(Levi x reader) A Photographer's Mission chpt 3

“Go!! Get outta here!” you shriek, then you hear everyone begin to hustle. One more length of cord and you're to the top of the wall.


“How fast is it?” asks Levi, grabbing you by your elbow and dragging you into a sprint to get to the horses.


“About as fast as a person, but with its size…” You pull your arm away and settle into a comfortable pace. You may have some extra plush on your frame, but beneath that is muscle, healthy muscle. You're fast, very strong, accurate enough. Heck, the scare of the Titans has sheared a good five pounds off already. “We're too slow as we are. The wagon slows us down.”


“We can't leave them,” replies Levi.


“She's right behind us!” shouts Anders, wheeling a half-circle on his horse.


Levi grabs his horse by the bridle. “Get on!”


You grit your teeth and hoist yourself into the saddle, then Levi hops up behind you. You ain't that much shorter than he is, but he still has to crane his neck to see around your head.


The burst of speed the black horse explodes forward with jerks your hips forward and snaps your head back; you feel your skull connect with some equally-solid part of Levi.


“We ride to Shiganshina!” shouts Levi, “Quickly!”


A couple people agree, but the thunder of hoof-falls drowns out their voices.


“I was separated from Johanna!” you say, “She went one way, I went another, we lost each other!”


“You saw Johanna!?” exclaims Levi, “That brat was supposed to go back to Rose!”


“Never mind that! We'll have time to talk later,” you say, “She was fine last I saw of her.” You twist to look over Levi's shoulder and see the Titan’s hand grip the top edge of the wall. “Not fast enough,” you breathe, then your voice raises “Levi, we're not fast enough!!”


“Take the reins,” he answers, placing the leather straps into your hands. Looks like he got a nosebleed from your head collision, what with the red staining his hand. “Don't look back.”


“What? No, are you crazy!?” you cry, turning as he slides off, landing with a hard roll.


“Don't you dare stop!” he shouts, running past the other scouts and their horses, swords drawn in preparation. The need to direct the horse tears your eyes away, but only momentarily.


Yeah, right, like you wouldn't look back.


He pins the hooks of his maneuvering gear into the Titan’s knee and leaps off the wall to gain momentum.


The Titan must be a human-controlled one. It has that different look; bare muscle instead of flabby skin, sharp eyes that watch as opposed to follow, hesitance that marks thought processes. It's female, too, and her hair is wild and blonde.


Levi swings in a wide arc around the Titan, then pulls up to climb her, leaning deep into the wide leftward swoop. Huge, but undeniably deft fingers pluck the wire from the air. You imagine he's done for, like Siss, the man that attempted to go up against the first female Titan.


Instead, she wraps the wire around her fingers, like a kid playing with a length of yarn, forming a figure-eight between the index finger and ring finger of her left hand. After coiling every last inch, she places Levi snugly against the outside of her fingers and pops the cord right out of his gear by pushing his hips away from it with her thumb. It snaps easily, and Levi drops over the side of the wall. The Titan shakes the wire off her hand before resuming her pursuit. It takes her three steps to catch up to you, and she hops effortlessly over the entire caravan.


Heedless to direction, and careless to boot, you slide from Levi's horse and leap off the edge. He, being the expert he is, is hanging from the right cord. The soles of his boots skid over the cement, over compensating for the loss of balance.


“I told you to stay on the horse!” he snaps, grunting as he pulls himself onto the wall, “Get up here!”


“Is she even going for anyone?” you ask, hopping a couple steps when you touch down, “She didn't hurt you, did she?”


“I'm fine,” he answers gruffly, “She's obviously not interested in us. Look, she's running on ahead.” A low whistle calls his horse to the two of you, and the rest of the group circles back around.


“Captain, what…what's going on?” a young woman named Lissa asks, her  mount shifting anxiously, feeding off its rider's worry.


“The Titan’s obviously going somewhere,” replies Levi, giving you a leg up onto the horse.


Since when has he ever decided to be courteous to you? Especially because he's probably ticked out of his mind at you.


“Since she's heading toward Shiganshina, let's follow her. Keep a safe distance, and have your maneuvering gear out and ready. All we know as of yet is that Titans are dangerous and unpredictable! I want zero casualties tonight!” Levi swings up onto his horse and sets off, being careful this time to lead up to speed.


He always knew you were hardheaded.


~o0o~


The long-haired Titan runs for ages. She runs until the sun comes up. She runs until the horses puff, until they trip out from under the squad, one by one. She runs through two canisters of gasoline, through the stamina everyone has from running miles every day. Eventually, the squad slows, then stops. Gnarled blonde hair flips in the midday sunshine, and small lines of recovery steam trickles upward from the Titan’s feet and legs as she continues running.


You cough softly and gulp in air, loosening the straps of your gear so you can take a huge breath.


“What now, Captain?” you ask quietly, sitting yourself down on the wall. Anders lays flat on his back, and Lissa rubs her thighs.


“Woo! I don't know about you guys but I'm thirsty!” exclaims Hanji, propping her elbow on Levi's shoulder. She tugs at her collar and sticks her tongue out, panting like a dog.


“You stink,” mutters Levi, but he shakes his head, “We'll work on calling the horses to us. We only have our canteens.”


“Right. Okay,” you say. You're...not much of a whistler, and Levi knows it. Thankfully, you have a quick response when he lifts a brow on challenge. “My horse is on the ground. Even if I call her, she won't be of any use. Maybe you could call your horse, Captain.”


The scowl he gives you is worth photographing; alas, he wipes it from his face before you have a chance to get the camera out.


“H-hey! Captain, she's coming back!!” cries Lissa.


Sure enough, the monstrous Titan has turned around and is sprinting toward the squad. In the daylight, her face is visible. Her mouth twists down in a fearsome frown, but her eyes read nothing but neutral. She doesn't have a glint of bloodlust, nor has she a particularly thoughtful expression. However, she doesn't have the empty eyes that most Titans do.


“Hold your ground, but be ready to jump off the wall at my command!” orders Levi, and everybody draws their swords and adjusts the projection angles.


It takes about a minute for the Titan to reach you, and it's a tense, adrenaline-laced minute. Fingers twitch nervously on their swords, hearts pound, and the hot, humid breeze easily draws sweat to foreheads and necks. The steady thump of huge feet shake the wall, sending vibrations through the thick, rubber soles of your boots. You can even feel it in your ribcage.


“I said hold steady!” barks the captain, and you glance over to see Klaus-Peter, an almost redheaded, fully silent soldier you trained with, withdraw one of the wires of his gear from the top of the wall. It was merely preparatory, but it was disobedient to Levi’s instruction.


Going over the squad members, you find that seven of the eleven are people you trained with several years back. Lissa, Anders, Klaus-Peter, a dark-haired woman named Magdalena, a platinum-blonde named Katrin, a blond man named Lennard, and a scrawny guy with glasses and brown hair named Jan. You have a soft spot for Klaus-Peter, same as with Johanna, but you love them all. It's hard to go through emotional years with people and not love them. The secrets that have been shared and kept, the wishes, dreams, prayers. You cherish them.


The female doesn't seem to slow as she draws nearer, making it difficult to hold still and trust the captain. When she's about ten paces away, you look to him. When it's five, you lean to the right, ready to launch yourself over the edge.


She doesn't take the last step to reach the squad. She comes to such an immediate stop that her massive form keeps going after her feet quit. Long and reach out in front of her, and her huge shadow engulfs the squad.


“Captain!?”


“Wait!”


“Levi!!”


“I said wait!!” he roars.


Hands connect with a thunderous boom, crunching concrete and steel railway tracks, and…


Well, she stops falling. She caught herself, and a fiery-hot rib stops just inches above your head. Hanji lets out a thrilled squeal.


“Who's in there!?” she trills, “Come on out so I can talk to you!”


The Titan slowly shifts back until she's crouching before the squad, and she lowers a hand to the wall, palm up, fingers relaxed and open. It's all Hanji needs as invitation to hop on.


“Let's see,” she says, practically trembling in delight as the Titan lifts her up by her face, “Shall I guess who's in there?”


“You're gonna get your pea-brained head taken off if you aren't careful,” mutters Levi, grappling up onto the Titan’s shoulder, “I'll cut you open if you try anything. Wouldn't expect you to, though; not after all that.” A large, blue eye looks at him, then both refocus on Hanji.


“Cross-eyed!” she exclaims, “Here, I'll try to guess who you are. You're in the military, right? I'll take your silence as a yes. Are you in the Survey Corps?”


A soft breath (soft for her; more like a gust for Hanji) passes the Titan’s lips and her head nods once.


“Then you must be Johanna! Yes?”


The Titan smiles softly and Hanji loses it.


“Ah!! The muscles in your face have developed enough for facial expressions! This is brilliant!” she cries, placing her hands on the Titan’s right cheek, making the creature go googly-eyed in an attempt to keep the scientist in focus, “Can you come out? No! No, let's wait for that.”


You sigh, a faint smile on your face. Hanji is easily keeping up a conversation, so you take a moment to glance around the team. Everyone is stunned, but Klaus-Peter seems almost shell-shocked. After all, he just found out he's been married to a Titan for the past ten years.


“Hey, you okay?” you ask him gently. He looks to you, takes a moment, then shrugs and looks away again. He can be so hard to read sometimes;  the thought makes you shake your head. Lissa and Anders inch toward the Titan and Hanji laughingly tells them to join her.


“Can I climb on your head?” she asks, grabbing a lock of blonde hair. An eye watches her for a moment, then turns to the two timidly stepping onto her hand.


“Tch, get off her,” says Levi, and you notice that his hands tighten on the sword hilts. He's distrusting, but has every right to be. Hanji is mindlessly trusting for science. Lissa and Anders back off.


The scientists all have some fun and get some good research done in the next two morning hours before Levi snaps that it's high time to get a move on. The whole time, he says nothing to you.


Yeah, he's mad. Oh well.


You tighten the straps of your 3-d gear again and wince. Man, they rub. A pull on your canteen empties it and you savor the liquid, regardless of its temperature and the slight metallic taint it has from sitting so long. You hold it in your mouth, swallowing mere drops at a time as you twist the cap back on.


“Have you all gone insane!?” the quietest shout ever asks, “Why did you leave the caravan!?”


Everyone turns simultaneously.


That voice belongs to Johanna.


And it came from behind.