Levy McGarden was afraid of many things. The guild being destroyed by a dark guild once more. A fire ravaging her house, burning all the books she ever cherished (even though most of them were copies of those that were in the guild library). The mere thought of randomly turning blind terrified her; the idea that she wouldn't be able to even see new languages she knew she had the ability to decipher was a nightmare. However, one of her worst fears, especially at this moment in time, was the extent to which Lucy could go when her thirst for information awakened.
'Okay ladies now let's get information' would be the catchphrase she had with Mirajane and the other gossip girls of the guild, which would, at the time, include Jellal as well (he used to be the Gossip Girl Overlord hidden in the shadows, ready to make the whole guild sleep to get information incognito).
"C-come on, Levy," she stuttered. Deep breaths were taken by the blonde sitting across the dinner table. Levy swallowed when she looked down at Lucy's fingers bending the spoon she had in hand. Lucy's lips trembled as she smiled and her eyes almost turned white; her attempt at cheerfulness was a total failure.
"Know that I'm not judging you," Lucy continued, trying her best to push through, but definitely not trying her best to keep her spoon from being decapitated. "You just have to stop trying to make me believe that you and Gajeel aren't dating!"
The almost-screech at the end got away from her. Rest In Peace, Spoon.
Lucy's cheeks flushed slightly, but the fiery glare she shot Levy was still alive and healthy. She examined every single move Levy made under her detective eye, from the twitch of an eye not wanting to establish visual contact with the bad cop that Lucy was, and to the awkward pursing of her lips when she thought that remaining silent would help her save her life.
Unfortunately, this didn't work as a whole minute went by without Lucy's glare dropping in temperature. On the contrary, the fire in her eyes seemed to be fuelled every passing second. Natsu's lack of patience was ultimately going to influence her in the end, huh? she thought.
"Uh," Levy stammered vainly, looking down at her unfinished plate with regret and sudden lack of appetite. "Well, um, you see? The t-thing is, we're really not dating." A shy laugh trudged out her mouth, and she tugged at her collar, feeling incredibly hotter than usual all of a sudden, which was probably because of the fire – no, the conflagration – that her eyes gave birth to as she shot to her feet, almost toppling the dinner table over.
"How dare you, Levy Claire McGarden," Lucy shrieked, pointing an accusatory finger "I-"
"I don't have any middle name!" Levy protested, completely taken aback by the choice of name she went with. Claire?! What kind of name was that?!
"It doesn't matter," she curtly answered. She couldn't believe herself, she was someone else entirely when she wanted to know something. The information-thirsty blonde mentally slapped the rational Lucy and resumed vehemently, "I know what I see! You and Gajeel are… you did the – you know! The"–she made rather obscene hand gestures involving her tightly closed fist and the index of her other hand–"has been done!"
Levy winced brutally and choked on the food that was not in her mouth and spluttered on her still full plate. Her cheeks turned red and she brought a fist to her mouth to avoid her lungs from being coughed out. Lucy was still angrily miming those obscenities as Levy tried not to die from choking in front of her hysteric of a best friend – who looked more like perverted sign language teacher.
"You guys are such a couple!" she claimed. "Trust me, I believe in platonic relationships, but I've never seen two people do so many… couple things!" She was out of breath from shouting so much, but she cleared her throat and carried on, quieter this time – well, in a less loud voice would be more accurate. "He's carried you in his arms more than once. I've even seen you two, under the rain, with him holding your space cat patterned umbrella over your heads. And to top it all off, he would cover only half of his body because he was probably too busy thinking about you not getting soaked by the rain! He wouldn't do that for anybody, it'd be too much 'sissy shit' for him in a whole week!"
Levy looked at her with bemused eyes, wondering how many other facts she had managed to gather concerning the apparently-closer-than-normal relationship she had with Gajeel. She blinked herself out of her thoughts and quickly took the opportunity of Lucy trying to catch her breath to bounce back.
"I-it's not what you think," Levy attempted to explain, but judging by Lucy's 'Really?' face, she was most likely not going to believe her, but she decided to give it a try anyway. "Gajeel lifts me from time to time because he's tall and I'm… smaller than him, and at some point, no matter how annoying it is, I just got used to it."
Lucy remained stoic.
"A-and for the umbrella, w-well," Levy stammered, "I'm usually the one bringing it when it rains because, um, well, you know, Gajeel is an Iron Dragon Slayer, right? So, if he's under too much rain, he's going to get… rusty"–her lips tugged upwards in an excited smile and she clapped her hands–"because water rusts metal!" she beamed.
Lucy's facial expression hadn't changed, and she stared blankly for a few seconds at Levy's gradually saddened pointed finger. "I'm not buying it."
Levy's head dropped backwards out of desperation. There seemed to be nothing she could do.
"Levy, I've known you for a while now," she sighed as she calmly sat back down, "I know how you work with people you have platonic relationships with, and you're not acting that way with Gajeel! Why don't you admit it?"
Levy looked away the moment she saw that Lucy was in the process of making a pouty face, one of her most powerful weapons. She couldn't back down. She ran a hand through her hair and cleared her throat.
"W-well," Levy began, still stuttering her way out of this situation, "I'm s-sorry to disappoint you, Lucy, but I'm not in l-love with Gajeel," she confirmed with a bit of sweat on her flushed cheeks.
"Right," Lucy said curtly.
"Exactly. Really very right," she cleverly added.
Lucy smiled a serial killer smile.
Rolling her eyes, she put her killing intent far, far back in her brain, where all the other killing intents she ever had were usually stored and eventually deleted. "Listen," Lucy sighed, "I don't mind you dating him. I know he's changed a lot since he became a guild member. I just want your relationship to be healthy where both of you are happy."
"And I know that Gajeel is a great person and this is how our relationship would have been if we were dating," Levy agreed, "but it's really not what you think it is, I see Gajeel the same way I see you, or Jet and Droy." It was most likely her last attempt at convincing her, and Levy's smile begged for Lucy to finally agree with her.
"Well, unless you've had fantasies about Jet quickly tearing your clothes off with his bare teeth and passionately pounding you against a wall, but it's all very platonic, then I'll have a shot at trying to believe you," she quipped.
Ultimately, after shaking her head for a significant amount of time, Lucy dropped the subject and put away the mental file called "Things That Make Gajeel and Levy a Couple", but it took two long weeks for Levy to get rid of the awful mental image Lucy had drawn for her. Levy had wished brain bleach was a thing.
The night after this face-off against Lucy, Levy rolled over and, almost taking the star-spangled blanket all for herself, breathed a fresh breeze on Gajeel's back. His body shivered at the touch, and an indescribable, exhausted grunt escaped his mouth.
"Ugh, Shrimp, just sleep."
As the big spoon, Levy grinned behind him. She had taken a vicious liking in startling Gajeel about some things regarding their relationship, and she wasn't against another good jump scare. "I told Lucy we weren't together," she announced casually.
She didn't even have time to smirk that Gajeel had already flipped himself around. He faced Levy with a hint of confusion, worry and anger in his red eyes. "The hell are you on about?" he growled.
She had a hard time taking her eyes off Gajeel's toned, sweaty chest that revealed itself outside of the blanket. It was definitely not her first time seeing this masterpiece up-close, but she never failed to bite her bottom lip lustfully at the sight. Eventually, she managed to look up at Gajeel. His startled face was always a pleasure to see.
"There's a betting pool in the guild, and some people bet that we were dating. I stumbled upon Mirajane's special book where she organises everything. I know that the participants are Macao-san, Wakaba-san, Cana, Juvia, and Natsu. I figured that Lucy would want Natsu to win so I didn't tell her, because I thought you wouldn't want Natsu to win anything," she snickered.
Gajeel's studded eyebrows raised ever so slightly. "Oooh," he said in a smirk, "clever one." He instinctively pulled her closer so she could snuggle against him. She breathed a smile against his chest at the loving gesture.
"It's not like we were hiding our relationship though," Gajeel remarked as he ran his fingers through his girlfriend's wild, blue hair.
"I know, maybe they're not all that sharp when it comes to romance I guess," she suggested.
"They never noticed how I sometimes hold your ridiculous umbrella?" he asked casually.
"What do you all have against my space cat patterned umb-"
"Anyway," Gajeel interrupted, following quickly by a yawn. "Should we tell 'em, at some point, that, ya know, we've been dating for the past year?"
Levy yawned. "I guess. You should pick a winner though. I know that if we admit it within the next four days, Cana would win. If we admit it next Monday, Juvia would win, if I remember well. Nobody bet on a day past this one."
Gajeel stretched his legs and entangled them with Levy's, leaving his lips on her forehead. "Let's do this next Monday then. Juvia needs money for his idiot stripper of a boyfriend. He never gets his clothes back whenever he strips, especially on missions. They're almost out of decent clothes, so Juvia wants to buy him some new ones."
Before she could think about how kind Gajeel actually was, she could feel a slow and steady breathing on the top of her head. Gajeel had already fallen asleep.
Levy grinned, dropping a kiss on Gajeel's chest. As the melody of his steady breathing mixed with his soothing heartbeat lulled her into slumber, she thought that there was nowhere else she would rather be.
A/N: I don't know what happened either, sometimes I just like to write some silly, over-the-top scenarios, because I'm funny like that. Just kidding. I still hope you had a good time reading though. Please consider dropping me a review if you liked it~