I've been working on this for some time now. Please enjoy and keep that English isn't my native language.
Levy McGarden & Gajeel Redfox in a crime/mafia/gangsta AU.
Rated M for reasons.
The phone rang endlessly without giving him peace after entering the apartment. When he finally reached out for it, he saw with amazement Levy's number on the display. Quickly he ran his thumb through the icon and put the phone to his ear, with one hand trying to strip his jacket.
"Gajeel?", he heard her wheezing, labored breathing.
"Yeah", he said.
He heard her still trying to align her breath, somewhere in the distance ambulance sirens wailed and the quiet hum of cars merged with the sound of her footsteps. When she finally calmed down enough to speak freely, he heard a lighter click and he imagined her holding a cigarette in her mouth and inhaling quietly smoke.
"I need your help" , she said finally and he just knew that something happened. Something that he didn't really like. "How soon can you come at Inferno?"
"About ten minutes", he said quietly, though his brain was already on emergency mode and analyzing every possible option, and his hands began to pull his jacket back.
"I'm in the alley behind the bar", she said and hung up.
When he got to the place full of the worst feelings and with a weapon in his hands, he saw her sitting on a pile of cardboard boxes and a gun pointing at the entrance of the alley. Under her legs lay a whole heap of cigarette butts, she probably smoked one after another. When she nodded at him and lowered her gun, treading the last butt with her heel, she headed toward the garbage cans at the end of the street. Her step seemed sure, her face didn't show any emotion, but in her eyes he saw something that caused a shiver down his spine.
At the end of the alley were overflowing garbage cans, bags, boxes, bottles and syringes littering the damp asphalt. Levy stopped and finally looked him in the face. He stood patiently beside her and eventually spotted by one of the containers a pair of shoes. The pant legs were wet, and when he came closer, he noticed a threadbare tuxedo and a white shirt all red with blood. He recognized with horror the strange face with green hair, mustache and monocle now broken already. In the stomach, something gripped him tightly as he looked at the big colorless eyes, empty and glassy like a doll. Too many times had he seen dead bodies to mistake the sight for something else. He reached into the white shirt and quickly examined the wound - one stab with a knife through the heart.
"What happened?", he finally asked, still not looking at the woman, unwittingly improving the tie and tuxedo flaps on the corpse of his former colleague.
With the corner of his eyes he saw as Levy transgresseth in one foot. After a moment, she finally spoke.
"I was at the bar to meet ... someone", she said after a pause. "None of your business who", she added quickly, seeing that Gajeel has already started to open his mouth. "One of the waitresses handed me a card from my office-boy that he was waiting for me here in the alley."
"Did you expect him?"
"Yes", she replied without hesitation. "Otherwise I wouldn't come, or at least I would have called him."
Gajeel finally forced himself to get up and look at the little woman. Appearances can deceptive, right? Looking at Levy everyone expected a smiling and friendly girl who everyone will help with those big brown eyes and a beautiful smile. That too was most of the time. But there were moments when his skin crawled at the sight of her crooked smile and a strange glint in her eyes. She was the fulfillment of dreams and nightmares at the same time. He was impressed by her intelligence and organizations when planning their work as she managed the entire company. Bribes, protection of warehouses, half the legitimate interests of bets and car racing, parts orders, finance, patents, designs, construction of new cars and ordinary job from day to day, and she's was doing it all virtually alone, with minimal help from Laxus and Lucy, and that was only the top of the mountain. Where did she all learn it Gajeel didn't know, but was glad that he work with, not against her.
The stranger seemed the whole situation in which they find themselves, because for nothing in the world could he imagine that the calculating and calm Levy McGarden could kill with cold blood one of Jose men.
"When I got here, he was lying on the ground with a knife in his chest", she added and pulled out a dagger from her jacket, engraved on the handle with the letters FC and surrounded with flames. "There was nothing I could do. He was dead."
"It belongs to Raven Tail", said Gajeel taking from her the weapon and turning it in his hands. "To Flare Corona."
Levy looked at him with understanding and nodded her head slightly. After a moment, she pulled a phone from her pocket dialed a number and pressed the speaker icon on.
"Yes?", said a woman's voice.
"Gajeel confirmed it was Flare", said Levy quickly, and he noticed that the tone of her voice changed a little bit.
"That's good", said the woman on the other side of the line. "Fernandes found her. We'll be in fifteen minutes."
"OK", Levy said with a hint of satisfaction and hung up.
When she looked at Gajeel, she noticed that he was staring at her with murder in his eyes. He towered over her with his stature and really didn't facilitate this moment to strengthening ties. Of all the people in the company, which more or less she thought as a family, he alone seemed different. He was not the type for integration, preferring to work alone, and as Laxus, satisfied with minimal contact with the outside world. But when she knew Laxus almost inside-out and knew also how to deal with him, so that their company would work, with Gajeel was it different. They were united by something else, something she have not been able to figure out quite jet.
"Ivan wants to bring on us Jose", said Gajeel finally, raking a hand through his black hair and giving Levy the dagger back.
"Not necessarily", she replied, turning around from the corps and heading toward the entrance of the alley. Gajeel with a sigh followed her. "It seems to me that Ivan doesn't know about it."
Again, she pulled out her cigarettes and lit one quickly. When she sat down on one of the boxes at the entrance to the alley, and a beacon allowed to see little more than just shadows, Gajeel noticed that the sleeves and the front of her leather jacket ware covered in blood. Her hands trembled slightly when driving the cigarette to her lips, and her glances were beginning to bother him more and more. Gajeel crouched in front of her and grabbed her free hand directing all the attention on him. He said nothing. After a while Levy finally sighed with resignation, drew the smoke last time and threw the butt in front of him on the pavement.
"She killed him in front of me", she finally said, looking him in the eye. "When I got there I saw only Sol. Staggering to all sides, and when behind him appeared a shadow, it was too late." Now, she was talking in one exhalation, getting faster, as if to get rid of the words. "She stabbed him in the heart and pushed my way. I haven't seen her face", she added quickly. "When she ran away, I caught a glimpse of her red hair, and when I examined the dagger, I guessed it my be that bitch."
Gajeel was silently squeezing her hand tightly, trying to digest the information. Flare asked for a lot of trouble to kill Sola. A witness in the form of Levy spoiled all her plan if she was going to bring Phantom Lord on them. So it wasn't about a gang war, but about something else. But, what? Levy suspected that Ivan didn't know anything about Sol's murder, Flare therefore was acting on her own, trying to attack Levy through Jose, whom she probably had already said that behind The Inferno lies the dead body of his killer.
So Jose will be here soon.
That thought almost knocked him off his feet.
"Jose will come here", he said to Levy, staring at her with wide eyes.
"Yes."
Her calm voice nudged something inside him. A moment ago she was a bundle of nerves on the verge of panic. Now she regained her usual passive calmness, her face again become slowly a calm mask, her eyes two panes of glass.
"I see that fills you with amazing equanimity", he finally said with a hint of sarcasm.
"I've got you", she said and then grinned at him. "What could possibly happen to me?"
Her gaze fixed on his red eyes told more than a thousand words, and again a shiver ran down his spine at the thought of what he just saw in her eyes. Levy was not someone who easily trusted people, he also. Life taught him that people lied, cheated and betrayed. Involvement in anything other than work seemed to be a suicide attempt especially in the world in which they lived. Therefore he understood the importance of her unspoken words and was glad that she, from all the people he knew, trusted him with her life.
"So what's the plan?", he finally asked, letting go of her hand and standing up.
She looked at him with a slight smile and also stood improving her jacket and holster on her thigh.
"I do the talking and you're watching my back", she said at last. "What should I know about Jose?"
Gajeel looked at her in surprise. He knew that tone of voice. Levy talked this way with customers - short, concise and to the point. Whatever worried her now, she pushed it into the background, focusing on a close encounter with Jose.
"Don't believe in any of his promises. Jose has a way with words and you may easily succumb to its charm. He will use any weakness to hurt you. Don't let him take the better of you." Levy nodded her head at these words and pushed her storm of blue hair out of sight turning back to him. "Why didn't you call Laxus or Lily?", he asked.
She looked over her shoulder and again gave him a wide smile.
"Laxus wouldn't stop bitching about the whole situation, and I didn't want to disappoint Lily. He would look at me reproachfully, that I endent in this shitshow", she said. "And I knew that only you would accept it all with composure and help me, without unnecessary chatter and remorse."
Gajeel grinned at these words. Honest to the core.
But soon his smile faded when he saw three figures coming around the corner, which he unfortunately immediately recognized. On the left went Aria, tall and broad-shouldered in his inseparable hat and sunglasses, despite the surrounding dark. He had his green jacket and yellow shirt underneath on. When he finally saw Gajeel, on his face appeared a nasty smile. Totomaru walked on the right, in white and black hair fastened in a ponytail and a black tattoo on his face. He was half the size of Aria, but just as deadly. In the middle walked Jose looking around warily from side to side. In the end he noticed Levy and Gajeel and stopped, measuring them with a crooked smile.
"Hello sweetie", said Jose, grinning nastily to Levy. "What are you doing in a place like this?"
"There is nothing sweet about me", Levy immediately retorted taking a step forward. "I want to talk to you."
"Oh, yes. Miss McGarden", Jose sighed. "I didn't think that we meet in such circumstances."
Polite asshole, thought Gajeel vigilantly watching the three men.
"Gajeel", said Jose. "Long time no see." Gajeel only grimaced at those words. Levy looked at him briefly and turned back to Jose. "I got recently a very interesting message regarding your person, girl. Reportedly you killed poor Sol."
Levy thought, that she could perfectly read people. When talking with someone for the first time, she felt the tone of voice and body language of the person. Now looking at Jose, seeing the subtle changes in his face and difference in his tone of voice, she knew he was shocked by the death of Sol and fought with the urge to kill them on the spot.
"I can see you're going straight to the point. Okay.", Levy said, standing confidently in front of Jose, although the skin on the neck creeped. "I didn't kill your man."
Jose at these words smiled a broadly, nasty smile, someone extremely enjoying the whole situation. Levy knew that Jose was far from jumping with joy. And then a few things happened simultaneously. Aria's hand shot forward pointing a gun at her head and the other at Gajeel. Totomaru was holding a long knife almost at her neck, if not her own blade protruding from her sleeve quickly, which place him resistance. Her left hand was pointing a gun at Jose heart, and Gajeel pointed with one gun straight at Aria, the other at Totomaru's head. Voltage increased by a few degrees, when all shot a murderous look.
"I think we have a stalemate", Jose said quietly.
"I don't think so", Levy quietly said. "Jerall!", she cried suddenly.
A shot was almost not heard, when Aria's high hat was blown from his head. Gajeel noted with satisfaction the amazement on the face of the three men.
"And now that we have outlined courtesy, I suggested we talk", Levy said with a disarming smile, tucking her pistol into the holster and the knife in her sleeve.