't remember being taught. But seeing as Levi has learned how to tread water for at least a few minutes without sinking like a stone, Finnick should count it as a success.
It might be a little difficult to tell in the dim light and through his look of intense concentration, but the praise and the smile do seem to boost him a little, and there's a little hint of triumph in his eyes. When he manages to stay up on his own without completely submerging, he flicks a pleased look to Finnick, and starts to experiment with different movements with his arms, figuring out how to propel himself forward.
"Yeah, all those shitting fish better watch their backs." Or something.
Eventually, he figures out how to glide forward, and moves in close to Finnick again. Take his waist again, sir.
Finnick laughs again with a grin at Levi's little shift in confidence. At least he doesn't seem scared now.
"There's a new shark at the top of the food chain," he murmurs, his tone suggestive as he gently takes Levi's waist and pulls him in again. He ducks his head to kiss Levi gently, and when it breaks, he lingers there. An invitation, an opening for Levi to deepen things if he likes.
Definitely less worried about immediately drowning in deeper water, although it probably doesn't mean he's going into that ocean or lake anytime soon. Still, it's an improvement.
Finnick's kisses are always so warm, and the lingering makes it seem as though he's really savoring the feeling of being close, and it makes his chest feel light. Levi follows it with a kiss of his own, brief and sweet, though he doesn't deepen it yet.
"Hmm," he hums, curling hands around the younger man's upper arms again. There's just...something about larger hands on his waist.
"Shark..." the word seems a little unfamiliar to him, but Levi's trying to recall something Erwin or Hange probably read in a book once upon a time. He licks his lips thoughtfully. "Big, lots of teeth, right?"
Finnick looks down at Levi, smitten. He is savoring the closeness; he enjoys it with anyone, but especially with Levi, who he knows won't get this close to just anyone.
His unfamiliarity with sharks is adorable, as is his curiosity and thoughtfulness about it. Finnick finds it very endearing. He grips Levi's waist a bit tighter and gently, slowly spins him around in the pool.
"Yep. They're fearsome predators in the ocean. Very cool." He's certainly running the risk of scaring Levi off of ever swimming in the ocean.
Finnick looks at him like that, and Levi realizes he's still never prepared for those sorts of expressions from anyone. Erwin and Hange would sometimes gaze at him with a seeming unbridled fondness, and he'd still wonder what it is about himself that made them stick around. He understands better, with each passing day, how Finnick makes him feel. But even if he could acknowledge that he's given the younger man something in return, it somehow still doesn't quite add up.
Luckily, Levi isn't in the habit of outright questioning people why they find interest in him, or elect to spend their time with him; he's just happy that they do.
As they take a little turn around the heated pool, he can't help but remember dancing with Hange in the kitchen shortly before they'd disappeared. He'd hated dancing at galas, having to suffer nobles who asked too many stupid or inappropriate questions, but did it anyway to bolster chances of more funding for the Survey Corps - a novelty, to dance with Humanity's Strongest, who is surprisingly light on his feet despite his coarse upbringing. But in their own kitchen, with someone he loved...
...did they have those sort of moments before the world fell to shit? When everyone else was gone, and they the sole veteran survivors?
Part of him hopes so. But then, he can hardly imagine wanting to dance when there were so many dead to mourn.
Levi slides his hands up Finnick's arms to his shoulders, following the curve of muscles beneath smooth skin, and winds closer, arms loosely draped around his neck. The cool moonlight and warm glow of the candle-lit lanterns cast conflicting hues in the dim light, the color of those aquamarine eyes seeming to shift depending on the angle. He gazes at him, quiet and contemplative.
Finnick and Levi could probably relate to being obligated to go to fancy parties with a bunch of stupid rich people. Finnick was something of a novelty himself, the handsome victor, and knows how exhausting it can be.
But this is certainly something else entirely. The atmosphere is beautiful, and so is Levi. The way the smaller man gazes at him, the thought in his eyes, his silence, their bodies so close and moving in sync. It all feels so intimate. That's something he loves about Levi; he makes simple moments feel so special. Finnick is always going fast, meeting people, trying new things, and Levi reminds him to slow down, to savour the moment without pushing it forward into something else.
"Me? Hmm..." He almost tells Levi to pick one, then remembers he doesn't know many sea creatures.
"Tough question. Maybe a dolphin? They're pretty, smart, and very social. Or maybe that's just me sucking my own dick," he jokes with a small smirk.
Enjoying the moment has become essential for Levi at this point, because he's still so accustomed to there never being any time. Planning or training or going out beyond the walls, responding to an unimaginable crisis - it was so rare to make time for anything else. You had to take those moments with the people you cared for while you could.
Perhaps he gets too stuck in his own head from time to time, thinking about it. But it's those thoughts and memories that ensure he doesn't take anything like this for granted, and hold onto the little happinesses he can find, like in the careful way Finnick holds him and moves them through the heated pool, his smile in moonlight.
He huffs softly, the sound that seems to pass for a soft laugh or chuckle, a flash of warm amusement in his eyes. "Sounds right to me." It comes out with a bit of a drawl, fingers curling in Finnick's hair at the back of his neck, and Levi thinks about kissing him again.
The little laugh makes Finnick smile wider, warmer. He continues to spin and sway slowly in the pool with Levi in his arms.
"About dolphins? Mm... They swim in groups called... Pods? That's what a group of whales is called, I think dolphins too maybe. They breathe like whales do, through a blowhole in the top of their head that they bring up to the surface periodically to take a breath. They're mammals, so they're warm-blooded unlike most fish, and birth live young rather than eggs. I heard once their frontal cortexes are bigger and more complex than humans' are, which suggests they're smart and also empathetic. I'll show you a picture sometime, they're cool."
It's nice, this - just taking turns around the spring, private and tucked away from everyone else, listening to Finnick tell him about things he's never seen and maybe never will see. Do dolphins and sharks exist in the sea that supposedly exists outside their (apparent) island? Perhaps those are just creatures from the place that Finnick called home.
Levi feels his shoulders unwind and relax a little more, sinking a little closer to him. His feet mostly don't touch the bottom of the pool, so he's just relying on Finnick here. That's nice, too.
He's trying to recall what the dolphins and...whale-things looked like. At some point along the way he'd picked up basic knowledge of animal classification, like mammals and fish and birds and insects, but his knowledge of science beyond that is rather limited, aside from a few random facts lodged into his head during one of Hange's ramblings. When Finnick starts talking about 'frontal cortexes', it's like he'd suddenly started talking in another language.
Levi blinks at him a bit, digesting all of the information. "Dunno what a...cortex is. But you're saying they're intelligent enough to understand feelings, is that it?"
Holding Levi like this makes Finnick feel a little like Levi is his. Of course he's Erwin's first, but... It's still a nice feeling. He realizes he wants that, but he's not going to rush anything.
"Yeah, you got it. The cortex is just the noodly part of your brain, I think. The frontal cortex is here-" Finnick grips a hand to Levi's forehead- "and it's where all the more complicated thought and reasoning happens."
He bursts out in laughter at the blowhole question.
"Yep, that's-- that's what it's called. When they surface, they blow air out of it to clear it before they breathe in."
Well Finnick, the fact that you're already here with him like this means you've got a not insignificant part of his heart. There are things that only he and Erwin can share, but it doesn't negate the things the two of them already have together, too.
Levi has to tighten his hold on Finnick's neck when he lets one hand go of his waist, which brings them even closer, nearly chest to chest. He has to tread his feet a bit to help himself stay upright. Finnick's hand is wet against his skin, a droplet of water falling onto his cheek and rolling down almost like a tear, but he doesn't seem bothered - too busy drinking in the sound of that laugh.
"Huh." He just gazes up at Finnick from a few inches away, quite at ease, shifting between his eyes and his lips. One hand scrunches those curls again. "Learning all kinds'a shit from you tonight." Swimming, cortexes, blowholes.
When Finnick moves his arm back to Levi's waist, he wraps arms around him, closing the small distance between them so their bodies are pressed together. The warm water makes his skin feel smooth and almost ticklish against him. He hums, kissing Levi again.
"You're ever the curious student, Levi..." he purrs, his real hand sliding down Levi's back and over his ass.
"I like that about you. That you want to learn. Someone who's seen the kind of shit you have could easily be closed off to anything new, but you're the opposite."
There's an undeniable uptick in his pulse when they're finally pressed close, although suddenly he's unsure yet if it's arousal or anxiety - the kiss helps, eyes gliding shut to hold onto it a second more.
Levi eyes Finnick with a quirk of his eyebrow. Few people have accused him of being particularly curious. He can be fairly resistant to change or often directly interacting with new things, but perhaps Erwin and Hange have rubbed off on him more than he realizes. When things start getting overly detailed he tends to tune out, taking only what information he needs really. But even if he's never really had much formal education, it's clear that he's still quite intelligent.
Yet what it maybe really is: "Ch. Perhaps I just like listening to you talk."
He kisses him again and continues to sway, holding Levi's muscular body close against him, relishing in the feeling of it.
People tend to assume that Finnick isn't smart or that there isn't much to him outside of being the pretty beach boy. He has to admit, explaining things to Levi does feel validating, in the sense that someone thinks he has valuable knowledge. In short, it makes him feel smart.
"That's good, since I never seem to shut the fuck up."
His hand moves from Levi's ass to continue to roam his body, over the bumps and lines of scars, around curved muscles. The heat of the water and the sensation of skin against skin relaxes him and puts him in a slight daze. He gazes at Levi with lidded eyes that linger on his lips, mostly thinking about kissing him.
Well, there's plenty of things that Finnick knows that Levi doesn't, and he sounds competent when he talks about it. He's passionate, and most importantly doesn't talk down to Levi for not being familiar with the weirdass things in the ocean. So: it's a nice experience, really.
By now, it's probably fairly clear that Levi does rather enjoy kissing, especially taking his time. There are times when he gets overwhelmed with a shower of them, but much of the time, he's happy to do it at a leisurely pace. The kisses are a nice distraction from starting to overthink things, the wandering hand seems to be a little more relaxing now than anything. Levi leans a little more of his weight into Finnick, pressing closer, leaning in to leave something lighter, softer, sweeter on his lips.
"Good..."
He nudges at Finnick's jaw with the bridge of his nose.
"Take us to the edge. Probably weighing your neck down." And he's tired of floating around without supporting his own weight, for now.
At the kiss, Finnick sighs out a longer, pleasured hum. Then he nods, walking himself and Levi back to the shallower part of the pool, toward the edge. Levi can now touch the bottom with his feet flat.
Unfortunately, sir, even though Levi is plenty aware of how sex works, some of the slang and specific names of certain acts is just not filed anywhere in his brain (assuming the same sort of terminology even exists where he's from-). So that earns Finnick a quizzical look, softly confused, even as he leans forward, hands resting on his chest, to nudge him up to the, well - edge.
"No idea what you're talking about," he drawls a little, and tries to push Finnick to sit a little lower in the water to make him easier to kiss. "...but I like it when you smile."
And he'll get another kiss on the one that - hopefully - appears.
Finnick likes the way Levi positions him, and he moves easily under Levi's strong hands. The slight dominance in the action makes his body react with an uptick of arousal, and so do Levi's sweet words.
On cue, the smile does appear, nothing but warmth in his aquamarine eyes that close as he kisses Levi back, slow and gentle but with definite intention. He savors the brush of Levi's lips against his, and puts hands on him again, this time on his hips, thumb rubbing there.
He isn't going to explain edging right now.
"I like when you do just about anything," he murmurs, then goes in for another.
Well guess he'll just have to wonder about it, won't he.
...except he probably won't, because compared to these slow, perfect kisses, Levi can't be bothered to think about much else. He also hasn't thought particularly about any steps ahead of this, either. The thumb on his hip seems to just skirt a particularly sensitive spot, grazing along the edge of it that sends faint prickles along his spine. For now, he's just enjoying the touch, arms looped lazily and more comfortably about Finnick's neck, head tilting to the side in bemusement.
"Oh? Knew you were a bit touched in the head," he drawls a bit, fondly sifting curls through his fingers. "Well...s'pose it's kind of a requirement, at this point, f'you're still not sick of me yet."
Because anyone who wanted to spend this much time with him surely had to be.
(In reality, they're impossibly patient and impossibly kind, as far as he's concerned.)
Levi takes another lighter, sweeter kiss, admiring the shifting hues in Finnick's eyes for a moment.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
some are!
Truly, some part of him is waiting for the other shoe to drop. But so far there's been no hint of it. Not even a shadow.
Levi can't see what Finnick is doing well enough to mimic it, and the description is a little confusing. Pursing his lips, he tries to move out to a little bit deeper water, throat clenching a little, but Finnick's hands at his waist are a somewhat reassuring safety net.
Which is good, because the first time he tries it he's definitely not doing something right, as he starts to sink almost immediately, sucking in a somewhat panicked breath as the water rises toward his head.
"Fuck-"
they all got mad dissolved minerals so ya, buoyancy bay bee
"You can stop moving completely. See? You won't go under. Stay still for a sec and get used to it."
He looks into Levi's eyes, his gaze encouraging and steady, and breathes loudly enough for both of them to hear.
"Panicking wastes your energy and increases your risk of drowning. So focus on your breath. Whenever you're ready, start to kick. You want to push the water downward under you with your hands and feet."
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And frankly, it's fucking terrifying feeling water start to close over your head. Probably then that preternatural instinct would have taken over, and he would have figured out something on the precipice of life and death. It's a shitty way to learn, though.
This is better.
Strong hands clasp at his middle, holding him steady, but his own still rest on Finnick's biceps, fingertips pressing in for stability. Levi stops as instructed, feeling his pulse beat a little too strongly in his throat from that spike of adrenaline. For a few seconds he hangs there, letting the younger man take his weight, feet dangling. It's a little like being suspended in midair by the gear, but even that realization doesn't quite alleviate the anxiety of deep(er) water.
Yet Finnick's calm, firm voice and clear direction are grounding, and as Levi holds that aquamarine gaze, matching their breaths, he visibly settles again.
Push the water downward.
"Right." He takes another breath. "Got it..."
Over the next few minutes, he tries a few different motions - the first are too literal, almost like a stomping motion, too difficult to maintain easily. But eventually he finds a gentler, more fluid motion, a bit like walking. This feels maybe like it's working, more natural...but he doesn't let go of Finnick just yet.
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It's awkward and jerky at first, but he catches on quickly, and soon he's got enough propulsion that the weight starts to come up off of Finnick's arms.
"Good. Just like that. You feel lighter already. Try adding your hands, I've still got you."
A small smirk.
"Just imagine... You're a fish... Shitting all over the pool."
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Levi snorts at that description, his concentration more on moving his hands back and forth, feet still cycling gently. "Better be glad I don't need to act out my imagination." Otherwise that could end up awkward and gross for both of them.
Once he finds something that works, he definitely seems to figure it out quickly; he's always picked up physical skills quite fast, and this is thankfully no exception. It's still undetermined how he feels about deep water in general, but at least now maybe he won't sink and drown immediately.
"...okay," he says after a few minutes. "Try letting go."
He's not entirely sure of himself yet, but stubbornly wants to see if he can manage on his own.
Still...having Finnick's hands on his waist is...nice...
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He laughs softly.
"Yeah, don't actually do that please."
He observes Levi closely, and soon he's swimming enough that Finnick barely needs to hold him.
"That's great. You got it."
Barely touching him anyway, it's hardly even noticeable when he removes his hands, though he watches like a hawk for any sign of sinking, still at the ready to grab him if need be. But Levi stays afloat.
"Look at you. You're swimming. You're a fast learner, I'm impressed." He smiles at him, a satisfied grin.
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It might be a little difficult to tell in the dim light and through his look of intense concentration, but the praise and the smile do seem to boost him a little, and there's a little hint of triumph in his eyes. When he manages to stay up on his own without completely submerging, he flicks a pleased look to Finnick, and starts to experiment with different movements with his arms, figuring out how to propel himself forward.
"Yeah, all those shitting fish better watch their backs." Or something.
Eventually, he figures out how to glide forward, and moves in close to Finnick again. Take his waist again, sir.
"Thanks...had a good teacher."
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"There's a new shark at the top of the food chain," he murmurs, his tone suggestive as he gently takes Levi's waist and pulls him in again. He ducks his head to kiss Levi gently, and when it breaks, he lingers there. An invitation, an opening for Levi to deepen things if he likes.
"I'm glad we can learn from each other."
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Finnick's kisses are always so warm, and the lingering makes it seem as though he's really savoring the feeling of being close, and it makes his chest feel light. Levi follows it with a kiss of his own, brief and sweet, though he doesn't deepen it yet.
"Hmm," he hums, curling hands around the younger man's upper arms again. There's just...something about larger hands on his waist.
"Shark..." the word seems a little unfamiliar to him, but Levi's trying to recall something Erwin or Hange probably read in a book once upon a time. He licks his lips thoughtfully. "Big, lots of teeth, right?"
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His unfamiliarity with sharks is adorable, as is his curiosity and thoughtfulness about it. Finnick finds it very endearing. He grips Levi's waist a bit tighter and gently, slowly spins him around in the pool.
"Yep. They're fearsome predators in the ocean. Very cool." He's certainly running the risk of scaring Levi off of ever swimming in the ocean.
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Luckily, Levi isn't in the habit of outright questioning people why they find interest in him, or elect to spend their time with him; he's just happy that they do.
As they take a little turn around the heated pool, he can't help but remember dancing with Hange in the kitchen shortly before they'd disappeared. He'd hated dancing at galas, having to suffer nobles who asked too many stupid or inappropriate questions, but did it anyway to bolster chances of more funding for the Survey Corps - a novelty, to dance with Humanity's Strongest, who is surprisingly light on his feet despite his coarse upbringing. But in their own kitchen, with someone he loved...
...did they have those sort of moments before the world fell to shit? When everyone else was gone, and they the sole veteran survivors?
Part of him hopes so. But then, he can hardly imagine wanting to dance when there were so many dead to mourn.
Levi slides his hands up Finnick's arms to his shoulders, following the curve of muscles beneath smooth skin, and winds closer, arms loosely draped around his neck. The cool moonlight and warm glow of the candle-lit lanterns cast conflicting hues in the dim light, the color of those aquamarine eyes seeming to shift depending on the angle. He gazes at him, quiet and contemplative.
"So what would you be?"
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But this is certainly something else entirely. The atmosphere is beautiful, and so is Levi. The way the smaller man gazes at him, the thought in his eyes, his silence, their bodies so close and moving in sync. It all feels so intimate. That's something he loves about Levi; he makes simple moments feel so special. Finnick is always going fast, meeting people, trying new things, and Levi reminds him to slow down, to savour the moment without pushing it forward into something else.
"Me? Hmm..." He almost tells Levi to pick one, then remembers he doesn't know many sea creatures.
"Tough question. Maybe a dolphin? They're pretty, smart, and very social. Or maybe that's just me sucking my own dick," he jokes with a small smirk.
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Perhaps he gets too stuck in his own head from time to time, thinking about it. But it's those thoughts and memories that ensure he doesn't take anything like this for granted, and hold onto the little happinesses he can find, like in the careful way Finnick holds him and moves them through the heated pool, his smile in moonlight.
He huffs softly, the sound that seems to pass for a soft laugh or chuckle, a flash of warm amusement in his eyes. "Sounds right to me." It comes out with a bit of a drawl, fingers curling in Finnick's hair at the back of his neck, and Levi thinks about kissing him again.
"Tell me more."
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"About dolphins? Mm... They swim in groups called... Pods? That's what a group of whales is called, I think dolphins too maybe. They breathe like whales do, through a blowhole in the top of their head that they bring up to the surface periodically to take a breath. They're mammals, so they're warm-blooded unlike most fish, and birth live young rather than eggs. I heard once their frontal cortexes are bigger and more complex than humans' are, which suggests they're smart and also empathetic. I'll show you a picture sometime, they're cool."
no subject
Levi feels his shoulders unwind and relax a little more, sinking a little closer to him. His feet mostly don't touch the bottom of the pool, so he's just relying on Finnick here. That's nice, too.
He's trying to recall what the dolphins and...whale-things looked like. At some point along the way he'd picked up basic knowledge of animal classification, like mammals and fish and birds and insects, but his knowledge of science beyond that is rather limited, aside from a few random facts lodged into his head during one of Hange's ramblings. When Finnick starts talking about 'frontal cortexes', it's like he'd suddenly started talking in another language.
Levi blinks at him a bit, digesting all of the information. "Dunno what a...cortex is. But you're saying they're intelligent enough to understand feelings, is that it?"
Don't all animals have feelings?
And of course:
"Is it really called a blowhole?"
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"Yeah, you got it. The cortex is just the noodly part of your brain, I think. The frontal cortex is here-" Finnick grips a hand to Levi's forehead- "and it's where all the more complicated thought and reasoning happens."
He bursts out in laughter at the blowhole question.
"Yep, that's-- that's what it's called. When they surface, they blow air out of it to clear it before they breathe in."
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Levi has to tighten his hold on Finnick's neck when he lets one hand go of his waist, which brings them even closer, nearly chest to chest. He has to tread his feet a bit to help himself stay upright. Finnick's hand is wet against his skin, a droplet of water falling onto his cheek and rolling down almost like a tear, but he doesn't seem bothered - too busy drinking in the sound of that laugh.
"Huh." He just gazes up at Finnick from a few inches away, quite at ease, shifting between his eyes and his lips. One hand scrunches those curls again. "Learning all kinds'a shit from you tonight." Swimming, cortexes, blowholes.
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"You're ever the curious student, Levi..." he purrs, his real hand sliding down Levi's back and over his ass.
"I like that about you. That you want to learn. Someone who's seen the kind of shit you have could easily be closed off to anything new, but you're the opposite."
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Levi eyes Finnick with a quirk of his eyebrow. Few people have accused him of being particularly curious. He can be fairly resistant to change or often directly interacting with new things, but perhaps Erwin and Hange have rubbed off on him more than he realizes. When things start getting overly detailed he tends to tune out, taking only what information he needs really. But even if he's never really had much formal education, it's clear that he's still quite intelligent.
Yet what it maybe really is: "Ch. Perhaps I just like listening to you talk."
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He kisses him again and continues to sway, holding Levi's muscular body close against him, relishing in the feeling of it.
People tend to assume that Finnick isn't smart or that there isn't much to him outside of being the pretty beach boy. He has to admit, explaining things to Levi does feel validating, in the sense that someone thinks he has valuable knowledge. In short, it makes him feel smart.
"That's good, since I never seem to shut the fuck up."
His hand moves from Levi's ass to continue to roam his body, over the bumps and lines of scars, around curved muscles. The heat of the water and the sensation of skin against skin relaxes him and puts him in a slight daze. He gazes at Levi with lidded eyes that linger on his lips, mostly thinking about kissing him.
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By now, it's probably fairly clear that Levi does rather enjoy kissing, especially taking his time. There are times when he gets overwhelmed with a shower of them, but much of the time, he's happy to do it at a leisurely pace. The kisses are a nice distraction from starting to overthink things, the wandering hand seems to be a little more relaxing now than anything. Levi leans a little more of his weight into Finnick, pressing closer, leaning in to leave something lighter, softer, sweeter on his lips.
"Good..."
He nudges at Finnick's jaw with the bridge of his nose.
"Take us to the edge. Probably weighing your neck down." And he's tired of floating around without supporting his own weight, for now.
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"You want me to edge you, huh?"
Stupid.
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"No idea what you're talking about," he drawls a little, and tries to push Finnick to sit a little lower in the water to make him easier to kiss. "...but I like it when you smile."
And he'll get another kiss on the one that - hopefully - appears.
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On cue, the smile does appear, nothing but warmth in his aquamarine eyes that close as he kisses Levi back, slow and gentle but with definite intention. He savors the brush of Levi's lips against his, and puts hands on him again, this time on his hips, thumb rubbing there.
He isn't going to explain edging right now.
"I like when you do just about anything," he murmurs, then goes in for another.
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...except he probably won't, because compared to these slow, perfect kisses, Levi can't be bothered to think about much else. He also hasn't thought particularly about any steps ahead of this, either. The thumb on his hip seems to just skirt a particularly sensitive spot, grazing along the edge of it that sends faint prickles along his spine. For now, he's just enjoying the touch, arms looped lazily and more comfortably about Finnick's neck, head tilting to the side in bemusement.
"Oh? Knew you were a bit touched in the head," he drawls a bit, fondly sifting curls through his fingers. "Well...s'pose it's kind of a requirement, at this point, f'you're still not sick of me yet."
Because anyone who wanted to spend this much time with him surely had to be.
(In reality, they're impossibly patient and impossibly kind, as far as he's concerned.)
Levi takes another lighter, sweeter kiss, admiring the shifting hues in Finnick's eyes for a moment.
"...thanks again, for bringing us out here."
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so so sorry it's been forever ;;
no worries bb <3
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cw reference to past dubcon/noncon
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