Chapter One
AN: I do not own anything. Contains TRIGGERS. Taking a break from my other story, Saving Levy. I got into a little snag with the story and had a new idea so I'm gonna work on this one for a bit until I can gain inspiration for the other one. Please enjoy my new piece, Dance Through the Pain.
(0o0)
-Screaming out in pain, Levy fell to the earth. Her chest bloody and vision blurred as she thought of him. The last person she'd ever see alive was the one responsible for her death. Emmit, Levy's boyfriend of four years stood over her broken, beaten body laughing as he swung the bat back behind him, preparing to swing the blunt wooden object down upon the small, barely conscious blunette.-
Lucy Heartfilia sat up as her roommate's blood-curling scream echoed throughout the apartment again. The blonde rubbed sleep from her eyes, glancing at her alarm clock with a groan. The screams came again, letting the college student and waitress know her traumatized companion was still very much asleep. The clock flashed 2:43 in the morning, casting an eerie green glow around Lucy's room. A deep sigh escaped her as she heaved her tired body from the bed and stumbled across the room. More screaming met her at the door. I'm gonna rip that girls lungs out, the blonde thought as the next door neighbor pounded on the wall for the umpteenth time. Every night at this time the tiny blunette in the room over woke up half of their apartment complex with her screams.
Lucy stood a comfortable five foot, three inches tall. Her long blonde hair lay free from her normal style (a partial high ponytail pulled up to sit on the side of her head and tied with a ribbon), dancing gently across her back as she walked. Her long legs, creamy skin, large brown eyes, and busty chest helped her in the tip department at the restaurant she was employed at, working to pay for her classes at Fiore University. The nineteen year old worked hard to reach her final goal and becoming an author. She had known the small blunette she shared an apartment with since she was a young child. The two were inseparable growing up, Levy's love for reading had inspired Lucy to write intricate stories of love and adventure so her friend would have new stories to read. When her friend's life took a turn for the worst their sophomore year at Fairy Tail High, the blonde had decided to become an emancipated teen and get an apartment with Levy. They've been living together since, moving into a new apartment after the blunette was discharged from the hospital, having survived another terrible and life changing event struck the small woman. Lucy had started taking care of Levy around that time, working long hours and working extra hard in her classes, while her friend started taking her classes online and drifting into the life of a traumatized hermit. Lucy quickened her pace, throwing open her friend's door and rushing to the side of the small girl's bed.
"Levy!" Lucy yelled, shaking the smaller girl awake as the neighbor's pounding resounded. It was going to be a long night as Levy started sobbing uncontrollably. Lucy ran her fingers through the tangled locks of Levy Mcgarden in an attempt to calm the mess of a girl in front of her. Her blue hair fell in wild tangles just past her shoulders, cheeks raw from the tears, and her voice raspy from screaming the bookworm sat clutching at her roommate's pajama top. She was still sobbing loudly when Lucy realized the pounding wasn't coming from the wall anymore, but rather the door.
"Stay here, Levy. I'm gonna go get the door," Lucy said, getting up and heading towards the door.
Opening the door, Lucy gasped. A large shadow of a man stood towering in the doorway, his long black hair pulled back with a metallic gray headband. The man had to be at least six foot eight, made of pure muscle. Rows of silver piercings accented his face and arms, scars covered large portions of his body, and those crimson eyes glared holes into everything around him. Fury radiated off of the giant as he slammed a fist into the door, flinging it wide open. Lucy forgot to breathe as the man walked past her into the apartment. He headed down the hall toward Levy's room before Lucy could even function.
"Hey, wait a second!" Lucy yelled as her angry neighbor stomped through her home in search of the still sobbing woman. "You can't just barge into our home! No, wait don't go in there! She's scared of men!"
The man paused outside the door, his large paw of a hand frozen on the handle. He looked back at the blonde. Big brown orbs pleaded with him, asking him to understand. Sighing, the large being slowly turned the knob of the bedroom door, pushing it open gently to look at the terrified shrimp of a girl hidden inside. Suddenly, he wasn't angry anymore. He backed away, closing the door on those traumatized brown orbs. The mysterious man quickly passed through the doorway, out of the apartment, and down the hall. He was gone as fast as he'd appeared.
(0o0)
Gajeel stood inside his apartment staring at the wall separating him from those tormented eyes. What could have happened to cause a person to look like that? The girl's deep brown eyes were filled with pain and fear as she'd stared at him, turning paler by the second. His fist made contact with the wall, leaving yet another hole and waking his stepbrother.
Gajeel was the son of the most well known judge in Fiore, Metalicana Redfox. His mother had abandoned them when her son was only days old, leaving his father to raise the rebellious boy by himself. The pair had grown close over the years, becoming more like friends than father and son. Once Gajeel hit his teens and started hanging out with friends all the time, he noticed Metalicana had began to drink more. After a year of cleaning up vomit, broken glass, and empty alcohol bottles the teen urged his father to seek help. Through a six month period in rehab with his son by his side for support, the man successfully beat his addiction and swore never to rely on a substance for comfort again. Having opened up one night and admitted being lonely, Metalicana was encouraged to start dating by his son. When Gajeel turned eighteen, Metalicana had begun dating a woman named Grandeeny, a single mother of three. A year later, Gajeel had three step siblings he wouldn't trade the world for. Gajeel remained the oldest, followed by Natsu, then the twins, Rogue and Sting, trailing behind as the babies of the group.
Natsu stared at him like he was a stranger in need of an ass whupping. The pink haired boy rolled from his nest at the foot of the couch and growled at the large man with his fist wrist deep in the wall. A blue tomcat lay across the now wide awake nineteen year old's lap, lazily blinking from one boy to the other. The pinkette stood, suddenly dumping the cat on the floor, and stomped over to the source of his annoyance.
"What's the big idea, Pin Cushion?" Natsu snarled at the older man. "Its the middle of the night!"
"The girl, the one who wakes up half the buildin' screamin', I can't-" Gajeel barely whispered. "She's broken."
"What do you mean? Broken how?"
"Natsu, I think she's been hurt by a man. Bad enough that she wakes up screamin' from her memories. She's got this look to her eyes, dammit. Her eyes were full of terror and she became irrationally upset when she saw me. Her roommate said somethin' about it. She's scared of men."
"Why do you care? You don't even know her."
"I don't know, man. I just fucking don't know. I just feel like I need to help her."
(0o0)
The next night when the screaming started again, Lucy opened the door to the same man who had shoved past her the night before. This time, however, he seemed calm. His eyes were on the floor as he slowly made his way past her. As the blonde watched the strange man make his way toward Levy's room she noticed this time he had a small box in his hand and a large gym bag stuffed to the max with stuff. Deciding the man might need some help in the event the small blunette turned hysterical, Lucy fell into line behind her neighbor. As they came to the door that separated them from the screaming girl Gajeel suddenly stopped and turned toward the girl's roommate.
"What's her deal, Blondie? What happened to her?" Gajeel asked in a hushed tone.
Lucy looked away, tears building up in her eyes. "Levy's been through a lot. More than any eighteen year old should."
"Look, I ain't exactly good with people or talking to them, so hows 'bout we go see your friend in there, I do what I came over here to do, then we sit in the livin' room and you spill what you know so I can fix it."
"Why do you care?" Lucy asked confused.
"I don't. I need sleep to function and yer shrimpy friend in there practicin' her banshee impression keepin' me up just ain't doin' it for me."
"That's too bad. She could use a man like you," the blonde said barely loud enough to be heard before slowly opening the door. The sight on the other side of the opening gave Gajeel a new understanding of terror. The small woman was still asleep, curled around herself, arms raised to protect her from attacks neither her roommate nor her neighbor could see. Her pajamas were drenched in sweat, the pillows and blankets tangled and tossed around the room from her sudden movements. The mattress lay on the floor as opposed to on a frame, a cautionary procedure most likely. The bedside table made up of an over turned crate, shelves that covered the largest wall of the room, and half the floor were littered with books. The room was clean for the most part but Gajeel could tell she rarely left the closed in space. She even had a mini fridge set up in the corner of the room with a microwave on top of it. The walls were bare other then the books. No pictures of family, friends, or boyfriends. No posters for bands or movies. No art or decorations of any kind. A small pile of clothes lay by the door and an equally small pile of folded clothes sat on another crate next to the mini fridge. The girl didn't seem to own a lot, making her situation seem even sadder.
Lucy watched as her neighbor slid silently into the room, not yet waking the screaming girl, and put his bag and box down among the books on the floor. Turning on the light, he quietly gathered the novels and text books, arranging them neatly on shelves or in stacks on the floor in front of the shelves. He then opened his bag, pulling out a tray like tub and a bag of what looked like cat litter, paused before sliding the box closer to the sleeping banshee. He waited about five minutes before continuing to set the tub on the floor in the opposite corner of the room from the mini fridge and filling it with the litter. The man proceeded to pull two small bowls, another bag, and a bottle of water out of the bag. He filled one with each before setting them beside the bedroom door and heading back to the bag. He tossed a few cat toys around the floor, places a pet bed next to Levy's bed, and some pet grooming items on top of the microwave. Slowly, he made his way towards the bed, picking up the box along the way.
"Blondie, you might wanna get yer ass over here so she doesn't think I'm gonna hurt her." The monster of a man whispered before sitting down beside the bed with the box in hand.
Lucy joined him before carefully reaching out to shake her friend, "Levy?"
The blunette came awake with a gasp. It seemed to take her a few moments to fully wake up enough to register the unknown being sitting beside her. With a yelp, the small girl threw herself away from the man. Even while sitting, the man was huge. Lucy jumped at the terrified girl, restraining her in a hug trying to calm Levy enough to hear the stranger out.
"Lucy?" The girl's voice was gravely and dry from her screams. The raspy noise seemed to upset the man before her as he held out a bottle of water towards her. Looking at Lucy, almost as if questioning the safety of the bottle, a tiny hand reached out and slowly pulled the bottle from the man. "Thank you."
"Yer welcome, Shrimp." The nickname seemed to give the woman pause as she lifted the bottle to her lips.
"Levy, this is our neighbor," Lucy paused, realizing she didn't know the man's name.
"Gajeel," the man supplied his name automatically. "Gajeel Redfox."
At mention of his last name Levy dropped the bottle of water onto her bed, soaking everything on it. She seemed shocked at the name as she stared, wide eyed, at him. When no one moved to stop the flow of water, Gajeel noticed the blonde had the same look to her as she continued to hold her friend. Something in his stomach told him they had heard or dealt with his father. Hoping that they weren't on the receiving end of his harsh convictions, he sighed. "I take it you've heard of my father?"
Levy was the first to recover from her shock. She reached out, stopping the water bottle's flow before sliding her hand over to the crate beside her bed, picking up a worn out novel. She opened the cover and removed a folded up piece of paper from its protective folds. Handing it over to him, she whispered, "He saved my life. I owe your father more than I'll ever be able to pay him back."
The paper was a newspaper clip from about two years ago. Within its ink, Gajeel discovered Metalicana was responsible for ruling to convict a man named Emmit Scott of domestic abuse, battery, attempted murder, battery with a deadly weapon, conspiracy to commit murder, possession of an illegal substance, and rape. Apparently, the man attempted to beat his girlfriend of two years to death, while high on some drug, before raping her and leaving her for dead. If that wasn't bad enough, they discovered texts between him and his brother, plotting out the entire thing. The man was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. Gajeel was willing to bet if Metalicana was responsible for putting the man in there that Emmit was most likely dead. Gajeel went to ask what the case had to do with Levy before his eyes focused in on the two photos attached to the article. The first was of a buff, white male, hair buzzed short and a tattoo of a crucifix on his neck. The second was of a small, familiar girl. His stomach twisted as realization of what happened to the tiny blunette in front of him hit.
"The old man was always good at helpin' people. I'll have to thank him for savin' yer tiny ass." Gajeel chuckled. "Anyways, Shrimp, I have a surprise for ya. I ain't so good with people either, but I know ya can't just hide away behind yer books without any comfort. So, meet Pantherlily."
The man opened the box on his lap and lifted out a sleeping kitten. The cat had black fur, rounded ears and a scar over one eye. He let out a small yowl before jumping way from Gajeel to curl up in Levy's lap. A moment later the cat was purring, making Levy smile for the first time in a very long time. Lucy felt tears slide down her face watching Levy smile again.
"The damn cat was hit by a semi outside the garage where I work. Fought for his life for two months before finally becomin' stable about two weeks ago. He was discharged from the vet's yesterday. Tough little shit." Gajeel explained.
"Why would you give him to me? You don't really know me." The blunette glanced at him with an adorable expression of joy mixed with confusion.
"Well, no offense, Short-stack, but I can see how fucked you really are and there's nothin' better to help a broken soul fightin' to survive in a fucked up world than a companion who fought just as much to survive." Gajeel said, "Not to mention, my father wouldn't be happy to know he saved yer life just for you to spend it damaged and secluded."
"I wish I knew how to thank him." Levy sighed.
"Hang on a sec." Gajeel said with a smile, "I have an idea."
(0o0)
AN: Well, there you go. Chapter one of Dance Through the Pain is complete and ready for you to Read & Review. I do not have a proof reader and while I read and reread my work to catch my mistakes, I don't always get them all. Please if you see a mistake let me know. If you are or have ever been a victim of domestic abuse or rape please PM me your story. I've been there. I know how it feels. I am here for my readers!
AN2: I know the end of this chapter seemed kind of rushed. Sorry about that. I was having trouble finding a good transitioning point and Levy's need to thank Metalicana just felt like the best point to stop at. Anyways, READ & REVEIW PLEASE! Catch you next time! :)