Wings in the Dark

Chapter 29: Yearning Endures

AN:  18+ Content at the end of this chapter.

*Levi's POV*

For some time after Y/N's declaration about going back into the Underground, Levi found it...difficult to be around her. Whenever he looked at her, all he could think about was what she was planning on doing, the danger she would be in, and how close to dying she came the last time she was down there. He just felt the weight of her body in his arms, saw the blood he washed off his hands and arms, saw her unconscious on his bed, pale and fading and barely responsive. Worry and fear twisted up in his gut, squeezed his throat shut, made his head throb from the tension that gathered in his shoulders and neck. It's why he couldn't look at her, why he stayed away. It hurt too much right now, it hurt that looking at her brought all those things to the surface right now, it hurt how whenever he was in a room with her right now all he could think about was what she was planning on doing and how he couldn't do a damn thing about it.

He knew he should let her make her own decisions, that she was perfectly capable of doing just that, but whenever he looked at her, when he thought about what she was going to do, he couldn't just stand by and let that happen without doing anything, without trying to stop her. Maybe...maybe he could make her rethink things, get her to change her mind. At the very least, he could try. If something happened to her and he didn't even try to do anything...

The problem was, that he didn't know how to do that when she wasn't listening to reason every time he tried to talk some sense back into her. Or when he was having problems even being in a room with her because of how it made him feel, how it seemed to cripple him inside with...concern.

Maybe concern was far too mild of a word for it.

Yet at the same time, he hated how much he was struggling. He wanted to be able to sit in a room comfortably with her again, without the tension and the pain. He wanted to be able to feel her hand against his, the warm weight of it, her lips on his cheek again. He wanted her again, but right now her presence was too painful because he couldn't accept what she was going to be doing. It put him in a hellish in between that he loathed struggling with. Especially when he was well aware that Y/N kept trying to give him the space to figure out what the hell he was going to do, while also making these timid little attempts to reach out again, to get back to normal. He just...couldn't meet her halfway, yet.

Though resuming their sparring lessons had been his first attempt to reach back out and do something. It hadn't been gentle, he'd been rough and maybe even a bit harsh, he wasn't stupid. But as he walked towards the sparring area that morning he'd realized that this was the first real chance he had to knock some sense into her. To make her rethink the dangerous risks she was taking, what it could mean, make her rethink if she was actually ready for it. Maybe if he could beat her a few times during this spar, he could make her think that going down to the Underground was a bad idea. He didn't need to win every single spar, just enough to make a point. He was going to have to play dirty and pull out more tricks, since spars with her were already difficult, and he knew that the opponents she could run into underground were not the kind to pull punches. Any reservations he had about accidentally hurting her during a spar had to be set aside in favor of making her see sense, or at least making sure she was more prepared for trouble if–no, when–it came her way.

Of course, that's not how the spar went at all. He did put her on the defensive almost exclusively for the first little while, and she'd seemed taken aback, maybe even a little shocked at how he was approaching her. But he kept emotions out of it as ruthlessly as he could manage and continued to push, to try the dirty tricks, to actually make his hits connect to push her further. Still, she seemed to catch onto what he was up to fairly quickly, and even though usually he managed to have a couple wins, this time...this time he didn't even walk away with one–though he came close a few times. She always managed to come out on top that day, though, and he was left walking away with the reminder that she was well aware of what she was doing, and perfectly capable of taking care of herself if trouble reared its head.