Most of Fiore was outside for the event. The red moon that appeared once every fifty years for a few seconds of blinding red light, illuminating the night sky in colours few would even be able to name; a burst of colour that old people still warned would burn the eyes out of your skull if you watched it directly. Fiore still celebrated it with a festival, though modern times treated it as an excuse to get drunk outdoors and eat food till you got sick. In Fiore, the celestial event used to be celebrated as a religious holiday. The old scriptures marking the blinding red moon as a sign of the gods exiling evil from the land. The moon a portal it would periodically be banished through as a gift to mankind.
But those were just stories. Old superstition. Depending on where in Fiore you were, some stories would even say the opposite, that the red moon didn't mark the banishment of evil... rather it's entry.
But it was all rubbish. The moon was just the moon. And the magical light was just discharged energy from the setting of the sun while certain stars aligned. All very scientific.
But thousands of years later, one excuse for a party was as good as any other. Traditionally, if it fell during a warm evening people often held barbeques; the traditional blood moon barbeque.
Mira had been planning Fairy Tails for a month, praying for good weather and a clear sky. The last time this had happened Makarov had been a younger man, and he told them there'd been heavy overcast and no one that side of Fiore had seen a damn thing but slightly pink cloud.
The white haired demon must have been owed favors because all the weather reports were saying that this time round, they'd have a cloudless night sky.
"Do you think Gajeel will turn up?"
Levy pulled her nose out of the novel she was only half reading to blink stupidly at Lucy.
"Free food and alcohol, why wouldn't he?"
Lucy snorted, eyebrow raised.
"Well, you're in charge of decorating, so you have to be there, and I thought you said he was avoiding you these days?" Lucy asked.
Levy sighed, putting her book away. This was going to be one of those conversations that spiralled away with the time. She could feel it.
"He's not avoiding me... he just...I give him his space," Levy replied.
"Aha! So you're avoiding him! " Lucy pointed a finger accusingly at her. A lavacious grin pulling dangerously at her face.
"Don't be so dramatic, no one is avoiding anyone," Levy realised she might have been pouting and frowned at her blonde friend for dragging her into this conversation to begin with.
"Do you want me to start asking why you complain about Natsu sneaking in through your bedroom window every night, and it never once occurs to you to close it?" Levy shot Lucy a suggestive look. "Almost as if you like it?"
Lucy held up her hands.
"I solemnly swear to never mention it again...just keep your voice down before Míra catches wind," Lucy pleaded with a snort. She'd never hear the end of it.
Levy checked the time.
"So what are you doing for the party?" Lucy had heard a couple of conflicting stories from members of the decorating committee Erza had helped set up.
"The guys want an outdoor karaoke competition so I offered to help set up the stage..." Levy said, happy that Lucy wasn't talking about her and Gajeel's relationship anymore. Or rather, the absence of anything of the kind in this case; it would have been a stretch to have even called them friends. In the time since he joined, they'd barely spoken.
Levy herself wasn't even quite sure she was ready to move passed having the crap kicked out of her and being crucified. The occasional nightmare left her waking abruptly, sweaty and with the memory of his calloused fingers harshly tracing the phantom lord symbol on her abdomen. A cruel, somewhat manic grin plastered across an altogether uncaring face. The only reason she even gave him the time of day was a deep sense of professional courtesy.
With streamers and balloons conjured, Levy found herself supervising a very easy to direct Elfman with the stage assembly.
"Can you hoist it a little higher, Elfman?" Levy asked, using solid script magic to materialise the supports underneath the floor of the enormous new stage. Natsu climbing it immediately only to jump up and down on it in some ridiculous attempt to test its structural integrity.
"Lookin' good, Lev!" He called down to her, two thumbs up in approval.
"Will you get down, it hasn't been secured yet," She shouted back and Natsu hopped down smirking.
Her conversation with Lucy still fresh on her mind, Levy took sudden note of Gajeel watching them all and pretending not to; the man noisily chewing on something that rang like steel between his teeth. Stupid Lucy! Stupid bloody Gajeel, too! Were the only thoughts she could formulate at the minute.
The next strut she made too hastily, and the damn thing ended up a few inches short of the rest, a corner of the stage sagging a little when Elfman let it down again.
"Oh... shit!" She muttered, her head swivelling like a dolls in Gajeel's direction, swearing she heard him laugh.
"Don't worry, Levy, moon is coming out, we can fix it later! Come on!" Elfman said, excitedly moving off in the direction of the others who'd started gathering on the grass behind the guild. Eager faces waiting for the red moon. Makarov was among them but even he hadn't seen the last one.
"Be there in a second," She said with a smile. It was an easy fix, the struts visible and exposed without skirting, with plenty of space to manoeuvre underneath. It wouldn't take her more than a minute.
She pouted a little to realise she didn't even need to crawl under it, only bend. She was really that small.
Gripping the support she traced the word 'grow' on its surface satisfied as it lengthened to the correct proportions. There were a sudden chorus of happy, awe filled exclamations from the others and she stood upright in her rush to see the moon, hitting her head somewhat painfully, she grit her teeth in frustration as the others started clapping and laughing signalling the end of the brief spectacle and a once in a lifetime opportunity to witness the celestial event, sacrificed for absolutely no reason.
Levy punched one of the struts wincing at the painful ache it left in her hand.
"I'm a moron," She whined out loud.
It would have been just as easy to wait a few minutes, come back afterward. What the hell was wrong with her priorities? Levy felt like pulling out her hair in frustration. Her focus was just all over the place.
She even might have done that, if suddenly she hadn't felt the stage shift. The structure rock in a way that made her gulp. It would have been tempting to think her little punch did it but she knew it wasn't that. Under her feet a vibration had started building up, growing until she found standing up straight difficult. Levy reached for one of the supports and held on for dear life.
"EARTHQUAKE!" She heard Erza yell from the crowd still sitting in the grass and barely an instant later the stage slipped off its incompletely attached supports, collapsing in on her. A chain reaction rippling from the edge of the far side and moving in.
Something hard hit as she was swallowed in the darkness, the wind knocked clean out of her. Cracking an eye open she found herself blind but the whisper of breath across her face and the feeling of being pinned spoke volumes about how she'd survived being crushed by a falling stage.
'LIGHT' She traced in the air with a free finger, about the only thing she could move, and almost wished she hadn't as she found red eyes inches from hers, Gajeel staring down at her, expression something close to embarrassed as he realised he couldn't move either, all but crushed to the tiny mage under him, iron flesh the only thing taking the weight above them and preventing a very squishy, very messy death. She cast her vision to the side and saw that he was propped on his elbows, arms either side of her head, the length of his body pressed hard between her legs, crushed by the weight above.
"Oh... wow this is awkward," Was all she found she could say as red hot fire burned its way across her cheeks.
"I'd...crack a joke if this didn't fuckin' hurt so much," Gajeel wheezed, barely able to draw breath to laugh, legs going numb, but Levy was close enough to see the quick upturn in his mouth and glint in his eyes that told her that he might not have been as uncomfortable as he made it seem.
She tried to move, wriggle and work her way out from underneath him but his gaze seemed to narrow and she felt something new press against her.
"Really?" She growled low, absolutely unimpressed to find herself in this new, even more embarrassing predicament. "We almost got crushed to death?"
"You're squirming like a fish down there, ain't as if I can help it," Gajeel said unapologetically though he looked away, avoiding eye contact for the minute.
"Pervert... " Levy grumbled.
"Yeah, well next time I let the stage fall on yah, how 'bout that?" He bit back. "I just saved your ass from becoming a Fairy fucking pancake, maybe you.. should be.. thanking me," He struggled with the weight between breaths before he seemed to resign himself to the reality that he just wasn't able to lift it alone.
Levy stilled. Gajeel had saved her life. Gajeel. She couldn't fathom why he'd even been close enough, when everyone else had been watching the moon from the grass. Close enough to see her predicament and swoop in to her rescue.
"You're right... "Levy admitted with no small measure of shame. She'd shown him the opposite of gratitude." Thank you.." She restrained herself from moving all that much. "You know, I could probably make something I can enlarge to lift it off us," She said thoughtfully.
"I wouldn't recommend shiftin' this thing. I'm holdin' it up only cause it's still in one piece. This thing breaks up, we're both screwed," Gajeel said and she took his word on it.
"Okay, well I can at least take some of the weight off you," Skilled fingers moved and two new supports formed beside them. Gajeel sighed in relief, all but collapsing down on her before realising their risqué position and pushing himself up again.
"What about your magic?"
"Presently keepin' nails outta my kidneys and my legs from gettin' crushed ," Gajeel groaned somewhat amusingly. "Just my luck for drinkin'," He looked Levy in the eye. Alcohol free he might have had the ability to work the structure off them carefully, but as it stood, he'd more than likely just drop the thing on their heads. "Sorry, short stuff, we're here till they dig us out."
"How long do you think before they get to us?" She couldn't quite keep the tremor of fear out of her voice, a silent 'or notice we're gone' hanging unspoken.
"If it were just me, I'd probably be sayin' my prayers right about now but you they'll actually look for, so doubt it'll be long," He smiled like that was funny.
"Don't say that like they wouldn't be looking for you, too," Levy said, mildly offended at the implication that they'd value one member over another. That her life was intrinsically more important.
"Hey, don't take that the wrong way, they're right," Gajeel said with authority. A comment that made Levy honestly furious.
She started wriggling and squirming again and Gajeel groaned, Levy couldn't tell if it was exasperation or something else. For a brief flash of temper she reckoned she no longer cared.
"What the hell?" He grit out. "Quit it! What the fuck are yah tryin' to do to me, woman?"
"I'm getting out of here so I can kick your ass, Gajeel Redfox!"
The entire stage rattled he laughed so hard, caught entirely off guard by the sentiment. He honestly had never thought she would be this much of a spitfire.
"Is that so?" He asked her trying to catch his breath.
She puffed out her cheeks, now flaming red for a whole other reason. Putting her hands against his chest she pushed with everything she had but as stubborn as she was there was no way him or the stage were budging.
Levy gave up with a miserable sigh, pulling her hands back sharply when she realised she'd let them linger against toned muscle just a little too long.
"You're wrong about them. If you really thought they were like that, you wouldn't have joined. You're a good person, " Levy was firm. Now it was Gajeel's turn to look a little put out. As though being good were in actuality a bad thing.
"Seem pretty sure about that, shrimp," There was a dark flicker growing in his gaze, something that left her insides fluttering. Fear... excitement? She couldn't be sure but it made her heart start racing. "Good people don't inspire fear," He warned, lowering his head just a fraction closer into her already limited personal space. He was toying with her. Despite knowing that with certainty his presence was intimidating at best.
"Who says I'm afraid?" She fired back with all the backbone she could muster.
Gajeel made a show of dipping his head to her shoulder and breathing deep. A move that made her yelp in shock.
"No point lying, I can smell it," He pulled back smirking at the tremor that ran through her at that.
"Well, I'm trapped under a falling stage, inches from being crushed to death... not entirely unexpected, you know!"
"I think that's a lie," He bit out stubbornly.
It was at that exact point in time that she knew he might have possibly been punishing himself. This was his attempt to push her away. Make her afraid. Lily was the only one he was close with. And she now understood that maybe that was because he'd never seen the old Gajeel. Gajeel was ashamed and had absolutely no idea how to cope with his past. Levy felt pity for him suddenly.
Whatever Gajeel had been thinking, or thinking about doing died when her lips met his cheek. Red eyes bulging with shock, he pulled back so fast he hit his head hard on the wood above him.
Levy narrowed her eyes, a victorious grin pulling at her mouth.
"Tell me I'm afraid of you, now, dumbass, " She challenged him with a smile while he hovered above her, blinking like a startled owl. Caught off-guard by the odd, and very unexpected response to what he would consider as blatant intimidation.
"Ehhh.. " Was all he was able to say while oxygen starved parts of Levy's normally sharp brain began kicking into gear to remind her, that yes, she had just done that. And just to prove a point, too. Who exactly was she these days?
Gajeel was silent, and for a long, arduous second Levy was genuinely concerned, but his attention had shifted from her and the collapsed stage started to groan around them, the wood came away, splintering into a thousand pieces, freeing them from the oppressive, crushing weight. Instantly she recognised Gildart's crash magic.
"Oh thank Mavis," Levy muttered in thanks as Gajeel hastily rolled himself off her. Getting her first greedy gulp of fresh, cool air. The back of his shirt and trousers were ripped pretty badly.
"LEVY! Are you okay?"
The script mage looked at Gajeel's back as he beat a hasty retreat, there was a smile trying to force its way through at the thought of him. She barely held in check.
"Yeah.. we're okay."