Chapter Five - Cracking The Code

Day Four: Thursday

"Damn," Gajeel murmured. "Maybe I wasn't as harsh on you as I thought."

He didn't know exactly what time it was, nor did he know exactly where he was, but he didn't care. The train journey had been long and, despite Freed's runes taking a lot of the strain off him, Gajeel's stomach had started to squirm and bite against him. The growing nausea mixed with the sparsely healed injuries from the day before and the overall exercion of the past three days had caught up with him, and all he could think of was the bed that Freed had promised him.

By the looks of the building - a large ranch, large enough for Freed's entire team despite the fact he lived alone - the bed would be luxurious. Gajeel had been presumptuous about Freed's wealth in the last few days, and was starting to feel guilty about it, but maybe he hadn't missed the mark.

Sure as hell made his one room apartment look like crap.

"If it makes you feel more comfortable, I have a barn at the edge of my property that has some hay you could sleep in," Freed mumbled under his breath, but Gajeel heard. "I wouldn't want to force you to live outside of your elements, would I?"

"Nah," Gajeel grinned, because he felt guilty about the last three days and didn't wish to get into another argument. "I can try a bed out if I have t'."

Freed explained what was happening during the train ride home, that his demon was influencing their moods and making them more antagonistic. The conversation came from out of nowhere; Freed had a habit of scuffing his feet, Gajeel had gotten annoyed, snapped, and an argument had begun. After some insults, Freed clenched his right fist, rubbed his suddenly glowing eye, and explained the effect that his demon was having on them. After that, they made a decision to think about the reason behind their anger before they spoke, to understand if it was truly what they thought.

It was a tense and fragile truce, and they were acting at being friends. It was a difficult situation to understand; Gajeel didn't really know what he thought of Freed. He knew he was impressed by his resilience, and at some point the slight resentment at the previous day's attack would make way for intrigue and him feeling reluctantly impressed.

Was he really holding back a demon at all times?

"I'll call for Wendy to come here for when you wake up," Freed kept speaking, walking up the staircase with the expectation that Gajeel would follow him. Gajeel did. "She'll be able to be sure I didn't hurt you too badly."

"Sure," Gajeel said, a yawn sneaking out. He didn't miss the small grin on Freed's face when he heard. Dammit, he had been told his yawns were somewhat… feline like. To distract the man, he kept talking. "We doin' any training today? Or just a rest day?"

"I intend to train with you, if you've not got an injury we don't know about," Freed said. "But we should focus on resting first. It's not overly time dependent."

Two days ago, Gajeel might have made a comment about Freed's training regime being too cushy and pampered, but now the words would have come out as bitter and kind of pathetic. Also, his aching body and swirling stomach wanted nothing more than to collapse into a bed and sleep for an age. Damn the tournament and damn the weird forfeit that Makarov had planned.

He followed Freed through the small landing of the upper floor until they stopped by a door, which Freed opened. It was clearly a guest bedroom, nice enough and stocked with more comforts than Gajeel would have been able to fit in his apartment, but definitely not lived in.

"You got a lot of rooms going spare?" Gajeel asked, planting a bag of clothes he'd picked up on the floor.

"Six," Freed said, allowing Gajeel to wander around the room that would be his home for the next three days. "Originally it was intended for the Raijinshuu to all live here, but they need their space, which is understandable. And they stay here from time to time, so normally it doesn't feel so… unoccupied."

Gajeel might have said lonely rather than unoccupied, but it wasn't his place to say.

"You've a bathroom attached to your room and it's stocked with everything you need," Freed explained, then frowned a little. "Well, maybe the two-in-one shampoo and conditioner might not do for you like it does for Laxus, so perhaps you could borrow mine," Freed reached up and curled a lock of Gajeel's hair. "Yes, you keep your hair well. You'll need my products."

"Right," Gajeel said a little curtly, looking at Freed's hand that held his hair with slightly dilated pupils.

"Sorry," Freed said, removing his hand and taking a step back. "I'll be having a shower before sleeping, so if you want me you may need to raise your voice. I'll leave you some time to get used to the room."

"Thanks," Gajeel huffed slightly, not sure what to say.

They looked at each other for a moment, giving each other a nod in goodbye. Freed turned and walked to what was clearly his bedroom, and Gajeel closed the door behind him. He glanced at where Freed might be, absently wondering if this false politeness between them would make way for something more passionate. It felt like he was missing something now he and Freed weren't arguing; maybe Freed was one of the people Gajeel was meant to feel passionately about.

Nah, it was the demon's influence. Must have been. And there was no point in focusing on how they were acting around each other, it wasn't like it would change anything.

He shucked off his jacket, then his shirt and pants. His skin was hardly the cleanest and the blood from his earlier injury wasn't exactly clean, but Freed probably had a change of sheets for him. He climbed into the bed, the mattress a hell of a lot softer than the stained, spring filled piece of crap that made up his own bed. He groaned a little at the soft, cool covers as he wrapped them around his body, burying his face into them. God, whatever they were made of, Gajeel was becoming addicted to instantly.

Maybe he could guilt Freed into giving him these sheets once they were done.

Tiredness overtook him, and he was nearly asleep within a moment. The only thing stopping him from dropping off immediately was the sound of movement in the building. One of few perks of Gajeel's apartment was that the walls were soundproof - he didn't dwell on why that needed to happen - so other people making noise when he was trying to sleep was abnormal.

Not entirely unpleasant. The shifting of fabric followed by water hitting tile was soft, and slightly muffled by the walls between them. But it was comforting, and the sound rhythmic humming that Freed indulged in as he stepped under the water sent a slight shiver down his spine. It had been a while since he'd worked with other people, and the eclectic mess of sounds that accompanied their movements had been missing in Gajeel's life for a while.

He didn't think too much about it, and instead buried his face in the pillow further, a little smile on his face.

Gajeel had known Freed was a powerful mage.

The first time they had met one another, if you wanted to call what happened at the festival a meeting, Freed had filled Magnolia with unbreakable rune traps. Though he had been kept in the Cathedral, Gajeel had both seen and heard stories about how many runes had been placed and how complex the traps had been. So clearly he was a powerful man with a lot of magical potential, but he was apparently a genius with his power as well.

For his half of the training, Freed was going to use a 'Simulation Program'. He had explained he had created a selection of runes that would create a training environment made for their specific needs. Apparently it was a complex system that Freed had used many times to push himself.

"So, when we both place our hands on the column, my runes will create a simulation designed to improve our teamwork," Freed explained, motioning to a shaft of runes in the middle of his basement.

"And you ain't gonna be controlling it?" Gajeel asked, looking at the runes with a slight tilt in the head.

"No, the program essentially has a mind of its own," Freed explained, placing his hand on the column without hesitation. The runes seemed to glow under his touch. "I can cancel it, of course, should it get too intense or if the simulation just isn't working out. But so far it's always been an achievable task and always helped me with training."

"You got any idea what it'll be like?" Gajeel asked, stepping towards the runes.

"Not at all," Freed had a near giddy look on his face; like Natsu before a fight. Maybe he was more Fairy Tail like than Gajeel thought. "When you're ready."

Gajeel shrugged, placed his hand on the column, and allowed it to take some of his magic.

Eight walls of runes suddenly lurched upwards, glowing and dripping with magic. The basement seemed to fall away, replaced by pristine whiteness that seemed to be like a void. Gajeel knew he hadn't been teleported - the teleportation had felt different - so clearly they were still in the basement, but the reality of the room had changed. Gajeel looked to the side; Freed could literally create runes that could change the world around him. All whiteout breaking a sweat.

What would he be able to do without the runes keeping his demon contained?

The thought was gone as quickly as it came. On one of the eight walls, letters began to form as if written from fire. They weren't runes - Freed's runes were square and angular, these letters were more flowing and rounded - and Gajeel didn't have a damn clue what it said. He glanced towards Freed again, to see an expression of open confusion.

He scrunched up his nose when he was confused. Hah.

Before either man could say anything, a wall of magic appeared before them in a language that both Gajeel and Freed could read.

'To finish the simulation, you must complete two tasks. One mental, one physical. These tasks will bring you closer together and highlight your potential as a team.

Task One: Translate the Words and Speak Them Aloud.'

"Yer good with languages right?" Gajeel murmured. "Should be easy."

"This language is incredibly old," Freed frowned, walking to the wall where the statement was written. "Frankly, I've never seen it before. I wouldn't know where to start."

"Yer magic knows things you don't?" Gajeel frowned.

"Apparently."

This wasn't the type of thing that Gajeel could help with, so he leant on one of the walls and decided to watch as Freed worked. The other man was scribbling things down on a wall of runes that he's created which seemed to only allow for writing. He still had his nose all scrunched up while he was thinking, and he kept tucking his hair behind his ear when it fell. It was funny to think this was the same man who had gone primal and all jungle-man the day before.

He really had misjudged Freed, hadn't he? Now he knew the demon had been affecting his mood - and knew how to ignore that influence - it was easy to agree that Freed was powerful. Hell, maybe if they hadn't gotten off to such a bad start, they would have been good teammates.

They could still, that's what the point of the simulation was, right? To bring them together.

Gajeel didn't know how giving Freed a task that Gajeel would be no help with might bring them together, but the simulation seemed pretty impressive so far. He let his gaze fall on the untranslated words again, and actually looked at them this time. It still looked like a selection of random lines, and Gajeel nearly gave up and went back to watching Freed again. It was only when he saw a familiar spiral looking shape in with the rest of the lines that he realised how this was meant to bring them closer.

"Fuck," Gajeel cussed, and Freed immediately looked towards him. "It's Draconic."

"Draconic?" Frred said incredulously. "That language has been dead for millennia. You know it."

"No," Gajeel shook his head. "Well, not really. Even when I was a kid there was no point in learning it since it was forgotten by everyone but the dragons. Metalicana, he was basically my father, insisted that I be able to write my own name in my language," He walked to the writing and pointed at the single spiral. "That's an 'A', I could never get that right. Pa used to yell at me, so I remember it."

"You don't happen to remember the rest, do you?"

"Not of the top of my head," Gajeel spoke under his breath. "Can I use that writing rune thing?"

"Of course," Freed said, making a motion. The small slab of runes that Freed had been scribbling on flew towards him, and Gajeel sat cross-legged on the floor like he had when he was a kid. Suddenly, he felt like he was back in the fields where he had grown up, writing with chalk on stone under his Pa's instructions. He didn't often think about his youth; it was nice.

His arm moved without him thinking. Writing his name was muscle memory, and the familiar pattern of lines that was his name in Draconic quickly was printed on the runes. It had been years since he had seen it. It was nice.

He couldn't dwell on it. He certainly couldn't get emotional about it.

"I'm pretty sure it's similar to how we write. There's a letter for A, a letter for B and so on," Gajeel murmured a little. "Give me a second."

He wrote his name normally under the Draconic counterpart, showing what each letter's counterpart was. Freed made quick work of finding all the letters of Gajeel's name in the statement written on the wall. On the wall there was one G, one A, three E's, one L, four R's, one D, two F's and three O's. Not enough to find out what the statement was, but it was a starting point. Freed had immediately began trying to look for patterns in the letters they already knew, hoping to reverse engineer the alphabet. By the look of frustration on his face, it didn't seem to be working.

"You need help?" Gajeel asked, taking a step towards Freed. "Anything I can do?"

"Did your father only teach you how to write your name?" Freed asked, and Gajeel found it oddly comforting that Freed didn't seem off put by the fact Gajeel called a literal dragon his father. "Is that the only link to your Draconic ancestry you have? Do you know any history? It might help."

Well Gajeel could do that.

Years worth of history lessons seemed to spew out without Gajeel thinking. Everything from how dragons used to live, to the nesting patterns of hatchlings, to everything else that Gajeel had thought had left his head years ago. Once he started talking it felt like he couldn't stop, and Freed didn't seem to want him to. It was kinda nice to be able to talk about his past openly; the only other people who might have understood were Natsu and Wendy. They already knew everything, Freed didn't.

Once Gajeel had run out of things to say, Freed asked him more about the nesting patterns. Gajeel went through it all again, and inadvertently explained the types of mountains Dragons used to nest in. From this, Freed figured out which continent the Dragons lived on, and what cultures developed from Draconic influence. Somehow, he managed to reverse engineer the Draconic alphabet from that of a language currently in use.

Gods, how did the man's mind work?

"There's good news and bad news," Fred eventually said, looking back at Gajeel. "We've translated it, but it seems my magic has an agenda of sorts."

Before Gajeel could ask what that meant, Freed motioned for his writing runes to fly towards him. It was incredibly weird, and funny, seeing just how bad Freed's handwriting was, but he quickly ignored that. As much as he wanted to make fun of the man for his near incomprehensible writing, they weren't close enough to say things like that to one another.

Hm. Gajeel had kind of forgotten he was nervous about his relationship with Freed for a moment.

Rather than fixating, he looked down to the runes again and saw what Freed had translated. He grinned a little when he saw what they had to say to progress; Freed's magic did have an agenda, and didn't seem to be very subtle.

"We gotta say it at the same time?" Gajeel asked.

"I expect so," Freed agreed. A moment later, they both spoke.

"Our similarities outweigh our differences."

With a flurry of movements, the runes glowed and the room shifted around them. The words on the walls disappeared, and a small metal rod rose up from the ground. A metre away from the metal rod, a spark of lighting appeared in the air, flicking with powerful magic. A moment later, the instruction appeared in front of them both.

'Task Two. Conduct the electricity from the lighting into the metal rod. Touching the lighting will fill you with enough pain to render you unconscious, meaning you have failed the simulation.'

"Shit," Gajeel whispered. "Yer runes can be brutal."

"They're usually not quite so bad," Freed mused, walking towards the lightning and inspecting it, though not closely enough to touch it. "I intended the simulation to make us work well as a team. I suppose after the way we have been treating one another for the past few days, my magic believed we need something intense to bring us tougher."

"Guess so," Gajeel mumbled, a little guiltily. He was responsible for that. "Sorry."

"Don't be," Freed dismissed, seemingly fascinated by the challenge. "Honestly, I think the challenges are aimed at challenging my preconceived ideas about you. I had written you off as an idiot who could only utilize your fists, so my magic put us in a situation where you would talk about something you're well versed in and passionate about," Freed was still looking at the spark, a little wistful in his expression. "Frankly, the way you described your culture was beautiful. It certainly destroyed any ideas I had about your mind being anything but… well, wonderful."

Gajeel flushed a little at the compliment, looking away. He wasn't great when people said good things about him, and he tended to deflect when it happened.

"So, yer magic worked. We respect each other at least now, right?" Gajeel said gruffly, Freed nodded. "Other than respect, the only thing I need to work well with another guy is trust. So, guess this is made to make us trust each other."

Freed hummed a little, and his nose scrunched up again.

Fuck, it was kinda cute.

"Say, hypothetically, that this lightning didn't cause you any pain," Freed mused aloud, glancing between the spark of lighting and the metal rod. "Would you be able to use your magic to transform your body into a conductive metal. So you could stretch your fingers from the spark to the rod and have the current pass through you?"

"Yeah, I think so," Gajeel shrugged a little. "Don't exactly wanna touch it if it'll knock me out. Had enough of that this week," He had spoken before thinking, and Freed averted his gaze. "Shit I didn't mean to say that."

"No, no. It's fair," Freed said passively, but didn't seem to believe his words.

"Why'd you ask anyway?" Gajeel asked, trying to avert the topic.

"I've crafted runes that will lessen the effect of lighting magic, a necessity of working with Laxus," Freed explained, looking at the spark again. "If you're correct and this is to make us trust one another, then perhaps it's as simple as you using your magic to make a metal bridge between source and the rod, and you have to trust that my runes will stop you from hurting."

"Guess it makes sense," Gajeel agreed, frowning. "You sure it works?"

"It has worked against every type of lightning I've used it to deflect from before," Freed said, looking to Gajeel. "I can't promise that it will work, though. This is made of my magic, not natural lightning, so there's no way of knowing for sure yet."

Gajeel thought for a moment, before stealing himself and shrugging. "Fuck it, we ain't got any other ideas. Lay it on me."

Freed moved to stand behind Gajeel, and a moment later a cold hand was pressed against the back of his neck. He heard muttering in a language he didn't know, then the familiar feeling of magic rolling down his skin. The sensation of a rune on his skin was unknown to him - a rune not meant to hurt him anyway - and it sent a slight shiver down his spine. Maybe that was just because Freed was cupping his neck; it was a part of his body that people didn't often touch, after all.

A sheen of magic flowed over his skin, and Gajeel watched as his body flowed purple for a second. The spell was obviously completed, as the magic seemed to seep into his skin, but Freed still kept his hand on Gajeel's neck.

"You gonna let go?" He asked with a frown.

"No. If my rune fails, we should share the pain," Freed's tone left no room for argument.

"It's yer funeral," Gajeel mumbled.

He placed his hand on the iron rod, covering his skin with his iron. Slowly, he extended one of his hands towards the flickering sparks of lighting, wincing a little as it got closer. He really fucking hoped Freed's runes worked, because even after Wendy had come by to heal him, Gajeel wasn't fully recovered. Another bout of unconsciousness would only make things worse.

With a flinch, he forced his metallic digit into the lightning. It didn't hurt as such, more like a tingle that spread through him and perhaps Freed. The lightning passed across him, into his hand, and lit the metal rod up. The room turned green.

"Guess it worked," Gajeel grinned a little, turning to Freed.

When he turned, he was taken aback by the sight of the other man. Freed was hot, Gajeel hadn't bothered to hide that even when they were arguing, and he was handsome too. But when he was smiling a victorious smile, a slight magical haze in his eyes, expression equal parts cocky and satisfied, he looked fucking beautiful. The glow of the purple runes illuminated his pale skin, made his eyes shine, and made Gajeel damn near breathless.

He was staring at him, and suddenly something fell into place. He had wondered what would take the place of the antagonism between them, and suddenly an option was shown to him. Freed was now sexy, handsome and beautiful. He had a scrunchy nose, hummed in the shower, and had a wild side.

"It did," Freed's voice, which sounded like honey now Gajeel paid attention, cut through his thoughts. "Thank you for trusting me, Gajeel."

"Ain't a problem, Pretty-Boy."

The slip of the tongue made Gajeel freeze. Freed didn't comment on it, but Gajeel didn't miss the slight upturn of his lips. Fuck he had a pretty smile, didn't he?

Gods dammit.