Disclaimer: I in no way, shape, or form own anything Fairy Tail.

Walk Away

They didn't suit each other. He was too rough, too cold, and too sharp around the edges. He always managed to mark her somehow, even when no one else was able to. He left bitter impressions on her legs, her arms, her neck. Never once did he comfort her after. She was continuous. She carried on as if nothing he did harmed her. She always stood back up, flowed into place, or moved the perfect step to let him counter and finish. Every time he touched her she took another piece of him, slowly eroding away his persona. He was not a prince, just as she wasn't a pillar of reliance.

That's why it was so easy for Gajeel to walk away from Juvia every time it happened.

She'd barely finished her third day at Phantom when they first met. Master Jose had extended his hand to her and accepted her into his twisted family, but she was still quivering with the fear of rejection. Everywhere she looked there were skeptical looks and harsh remarks about the gloomy weather. And then there was Gajeel. He had looked at her in a way she could not identify. Did he want her to leave, to take the rain and go someplace far away? She tried to ignore him as she moved to the request board. She had yet to pick what her very first mission would be, and the idea of being able to use her magic for gain struck a match of excitement inside of her.

She could still feel his eyes on her from across the guildhall, so she tried concentrating harder on the pieces of paper in front of her. It was no use; The sentences slowly bled together, the words for stopping an army of thieves mixing together with the plea to help translate ancient cursed ruins. Her befuddled mind kept tripping over the thought of a new nakama still staring, ever so intently, at the back of her skull.

She sucked in a shaking breathe and reached to pick at random. "Interesting choice," a voice purred over her shoulder.

She jerked back and turned to look at whomever had spoken: the Guild Master. "Jose-sama," she bowed her head respectfully, barely able to stop the smile on her face. Master Jose was her saviour.

"Fitting in well?" her saviour asked, a familiar glint in his eye. Where did she know it from?

"H-hai," she nodded nervously, not wanting to tell him that she was still alone. Still an outcast.

He moved a step towards her and her skin crawled for an unknown reason. She tried to look away, embarrassed by her suddenly feelings of discomfort in front of her saviour, but he raised a hand to her chin. "You know, Juvi-"

"Master Jose," his voice had been like silk to her ears. Silk being ripped over sharp nails and blunt screws, but silk nonetheless. "I was just going to show the newbie the regular request board." Both her and the Master moved to look at the newcomer, her eyes widened to see him. Him who had been looking at her, so intently. Him who's eyes carried some unknown emotion. Him who confused her.

Everyone ignored how she had been trying to pick an S-ranked mission.

"How..." the Master spoke carefully, stepping back from Juvia as he did. "Unexpected of you, Gajeel."

He managed a small shrug, staring down the Master with a smirk. "Someone's gotta do it. I'm sure that's what you were about to do too, right Master?"

The Master smirked back, though there was a glare in his eyes as well. "Of course, but if my prized guide member is offering, how could I refuse?"

She looked at them both, confused, and wondered what exactly was being silently said between the two. Master Jose certainly didn't look like he considered this boy (Man? Juvia questioned.) to be his prized guild member by the way he was glaring, but she had never been the best at reading people. And the boy's smirk, as if he knew something... then something clicked. She stared at the Master for a hard moment, recalling that glint in his eyes – the same glint that had been in the boy's. Gajeel, she thought, looking back up at him.

His black hair was long and wild down his back. His face gleamed with metal and malice. She could just make out a long canine in his smirk, and the dark aura of nonchalance he carried drew a shudder down her spine. But a shudder was much better than her skin crawling; She found herself inching around the Master and towards Gajeel, which made his smirk even bigger. "Guess we'll be going," he tossed the words into the air, a validation for whomever needed it. Then he grabbed her wrist hard enough to bruise and dragged her towards the doors of the guild.

At first she was too shocked to speak. First he had been staring at her, and now he was touching her. What was he thinking? What was wrong with this man? Did he not know what she was?

He pulled her out into the rain, not even flinching as the wetness slicked back his hair. The falling water brought her back to her senses. She pulled at his grasp, tried to get back to her own space, but he wouldn't let go. With a huff she dissolved into water and stayed still.

He growled as he turned around, scaring her. "We're not done yet."

"We haven't started anything, Gajeel-kun," she kept her voice flat, though she had to chew on her cheeks to do so.

"We're about to," he stepped towards her, and she stepped back.

"Wh... what do you mean?" She hesitated at the look in his eyes, the same one as before. The same one that was in the Master's.

"Don't play coy." He gruffed a laugh and reached for her wrist again.

She stayed as water. "Juvia isn't coy."

"Well, you're acting it!" His laughter turned to anger as he reached again. She stayed liquid to the touch. "Fine then, go back and let one of the other's have you instead."

She hesitated again, watching as he crossed his arms over his chest and closed his eyes. He took a couple of deep, steadying breathes before moving to turn away from her. "Wh-what do you mean..?"

He cracked an eye at her. "Didn't you realize?"

"Realize what?" Her voice shook. What was this game they were all playing with her? Why didn't she know the rules?

"Think about it," he sneered as he leaned towards her, arms still crossed over his chest. He huffed at his silence, and answered for her. "How many girls have you seen at the guild..?"

"I... um..." she thought back through the last couple of days. Had there been other girls? Surely there had been. "Ano... there's that one girl..."

"There's six female guide members," he interrupted her, raising four fingers and two thumbs to emphasize the point. "Seven," another finger rose, "if we include you."

"A-aa..." she stuttered over the vowel.

"And there's a lot of men here," he continued, an evil glint in his eye. "Lots of men who have been sharing six girls between them."

She could feel her cheeks flush at his implications. "O-oh..."

"I don't share," he ended. He crossed his arms again and stared at her, just as intently as before.

Juvia hung her head as she held herself in the rain, not able to find the energy for tears. This is my new guild, she reminded herself. I have been accepted here. They are my nakama. She looked up at Gajeel slowly. Inch-by-inch she eyed him over, starting at the steel studs in his boots and working up past his pierced arms to meet his red eyes. If I don't have my nakama, I won't have anyone... She took a step towards him, and he smirked.

After that no one else in the guild, not even the Master, was allowed to look at her like he did.

For the longest time it was the same. Whenever he stared at her like that, she knew what would happen. Whether she was eating in the guildhall, in the middle of a mission, or enjoying a walk in the rain he would be there, staring. And wordlessly she would go with him. Over a year of this passed before she started to stare as well.

He had been at home napping off his latest wounds when he heard the knock. He didn't bother getting up, just gave the door one of his signature glares before closing his eyes and trying to drift back off. Knock! Knock! Knock! He snarled as he stood up, his abdomen still bleeding as he limped to the door. He stopped briefly as he smelled her, but didn't let the spark of confusion stop him from yanking open the metal portal and standing in the door frame as he barked out "what!"

She didn't even react to his scream. "Gajeel-kun didn't stay at the guild," she told him simply, stepping around him and into his home uninvited.

"If you didn't notice," he growled lowly, slamming the door back shut behind her. "There happens to be a gaping hole in my side. Sorry I couldn't stay to please you." He frowned when she didn't blush. Teasing her was half the fun.

"Juvia noticed," she said easily, not stopping to look at him as she found his medical kit hidden away in his excuse for a kitchen. She'd been there often enough to know her way around. "Juvia will help you."

That caught him off guard. "I don't need help, Ameonna."

"Of course you don't," she took the kit with her as she navigated his small, messy apartment. Before he knew it she was sitting on his bed, hair still wet from the rain, looking at him expectantly.

He couldn't ever remember her looking at him expectantly before. Fearful, yes, more than a few times. He had bruised and bloodied her in ways other people would stay scarred for life, but her fluid body would absorb all the pain and leave her skin flawless in his wake. He'd seen her in ecstasy on similar occasions, muttering dark words into her ears about how she enjoyed the times he hurt her. He could recall the perfectly dark way her eyes would gloss over as he retold her some of the cruel, harsh things he had done to her while he pet and pleased her body at the same time. It was it's own torture in a way, a mental torture he enjoyed carrying out almost as much as the physical.

Once he had seen her cry. It had been way back in the beginning, the first time he ever tried using words to cause her turmoil. He'd laughed at her when he had finished fooling around with her, pinning her by the wrists as he moved to sneer into her ear. This is all you're nakama want you for. It started as a couple of tears, but before long those tears turned into shuddering howls. It had made him laugh harder to see her like that, but he also hadn't been able to touch her for the rest of the night. All of her tears weren't worth that.

Now though, she stared at him and waited. "What?"

"Sit down," she patting the bed next to her, and still stared.

It took him a moment to digest her words. He grumbled darkly even as he moved to comply, and sat next to her. She set to work silently pulling bandages, alcohol, gauze, and anything else she might need out of the kit and laying them neatly on the bed.

Neither of them spoke until she patted an alcohol-doused piece of gauze across his wound.

"Fuck!" He roared at her as he jumped away. "That fucking hurts!"

"Don't be a baby!" She snapped back at him. "Juvia is doing this to help Gajeel-kun." They stared at each other for another moment as he continued to seethe. Finally she gave out a sigh and turned away. "Besides, it probably hurts less than when Gajeel got the wound initially." He mused over that for a moment, but couldn't refute her logic. So he settled back down next to her, and the next time she patted the alcohol-doused gauze across his wound he hissed through his teeth and stiffed his shoulders to stay still so that she could finish. It wasn't until she was wrapping layer over layer of bandages across his abs and over his shoulder that she pursed her lips, muttering lightly about how she couldn't believe he had went and "gotten himself blown up."

He laughed. "Sure you can."

She froze for a moment. He watched as her eyes darted over his face, panicked, before she calmed down. "Juvia forgets at times how good your hearing is, Gajeel-kun." Then she finished, tying off the bandages and pulling away to put away all the excess medical supplies.

Gajeel watched her, just as intently as the first day he had seen her. And the same perverse thoughts floated through his mind, like they did every time he saw her. About how nice it would be to tear away those long, thick clothes and reveal mounds of skin underneath. About the sounds he could force her to make, despite how hard she tried to choke them back. About how he could break her. He was, after all, a man. And she was a pretty girl. One of seven he saw regularly, and the other six were already tainted by the foul smells and touches of the rest of the scum in the Guild.

He grabbed her waist as she tried to get up, presumably to put the medical kit back in the kitchen, and tugged her into his lap. He could feel his erection building, could smell a hint of her own anticipation. He pushed the medical kit out of her hands and it crashed open onto the floor. He didn't care. Hands pulled and tore and ripped at her clothes, trying almost desperately to even the playing field. After all, his mind piped up. She caught me in my underclothes, sleeping... this is hardly fair.

He'd just exposed her collarbone, his teeth pulling a shiver out of her neck as they rasped red marks across her skin, when she stopped him. Her delicate hands, so much smaller than his, pushed his arms away. She had just enough time while he was in a confused state to scurry up out of his lap. Turning, she looked at him with panting eyes.

"What are you doing?" His eyes narrowed at her, a frown scarring his face. He noticed, to his displeasure, that the marks on her neck were already fading back to a pristine porcelain.

"Gajeel-kun is hurt."

The deadpanned response did nothing to help his frustration. "You're going to be hurt too in a minute!"

And then she smiled. That smile baffled him, even if there was a tinge of fear in the air. "Next time, Gajeel-kun. Juvia will let you get better."

She had dissipated into water before he could react, slipping out of his home easily.

He cursed and yelled and screamed at his walls, not caring if he disturbed the outside world. Who was she to defy him? Who was she to tell him when he could have what he wanted? The answer was simple, easy, and settled in his mind as he fell back into bed, not bothered by the medical supplies still splayed across the floor. No one.

She didn't visit him in the weeks in took him to fully recover, and he didn't seek her out at the guild. Eventually their normal routine started again. He would see her from across the guildhall, or by the request board when he returned from a mission, or in the rain when he was walking home. His eyes would drift over her clothes that offended him so much, and she would shiver as she noticed him. Usually she would simply go with him, though occasionally she ignored the feel of his eyes and continued to do whatever it was that had been keeping her busy beforehand. Whenever she did he would scowl, but let slide.

It wasn't until someone else dared to look at her that he put a stop to everything.

It was during the turn between spring and summer, when the rest of the world was experiencing blue skies and warm breezes – the rain outside the guild had thinned into more of a mist, and it was almost pleasant. Gajeel knew that he wouldn't find Juvia in the guild that day. She would be out walking, enjoying the slight alteration in the weather. He wasn't bothered by it, just checked in that he had finished his mission and started heading home.

The streets were vacant. Scarcely a cat dared to cross his path in fear that he might be in a dark mood. And then he saw her. Juvia was at the street corner ahead of him, turned to smile at something out of his sight. He tried to remember the last time he'd had her: she'd been on her own mission for a couple of weeks before he left. His eyes lingered over the hand she used to hold up her umbrella. Long, slender fingers held onto the inanimate object in a similar way that she'd held other, more animate things, and Gajeel hardened as his eyes turned lustful.

She shivered and turned, feeling his gaze on her. Her smile turned into a frown, then she turned back to whatever it was she had been doing before.

He tried not to huff, stuffing his hands into his pockets as he continued to walk towards her. It's not my fault she's in my way, he told himself as he closed his eyes to avoid looking at her, but he couldn't stop her scent, sweet and clean, from wafting up into his nose as he drew nearer. He stiffened as a stronger, bitter scent mingled with it, and sped up to see what exactly it was around the corner that had captivated the rain woman.

It was a man. Boy, Gajeel thought venomously. He was staring at her in an all-too-familiar manner, though she didn't seem to notice. Just like she hadn't noticed the lustful looks Master Jose and the rest of the guild had given to her when she first joined Phantom. "Juvia," he snarled out before he could think, dropping a hand on her shoulder to drag her away from the offending man.

"Aa, bye!" Juvia called out, but let herself be pulled along by the dragon slayer. At least, until they were alone in the deserted streets. "Gajeel-kun!"

"Ameonna," he said evenly, still pulling her along. Then his hand lost it's grip, moving through cool liquid and meeting air. He tried not to growl in frustration as he moved to look at her. "We're not done yet."

"Juvia was busy!" She bristled, showing anger at him for the first time. It made his skin boil and his lust grow tenfold. He stalked towards her, moving so that when she tried to step away from him she bumped into the brick walls of a building. Careful not to touch her as he leaned forward, he braced himself against the bricks above her and inhaled more of her sweet scent. "Gajeel," she was frowning again, though her pupils were wide with anticipation of what he would do. "Juvia was talking to someone. Gajeel-kun interrupted."

"Fuck if I care," he hissed out. She looked away and exposed her neck to him at the same time. It only took him a moment to sink his teeth into her skin, pulling roughly on her earlobe and leaving bite marks on her jaw.

"G-Gajeel-kun!" She gasped out, her hands automatically grasping at his hair, his shoulders, his chest. "St... stop!" He didn't. Confident she wouldn't turn to water again, he worked on the fastenings of her jacket impatiently, fighting the urge to rip it open. (Last time he'd done that, she hadn't stopped bothering him until he bought her a new one.) It took agonizingly long seconds to reveal the smooth skin of her collar and the gentle slopes of her breasts. "Gajeel," her voice was caught somewhere between a whimper and a moan. "W-we... we're in public..!"

"Good," he grunted, leaving dark marks down her neck as he finished pushing her jacket open. Let them see, he thought darkly, hands crawling up under her thin shirt. Then maybe stupid fucking nobodies will stop trying to- Just as suddenly as he'd grabbed her, he stopped. He flinched away from her as if she had burned him and stood staring. She was left leaning against the brick building, a rumpled tank top barely hiding her lacy bra. All of it exposed because of his heated emotions.

Why did he care if she talked to someone? So what if they looked at her that way, it wasn't like they would actually get her. And why should he care? "I don't share." The statement hung between them, though he knew it was more to reassure himself than anything else. Juvia just stared; The comment confused her.

He watched in disdain as her liquid body soothed away the harsh purple marks he left on her skin. His eyes lingered for a long moment on her heaving chest, still trying to catch the breath he had stolen from her. And then he thought about someone else having her, and his skin started to boil again. He stayed still, mentally scoffing at himself. What, am I jealous? Of a stupid boy who probably can't even use magic? Then she started to move.

"Juvia was talking," she muttered slowly, shaky hands moving to refasten her jacket. "And Gajeel-kun interrupted." She walked past him wordlessly, heading back towards whatever it was she had been doing before. Gajeel let her leave. He would never be her prince, after all, and she was not a pillar for him to rely on. With one last frustrated snarl, he continued on his way home.

Whatever it was between them, it didn't happen again.