Thank you everyone for the reviews :) I'm working on another NaLu for later but this one just came to me quick. I don"t own Fairy Tail.
Yeah, he's not fooling anyone. Not even himself in fact.
He could see the bright orange of her headband standing out from the corner of his eye. Damned periphery, why did it have to go and get so good all of a sudden.
The idiot Salamander was standing on one of the guild's wooden tables, wiggling his arms in some mind-numbing act of stupidity directly between himself and her, and still all he could really focus on was the curve of her delicate ear, the soft line of her jaw, the blue hair.
Gajeel turned roughly on his bar-stool. Now all his eye could pick out was the end of the bar in both directions. He had no intention of admitting it but he was in deep. He grunted and nudged his sweating beer mug off its coaster.
There is a ridiculous racket that sounds as though an asteroid has burned through the atmosphere, crashed through the roof of the guild hall, and then buried itself into the flooring in a ball of blazing combustion. He's pretty sure that means the flame-head has finally fallen off the table in a magnificent face-plant but he doesn't even feel like looking back to mock him.
"You okay there, Gajeel?" He recognizes the concerned voice of Mirajane and decides its wiser not to make eye contact with the she-demon. The woman can probably smell it on him better than any dragon-slayer ever could, that detestably oozy 'love-sickness' thing. Instead he grunts again and shuffles a bit closer to the rim of his beer glass so he can better nurse it.
"You don't have to tell me about it if you don't want to."
Damn right I won't, he thought to himself. Another ruckus explodes somewhere behind him in the guild; ice-princess and fire-breath have started another one of their stupid, senseless brawls.
"Well if it's about a certain solid-script mage then you should probably do something about it before tomorrow."
"What's tomorrow?" he asks, looking up. All too late he catches the cheery smile on the barmaid's face and realizes that he just took the bait. He tries to save face by taking a big gulp of his drink, turning his head to look back into the guild.
"Ah, I was just thinking about setting her up with a nice young man that I met the other day in a bookstore and I thought maybe a certain someone might protest."
He can feel the bile rise in his throat at the prospect. It probably doesn't help that he's already on his fifth beer this morning. At least he isn't drunk yet, he consoles himself. But seriously, of all the crappy things the she-devil had to say to him she had to lead with that. He already has Jet and Droy to deal with, not to mention his own incredible insecurities due to their past.
Gajeel doesn't think he can handle it all. He slumps onto the bar counter and wishes that he had been drinking whiskey instead.
"I guess if you don't protest then I can ask her right now." The evil woman set down the glass that she was cleaning and lifted her chin to call for the skinny girl. "Hey Levy, can I ask you something?"
Gajeel can feel his insides sloshing around, it's disgusting.
"Sure, Mira-san." The blue-haired bookworm steps up lightly to the bar beside him. He sits up to begin fumbling in his pockets, trying to find a piece of metal to calm his stomach. "Oh, hey, Gajeel."
"Shrimp," he says, nodding at her but not looking. His can tell his face is flushed by the strange warmth settling there.
"I was wondering if you're free tomorrow…" Mira continues.
Gajeel's search for iron antacid comes up empty. He sets his forehead on the bar and watches the sandaled feet of Levy as she contemplates Mira.
"I think so…why what's up?"
He doesn't understand what Mira is getting at with this whole scene. He already knows he's a coward when it comes to the little mage, doesn't she know that that brings him enough shame as it is? Can't she see him sitting here drinking? He moves to take another gulp for emphasis.
"See I was down at that bookstore on the corner…"
"You mean Nigel's?" Levy asks innocently. Gajeel can't tell if this is real life or one of those horrible nightmare's he gets when Pantherlily rolls onto his face in the middle of the night. Maybe he is just more of a lightweight than he thought he was.
"Yes, that's the one, so anyway I was down there and-"
Gajeel lurches to his feet, knocking over the stool he was sitting on with a crash and staggering forward with a sudden nauseating bout of weakness. Both Mira and Levy, and likely the rest of the Fairy Tail guild in attendance, stop whatever they are doing and watch him. He has to say something, he has to do something and stop that wretched take-over mage who's trying to screw him over into confessing…
"I'm not lovesick, dammit," he snaps like someone has just accused him.
Mira appears unconvinced to him and honestly he isn't either, but when his eyes sneak over to check Levy's expression his mind begins to cloud. So blank, just touched slightly with a bit of mild shock. He doesn't know why but it really unnerves the hell out of him. A moment of silence passes deafened by the pounding of his pulse.
"Like I was saying Levy, at Nigel's I met this nice young man…" Mira starts talking again like nothing happened, a stoic tribute to her many years working for Fairy Tail, but Gajeel can't seem to listen to her anymore. Sweet saliva floods his mouth.
"Well that's very considerate of you Mira but I've already got someone in mind." He can still hear Levy though, ain't that just dandy. Maybe she should do his eulogy with a voice like that, he'll still hear her from ten-feet under. The bile rises again and he has an urge to ralf up everything that he's eaten so far today as well as each of the "penultimate" five glasses of draft beer he practically chugged down but he absolutely refuses, on his pride as a dragonslayer, to vomit in front of his guildmates.
So he chokes instead. Clamping his mouth shut like an iron vice, and doubtless going green in the process, he turns tail on his unsteady legs and dashes for the toilets.
"That someone's all kinds of sick now," Mira says smiling charmingly at Levy. The bookworm gets a sinking sensation that suggests this might have been premeditated, she blinks at the take-over mage one last time and goes to check on the man who clearly missed her deliberate glance due to whatever Mira had tried in his drink.