Chapter 8

Showers

By Neko Erza

After an hour Levi finally found the strength to stand up from the cold floor. The tears had stopped a while ago. She just didn't have any left to shed anymore. She dragged herself towards the bathroom and turned on the shower. While the water warmed up she carefully took of the dirty clothes, which she threw away as far as possible once they were off. She never wanted to touch them again.

She remembered the last time she had taken a shower here. She had looked into the mirror and seen the beaten up version of herself and it had disgusted her. Now it was even worse. She felt dirty, a filth that went deeper than just her skin. She could still feel where the guard had touched her and she feared that that feeling would never go away.

She stepped under the water and immediately started scrubbing her body from head to toe. She wanted that filthy feeling gone, erased from her memory. She frantically rubbed over her stomach to scrub away every last trace of where the man's tongue had dragged over her.

Once she was done, her skin had turned all red from the frantic scrubbing.

Next she, now carefully, washed between her legs. She felt all sore and torn down there and was afraid to make it worse, but still she made sure she didn't miss a single spot.
The thought of how he had invaded her made the tears return to her eyes. They quietly ran down her cheeks, mixing with the water of the shower. She didn't know where those tears kept coming from.

Once she had cleaned up as much as she could, she remained under the shower a little longer enjoying the clean, hot water running down her body. She let it rinse away any possible dirt that she may have forgotten. Her skin tingled all over from the hard scrubbing, but it soothed her to know that this way no dirt was left behind.

After a while she opened her eyes and looked up at the window she had escaped through earlier. She hadn't noticed before since it was already dark outside but the window was completely blocked by heavy iron. Not even the tiniest ray of light would find a way in, let alone that anything would find a way out.

She let out a sigh, finally turned off the water, and wrapped a towel around her body. She dried her hair and her body carefully and quickly threw away the towels, feeling that they were now dirty too. She quickly went to search for some clothes. Since the dragon slayer wasn't home anyway, she went to the bedroom stark naked, but was relieved once she could cover up. She picked out one of the more neutral pair of panties, a loose shirt and some pants and put them on.

After that she returned to the living room. She hadn't noticed before, but there were more holes in the wall and gravel on the floor than this morning. Apparently Gajeel had needed something to let out his anger once he discovered she had escaped. She decided to clean it up, for it would only remind her more of what had happened.

Once everything was cleaned up and she had forced herself to eat something, she crawled under her blanket on the couch and pulled her knees up to her chest, making herself into a tiny ball. The position made her feel safe, warm and unnoticeable. Just what she needed.

Levi lay there in silence, trying not to think about her friends too much. She had been so happy to find out they were alive, but when she thought about the state they were in that happiness was damped again immediately. Loke was near death from being in the human world without any magic and the sight of Gray's back with the flesh ripped open made her shiver. And then there were Jet and Droy. She didn't even know where they were or what state they were in. Apparently they were made to do labour so she guessed (and hoped) that meant they were at least able to move.

Although her mind was troubled she soon slipped into a deep sleep.

The next morning Gajeel still wasn't back, but Levi didn't really mind. She had truly been scared of him and she needed to be alone right now. As soon as she woke up she had hurried to the shower again and gave herself another scrubbing as the tears flowed freely again. Those damn tears didn't seem to want to stop.

Once she had pulled on her clothes she went to look for the book Gajeel had let her read. The hard leather cover felt soothingly cool under her fingers and she instantly felt a bit better. In the evening she forced herself to eat something and crawled back on the couch and closed her eyes, hoping none of the memories of the day before would appear in her dreams.

The next day went exactly the same. No Gajeel. Shower. Book. Eat. Couch.

Only this time, in the middle of the night she suddenly woke up from a loud noise coming from the front door. She could hear people in the hallway and wondered who or what it could be. She quickly sat up and listened carefully, an anxious feeling taking hold of her.

The answer came soon enough when the door to the living room opened and Gajeel stumbled in with a woman glued to his lips. With them came in the stench of alcohol and smoke and it didn't take Levi long to understand what was going on.

"Gajeel, there's someone there." The woman said when she noticed Levi on the couch.

"Ignore her." The dragon slayer grumbled while he kept placing kisses on the woman's neck. She gladly did as she was told and ignored the bluenette and started returning the kisses eagerly.

The duo stumbled through the room towards the hall and bedroom, but before they vanished through the door Gajeel looked at the little bluenette.

"Don't disturb."

'Like I'd want to disturb.' It crossed Levi's mind. She lay back down as soon as the two had left the room and tried to fall asleep again. But although she didn't disturb, they definitely did. Their grunts and moans went through the walls like a cannonball, which made it pretty hard to ignore it. This way she wouldn't get sleep for hours.

She got up again and walked over to the wall. Hearing them go at it on the other side made her roll her eyes disgusted. They sounded more like animals than people. She raised her hands and whispered, "Solid script: silence."

But the only thing that happened was purple runes glowing up along the walls. Gajeel must have had someone place it after he found out she had escaped. The little bluenette cursed under her breath as she deciphered the rune code. It basically restricted any kind of rune- or word-based magic to take effect inside these walls, which meant she couldn't do a thing. She wouldn't be able to rewrite them either since she needed her magic for that.

She walked back to the couch defeated and slumped down on it. The grunting and moaning only seemed to have become louder, so she pressed the pillows against her ears, at least trying to block a little bit of it. Sadly, it didn't do much. She longed for the silence of the night before.

Not only made this situation feel her embarrassed, it also made her relive a little of the desperation she had felt that day in the dungeon. The guard had intended to rape her and the sounds made it pretty hard to forget that experience. She wanted to take another shower, starting to feel the filth again. She tried to shake the feeling and instead focused on other things.

She thought of Fairy Tail, which normally never failed to fill her with joy, but now it just felt bittersweet. Sweet because she thought of the friends she loved so much and who loved her back. Bitter… because she had no idea if she'd ever see them again.

She shook her head trying to get the thoughts away. They were only making her feel more miserable. She decided to think about the books she had recently read or still needed to read. It eased her mind at least a bit, but it didn't quite do much about the annoying sounds coming from the next room.

It felt like hours had passed when it finally became silent, but Levi had never been so happy once it did. She took away the pillow and laid it back underneath her head, finally able to get some sleep, which to her great pleasure was dreamless.

Lucy took a sip from her juice as she sat down at the bar. Her eyes searched the guild for her best friend, since she really wanted to tell her about the progress of her novel; yet she couldn't find the little bluenette anywhere.

"Hey, Mira?" The blonde asked as she kept scanning the room.

The white haired bartender turned around with a big smile. "Yes?"

"Do you know when Levi's coming back?"

"Oh, not really actually. Team Shadow Gear went on a mission a few days ago, but it wasn't that clear how long it was going to take, but I guess they should be back within three days at last." Mira smiled.

"Good, because I really have a lot to tell her." The blonde smiled.

"Hey, Luce! What are you doing?" The voice of Natsu called and a second later the pinkette sat down on the chair next to her. Happy landed on top of the bar.

"Nothing much, just asking when Levi was coming back."

"Oh, that reminds me; when are Gray and Loke coming back? I want to challenge that ice bastard to a fight." The dragon slayer said as he lit his fist on fire.

"I thought they were coming back yesterday, but apparently their mission is taking longer than expected."

"The ice princess probably just messed up." The pinkette grinned.

"Come on now, Natsu, be a little nice." Mira said. "I'm sure they are doing great. The mission was pretty far away, so they probably just have some bad luck with the transportation."

Just from the thought of it the dragon slayer turned green. "I would have gone by foot."

"Yeah, but you would even swim the entire ocean just so you wouldn't need to take a boat." Lucy snickered.

"Let me know when they get back, okay?" Natsu said as he jumped of his chair and stormed over towards Elfman, challenging him to a fight instead.

"I will." Lucy forced a smile. She didn't know why, but she hadn't been feeling well today. She had an uneasy feeling that she couldn't shake, but she kept silent since it was probably just her imagination.

She could feel the Gate of the Lion was still open somewhere. She had a strong urge to force close his gate, although she didn't really understand why. She didn't though because if he was still busy with the mission, it would mean stealing away Gray's partner, potentially putting him in danger.

But as she took her Keys out and looked at them the uneasy feeling only grew more intense. Somehow it looked like the Leo-key had lost a bit of its shine and it felt colder and heavier.

If he and Gray aren't back in a week, I'm going to try and call him out.

The morning after the noisy night felt more awkward than Levi could have imagined. She was sitting opposite of Gajeel, who chumped on some iron without giving her any kind of attention. He didn't even seem to notice she was there, but she was all too aware of him.

The morning hadn't gone all that well. At about 6 o'clock Levi woke up from sudden yelling in the other room. The 'lovey-dovey'- couple had somehow gotten into a fight and a few moments later the woman stormed out of the door followed by a pissed off dragon slayer who yelled none too gentle names after her. But the thing that made it truly awkward was to see that the raven man hadn't bothered to put anything on.

That image together with the noises she had heard made it hard not to feel awkward around this man and the current silence only made it worse in Levi's opinion.

She nibbled at her breakfast uncomfortably as suddenly Gajeel's voice pushed away the silence.

"If you ever try to escape again, I will kill you."

Although it clearly was a threat, Levi didn't really feel scared anymore. If he had wanted to hurt her, he would have done so already. Trying to escape again would probably be pushing her luck, not knowing how he might react then, so she nodded, "I know."

The iron mage seemed a little taken aback from the calm answer, but tried covering it up by saying, "Good."

The silence returned for a few minutes until Levi got tired of it. It gave her an uneasy feeling and keeping up a conversation got her mind of the horrible things the guard had done to her. She didn't like to be left alone with her thoughts.

"It's not like I'll be able to escape with all the runes around."

The iron mage glared at her for a few seconds, but the little bluenette refused to meet his gaze. "You noticed already?"

"I wasn't trying to escape again if that's what you think." She said casually as she poked around in her food a bit. She didn't feel like bringing up all the noise she had heard last night, so she pushed the truth a bit, "I'm a script mage. It's not that hard to notice runes for me."

"I don't feel like dragging my ass back to that filthy dungeon to save you again. The runes will keep you here for sure."

"I do not doubt that." Levi looked straight at the iron mage with a blank expression.

Gajeel had to admire her guts once more. Never before had a person dared to talk like this or give him that kind of look. And of all people it was a little 'shrimp' who dared to do so.

The bluenette added, "I just wonder why you didn't just give me a magic depriver like my friends."

"I don't like those things. They aren't fully developed yet and they are dangerous. You saw how it fucked up your boyfriend's arm."

"He's not my boyfriend." Levi said as she looked down. A shiver went down her spine as she thought off the dark poisoned veins that ran all the way up to Gray's shoulder. On one hand it made her proud that her friend was still fighting and not planning to give up; to know that he hadn't given up hope yet, but on the other hand she feared for his health. She didn't think he knew just how dangerous the deprivers are.

"Yeah, you said so before." Gajeel said keeping an eye on the girl's reactions. "Didn't look like that, though."

"We're Nakama." Was the girl's short explanation. Gajeel stared at her for a few seconds.

"Those deprivers are dangerous. That ice mage should really stop being stubborn and stop trying to use his magic; he's slowly poisoning himself. Although even if he didn't use his magic, the depriver would be a bad thing. Since every cell in a mage's body is filled with magical energy, the thing is constantly pumping small doses into his veins. The more magic, the bigger the doses."

"I know..." The girl said, feeling a little sick just thinking about it. Gray had one of the biggest magic reserves she had ever seen, so that clearly was bad news for him. THe poisoning doses would be equally big. "But I'm just as concerned, if not more, about the whips that ripped the flesh off of his spine. I'm pretty sure those will be his death sooner than the poisoning." The little bluenette looked at him with a hint of blame.

"Don't look at me like that. I didn't order to give him those." The dragon slayer defended himself.

The girl averted her gaze again, knowing she should be thankful for him saving her instead of blaming him. "I just… I don't know what I would do if they were to die… Gray… Jet… Droy… Loke… I'm most concerned about Loke… he won't hold out much longer like this."

"Loke? Which one's that?" Gajeel asked. Levi jolted up at his voice. She didn't realize she was saying these things out loud. Next to that she didn't expect him to be interested.

"He's the one with spiky orange hair." The bluenette said barely louder than a whisper. She remembered the hollow, empty eyes that were usually full of life and playfulness. She had seen him like that one time before, but this time Lucy wasn't around to save him.

"What's up with him anyway? I mean…" Gajeel asked, not really sure how to formulate it without sounding crude. "The ice mage still seems to be alive and kicking. Is that Loke-guy that weak?"

"Loke is anything but weak!" She said defensively. "He's a celestial spirit. He's not made to survive in this world. His magic is the only thing that enables him to stay here, although the time is limited. That magic depriver is sucking away his life."

"Oh…" The dragon slayer answered, actually never having seen a spirit before. They didn't have a Celestial Mage in Phantom, but he had heard about them and their spirits. "Aren't they normally all like weird object- or animal-like… things?"

"A lot of them are. But Loke is a special case even among the spirits. He's a golden key to begin with."

"Aren't those extremely rare?" Gajeel asked curious. He didn't know why he even bothered listening, but the girl really made it all sound interesting. She surely had a way with words.

"Yeah, they are. He's the zodiac sign of the Lion; the Leader of the Zodiacs His hair mirrors a Lion's mane and it even seems he has animal ears at times."

"Oh." Fairy Tail surely was full of weirdo's, yet they sure were interesting. Although Gajeel would never admit to that.

"Since the master threw them in jail, he obviously doesn't want them dead so… I'll say something about it to the warden. Maybe he can keep it from sucking out the life." Gajeel grumbled quickly before nibbling on an iron screw again.

The little bluenette smiled. "Thank you… because I haven't given up on the idea of us all going home yet."

"Didn't think you had

." Gajeel said with a crooked grin. "Damn Fairy Tail mages are too proud to give up apparently."

"That's the truth."

"I do have to admit that I was surprised that your boyfriend was able to use even a small amount of magic with the depriver on. Maybe you Fairy Tail mages really are something beside a bunch of idiots."

Somehow that comment made Levi snicker, which surprised both her and Gajeel. "I can't really deny that they can be pretty idiotic at times." Levi looked up and saw the smug smile on the raven's face, so she quickly added, "But they are all very talented. We're still the best guild in Fiore. And for the last time; he's not my boyfriend."

"You keep telling me that, but I don't quite believe it." Gajeel grinned.

"Think whatever you want." Levi shrugged, not wanting to waste her time on the useless bickering but still she couldn't suppress a little smile.

Although the bluenette still felt awful about everything that happened and she still got shivers as she thought about how angry the dragon slayer had been, she felt like his presence was almost soothing at the moment. It almost felt like she was with a friend.

End of chapter 8

Finally I managed to update this story, but somehow I'm not entirely happy about it. I hope next chapter will go smoother.

Anyway I hope you liked it, be sure to let me know. I'm working on my other stories too and I'm really busy for school so I don't know when I'll update this story next, but I'll try to do it as soon as possible because I really have some ideas for it that I'd like to write out!

Thank you for reading and reviewing!