Disclaimer: I own NOTHING!
Hours ago the town had been overrun by the screaming of riotous hoodlums, waging war with snowballed ammunitions, reveling in the first snow of the year. Now, long past dark or a time when any sane person should be about, a fresh layer of crystallized snow pillowed the landscape. No one dared be out this late as the bitter wind, which had been nothing more than a kiss on the skin earlier in the day, tore through the city, and only the bravest ventured further than his or her front steps.
Except for the soft snore from the man sprawled out on the couch and the periodic rustle of pages being turned, no sound disturbed the tranquil evening in the cozy home. A flannel blanket, thrown haphazardly across the iron dragonslayer's bare chest, had long since chased away the day's chill and slowly slipped down, a waterfall of blue flannel pooling on the floor. One long sweatpants-enclosed leg rested over the back of the couch while its mate stretched over the side of the armrest, both too long to comfortably rest on the furniture.
Manicured nails trailed through his hair, having coaxed him into his slumber with a well-practiced ease. The other hand supported a weathered novel that had seen better days. The dog-eared paperback was slowly coming loose from it's binding and the pages were warped from when someone spilled their beer on it. The novel had survived several moves, multiple missions, and time spent around her rowdy guildmates. He had offered to buy her a new one ages ago, but this copy had been with her through some of the toughest parts of her life and Levy insisted it be treated with the dignity and honor of an old friend. Feeling nostalgic after the long cold day spent frolicking with their friends, she had picked up the book again this evening.
It's a treaty the two have long since worked out. She's free to read, undistracted, so long as she's near him, his head cradled in her lap as it was now, caressing his hair, or snuggled at his side; somehow always touching him. His unspoken ultimatum, "Enjoy your little stories, Shrimp. Just remember you still come home to me." Her reply a cheeky roll of her eyes and a tacit, "No duh."
She absentmindedly stroked the man's hair, twisting her fingers gently through the thick black tangles. The motion would be sure to leave knots in the long mane and cause him to grumble later about the bookworm and her propensity to create nests. Of course that would lead to her poking fun at his pot calling her kettle black, if the hoard of scrap metal that filled their second bedroom or the Mount Hakobe-sized mass of pillows and blankets that made up their bed were evidence enough.
As the tension in the book built Levy's hand stilled, coming to rest tangled in the dragonslayer's now thoroughly ratted locks. Clutching the book to her chest, she sighed; a soft sound as she was still mindful of the snoozing man whose head was cushioned in her lap. The climax never ceased to bring her to tears, and this time was no different. As she closed her eyes, ruminating over the hero's plight, tears pooled in her eyes and trickled down her cheeks.
Levy sniffed and swiped at her eyes, but not before a single drop tumbled from her chin and onto the tip of Gajeel's nose. The drop slid sideways, gliding down the side of his nostril. Somewhere in the deepest recesses of the dragon's mind, he registered the small woman's distress and the waking world invaded his dreamscape, the idyllic scene morphing into a much more gloomy surrounding. In the thin periphery haze that accompanied his slumber, the intrusion penetrated his subconscious, but stubbornly the man refused to emerge from the cobwebs of sleep.
Trying to cling to the illusion of sleep, he shifted, nestling further into her lap. But when a second tear joined the first in it's trek across his face, he was forced to come to grips with the fact that his nap had met its unfortunate end. The girl took a shuddered breath, unintentionally shaking his head and jostling the last foggy remnants of sleep from his consciousness. A faint growl grew in the back of his throat at being awakened so early. Finally giving up, one eye flickered open and he squinted up at the blue-haired mage above him.
"Oi!" His voice was thick with sleep, but his indignation was clear as another salty droplet fell onto one of the piercings that made up his left eyebrow. "Shrimp! Why the hell are you crying?"
Startled out of her trance, Levy gazed down at the man with waterlogged eyes. "What?"
"I said," Gajeel repeated, his voice a low rumble. "Why, the hell, are you crying?"
"Oh," Levy mumbled as though it was an adequate response.
She flipped the book down, temporarily blocking his face, and scanned the pages once more. Her mind was still caught up in the story in the worn pages as she reread the chapter, and she missed his scowl. He waited; convinced she was just gathering her thoughts, but when she remained silent for too long he realized she'd forgotten about him. It wasn't until he reached up and rapped a knuckle across her forehead lightly that she registered she hadn't actually answered his question.
"S-Sorry. I just- I… It's- It's just so heart breaking, you know?!"
He let out a deep breath through his nose, a somnolent sigh with a whisper of displeasure at being roused from a rather enjoyable dream, and brought a hand up to rub the sleep from his eyes.
"No," he stated flatly. This wasn't the first time she had startled him out a good nap because of an emotional reaction to a particularly good piece of literature, and he knew it wouldn't be the last. "I don't know. Care to tell me?"
"It's so tragic. He-his-…" her voice cracked. "He just worked up the courage to tell her."
She paused again, stifling a sob. Levy placed the book on the armrest and scrubbed her face with the back of her hands. What was wrong with her?! In the struggle to reign in her tears, she knocked her headband askew. The gray fabric had been one of Gajeel's favorites once but small script mage commandeered it ages ago, and now it slipped off as she scraped her hands though her hair. He grabbed her hands to halt her frantic motions, and pressed both of her palms between his own.
"Tell her what?" he coaxed, not wholly invested in the story, but more concerned about letting her work out her feelings, knowing that if he didn't nip it in the bud, his mate's morose mood could last into the wee hours of the morning costing both of them hours of precious sleep. Sleep that he could be getting right now if she wasn't currently crying again. Sure he could think of more inventive ways that the two of them could lose sleep, but knowing the woman as well as he did, he was certain that any of those ideas were most likely the furthest things from her mind at the present moment.
"That he loves her! The protagonist, he just realized that he's been enamored with the girl he's been betrothed to all along and was ready to declare his ardent love for her, and then she-she dies! The antagonist ruthlessly mows her down and neither of them know how they really feel about one another and-now-they'll-never-know!" she wailed. The words poured from her mouth with an urgency he didn't understand.
Biting back the urge to make a snarky comment, one that might very well send the over-emotional woman into a tailspin- and banish him to an uncomfortable night on the too small couch- if he didn't watch what he said, he studied her face for a minute before asking, "K?"
It was then that she realized he hadn't made the mental leap with her, and she knew it wasn't that he lacked the empathy to follow the rabbit trail of her lachrymose whiplash, but that she would have to spell it out more concisely. There was a long pause as Levy filtered the thoughts and emotions that were currently making a mad desperate dash through her mind in an attempt to come up with a cohesive statement that would make him understand and she realized with a start that she'd barely made the leap herself. She wasn't completely sure of why the tale had brought about such a strong visceral reaction this time around. Yes, the climax of the story made her tear up each time she read it, but this was the first she hadn't been able to console herself afterwards. Though there were many possible reasons she sifted through, her mind kept circling back to the same horrid thought.
Gajeel scrutinized the girl as her face contorted into a familiar of expression. It was the one she used while deciphering particularly difficult ruins and if she hadn't been so upset, if he hadn't been so focused an alleviating the cause of her distress, he might have considered the way her face scrunched up, nose wrinkling and brows furrowed in concentration, cute. He might have even teased her about being able to hear the gears whir in her head as she organized her thoughts, but not tonight. No, he would save that for tomorrow, when the feelings weren't so fresh and she'd had a little more time to process.
He knew the instant the realization dawned on her when she tensed, the muscles in her stomach contracting next to his ear as she took yet another trembling gasp. Then, in a small voice, so faint that if the man hadn't been so wholly focused on the girl before him that he would have missed her question, she asked, "What if it were us?"
"The hell d'you mean, if it were us?"
"Just that!" she exclaimed.
Levy threw up her hands, knocking the book from where she had placed it on the armrest. It landed on the floor with a thwack. The few loosened pages finally broke free from the last of the bindings that held it together and skidded under the coffee table.
"What if it were us? What if we never told each other how we felt? What if I died before... What if you…"
The words tumbled off the tip of her tongue with a gasp and if she could have stopped them she would have, but all her thoughts came rolling out of her mouth. He could feel the panic boiling up in her as her muscles tensed further.
This was what she was worried about? This is what had woken him from his nap? He felt a great rumbling chuckle building in his chest, waiting to burst forth. He knew, however, that laughing at the distraught woman's plight would end up in a fight. So stifling back his laughter, Gajeel reached up to press a hand to her cheek and wiped away the trail left by her latest tears with the pad of his thumb.
"That ain't us though, Shorty. I know how ya feel about me, and you certainly know how I feel," he gave her a wry smile.
"But what if we hadn't?" She looked down at him with frenzied eyes.
"But we do." Gajeel nudged her stomach with his cheek.
"But…"
"No buts."
He buried his nose into her stomach in a blatant attempt to distract her, pushing her already bunched up shirt further up her torso. She flinched as the cold metal of the piercings on his nose brushed against her exposed abdomen and then sighed.
He was right, of course; it was silly to imagine what their lives might have looked like if the two of them had made different choices. If he'd never come to Fairy Tail. If he'd never tried to make amends. If she hadn't forgiven him. If neither of them admitted how they felt about one another. If one of them had died on any number of the dangerous jobs the two of them took. She took another deep breath and felt her shoulders relax. They weren't characters in one of her stories and there was no impending doom looming over the two of them, preventing them from being together as they were now.
"No butts but yours," he growled softly in Draconic, face still pressed against the soft contour of her skin. He hadn't meant for her to hear the comment, but when Levy giggled and Gajeel felt the last of the tension drain out of her body, he figured it was worth it. He turned to look at her face just in time to catch her rolling her eyes at him. Gajeel quirked an eyebrow at the girl, but she just shook her head.
"'Sides you can't compare us to one of your books," he muttered.
"Because everything about our courtship screamed torrid love affair," she murmured. She gave him a sardonic smile and brushed his hair back from his forehead. "If anything it was more like a horror novel."
He snorted. "Yeah right. Our story's straight out of one of your goddamn fairy tales. One with dragons and fairies and all that shit." He puffed up his chest, proud of his analogy.
"Sure," she agreed, mimicking his snarky tone. "Quite the fairy tale. Remind me again. How did the prince sweep the princess off her feet? What were the magic words that broke the lonesome curse upon her?"
Her tone screamed trouble, but he chose to ignore it, reveling in the fact that he had been able to snap her out of her melancholy spirits. "Dunno. What did he say?"
Levy chuckled darkly and pure mischief radiated from her face for a brief second. She scowled then, but couldn't keep the mirth from shining in her eyes as she grunted in what he realized was a crude caricature of his voice, "Me dragon man. You tiny woman. We make sexy times."
He snorted and choked on his laugh. Whatever he had been expecting, that was not it. Thoroughly pleased with herself, and his reaction to the comment, the room rang with her unrestrained laughter, admittedly one of his favorite sounds, and he found he couldn't even fake outrage at the blatant slight. The couch shook with the combined force of their laughter.
However, he couldn't just let the jab slide, so he gathered himself, and retorted, "What'dja expect me to say? 'Oh Shorty, I cannot bear to spend another day without you by my side, my perspicacious flower!'?"
"Perspicacious?" she snorted, cocking an eyebrow at him. "Have you been reading my thesaurus again?"
"You know you fucking love it when I use big words," he replied, their conversation now circling back to a familiar exchange. He poked her in the side, earning himself a lopsided grin.
"About as much as you fucking love it when I swear," she leaned down and pressed an impish kiss to his lips.
"I'm so glad we're over that 'will they/won't they?' shit."
She giggled again, and based on the timbre alone, a deeper, more wicked tone, Gajeel knew that there was some private joke he wasn't yet privy to, and the fact that the two had agreed early on that there would be no secrets between them, that giggle irked him.
"What?" he demanded, brows pulled together
"Lu and I planned all of it you know?"
"What do you mean?" The scowl grew deeper.
"Well I had already made up my mind about you and I had a pretty good idea how you felt about me."
"Then why didn't you say anything?"
"And risk looking like Juvia if I was wrong and you didn't return my sentiments?"
He didn't have an answer for that; just arched a brow in her direction, indicating that she should continue her story.
"Anyway, after drinking one night Lu and I tried to persuade Natsu into goading you into at least acknowledging your feelings for me. I think the two of us were pretty drunk at the time and frankly I was exasperated and tired of sidestepping the issue. I figured if he made you mad enough, you would drop that ludicrous guard of yours."
Levy poked him on his bare chest for emphasis and he snatched her hand up. He caught her by surprise in what she assumed was an uncharacteristic display of affection when he brought the offending appendage to his lips. Until he nibbled gently on her finger. Pulling her hand free, she swatted at him, and then settled the hand on his chest.
"Hopefully you would admit to more than you'd want. He refused of course. 'Challenging you to a fight was one thing,' he said, 'but deliberately picking a fight with you, over something as complicated at mates or relationships or feelings…'" she giggled. "Well, he was convinced that you would give him a sound thrashing."
"Damn right I did."
She patted his cheek and flashed him patronizing smirk that screamed, "Of course you did," and then waited for him to catch up to the rest of her story.
"If he said no, then how didja get him to do it?"
"Lucy told him it wasn't very fair if he was the only dragonslayer in the guild getting some action, and if you weren't getting any, he wouldn't be getting any either."
"She didn't."
"She did, and he still refused," she snickered at his unmasked incredulity.
"And they…" he left the sentence hanging in the air, unfinished.
"Nope."
"How long did he last?"
She snorted, and the sound was so decidedly Gajeel that he wondered if she knew that she had picked it up from him. "Two. Days."
"Damn," he whistled. "Who knew Bunny Girl had such a mean streak. Remind me to thank her the next time we're down at the guild."
He snorted again and shook his head, finding it ironic that he hadn't seen it sooner. Of course she planned it. The girl was a notorious schemer, having successfully pulled off multiple sneak attacks during the guild's winter games that very morning where she managed to stuff snow down the back of his jacket no less than three times. Though he was sure that the last time had been by pure accident as she'd managed slip on a particularly slick spot and landed herself hip deep in a bank of snow at the same time.
Not to mention the ambitious prank war Levy flawlessly executed underneath the Master's nose. What had started out as a barrage of magnets, the industrial strength kind that hurt like a bitch when they snapped onto the metal studs that littered his body, somehow managing to find their way into the cupboards and drawers of Gajeel's apartment quickly spread throughout the rest of the guild. Though how Levy managed to steal all the members of the Raijinshū's underwear and string them up as a banner across the front of the guildhall without getting her ass handed to her was a secret that she would take to her grave and no amount of rare and ancient texts or pansy-ass romantic crap Gajeel had tried would pry it out of her. At the center of every prank, the impetuous fairy who slyly managed to cover her tracks by filling the pages of several of her books with glitter and engineering it so that she was no where near the scene of the crimes until after each of her stunts were discovered.
It left no team unscathed in it's wake and some how culminated a disgruntled Erza storming into the guild claiming that someone, someone she highly suspected of being a certain fire-breathing dragonslayer, had shaved off one of the requip mage's eyebrows. Levy, sensing that things would not go well for Natsu, whatever Erza's plan for revenge may have been, came clean at that point, reassuring Erza that her eyebrows remained intact. The simple spell the solid script mage herself had created, and placed over the mirrors in Fairy Hills only made it seem as though her eyebrow had gone missing.
And from that point on there was a saying amongst the guild: Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me thrice, and you're Levy.
A.N.: Originally I wanted to post this as a one shot, but I'm having a bout of writers block with the ending. The beginning has been sitting here waiting for me to publish for weeks and I'm finally giving up and posting it. Don't forget to favorite and review!
~Crys~