A/N: Ya'll want a chapter about dragon dudes talking their issues out w/ a side of fluff?

There is a brief mention of severe child abuse in this chapter. Skip over Cobra talking about the Tower guards if you want to avoid this. You've been warned.

"Dragons are found across all biomes. While there are notable examples of dragons living among non-draconic populations, dragons are still found predominantly in areas of wilderness. Habitat use by dragons is strongly correlated with the abundance of prey, absence or low livestock densities, road densities, human presence and topography." ~ Dragon Historia, pg 10

Chapter Fifteen: Twitterpated Trust

Cobra had a lot to think about on the long train ride.

He debated if he was going to be properly dressed for the cool weather that yellowed the edges of leaves on trees that blurred past. Backup shirts and shoes he had, unfortunately his favorite coat had been left in another dimension. He'd had to buy a new one before he left, which had cut into his already slim budget. Unlike his last one, his new jacket had a hood. It was still white, with silver triangular patterning in a stripe down the arms, on the hem of the hood, and on the edge of the coattails. It fit looser around his middle than his previous one did, the fabric was lighter in comparison, and the coattails were slit up the sides to his hips - which, all together, made for easier movement.

His fingers idly reached up to play with his earrings, which were back where they belonged, his ears properly hidden once again. Cobra didn't expect the enchantment to be broken, but after Porlyusica had removed them while he was unconscious he wasn't taking chances; it was obvious that he was not a favorite patient and she was anything but a sweet old lady. The hood was a nice backup in the event they stopped working.

It wasn't bad enough that he had to take an overnight train, enduring the heavy clacking and voices in distant cars, but, from what the Rain Woman had told him, this place where Gajeel would be lurking was a good distance on foot from the station. Out past a little village called Eyden, which Cobra had only ever seen as a speck on maps. Which begged the question of how the fuck had Gajeel found this place to begin with.

Could he have picked a place further out in the sticks? Cobra silently griped, pressing his forehead against the glass of the train car window. … At least it'll be quiet.

It was doubtless that Gajeel would probably want an answer about their "team". It was honestly the first time Cobra had a say in who he was on a job with. He couldn't deny that they were… decently efficient together.

Normal people eventually found him off-putting, but not the iron idiot. Gajeel rolled with the verbal punches Cobra dealt and gave some right back.

It's about the money, Cobra decided. He needed to save up to get a place of his own and with the bigger pay from two-man jobs it would happen sooner. It was about the Jewels earned, not the arrogant First Gen and how easy and fun it was to run circles around him. It was about the Jewels, not the way Gajeel had his back. It was about the Jewels, and not the way that moron's stupid, sincere, toothy grin made his own mouth curve and his heart skip a beat. How that night felt so different...

Cobra grit his fangs, shaking his head in an attempt to rid himself of that last thought.

Though still hazy, his memory was coming back to him, and Cobra remembered thick arms carrying him to safety, an inner voice fretting and worried. It was a stubborn, intimate thought that his mind kept cycling back to.

No one had done that for him before - charge off (like an idiot) to save him if he was hurt, pick him up if he couldn't move. Not even the other Oracion Seis. Brain and Zero were big fans of if you fell and didn't get back up, you'd stay there in the dirt. That day after fighting Natsu on Nirvana, he'd been left where Brain had discarded him, bleeding out and half broken. When the Council's Rune Knights showed up it turned into every dark mage for themself.

From his ears, to Jewel, to a certain Dragonslayer's toned arms - Cobra had a lot to think about on the long train ride.

Red eyes watched the pink-haired mage stalk by from the shadow of a stand of trees. Salamander was clearly following something from the way he sniffed at the air and checked the forest floor for tracks. Happy trailed behind him, breaking the silence of the forest with a slew of doubting questions about the trail of they were following.

Gajeel wasn't exactly pleased when he started to smell familiar hints of smoke and sulfur on the wind. He'd barely had two days to himself before Natsu had started prowling around.

Guess the Master's gettin' impatient. Even with that thought in mind, the iron dragon wasn't in any rush to go back.

One of the things Dragonslayers were renowned for were their sensitive noses and tracking abilities - and no one bested Gajeel at the hunt. While Salamander had a good nose, it couldn't hold a candle to the iron dragon's - plus the fire dragon just didn't have any damn patience.

Gajeel left a few breadcrumbs - an old camp fire, footprints, tree rubs - for Natsu to find. The fire dragon would light up at his "findings", then bound away looking for the next trace or hint without stopping long enough to consider how what he found made no sense in context of who or where he was hunting. The only one who asked questions was the damn blue cat.

Gajeel grinned from the trees. Salamander was all shot and no buck.

It was a fun game for a couple days, leading the fire dragon around in circles while always staying downwind and keeping him well away from the cabin where Gajeel stayed at night. It was fun, that was, until Natsu got the bright idea to have his cat lift him to search from the air. That had to be some kinda cheating! It was also a kick to his pride that he didn't have a cat of his own yet, either.

Except… Natsu didn't seem to be looking around. He was headed in a certain direction, that being back towards the nearest village. Gajeel wrinkled his nose. So Salamander was giving up, eh? Fine. It left more alone time for Gajeel, anyways.

But it made sense. The Black Mountains were a different kind of wilderness than the lower forests of Fiore; they were nothing like any of the Woodseas. Rougher. Rockier. Colder. The plants and trees thick and silent. The Woodseas had roads for travellers, but here the land had never known set roads. It made for poor searching on the ground if you didn't know what you were doing, which Salamander was very much in that category, Gajeel thought stubbornly.

What a fuckin' city dragon.

Eyden was small, almost quaint. Cobblestone roads and small cottages with colored windows. There was even a small fountain in the center. The kind of village you'd see in picture books about a princess and a woodsman, though Cobra preferred the movies where it would be the setting for a standoff between a devil and a huntsman.

Gajeel must have come out to the area frequently because the villagers didn't consider his presence odd or noteworthy when Cobra had asked them which way he may have gone. It was obviously a hunting village, so, if he was there to stalk off into the forest, it made sense. They remembered Natsu more - pink hair and a blue talking cat were hard to miss.

The woman at the village inn had mentioned a man matching Gajeel's description had rented one of the off-season cabins outside of town. After getting an idea of which direction to go, he had set off.

It wasn't as if he hadn't ever been in a forest. Oracion Castle had been in the Northeast Woodseas, but the Black Mountains were a whole different environment. It made for slow travel on foot.

The silence was nice, though.

… Or the silence would be nice, if it wasn't broken by the sound of distant branches snapping. The unmistakable sound of wings caught his ear, the notably loud thoughts of someone tracking his scent coming a second after. Cobra gave serious consideration to not stopping.

"Cobra!" Natsu greeted him with a small wave as he landed. "You're looking better."

"Feel like I slept on concrete for a week," Cobra acknowledged, his head cocked slightly to the side and his fangs peeking out between his words. "And don't be so casual."

"Yeah, those beds aren't comfy. I should know, I've been in them a lot." The fire dragon grinned with pride, ignoring Cobra's warning posture entirely. "Did the Master send you?"

"You were taking too long," Cobra confirmed. "He wants to submit the incident report before the end of next week. It was suggested that I come out and lend a hand."

"Don't you mean lend an ear?" Happy snickered.

"What did I just say, cat."

"Um," Happy mewled, hiding behind Natsu, his tail flicking in mild fear, "That we're taking too long?"

"Whoa, somebody's cranky," Natsu remarked. His thoughts buzzed with the desire for a rematch, which was nothing new, but his thoughts also echoed a not so soon, not when things were so weird with his at-odds Guildmates. The fire dragon was weirded out and a little concerned by the iron and poison dragons' behavior lately, that much was clear.

Cobra leveled a venomous leer at Natsu, who didn't seem to understand how close to the edge of Cobra's tolerance he was walking. Not that that was new, either.

"Anyways," Natsu turned to look out at the forest, "I can show you where I last tracked him, but it's pretty far from here. It'll be night and the scent might've weakened by the time we get there, though."

Cobra stuck his hands in his coat pockets. "Know what, why don't you just head back to the guild? I'll take over from here."

"But I've been searching for days," Natsu whined. "I don't wanna go back with nothing to show after gramps sent me out here."

"He already knows you've got nothing. Why do you think he sent me?"

At that, Natsu paused: "Because you hear voices...?"

"Oi!" Cobra bristled.

Natsu grinned, his fangs on eager display, and pointed at Cobra. "Fine, but when you guys get back, one of you owes me a fight! A real one this time."

The sun had started to set and the mountains grew dark when he started on the trek to the cabin he'd rented for his stay. It was made of tarred wood and smelled of pine, a whole two rooms heated by a barrel fireplace: a bathroom and an everything-else room, the bed was a pull-out couch. The small cabin was the only place he could afford with the money he'd had in his pocket when he left.

Gajeel hadn't wanted to stay in Eyden itself, not with the way his head felt so foggy for days after his return. Not with the way he'd been so wound up. He had been wound up and set off on people before, back in his Phantom Lord days, but this was different. He was trying to be different.

Nearing his temporary lodging, Gajeel picked up traces of another, more heady scent that carried through the wood: harsh yet musky, the sweet tinge of rot, and leather.

His studded brows knit together. That couldn't be right… it was too soon. That scary old lady back at the guild said Cobra would have been out for at least a week. Even if his head was foggy as fuck at the time, Gajeel still clearly recalled the woman nearly beating his skull in with a broom when she chased him out of the infirmary to work on Cobra. She had called him a single-minded, twitterpated lizard! Gajeel definitely wasn't single-minded or whatever the fuck 'twitterpated' meant!

Gajeel snorted, trying to dislodge the scent, but it kept grabbing his attention, growing stronger as he grew closer to the cabin. The scent felt like it was calling him, pulling small patches of his scales to the surface along his forearms. Light footprints in the dirt lead to the door. The soft glow of the fireplace in the window gave away that someone was in there - Gajeel sure as hell didn't light that fire before he'd left for the day.

His scent and the footprints outside, coupled with the already lit fire all told him that Cobra was inside the cabin. The thought sent a mixed jolt of excitement and anxiety through Gajeel. The pull that tugged at him was stronger now, too. He so badly wanted to see the redhead again, but he also wanted to avoid him. He hadn't yet figured out what he was going to say. Sorry? For making him freak out? For draining his magic and almost killing him? Sorry for everything? Gajeel sucked at apologies.

Gajeel gripped the door handle for a moment longer - his chest pounding. When had his heart started beating in his ears? He threw open the door with ease - maybe too much ease, because the slam of the door against the wall clearly startled his unexpected guest.

There on the sofa bed sat Cobra, half leaning on the arm of the couch. He looked at Gajeel with a calmness, as if he hadn't just jumped halfway out of his own skin at the sudden loud swing of the door, though his eyes were still a little glazed with sleep. The bed itself had been disturbed, the blankets rumpled in a way that suggested someone had been laying on them.

At the sight of him - awake and looking at him and no trace of that horrible red crystal - a relief washed over Gajeel, he hadn't realized how tense he still was until that moment. Relief washed over him and exhaustion settled into his bones as his body relaxed for the first time in days. He barely resisted the urge to scoop the other man up into his arms and collapse onto the bed.

"What're you doing here...?" he had meant to be more intimidating, but instead the words simply fell out of his mouth.

Cobra yawned, his fangs glinting in the fire light. "The… Master," he said, the word heavy in his mouth, "Said you took off. No one's seen you in almost a week. They sent Natsu to try to find you, but…" He rolled his eyes, giving flat and dismissive gesture with his hand, a wordless display that Gajeel completely agreed with. "So it was suggested I try my hand. Listened, asked around in the village, found out you booked this cabin."

Gajeel stepped inside fully and shut the door behind him to keep out the night chill. He waved a hand at the sofa bed. "So ya broke in and took a fuckin' nap?"

"You didn't lock the door," Cobra pointed to the door behind the iron dragon, sitting up to place his weight on the couch back.

"That's 'cause most people'd know better than to break into anyplace I was stayin'!"

"Most people are chumps," Cobra stated. His words were slightly cocky and, dammit, it made Gajeel grin just a little. "But now you know it's not so nice having someone break into the place you're staying."

At that, Gajeel snorted. "I dunno, we both had a pretty nice night last time," he said, a lewd smirk playing on his face, but his expression immediately faded as he remembered the morning after… and what they had spoken of before. "Or, I thought we did."

Cobra's mouth pressed into a flat frown as he folded his arms tight against his chest and looked to the floor. "I told you. That... was an overreaction. I-" And there it was again, just like before, that tone that punched Gajeel in the guts, a hard freeze in Cobra's voice that choked out his own words. "J-just forget it." Cobra sighed, his arms still held tight against himself, but his shoulders sunk with the motion. He rose and made to pass Gajeel to get to the door. "Be back at the guild before the end of next week." Strangely, no threat or remark followed his instructions.

"I ain't gonna force you ta tell me," Gajeel told him. This seemed to at least make Cobra stop before opening the door, his hand resting on the latch. The iron dragon's own hands balled at his sides, the tension in the room too palpable for his liking. "At first, yeah, I tried to. I thought you were just bein' an uppity, snotty shit."

"You were creeping around," Cobra threw back.

"Guess we both got shit that needs sorting," Gajeel gave a heavy sigh of his own. Not knowing what else to do with his hands, he shoved them in his pockets. "I meant what I meant back there. It… isn't right that you don't know. About the dragon stuff."

Cobra turned to look at him in only that quiet, observant way he could, as if his eyes could cut through steel while he heard every bit of a person. Violet eyes flicked down to the scales still blotched along Gajeel's forearms, then back up to Gajeel's face expectantly. "... And the mate thing?"

Gajeel tried to play off the heat that rose to his face. His own eyes flicked away sheepishly. "Yeah, I can tell ya what I know about that too."

He inhaled deeply and rubbed his hands down his face, taking a few heavy steps before sitting on the sofa bed that creaked under his weight. In his right mind, Gajeel enjoyed coming out to this spot - the distance from civilization and abundance of metallic deposits in the rocky area reminded him of where he had grown up, long before he had known people. He had hoped it would calm him or maybe jog his memory - when he wasn't fucking around with Salamander, he had spent the past week wracking his brain for what exactly he could explain. He found it difficult to recall details. Either Metalicana really had never been specific enough or Gajeel hadn't listened that much. Probably both, he decided.

He hunched forward, resting an elbow on his knee and his cheek roughly resting on his knuckles. He rubbed his forearm, soothing his scales away. His studded brows knit low in thought. "If I answer all your questions, you gotta answer a couple'a mine, okay?" he stated his offer. "I normally like a good fight, but I'm fuckin' ready to pass out. So no more of this running away crap. Deal?"

Cobra regarded him for a moment. "Fine," he agreed. "This… mate… thing, why me?"

"Why not you," Gajeel ungraciously snorted. Only when Cobra's expression turned tiredly unamused did he reword himself: "Your senses and your magic are supposed to tell ya who's… potentially your mate." Gajeel did his best to not look directly at Cobra. It was an awkward topic. Dragon parents - even crappy ones like his own father - usually taught their young about it, never another mate. "It ain't somethin' that's happened to me before. I wasn't expecting to get so-"

"Stalkerish?" Cobra said with a slightly haughty tone.

"That's how dragons go about it!" Gajeel huffed. "Might've skipped some steps, but I didn't know what I was doing! Only knew that you smelled so goddamn nice all of the sudden. Couldn't… couldn't get ya outta my head." He scratched at his black locks with his free hand. "Thought I was going crazy for a while there. I mean, we didn't get off ta the best start."

"You were tracking Laxus for his grandfather," Cobra sighed, "And interrupted our conversation."

"Well you kicked me in the back of the skull."

"You let me get eaten by a giant, mutant diawolf."

"Hey, you were okay bein' bait!"

"I did it to get Titania to shut up."

Gajeel shook his head. "Whatever," he gruffly, sulkingly dismissed. His eyes meet Cobra's and he pointed at the other Dragonslayer with his index finger before jutting a thumb at himself. "I answered part of a question for you, now it's my turn. Ya keep sayin' that what happened the morning after was an overreaction. Why?"

"I-" Cobra opened his mouth, though no further sound came out.

That night in the hotel room everything had been instinct. Nothing to hear; only acting in the moment without much of a thought or care in the world.

It wasn't like before - demanding, rushed, too-soon-made mistakes in the dark rooms of Oracion Castle, under another set of ruby eyes. It had been a long, far cry from the guards in the Tower who used to hold him down, the sound of jangling cage keys Cobra still listened for in the dark on bad nights, hands and eyes he still covered himself from though they were long dead.

It had been different - after their initial fight, Cobra had felt safe that night. Felt frustrated that his partner finished first, kinda confused about the spontaneity, but ultimately safe. Gajeel had listened to him, and, barring the black-haired man's own virgin excitement, he took that night at the pace Cobra set.

His ears picked up on Gajeel's thoughts, drawing him out of himself, and it briefly registered that the other man thought Cobra looked like he was cursed to be frozen in place after seeing a ghost.

"I mean, ya took my innocence and everythin'," Gajeel blinked several times in a mocking doe-eyed fashion. The iron dragon realized too late that the explanation he wanted was distressing and was trying to lighten the mood; Cobra appreciated his attempt. "Now how the fuck am I gonna get married and all that shit?"

Cobra gave a small, amused snort and shook his head. "You had other options," he said, unable to keep eye contact after being reminded that he had taken Gajeel's virginity.

"I thought listening was yer gimmick. Didn't you hear what I said? Your magic picks your mate." His face scrunched as if he'd eaten something sour. "Tch, and options. Like who? Laxus? Fucking Salamander? As if anybody's got anything to top you."

"Your shitty Old Breed magic has some taste, at least," Cobra quipped. Although his arms were still held close to his front, Cobra suddenly didn't feel like every part of him was frozen, like his voice was becoming unstuck. "I… I said it was an overreaction because it was. On my part."

Gajeel arched his studded brows as if that were obvious, but bit back anything further.

The poison dragon sighed, again unable to look at Gajeel. "I haven't… exactly had good experiences. In bed. Just leave it at that."

Red eyes stared at him across the empty space between them. Gajeel's face stilled as the meaning behind the words sunk in. Shock echoed in his inner voice, a crash of anger followed; the unrelenting, protective urge to make someone pay. He also briefly thought himself a giant jackass for his earlier "uppity shit" comment and Cobra both did and did not disagree.

"Okay," Gajeel promised. His fangs were on display, a righteous anger barely hidden, but nothing was aimed at the redhead. A soft quiet fell in the cabin, before he broke it with a tired, gentle: "So does this mean I'm a 'good' experience?"

Cobra blinked at him before looking away again, this time pink dusting his cheeks. "... Different."

"I'll take different." Gajeel leaned back on his elbows, carefully avoiding laying on his own dark mane, and the sofa bed creaked under him again. The relief that overtook Gajeel when he first saw that Cobra was okay didn't go unnoticed, especially now when the iron dragon was clearly fighting weariness and losing.

Cobra sighed. Sharing so much, being so open, he was losing his own fight with himself about his feelings regarding the iron idiot. Oddly, he found himself not caring. It… felt nice. Felt strangely right. Dammit, Cobra, he lightly chastised himself.

With a few silent steps he approached the bed and looked down at Gajeel. "You look like somebody should take a grainy photo of you and try to sell it to a conspiracy theorist magazine. Did you even take care of yourself after we came back?"

Gajeel pouted childishly. "That yer way of sayin' I look like shit? 'Cause you look like a goddamn zombie." He wrinkled his nose. "Smell better than one, though."

"You don't."

Gajeel craned his neck so he could look up at Cobra with a better angle. "Well excuuuse me, Your Highness, but there ain't a lotta places out here to bathe to your snooty standa-"

His words were cut short when Cobra bent down, his fingers tipping Gajeel's chin up a little further, and silenced him with a quick kiss. Gajeel's slitted pupils pinned as his breath stilled.

While New Breed Dragonslayers didn't fare as well with scents as the Old Breeds, there was still an acutely stronger sense of smell to deal with - and right then Cobra smelled something sharp in Gajeel's scent, other than the overpowering musk that he was doing his best to ignore, that he hadn't before. He heard Gajeel's heart practically skip a beat or two. If it weren't for his ears, he would have been crippled by his ignorance of extrasensories that came with their branch of magic.

"Go take a fucking shower," Cobra told him, pulling away and sitting down on the bed. "I'm not staying the night if you smell like a sweaty woodland creature that crawled out of a tire fire."

"... What?" Gajeel asked, still in disbelief.

"You heard me," Cobra said. He crossed his leg over his knee and leaned his weight back on one of his hands. He was certain that his own face was some rosy shade. "It's late and I want to sleep someplace quiet. No one at the guild shuts up. You can explain the rest of the mate thing in the morning."

"In the…?" Gajeel sat up fully. He stared at Cobra, still processing it all, before it clicked. He launched himself up off the bed and immediately headed for the bathroom.

Gajeel hadn't expected to run into Cobra again or make that much progress with the dragon stuff. At least, not in one night.

But now he had an answer to several things that had been bothering him - though his stomach dropped when he had pieced together what Cobra was hinting at about his reaction from that morning after their first night together. A lot of things made more sense now. Cobra trusted him enough to tell him - and spend another night with Gajeel afterwards. Gajeel was going to show his mate that that trust was not misplaced.

Though there was still some stuff to iron out things were looking up. Giddy wasn't a word he liked to use to describe himself, but, there he was, feeling like a goddamn school girl and grinning in the shower.

The shower was fast enough to wash off the day's sweat and grime, and he had to make due with the harsh-smelling castile soap that was in the cabin to wash his hair.

If his body was exhausted before, the shower only served to relax him further. The only thing that was keeping him from falling asleep in the tiny shower stall was the thought that he had someone waiting for him.

Towelling off and putting his pants back on was done just as quickly. His hair was still damp when he slinked out of the bathroom. Cobra was laying under the rough covers on his side, with his back to Gajeel. His coat was hung up on the hook on the back of the front door. It was new and had a hood, Gajeel briefly noted, which made sense. Cobra's old coat was probably still buried under what was left of Dorma Anim back in Edolas. His shoes were by Gajeel's boots near the fire.

Gajeel put three more logs in the fireplace before sliding into the bed beside Cobra. When he pressed closer, Cobra rolled over onto his back and Gajeel slung an arm loosely over him.

Cobra clicked his tongue. His hand reached up and brushed through damp strands of dark hair. "Your hair's still wet."

The iron dragon practically purred as he felt those brown fingers worked through his hair. "Seem to recall someone telling me to take a shower." At one time, he could never think of the poison dragon being so gentle, held so close, but as his eyes closed he couldn't think of anything but the feeling of Cobra stroking his head.

"If we do this," Cobra said, his fingers still playing with Gajeel's hair, "We need to do it carefully. No place cameras or the tabloids can easily get to us."

"Is it really that bad to be seen dating me," Gajeel exhaled through his nose stubbornly. "I'm tall, I'm strong, hell - I'm covered in fucking metal studs n' shit so most people wouldn't dare fuck with me." Even if his 'piercings' were a side-effect of his magic and less of a fashion statement, it was the truth. "'Sides, you could kick yer fair share of ass six ways to Sunday."

"I might be legit now, but that doesn't mean the people I used to run with are."

At that, Gajeel's eyes cracked open and narrowed childishly as his gaze met Cobra's even one. It took a moment before he put two and two together. And when he did he gave a wide, absolutely insufferably smug look to the redhead across the pillow from him. "Aww, you tryna protect me?"

Cobra groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose and rolling onto his side away from his bedmate. Gajeel couldn't see his face from that angle but he could see Cobra's ears turning as red as his hair.

"You are, aren'tchya?" A snickering, gleeful ghihihi escaped him. "You care 'bout me enough to try to protect me from the big bad dark mages!" Gajeel's toothy grin broadened further and he prodded Cobra's shoulder with a finger. "Admit it, Cobra: ya got a thing fer me."

"Wish. I'd. Fucking. Lose. It."