Chapter Text
Erwin had hoped that his first client might have been someone more...cooperative.
Instead, for his initial independent case as a freshly licensed lawyer and public defender, he had been assigned to one Levi Ackerman. Mr. Ackerman was in jail for attempted murder — a serious charge stemming from an incident that had happened over two months ago.
Since then, he’d been sitting in a cell because he had fired every lawyer that had been assigned to him so far, which meant that Erwin wasn’t surprised when he appeared surly and suspicious as he was led into the room for their first meeting. Erwin had already taken a seat, and he watched as the guard accompanying Levi roughly shoved him into his own chair across from him at the table. While he moved to shackle Levi’s cuffed hands to it, Erwin took a split second to quickly look over his new client.
He was small, Erwin saw, but built. Dark hair fell in front of dark eyes, and although Erwin could see anger and indignation simmering behind them, he seemed relatively relaxed — or at least, as much as could be in that moment, in that place, and in his situation. Still, for whatever reason, Erwin’s instincts told him that Levi wasn’t going to be dangerous, and so he stopped the guard before he could fully finish his task.
“That’s not necessary.” He said to him, nodding at the metal cuffs locked around Levi’s wrists that were currently being fastened to the table. “You can uncuff him.”
The guard paused for a moment, but then shrugged. “Whatever. He’ll kick your ass out of here in five minutes anyway like everybody else.”
“I hope not.” Erwin replied, speaking to the guard but looking at Levi.
He offered him a small smile, an attempt to be friendly, but Levi did not return it while he was uncuffed. If he was grateful, Erwin thought, for having his hands freed, he did not show it, and instead just rubbed at his reddened wrists while eyeing Erwin with immense distrust. Again, Erwin wasn’t surprised, and didn’t actually blame him anyway. He had, of course, poured over Levi’s case file and the notes from the other lawyers before the meeting, and it seemed that the man had been through a lot. He also suspected there was more to the story of why he’d ended up there in the first place than what he had read.
“Hello.” He started with that in mind, trying to sound as warm, non-threatening, and trustworthy as possible. “I’m Erwin Smith. I’m your new lawye—
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Levi interrupted before Erwin could even finish.
Raising thin brows, he now took his turn to size Erwin up, and unfortunately seemed to come away lacking.
“Ah...no. I was assigned your case this morning. I’m sorry it took so long for them to find someone new, they—
“How the hell are you going to defend me? You look like you just fucking graduated college.”
Although he did not want to appear like he was taken aback by his client, Erwin was pretty sure that was what happened, as his lips parted slightly in surprise and he paused, blinking. He wasn’t offended, but out of all the things he might have expected Levi to say...well, that wasn’t it. Yes, sure, he was young. Yes, he had only been licensed for 11 months and this was the first case he would be handling on his own, but that didn’t mean he was inept. He had court experience, and he’d passed his licensing exam with a score that was in the top 3 percentile. Besides, according to the information he had on Levi, he was 30 — only two years older than Erwin anyway.
“I assure you, I’m fully prepared to handle your case Mr. Ackerman.” He replied, doing his best to speak in the tone of a 55 year old experienced attorney in his prime. “The first thing I’d like to do is get you out of here. We need to ask for a bail hearing. To do that, I—
“How old are you?”
“...I’m 28.”
“28.” Levi repeated, staring at him with a deadpan expression. “Twenty-fucking-eight?”
“Yes. However, this isn’t my first case. I’ve been assisting other attorneys for almost a year now on cases just like yours, and—
“So you haven’t done any by yourself?”
Levi was sharp — Erwin could see that already. He’d hit the nail right on the head, and as much as Erwin hated to admit it, directly where he was the weakest. No, he hadn’t handled any cases by himself yet. He’d never been lead attorney until now, and deep down, he was a little nervous because one year wasn’t actually that much. What human wouldn’t be, though? It was a lot of pressure, and unfortunately, despite how he wanted to try, he found it hard to come up with a good answer to Levi’s question.
There was none, to be honest, and obviously, it would be highly unethical to lie.
“No, Mr. Ackerman.” He replied then, now sounding less like the confident, older attorney that he wanted to be some day, and more like the 28 year old, fresh-faced ‘baby lawyer’ that he was now. “But as I said, I have experience and I know the law well, and I feel that I—
“Yeah, we’re done here.” Levi interrupted, rolling his eyes before he began to shout for the guard. “Hey, guard! Guard!”
As Levi yelled, Erwin frowned, and could not help the stab of disappointment and self-doubt that he felt at Levi’s words. Of course, he did not blame him if he wanted a more experienced attorney, but...it was just, there was Levi’s case file. He’d felt something while reading it, a spark, the flames of passion that had made him want to become a lawyer like this in the first place. Levi, he believed, had been failed by the system, and he had a hunch that he was now being set up to become the victim of corruption, carelessness, and the blatant disregard for individual rights — exactly the type of client that he wanted to help.
“Wait!” He ended up saying loudly, standing up as soon as the guard entered before he could stop himself. Staring down at Levi, who had gone silent out of obvious surprise, he used the brief second of respite to quickly compose himself again. “Can we just have one more moment, please?”
Although he was speaking to the guard, the question was really for Levi, who seemed to take a moment to consider it. For whatever reason — whether he was truly going to reassess Erwin, or just intrigued — he ended up nodding, which caused Erwin’s heart to skip a hopeful beat before the guard huffed in annoyance and left again.
“Spit it out, Blondie.” Levi said then, while Erwin returned to his seat and smoothed down his tie.
Although his first instinct was to apologize for the outburst, he instead did as Levi had asked, uttering his reasoning bluntly and without further hesitation lest Levi change his mind about allowing him to stay: “I want to help you.”
“Yeah, sure. You know you’re a public defender and you have to do this for me for free, right?”
“I’m not asking for payment from you. I get paid by the government.”
“So? Who's to say you aren’t looking for a little more on the side? Your salary has to be shit, right?”
“Mr. Ackerman, I’m not here to bribe you for money, if that’s what you’re insinuating.”
“Okay, so are you just trying to make yourself look good then? You expecting a fucking promotion already? Let me guess: you want to run for office later.”
“What? No. Mr. Ackerman—
“The fuck is it then? Just tell me already, and quit wasting my time!”
With that exclamation, the anger that had been smoldering behind Levi’s eyes seemed to erupt somewhat, for he raised his voice enough for Erwin to be startled. He might have become nervous that he was going to be harmed if his instincts still hadn’t been telling him otherwise, and if he also hadn’t heard emotions behind Levi’s voice other than just anger. No, there were other things: bitterness, sorrow, and pain, and it also struck him that — even though he knew little to nothing about the man — Levi could not seem to believe that Erwin might just genuinely want to help him for a reason that didn’t involve personal gain.
It was a sad thought, but needless to say, it just made Erwin want to try to fix the situation even more.
“I don’t think you should be in here.” He said with that in mind, taking a moment to pause and choose his next words carefully. He didn’t want to upset Levi again, he thought, because although he hadn’t yelled loud enough again to get the guard’s attention, the next instance might be different and enough to get Levi pulled out. “I don’t think you belong here, in jail.”
“Why? You don’t know shit about me!”
“I read your file.”
“Yeah, so you saw the police report then? I fucking stabbed a guy. He almost died.”
“There’s more in here than the police report, Mr. Ackerman. It contains all your records, your history. Your mother died when you were young, and you grew up in foster care. Your only other relative was your uncle, but he wasn’t around much, and so you bounced between half a dozen homes and were arrested multiple times for mostly non-violent juvenile offenses. Petty theft, underage drinking, vandalism. There were a few fights and you spent time in juvie, but even though you dropped out of high school, you were able to get your GED and start working. After that, no offenses appear on your record for the past 12 years except for a traffic violation — at least until now.”
Erwin, who had looked down to flip through Levi’s file while he talked, paused to glance back up then, opening his mouth to continue but finding himself stopped when he saw the expression that now appeared on Levi’s face. His jaw had dropped, Erwin noticed, and his eyes were wide with something that was honestly akin to horror, as if he was both shocked and revolted at Erwin knowing so much personal information about him and his life. He understood, and although he had the thought then that he might have come on too strong or gotten carried away — he tended to do that when talking about a case he was interested in — it was apparently too late to fix any of the damage, for Levi suddenly shook his head, glanced away, and decided he’d had enough of the conversation.
“Get out.” He practically hissed, after closing his eyes and clenching his fingers into fists on the table.
“But...Mr. Ackerman—
“Get out!” Levi’s small, calm voice turned into another yell — this one far louder than nearly all of the other ones combined before. “Get. Out. Get out! Get out, get out, get out!”
Obviously, he was trying to alert the guard and that was more than enough to do it, and at that point, there was clearly nothing that Erwin could have done to rectify the situation. He was escorted out, and although he attempted to drown himself in alcohol that night, feeling like he’d failed at defending his first case before he’d really even started, he could not forget the haunted look that he’d seen behind Levi’s eyes before he’d started shouting.