Eren learns what spending $97,000 on law school will get you, talks classic rock, and resolves to ruin Levi's Monday.

There were two things Eren learned in his first two weeks at Smith & Ackerman: people were even fucking stupider than he had imagined, and Erwin was a lot nicer than Levi.

Erwin took Annie and Armin under his wing, while he and Mikasa got stuck with ("got the privilege to work for") Levi. There were some things Eren had learned there, too. Part of what made Smith & Ackerman so competent was their versatility. They took on cases no others would, but specialized in neither defense nor prosecution, doing both with equal skill. Erwin in particular was known for taking gutsy moves, and combined Levi's quick wit, they were believed to be the capital's last hope in a city teeming with criminals, crooked cops, and gutless lawyers.

His first impression of Levi was that he was tiny, but that seemed obvious as well as a good way to get fired. Eren wasn't abnormally tall, but Levi was at least a head shorter. He was also incredibly irritable, rude, demanding, and a hilarious contrast to Erwin. Erwin was so devastatingly attractive that Eren nearly swallowed his tongue when they met. Tall, sturdy, with neatly slicked hair, sharp eyes, and a jaw that begged to be sat on (and Eren told himself this self-indulgent train of thought was completely okay because he wasn't quite stupid enough to make moves on people he worked for, under any circumstances), Erwin couldn't have looked more like success if he tried. Eren had to commend Levi on his impeccable taste in suits, and he did have nice eyes even if they were perpetually narrowed in annoyance, but his abrasiveness was such a deterrent that Eren hardly managed working with him and maintaining a straight face.

The most important thing Eren had learned so far was that he spent three years of his life, innumerable hours and pots of coffee, and roughly $97,000 to be a glorified secretary.

"This," he said pleasantly under his breath, "is such shit."

"This is what working at the best law firm in the city as a new grad looks like," Mikasa said serenely, collating and binding a stack of depositions nearly as tall as her.

"I didn't pay $97,000 to sort mail," he sang with forced cheer that bordered on maniacal.

"Shut up and sort your mail."

"Yes, mom," he said, just to see her bristle. The heat made him irritable. So did Mikasa's attitude, a lot of the time. In addition to thinking she needed to mother him (seriously, maybe he was underestimating things, but he just didn't think adopting someone was that big of a deal), she was just so damn accepting of whatever came her way, and he was never going to be that way, could never be that way. There were people who needed their help. How could she be content with binding depositions all day?

"Levi said I'll get to take my case to court," Mikasa murmured.

Eren dropped his stack of mail. No wonder she was okay with binding depositions all day.

"You're joking," he said weakly. They were clerking easy cases, doing the legwork to test the waters and prove themselves, and of course Eren's case was complete shit: a seventeen year old with a DUI and fairly rich parents. He wasn't even sure why this was going to court. Breathalyzers didn't lie, but money talked.

Mikasa shrugged, but a small smile curved her lips. "I guess I impressed him?"

Eren sighed, half in admiration and half in exasperation. "I wish I could say the same for myself."

"Jaeger, you won't be saying a damn thing if you don't sort my mail. I don't pay you to gossip with your girlfriend," a peevish voice snapped from the doorway.

Eren jumped and felt his face flush. " She's my sister," he stammered, hurriedly reorganizing the mail into piles and locating Levi's. "Here's your mail, sir."

Levi flipped through his mail and gave Eren an appraising look. From Eren's place on the floor surrounded by a sea of mail, Levi was able to look down on him with those half-narrowed gray eyes, which Eren could tell was something Levi liked doing. "Hey, maybe someday you, too, can argue shitty cases in court," he shrugged.

Once Levi was a safe distance away, Eren buried his head in his hands and let out a quiet groan. "Why do I get the feeling he's mocking me," he said, voice muffled.

"You make it too easy for people," Mikasa chided. "I'm going home after I drop all these off. Don't forget to pick up the wine for dinner." She scooped up her tower of bound documents and flipped off the light with her elbow.

From his spot in the dark, he made a face at her back from his own frustration.

Back at his desk, Eren went over what he knew about his shitty case. Connie Springer was seventeen and had just moved to the city from the middle of nowhere a year ago, after his father got a very lucrative job offer. (Eren failed to see why knowing this was necessary.) Apparently he was a bit of a partier, nothing crazier than how Eren himself spent his teenage years, and this was his first alcohol charge, but he had a string of vandalism charges from his hometown of Ragako. (Eren was particularly interested in the part where young Connie apparently blew up a disused barn and managed not to get convicted.) The case was the same as countless others: Connie was drunk, crashed his Mercedes into a guard rail on the freeway, and was nailed with a DUI when a police officer sopped to check for injuries and noticed that the guy smelled like a distillery.

It was the same everywhere. Kid fucks up, parental figure waves money around, case dismissed.

It was half past six and Eren didn't get overtime pay, so he figured his throwaway case could wait until next Monday and he could get the hell out of here. He was sweaty, irritated, hungry, and seriously regretting this weekly tradition of dinner that he, Mikasa, and Armin had started in their last week of law school. It had only made sense that Annie was absorbed into the group when they started working together, but he was in no mood to socialize with people that were practically family, let alone someone who was still half a stranger.

A hand on his shoulder startled him and he clicked out of all his open documents. "You can go home now, Eren," Petra smiled at him. "We're the last two out, I think."

He smiled a bit tighter than he would have liked. "Just doing some research for my case, Ms. Ral."

Petra always looked charmingly delighted to be called Ms. Ral. It made Eren like her. "How do you like working here so far?"

Ah, shit. "Well," he said slowly, logging off the computer and gathering his things to buy some time.

"It's not what you expected, is it?" she asked with a conspiratorial smile, pulling her auburn hair into a twist.

His eyes went wide. "I wouldn't say that," he hedged. "Or I wouldn't say it's a bad thing."

Petra laughed lightly, pushing the elevator buttons as they stepped inside. "It's okay, I understand. I was kind of surprised, too. Of course I'd heard all about Erwin and Levi, but I had no idea what to expect. I guess the truth is Erwin is far kinder than people would think, based on how he is in the courtroom." She blushed very faintly. Interesting, Eren thought, filing that away for later. "And, well, I guess the truth is Levi's a lot crankier. But you want to know my theory?"

"What's that?"

"I think he's cranky because he's short."

Eren stared at her. "Uh…what?"

She smiled again, hazel eyes crinkling at the corners. "Don't misunderstand me, I think he's certainly higher strung than people expect. But think about it; he's noticeably short for a man. If you had to live with that, what do you think your options would be?"

Eren leaned his head against the wall of the elevator, relishing the cool metal against his skin. "Invest in elevator shoes…or deliberately become a hard person so people take you seriously."

"Exactly," she said with satisfaction. "He really does have a good heart, I think. But I think he's afraid people won't take him seriously. You know, you're a guy. Size is so important to men. Take care now," she winked at him, leaving him sputtering and scrambling to get out of the elevator before the doors crushed him.

A good heart, huh? Eren ruminated as he slipped through the turnstile at the train station. A hot, humid wind that smelled strongly of gasoline drifted up through the grid of the platform. Eren pushed his headphones into his ears and let the heady bass line wash over him as he lit a cigarette and leaned against the cool concrete pillar. He could imagine his mother yanking his ear and giving him hell, but it wasn't called a vice for no reason. He inhaled deeply and mulled over Petra's words. As far as he was concerned, there was nothing good about Levi except his intelligence. He flicked the ash off the end of his cigarette and texted Mikasa with one hand. what kind of wine?

His phone buzzed in his hand. I don't know, chardonnay? I'm making sangria. Buzz. Go to the corner store on Fourteenth and McIntyre, they're cheaper. Buzz. And the manager at that other place gives me the creeps.

Eren smiled slightly. Some things—like Mikasa's tendency to hit the send button instead of the enter button—never changed. Neither, apparently, did his evening commute. The platform was packed, and Eren grimaced slightly. The only saving grace was that the train ran on electricity and wouldn't wait on lingering people to get on or off the train, but it was at times like this that he really questioned Mikasa's insistence to live all the way out in Maria Park. Sure, it was a nice neighborhood—quiet, bordered by a beautiful park, full of young families, but the tradeoff was that neither of them could afford to live alone and the commute was 45 minutes on a good day. He'd succumbed to Armin's endless nagging and pleading eyes and had finally managed to train himself to be able to read on the train without throwing up, so he was slowly working his way through the ever-growing pile of books Armin kept leaving in his apartment in strange places. His current read was found in the linen closet in the bathroom. Armin was so fucking strange.

He spent more of his time leaning against the swaying window and watching the city swoop by. The flatness of the city meant that the elevated tracks often passed so close to buildings that one could almost brush them with outstretched fingers. For months it had made him equal parts nauseous and nervous, but even four years after moving to the city, it thrilled him. The view, the pace, the fact that it got all four seasons—nothing was old, yet. He hoped he never got jaded. It was just so different from Shiganshina, which, while very beautiful and right near the mountains, was unbearably hot and humid in the summer, didn't have much of a winter to speak of, and whose citizens were depressingly, crushingly narrowminded.

The train creaked into the station and Eren darted ahead in hopes of not having to stand up the whole way. In no mood to read, he kept the volume of his music just quiet enough that he could hear the bell of the train, and he closed his eyes, trying to shut out noise, color, and thought. At the corner store he bought two bottles of mid-priced chardonnay and trudged up three flights of stairs half an hour late to his own party. It's fashionable, he told himself.

He heard laughter coming from the minuscule balcony and noticed a pitcher with smashed fruit in the bottom. Rummaging in the drawer for a corkscrew, he painstakingly twisted it into the top of the bottle. Mikasa was far better at it; he always got too aggressive and ended up breaking the cork into bits that had to be fished out later. With a grunt he wrenched the cork (in one piece) from the bottle and grinned. Mikasa slid the screen door shut behind her. "Oh good, you're home. And you didn't break the cork."

"It's a trophy," he joked, "we should keep it."

She twisted the cork from the screw and rolled it around in her fingers. "Pour that into the pitcher," she waved. "Actually, I could keep it. I saw something on Pinterest; someone had made a wreath out of corks and it was really cute. And you can stick notes to it."

"And we can advertise to all our neighbors how much we drink."

"Not so," Armin said as he came in the kitchen. "You can buy corks in bags at craft stores, but they're kind of passé."

Eren stared at him. "Why do you know that?"

Armin shrugged, unruffled. "It's good to know these things."

Annie snorted from the doorway. "Hey, Eren. I brought strawberry pie."

"She made it herself," Mikasa stage whispered.

Eren had a hard time getting a grasp on Annie. She seemed perpetually disinterested in everything—not in the put-on way that Levi was; she genuinely seemed like she didn't give a fuck. At first it seemed like she and Mikasa might come to blows since Annie evidently had a higher GPA by the tiniest amount (and seriously, who cared, they had already graduated and had provisional jobs), but since they weren't working under the same people, Mikasa had decided she was okay. Armin had taken to her almost immediately, but Armin wasn't the best bellwether for other people; he liked nearly everyone on intuition.

The thing that got Eren's goat was that they knew essentially nothing about Annie and she was amazingly unforthcoming about herself.

"—en. Eren. Eren!"

"Aaah, what?" Eren jumped a little.

"I said, Armin brought salad, the sangria is ready, and I already made those tomato pesto roll things you like, so can you grill the chicken, please?" Mikasa asked.

"Yeah. Wait, no. I'm going to change first." He had realized, dimly, that he was still holding his suit jacket in his hand. He turned and ducked into his bedroom before Mikasa could ask if he was feeling okay. Tossing his work clothes haphazardly in the general direction of his laundry basket, he grabbed the first clean shirt and shorts that kind-of matched and headed back out.

"Swan Song, nice," Annie said, nodding in his direction.

He smoothed the Led Zeppelin shirt down with one hand and grabbed the bag of marinated chicken from the fridge. "Yeah, I actually vastly prefer everything they released before they left Atlantic, but it makes for a cool shirt."

"Favorite song?"

He made a face. "Just one? Ah, god… The Rain Song," he threw up his free hand. "It's my forever song"

Annie nodded. "Good choice."

"Do you have a favorite? Don't say Stairway to Heaven, I'll be forced to stab you."

She cracked a small smirk at that. "Nah. Don't get me wrong, it's cool, but overdone. Like people who say their favorite Eagles song is Hotel California."

"Oh, no, don't get Eren started on Hotel California," Armin warned, "we'll be here all night."

"Hm, well, I guess my favorite Led Zep song is The Song Remains the Same."

"Really?" Eren was intrigued. It was a good song, but not one he usually heard quoted as someone's favorite.

Annie shrugged, running her finger through the condensation on her beer bottle contemplatively. "Reminds me of good things."

Well, Eren couldn't argue with that, and he'd now heard Annie talk more than he had the entire time they'd been working together. He headed out the back door with a plate and tongs in one hand and chicken in the other. Setting the former down, he fiddled with the matches someone had already set out. "Thank you to whoever put charcoal and lighter fluid in the grill," he called out, dropping a match into the grill and scooting back as the flames caught.

"I'm waiting for the day you blow your eyebrows off," Armin said with a smile. "You should get one of those long lighter things."

No way," he snorted, "they're like, ten bucks."

He set the chicken on the grill and leaned back on his heels, accepting a glass of sangria from Mikasa and watching the chicken sizzle. The conversation carried on without him, but he was content to listen. "So," Armin started, "how's everyone's cases going?"

"Eh," Annie shrugged, "could be worse. It's a lot of work, but at least it's meaningful."

"I spent half my goddamn day sorting mail," Eren complained loudly.

"I get to take mine to court," Mikasa said, a little bit smugly.

"What? No way, that's so cool!" Armin said in awe. "You must have really impressed Levi."

Eren made a face to the chicken.

Mikasa smirked. "I guess so. I wasn't trying to, honestly. I don't see what the big deal is with him. Or Erwin, actually."

Even Eren turned his head for that.

"But they're the best lawyers in the city," Armin said slowly. "We, like, busted our asses all of last year and didn't sleep for months so we could get these jobs."

"I never said I was unhappy with the job. I just don't think either of them are gods. They're just humans. They're just men."

Annie actually let out a laugh, which stunned them. Her face was transformed when she smiled and Eren immediately thought she should do it more often; her eyes didn't look so cold and her face flooded with unexpected color. "Hear, hear," she grinned, clinking her bottle against Mikasa's glass.

"Well, what is your case Mikasa?" Armin asked.

"Isn't that illegal?" Eren cut in. "Or talk about it, whatever, eliminate yourselves from the running. God knows it can only help me."

Mikasa winced slightly. "Two thrilling words: tax evasion."

"Wasn't that always your weak point?" Eren asked. "I'm impressed you've done well enough to impress Sourpuss Levi."

"Ah, mine's money, too—an embezzling priest who was using parish money to buy prostitutes," Armin said.

"Murder case," Annie said as if she were announcing the weather. Armin dropped his fork and even Mikasa choked on her drink.

"What the fuck, why does everyone else get a real case but me?" Eren grumbled. "All I have is a shitty DUI that a dumbass teenager won't even get convicted for. He's had, like, half a dozen charges that have all gotten thrown out, and he's a minor."

"Well," Mikasa said, "it sounds like it's a good opportunity for you to take a look at the past cases and figure out why he's gotten them dismissed, so you can exploit it. Prosecuting, right? This is probably why Levi gave you the case. You're not patient, so this will be good for you."

"Ugh, whatever, mom," he said defiantly, serving chicken on everyone's plate and finally—blessedly—taking a seat.

"Should we feel bad for like, bragging about other people's comparative miseries?" Armin asked. Not for the first time, Eren thought that if he had much of a conscience, it would sound like Armin.

"Nah," Mikasa said immediately. "We're not happy that these people are in these positions."

"But if they weren't in these position, we wouldn't have jobs," Annie added.

Eren raised his glass mockingly. "A toast to miscreants everywhere."

The sound of clinging glass rang out through the dusky summer haze.

I'm thinking of doing updates on Wednesdays and Sundays-that way nobody's waiting too long and it forces me to stay on some kind of schedule.

Are you guys liking this? Are you guys even reading this? I genuinely don't write for recognition and am going to see this story to its conclusion even if the only people reading it are me and the ghost that lives in my apartment, but if you have the slightest feedback (even if it's to tell me I'm a talentless sack of flour and this idea is terrible), I would welcome it.

Next time on the lawyer hell channel: Eren has a breakthrough. Levi has a breakdown.