Hi guys! So sorry for the late update! It's been super crazy with holiday shopping and Christmas dinners and such and I just haven't been able to find the time. Thank you so much to all who reviewed! It just makes my day to see all your comments ^-^ Anyway, enjoy the chapter. I'll try to update on a regular basis from bow on but I make no promises. GaLe FOREVER!
The smell of pavement soaked with fresh rain was sharp in the air as Gajeel and Levy made their way through the quiet streets of Magnolia. The river sloshed up against the pathway barriers, overflowing into the streets in response to the earlier storm. Now the sky just gave way to a light trickle that pattered down around them, soaking their already freezing bodies. Gajeel had let go of Levi's hand somewhere between Fairy Hills and now, leaving Levi to shuffle quickly behind him in an attempt to keep up with Gajeel's larger stride. The end of the cloak that hung from Levi's slender shoulders trailed on the ground collecting mud but she couldn't bring herself to care. She was truly and utterly exhausted. The emotional roller coaster she had been on today was enough to leave her drained one hundred times over. Her feet dragged with each step as her body begged for sleep, while her gaze stayed fixated on the hypnotic passing of cobblestones inching past the farther she walked.
"We're almost there. You okay Shrimp?" Gajeel asked in a rather gruff tone. He wasn't one for prying into people's business but Levi honestly did not look alright. She was ghostly pail and the usual exuberance she carried with her had faded, leaving nothing but the zombie walking behind him. This whole night she had been acting off. He didn't like it. Where was the Levi who hit him with her purse on Tenroue? The brilliant bookworm who could take down enemies with a single word and mourn their defeat directly after. That's the way she was. Compassionate. Wise. Innocent.
His light in the dark.
"Eh? Yeah I'm alright. Just really tired. Honestly Gajeel I didn't know you lived this far away from the guild. We've been walking for almost an hour!" She picked absent mindedly at a freckle on her arm in an attempt to rid her of the nervous feeling creeping into her gut. Never once had she seen Gajeel's home. Juvia had suggested at one point following him, but she quickly declined. She was no stalker! God knows how much that had creeped Gray out when he discovered Juvia's little habit of trailing him like a shadow. Besides, Gajeel was a dragon slayer, he would sense her a mile away. Not like she had ever considered it. Ever. Honestly.
She could also guess why he lived this far away from Fairy Tail in the first place. In the beginning he had been hated by pretty much every member of their misfit family, albeit for good reason. He most likely didn't want to intrude on anyone by moving into their neighborhood. It made her sad. If only they had met under different circumstances.
"I like my privacy is all." Was all he said.
Again the sound of rain was all that was shared between them, which was fine with Gajeel. He had never been one for conversation. Most likely because he had never been blessed with any kind of social skills to speak of save enough to keep him from getting into shit. And even then sometimes that wasn't enough. But not her. She was his polar opposite. On a regular basis she used words that left him with a confused expression and a retort dying on his tongue. He wasn't smart enough for her. How could she possibly want to be with someone that couldn't even keep up with her conversation? He felt like an idiot around her. She was nothing but wit and seemingly endless knowledge about the world around her whereas he was just some thug that didn't deserve to be in the same sentence as her let alone be with her romantically.
The pair finally came up to a small house near the outskirts of town with a small patch of grass out front and a door made of iron (of course), rusted with time and use. It had a large windows on either side and the sidings looked to be in worse shape than the door. It wasn't a palace, but Levi couldn't imagine any other place she would want to be. She followed him to the door and watched as he pressed his finger against the lock and morphed it into a key. Clever, though she imagined that if anyone knew who this house belonged to then that would be security enough. With a swift click it was unlocked and Gajeel kicked it non to gently with his foot, sending it banging into the wall beside it. Levi just shook her head and smiled.
Inside was surprisingly larger than the outside, as she entered what appeared to be a mud room. The name took on new meaning as Gajeel shucked off his boots and they clattered to the floor, sending muck and grass splattering in all directions. Levi gently slipped out of her flats and placed them neatly by the entry way, then followed Gajeel into his home. As they walked into the living room, all Levi could see was piles and piles of iron. Pieces of scrap and gears and god knows what else was gathered into neat little piles around the room, scattered amongst the sparse pieces of furniture. A more in-depth look around and Levi noted a small rickety looking coffee table (most likely a foot rest) and a plush leather couch, worn and faded but comfortable looking. Gajeel moved through the labyrinth with ease while Levi found it somewhat difficult to navigate. She stepped on a stray screw and yelped, quickly grabbing her foot and pulling out the offending object.
"Damnit that hurt!" She grumbled with tears in her eyes. There was a small bead of blood already forming on the wound.
"Gajeel! You should have told me you were bringing someone home so I could have at least made it safe to walk through your junk yard. Levi hasn't been here for five minutes and she's already sustained an injury!" Came the deep voice of a slightly annoyed Pantherlily.
"I didn't know I was bringin anyone. Shrimp practically begged to come home with me." Gajeel replied with a wide grin, showing off his sharp canines. Though on closer inspection of Levi's foot his smile faltered. Lily led Levi to the couch and sat her down gently in order to inspect the small wound.
"I did NOT beg! I asked because I forgot my keys at-…when I went for a walk. I must have dropped them. And it was raining and cold!" Levi quickly tried to cover up her near mistake by loudly stating the last sentence. She didn't want Gajeel to know where she had been. He would suspect something if he didn't already and that would lead to questions. Questions she really didn't want to answer.
Gajeel might not have been book smart but he wasn't stupid. He knew she was hiding something. He had known it all night. But it wasn't his business, so if Levi didn't want to share then he wouldn't ask. Looking at her foot he also noticed that the small bead of blood had turned into somewhat of a ribbon trickling down from the arch of her foot past her heel. So with a huff he made his way to the bathroom cabinet where they kept their first aid. If anything it would need to be cleaned.
Meanwhile, Lily had gone to work applying pressure with a clean rag against Levi's foot, much to her embarrassment, and had opted for polite conversation with the petite script mage rather than scold Gajeel further.
"So I take it Gajeel was exaggerating about your enthusiasm over coming here" He said with small smile and laughter in his eyes.
"Very much. Although I'm grateful for the hospitality, I'd rather stay out in the rain than beg. Especially to him. He'd never let it go." She replied while shaking her head lightly. She loved talking with Lily. He had always proven to be so eloquent in the way he spoke and it put Levi at ease. While his vocabulary was not as extensive as hers, it was still nice to touch up on words she did not often get to use when speaking with other guild mates.
"You're probably right about that, though he would have dragged you back here kicking and screaming anyway knowing him. He's not one to let those he cares about suffer, even if it is a matter of pride or principal." Lily responded light heartedly. They had always inched around the relationship between Gajeel and herself with something between acknowledgment and caution. It had always been complicated between the two, and while Gajeel had never told Lily why, he still heard Gajeel talk in his sleep. He knew enough not to pry, though not enough to sate his curiosity. What a frustrating standstill. Lily chuckled at that. 'A frustrating standstill' was actually a perfect definition of the two.
"I suppose..." Levi said, quietly surveying the room in greater detail. There were no pictures on the cream coloured walls and no real tokens of memory placed anywhere she could see. The floor was hardwood, though various scuffs and scratches had been engraved with the dragging of large iron parts. It felt broken in and worn. It felt like home.
Levi was suddenly taken back to a place lived so long ago she thought that time had all but eroded it from her memory. A book case that reached all the way up to their eight foot ceiling, packed with various tomes and writings from hundreds upon hundreds of authors. Fantasy, science fiction, horror, non-fiction and even a small nook of romance novels for her mother. Her mother. A small woman with wild blue hair and tawny eyes that looked so much like her own reaching down to her face with those soft, slender hands. Chasing her fears away with a voice as soothing and full of comfort as hot chocolate on a snowy day, she spoke.
"They can never take it away honey. No matter how far you fall, no one can ever take it from you"
"Take what mama?"
"Knowledge, Levi. Knowledge."
"Oi, you alright? It was Just a screw, couldn't have hurt that much."
"Gajeel!" Lily whispered harshly.
Levi looked up, slightly confused until she realized her cheek felt wet. There were tears streaming down her face. And in front of him! Levi's face went ablaze with a deep crimson blush that seemed to reach all the way down her neck.
"I-I…Well it did hurt Gajeel! You shouldn't leave screws laying everywhere on the floor. Not everyone has skin as tough as yours you know..." She trailed off looking anywhere but at the iron dragon slayer's face. She could feel him staring. Lily to, but she just didn't have an explanation. She had thought those memories to be long faded after she locked them in a box at the back of her mind that read "Do not open under any circumstances". Damn unreliable box.
Gajeel looked slightly taken aback by her statement, mumbling a gruff "sorry" before handing the first aid kit to Lily, who simple bandaged her foot with a practiced hand that could only have come from many battles. Lily knew when not to ask questions, and this was certainly one of those moments. The look on Levi's face when she had all but spaced out in front of him had been something only a painful memory could bring about. He didn't know what had unearthed it, but he had enough of his own to know she needed a distraction.
"If Gajeel could show you up to his room, I'll prepare the couch. A guest should have a bed to sleep in and mine is much too small. Gajeel?"
At this Gajeel simply shrugged and turned towards the staircase at the end of the hall. Levi quickly got up and followed, feeling a little bad for snapping at him. Her foot didn't really hurt that bad, only stung a little. And now there was a very awkward sort of tension between the two of them. They made their way up the stairs to a small hallway with three doors.
Lily shook his head gently. Those two honestly had to get together soon, otherwise he was pretty sure Mira and every other female member of their guild was going too physically force them together. He laughed whole heartedly at the thought of Mira putting all of her efforts towards personally making sure they became a couple. If she didn't, she was going to lose their bet, he thought with a smirk.
Gajeel lead levy down the hall to the very end door and kicked it open with practiced ease. There was a dark boot scuff in roughly the same place as he kicked, so she guessed he wasn't one for opening doors normally. What was inside the room didn't necessarily surprise her, but it wasn't exactly conventional bedroom clutter. Strewn half hazardly throughout the room was even more iron than downstairs, and in a much less orderly fashion. Against the far wall was a large bed underneath a small window that overlooked the street below. By the light tinting the sky outside she knew it wasn't quite dawn, but it wouldn't be long. Levi didn't care. She was all too suddenly aware of the ache in her feet and the tiredness in her limbs to think about anything other than sleep.
"Blankets are clean along with the sheets. I changed 'em before going out on my mission. Bathroom is the middle door down the hall." He said shortly. Levi looked up and saw him turn to leave.
"Wait! I-I didn't mean to snap at you earlier! It didn't really hurt that much…I just…" She couldn't finish her sentence. What was she supposed to say? She was falling apart at the seams and couldn't get a grip on the thread? That she had just received news she had been dreading for her entire life only a few short hours ago and now she had no idea what to do with herself? That all she wanted him to do was grab her and kiss her and throw her onto the bed behind her like in the romance novels stacked up on her bedside table? She didn't know. So she said the only thing that she could without losing it completely.
"Please don't go..." was said in barely in a whisper.
Gajeel turned around and faced her with a furrowed brow but no agitation in his face. He merely looked at her with what she thought to be a cross between confusion and concern. But he did not leave. Instead he just picked her up princess style, much to Levi's utter surprise and dropped her down onto the bed with a loud squeak. Then, bringing the covers up to her neck, he laid beside her on top of the blanket and folded his arms behind his head.
"I aint mad. And I'll stay if ya want me to. Damn crazy midget." He said as he closed his eyes.
Pulled from her initial shock by his voice, Levi beamed a genuine smile at him and snuggled deep into the comforter. Before she closed her eyes she faintly noted the scent of Gajeel surrounding her and sweeping her off to a hopefully dreamless sleep.
As soon as Levi's breathing evened out nice and slow, Gajeel cracked open an eye and looked over at her. This damn woman was fucking frustrating. First she asks to come to his place, then she's crying and then she berating him for leaving out his stuff in his house like it was some kind of problem. Though he did feel bad about the screw. He would have to throw that one out. But what was with the tears anyway? The look on her face had been so…painful. Gajeel had felt his stomach sink down to his feet the second he saw the first tear slide down her face. He hated it when she cried. He had seen her do it only a few times and even that was too many. And the thought of him being the one to cause it made him feel even worse.
Gajeel hoped that whatever was troubling Levi would resolve itself with a good night's sleep, because he honestly had no idea what was wrong otherwise. It was the reason he had all but tossed her onto his bed in order for her to get to sleep as soon as possible. Though he supposed he would get cold without any type of blanket, he just didn't trust himself. He didn't want to take advantage of Levi, but with all long legs and creamy, flawless skin, he was pretty sure sleeping under the covers with her was a bad idea. With one last look at the bewildering woman beside him sleeping soundly, Gajeel closed his eyes and surrendered himself to exhaustion.
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