Chapter 1
When the snow storm began, the lights went out just before Victoria was able to find her footing. Victoria toppled over the square coffee table made of glass, breaking it into a million minuscule pieces. She felt sharp pains all over her body and realized she had fallen into the glass pile. Victoria skillfully reached for her phone, which was deep in her right pocket, and turned on the flashlight. The light illuminated the mess she had just created, and the pitiful state she was currently in. Victoria sat up carefully as to not receive any more glass cuts. When she was able to extricate herself from the shards, she took a glance at her surroundings. The whole house was completely dark, besides what the light could expose. She made her way, VERY CAREFULLY, to the window to look up and down streets of Magnolia. There was no light. This was not looking promising. Victoria heaved a heavy sigh and made her way to the kitchen. It was a long process, seeing as it was three rooms away with breakables around every corner. She cursed herself for having so many knick knacks, albeit they were adorable and mostly figures of cats.
She finally made it to one of the kitchen cabinets where she kept her first aid supplies. By supplies, she basically just had some band aids and anti-bacterial cream. In the middle of reaching for the healing aids, she heard her front door bang open. A large gust of wind flew through the house and whipped her ombred raven-to-red hair around her face. She instantly dropped the band aids and reflexively took a fighting stance. She could feel the tattoos across her body stretching, moving, and reshaping. She was getting to ready to use her Tattoo Dragon Slayer magic when she saw who had entered her home. She relaxed immediately and stared into his red eyes.
"Gajeel, why are you here? I was about to kick your ass," Victoria said exasperated.
"Well geez Vick, after the lights went out I smelled all yer blood. I ran over to make sure you were okay. But if you don't want me here then fine," Gajeel said as he started to turn towards the front door.
"Don't be an idiot. Stay here and help me get cleaned up." Victoria blushed as she asked for him to stay. She wasn't sure how he would react. She and Gajeel had had this tension between them ever since they returned from Tenroujima Island. Victoria understood her feelings well enough. She liked Gajeel. A lot. He was strong, brave, caring when he needed to be, soft hearted, and loved cats. What she didn't know, was how he felt about her.
"Uh, yeah, I could definitely stay and help you. You know sort out all those cuts and get the glass out. How exactly did you manage to mangle yourself so badly?"
"Don't worry about it. Here, take these band aids and start patching me up. I don't have all day." Victoria tried to show a sense of bravado so she wouldn't come off as nervous and admittedly a little bit turned on.
Gajeel took the Band-Aids and had her sit on one of her kitchen chairs. He started dressing the deep, bleedy, wounds and stuttered, "Hey, uh, I'm gonna need you to take your top off…There are some deep gashes… and uh…"
"Chill Gajeel," Victoria responded breathlessly. She started to remove her shirt slowly, so as to nit cause herself more pain. She heard Gajeel gulp loudly when she ended up just in her bra and jeans. Her breasts didn't hold a candle to Lucy's, but she was well endowed with plentiful D cups.
"Stop staring and stop the bleeding please."
Gajeel snapped out of his trance and took the light from the phone to more closely examine her back. "Wow Vic, You really did a number on yourself here," He whispered while he started bandaging, "You gotta be more careful."
"Why do you care if I'm careful or not?" Vic asked incredulously.
"I just do k?" Replied Gajeel shortly.
"Fine." Vic knew that that was the best response that she was going to get out of him. She let a blush cross her face as she realized Gajeel really did care for her.
"There. All done. You should be mostly healed by tomorrow. We Dragon-Slayers have always been fast healers." Gajeel nodded as he examined his handiwork. "I better stay here with you while the power is out. We can't have you getting hurt again GeeHee."
He winked as he said this and went to work on picking up the glass shards. Vic was left there shirtless and blushing. Maybe her feeling were actually requited. There could be a future with Gajeel.
She ventured into the living room once she had gained her composure. Gajeel had turned his iron fist into a dust pan and was sweeping all the pieces of glass into it. She watched him work methodically. She even offered to help many times but he always told her that she would just hurt herself more. Vic scoffed at that because she is after all a bad ass dragon slayer. She could easily pick up the glass. But her internal self knew that he didn't really think she would get hurt, he just wanted to take care of her. Vic dozed off while she watched him leave with another load of glass to empty into the garbage can.
Vic found herself woken up by a loud rattling sound. She opened her eyes and took in her surroundings. Her living room looked back to normal, all her knick knacks were in place, and the lights were back on. She let out a sigh of relief felt something hard under her head. She didn't remember sleeping on anything besides the couch. She glanced up and saw a sleeping Gajeel. Vic found herself resting in his lap and he dozed off. A loud snore erupted from his throat and she realized that that was the sounds that had awoken her.
She glanced up once more to see Gajeel grin in his sleep. He let ouf a jarbled grumble that sounded like 'Victoria.' She blushed and slowly sat up, so as not to wake him. Vic silently raised herself up off of the couch and stared at Gajeel. She didn't know what to do now. She felt awkward just standing there, staring at the sleeping man on her couch, so she decided to busy herself with making breakfast for Gajeel.
She had barely made it into the kitchen when she felt an arm snake around her waist.
"Morning Vic," Gajeel yawned.
"Morning. I was just going to make breakfast."
"Sounds perfect." Gajeel smiled one of his signature smiles. A smile that had the power to melt the insides of Victoria into goo if she stared at it for too long. She turned, trying to hide her blush, and started preparing breakfast.
