AN: Fairy Tail belongs to Hiro Mashima!

Thanks for the favourites and follows! :D Here's the next chapter!

Chapter Two – Night-time Reading

"Jack crept into Sophie's room, praying not to get caught by Eleanor. He could see Sophie's sheet-covered body lying soundly on the bed. She was already asleep. Jack would..."

Thunk.

"...Jack would just have to wake her up in his..."

Thunk.

"...in his own special way. He glided weightlessly..."

Thunk.

"For crying out loud! Why can't I just be left to read in peace?!" Exclaimed an extremely irritated Levy as she got up and stormed towards the locked window.

She unlocked the window and pulled it open. Leaning out the window, she checked the gardens below for whoever had been throwing things at her window. Suddenly, a small black Exceed flew straight passed her head from the direction of the roof and landed neatly amongst the giant pile of brightly coloured cushions on her double bed. She shut the window and turned to her small friend, much less annoyed at the interruption.

"I thought you were going out on a mission with Gajeel?" She asked as she walked back over to the bed.

"Oh, sorry! Gajeel just said that as a hint to your friends to give you some time to read," the Exceed smiled up at her, "still want to read that book together? If you're busy I can go, I can see I've also interrupted your reading."

"Oh, no, its fine. It's just that Erza is waiting for that book and I've kept her waiting for weeks now! By this point she won't mind an extra day or two," she smiled, "that was very nice of Gajeel before, but I might have had a problem if Lu-chan hadn't walked in! Are you sure he doesn't mind you being here? Other than this morning, he hasn't really spoken to me in weeks."

"Gajeel was just annoyed with your friends always being so loud when they're around you. It hurts his ears, and I think he's maybe been a little jealous since you started seeing Jet. I lost him for a whole day after the big party for your announcement. He's not even been talking to me, so I've been spending my time talking to Happy and Carla. I hope nothing terrible has happened between the two of you, Levy-san?" The Exceed asked with a worried look on his face.

"I can't think of anything, Lily, sorry! When he came back from that mission six weeks ago I tried to speak to him but he just told me that my training was complete," she sighed, picking the Exceed up as she sat back down on the bed amongst the cushions.

"Well, let's read another chapter of our book, Levy-san. I figured after Gajeel had spoken to you before that things were going back to normal so I could finally visit again. If I had realised that it was just Gajeel being grumpy then I would have visited again sooner!" Lily chimed, getting comfy on her lap.

Levy placed a bookmark in the book that she had been reading, and reached across to the chest of drawers by her bed to pick up a heavy black leather bound book with etched silver writing on the cover, trying not to disturb her little black furry friend sitting in her lap. She and Lily had been reading it a chapter a night since his birthday, at least until eight weeks ago. Levy had asked Gajeel if there was anything that Lily had particularly wanted for his birthday while she and Gajeel had been standing in the bookshop in the town square. Gajeel had lifted a book off of a shelf and handed it to her, trying to look bored even though he had been the one to offer to help her carry her new books. He'd known she'd get too many to carry again. Levy opened the heavy book at the page with the dragon-shaped iron bookmark that Gajeel had made her for her own birthday.

"Lani opened her eyes to find her only friend, her cat Linu, looking up at her with his big eyes searching hers. She pulled him into her arms and cried into his dark fur. How would she ever manage to get Sir Garek to like her? He was a great knight, but she was just a poor little scullery maid! He would never notice..."

...

Gajeel had sat alone in the living room for over two hours now. Where was that damn cat? He started to think about heading out looking for Lily, he should have been home by now! Damn cat. Where could he be? Gajeel had told him he was going for a cold shower and left him washing the dishes left over from the dinner. When he'd come out Lily had been nowhere to be found; he hadn't even left a note. He'd considered checking with Shrimp but that would require talking to her. She'd made her decision.

He'd had to go for a cold shower after dinner because of her decision. He spent his hours building up the anger inside him while watching her boyfriend fawn over her every day. He knew he should just accept her decision, that was what he was trying to do, but it wasn't easy. He had tried to act as if nothing had changed when he'd gotten back from his mission, but the whole time she'd been talking to him when he'd gotten back her new boyfriend had been pointedly glaring at him.

He'd already beaten the stupid puppy pretty badly in sheer anger at his gloating over him. The idiot had walked right up to him in the street and started rubbing it in his face, prodding him in the chest with one of his long, thin fingers – what had he expected to happen? Had he really thought that Gajeel would just stand there while he threw insults at him and boasted about the fact that Shrimp had chosen him over Gajeel's pathetic muscles? Gajeel's muscles were far from pathetic and Gajeel had decided to prove that by taking his anger over Shrimp's choice out on the idiot boyfriend standing in front of him.

Gajeel had been a little surprised not to get a lecture from Shrimp when he'd gotten back, but he'd figured he'd better not push his luck by beating her boyfriend up again just for glaring at him. They'd been constantly together for months: training, eating, book shopping, and even reading! Not once during that time had she given him a sign of wanting to be somewhere else, never mind with one of her stupid pups. She hadn't given him a single warning, not one. He'd just walked into the guildhall after lunch eight weeks ago, expecting to be met by Shrimp and Lily who'd be eager to start training as always, but what he'd been met with was Mira up on stage calling for cheers from the guild for their latest couple: Jet and Shrimp. His Shrimp.

He'd been so angry he'd just walked straight back out through the front door of the guild and headed into the mountains for a couple of hours until he'd worked off a little steam. It was on his way back at night that he'd bumped into her new boyfriend. He'd decided to skip town for a bit after that, thinking that she'd be more than just a little upset with him – it wasn't exactly the first time he'd beaten one of them up. Although most of the time she seemed more upset with them. Gajeel just figured that was because she knew it was them picking the fights. As far as Gajeel was concerned, they were too weak to bother with.

Gajeel walked upstairs after locking the front door and checking all the windows downstairs. He'd leave the bedroom window open and just go to bed; hopefully Lily would just be at Shrimp's again reading that damn book about the scullery maid and her stray cat who were trying to win the heart of some fancy knight. Gajeel only remembered what it was about because Lily had gone on about it to him for months before Shrimp had bought him it, and it had sounded kinda interesting when she'd been reading it to Lily after training one time, kinda.

Gajeel lay in bed, missing the little black ball of fur that he normally crushed in his arms as he fell asleep. He closed his eyes, trying to keep Shrimp out of his head just like he'd tried so many nights before since she'd gotten a new boyfriend. He'd stopped trying to get her out of his head after she'd seemed to actually show signs of possibly liking him back. He'd thought he'd never have to get her out of his head again, but irritatingly for Gajeel, he had been wrong.

Ok, hope you liked it! :) I was wondering if I should double up the chapters? I now kinda feel like these first two should have been one, what do you think? :/ The story will actually kick off next chapter (yay!), hope you've enjoyed it so far! :D

(For anyone who hasn't seen, I'm at Glasgow Comicon this weekend so Sunday's Bixanna one-shot will be delayed for a day or two – sorry!)