Chapter One. Gray Must Die

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Gajeel was pretty thick.

Metaphorically and when it came to his skin literally too. Oh sure, he could casually walk through elaborate ambushes and plan ahead with a tactical sense that was certainly one of the better developed ones of the Guilds. But when it came to people, well, Gajeel knew he wasn't exactly the sharpest tool in the shed.

Still, after careful observation he was pretty sure that Juvia had gone crazy.

"Girl, why are you in my bed?"

It was storming outside. An extremely localized one, centered on his apartment. He should have probably been content enough with the fact that she had only soaked his bed with her rather impressive quantity of tears and not the rest of his room, but Gajeel wasn't exactly renowned for his patience.

He irritably tapped his foot while he waited for Juvia to get her shit together.

"G-Gray-sama," Juvia sobbed and Gajeel had the pleasant mental image of eviscerating the ice mage, "h-he doesn't- l-l-love Juvia."

Oh.

Well.

That complicated things.

Maybe he'd ring his intestines out in the shape of a heart?

Then again, if a girl did that for him he wasn't sure if he'd be impressed either.

"Are you sure?" He asked suspiciously. He wasn't good at this 'love' thing but he remembered being the brat's age. It'd take a damn cold guy to refuse-

Actually, wait, ice mage, nevermind.

"J-Juvia gave him a letter," the water mage reported, breaking into a fresh, choking wails. "A-and when Juvia p-passed him today he d-didn't even acknowledge Juvia."

Gajeel contemplated that for all of five seconds before deciding that Gray needed to die. Messily.

"I'll be right back," he promised, closing his door. A thought occurred to him and he opened it again. "Stop crying. My food's going to go rusty."

Then he went off to commit murder.

Murder was a lot easier when people were actually around, Gajeel decided as he waited in the Fairy Tail bar. It was three or four in the afternoon which meant mostly everyone was recovering from morning bingeing and preparing for late-night bingeing and that he was pretty much the only one here for all the good that it did him.

Mirajane served him another glass of heavy metals and he chugged it down, dropping a few coins on the counter in return.

"So what brings you here?" Fairy Tail's poster girl asked him cheerfully, elbows digging divots into the counter as she placed her head on her fingers as she settled down in front of him. He shot her a dark look but it didn't seem to pierce her sunny exterior at all.

"I'm looking for someone," he finally admitted.

"Natsu?" Mirajane guessed. "He's probably off-"

He waved that idea off. "Nah, the other one that hangs out with him. Gray." Mirajane's eyebrows rose at that statement and for some inconceivable reason, Gajeel felt like he had to justify himself. "He made Juvia cry."

"Really."

Gajeel nearly stumbled backwards at the killing intent that flooded the room. He recovered himself after a moment: looking at Mirajane smile sunnily, it had to have been his imagination. No way that level of fighting ability belonged to someone like her.

"Yeah, girl was in my room, trying to cry herself to sleep or -"

This time he did stumble right off his stool. What the fuck?

"And you left her alone?" Mirajane asked, shadows in the room growing unnaturally long.

"What, you think she might be attacked?" Gajeel asked, getting to his feet. Goddamn stools were all rickety pieces of shit. He smashed the offending piece of furniture to nothing before substituting his own, dragon-grown one before sitting on it. "Nah, don't worry. Juvia's plenty strong."

Mirajane said something under her breath which sounded suspiciously like 'boys' but Gajeel ignored it.

Now that the story was out he might as well confess.

"Anyway, I need to go kill Gray."

"Natsu!" Mirajane called. "Natsu! Are you in?"

"Yeah... Salamander! Yo!" Gajeel said, waving. After a moment he realized that Natsu couldn't see him and upon further reflection he realized that he didn't wave. Ever. Shuddering, Gajeel put his arm down. Man, this guild was turning him into a chump.

Natsu's house was redefined the expression 'run-down'. He could hear the mage get up from his couch or whatever.

"ONE MINUTE!"

After a hectic minute in which Gajeel wasn't sure if Natsu had torn his own home down or not, the door opened with a bang, revealing a familiar pink-haired dragon slayer.

"Heya!" He greeted, grinning hugely. "Happy's out getting fish," he informed Mirajane who pouted and put her own offering away. The fire dragon slayer punched his knuckles together, producing a small explosion. "Ya wanna fight, then?"

"Anytime-" Gajeel began to say, corresponding smile on his own face before Mirajane poked him in the shoulder. "...except not today," he admitted.

"We're looking for Gray," Mirajane said.

"Oh," Natsu said, sounding almost like he was complaining. "But I wanted to fight-"

"We're not going to fight him, just kill him." Gajeel said, nodding. This was business, after all, not pleasure.

Natsu stared suspiciously at the two of them before shrugging.

"Well, he might be-"

Lucy knew that her home had somehow become an unofficial second residence for many Fairy Tail mages.

Still.

What the heck?

"Wh-what are you doing here?" She asked, shaky finger pointed at Gajeel.

Gajeel blinked from where he was devouring her forks and knives. "The hell are you doing here? I thought this was Gray's house."

Natsu waved to her. Lucy ignored him. She was used to Natsu breaking and entering. She was not used to seeing Gajeel and-

"Natsu said we might find him here," Mirajane chirped, from where she was flipping through-

"GYAAAAH! DON'T READ THAT!" Lucy screeched as she rushed to steal her manuscript back from Mirajane's hands.

Mirajane beamed at her innocently as she let the papers go. "It was just lying about-"

"THAT WAS IN MY SAFEBOX!" Lucy said, hyperventilating just a bit.

"Oh? Was it?" More sunny smiles. "You must have left it out by accident then."

Lucy decided that she had to pick her battles and let that one go. She took in a deep breath, stuffed the papers back into her safebox (which was open and not forced open either) and slammed it shut.

Then she went back to the relevant matter.

"What is he doing here?"

Not that she didn't think that Gajeel had made amends for kidnapping her and hurting all her friends but on the other hand-

This. Was. Her. Home.

Shouldn't she have a little more say on who came on in?

She looked to Natsu, but the boy was already stealing what little she had in her fridge and was no help whatsoever.

"Lucy," Mirajane said, looking serious. "I'm afraid we really do need to find Gray. You wouldn't have happened to see him recently, would you?"

Lucy's brows scrunched up as she gave the matter some serious thought. "Last I knew he was puzzling out the request that Juvia made."

"Request?" Gajeel said, sounding insulted. "He's a man, isn't he? How much brains does it take to figure it out?"

Lucy was not watching Mirajane watch her no matter how pretty those eyes were or how nice that hair-

Lucy shrugged her shoulders. "Well, the envelope was empty. He thought it was a test. Like, you know, in the right light it will reveal the invisible ink -"

"The- the envelope was empty?"

Gajeel nodded.

So did Lucy and Mirajane who had invited themselves along for inexplicable reasons. Natsu had gone home after he'd realized that there wasn't a fight to be had. Someone who wasn't Gajeel might have been slightly mortified to have three women see the sorry state of his room but the iron dragon slayer didn't give a flying fuck. His home was functional and utilitarian and had loads of food for when he needed it.

Others might call it a death trap but those were just weaklings, anyway.

Out of a sense of propriety and not wanting to get blood on the floor, he stopped the swinging axe before it could chop the bunny girl in two and took a bite out of it.

"Juvia… Juvia is so embarrassed," the water mage squeaked, burrowing into Gajeel's covers.

"Yeah, well, you've given him the envelope, you can give him your letter." Gajeel said gruffly.

He had been looking forward to murdering the ice mage too.

Ah well.

There'd be a few more chances down the road, he had no doubt.

"Yeah," the bunny girl said, frozen in place as if the slightest step might cause something to leap out and kill her. Not at all unlikely, actually. "Gray's really a good guy, he didn't want to ignore your feel-"

Juvia peeked out. "You're just trying to steal Gray-sama from me," she accused.

"Nnnnnoooo," Lucy replied, sweatdropping. "I'm really not."

Mirajane clapped happily. "All's well that ends well."

One week later

Gajeel sighed. "Juvia-"

"Juvia needs the right atmosphere to write her letter," the water mage told him seriously, brandishing a paintbrush.

Gajeel looked a bit closer at her work. Was she trying to write a letter or paint a pic - was that Eastern calligraphy?

"This is my room," Gajeel pointed out, exhausted from a rather unrewarding B-rank mission. "I think-"

Juvia got up and patted his arm. "Don't worry, I trust Gajeel!"

Then she sat back down and continued working on her calligraphy. She'd already, as far as he could tell, gone through the equivalent of a small library.

Gajeel sighed, threw up his arms, and went to bed.