A/N: This is an utterly self-indulgent AU drabble that's all.

It's another busy night at the club, the lines outside stretching down the street, people crowding at the entrance, the dance floor already packed though it's barely 1 AM. Music pounds from the speakers in the corners and the room vibrates with each pulse of the bass. Neon lights flash overhead, spreading a kaleidoscope of colors throughout the open room, and by the bar, glasses clink and people shout to be heard over the din.

Levi has long since gotten used to the noise, considering how long he's been working in this profession, but it never fails to make him grimace anyway. He hates the overpowering scent of alcohol, the stench of unwashed bodies twisting and turning to the pounding beat, and standing guard every night in the club when the boss is around has long since stopped giving him headaches, but that doesn't mean he enjoys it any more.

Tonight is no different from any other, but it's barely started and already he is looking forward to switching shifts and going back to his room and sleeping. Well, he doesn't necessarily need to sleep right away—there are always other options available—but he is certainly looking forward to returning to his room. Anything to be away from the masses of people.

A girl who looks hardly old enough to be here (yet she towers over him in platform heels) shrieks and stumbles towards him; her friend giggles and grabs her before he can do anything more than look her way. They nearly brush him as they pass, wobbling around, clearly drunk, and he tries his best not to glare; he's supposed to be part of the furniture, unnoticeable unless someone tries to pass the door behind him—then he'll have to step out of the background.

It is a common occurrence, wasted and half-wasted and sometimes even completely sober people getting too close, but he sighs anyway because he could really do with taking his damn suit jacket off. And having a cigarette. And receiving his paycheck.

"Tired already?" a voice murmurs through his earpiece.

He does not have to glance up to know exactly where she is—on the other side of the room, standing by the door that mirrors his, everything about her sleek and dark except for the gleam of her white-blond hair. The lights always weave orange in her hair, glint purple off her glasses, and he knows if he looks, he will see her despite the distance—so he does not look.

"As if standing around this shitty place is the worst we've done all week," he murmurs back. He has long perfected the art of speaking without moving his lips, and he knows to anyone passing by, he is just another security guard on duty, watching for possible commotions and disturbances, but looking bored.

"You think so?" Rico sounds thoughtful. "I prefer the art gallery to this."

"I meant cleaning up the mess behind the museum on Wednesday. Technically Thursday; it was four in the morning."

"True." Her voice is tinny through the earpiece, but he can hear the faint teasing tone in it as she adds, "You like cleaning up messes though."

His silence is the equivalent of an eye roll, something she knows all too well, and he can practically see the smile in her eyes—Rico does not smile much with her mouth, but her eyes give her away. They shine silver-gray when she is amused, a shade not too different from his, but her irises are always so much more alive than his ever will be.

They aren't supposed to talk on the job unless it is to report suspicious activity, so they fall silent again shortly thereafter. Levi stares off into space, but his peripheral vision catches everything anyway: a dark-haired guy spills beer on his girlfriend around 2 AM; a woman with three rings on her middle right finger orders a strawberry daiquiri with vodka around 2:35; a man in a blue collared shirt and striped tie edges off the dance floor and sinks into one of the couches in the lounge area roughly twelve minutes past three.

The man is alone, and sober, and looking around the club casually now, and that's what raises a red flag to Levi. He fiddles with his earpiece under the pretense of pushing hair out of his line of vision, and says in a low voice, "Are we expecting any deliveries tonight?"

"No."

"Well then," Levi says. He continues watching the man; it's just a hunch, but the face is somewhat familiar too, and though the flashing lights help obscure details in the dim setting of the club, he has been working in far too many places like this for years that he easily spots the telltale line of a possible wire against the fabric of the blue shirt, the bump at the crease of the tie where a mic might be, and the man is wearing boots—a perfect place to slip knives or other small close-range weapons.

"Tonight might be interesting after all," he tells Rico.

"Before we reach your room, you mean?' is her response.

"Yeah," he says. In the lounge area, the man stands, and Levi puts his hand against the loose inner pocket of his jacket, feeling the reassuring weight of the gun holstered there. "It's a slight possibility."

A/N: Basically I just wanted to write Levi and Rico working for a crime boss. The club is a cover and people underestimate them because they're short. That is literally all I wanted to write.