(Levi x reader) A Photographer's Mission chpt 1

“No.”


“Why not!?” you demand, slamming your palms onto his desk, “I'm just as good as all the others!”


“That's not good enough, not in your condition,” replies the older man.


“Why do you hate me so much all of a sudden?”


“‘Cause you somehow manage to eat enough to gain weight in the Scout Regiment.”


You could punch him. You really want to punch him.


“I'm going. You can't tell me no.”


“Then your blood is not on my hands,” mutters the captain.


You storm out of the room, angry and hurt and so willing to punch him, but you don't. So what if you want to go out and photograph the Titans? So what if you have the world’s worst metabolism? What does he care if you can't keep up?


You'll show him that you're more capable than most.


~o0o~


You and Levi go back. Not too far, but far enough; back to when you were eight and he was thirteen. You met him wandering the streets. You were lonely, he admitted to having no place to be, and the two of you shared a piece of candy.


It was funny, really. You came from a struggling family and finances were scarce; sugar was always a luxury. Quite frankly, it was obvious that Levi didn't come from anything better.


After combining your measly allowance with his pair of pennies, the two of you ran into a shop and bought a single, round hard candy. It was pink and purple and since you put more money towards it, you decided how it would be shared.


“We each get a one-minute suck on it,” you declared, carefully unwrapping the treasure from its wax-coated brown paper.


“That's gross!” exclaimed Levi. You put your fist on your hip.


“If I bite it, I get the bigger piece, but that's not fair,” you explained, “We both paid fair and square so we both get half.”


“Do you have any idea how nasty taking a sticky old piece of candy from your grubby little fingers would be!? No!”


“Then I'll have it all to myself!” you snapped, and you pushed the candy into your mouth. You can remember the sweetness from the sugar and blueberries and the faint tartness from the raspberries that had been cooked down and concocted to create the treat. It had a velvety touch against your tongue, and you had closed your eyes and given a long, contented sigh.


“Is it good?” Levi asked quietly, and you just nodded blissfully. After a short time, he had started fidgeting and asked you if it was his turn yet.


Finally, you gave up the lozenge and watched enviously as it slid past the older boy's lips. His reaction was less dramatic, but he did sigh, and you noticed his shoulders relax.


“Is it good?” you whispered.


"Really good…”


How that boy became how he is now is beyond you. Now you're blessed to be able to avoid him and a confrontation about your weight.


If he gets to pick on you because of your weight, why can't you comment on his height? Honestly, can't the guy take a little teasing?


“Can't you?”


“Eh!?” You jump, quite startled by the timing of Levi’s question. “I'm sorry; I...was distracted. What did you say?”


“Can't you have an actual conversation without spacing out?” Levi offers you a sideways glare and swipes at his desk with the palm of his hand, his fingers tracing around a coffee cup, a pencil cup, a stack of papers, to catch about three dust motes you brought in to shake on the floor.


“Sorry,” you say softly, looking down at the floor, “Levi-”


“Captain,” he corrects.


“I've never called you captain! Why would I start now!?”


“Because you have demoted yourself from being...more to me than a soldier. You're just another clueless kid that I have to send to their death.”


“I'm not a kid anymore,” you say softly, “I've lived through some bad stuff, same as you. Horrors. Titans. And I've known you for years; you know me. But…” You pause, frowning softly as memories of losing Levi as a confidante after his first scouting mission flickers through your mind. “Just...not as well as you used to.”


“It wouldn't be fair of me to deny that,” he says, sighing before looking up at you, an indication of his past friendship with you, “What do you want me to say?”


“I want you to support my decision. Can't you understand how valuable photographic documentation of the Titans would be?”


“Of course I do,” replies Levi, “But how could you possibly get anything worthwhile?”


“I’m...I wasn't going to say.”


“Because you want to do something stupid,” says the captain, his face setting in a harsh expression, “No. You will not step foot outside those walls; absolutely not.”


“You already said you wouldn't stop me!”


“I've changed my mind!!” roars the man, “You're staying here! Anything else will be an act of treason, and your connection to me will be made meaningless.”


“Ooh, I could punch you in your smug little face,” you growl, turning on your heel and stomping from the room. Tears of frustration and humiliation prick your eyelids, but you blink them away. You're smarter than he is, you're sure of it.


You'll get outside.


~o0o~


Levi is too lenient for his own good. He knows it, you know it, but no one else does. Nobody knows of your past, so nobody looks for anything out of the usual between you two. There's nothing to see.


He's given you up to your own choices, and you've simply given up on him. Not much left either of you can do about or want to do about it. People talk all the time about personalities clashing, and yours certainly tend to anymore.


You plan your mission in the quiet of your mother's home, at every opportunity you can carve out for yourself. You scrap more thoughts than you keep but, eventually, with the scouting trip less than a week away, you've got it, and it's planned to a T. You have gasoline canisters strapped together for easy carrying, a pack with food, water, a blanket, pain medication and all the first-aid essentials; bandages, sutures and needles, a scalpel, cream to treat the chafing and burns from your three-dimensional gear’s straps. You have everything, including the world's best pair of hiking boots and a horse waiting for you in the empty Trost district. You would sneak out the most dangerous way; by running around the top of the wall, scaling down to pick up your gear, and squeezing out through a tiny gap that was left unfilled by the enormous boulder the Eren-Titan placed there. Then you would ride to Shiganshina and exit the walls while the survey squad would leave via the  Washington district, one quarter of a turn around Wall Maria.


You're ready.


~o0o~


Levi can feel the upset in the air of the evacuated Washington district. It's quiet. The only sound on the breeze is the occasional wail from a frustrated Titan scratching outside the wall.


It's painfully silent, dangerously so, and the breeze, though balmy and comfortable, crawls over the nape of his neck like a slimy hand, causing the hair on his arms to prickle in warning. He raises his hand to his squad, and everyone understands.


Something's wrong.


The captain leads the way away from the caravan of horses and a single wagon, up onto the rooftops. His squad follows until they reach a church steeple. He stands atop it and scans the city.


“It's too quiet,” he mutters, and one of the scouts clears his throat softly; everyone's nervous now, “I don't get it…” Slate-grey eyes search relentlessly over the red tile shingles for movement, anything at all, and find nothing. Unlike in Trost, the hole at the Washington gate has not been blocked, so the area is open to Titans.


The fact that there are none is worrisome.


If they aren't here, where are they? Certainly they can tell that the squad has come to the area; the Titan making a fuss on the other side of the wall is proof of that.


“What's going on?” Levi breathes, gaze darting to random points of the wall, “Scale the wall! I want visuals on every Titan hanging around here!”


Swiftly, the squad, made up of twelve soldiers and accompanied by three scientists plus Hanji intrigued by the venture, flies up the wall. A yell comes from a woman named Johanna.


“Captain! Look down!”


Standing quietly, patiently, at the foot of the immense concrete wall, are dozens of giants. Almost countless. And at the sound of her cry, they all look up, as though all are controlled by a single entity. Lifeless black eyes sweep over the horrified human faces, and gaping mouths drop open like baby birds waiting for their meal to fall from the sky.


~o0o~


Boy, are you relieved that Trost was retaken and emptied out. You dislike its atmosphere. There are old bloodstains everywhere, to begin with, and flies buzzing around, but it's the fact that you know exactly how many lives were destroyed in one small area that makes you feel uneasy. Every splatter of blood belonged to one of those names on the list of casualties.


You shake the thoughts from your head and take off at a sprint toward where you left your horse to graze. The animal was darned expensive; you don't plan to lose her any time soon. Your footsteps echo through the streets, a steady thump-thump-thump that helps to relax you. The district is quiet, and you draw near to your horse. She shakes her head up and down after uprooting a tuft of grass, loosening the dirt from their roots before wiggling the blades into her mouth to chew. She nickers when she sees you.


“Hi, baby,” you say, panting softly as you stop near her. You first put the saddle  on her back and tie the cinch, then swing the saddlebags up. They hold oats. A blanket rolled around a canister of gas gets strapped to the back of the saddle, and you briskly walk the mare a few steps back and forth to make her blow the air from her lungs. Then you tighten up the cinch, grab your pack, and lead her toward your exit. It'll be difficult to get a horse through it, but she trusts you and you her, so it should work. It has to work. And it has to be fast. Who knows if there will be Titans waiting in the other side.


Part of you feels guilty for leaving right now. The reason you are is to use the scouting squad as a distraction so that a single rider will go almost unnoticed by the Titans. Seeing as you've never been outside the walls, you've no idea what to expect and no plan for once you get out. The only thing you know to do is find trees, big trees, and hide out until it's safe. After that? You'll find the squad and pull out your camera to document the horrors that people live through and die from.


The rock in the gate is so massive. You crack a bewildered grin and click to your horse, stepping carefully over rubble on your way to the hole. Your mare’s hooves clatter against the rocks and concrete, and the saddle creaks as she steps.


“Come on, sweetie,” you whisper, gingerly stepping through the hole. You hold your breath as you scan the outside area. Since Trost was evacuated, there has only been the occasional scout in it to check for Titan movements; never enough to catch the creatures’ attention. The coast seems clear, and you coax the horse to follow.


Now's the hard part; navigating through the Titan-infested plains of the outermost ring of human territory.