Levi already felt like shit and the day hadn't started yet. He got next to no sleep, torturing himself with the likelihood of his father being the killer. But in his mind it didn't seem likely—one of the victims were people he knew, and it seemed to him completely consequential that Bertholdt Hoover had been out on bail, because he didn't honestly think Bertholdt Hoover was crafty enough to be a serial killer. But he knew something was wrong as soon as Erwin practically jumped him at the elevator doors. "Jesus, don't do that," he flinched, pressing the heel of his hand against his chest. Erwin's normally sharp blue eyes were uncharacteristically dulled. Levi's eyes narrowed. He watched closely.

Out of habit and to broach the foot or so difference in their heights, Erwin bent down. "We have a slight problem," he murmured quietly, sending shocks down Levi's spine. He'd never been fond of whispering. "Come with me to my office. Act casual."

Levi had never acted casual in his life. He eyed the paper cup of coffee in his hand, stomach roiling. They briskly walked past the desks of the underlings. Eren's enormous eyes flickered up, a tiny chunk of hair sticking up despite his usual best efforts to tame it into one of those nouveau-academic-hipster sdesweeps. Levi nodded, his lips twitching despite himself.

Erwin shut the door silently and began pacing slowly. "Wait," Levi said, "where's Petra?"

Erwin's face was grim. "Her roommate was murdered last night."

The blood whooshed in Levi's ears. "Let me guess," he said sardonically, to cover what could honestly be described as panic. His own voice sounded very far away to his ears. "Strangled, throat cut, raped, dismembered."

Erwin's eyes widened. "Not dismembered, but the rest…"

Levi dragged a hand through his hair. "Goddammit," he exhaled. "My client was out on bail yesterday, too."

"What?" It was Erwin's turn to watch him closely.

"Paid by an anonymous source. Actually, I sent Jaeger down to the Western Union where the money transfer originated to see if there was surveillance. I was going to ask him about that, but I guess I know where I'm spending my day now." He felt exhausted. Erwin's hand came down on his shoulder, and Levi could spot a streak of silver in his golden head. When the hell did we get so old? "I don't think we should tell the kids," Levi said, gesturing to the door with his glasses in his hand. "It would probably do nothing but scare them."

Erwin rubbed his jaw, lost in thought. "Maybe they should be scared," he muttered pensively.

"Erwin."

He blinked, smiling lopsidedly. "Sorry, you're right. As it is now, innocent til proven guilty, and it's all a coincidence, et cetera."

In his car on the way to the jail, Levi laughed a bit darkly. He'd known Erwin a long time. Neither of them had ever believed in coincidence. God lawyers never did.

Bertholdt Hoover was white as a sheet. His hand was freezing when Levi shook it. Already rather tall and lanky, the stress had hollowed his brown eyes and was starting to make him look like a refugee. Levi made a heroic effort at a reassuring smile, though his clients knew better than to associate him with a comforting bedside manner. He uncapped his pen. "I have something to tell you," Bertholdt blurted, twisting his fingers.

Levi went absolutely still.

"Reiner isn't my boyfriend," Bertholdt said in a rush.

Levi let out a long, heavy breath. "Jesus, you have bad timing and worse delivery," he glared. The past two weeks alone were desperately trying to send his heart into overdrive and him into an early grave. Bertholdt's dark eyes were wide and terrified. Levi cupped his chin, running his thumb over his bottom lip. "Why did both of you present yourselves to me as a couple?"

Bertholdt blushed. "Ah…well…" Levi's lips twisted into a cynical smile. You want to be, he thought. "It was Reiner's idea," Bertholdt said more evenly. "When we heard that someone's got this idea that I was…obsessed…with Mina, well, if I had a longstanding boyfriend…"

Levi considered him shrewdly. "Not bad," he said. "So why tell me now that you're not really a couple?"

Bertholdt swallowed hard. "Because we had a fight last night, and…Mr. Ackerman, I wasn't in my apartment when that girl got murdered, and my building's got a camera, so I can't lie about it." He looked about as sick as Levi felt.

"Well, Mr. Hoover," Levi shoved his glasses back on, "start talking. And then, for good measure, let's go back over where you were when Mina Carolina was murdered, and then we'll call your not-boyfriend. I want both of you, to the best of your ability, to think of every single person who could possibly have access to your apartment without breaking a window."

Levi had made a career on trusting his instincts, and he reflexively disliked Reiner Braun. Some of it was petty—Reiner was not quite as tall as his not-boyfriend, but was so imposing, stocky, and mean-looking that Levi, forever conscious of his height, had to fight to meet Reiner in the eyes steadfastly, even though he could probably throw the kid over his shoulder. Some of it he couldn't name, but it was a vague and persistent feeling that Reiner was lying to him, or not telling him everything. So when Reiner's hands, just once, tightened convulsively on the table, Levi's sharp eyes caught it and narrowed. He watched an officer knock on the glass, come get Bertholdt for lunch, watched Reiner and Bertholdt embrace briefly but tightly. Levi listened to Bertholdt's footsteps fade away and cleared his throat. "Mr. Braun…"

Reiner's golden eyes flickered to him.

"Why did you lie when I asked if you stayed in the apartment after your argument?"

Reiner's mouth fell open. "I didn't—"

Levi held up a hand. "Don't lie to me a second time. You're not very good at it, and I or the police will pull the tapes anyway, so we'll see you leaving."

Reiner's jaw set firmly. "Does it really matter?"

Levi stared at him incredulously. "Do you want your friend to die?"

"What?" Reiner said, startled. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"Don't you know what this country does to serial killers? They're executed, quickly and quietly. Do you want another murder pinned to your not-boyfriend's back?"

A flash of something passed lightning-quick across Reiner's face. Levi inwardly hoped he wasn't on the verge of having to deal with someone's "no-homo" panic. Having already had to deal with his own lengthy existential crisis and having resolved it by accepting that he liked men (well, at the time, one in particular) more than he cared about what his father would do, he'd developed a kind of allergy to self-denial. But he felt compassion for the guy and briefly patted his back. "Just don't…I can't help you or Bertholdt if you're not telling the truth. I'm a lawyer, not a magician."

Reiner relaxed a bit. "Don't lawyers always lie?"

Levi chuckled. "Some of them, yeah."

Back at the office, Eren's head was nestled in his arms. He breathed deeply and heavily, rustling a loose piece of paper on his desk. Levi tapped his shoulder. He roused slowly, sleepily rubbing his eyes with a grumbling sigh, til he noticed Levi's legs and slowly worked his way up.

"Relax," Levi said, amused. "It's not my business if you want to use your lunch break for sleeping. I personally prefer to go outside." Not, he noted, that the boy needs it. He was deeply tanned already, while Levi was well aware he resembled varying shades of the undead in all seasons. "Come with me," he beckoned, heading into his office. Eren shut the door and sat down rubbing his eyes some more. He really does have incredible eyes, Levi thought, startling himself. Eren stared at him expectantly. He shook his head to clear his thoughts. Fucking stop it, he told himself. He'd done alright not romantically caring about someone the past seven years, and more to the point, he was Eren's boss and probably a decade older. He cleared his throat awkwardly. "What did you find at the Western Union?"

It looked to him like Eren made a heroic effort at not scowling. "Well, they do have surveillance cameras."

"Good."

"This place is super south-side. The cameras were busted."

Levi sighed. "Of course they were."

"But!" Eren held up a finger. "The guy working the counter was the same guy who had been there the day before. He remembered the money transfer because it's so unusual. The guy was also wearing a puffy coat."

Levi frowned. "It's the fucking middle of summer."

Eren scratched the back of his neck. "Yeah…to tell you the truth, the cashier guy wasn't a lot of help. The coat made the guy look huge, but was he really, or did he just look like the marshmallow guy from Ghostbusters because of the coat? He had sunglasses on—"

"That's not shady at all," Levi murmured under his breath. It wasn't til Eren stopped to stare at him incredulously that he realized he'd made a fucking terrible pun. "Pun unintended," he added unconvincingly.

"—So the guy couldn't really tell what this dude looked like. He did say that the guy was pretty tall, maybe five-eleven, six feet. Oh, and the money was given in cash."

Levi rubbed at his eyes. "That really narrows it down." He sighed. "Thank you for going down there."

Eren looked startled. "It-it's no problem," he said a bit shyly.

Levi squinted at him out of habit. "Are you doing alright, Eren?" The kid looked haggard.

Eren shrugged dismissively. "Just tired, I guess." He gave a small grin. "After all, the trial for the Springer case is next week. I have to make sure everything's in order."

Levi smiled slightly at the cocky, handsome kid. "That you do."

By the weekend, Eren was swaying on his feet. He hadn't really told Levi the truth when he said he was working on the Springer case. He'd done nothing but live and breathe everything in the bulging ledger belonging to Nicholas Lobov. He had never regretted anything so much in his entire miserable life as he regretted mouthing off to Levi and getting this case. He flopped down on the couch next to Armin and resignedly buried his head into his best friend's shoulder. "There's only one solution," he said to Armin. "Levi wants to fire me. I'm going to lose this case and then he's going to fire me."

Armin jostled Eren as he pulled his hair back into a tiny ponytail. "How bad would it be if you had to go work somewhere else?" Eren stared at his best friend pointedly. "Okay, okay," Armin held up a hand. "But you don't actually seem to like Levi, so surely it would be a little bit of a relief to get away from him?"

Eren shrugged. "I don't dislike him. I think he hates me, but he was oddly nice to me the other day. I was a little let down by how disagreeable he is, but he's kinda hot."

Armin flushed. "I think I get the better deal," he said, eyes going misty. "God, Eren, you have no idea. I really didn't know what to think at first. I had seen him, of course, on TV and stuff, and he was so intimidating. He gets scary intense when he's in court, and he's got this giant imposing voice and he's, like, forty-five feet tall. But in real life, he's so nice!"

Eren snorted fondly. "Armin, you would be in love with him even if he were a complete shit, just because he's handsome."

Armin grinned broadly. "That he is."

"Honestly, until the other day, I wasn't sure Levi knew my first name."

"Ah, about that," Armin's ears turned pink. "Mr. Erwin told me that Levi sort of has a habit of not learning people's names unless they're accepted on as full partners. So if he knows even your last name, that's a good thing. Well, it sounds like you did give him good reason to hate you…hey!" Armin went sprawling into the floor as Eren nudged him off the couch with a foot.

His laptop rang.

He reached to close the screen, but Armin accepted the video call for him with a cheeky grin. "Hi, Mrs. J!"

"Hi, Armin! Where's Eren?"

"Up here." He tilted the laptop screen. "Hi, Ma," he managed a tired smile.

His mother had looked more or less the same since he could remember, and he would never admit it because it sounded weird (probably) and would surely embarrass the hell out of him, but it was really comforting, in a way. Her thick black hair was pulled to the side in a ponytail like an afterthought, and her large hazel eyes were always tired, but she seldom gave anything other than the impression that she had all the time in the world for her kids. "Thanks for calling last weekend, Eren," she teased, "it was so great catching up."

He groaned. I will not hitch a ride on the parental guilt train, he told himself halfheartedly. "I'm really sorry, Ma, but work's been really hard—"

"Oh, the old work excuse," she said dismissively, waving a hand.

"It really has, Mrs. J," Armin piped up from his place on the floor, where he'd made himself comfortable. "You see, Eren mouthed off to his boss and—ow, Eren!" Eren latched onto Armin's ponytail and yanked lightly.

"Eren," his mother said in that voice she used when the next thing out of his mouth had best be a full and detailed explanation. He fought the incredibly strong urge to bury his face in his hands. I am twenty-five years old, I am an adult, he chanted to himself.

"I didn't."

"You probably did."

"I totally did."

"But you didn't get fired, right?" she asked hopefully.

"Nope, but I almost wish I did!" he sang.

"We were all given cases to start, maybe just to clerk, maybe to take to court, it depends. And so of course we all talked about our cases, and mine was so…so…so bullshit, Ma, I'm sorry, Jesus," he said in response to her token parental glare for swearing in front of her. "Seriously, a monkey could've done it, and I wrote all my remarks in like, a day, and so I went to my boss and told him that I wanted something harder, only maybe I said it not quite so nicely, and now I'm paying for it because this is the worst case ever and I'm going to get my ass handed to me—oh, for heaven's sake, Ma, I'm twenty-five, I pay taxes and everything, quit looking at me like that."

Carla burst into laughter. "Ah, but you didn't get fired, schwein gehabt." Lucky you, Eren mouthed to Armin, translating. Eren was generally extraordinarily good at ignoring whatever his mother had wanted him to do in life, but his one sort-of regret was that his German wasn't better. He and Armin both laughed embarrassedly as she opened a new browser tab to creep on their bosses and nearly had a heart attack. She gave Armin two thumbs up when he told her that Erwin was over six feet. She complained gently about one of her new patients at the nursing home where she worked, an exceptionally old war veteran who didn't always seem to grasp that the war was long over and who thought Carla was a soldier he was training while he was the drill sergeant.

"Don't get old, Ma," he said suddenly. Since his father had died when he was in junior high, he'd always felt vaguely panicked when confronted with old age, sickness, or anything else that could shorten his mother's life.

She smiled fondly. "Das Leben ist kein Ponyhof, liebchen." He covered his grin with his hand. I'll explain later, he mouthed to Armin. "But I do have a surprise for you. You're not at home, are you?"

"No, I'm at Armin's. Why?"

She sighed. "You should go home now."

"You're freaking me out."

"It's a good surprise!"

He frowned suspiciously. "You're not at my apartment, are you?"

She gave him a pointed look. "Do I look like I have a DeLorean?"

"The DeLorean is a time machine, Ma, not a teleporter."

"Actually," Armin interrupted, "it's a flux capacitor."

"Boys," Carla broke in, "just make sure someone is at Eren's apartment, oh, I'd say, in an hour. It's very, very important."

Eren nodded in agreement, starting to feel a little weird. "If you say so, then I'm going to have to leave now, Ma; the trains run differently on weekends."

She blew him a kiss! "Go, go, liebchen, I love you!"

"Love you, too, Ma," Eren said, even as he was shutting his laptop and gathering his things. He turned to Armin expectantly.

Armin rolled his eyes. "Trains, my ass. Like you seriously thought I'd let you take the train back when I have a perfectly good car."

He grinned. "You're a peach, Arm."

Armin flushed, as he did if anyone said anything remotely nice about him. "Oh, quit." He helped Eren carry all his court docs and depositions to the car. "God, I hope nothing important is happening," Armin groaned, "I haven't had time to shower in, like, two days."

"I hope nothing important is happening because I haven't had time to sleep or eat something that didn't come out of a microwavable container in two days," Eren replied.

"Any idea what it could be?"

"Nah," Eren said, fumbling in his bag for his pack of cigarettes.

"Aw, Eren, you know I hate that," Armin whined, rolling down the window anyway.

"They're not called vices for nothing," he said airily, flicking the lighter and taking a deep drag. He glanced down at his phone. He'd texted Mikasa, but she hadn't answered yet, but he wasn't worried. She was probably on a run, or skyping their mother.

"Eren," Armin said suddenly as they idled at a stoplight, "you don't think that people from home are visiting us, do you? I wouldn't mind seeing them, but I'd really mind if they were staying with us."

Eren was struck with a sudden horror. He had court on Tuesday and so much work to do on the Lobov case that he'd been weighing the pros and cons of Gone Girling himself. "Surely not…surely they'd stay in a hotel if they were going to do that?" he asked weakly, wracking his brains to see if anyone had family members in the city. He didn't think so, though he was pretty sure Sasha's cousin lived maybe an hour or so away. As they reached Eren's apartment and climbed the three flights of stairs, Eren fished for the key in his pocket and slid it into the lock. Armin squeaked, and Eren looked up from the doorknob.

Mikasa hadn't answered his phone calls or texts because she was firmly attached at the mouth to Jean Kirschstein, former regular drunken hookup of Eren and years-long unrequited crush of Armin. She pulled off Jean with a pop and stared at them in utter surprise, very red in the face with mussed-up hair. Jean looked from Mikasa to the door and back again. "Uh…fuck?" he asked, light brown eyes widening.

"Fuck indeed," Eren said dryly, recovering use of his voice.

A beat of silence, and then, "I can explain this. Probably," Mikasa said.

"Please don't," Eren replied.

Armin squeaked again.

Eren staggered forth with a surprised grunt as some 130 pounds barreled into his back. "Eren!" someone shrieked in his ear.

"Hi, Sasha," he groaned, shifting to support her and thinking how desperately he needed to get back to lifting at the gym.

"There you are," Jean said as Sasha detangled herself from Eren's back and smoothed the front of her bright red dress.

She rolled her eyes. "Thanks for waiting for me, while I found a free place to park in this stupid city, babe."

"Babe?" Mikasa asked evenly.

Armin and Eren exchanged glances. Jean threw an arm around Sasha's shoulders and kissed her forehead. Mikasa's dark eyes blew wide in horror. "Well, shit," Eren shrugged with a grin. "Welcome to the big city, y'all."

Because the visitors in question were Jean and Sasha, the group almost immediately left to find a pub, with Armin wearing some of Eren's tightest clothes and Mikasa so furious she would hardly speak. Once they were safely in the loud bar with their friends distracted by several drinks in their systems, she grabbed Eren's sleeve and gave it a tug. "I didn't know they were together," she whispered frantically.

He placed a hand on her back and smiled down at her. "I know you didn't," he replied, "and clearly, neither did Armin or I."

Her mouth went very thin. "He's such a snake, he just barged in and went on about how long it's been and I didn't know what to think, and…"

Eren genuinely felt sorry for her. Mikasa annoyed him at least half the time with her constant maternal nagging, but she was his sister in all the ways that counted (including legally), and he really did love her. He was also a little drunk, which always made him feel twice as hospitable and four times as touchy-feely. He squeezed her shoulders. "You deserve better than him, and I've always thought that." Not just because I know what he's like in the sack, he thought uncomfortably.

She looked startled, but smiled shakily. "Thanks, Eren." She took a long sip of her beer.

"Yo, secret agents," Sasha complained, "what are you gossiping about?"

"Just work stuff," Eren deflected neatly.

Sasha grinned. "That's why we're here. Jean-bo has an interview at a PR firm."

"I hate when people call me that," Jean groaned.

Sasha placed a hand to her chest. "It's just very lucky that his interview is about the same time as when I'll probably see my poor cousin hauled off to prison, bless his baldheaded soul."

"Uh…what?" Armin cut in, eyes already a little glassy. Armin had all the alcohol tolerance of an eighty-year-old woman.

Sasha waved a green-nailed hand. "My cousin is a bit of a troublemaker. He did learn from the very best; he's always had his cousin Sasha to look up to!"

Eren had a terrible feeling in the pit of his stomach as the gin he'd consumed felt sour. "Oh, is he in court this week?"

She nodded solemnly. "Yes, on Tuesday. He only recently moved to the city. I can't even remember what he's in court for, but honestly, his mom is such a vodka aunt, if you know what I mean, and his dad is super useless, except for his money, so he probably would have turned out a troublemaker anyway."

"Hey," Armin blurted, "that's the case Eren's—mmmffmmm!" Eren lunged after Armin to clap his hand over his friend's drink-loosened mouth, but Sasha had heard enough and pummeled Eren's side with amazingly effective jabs for someone who was fairly drunk.

"You asshole, he's my favorite cousin!" she cried.

"Ow, fuck, Sash!" He grabbed her wrists. "It's not my fault! It's the case my boss gave me, and I'd really like to not get fired! If it makes you feel better," he added quickly as she narrowed her pretty brown eyes in betrayal, "I'm sure the judge will go easy on him since he's a minor."

Sasha snorted cynically. "He's got a longer record than I do."

"It'll be sealed when he's eighteen?" Eren asked optimistically, which seemed to placate her.

"What goes around, comes around," Jean said a shade too loudly over the rim of his whiskey sour. "If Sash is mad that Eren is throwing her cousin in prison to rot, it's just payment for Eren sleeping with me in high school."

Eren chose the wrong time to take a sip of his gin and tonic and sprayed it directly into Armin's face. All four of his friends and relatives turned to stare at him—Mikasa was stunned, Armin looked so betrayed that Eren quickly flicked his eyes away, Jean was completely oblivious that he'd said anything wrong or broken their blood oath that they never revisit this part of their collective history, and Sasha, to her credit, thought it was hilarious.

"Wait," he chose to address the current girlfriend first. "You're not upset?"

"Lord, no," she cackled, "Jean and I have an open agreement and I don't care what he does, or whom, just as long as he doesn't bring home any diseases and loves me best." Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Mikasa relaxing ever so slightly.

"You slept with him in high school?" Armin pointed, slurring slightly.

"And in college," Jean supplied helpfully. Eren groaned.

"Before or after you knew that I liked him?" Armin continued, looking like he'd just witnessed Eren killing and cooking a treasured family pet.

"Wait a minute," Mikasa held up a hand. She was the soberest of them, which wasn't saying much. "You slept with him in college, too? Holy shit, Eren, I dated him in college! Do you know how weird and gross that is?"

Eren tried desperately to remember if he had ever slept with Jean while he and Mikasa were dating, but everything was so difficult and he didn't know what time it was and he really needed to pee. He turned to Sasha again, but she had her head buried in her arms as she tried to recover from her fit of laughter. "I'm going to go outside to get some air," he said uncertainly, sliding out of the booth seat and swaying a bit on his feet from the combined effects of too little food and sleep and too much alcohol. Why had he kept in touch with people from high school and college? Why didn't they tell him they were visiting? Why didn't he remember where the door was?

The summer air hit him like a steamroller, but at least the wind was blowing. "Fuck," he whispered to himself, hoping the situation would help him sober up a bit. He really hadn't been paying attention to how much he'd been drinking, but now that he was on his feet, he could tell it was quite a lot. He tried closing his eyes as he rested his head against the cooling brick wall of the bar, but that just made him feel like he might fall over, so he opened his eyes and made the mistake of staring directly into the sun.

His head whirled from the pain and he spun, resting his head against the bricks. A stranger tapped his shoulder. "Kid, are you okay?"

Eren knew even as he turned that he'd made a horrible mistake. To his credit, he didn't throw up on the stranger's shoes. He did, however, throw up all over the sidewalk, stomach protesting sharply against all the sudden motions and the sun-gazing session. Mortified beyond all belief, he pulled a tissue out of his pocket, wiped his mouth, and looked up into the astoundingly unimpressed and disgusted face of his boss. He felt all the blood leave his face and he sank to the ground, narrowly avoiding his own vomit. "Oh my fucking god," he said quietly.

"Yep," Levi nodded.

The last thought Eren consciously remembered was I'm going to lose my job before blissfully passing out.

Oh, y'all. I'm so sorry for taking so long to update. I had this story neatly outlined and then I lost the notebook that it was in when my bag got stolen in the university library. I guess the university police weren't kidding when they said to pack up all your shit and take it with you before going to the bathroom. I've rebuilt most of my outline and you surely won't have such a long wait between chapters. Things are going to start rolling pretty quick, and I'm 99% sure I know how many chapters this fic will have, so coursework + graduation prep notwithstanding, updates should be much more frequent. 45 million thank yous to all of you who have kudoed, read, and commented in the long, long absence. And I hope the story name change doesn't throw anyone for too big a loop-as I sat on this story in a post-outline world, I could no longer remember why I'd picked the name and it didn't feel right somehow. I promise it won't happen again.

Oh, the translations of what Carla said? (German Carla ftw.) The first phrase, "schwein gehabt," is an expression for good luck. You won the lottery or got a promotion? Schwein gehabt. Literally means "you had a pig." The second one, "Das Leben ist kein Ponyhof," is sort of like saying "life isn't fair," or "life is not a bowl of cherries." Literally "life is not a pony farm." Liebchen is just an endearment, like sweetheart or darling. My father's family is German and there is much confusion and google translating at holidays.