All our Fairy Tails are belong to Hiro Mashima.
The Patriarch: Prologue
The large, dark-featured mage sauntered down the streets of Magnolia. It felt good to be back. But not as good as it would feel in a few minutes, when he walked through the doors of Fairy Tail. His guild. It was a place he could be. There were people he could be with. Friendship was still strange to him, especially at a place as rambunctious as Fairy Tail. He swung his arms, crossing the right across his chest, pulling the left over his head, rolling his shoulders, working out the kinks from work. Nothing big, just a bunch of punk robbers who needed a talking to. His iron fist was more eloquent than his mouth and had handled the job with ease. Now he could get back to the Shrimp for some real relaxation: sitting in silence while she read. Nothing like it.
"Lily," he grunted.
"Hm," from the black Exceed marching to his right.
"Think I'll get a hug this time?"
"Hm." It sounded affirmative.
It didn't happen every time, but sometimes when he got back from a job, especially if he'd been gone a while, a certain blue-haired script-mage would show him that his absence had been noted with an embrace that he supposed she thought was tight and that he knew was just a bit lingering.
"Gihee."
He swung open the doors of the guild, restraining himself from swinging open his own arms to receive her. And there she was. Hugging someone else.
Someone was stealing his hug.
"Who the fuck are you and why are you grabbing at my Shrimp?"
Levy heard the gruff growl and felt the man being forcibly removed from her arms. She heard a pin drop and felt everybody's eyes on her.
"Umm... Ga-gajeel?"
Gajeel heard nothing but blood rushing through his ears and felt nothing but sudden and irrational rage.
"I think I asked you a question. Two of them." The other man was quailing under the blood-red glare that struck terror into the hearts of entire guilds. The man clearly wasn't a threat. Weasel-thin, bespectacled, and greying. But he also wasn't answering and Gajeel was not a patient man.
"Gajeel! Down boy! That is my father! He just arrived for a visit and I just finished saying how happy Fairy Tail would be to offer their hospitality."
Father? Father. Ah, that's right. Not everyone in Fairy Tail was an orphan. It did seem like they had more than its fair share of those...
Emboldened by what he could only see as his daughter's bravery in the face of an obviously violent man, Mr. McGarden cleared his throat. "Y-yes. I am Jacob McGarden... nicetomeetyou... and... and if I want to hug my own daughter after not having seen her in over seven years then... then who are you to... to... Why, I should be the one asking who you are!"
Gajeel gulped. Father. He had not anticipated this. To be confronted with a father... It was not an area in which he was experienced. He had no battle-plan. He was floundering. He fled. Turned on heel and marched out of the guild, straight-backed, but not at all at a leisurely pace.
If that man knew the things I've done to his daughter...
If he knew the things I've thought about doing to his daughter...
Gajeel honestly didn't know which would be worse.