Crimson Love LevixReader part 9 [AU]

Day 1- The warm up

Levi told you to meet him at 6 o’clock sharp outside the gym, so you went to check yourself and put away your things at the motel. Of course, you fell asleep and woke up at 6:30. You quickly put on the sports equipment you bought earlier that day, which consisted in a pair of black leggings, a sports bra, and a blue v neck T-shirt. You reach the gym in less than 10 minutes to find that Levi was already there, and was... let’s say, not in the mood to screw around.

"Hi," you said lamely.

His voice was steely, expression hard. “You’re late.”

“Sorry! I fell asleep and didn’t set the alarm clock-” You cut yourself off when you finally noticed his bare chest, covered in a sheen of glistening sweat. You felt your throat constrict.

A smirk came over his lips, his eyes wandering to where yours were focused.

"Like what you see?” Another smirk, smug as ever. You roll your eyes, moving your hands to your hips.

“So what are we doing today?” You ask, trying to change the subject, like you weren’t affected by him at all. Levi points to a large field with a red-paved track.

"Alright, we're going to start out by you running twelve laps, and then after that, we will do some weightlifting. I’ll let you off easy today.” You roll your eyes again and set off at an easy pace.

“Seriously, Levi, I thought you were going to teach me some moves!” you whine when you see him next.

“All in good time, F/n.”

As you ran, you gradually sped up. When you were on your ninth lap, Levi called out to you.

"If you don't finish your last three laps in the next two minutes, you're going to run it all over again.”

Your face was aghast, and Levi looked smug at torturing you. Your legs screamed as you sprinted the laps. In about a minute, you had a lap and a half down, and these laps weren't short. Christ!

You pushed your body to the limit as you forced yourself to go faster and faster by the second. You saw the white line in the near distance as Levi held his hand up. He slowly pulled a finger down as every second went by. Five, four, three... you pushed and pushed until you jumped, crossing the line in midair.

Your breaths were pants, air heaving into your lungs over and over again. You felt like you were going to pass out, light-headed and a little nauseous. Levi took note of your state and knelt in front of you.

"Hey, F/n, hang in there," he said softly, and your eyes refocused blearily. He twisted the cap off a bottle of water and handed it to you. You throw your head back and take huge gulps of water, downing half the bottle in a few seconds.

“Sparring?” you ask, hoping that he might go ahead and show you a move to practice. Weight lifting wasn’t quite your thing, you found it pretty boring.

“Well, since you asked nicely… You should know, though, you’re in no shape for sparring.”

He walked over to a grassy spot and got into a stance. You followed.

"Come at me" you said deviously, and he threw a punch. You blocked it and pushed the weight of his arm away. You pulled your knee up to his face, but he used his other hand to smack it out of the way. You then brought your fist up and hit him hard in the chest. He grunted, but didn't halt his fire. In fact, he brought it on harder. His face became full of fire. You smiled, knowing that you had caused this. He threw a couple hooks and jabs, but you blocked all of them except for one, which landed in your stomach. You were momentarily out of breath, but you sucked in a bunch and kicked him in the side. He didn’t expect that. He growled and as you pulled your leg up again to do the same, but to the other side of him, he caught it, and pulled. Hard.

Ouch, he almost pulled it out of the socket.

You knew he meant business now. You yelped when he caught your other leg by the back of your knee, forcing you to lose balance. You fell on your ass and Levi pushed your shoulder down into the ground less than gently.

Ow, dude.

He pulled your arm behind your back in a death grip and you ground your teeth together and squeezed your eyes closed. You gasped in pain. He must have realized this, because he loosened his hold and looked you square in the eyes.

"Don't be so cocky," he said and you glared harshly. You stuck your tongue out at him, pulling it back quickly with a blush when you saw temptation flash through his eyes. He released you from his hold and sat up.

You got up as well and looked at him for what was coming next. He didn’t say anything, but was looking at you expectantly.

“Ugh, ok, you made your point. Weightlifting it is,” you agreed as you headed towards the gym. After an hour or so later you couldn’t feel your arms nor your legs anymore.

“I’m done!” you say as you lie down onto the mat. “It freakin hurts everywhere!”

“Trust me F/n, tomorrow it will be ten times worse,” Levi says, standing over you.

“I don’t believe you,” you say. “Please tell me we are going back with the car?” you ask, hopeful.

“Not a chance.”

“Damn it, midget man.”

Day 2 - Exhaustion

You'd think with all the additional hours you've put in with the late night and early morning extra practice sessions you should have filled up the quota… but nooo, your merciless, bad­ass mentor thought you were still behind with the lessons. Nice to know someone really believed in you.

6 hours later

Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep! That's it. Someone is going to get stabbed in the face. You thought to yourself as you glanced at the evil red numbers on the clock and then swiped it off the nightstand. It stopped making that horrible sound. You looked up at the ceiling and remembered everything that happened yesterday. Getting your ass kicked by Levi after running and lifting God knows how many hours.. And after all of that  did he really have to start your morning practices at 6? You attempted to sit up, emphasis on the attempted part. Every muscle in your body screamed as you brought your torso up and slid your legs over the side of the bed. Levi was right about one thing, you feel ten times worse than how you felt yesterday.

Oh just fantastic.

A really hot shower sounded like heaven right now. You walked into the small bathroom and turned on the hot water. When you saw the steam rise you went in and the water seemed to soothe all the sore muscles. Your aching legs protest the movement of leaving the shower.

"And let the fabulous life of (F/N) (L/N) begin,” you muttered to yourself. You then go to look at the alarm clock, but of course it’s not there because you just had to break it. You have no clue what time it is but you assume it's around 6.

You have a feeling that Levi doesn't approve of being late, again!

He is so going to hate me.

You put on a grey t-­shirt and black yoga pants. You grabbed a hair tie and ran out the door. You sprinted towards the gym (which had to be on the opposite side of your motel). It was 6:15 when you arrived there. The doors were slightly ajar, light spilling onto a thin strip on the floor of the corridor. You blinked. Someone was here already? You pushed the door slightly and found that Levi was already inside.

Wow. Earlier than me. Then again, what did I expect? You stepped inside and opened your mouth to greet him when your mind finally focused on what he was doing…

You don't think you ever got to close your mouth. Levi was doing some insane kind of pull ups from the steel bars in the far end of the room. The size of his arm muscles strained by the work he was doing was very, very visible from this distance. And so was his torso under that gray T-shirt, which from time to time revealed the most defined abdominal muscles you've ever seen in your young life.

Oh dear God.

You suddenly prayed your family has no history of heart attacks. Maybe you created some kind of noise, because he suddenly glanced in your direction. He looked very surprised, but you were fairly sure it was a different reason from yours. He let go of the bars and landed on his feet lightly.

"You're late.” You looked up and saw two disappointed gray eyes staring at you. You tried to pretend it didn’t make your soul ache.

"Yeah so? You are lucky I even made it here. Oh, and good morning to you too Levi. Thanks for asking," you replied.

"I'm assuming you aren't big on being on time. If this does become a habit that means more laps for you to run," he said, ignoring your other comments. Levi stepped back. He was wearing dark sweatpants and a grey T-shirt. His hair was loose around his face which meant that you would be doing what you did yesterday. Stupid weightlifting.

"Way to copy my style," you commented, eyes flicking over his outfit.

"Actually, I’ve been pulling this style off a lot longer than you have," Levi responded back. He looked like he was going to smile, but instead he just turned around and walked towards the weight room and you followed.

"Hah. How much longer? 10  years?" you joked behind him. He swiftly turned around to answer me. No emotion in his eyes whatsoever.

"3 years." Oh...so that puts him at 25 years old.

"What are we going to do today?"

Levi jerked his thumb behind him. Right there was a massive contraption made up of wooden planks that formed a scaffold like frame. There were several large sandbags roughly the size of a large punching bag hanging on every post that was separated by a few feet apart. Your eyes widened.

Wow, how could have I missed this monster of a thing? Oh right, because I saw Levi when I entered the room. Way to go for concentration, F/n.

"What do you think?" Levi prompted as you stared at it.

"Uh. Well, it looks like sandbags. Hanging on ropes." you answered slowly. Levi gave you a mildly exasperated look. You quickly moved on.

"And I have to navigate between them without getting squashed," you guessed.

I think I've seen this before, though. But only in movies.

He nodded.

Your eyes darted from the cloth to the sandbags, and understood - the cloth was a blindfold.

"Oh."

"Hunters have to depend a lot on their senses. But anything can happen in the battlefield. It doesn't mean that losing one of your senses spells the end for you in a fight. You have to learn how to use your other senses as well," he explains.

"We start by taking away what you rely on the most." You nodded, getting his point.

You started with warm ups and lots of stretching like you usually did. You sat on the floor with your legs spread and touched your toes with your fingers. Levi acted as your spotter, but he barely touched you unless it was completely necessary. Right now he was guiding your back while you stretched. You tried not to think of his palm on your back too much.

"I haven't seen this method of training before," you said after taking deep breaths.

"Possible. It's not a part of the normal curriculum of our organisation." You brightened.

"You mean this is from your training in Japan?"

"Yeah, how did you know?" You couldn't see his face, but you thought you heard a smile in his voice. 

“Oh, I know shit.” You said like it was nothing.

"Anyway, I asked permission from Erwin first, of course."

"Many times. The training there was a bit rougher."

Rougher? Well that explains the hardcore methods he’s been using on me since day one.

You finished the stretching and breathing exercises and got up from the floor. He led you to the looming contraption and explained how it worked and the ideal outcome of the test. It was a lot harder than it looked in the movies, that's for sure.

When he pressed a button on one of the posts, there was a groaning sound of gears turning, and then the sandbags started to swing like pendulums. Rapidly.

The air made a sharp whooshing sound at each pass—the weight made it clear a hit from them would be nasty. And they didn't swing at the same speed… some were slower, and at different angles. You kept your face from giving away your apprehension. However, Levi surprised you by walking to the opposite end of the swinging sandbags and held up the blindfold.

"I'll go first." You nodded and went up to him to help him tie the cloth. You think your action surprised him.

"So I know you're not peeking." you teased, holding the cloth firmly over his eyes and tying it at the back of his head. You tried not to notice the way his soft hair curled around your fingers. You moved stealthily in front of him and waved. He didn't react. Then you made a cross eyed expression and stuck your tongue out. Nothing.

Maybe I should have brought a pen and drew a mustache on him just for kicks-

"Knock it off, F/n." He suddenly said. You blinked at him and stifled a laugh. You were sure he couldn't see.

"How'd you know?"

"Because, unfortunately, I know you. Now stand aside there and observe."

You did as you were told and backed away. Levi stood there, unnaturally still. He had his head slightly bowed, and you were insanely curious to see what he was going to do. After several seconds, he put one step forward, just as the sandbag passed in front of him. You held your breath. And then another. His movements entranced you — how can such a bad ass fighter like him move so gracefully? It didn't add up. But it wasn't all grace. Even from standing way over here you could feel the powerful decisiveness of his actions. He took every step as if without fear or any trace of hesitation. When he came to the part where there were three sandbags swinging at the same time but from opposite directions, he stepped between them in the precise moment they parted, never uncertain, never hurrying either. You made a mental note to look out for that part. He finished like he just had a stroll in the park.

Oh boy.

Levi pulled out the blindfold from his eyes. You were still staring at the wildly swaying sandbags.

"Your turn," he told you. You nodded and he covered your eyes just like you did earlier, but you doubted he would be making funny faces in front of you to test if you could see.

"Does it hurt?" you asked tentatively, heartbeat growing frantic.

"Don't find out."

Nice. Really reassuring, mentor. He led you to the starting point.

"Since you can't see, the next logical sense to use is your hearing. Physiologically, we can't hear as well as Titans, but with enough training we could match it. Plus, their usually careless movements and noisy footwork gives them away."

You nodded and tried to concentrate on the solid swish of the sandbags heaving back and forth.

"Take your time. Listen to the sounds they make. Everything emits a sound. You just have to pick it up and use it to your advantage."

Right. You breathed in and out, remembering his breathing exercises.

I have to keep calm so I could process anything and everything my ears pick up.

And then there was a regular, sort of rhythmic sound that pricked your hearing. It made a whizzing sound, like the sound that an arrow makes when launched from a bow. The sound came from your left, then passed in front of you, then came back again. That must be it. You didn't let yourself second ­guess. The moment the sound whirred past you, you stepped forward. Instinctively you waited for something to hit you- nothing.

"Good." You heard Levi's quiet voice. As good as that felt, you didn't let yourself be distracted by his praise. You were far from being finished. You gritted your teeth and waited for the familiar sound of the sandbag to pass in front of you before you stepped forward. You did this for five times. And then you stopped. There was a pattern with the first five sandbags, but you remembered this part. This was where there was no "safe" space between the sandbags… all three of them swung rapidly in different paces. Which meant you have to step directly in the path of each sandbag that cleared, while waiting for the next sandbag to pass. Tricky. But not impossible. It was all in the timing: don't wait too long; don't be in a hurry either. You stepped in front as soon as you thought it was clear. One… two… you put your foot forward again. You counted three short breaths this time. Then another step forward. You felt the sandbag's skin graze your back as it passed back. Okay, that was close. Just one more step… Two firm hands gripped your arms tightly to steady you as soon as you thought you cleared the last one.

"You alright?" he asked. It made you catch your breath—and it has nothing to do with what you just did. It was the way he asked. How was he looking at me right now?

"I'm fine." you answered, reaching for the knot of the blindfold. He got it for you and you studied his expression furtively. Levi looked pleased, but nothing like what you’ve imagined hearing from him just a few seconds ago.

"That was very good, F/n." He smiled approvingly. You smiled back. Doesn't matter… it still made you happy anyway. But you should have thought he wasn't finished with you yet.

Oh what's a walk through the sandbags of death every now and then?