This takes place roughly 3 months after last chapter, where Levi and Eren broke up.

CHAPTER 11

"Life without Eren"

"Wake up,"

"Ngghhh,"

"Sir, please. I need th-these documents signed and – "

"Get the fuck out," I hissed, slowly lifting my head to send the new boy a furious look. It didn't take more than 2 seconds before he turned around and ran out of the door, passing Hanji who was on her way inside.

"Was that really necessary?" She asked me with a soft smile, placing her hands on her hips when she shifted her weight from her right leg to her left.

"Excuse me?" I said, lifting my head from my desk so I could straighten my back and look directly at her.

"Hey Hotshot," She started off, ignoring my comment, before sighing lowly. "You have bags under your eyes. How much sleep did you get last night?"

I tried to remember, but it all seemed a little too blurry for my own taste. I knew I had been sitting at my desk at home, doing work, until I had fallen asleep on the keyboard … Hence, the vague spots on my cheeks where 'B', 'N' and 'M' had been. Wait, I remember looking at the clock towards the end – what had it been at?

"I think I got 4 hours worth of sleep," I mumbled, after remembering. I was lying of course, since it had only been about 2 hours at the most, but she didn't need to know that. And luckily she couldn't read my mind to find out …

Wait, what? Why was I thinking about that now?

I quickly shook my head, which caused a few black locks of hair to fall into my eyes.

"What? That's way too little! You need to sleep, Levi!" Hanji protested, shocked at this information.

Yes, She would definitely flip out if I told her the truth. If I told her that it was like that almost every night. After getting my promotion, it had always been like this, buried in work. I didn't mind though, as it seemed to keep me busy.

What else was I supposed to do? Sit around, staring at the walls inside my apartment? No, I was never going back to that again. It had been 2 months since my foot had healed properly, finally giving me the ability to get out into the real world again – so I definitely wouldn't waste it by just sitting at home, doing nothing. Because I knew, that if I started staying still, I would start to wonder … Would start to think about things … Things that I didn't want to think about. People I didn't want to think about … No. Shit. I was getting ahead of myself again.

I lifted my head to look Hanji in the eyes with the meanest gaze I could possibly make. To my annoyance, she didn't even flinch.

"That is really none of your concern, now is it Hanji?" I spat out, raising a judging eyebrow at her. She did the exact same face expression, probably in an attempt to mock me.

"Of course it is!"

"No,"

"Yes!"

"No,"

"Come on!"

"No,"

"Levi!"

I threw a pencil at her, which she dodged gracefully. I rolled my eyes, leaning back into my chair.

"Get the fuck out of my office, Shitty Glasses,"

She pouted, just she still did as she was told.

"Being the hotshot new lawyer makes you a real ass, you know that?"

"I was an ass before as well, that hasn't changed one bit," I just answered, but I couldn't help but smile a bit anyway. Before exiting completely, Hanji turned around in the door.

"By the way, Erwin told me to send you up to his office. It sounded pretty serious,"

I sighed loudly.

"Then why the hell did you first tell me now?" I hissed at her, standing up in the same moment.

"Because I love seeing you being such a hot mess, Hotshot!"

"Stop calling me that!" I yelled at her, but she was at this time already gone. Sighing yet again, I slowly stood up, and walked around the desk. It was bigger than the previous one. Actually, this was a whole other office, almost twice as big as the one before. There was more light coming from the big-ass windows, and I even had two armchairs with a small, round table in between them, where you could drink tea and read the paper.

It was nice.

Especially since everything was new as well. There was no old memories connected to these objects, as there had been with the previous ones that I had had … Thank god. Being reminded of him was hard enough at the apartment. If there was triggers at work too, I don't really think that I would have made it.

I went out of the office, closing the door behind me, before walking towards the elevator. Erwin had his office two more floors up, which was probably why Hanji kept calling him Bigshot. He didn't actually own or run this company, but since he was the more succesful one of the three of us, that ended up being the reason for the nickname.

Hanji had taken in the annoying habit of giving us nicknames, and they changed monthly. This month I was Hotshot, but last month she had fun with 'Oompa Loompa' – whatever that meant.

Before that it had been Small Fry, and the regular one being 'Shorty' if she was in a hurry, though I had started to beat her everytime she did call me that.

"Going up?" A voice behind me asked, and I turned around to face the person who was talking to me. It was an older man, bald and with many small crinkles around his eyes. He was smiling though, his gaze seemingly a bit hazy.

I nodded once as an answer, before turning around again. I was not in the mood for some smelly, old guy to tell me his life story about how he had gotten some weird disease and now lived on a farm with his 10 grandkids. I was so not in the mood for that.

The elevator made a 'ding' sound before opening its doors, and both me and the other man stepped inside. I pressed the button sending us to the 6th floor, and then noticing that the other man did no such thing.

"On the 6th as well?" I asked, raising an eyebrow. That was unusual. The clients was usually dealt with at my floor, the 4th. Did that mean that he worked here as well?

I pulled out a hand sanitizer while waiting inside the elevator. I pressed both palms together to get it everywhere, as you never really could be too careful. There had probably been over a hundred people pressing those buttons just today, and I would bet my right arm that half of them probably hadn't washed their hands after being in the bathroom.

Disgusted just by the thought, I sighed with relief when the elevator once again informed us that we had arrived, with a 'ding'.

I stepped out, and started walking towards Erwins office. The old man went another way, thank god, so I finally felt like I could rest a little easier.

I only had to knock twice before I heard him say 'Come on in', and so I did.

He was sitting at his desk, his hands resting in front of him, his fingers intertwined with each other. His expression was blank, giving me no opportunity to read him, but I didn't expect anything less from him. Afterall, we had been friends for years.

It seemed that he had been waiting for me.

"Hanji said that you wanted to see me?" I asked, walking further towards him, until I reached the desk. Without his permission I sat down in one of the two armchairs that were in front of his desk, and then proceeding to cross my leg over the other.
"Yes, I did," He said, nodding slowly.

I tapped my fingers against my kneecap impatiently, irritated by his relaxed manner. I knew I was feeling this way because the lack of sleep made me on edge, but it still didn't matter. Today, Erwin annoyed me.

" … So? What did you need?"

He cleared his throat twice before speaking again.

"I know that you are new to all of it, but this is rather urgent. We need to prosecute a man called Reiner Braun, who we believe is the leader of a local gang in the Westside Area. He has escaped prison several times by using his verbal skills. So even though you are new, that might be just what we need. Someone fresh, with a different set of mind. Therefore, I need you to get on this case. He has the knowledge of the locations of the different hideout places that his gang uses for drugs, so we need to somehow figure out where they are. That's were you come in – got it?"

I looked at him in surprise, not really sure what to say.

"I-I'm sorry, but … Is this not police work, to interview the suspects? I'm a lawyer," This was the facts that were, which made me utterly confused to why he would ever want me on this. If they haven't even caught the guy yet, how was I supposed to be involved?

"Of course. And when this has been done, you will of course be the the prosecutor of the case. It's a win-win for you, right? This will also be your first real case, I've been told,"

I clenched my teeth at all this new information. This was definitely not something that I was expecting to anticipate in, when I entered the room.

However, I did know that this was not something that I could turn down. Erwin was only asking to be polite an uphold manners, but I knew that I had to accept whatever was given to me.

"So when do we start?" I asked instead, trying to manage the cool exterior that I had put up. I could see the corner of his mouth lift up for a moment, clearly satisfied with my response.

"This friday. You need to choose which direction you wish to go in, before we can go any further though. I'll let you talk it over with the Head of the Police Department. He'll probably be arriving shortly now – "

As if on cue, a knock on the door cut Erwin off, but it didn't seem to annoy him any bit.

"Come in," He cleared his throat once more, before continuing. "As I was saying, this is Chief Pixis. We will be working closely with him on this case, and it is also him that you'll have to talk into more detail with,"

I turned around, only to be met with a familiar pair of eyes.

The old man from the elevator?

Of course, just my luck.

"Chief Pixis, my name is – "

" – Levi Ackerman, yes I know. It's nice to officially greet you," He interrupted to say, reaching out a hand in the process. I got up from the chair, before giving him a firm handshake.

"It's nice to meet you as well … Officially,"

He smiled, releasing my hand. I pulled it back, resisting the urges of using the hand sanitizer again.

"So Levi," Pixis started, crossing his arms over his chest. "I've read your file,"

My eyebrows was raised instantly by this comment.

"I didn't know I had such a thing,"

I sent Erwin a quick look. He had something to do with this, I was sure of it.

"Yes. It was rather impressive, you being both cop and then lawyer later on. I thought it was custom for these two careers to … How to put it? Not be very fond of each other,"

That made me laugh. Not much though, but enough to loosen me up a bit.

"Yes, that's true. I'm not one to be following such stupidity, though. I have no interest in using energy to hate on something so insignificant,"

Chief Pixis smiled, studying me further with great intensity in his eyes. I pretended not to notice by looking out the window for a short moment. I usually minded when people stared for too long, but there was no use being offensive at my new boss.

"Very interesting," He mumbled, before clearing his throat. "Well, you seem to be able enough to take this case on with me. I will fill you in tomorrow, so don't bother coming here for work. I will have my people send you the adress, and then we'll take it from there. How does that sound?"

I just nodded. When he kept looking at me I added the "Fine by me," to satisfy him.

"I will see you tomorrow then,"

I looked after him, as he turned around and walked out of the office without speaking another word. When I was sure that he was completely out, I turned around on the heel. I pounded my fist into the desk, leaning in over it to face Erwin better.

"You have a damn file on me?!"

Ahh, it has a title! "Life without Eren" - that pretty much explains why the hell there is almost no mention of Eren, when last chapter it ONLY evolved around Eren and Levi's relationship. So this is about 3 months after they broke up, so we get to see how Levi is adjusting to not being with Eren, and what he is up to ... AND HOW GREAT IS IT THAT WE HAVE MORE CHARACTERS TO PLAY WITH? Hehehe. This is getting exciting to write! I'm looking forward to see how you'll like that this story is getting more depth. You can leave a review with your opinion, if you want!

And don't worry, we haven't seen the last of Eren. HE'LL BE BACK! And his return will be glorious.

Follow to get a notice when the new chapter comes up (it will be soon!) and please leave a review to make me happy and much more motivated!