Shrimp, if you please!

In which Levy gets a tattoo, and they discover something important about the bond.

"Are you ready Shrimp?"

"Oh for the love of the gods, Gajeel, you're just drawing the practice one in pen! You don't need to build all this suspense!" Levy replied as she rolled her eyes.

"Well, excuse me if I think exposing my girlfriend's ass and drawing on it is something to build suspense for..." he chuckled to himself, ignoring his girlfriend's pointed glare over her shoulder. "Plus, I wouldn't even be doing a 'practice run' if you weren't so stressed out about the damn thing to begin with! It's just a tattoo Levy, you're not signing away yer soul or somethin'."

"Hey, when it's gonna be showing up on both of our asses, don't you want to make sure it looks okay with the rest of your tattoos before it's there FOREVER!? I'm just trying to be considerate!"

"It's not like I walk around without pants on. No one's gonna see it anyway. Hell, you only chose that spot because I don't already have a tat there." Gajeel yanked the waistband of Levy's jeans down a few inches to expose the creamy flesh of one buttcheek. He peeked through the doorway to the front of his shop to make sure the sign on the door was flipped to closed.

No one but him was getting an eye-full of Levy's ass. Not even on accident.

"Just get on with it already, you big lout." Levy turned back around, getting comfortable on the padded chair again. Gajeel pulled the cap off of his pen and drew circles on a piece of scratch paper before carefully beginning his drawing on her butt. She almost immediately twitched as he drew the first few lines.

"Holy shit, that tickles!" she exclaimed, managing to stay put, but digging her fingers into the reclined seat in front of her. Gajeel started to laugh at her, but stopped as something occurred to him. Setting his pen aside, he popped out of his chair and unbuttoned his jeans. Levy glanced over her shoulder again and examined him quizzically.

"What, having my luscious booty displayed to you has driven you into a state of wild passion?" she remarked, the sarcasm heavy in her comment. He leveled a playful glare in her direction and pulled down his jeans and boxers on one side, looking into the mirrored wall behind him.

"Huh, well that was unexpected," he muttered to himself, before turning to show his own white-skinned buttock to Levy. She raised an eyebrow.

"What? You're as white as I am, congratulations."

Gajeel rolled his eyes.

"Something missing, short stuff?"

Levy's eyes widened.

"What?! How is that possible?!" she exclaimed, jumping up from the chair. She sidled up next to him to look at the lines of ink on her butt in the mirror before turning to look at his bare cheek again. "Is the bond broken or something?"

Gajeel shrugged and picked up his pen again. He drew a smiley face on his hand and looked back at Levy. She held up her own hand, where the same little face smiled back at him.

So the bond was clearly still intact. So, what had changed…

Having a thought, Levy took the pen from Gajeel and drew another smiley face on his hand, next to the first. Then she looked at her hand, seeing only the original.

"Holy crap. That's new."

"Yeah."

"So, if we're drawing on each other, it doesn't transfer. That's totally weird. It must be some kind of a loophole. How does it even know?"

"Who fucking knows Shorty. But this does mean one thing…" Gajeel trailed off as his grin got sharky. Levy raised an eyebrow and put her hands on her hips right above her still unfastened pants.

"What?"

"You're really a blank canvas now. I can tattoo any part of you, any way you want. We don't have to worry about clashing with mine at all. Care to change up your choice?" Levy's eyes sparkled in speculation.

"Yeah, I think I do."

"What'll it be then, little blue?"

"Ok, seriously? What? Do you have a book of those stupid names somewhere? Why can't you just call me Levy?!"

"Cause it's hot when you get all riled up about it...Shrimp."

Levy pouted, her lower lip stuck out like a petulant child.

"You just wait, I'll go to another tattoo artist and get a unicorn on my shoulder or something."

"Unicorns are cool."

"With rainbow wings."

"Sounds good to me."

"And Hello Kitty riding it's head."

"You do love Japanese cartoons…"

"And a cloud of cuss words!"

"...and the written language. Particularly cussin'..."

"GODSDAMNIT GAJEEL, JUST CALL ME LEVY!"

Gajeel swept her up into his lap and gave her ass a squeeze before grabbing her face and forcing her to look him in the eye.

"I give you pet names because I give pet names to the people I love, alright? It makes 'em mine. It gives me something to call 'em that no one else will ever call 'em. I like that idea. I just haven't settled on which one fits ya best yet."

Levy stared at him, a twitch in her lips giving away her struggle not to smile. Sometimes, he said the sweetest things. And every time, it reinforced that bubble of happiness under her ribs that told her how lucky she was.

"You gonna pick a tattoo, or am I gonna pick one for you? What do you really want? And where do you want it?"

Levy twisted her lips and screwed up her face, like she was thinking about it hard. The truth was, he had given her the perfect idea already.

"Fine, you know what, I'd like it on my hip. Right above my pelvic bone." She hopped back up on the table and peeled back her jeans, exposing her hot pink underwear. She pointed to a spot just above the waistband of her bikini cut panties. "Right here."

Gajeel swallowed hard, trying very hard to ignore the few little blue curls he could see peeking out. She had to be doing this to him on purpose. Like her ass hadn't been distracting enough.

"And what'll it be?"

Levy's grin widened innocently.

"A shrimp, if you please."