Fairy Cats: Panther's Night In

Gajeel set the tin of cat food on the floor next to the bowl of kiwi, so his stubborn cat would have something to eat when he was done throwing up the kiwi on the fire escape, and settled his butt into the spot he had carefully cultivated for it on his beat up leather couch. He had just started an old episode of Battle Bots, illegally streaming through his computer to his TV, when there was a knock at his door.

He turned around and looked at it for a second, his eyebrows pulling down in confusion. He wasn't expecting anyone. If he had to get off his comfortable couch for another Zentopian Church Recruiter trying to fucking convince him to donate his hard earned money so they could sit around on their asses all day, he would fucking hit someone. And they wouldn't be getting up. The last guy had even tried to steal his fucking keys! They were all nut-jobs.

He wished he'd known there were so godsdamned many of them in that building before he signed the lease.

The knock came again, this time a little louder, accompanied by a voice he didn't expect.

"Gajeel? Are you home? It's Lucy!"

Gajeel rolled his eyes at the blonde on the other side of the door. Like he couldn't tell who it was. His apartment wasn't that big.

"Please, uh, if you're there could you maybe open the door? There's a guy out here who I'm pretty sure is going to try to kidnap me or something…" she said, beginning to panic. "He has duct tape!" she whisper yelled.

That got Gajeel off his couch and to the door. That fucking church had actually had some members arrested last year for kidnapping, it made the national news. He jerked the door open and gestured her roughly inside.

"Get in."

"Oh my gods, thank you." Lucy darted through the opening and spun, seeing the guy who had been creeping down the hall behind her droop in disappointment. She shivered.

Gajeel eyed her in silence for a minute as she looked around his apartment, setting her purse and a small notebook on his kitchen counter. Then he couldn't stand it anymore.

"What the fuck are ya doin' here Blondie?" His words made her jump a little, her shoulders stiffening defensively.

"What, didn't Levy text you? She left her textbook for tomorrow's first class here and she's neck deep in a research project at the library. She asked me swing by and pick it up for her."

Gajeel grabbed his phone out of his pocket and checked his text messages. He had no new messages. But that didn't mean Blondie was lying. His little shrimp of a girlfriend got distracted pretty easily and forgot to hit send about half the time. He sighed.

"Well, did she tell you where she left it? Or which one it is? Because she's left so many books here, I'm thinking of buying a bookshelf to keep them on," he grumbled. Just then, a particularly screeching noise of metal on metal erupted from the massive speakers on either side of his TV. Gajeel didn't fuck around with inferior sound equipment. Lucy immediately craned her neck over to see what he was watching. Gajeel braced himself for prissy-rich-white-girl-judgement.

"OH MY GOD I LOVE THIS SHOW!" her squeal left his ears ringing as the girl hopped over the back of his couch, thankfully taking off her shoes first. She plopped down and leaned forward. "Oh man, what is this, season 2? I haven't seen Vlad the Impaler in AGES!"

"When the fuck did you start watching Battle Bots?!" he questioned the blonde making herself comfortable on his shitty couch in her matching gym outfit. Did she even go to the gym?

"I used to watch with my bodyguard when I was little. We even made our own and fought them once. It was so much fun. Til my governess took them away."

"Huh." Gajeel's brain sort of...stalled, as he watched his girlfriend's peppy best friend yell, "Push him into the kill saws!" He eventually sat slowly back down in his spot on the couch again. Throughout the match, he kept sneaking glances at her, still sort of expecting her to forget that she was too cool for this shit before grabbing Levy's book and bolting.

The first match ended, and there was a crash from the kitchen. Which seemed break the murderous robot spell holding her and remind her why she had come in the first place. Her face turned a little red and she leapt up from the couch.

"Oh gods, I'm sorry. I totally invaded your space. I just haven't seen that show in forever...it kind of sucked me in." She smiled sheepishly and turned to the other corner of the room, where she picked a textbook out of the stack Levy had started there. "Anyway, I've got the book, so, I'll just go…" Her voice trailed off as she turned back to the kitchen to see Gajeel's usually very sedate black cat rolling around in a mess of stuff from her purse, all four paws wrapped around one of the pink pens she still kept in her purse from her family's hotels, as he gnawed on the cap. Gajeel came up behind her and laughed in disbelief as his badass ex-stray, scarred-up street cat tossed the pen away and pounced after it clearly pretending he was in a fierce battle against prey of the wiliest kind like a frisky kitten.

Lucy stooped to clean up the mess her purse had made, sweeping all the junk she carried around into a pile and dropping it into her bag haphazardly. She didn't even try to get the pen from his cat. Gajeel suspected the scratches on her hands might have had something to do with that decision. She grabbed the book again and shuffled to the door, her eyes involuntarily being drawn back to the battle of murderous robots still continuing in the other room.

"So, um, sorry for bothering you. And for making such a mess of your kitchen. It was nice of you to let me watch Battle Bots with you. I'll just go get this book to Levy…" she trailed off, with a small nervous smile, looking him in the eye for the first time since she had gotten to his apartment. It was just for a split second, but that one moment was enough. He was suddenly back in the 90s Escalade with his fellow gang members, looking her right in the eye the moment before he stole her life. Guilt swamped him. Which was his only explanation for what he did next.

"Hey, Blondie, if you want, you can stay and watch the rest of the episode. You know, if you want. I was thinking of ordering a pizza. And the shrimp doesn't need the book tonight, right?" He didn't know what surprised him more, that he had said that, or that he didn't regret saying it. She got as worked up cheering for the robots as he usually did. It might be kind of fun watching the show again with her, with her ever present enthusiasm directed at something he could get behind for once. And if he felt a little better, knowing he was doing something, no matter how small, to make up for what his past self had done to her past self, then that was...whatever. Good, he guessed.

Lucy's mouth, opened and closed a couple of times, her eyes finally darting to the screen with a look of longing. A small smile quirked up her lips and she looked him in the eye again.

"I would love to. But the pizza's on me. You're providing the entertainment, so I'll get the food. That's what friends do right?" she grinned up at him earnestly, but there was something in the way she said it that made him wonder if she was really asking.

For a second, her earnest face reminded him of Natsu Dragneel of all people, as a kid, introducing himself on the first day he had come to the gym. He had had an identical look of innocence and slight uncertainty. Like he didn't know exactly what to do and was worried if he was doing it right. Making friends that is. Of course, Gajeel had learned pretty quickly what Natsu's past was like, and that he really didn't have a clue how to interact normally with other kids. And that the gym was part of his therapy.

It made him look at the blonde getting comfortable on his couch again a lot more closely. Which he did sporadically over the rest of the episode, occasionally grunting out questions about what she was going to order on the pizza, or what Levy was working on.

It was almost flawless, but he eventually found a crack in her cheerful mask. She bit her lip whenever she wasn't sure what she was supposed to do. She watched him more carefully than a normal person would, picking up cues from him so she could answer his questions reasonably normally. He wasn't going to say anything, but Panther chose that moment to hop up onto his arm of the couch, dropping the pen on the arm and laying securely on top of it before turning to look at Lucy. He stayed that way for a long time, watching the girl cheer and heckle at the television like a pro.

Panther stared at the new non-cat on his squishy laying place, finally determining that she was not a threat. She brought the yummy smelling toy with her, so he already had a soft spot for her. But she didn't move around as much as the smaller non-cat like her did. She was tucked into a tiny ball at the end of the couch, tense and proper. She was behaving like a new cat, who sensed that she was not welcome in a new colony. Panther had seen a lot of her kind on the streets. It was better not to trust new cats on the street. Smart.

But she was a non-cat. And an inside non-cat to boot. She didn't need to worry about being attacked for her food. Non-cats of their size didn't do that. Not like the little, delicious, flying non-cat food did. Panther looked at his brother non-cat, the one that fed him the delicious green stuff that just wouldn't stay in his stomach, to see if his hackles were raised. He would know if this new non-cat was a danger. But brother non-cat was as relaxed as he normally was. Maybe he didn't notice the other non-cat's odd behavior. Panther reached out a paw and hit brother non-cat on the arm to get his attention. Then he meowed, switching his gaze to the new non-cat.

Gajeel smirked. His cat had even noticed Lucy was acting weird. The little black warrior kept staring at her, like he couldn't figure her out.

Three episodes in and halfway through the pizza, Gajeel eventually couldn't take it anymore.

"Hey, Blondie. You don't have to do that you know."

"Do what?" she turned to look at him, one eyebrow raised as she folded her current slice in half and took a huge bite.

"Pretend to be normal. I grew up with a bunch of kids who didn't get a chance to be kids. None of them knew what to do either, so it really doesn't bother me. Just ask or whatever if you need to. It's cool." He turned back to the screen and yelled in appreciation for a particularly brutal beatdown. He almost missed her quiet thanks, but he definitely didn't miss the way she instantly relaxed, leaning back into the couch and dropping her shoulders back. He smirked and joined her in yelling for FrostBite to kick the crap out of Overkill.

Panther relaxed too, happy that the new non-cat wasn't bristling anymore. He knew brother non-cat would fix it. All was right in the world. He had a full bowl of food he hadn't even had to hunt for, brother non-cat nearby to scratch that one place he couldn't reach, and most importantly, he had won his battle against the delicious smelling stick. All in all, a great night.