A/N: First of all, this story has MAJOR spoilers for the Tenrou Island arc. (The current arc in the anime if that's all you are familiar with) and I haven't broken it up or anything so be warned! Second thing, I changed the fact that Levy was the one picked for the S-Class exam. I thought it would be more interesting if Gajeel was the one chosen. Third thing, this entire story (with the exception of the second to last sentence) is written in third person from the direct point of view of Gajeel, so that's why there's little to no insight on what other characters are thinking or feeling :] Last thing, Gajeel uses erm… colorful language. That's just the way I envision him. If that offends you then, well, be warned ^^
Fairy Tail ©Hiro Mashima
It hurt to laugh.
"Even Lucy did pretty good! I mean, I didn't think she would do much, but then she summoned that goat—"As he listened to Salamander and his rag-tag team of shitheads re-tell their encounter with Hades, he wanted to laugh, but it hurt.
"Excuse me? Trying to say I'm useless? Hm? Are you forgetting I'm the one that saved your precious scarf?" The blonde was pretty easy on the eyes, but goddamn if she wasn't annoying as all hell.
"You did what now?"
"ARE YOU KIDDING ME?"
Unfortunately, Gajeel couldn't hold in his laughter as the squabble began and then escalated into a one-sided slap-fight. They were idiots, sure, but they were hilarious idiots. Slowly, he began to slink back from the crowd. He was having a hard time holding up the facade of being perfectly fine. Despite the fact that the Tree had been restored, he was in an insurmountable amount of pain. He found a tree root to rest on for a bit, took a look around before realizing that said tree root gave him a direct view to that little Sky Dragon girl, formerly-known-as-dead girl, and Levy. As they talked, every once in a while she'd cringe in pain, making sure the others didn't see her do it. He stared, and stared, and stared, (being the tactless man he was) making no attempts to hide it. This makes the second time Levy was seriously hurt, the direct cause being him.
His right hand tensed into a fist. Fucking goddamnit.
Why the hell did he ask her to be his partner in the first place? All he had to do was ask someone else. Anyone else. And Levy would be back at the guild, reading her little boo— Shit.
Just then, she turned her head a bit too far, and noticed him there. They locked eyes, for exactly three seconds. Three long seconds. Gajeel counted every one. And yet, as soon as the last second ran up, it was over, and felt less than an instant. Levy went back to her conversation and Gajeel glared at the dirt beneath him.
"Feeling any better yet?"
Gajeel raised an eyebrow at his cat before going back to tactlessly staring at Levy. "Still feel like a steaming pile of shit. Thanks."
Lily climbed onto his shoulder, having the same vantage point as his partner. "We still talking about your wounds?"
Gajeel's brow subconsciously furrowed, thinking he was ignoring the question. "She didn't want to leave. I was as good as dead and she was next, but I could tell she didn't want to go when I practically fucking begged her to," he clenched the root he was sitting on. "Watching those sons of bitches lay their grimy hands on her… I don't even know why, but I swear to God I feel like I've never been angrier." He then noticed his cat was smiling. He hated when Lily smiled like that. "What the hell's so funny, cat?"
"Nothing! Nothing at all." Lily cleared his throat. "She looks fine now. A little roughed up, but I'm sure she'll be fine. That's the important thing, right?"
"That ain't the point, cat. This is twice now that she's been hurt 'cause of me—"
"Oh, hush, don't start with all that nonsense. Of all people to be so melodramatic, I would hardly think you'd be one of them."
"Wait a goddamn minute, I'm not—"
"We've gone through this," Lily continued, without skipping a beat. "The past is the past. Levy has long since forgiven you for it, from what you told me. And if you think for one minute that this last event has any sort of bearing on your relationship in a negative way, you need to put your head on straight. Instead of wallowing in angst, you should look at this as an opportunity. Maybe you can figure out why what happened to her made you so explicitly angry?"
There was that shitty smile again. Gajeel didn't like it, not one bit. "What the hell do you mean, 'figure it out'? What's there—"
"Speaking of which, I've got to… go over here now. See you in a bit!" with that, Lily sprouted his wings and started to fly towards the main crowd.
The hell was that about? "Get your ass back here! I wasn't finished!"
"Gajeel?"
He froze. Did someone seriously just sneak up on him like that? Were his wounds fucking with his senses? He turned, and there was Levy, bandaged and smiling. That goddamn crafty cat…
"Can I sit?" She kept smiling at him. But not in a shitty way like Lily did. He actually liked it when Levy smiled at him. Wait, what?
He silently moved one of his hands closer to him to give her a little more room.
She paused, looking at her feet before taking a breath and beginning to speak again. "I'm sorry." Still no eye contact.
"What?"
"I'm sorry. If I hadn't acted like such a child and run off, I never would have run into those thugs from Grimoire Heart and you would never have gotten hurt so badly…"
Is she serious? "Wait, wait, wait. You think this is your fault? Listen, none of what happened was your fault. If we hadn't run into those two bastards, it was only a matter of time before we came across another Grimoire Heart shithead. Don't you even try to make any of this out to be your fault. Is that why you've been acting so weird with me?"
"Well… sort of. I mean you've been acting weird, too! I thought maybe you were upset with me because of how I was acting before all that happened, or… because you had to come after me…"
"Well, shit, I should never have asked you to come with me in the first place—" Levy's eyes got really big. And sad. Gajeel would never have admitted it, but his heart shattered looking at her. "T-that's not what I meant! Stop. Stop doing that, goddamnit. Look, what I meant was, I don't want you hurt. I don't like seeing you hurt. If I could fucking go back in time and never ask you to be my partner, I would, because it would mean I wouldn't have to see you like this, and I wouldn't have an image of you screaming in agony etched into my brain." He suddenly had the urge to look away. "That's… that's what I meant." He sat in silence, staring intently at the ground, waiting for her to respond, to say or do anything at least. A few moments passed, and he felt something small and warm on his hand.
"You really are a good person, Gajeel," by this point he was looking right at her. He couldn't believe how soft her tiny little hand was. "I'm glad you picked me as your partner. Sure, everything, er, hurts right now, but I wouldn't want you to change a thing." That smile again. The smile he liked.
"Yea, alright, no need for all—" Just then he abruptly turned his head away for what he thought would be a small cough, but turned out to be a very serious hacking up of blood. Fantastic.
"Oh God, are you okay? Is that… I mean has that happened before?"
"Oh yea, it's been happening for the past three hours. If you're squeamish I wouldn't hang around me until I get completely fixed up, if I were—" Just then, she grabbed him by the chin, and her face was very, very close to his, "—you…"
"I thought all this blood was from wounds on your face, I can't believe this is all just from you coughing it up…" she murmured as she softly dabbed around his mouth, chin and neck with a sash.
The hell is she doing so close to my face? "Well… I…"
"Have you seen Wendy yet? This is really serious. Your other hand is covered in blood, too! Let me see…" She then reached over him, grabbed his hand, and began to clean it in his lap. Her hands were in his lap. Levy's hands. Her soft, tiny little hands.
Goddamnit. This was the part where Gajeel was supposed to say, 'Stop fussin' over me, Short Stack,' or 'I can take care of myself, hands off, kid.' Instead, he sat, absolutely still, absolutely silent, intently watching her hands at work.
"Well, I think that's as clean as it's gonna get with this old sash," she gave his hand one last pat before she pulled away, folding up her cloth. "I'm not much of a medic, but at least I could help you get cleaned up a bit! I'll get Wendy over here so she can help with healing yo—"
"No."
Levy blinked like a little goldfish. "Gajeel, wh—"
"I don't want that runt comin' over here yet." Levy was still clearly confused, and with good reason. Not even Gajeel knew what the hell he was trying to say. "I don't need to be healed right now. You can stay here, that's enough."
Levy's confusion slowly morphed into a sweet and faintly sly smile. "Deal." With that, she closed what little distance left between them on the tree root.
"My other hand needs cleaning, too," he added, absolutely straight-faced. "Hop to it, Shrimpy."
She laughed, shaking her head in disbelief as she took the hand closest to her. "Yea, alright, it's not going anywhere, be patient, will you?"
They sat in silence: a comfortable silence that was long and pleasant, broken up only by Levy's occasional humming. The kind of silence Gajeel liked. This time, his hand was perched on her leg. Her very bare leg. Gajeel found he was having mixed feelings about this. First and foremost she had the softest skin he'd ever touched. On the other hand… he wanted to carry on staring intently at her hands and what she was doing, but at the same time it was a… dangerous general area to be fixated on. After deliberating for a while he decided to mostly look away, and sneak glances every now and then.
He turned his head to cough again, thankfully without blood this time, despite the fact that it sounded every bit as disgusting. Levy immediately stopped what she was doing and concern started to overtake her features. She abruptly stood, this time more determined than the last, "We really need to find Wendy. I'll g—"
Just then, he grabbed her by the wrist just as she began to turn away. "I'll find her, when I'm ready. I meant what I said earlier, so do me a favor and park your ass right here."
Levy seemed embarrassed as she sat back down. "O-okay, Gajeel. I'm sorry, I'm just really worried, an—"
"Less talking, more what we were doing before."
Giggling yet again (Gajeel couldn't figure out what exactly he'd been doing this whole time to get her laughing so much, but he decided to let it slide), she went right back to work
"Yea, alright, metal-brain, don't get your panties in a knot."
He grinned that signature mischievous grin of his. "There she is, the Levy I remember." He liked it when she was a little feisty. She was like a tiny yapping dog. A little barking dog with a really great ass—Where the hell did that just come from? Come to think of it, Gajeel noticed that thoughts like that had been occasionally popping into his head months before he even knew about these exams and considered asking Levy to accompany him. Not that he was a skeezy bastard, but he just happened to enjoy the female form. More recently, Levy's female form. He thought about it some more. Sure, she was nice to look at, but so were a lot of the other women at Fairy Tail. He felt like a chud for merely thinking something so painfully sappy, but, well… she was different.
"…I mean, they're family. Master is so kind, there has to be a place in his heart to forgive him, you know? …Gajeel?"
"Who?"
"Laxus! Were you even listening?" Levy did this thing where her lips would sort of… bunch up to one side of her mouth when she was cross. Gajeel found it adorable. The hell? I find things adorable?
Nevertheless, he couldn't help cracking a smile. "Yea. Lighting-boy. Kinda psycho…. Oi, oi, who said you could stop?"
She smiled at him once again, though this time it lasted a little longer, and it was… a little different. Gajeel didn't know how, exactly, but it was. He had the urge to look away for some reason. Thankfully she continued before long and Gajeel was free to stare at her tactlessly while she was occupied.
Unbeknownst to him, Levy knew what he was doing, She felt his eyes. But it wasn't unnerving, it was pleasant. Warm. Comforting. But she decided it certainly wouldn't hurt to play dumb for a while. "I think Laxus is a good person at heart, he just seems to have lost…"
Gajeel then allowed his mind to wander again about Levy. Her habits. Their friendship. And her tiny little hands.