Levi found out that the Coinstar outside of the store was, indeed, in working order from Hanji.

"The little shit came in earlier," he had hissed out as soon as he and Hanji were in the office alone. Petra was behind the counter, as was customary on days she worked. Afternoons were hers. "By the way, we need to get the Coinstar fixed."

Hanji raised an eyebrow, tilting her glasses down to look at him. He assumed it was from his dismayed, probably a-little-too-irritated tone of voice.

"First of all," she started, leaning back in her chair. It let out a painful, godforsaken creak. "What little shit? There are a lot of little shits in your personal directory of little shits. Also, the Coinstar is working just fine. I watched someone use it earlier. Now, the Redbox needs to be fixed, and the ATM is still having that problem where it'll sometimes not give the money back to the customer, but that clears itself up within about forty-eight hours and I'm pretty sure that's normal for ATMs anyway. The guy for the Redbox is coming on Monday."

Levi stared at her, face blank and then calm. He watched Hanji shudder, most likely from the sudden coldness of the room. This was not the good kind of calm. This calm, the calm he was feeling right now, was at least fifty times worse than the calm he had felt on Thursday morning after being woken up by Eren. The kid had been so good until today. He hadn't fallen out of bed, stomped around, listened to too-loud music or too-loud television, and he hadn't even spoken a single word to Levi. That was the kind of life Levi wanted. The last thing he wanted was to deal with Eren.

"I counted thirteen bucks and forty-seven cents for absolutely nothing?"

The kid was going to definitely fucking die now.

He was brought back to the present, anger seeping through his pores and onto the woman that had decided to sit down next to him while waiting for her car.

The only reliable mechanic shop in town happened to be connected to the only truck stop in town. The only truck stop in town was possibly the most disgusting building in town, as well. The owner of the shop tried to keep it as clean as possible, but it was like the grime slinked in from the garage outside and the rest of the truck stop. Levi had been frequenting the garage, nonetheless, ever since he was a teenager. His uncle religiously brought his own car there, and pounded it into Levi's head that he should, too. They'd never fucked up, so he was going to keep it up.

Levi's truck, his brand new fucking black 2010 Silverado, was already having transmission problems, at less than ten thousand miles. He refused to try and fix it himself, afraid he'd get too angry at a truck he'd already spent too much money on only to end up shooting it beyond repair.

He was lucky to be a regular customer, too, because the man behind the counter wasn't offended anymore when he asked for the Clorox wipes he knew they stowed behind the counter to clean off the chair he chose.

He adjusted the sleeve of his shirt and stifled a sigh as the woman next to him moved to a different seat and then avoided eye contact with him from that point on.

She was the kind of woman that looked like she didn't really belong in a place like this, anyway. Platinum hair, cat-eye glasses, snooty little tilted nose turned upwards. Her pretty little white shoes, white pantyhose and white skirt had little splatters of muddy water on them, likely due to the rain from earlier that morning. She looked at him like he was the dirty one. She'd really done nothing wrong to him, though, aside from the most unwelcomed stink-eye, but he'd live and he'd refrain from any IQ-challenging insults that wanted to pry themselves out of his mouth.

Levi prided himself in self-control, after all.

That was why, of course, one Eren Jaeger still wasn't six feet underground in his Sunday's best and, for once, combed hair.

"Levi, it'll still be another thirty minutes," the man behind the counter, a man named Gunther, told him, shooting an apologetic smile at him. All of the mechanics took turns sitting behind the counter and taking people's money, but he did prefer when he got Gunther or Erd. "Maybe go to the shops next door? I know how much you hate the truck stop, but—"

"I'd rather slam my dick in a sliding door," he replied, waving his hand dismissively at the idle mechanic. "By the way, is your bathroom working yet?"

"Unfortunately not. We've all been going to the Travel Center's bathroom lately. You can try that one, though."

"Fuck."

The platinum bitch across the room looked offended—although maybe constipated, or like she was thinking about the bathroom, too—by something, but Levi's mind wasn't willing to give her the time of day anymore. He begrudgingly opted for shuddering with disgust. The biggest mistake he'd ever made in his life was thinking that he could handle the truck stop bathroom.

"Hey, to their benefit, this is around the time they clean it every day," Gunther offered. "It'll be a little less shitty."

"Truck stop bathrooms are never not shitty."

Levi stood, though, fussing and grumbling as he left the small waiting area and through the door that connected the tiny room to the Travel Center next door. Upon entry, he could already smell the rancid scent of stereotypical truck-driving manbearpigs, shuffling around and stuffing their faces with greasy hamburgers and caffeine and whatever else in God's name they could get their hands on.

In reality, the smell alone of the truck stop had imprinted his mind with bad memories of said manbearpigs, and he hadn't had a good experience with them since.

No, to their credit, there were a couple of bearded men sitting at a table playing checkers, one woman sifting through the magazines, and then a couple of younger men, looking slightly more bright-eyed and bushy-tailed than expected of a seasoned truck driver who had long forgotten the buzz of a strong cup of truck stop coffee. One of the men actually smiled at him. Levi drew the conclusion that they could only be newbies.

Upon entering the grotesque, disheveled excuse for a bathroom, Levi was hit with three things in particular.

The first thing was that, holy sweet mother of Mary, they call this clean? There was dirt in places that dirt should never, ever be. There were splatters of unidentified liquids (?) on the walls, and even on the ceiling tiles. There was a hole in one wall, puffy pink insulation peeking out at him, and he was pretty damn sure he'd just seen some sort of vermin skitter away. There were discarded paper towels on the floor, ranging from around the bottom of the trash can, to the complete opposite side of the bathroom. One of the two urinals looked clogged. What the fuck was that sharpie doing on the floor in the corner?

The second thing was that the stalls looked like something you'd find in a macabre horror film. Slime, or some sort of sludge, clung to the edges of the seats—one of which had been left up (Seriously? There's a fucking urinal right there.) and the other had traces of what he was going to assume was vomit). He could see mold biting at the caulking at the base of the toilets.

The third thing was the only thing that kept him from losing his breakfast, which consisted purely of coffee. There was a staggering number of phone numbers with vulgar invitations below them littering the stalls' walls. Some of them looked like actual feminine handwriting, like a woman had dared to sneak into the cesspit in disguise as a bathroom just to write down her number for any man who might treat her as shitty as the bathroom was. Most of them just looked like what any friendly, good-hearted trucker would do—give their favorite booty call a nice promotion.

Levi's mind flickered back to the crumpled receipt, still regrettably sitting on his coffee table at home.

He'd meant to throw it away, really, but another part of him kept telling him he could use it for something. Maybe he would actually need Eren's number later, or maybe someone else would. That was the innocent part of his mind, though. The innocent part of his mind had remembered the number, by some miracle.

His eyes found the sharpie in the corner, and then a blank spot on the stall walls.

No.

He thought about Eren's shit-eating grin, and the fact that he lied about the Coinstar outside of the convenience store in order to make him count his gratuitous pile of change.

Oh, fuck yeah. That isolated pubic hair is in for it.

Levi offered a silent prayer for the innocent part of his mind and extracted the knowledge of Eren's phone number for the sinful part. It wasn't like much of the innocent knowledge he acquired stayed that way for very long anyway, and definitely not in situations like this. This was a unique situation that he was in, of course, but revenge was always a meal he was willing to sit down for and enjoy with a nice glass of wine, if he could afford wine. He had a bottle stored in the pantry, a gift from his landlord, which was perfect for tonight.

The process of writing Eren's phone number on the empty spot was a lengthy process and took many, many paper towels from the dispenser. One paper towel was used to open the cabinet below the sink and pull out the closest and least shady-looking bottle of all-purpose cleaner. He sprayed the area he was going to write on, and another paper towel was used to wipe it off (which, in the end, brought off much of the other markings in the area, leaving him quite the space to work and draw attention to). He used another, even after it was clean, just to be sure. Of course, there was the paper towel he used to pick up the sharpie from the floor, and the one he used to clean it off after spraying it as well.

You could never be too careful in public bathrooms.

He was careful with his penmanship as he scrawled out the number he'd (accidentally) memorized. Just the number alone wasn't enough, he realized. He felt a sense of duty to Eren, like perhaps he owed him something, props for the good prank. So, he did exactly that.

'Call me for a good time. Best fuck in town!'

That would suffice, he decided as he put the sharpie down onto the corner of the sink counter. Levi accepted that it wasn't his best, but he probably didn't need to exert his best for truckers. From his experience and from what he had heard, they really weren't picky in this area.

"Did you fall in?" Gunther asked when Levi returned, eyebrow cocked. His eyes found Levi's hands, red from what he assumed was vigorous hand washing. "I figured you wouldn't go to any of the stores or fast food places. They just get worse, the further you go. Was the bathroom that bad?"

"It wasn't as bad as I imagined," Levi replied, crossing his legs and picking up a magazine from the little table. The platinum bitch was gone, thank God, which meant the waiting room was his for the time being. Nobody but Gunther was around to judge him for indulging in motorcycles he couldn't afford yet. "Surprisingly satisfactory, really."

[-X-]

"Hey baby, I heard ye' know how t' have a good time."

Eren's eyebrows shot so far up his forehead the cashier in front of him stopped scanning his items just to make sure he was alright. The gruff voice that came from his phone, thankfully held securely against his ear and not on speaker phone, let out a soft chuckle at Eren's silence.

"I'm sorry, what the—" He reminded himself, only temporarily, of the presence of other people. "What? Who are you?"

There was a pause, and Eren was almost a little too hopeful that the man on the other end had hung up. He could hear rustling, though, and oh God what was that noise—

"Didn't know ye' were a guy, but tha's fine. Handwriting seemed kinda girly, and you sound cute."

Eren's face was most definitely burning. No, he doubted it was just his face, as he could feel heat spread from his cheeks to his ears and down to his neck. He had a sneaking suspicion that this was some sort of joke being played on him by Jean. Had he handed out his phone number out of malice or something? He didn't really remember doing anything particularly revenge-worthy to him lately, but he recalled a few incidents where whether he'd done anything or not hadn't mattered. This was stupid, though, and couldn't compare to the time he'd found everything in his bedroom flipped upside down a couple of years ago. Jean's pranks hadn't lived up to their hype since that.

"Okay," he said, drawing in a steadying breath. "Who gave you my number?"

"It's out there for th' world, sweetheart. Listen, if ye' ain't gonna do anything, leave ye' be. Maybe I'll call back later."

The line went dead.

Eren had to fight every instinct to not take his frustration out on the poor cashier as he paid and took his bags. Every few minutes, he looked down at his phone on the walk home, and about halfway to the complex, it rang again. He stared at the unknown number, debating on actually answering this one or just letting it go to voicemail to see what the caller would do. At the same time, though, he was pretty sure all he would get was heavy breathing, and a similar voice, if not the same one.

Eventually he did answer, raising a grocery bag laden arm to accept the call and hold it up to his ear.

"What?"

"Heard you were the best fuck in town," a voice informed him, and this time he was a little confused to find that it was younger, much less rough. "Care to prove it for me?"

Eren grimaced. He wasn't pleased to have gone from 'knowing how to have a good time' to being 'the best fuck in town'. Most times he would pounce right back and boast that yes, he was the best fuck in town (he wasn't), but that was usually to look good.

He didn't need to look good to a complete stranger over the phone.

"Sorry to disappoint you, but there's been some kind of fuck up," Eren started. He almost stopped, but only almost, because he really needed to find out where people were getting his number, even if that meant he had to push back his embarrassment. "The last asshole just hung up. Can you please tell me where you guys keep getting my number from?"

There was a pause long enough that Eren ripped his phone away from his ear to make sure he hadn't missed the cut-off noise. Proving to still be on the line, he pressed the phone back to his ear just in time to catch the last of soft laughter.

"You poor darling," the man said softly, affectionately, and it made Eren shudder in the most unpleasant way. "Seems like someone got ahold of your number and scribbled it on a stall in the truck stop bathroom."

"You've got to be fucking joking."

[-X-]

Eren looked absolutely miserable. His face was flushed and he was gripping his phone with a death grip that made Levi wonder how the poor fragile smart phone hadn't simply exploded yet. It had been at least six hours since he'd put the number on the truck stop stall, and about five since he'd returned to the complex with his freshly-running truck. Two hours since he'd started his usual Sunday meal, and thirty minutes since he'd finished it up.

Now he stood with two cheap food storage boxes generously filled with the meatloaf and mashed potatoes that had been requested. He was watching Eren, of course, disheveled and flustered.

What caught Levi's attention the most happened to be the flimsy grocery bags he had hanging from both arms that swung as he headed for the stairs, clearly visible from Levi's place just a few paces away from his front door. He could see imprints of the items inside; instant noodles, Hungryman TV dinners, he saw a bag of Cheetos and he was definitely sure he identified beer in one of the bags. Levi was sure he planned on eating some of that garbage he was about to haul into his room. On a whim, he decided to stop the poor fool while he still could.

"Yo, shitdick."

Levi wasn't the slightest bit surprised when Eren jerked a little and spun around to look at him. His amusement must've shown on his face, because Eren scowled. He spoke before the brunette could.

"Put your bags of garbage up and come back down here," he said, raising one of the food storage boxes. "I have extras. Kind of a tradition on Sundays. Wash your hands, for the love of all that is holy, please. Numerous times if you must. I'm gonna drop these off to Erwin and Marco, so just hang tight when you get done."

He decided against waiting to see if Eren was going to do as he said or not and headed straight for the receptionist's desk.

He'd be crazy not to, at least. Asshole can't pass up a home-made meal.

Marco was still behind the desk, shuffling around with a few payment plans and bills he still wanted to get sorted out before he retreated up to his apartment, as he'd explained when Levi had wandered out while the food was cooking. The young man was wrapped up in a cardigan, claiming that, despite the heat, Erwin always kept it a little too cold for his taste in the lobby. His freckled cheeks drew up as he smiled eagerly at the sight of food, and he straightened up, placing the papers down on the counter and clasping his fingers together on the desk in front of him.

"You're a saint," Marco said softly, accepting the container when it was offered to him. "Erwin has told me about your meatloaf a couple of times, but this is the first time I'm getting to try it. Bet it'll be as good as he says."

"Don't have to butter me up, Marco," he stated. If there was a hint of affection to his tone, he wasn't going to admit to it. "You're still getting dinner next Sunday, too, whether you pull out the sweet words or not."

Marco laughed and smiled, embarrassed. He wished another thanks to Levi as he retreated back into Erwin's office.

Said tall, blonde asshole was leaning back in his chair, hands behind his head, feet kicked up onto his completely clear desk. He smiled, a little too friendly, a little too dazzling, when Levi dropped the container down on the desk in front of him and crossed his arms over his chest. He shot the taller man a look that practically screamed, this is all your fault, you annoyingly pretty bastard. You're going to pay.

"What did I do?" Erwin asked, raising his hands and grinning now. "Really, usually I have an idea when you stomp in here."

"First of all, are you, like, working that poor kid out there to death or something?" Levi asked, quirking an eyebrow. "Second, I'm just gonna blame you for the fact that Jaeger's about to eat food I actually worked hard to make, like you and Marco are." Erwin opened his mouth. "Shut up. I'm aware it's my own fault. Don't tell me."

"You do these things to yourself."

"I said shut up."

"You know I'm no good at doing what you tell me."

"I know."

"How's the kid handling the whole phone number business?" Erwin sat up straight in his chair, pulling his legs from his desk and sliding his food over to himself. "That was pretty damn harsh. Does he even know you did it?"

"I doubt it, but I have a feeling he might catch on. He knows he deserves it," he muttered, narrowing his eyes. "And as for how he's handling it—"

"Fuck!"

Levi blinked once at the swearing coming from the lobby. It definitely wasn't Marco; the guy had never uttered a single vulgarity, as far as Levi knew. Maybe he did in privacy, but even when he was frustrated, he'd never heard him swear. No, that was most definitely Eren's voice, and Levi was lucky enough to poke his head out of the office to turn it off and viciously throw it down onto the lobby's couch. He bit back a snort at Eren's disgruntled look, and the way he stumbled to apologize for freaking Marco out.

"Ah, this kid," he murmured to himself, shooting a look back to Erwin. "How the hell do you choose who stays in this complex, anyway? Luck of the draw?"

"Something like that."

[-X-]

This is weird as fuck, Eren decided, shifting in his chair. Why am I here again?

Ah, right, the promises of free food always lure me places I really shouldn't be. This is too high up on my list of places I really shouldn't be, though. Fuck.

"So, what's on the menu?" he asked. His mind was screaming at him to leave, but no, this was going to be fine. The food was definitely not poisoned.

"You know, liver, fava beans and a nice chianti."

"I should hope it's not, like, Erwin's liver or something," Eren murmured, chuckling quietly. The little joke made him noticeably relax and why the fuck am I so tense around him anyway? No, he decided it was probably the way his eyes were or something. "Or is that your way of telling me that you're going to kill me after this and go all Hannibal Lecter on me?"

"I am definitely going to go all Hannibal Lecter on you."

A plate of meatloaf and mashed potatoes that, really, smelled and looked so good he could shove his face into them was slid in front of him. Levi held a fork out to him, but pulled it back out of Eren's grasp when he reached for it.

"You washed your hands?"

Eren sighed, frowning at Levi.

"I washed my hands, dammit."

"Good boy."

Eren snatched the fork, ignoring Levi's low chuckle. Immediately, like he was afraid of Levi taking the plate away from him or refusing him the fork once again, he shoveled the food into his mouth. After a comment by the shorter man regarding his apparent desperate need to choke himself to death on mashed potatoes, resulting in the most embarrassing death in human history, he slowed down to taste the food. It was good, even better than he'd expected. Looking at Levi, he'd take him to be the kind of person, like himself, who ate whatever the hell was easiest to come up with. And, of course, the look around the pristine apartment had informed him that this man had a major case of OCD.

"It's actually really good," he hummed, taking a few more bites. "Shit, don't tell my mom, but it's better than hers'."

"Ah, yeah, by the way, Eren," Levi murmured, leaning back and sipping on a glass of wine. "The whole phone thing. Yeah. That was my fault. Sorry."

" . . . Your meatloaf is fucking terrible."