Don't hurt me, please! I know I've been gone a long time, it hurts me when I look at the last updated dates. I didn't mean to be gone so long. But Life has a way of keeping us busy! Personal update: almost done my associate's degree, got engaged, moved out of my parents' house and still mentally adjusting and working as many hours as possible. So yeah I've been busy and was very upset when fairy tail finished. But loved when Levy's flying kick got animated, I watched it on loop many times. This story still has promise I assure my lovely readers out there that probably are still annoyed but hopefully understanding of my long absence. In the process of moving all my books and fanfiction notebooks have not moved over with me yet, maybe by the end of next week by some miracle. But enough about me, onto the story that has been collecting dust in my google drive.


When Lily returned to their home later that night, Gajeel caught the cat staring at him with an odd look on his little face. Gajeel didn't bother to ask and went to sleep, he actually had a decent night with no bizarre or bad dreams.

Like he promised he did show up to the guild the next day, he saw a little sign that said that Karaoke would only last half an hour during the afternoon. He knew she could be clever like that, and he allowed himself to be persuaded, he did want to see her, and he seemed always in awe of her. It wasn't too early in the day but already the crowd was thinning out as they headed out on jobs. While he scanned the present crowd, he did not see the blue head with her nose in a book. From the way she had spoken to him the day before, he thought she would be there.

"Hey Gajeel," he heard Cana call him, not even noon and hugging a barrel of some alcoholic drink.

"What do ya want ya drunk?"

"Somebody's grouchy today," she joked, "Have you seen Levy?"

"Why would you be asking me?"

"No one has seen her this morning, she usually comes in for breakfast," Cana explained.

"Again, why ask me?"

"Just thought I ask," Cana shrugged before sharing a look with Mira.

"She was seen here late yesterday, but no sign that she ever came back to Fairy Hills," Mira added, concern on her face.

After the conversation with the demon and drunk, just to ease their minds he decided to look for her. Her scent was all around the guildhall and eventually, he followed it down the stairs deeper under the hall. He ended up in front of a door that had a plate saying, "Archives" which he was amused by. Where else would he have found the shrimp? Why didn't the others think of looking here if they claim to know her so well?

He opened the door and could tell she was here, her scent was almost everywhere in the deep and high ceilinged room. He could understand her appeal to the room, he couldn't hear any of the noise from the main hall and she would be surrounded by books. Not so surprised no one found her because the place was so deep. When he did find her she was sitting at the head of one of the tables which were covered in books. She was sitting there so still and he was surprised she didn't react as he made his way through the room, it wasn't like he was trying to be quiet. He called out at a normal volume but she still didn't react. He walked around to face her to realize she was asleep. She looked so peaceful while also squashed by the hand that was supporting her head with her other hand holding a limp pen over a parchment. It looks like she fell asleep while reading.

Instead of waking her up, he stood there for a moment just to watch her. Then glanced at the hoard of books that covered the table's surface. Lots of them were in languages that he didn't recognize, more like almost all of them. After a few minutes, he decided to go back up to the guildhall and order a breakfast meal. Once he got that he brought it back down and she was still asleep. He moved a few books so he could put the meal down on the table.

He let the aromas float through the air and soon enough he saw her little nose twitch. He smirked as she began to gather her bearings. With a big yawn and near a dozen blinks from those large hazel eyes of her, she awoke from her sleep. Took her another minute to realize that she had company.

"Morning, Shrimp," he greeted her as he began eating the meat portion of the breakfast.

"Hey Gajeel," she beamed then scrunched her eyebrows in confusion then looked around as if she didn't even know where she was. "What are you doing here?"

"Having breakfast."

"In the guild archives?" she questioned.

"Well," he shrugged, "It's quiet down here. Can't hear any of their ruckuses," he stated as an excuse, though the raised eyebrow told him that she didn't believe him. Then she dared to snatch a piece of fruit off his plate and pop it in her mouth. "The sec I walked in the Drunk and Demon were bugging me about where you were. Apparently ya never went home last night," he commented.

"So you came looking for me?"

"Only to get them off my back," he grumbled.

"What time is it?" she asked because of course there were no clocks in the archives.

"Near eleven, how late were you up?"

"No clue, just know last time I took a break I realized everyone was gone and it was probably midnight," she stated like she wasn't sure herself.

"Well, they were worried."

"I should go check in so they don't send out a search party like every other time this happens."

"If they know ya so well they should know to check this place high on the list."

"You would think, but they always worry over me." Levy sighed as she rose from her seat with a small stretch and walked in the direction of the exit.

He watched her leave and once he couldn't hear her light footsteps anymore he decided to get up and see what kind of books they kept down here in the archives. Dozens of them were in other languages that he couldn't recognize, others were on types of magic from common to extremely rare. He recalled that sometimes the master would assign a punishment of helping Levy rearrange the books in the archives, he remembered a time where Natsu was grumbling about a crazy organization system after seriously screwing up big time on a job. Most of the books were fairly large tomes or medium-sized.

His gaze drifted from the shelves to the papers on the table he had found Levy asleep at. At first glance, he couldn't understand the page said. Then he saw that the page she was writing was the translation, looked like the history of some tribe or something. With the number of scribbles and notes on the page, she may have had second doubts about what she was translating. He also saw where the pen trailed off when he presumed that she fell asleep. Her handwriting flowed despite the chaos of the scattered thoughts and his eyes trailed over the letters the best he could like following the notes of a song. His eyes went from top to bottom and onto the next page, because there had to be at least a dozen pages of her scattered translations.

Despite being so absorbed into the pages he heard the door creak open and shut and smelt her presence, though he could barely hear her soft feather-like steps. He didn't move instantly and let her find him standing over her hard work. He was waiting for her to come closer at her own pace and hopefully start up the conversation. Because he never felt like he could start one of those with her, the one person everyone seemed to think was the smartest of them all. While she did come closer, she lingered a few feet away. He wasn't sure what she was doing but the silence was going to drive him crazy soon if it wasn't relinquished by one of them.

"They all right up there?" he asked, referring to the guildmates that had been worrying about Levy upstairs, she let out a sigh before speaking up.

"Relieved, it gets a little annoying how much they can fuss over me. Like I can't go a whole day without checking in with someone." He could hear the tiredness in her voice and turned his head to see her leaning against the shelves, staring at the books on the table like a fixed point in space while her mind was elsewhere. His mind for a moment went to how the guild must have felt to see her crucified to the tree in the park, they will always be protective of her after something like that.

"They just want to keep ya safe," he stated, the image of her pinned still in his mind's eye when she locked her gaze with his. Somehow she knew just what he meant and was thinking about, letting another sigh out with the closing of her eyes, leaning her head back against the shelf.

"I get it, but all of us have had our own trials and moved on, but they keep watch on me like I'm a fragile bird in a cage." He could see what she meant, as far as he's seen, she has never actually gone on a mission on her own. Her cheerleaders or one of her other friends would tag along or invite her on their job, or she would do these jobs in the safety of the guild.

"So whatcha gonna do about it?" he asked, surprise and curiosity crossed her features, "continue to be that bird or break out?"

"I'm not entirely sure, I have a few ideas, can't make things change overnight."

"So suck it up and act like nothing's wrong?" he raised a studded brow at her to receive a short chuckle.

"In a crude matter of terms, but pretty much. Everyone seems to be going along with it. Act no different and they won't see any difference."

"And working with Fire Brains is not acting differently?"

"It's not that big a deal as people make it out to be."

"The Demon and anyone who gossips does,"

"You gossip?" she joked.

"Lily is the one gossiping, he just tells me even if I don't wanna hear it." In his head, he recalled the day before that she and Lily were discussing something that she wanted to be kept secret, though it would probably be best not to bring it up as to keep the fact he spied on them to himself.

She tucked a strand of her blue hair behind her ear and stepped up to the table and leaned down to gather and organize her books and papers, and quickly he made room for her to reach everything. "So anyway, what are you going to do today? Are you going to find a job to do?"

"Trying to get rid of me, Shrimp?" with a sharp look he chuckled, "well I was thinking about doing some karaoke, but I'm sure Mira will hog the whole half an hour time slot. What about you?"

"Still have a lot to do for this batch of translations, and two of them I need to do more research on what the language is before I can translate it. But it's just long passages in need of translating, all various and tedious work."

"Sounds like a bore."

"Depends on what it is I have to translate, but I always learn something from each one."

"So you're gonna hole yourself down here until you're done?"

"I won't, but it's the best place to get my work done."

"I'll go find Lily then, see if he found a job for us,"

"See you later," she stated before sitting back down at her seat and before he even reached the door, he could hear the flipping of a page and the scratching of her pen across the parchment.

After a few minutes of silent and slow work did she look around her and realize he left his barely touched breakfast down there with her.


Cana had found Levy down in the Archives when she first showed up, but only mentioned it to Mira. When they saw Gajeel come in later in the morning Cana thought it would be a good trap for them to have some alone time. When he came back for food and disappeared again, then a groggy Levy popped up and slipped back down, Cana put two and two together. She got a good chuckle when Gajeel showed up later for another meal grumbling about how some people should know better. Then she watched as he grabbed a flyer from the board and headed out a little after noon for a job.

Later that day Levy had popped up for more food and Cana snatched her before she could run. "So how did it go with Gajeel this morning," she wiggled her eyebrows in a suggestive manner, to which Levy rolled her eyes at.

"Nothing more than a small conversation, he did leave me his breakfast," Levy had a goofy smile on her face at the memory.

"How sweet. Are you up for a new job?" Cana asked.

"Like what?"

"Yajima sent a flyer again looking for servers, couple girls were gonna head over. Did you wanna take part, a little change of pace?"

Levy thought it over for a minute, she hasn't had any jobs that took her further than her local bookstore, aside from training and Cana's fashion overhaul week she didn't get out much. "Sure. Just let me know when."

"Great, keep you busy from pinning for Gajeel in his absence for the next week." Levy wasn't amused by Cana's teasing.

"I take it he took another job?"

"Yeah, bandits in the mountains kinda thing. But you get a good Girl's Work Week."

"Sounds like fun."

"Then maybe you can let me train with you during the off-time," Cana suggested.

"Yeah, I don't think so."

"Be nice or I'll take my gift back that was supposed to be for your birthday."


I hope this will sate you for the foreseeable future, I was getting stuck on the next chapter so fingers crossed, but if anyone wants to give plot bunny ideas, I am open to suggestions. I have the main skeleton for this story set but I want a little meat in there too. You know what I mean? ADULT LIFE is SOUL SUCKING!

Posted: 2/28/2020