Some random fanfiction written to distract myself from the monotony that is my job. Will continue. Enjoy.
SSS
After she dies, he disappears for three months. They search for him, but when he is finally brought home, broken and half dead, it is on Pantherlily's shoulders. They lose the exceed shortly after that, and they have to do their best not to lose the wizard as well. In the absence of those closest to him, it is Erza who forces him to eat, food for his healing body and iron for his depleted magic. It is Lucy and Grey who treat his wounds and seal his bones back together and Wendy who sits with him through the fevers that follow. And it is Natsu who, when his body is mended, forces him back to his feet.
"C'mon man, they wouldn't want you to just lie here and let yourself die! So you know what you're gonna do? You're gonna get up, and go the board, and get back to work."
So he does. He takes a job, and another after it. And another. And each time he returns, he comes back a little more broken.
"Gajeel?" Lucy wraps her knuckles against his door, hesitant despite how often she's done it. He wishes she wouldn't; that they would go away and not intrude on his pain. But if they did…
"Go away." his voice is rough and guttural, and she pushes the door open at the sound.
"We're here to help."
He doesn't move from where he's lying on his bed, still dressed in tattered clothes, and doesn't turn his head as the door bumps gently against the wall. The light shining through the window illuminates the dried blood covering his neck, and throws the odd angle in which his arm is bent into sharp relief.
"Don't want your help."
This too, has become routine. He never wants their help, never invites it, but he won't resist it either. As though, no matter how much he would welcome death, a part of him knows he should at least try to go on and fights to do so.
"They wouldn't want you to just lie down and die!"
Their images haunt him every day. Every moment. Levy's smile. The feel of her in his arms. Lily's dry tones and sly grins. He can't even escape in sleep; not when they haunt his dreams even more vividly than his waking hours. He hasn't really slept in months.
He doesn't look at Lucy as she helps bandage the wound on his throat, or at Grey as he yanks his broken arm straight and encases it in a cast of ice to keep it stable. As they put him back together, so he can go out again and tear himself a little further apart.