Eren fit the key into the lock and looked over his shoulder at Levi. "Don't freak out at the mess! Just stay by the door and I'll go get the cookies. I keep the tin in my room because my roommates eat them all if I don't."

Eren's front door opened into the large common room. It was an open-plan living room and dining room. The kitchen was straight ahead through a swinging door. The master suite—Armin's room—was off the dining area to the left. To the right was a short hall that led to the other two rooms which were Jean's and Eren's.

"Be right back," Eren said and walked into the short hall, leaving Levi by the door. Levi watched him pad down the hall. He looked with extreme distaste at the cluttered apartment and valiantly resisted the urge to pick up while he waited.

The two room's doors were offset from each other. The right-hand door, Jean's, was about two feet before the left-hand door, Eren's room.

As Eren passed, Jean's door swung open and he felt a hot hand on his arm and startled.

It was Jean in nothing but his sleep pants which rode low on his narrow hips. He had emerged from his room and Eren had had no idea he was home. Clearly Jean didn't know Levi was there despite him standing, watching curiously, several feet away.

"Man, am I glad you're home!" Jean's hand stroked Eren's arm, "I am soooo horny right now!"

Eren pushed Jean's hand away angrily. "Jesus, Dude!"

"What the fuck, Bro?!" Jean asked.

Eren heard the front door snick closed.

"Goddamnit, Jean! Just fuck!" Eren dashed for the front door, cookies forgotten.

Levi was pretty far down the sidewalk when Eren caught up with him. Damn, the little man walked fast. "Levi! Hold up!"

Levi ignored him.

"Levi, please! It wasn't what it looked like! Jean's got … he's got the wrong idea."

"It's none of my business, Eren."

"It is. I like you, Levi. You!"

Levi stopped abruptly and Eren had to skid to a halt.

"Again. This is none of my business. I know what I saw."

"It was a mistake! I … we … " Eren ran both hands agitatedly through his hair, slicking it back repeatedly. "OK, we did it once. But I was drunk!"

Levi resumed walking. "Whatever. That's between you and your roommate. It has nothing to do with me."

"But, Levi …!"

"Eren, you can't profess to liking me …" Levi's voice rose to a shout. "... if you're goddamn fucking someone else! Now leave me alone! I'm not going to get my heart broken again!"

Eren slowed and stopped, hurt and confused and guilty. He felt as if his heart had been ripped out of his chest. He watched Levi walk stiffly and quickly away and felt a drip on his cheek. He wiped at his face. He was crying.

Eren sat in class, slouched in his seat, depressed. He was back in his seat by the windows, gazing out into the bright, chilly day and grasping a piece of paper. The paper was his grade for the childcare unit they had just completed. Due to his refusal to attend to the fake baby he'd gotten a 50. At this rate, he was going to fail the course. His dad would go ballistic.

Eren glanced back toward the top row of the amphitheater. Levi was looking over his own paper with a small smile on his face. He'd obviously gotten an excellent grade.

Eren took a greedy moment to admire Levi. He missed him. Missed getting to speak with him, missed his tiny comfortable home. He even missed Mikasa.

Realistically, Eren realized that he'd only interacted with Levi a handful of times, had only been to his house twice, but the hurt and loneliness was real. He pined for that little family.

"OK, time for your daily torture!" Hange said with a grin.

Levi grunted and pulled out a chair at the kitchen table and sat down. Hange began unwrapping the ace bandage that was used to loosely pin his arm to his side.

After the ace wrap was off, Levi gingerly flexed his left arm while Hange untaped the bandage on his side. They carefully peeled off the tape and unstuck the gauze covering the wound.

"How does it look?"

"Gruesome," Hange said.

Levi looked. The stitched gash was six inches long and roughly horizontal along his ribs. The sutures were black and looked like small spiders against his pale skin.

"Looks nice and dry," Hange said, "No seepage. That's good."

There was significant bruising though, the whole area surrounding the cut was purple fading to a sickly green around the edges.

"Hurts like a son of a bitch," Levi grumbled.

"Well you got shot, silly."

Levi flexed his arm some more, massaging his unused muscles with his right hand. "I miss working out."

"You'll get there soon."

Levi couldn't afford to go to a gym but he had some heavy hand weights and did a rigorous workout every day there in his home. The 'incident' had curtailed that.

He reflected ruefully on how on-edge he was still at the flower shop. Every time the bell on the door jingled he tensed up. He had to get over that.

Hange was cutting a bit of gauze to size. "Have you heard from Eren?"

Levi scowled. He'd told Hange, his best friend in the world, everything about his visit to Eren's apartment and they had blithely glossed over the whole 'sleeping with his roommate' thing ever since.

"You know I haven't"

"Why not? Isn't he in your Child Development class?"

Hange knew very well that Eren was.

"We don't speak or even look at each other."

This was a lie. Eren stared at Levi every day in a lovelorn sort of way and Levi himself had to admit that he glanced at the kid every now and then. Well, more often than that. Honestly, he missed interacting with him.

"You know," Hange drawled, applying tape, "you two were never in a relationship so his sleeping with Jean wasn't cheating …"

"Give it a rest, Hans. He can't be interested in me and fucking his roommate at the same time. The two things are mutually exclusive!"

"Didn't he say it was just a one-time drunken thing?"

"Oh, please! He's probably boning him as we speak."

Eren wasn't in fact. At that moment he was in his room sadly using a wet washcloth to wipe the cum off his chest from having just jerked off thinking of Levi. Eren honestly wanted to cry. He couldn't understand why he was so obsessed with Levi, why he wanted him so badly, why he couldn't have him, goddamn it.

He finished cleaning up and put on a shirt and pulled on some loose shorts. He wandered out into the common room. Jean was on the couch playing Call of Duty. Eren crossed to the kitchen and opened the fridge. He looked over at Jean. They needed to talk. It was stupid for them to fight.

"You want a beer?"

Jean started and looked at him. "Uh, sure."

Eren wandered back over to the couch with two beers and Jean switched off the Playstation.

"You smell like jizz."

Eren shrugged. "Rubbed one out."

"I could've helped you with that."

Eren cocked his head. "Jean …"

"Yeah, yeah, OK. We're not a thing. I get it." He looked pretty sad and that hurt Eren.

"We're still best friends, though," Eren pointed out.

"Yeah?"

"Always!"

They drank in silence for a few moments, lost in their thoughts.

"I really fucked it up for you, didn't I?" Jean rubbed his nose and Eren realized that he was fighting tears.

"A little bit … maybe."

"What are you gonna do? How can I help?"

Eren wiped a hand down his face. "I don't know." He sighed. "You wanna get drunk?"

"You know it, buddy."

Eren and Jean were relaxing on the couch watching Netflix, mostly drunk, when a tentative tap came at the door. For a second, Eren didn't even believe he'd heard it, but it came again, an almost nervous tap, tap, tap. Eren looked at Jean, remembering when the cop had shown up at his door. He and Jean slowly rose.

"What do we do?" Eren asked in a whisper.

"Answer it?"

"It's fucking one A.M."

"So? Someone wants us for something."

Eren crept to the door, mind spinning.

He opened it.

"M-mom?"

Carla fell into his arms. "Oh, Eren!"

"What is it, Mom? What's happened?"
"Your father … your father … oh Grisha!"

Jean was there supporting her and Eren heard Armin's door open. "Guys, what's going on?"

Carla clung to Eren and Jean. "Eren's father has had a heart attack," she said in a watery voice.

Eren was dumbfounded. Dad? His dad? The strongest person he knew outside of Levi? A heart attack?

"Dad's as fit as a fiddle, mom …"

Carla wiped her eyes. "He started to feel a tightness in his chest at … at dinner. He said his left arm hurt …"

Even Eren knew the classic signs of a heart attack.

"The cardiologist said it was stress!" Carla wailed.

Eren immediately felt guilty. His father could die and it might be his fault.