Gajeel sat in the back of the cramped old surveillance van watching Levy click away at her keyboard.
He was board as shit.
They were parked around the corner from the same apartment building they had visited the day before. Levy was tapping into the kid's computer using the transmitter she had installed.
They hadn't spoken about the kiss. Not a word. Levy acted as if it had never happened.
Gajeel didn't care. It was just a cover. They didn't need to make a big deal out of it. But the feeling of her small body pressed against his... he couldn't shake it from his mind.
"Are you almost done?" he asked impatiently.
"I'm reviewing the system logs for his history. I can see his activities but I still haven't found who he made contact with."
"Can you go any faster?"
"I could if you would stop nagging me," Levy huffed.
Gajeel leaned back in his seat, crossing his arms. He'd never liked being told what to do. He'd pretty much been on his own since he was a kid, so he was used to not having to answer to anyone but himself.
If it were up to him he'd have beat that kid senseless until he talked. Now there were rules, and Gajeel didn't like rules.
"There!" Levy exclaimed excitedly.
Gajeel moved back in to take a look over her shoulder, her sweet smell invading his senses.
"I've got a username for the dealer. Now we just have to track that back to its source. Let's go back to the office. I have more resources there for this kind of work."
"Great," Gajeel grunted. "More sitting."
Levy scowled at him as they climbed into the front of the van.
"You could have just a little more patience." Levy said quietly.
"That's not really my thing, shrimp."
He could see Levy roll her eyes as he started up the engine. He enjoyed pushing her buttons, it made him laugh. He liked seeing the way her face would scrunch up in frustration. It was damn cute.
Levy stared hard at her computer screen as her fingers flew over her keyboard, her glasses at the edge of her nose as she whizzed through pages of script on the screen. This was where she excelled.
She had joined Fairy Tail on the investigation team right after her post college internship. They had head-hunted her and approached her offering her a job. She was hesitant at first, but knowing the reputation of their cyber security team, she couldn't refuse the prospect of the intense work she would be given.
The only hitch was that she had been required to spend her first year doing surveillance in the field. Fairy Tail preferred all their members to have some field training. It was definitely not what she had been expecting, but it was rewarding. Even now she was expected to do some field work, so the experience had been valuable. But she'd never been assigned a lead position like this before.
"I brought you something," Gajeel's low voice broke her train of thought. She hadn't even heard him come in.
He held two tall cups of coffee in his hand. Slowly he set one next to her then took a seat across the desk.
"Thank you," she said in surprise.
Gajeel shrugged.
"Consider it the apology that I owed you."
Levy nearly chocked on her first sip. Did he really just apologize? She looked him over, his disinterested expression, his casual attitude as he leaned back in the chair, putting his feet up on the edge of her desk. Hard as she tried she just couldn't seem to get a read on this guy.
She remembered what Lucy had told her, that he wasn't as much of a hard ass as he seemed. Maybe she was right.
"Thanks," she repeated. "But you owe me a new shirt too," she gave him a playful smile.
"Naw," he said taking another swig of his coffee. "I'd rather ruin another one, not replace it."
Levy looked at him with confusion. "Why?"
Gajeel looked at her with a sly smile that set her body on fire.
"Then you'd have to change shirts, and I wouldn't mind that show." His smile widened.
Levy didn't know whether to laugh or be offended. The smoldering look in his eyes made her think he was serious.
"Why do you do that?" She asked finally, gathering her courage.
"Do what?"
"Make everything a joke, an innuendo. You're deflecting, but I don't understand why."
Gajeel's smile quickly fell into a frown, his brow creased. He looked as if he was about to say something but cut himself short.
"You make any progress?"
Deflecting again, Levy sighed.
"Yes, but it's not good," she pulled her glasses off and spun one of her monitors towards Gajeel.
"I identified the dealer and tracked his IP address, but it looks like this case is going to be a lot more complicated than we thought."
Levy loaded up a webpage. Gajeel leaned forward, eyeing it closely.
"Saber Tooth Cyber Security Firm?"
Levy nodded.
"The dealer is actually an employee of Saber Tooth. I pinged the computer he used to make the sale directly to their headquarters. But their system is too tight for me to actually get in and look at it any further."
"Can't you just work your magick and break in?"
Levy bit her lower lip.
"The company literally specializes in cybersecurity. Hacking them would be nearly impossible."
"Even for you?"
Levy could feel her cheeks turn red.
"Well, it's possible, I know their system pretty well but it's designed to be pretty impenetrable. Like I said, it's what they do."
"Saber Tooth has nothing on Fairy Tail. You've got to be way smarter than those second rate hacks."
"Um," Levy said, shifting her weight. "You see..." She didn't want to admit what she knew.
"Spit it out shrimp."
"Well... I know the system doesn't have any weaknesses because I kind of helped design it."
Gajeel's red eyes widened in shock.
"What? How? Why?"
"I interned for them right out of college, when they were just a start up. I helped develop their whole infrastructure. There's no way we are going to be able to remote into their system."
Gajeel ran his hands over his face.
"Then let's cat fish the dealer. You know how to contact him now right? So we tell him we wanna buy the drug and then grab him for questioning."
Levy shook her head. "Don't you see what this means? If this guy is working out of Saber Tooth, who knows how deep the company's involvement is. And if we are still assuming that Tartaros is supplying the dealer with Lullaby, then that mean Saber Tooth is working with them directly. We can't risk blowing it with this one guy and have Saber Tooth close up shop, burry their footprints. Then we'll have zero shot at Tartaros- and that's who we're really trying to bust."
"So basically we're screwed."
Levy threw her elbows down on the desk and rested her face in her palms, she nodded mutely.
"Come on," Gajeel said suddenly in a commanding voice, reaching around the desk and pulling her to her feet.
"Where are we going?"
Gajeel led her toward the door.
"We need something stronger than coffee."
