Gajevy Week 2016

Bonus prompt January 31th

Disclaimer: The series and all its characters belong to Hiro Mashima. I'm just borrowing them.

This story can also be found on my tumblr yalenewrites. tumblr .

Please note that I'm German. Although I'd like to keep the illusion that my understanding of the english language is fairly well, reality keeps reminding me that my grammar is far from perfect.

„Differences"

It was hot, it was humid and - in his case - he could even smell the frigging jungle... it certainly wasn't a rosebush with all the wet animals and their daily remains pumping their odor in the air. Not for the first time Gajeel wondered why old ruins had to be laying around either in murky swamps or insect infested, smelly jungles. But here they were in said jungle and the shrimp was having a field day with the inscriptions on the old crumbling stone.
That was the only reason why he wouldn't pack up and head home, to hell with the reward. No, as soon as the ruins came into view inside the green tree-infested hell he wouldn't have been able to chain her down if he wanted to.
Ever since she picked up the job offer she was tickled pink over the prospect of rediscovering a lost language and couldn't stop grinning. Seeing her like this Gajeel could almost forget where they were. Almost.

He took the pot off of the fire and looked over to his cat. Lily had the same opinion about this place as his dragon slayer partner, but being the soldier he was he crumbled less about it. Levy was nowhere in sight, but she hadn't been since the crack of dawn. Gajeel heaved a sigh and made his way over to the pile of rubble the shrimp was so fascinated with.
On the edge of the treeline, only a few paces away from the solid script mage, he paused.

There she was. Blue hair pulled back into a knot, single strands of hair falling freely. Her little body shining with a light sheen of sweat, red glasses balancing on her nose and gaze intent on either the inscription in front of her, her little notebook or the reference books strewn about on a rock nearby.
As Gajeel watched her being bewitched by the damn stones he realized that Levy had not even once complained about the environment. And not just on this particular mission, but on other missions to. She would mutter about it not being ideal, yeah. But upfront complaining constantly like he was doing for the past few days? Nope, not even once.
She seldom swore too. Or used violence. Her wit and intellect usually did the trick for her.
Gajeels eyes wandered over her body. She was so small, unlike him with his bulking features. He knew not to underestimate her, or female mages in general. Titania and the rain woman taught him that much. And Gajeel knew just how strong Levy was. He of all people knew.

He realized he should make himself known to her, not just staring at her from the dark jungle like a creep. But right then in that instant he enjoyed just looking at her, memorizing this moment where she was so obviously enthralled by her work.
They were so different. He could hardly find that much fascination with the missions he took. But that was probably due to his jobs being simple to hard beat ups of whatever crazy cult or bandits decided to terrorize a town or three.
Unlike him, Levy could talk about her translation jobs for days on end. He kind of admired that. And her amazing brain. Sometimes, even though he was a big bad dragon slayer feared and respected by friends and foes alike, he felt small compared to her. Of course he would die before admitting that to any living soul.
But it was the truth.

They were so different in every aspect of their lives and personalities. The only thing in common was them being Fairy Tail mages. That unyielding will to never give up and fight until the last moment, it was theirs.
Strangely it felt good to know they were so different. She was complementing him, not unlike Lily in some aspects. And Gajeel was sure he was complementing her too.

Deciding he has had enough time ogling her he called out to Levy. After all he couldn't let his shrimp starve to death just because she wanted to revive a dead language in a week.