you eruri serial killer au is amazing and i beg to see more of it!
>serial AU (I can’t find the original post still…)
Levi eyed the man across his cluttered desk suspiciously. He looked pleasant and easygoing enough, one of their newspapers tucked under his arm. He had filled out the crossword entirely in pen, Levi noted with a sniff; either he was hideously, inanely smart, or had confidence in spades. He wasn’t sure which of the two he would have preferred.
But, as fortune would have it, the man, who went by Erwin Smith (a generic name if Levi had ever heard one) was willing to open up his home for the Beautiful Homes & Gardens column Levi ran for their little paper. The last person whose home had been scheduled to run in that week’s issue had bailed on them suddenly, without reason, and Levi had been stuck in quite a bind, calling everyone in his contacts list and pinning up flyers on bulletin boards throughout the small town, praying that someone would respond.
“42 Oak Drive?” Levi asked, reading off the address he had jotted down. Erwin smiled at him, nodding pleasantly. “That’s the white one with green trim right next to Andromeda Park, isn’t it?”
“The very one,” Erwin agreed. His smile, despite looking completely comfortable and natural, had a sort of forced quality to it that set Levi on edge. His hackles bristled, but finding nothing offending about the man, Levi hesitantly penciled in an appointment for a visit the very next day at ten AM. Erwin promised him that he would be there, an eager glint in his eye, and once the door had flapped closed behind him, Levi tried to dispel his worry by taking a jab at the crossword puzzle himself.
He couldn’t solve it, and the attempts only made him more frustrated. He crumpled the paper into the trash can, and tried to reassure himself that it was just a simple house visit. A few questions about it, the decor, a few snapshots, and that would be it.
Levi sighed, leaning back in his chair, and almost succeeded in wiping away the anxiety Erwin had sparked in him.