A bit of confusion in the last chapter, but Gajeel was dreaming in the middle section. This chapter is more about background for Gajeel but we will be getting to Idol Levy soon.

5:58 am

Gajeel pulled himself out of bed with a groan, he managed to get himself almost a full five hours of sleep before his alarm clock gave him a nasty reminder that he had people to arrest and paperwork to do. Five hours didn't seem like a lot, but it was two more hours than he got the night before, sleepless nights were just apart of his job. When him and his partner was on stakeouts it would be a lot of fast food, coffee and them taking turns napping for an hour or two. His boss and his partner both warned him that he should stop taking his work home, apparently it was a mistake all young cops would do until they suffered a mental breakdown and either quit or transferred to a department where they dealt with shoplifting and vandalism instead of seasoned criminals. But, Gajeel found it hard to hang up his hat at the end of the day, every minute that went by without him finding whatever scum he was looking for was another minute with them on the streets doing who know what, and how was he supposed to have a good nights sleep knowing that. Sometimes his lack of rest would catch up with him, no matter how much coffee he drank or how cold his shower was he would still end up dozing off at his desk if the report he was reading just happened to be extra boring, or on his lunch break he would go and take a nap in one of the cars, just to be found hours later with a puddle of drool on the seat. Gajeel got lucky, because if Makarov was a hard ass he probably would have been fired or transferred a long time ago for falling asleep on the job, but because he understood that it was because Gajeel was working so hard rather than slacking off, instead of chewing him out when he was a walking zombie, he would just "order" him to lay on the couch in his office and confiscate his workload so he couldn't take it home with him.

Gajeel told himself he was going to hold it together today, at least he stayed up all night for personal gain this time instead of obsessing over some ass hole he had plans on cuffing in the future. Still if he was going to get through today he needed coffee, and a lot of it, soon. Gajeel could only roll his eyes when he walked into his kitchen discovering that it was completely destroyed, he knew his roommate would be walking in the door soon after his shift at the firehouse around the corner, so he knew the person responsible for this was probably sitting in his living room. "Blondie, why is it that you have your own apartment three blocks away, and a rich daddy with a whole mansion somewhere, but, here you are again, in my house, eating up all of my food?" Gajeel could only grit his teeth when the girl in question laughed, it was a conversation they had at least a few times a week. Natsu gave her a key, and she would always come over the night before he came of duty, she would trash his kitchen, eat everything and her and Natsu would make googly eyes at each other until Gajeel practically ran to work. Gajeel tried his best to understand that the two of them were in love, and when his cousin explained to him that the girl he was seeing grew up surrounded by maids and shit who cleaned up after her all the time it made a lot of sense. Gajeel knew the mess would be gone by the time he got home from work, but it still irked his nerves to he his home in such disarray.

"I'm sorry Gajeel! I know I trashed the kitchen again, but I wanted to surprise you guys and make you breakfast." Gajeel immediately had war flashbacks of the bout of food poisoning he got the last time she decided to make them food, even Natsu who could eat just about anything was sick as hell and they were fighting over the closest bathroom for days. Gajeel sighed and looked at the sad excuse of a spread currently sitting on his dining room table, by the teary look in Lucy's eyes he could tell that his face was saying all of the things his mouth wanted to, and there was no way in hell he was eating this. The toast was charred, the eggs looked uncooked, something he assumed was pancakes looked like a clump of dough in the middle of the table. "I know it looks bad... You don't have to eat it... I can order some take out if you want."

Gajeel knew she was trying, and it was an improvement from the time she actually set the kitchen on fire. He didn't know the whole story behind Natsu's girlfriends life, but she grew up having everything done for her and her mom died when she was young, so it was no surprise she couldn't do basic things like cook and clean correctly. Gajeel ruffled her hair, as bad as he felt for making her feel like shit after working so hard, it wasn't going to help her by pretending she did things right and she wasn't going to learn anything like that. "Don't worry, I'll teach ya how to cook before you two get hitched. Can't have you poisoning my cousin for the rest of his life." Him and Natsu had been together forever, they were constantly at each others throats since they were kids, but they were family so Gajeel didn't hesitate to take Lucy under his wing when Natsu introduced her as the girl he wanted to marry.

Gajeel never had thoughts or plans about getting married but he supposed it would be nice, when Natsu started coming home late, and then not at all he started fearing the worse. Gajeel did his best to get his younger cousin out of a shitty neighborhood when they were younger, when Gajeel was eighteen and Natsu was fourteen he went as far as becoming his guardian and he used the money he got monthly for taking care of Natsu on an apartment in a better neighborhood away from all the violence. Seven years later they still lived in the same apartment together, and Gajeel was both relieved and surprised when he found out Natsu was chasing a girl instead of being an idiot. He was happy for him, in a few years he was sure there would be some pink haired ass holes running amok, but Natsu moving on and moving out just reminded Gajeel how alone he was going to be. Him and Natsu had always been together, and now him and his future wife were looking for a new place to live after the wedding.

It gave Gajeel a weird ache in his chest he tried to ignore, Natsu annoyed the living shit out of him, but having the knowledge that he was going to be leaving soon was too much to wrap his head around. The closest thing Gajeel had to a date in the past couple years, was sitting on Youtube and listening to a girl who doesn't even know he exists talk about her life, and it wasn't even a quirky were scared to talk to each other thing like in the movies. He was infatuated with a bonafide rockstar, and as much as he liked to blame his lack of romance on throwing himself into his work, the truth was he didn't really have an interest in any other girl. "Hey Gajeel, one of my friends has been asking about you, you should go out for drinks with her." It was like Lucy could read his mind sometimes, she was obviously in a better mood not that he helped her remake a more edible breakfast, but It seemed to become her goal in life to hook him up with someone before the wedding.

"Not happening." Gajeel didn't believe in going on blind dates, his friend Juvia tried the same shit on him for years, and the girls were either crazy, or looking for a husband or both, and he wasn't going to be dealing with that ever again. Gajeel constantly tried to point out that if you need someone to set you up on a date, their was something wrong with you, and he knew he was included in that category. Lucy went to argue with him like she normally did, but Gajeel figured out a while ago that the quickest way to shut her up is to make her uncomfortable. "Cause you're gonna be real mad at me, if I stick it in her and we don't work out." Lucy looked somewhere between annoyed with him, and offended, but it got her to drop the subject. "I'm just saying, she'll be mad, you'll be mad, all her friends that she's gonna tell I'm a jerk are gonna be mad too, and I don't really want a mob of angry women after me."

"Whatever Lucy, don't listen to staple face, there's no way he has enough game to be sticking anything in anyone." Gajeel couldn't help but laugh at that one, Natsu just happened to walk in at the perfect time to be a hater, or he was trying to hide the fact that women constantly threw themselves at both of them because of their jobs alone. Gajeel found it strange how flirty girls became when you stopped them from being mugged and intimidated their shitty ex boyfriends into leaving them alone. His uniform alone got him more female and sometimes male attention than he would ever need, but people were always looking for the uniform rather than the person. The same thing happened to Natsu all the time too, he was just too stupid to realize it, or he was just playing dumb when girls hit on him and bought him drinks because he was a firefighter. They had a pretty impressive collection of Tupperware because of the amount of cookies they were baked and random food they were brought as a thank you.

"Will you two stop! I don't wanna imagine Gajeel sticking anything, anywhere, on anyone." Gajeel and Natsu both laughed at how red she was getting, Lucy could be a total prude, which Gajeel didn't really understand with how thin these walls were and how her and Natsu went at each other the moment he got home. "Okay, are you guys ten? You're being gross." Gajeel knew right then he should make a beeline for the door, Lucy was giving him those stupid puppy dog eyes she used on Natsu all the time, and he knew she was about to ask him to do something he didn't want to do. "Well, my sisters coming in town for the wedding, and I would really appreciate if you could show her around." Before Gajeel even had the chance to shoot her down Lucy pulled out her best pleases and explanations about how it wasn't a date. "She's my maid of honor, you're the best man, you guys should get to know each other, and I promise she's not crazy or looking for a husband or anything like that. She's just new to the city, and I'm going to be too busy with wedding planning to spend time with her."

Gajeel could hardly believe it himself when the word "fine" came out of his lips, he knew he was probably going to regret it like the many times they invited him out for drinks only to find out he was on a double date and the two of them made it a habit of leaving early. "Thank you, thank you, thank you. You're my favorite cousin, I love you." Natsu had to help him pry off an overly happy Lucy from around his waist or he was going to be late for work, and probably change his mind because her reaction was a little more than suspicious. Lucy was okay for a spoiled rich girl, he wondered if her sister was gonna be one of those on too good for anything stuck up bitches he constantly heard about, he hoped not, but he was gonna have to deal with whatever was thrown at him when the time came. "Hey Gajeel!" He knew he should have made a run for it when he had the chance, he already had a foot out the door and was almost free when she caught his attention again. The way Lucy was acting he was sure she was going to ask for a kidney next or make some crazy ass demands about where he could take her sister. " Do not! Under any circumstances, try to stick anything, into my little sister!"

"No promises if she's hot." He knew he was probably going to pay for that comment later, but it was worth it to see Lucy's face scrunch up like that.