Below the magic titles is: train riding (with a pair of Dragon Slayers); Wendy purring (so damned cute); perving (Gajeel is eye-candy); embarssed!Lucy (guess who got caught perving?); Gajeel not being a jackass (someone call Superman, the world is tilting off its axis!)
Jade-ed Fang; I'm flattered ~ thank you. And yes, I likes the cookies. I love cookies. I have cookies three times a week ~
GnarlyRockerchick; I'm blushing a bit after reading your reviews ~ I'm glad you like it so. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy in my non-existent heart when people enjoy my writing.
Took quite a few liberties with locations and whatnot, because while there is a Fiore map, it's not all that detailed. So, basically winged the locations and whatnot. Also haven't edited this chappie, so if there's any mistakes or quirks or whatever, please tell me so I don't look like a jackass.
On a less cheerful note, I have assessment hell-verse coming up from next week onwards, so updates may be delayed. I'll try and keep on the ball, but exams come first, so sorry. You'd think university would give you time off for fanfiction writing, but they're surprisingly strict on that particular note. Buggery, eh?
Song by U2
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Chapter 5 – Mysterious Ways
It was so different sitting on a train with Gajeel than it was with Natsu. The two Dragon Slayers were as different as the sun and the moon, and thank the stars that they were, because what the hell would they do with two Natsu's or Gajeel's? Two Natsu's would actually manage to demolish a whole city next time around, and Gajeel was crazy enough just being one man, let alone two.
But it was kind of nice to compare the two, because when it boiled down to it all, Gajeel was actually quite train-approved and useful. It had never been easier to get a double seat on the train than with the two Dragon Slayers - even with Erza trying to 'persuade' people to move. It wasn't so much Wendy as it was Gajeel; sadly, Wendy was too little and quiet to be of much notice, and Lucy always got catcalls and whistles instead. But people moved out of the way when Gajeel zeroed in on a seat, creating a clear berth for the Slayer and refusing to sit before he had. Lucy knew it was more out of fear for the Slayer than anything else - he had reaped havoc on Magnolia before - but it was a little ridiculous.
She didn't see what there was to be afraid of Gajeel before; then again, she had already received her designated, very one-sided no-holds-barred beatdown from him already, so it was someone else's turn now. Besides, Gajeel would readily risk his life by jumping into an inter-dimensional portal to save everyone's asses from being liquefied into magical power and the trying to beat down the entire royal army for his nakama, so what did she have to worry about? Making her rent - that was it.
Gajeel took up one entire side of their double-facing seats with just himself and their bags, quite purposely deterring anyone from sitting beside him. Gajeel was a jackass with a heart of gold, but a massive jackass nonetheless. But this was subverted somewhere in the back of Lucy's mind because he had bought their train tickets, out of his own money, and said nothing to them about it. Natsu sometimes half-payed for her rent, Gray often bought her dinner or lunch when out, Erza was known to bring her back cute clothing on trips; but never once had anyone done something as simple as pay for her train ticket.
Wendy was quite happy to be sitting next to Lucy, however, smiling sweetly and kicking her legs with the movement of the mostly-stationary train. Charle was sitting on the arm rest of Wendy's chair, her little arms crossed in usual petulance, while Lily was content to sprawl out over their luggage beside Gajeel. The white female exceed had been starting to loose her strictness ever since returning from Edolas, but she still kept a tight reign on Wendy. Not to be mean, but Lucy could see why; Wendy attracted a lot of attention, having 'mystical' feeling magic and all, and she was much too timid to drive people off herself. That was where Charle came in, deterring people from harassing the young Sky Dragon Slayer.
Lucy's lips twitched - Charle wasn't going to need to do that too much today with Gajeel around.
The train gave a warning whistle and a little lurch, signalling that it was only a few moments from taking off. Lucy could not count the amount of times that she had almost missed the train because of Natsu, more specifically, because he didn't want to ride it. The Fire Dragon Slayer would walk everywhere if he could, even though it took forever and by the time they got to a city, the job they had taken had been already completed by a rival guild. It was almost nice to get on the train at a decent time so they didn't have to scramble for seats, and Erza didn't have to barge down the isle to claim the last set of double seats before someone else did.
"So, what's this job were doing?" Lucy asked.
Gajeel turned his red eyes to her, his studded eyebrow twitching. Lucy wondered about his reaction, before realising what she had just asked; she had come on a job without even asking about it beforehand. She could see the edge of his lips quirk up into a sardonic smirk, and Lucy resisted the urge to knee the man across from her. It wasn't that she didn't want to - oh, how she longed to - but it was more the fact that he had, after all, invited her to tag along when he could have easily told her to screw off. He was also much stronger than she was, and she'd only end up hurting herself if she tried it with the Iron Dragon Slayer.
It was Lily who spoke up, not Gajeel, who decided to turn and look out the window of the now-moving train. The little black exceed pulled a request flyer from within the stack of bags he was perched upon, and handed it over to Lucy.
"We're after a Guild-Hunter called Leeroy Jenkins," Panther Lily told her.
Guild-Hunters were freelance mages working for dark guilds, who purposely hunt mages in guilds and kill them. They usually joined the guild they were hunting in, single out the target they had been hired for, then informed the dark guild of the legal guild's inner working and schedule so the dark guild could attack and destroy the guild and their target.
"He's not a particularly good Guild-Hunter - he only got half the guild, so the rest of the guild sent out a request while they focused on rebuilding," Lily explained.
The flyer that Lily had handed her had a picture of a fairly ordinary-looking man, maybe mid 30-ish without any real distinguishing features. Well, this was going to be a bitch and a half. Finding an ordinary man like that in a town as big as Shirotsume - that would be like finding a needle in a haystack. She really wanted to mention this, but there must be a reason why Gajeel decided to let Wendy whet her teeth on this one; he must know where this Leeroy Jenkins is. Lucy didn't know how he knew, just that the Iron Dragon Slayer knew something that he wasn't telling her.
Though when it came to tracking people, Gajeel had definitely proved that he was more than capable of following a thin scent across a crowded town - that's how he had found her before. There was an inherent usefulness in a Dragon Slayer's nose, and a part of Lucy realised why Gajeel had taken Wendy out on this job with him. Since returning from Edolas, Gajeel had been showing Wendy, in his own stony way, genuine affection in the way of actually semi-nice constructive criticism. The Sky Dragon Grandine had left Wendy at such a young age, much younger than the other two Dragon Slayers, and Lucy realised that Gajeel was trying to train her.
That's why he was taking her out with him; to let the little dragon hatchling whet her teeth and learn some tracking skills under the watchful and trained eye of the Iron Dragon Slayer. It was odd, but Lucy thought that Gajeel could do a much better job than Natsu could when it came to teaching the young girl - now there was a scary thought, Gajeel teaching a child. But Natsu was legendary among his team mates for, lacking of a better word, winging it and winning his fights through trial and error. Wendy didn't have the stamina and attack strength to do something like that like the two male Slayers could, but that was probably why Gajeel was there; to absorb the heavy blows and provide backup.
She felt a little out of place but also a little honoured that Gajeel had invited her to join in their request. Lucy knew that Dragon Slaying magics were a Lost Magic now, rare and highly sought after, but he still saw it fit to bring her along. Okay, so maybe she had emotionally blackmailed him a little to get the pay-day, and there was no way she could pick up such a complicated magic like Dragon Slaying, but it still touched her a little. In fact, that was probably why Gajeel hadn't been too hesitant about letting Lucy tag along; there was no way she could steal that kind of magic, even if she wanted it - she didn't really, she was more than happy with her celestial spirits.
It would be quite a few hours to Shirotsume, but that was much preferable than walking, which would take days instead of hours. Now she wished that she had packed a book in her little hard-case suitcase that she always brought along, because this was going to be a very long trip full of very little conversations. She could talk to Wendy, but it was hard to tackle issues like strategies or even common mage issues with the girl; she was just too young to properly understand all that. Gajeel was as likely to speak to her as pigs were to fly; after all, all she had managed to elicit from the Iron Dragon Slayer was a few grunts.
Instead, she considered napping. She hadn't slept very well in her new bed; it was just too firm without the body imprints that Natsu had managed to develop on his many unwanted sleepovers, which Lucy had become so accustomed to rolling into. Lucy crossed her arms over her chest and leant against the window, letting her eyes close as the rattle of the train lulled her into a light doze. There was no need for her to be alert; both the Dragon Slayers and the exceed would know of danger long before Lucy would, and there was nothing else to do aside from shut her eyes and doze.
It was amazingly different to be travelling with the two Slayers so far, especially when it came to trains. What with Natsu's violent motion sickness, within the first minute of the trip he either ended up in Lucy or Erza's lap - Lucy's willingly and Erza's unwillingly, because it meant he was going to get hit - and Lucy would stroke down his spine and card her fingers through his hair to help quell his illness. On the occasions that he was in Erza's care, Lucy would sometimes play cards with Gray, or fall asleep on his shoulder if the trip was long. Erza would talk to them, about their requested job or her latest armour, and more often than not to Lucy, the latest dime-store bodice ripper she had read.
The train rumbled and rolled along for god-knows how long, and Lucy hovered in that blissful place where she wasn't actually asleep, but much too content and lazy to actually open her eyes. She wasn't sure when she had started, but she was humming quietly in time with the train, a random tune that she didn't really remember much of, but she could vaguely remember her mother singing when she was much younger. Wendy had fallen asleep about an hour after the train set off, sitting up straight until the train's motion eventually slumped her into Lucy's lap. She was pretty sure that's when the humming had started, and she used to hum that tone every now and then for Natsu as well, but he was too sick to ever take much notice of it.
She knew that they were about an hour out from Oshibana by now, where they had to get off before Clover Town to catch the connection to Shirotsume. Lucy considered waking Wendy, but was too content with her own lull to bother the littlest Dragon Slayer from her peaceful sleep on Lucy's lap. Instead, Lucy cracked her own eyes, blinking as they adjusted to the light of the train carriage. Wendy had curled her legs up on the seat where she had been sitting, now resting more than before on Lucy's legs, and it made her smile. Even though Wendy was the Sky Dragon Slayer, and even helped slay the mechanical Dragon Knight in Edolas, it was painfully obvious how young she was like this.
Lucy sink her fingers into Wendy's dark hair, carding through the thick locks and thinking, that after this job was over, that she'd share some of her good hair conditioner with the young girl, because it was starting to get split-ends and felt a little coarse. She was a beautiful girl, and as such, she should have hair that made her feel like that; Lucy knew it was silly, but sometimes that was all it took for her to feel good about herself. Wendy made a little mewling sound as Lucy stroked her hair, almost like a kitten purring, and Lucy giggled at how sweet and cute she was, gently tugging the hair ornaments out of her hair to give more room for her finger-brushing.
She heard a noise come from across her, and Lucy glanced upwards. Gajeel had thrown one of his powerful legs up over their luggage at some point, which Pantherlily was using as a headrest while he slept. Charle had curled up over Wendy's prone legs, happily asleep, but that wasn't where the noise had come from. By all rights, Gajeel was asleep. His body language was calm, his chest rising and falling deeply but peacefully, his arms crossed loosely over his chest, face slack except for that one open red eye looking at her. Lucy was just staring at him, her hand still in Wendy's hair, despite the little Slayer's noise of protest, and she almost thought that he was sleeping with one eye open, but then he blinked.
Of course Gajeel would be too paranoid to actually nod off with them there, that was a given, but what was more disconcerting was the thought that he could have very well been watching her the whole time. It wasn't really all his fault if he had, Lucy was sitting across from him, after all, but she was too used to having Erza across from her, eyes closed serenely or chatting away at Gray beside her. She had grown too accustomed to their quirks, and them to hers, that being around new people, even when it was just travelling for a few hours, made her nervous. If it was Gray or Erza looking at her, Lucy would brush it of, yawn loudly, and probably conk out again; but this was Gajeel.
His crimson eye was fixed on her, the narrow black pupil locked onto her sleepy eyes as she rapidly woke. Her fingers were back to carding through Wendy's hair, seeking some semblance of normality for her, and Wendy made a happy noise and went back into a deep sleep. Lucy broke her gaze from the Iron Dragon Slayer to look down at Wendy, her fingers curled into Lucy's skirt like a child with their mother, and Lucy felt the tension flee her. Lucy didn't remember much about her mother apart from the tuneless songs and her warm, soft hands, but she did remember sleeping against her like Wendy was. It was one of the few warm memories she had of her childhood, those of her mother, and it occurred to Lucy that Wendy never had those.
Wendy had been raised by Grandine, the Sky Dragon, who may have liked humans, but could never offer Wendy the warmth that another human could. She had been apart of Cait Shelter, the illusionary guild created just for her, but Lucy never really got the feeling that she was as close to them as Fairy Tail was to each other. Lucy began humming again, twisting her fingers in Wendy's long hair, and the little Dragon Slayer began making that mewl-purring noise that made Lucy smile. She could feel Gajeel still looking at her still, but it wasn't as off-putting as it was before; Lucy was just happy that Wendy was there, being her cherubic self without even knowing.
They would be in Oshibana soon enough, and she would have to rouse Wendy until they got onto their connection train, where she could safely fall asleep once again. Lucy let her eyes close once again, though not before peeking up at Gajeel. His eyes had shut, seemingly content with what he had witnessed, though the line of his jaw was hard like he was thinking. The Iron Dragon Slayer really did have a way of bottling things up that was really unhealthy. Lucy sometimes did that, but Natsu was usually there to pry it out until she just began crying and Natsu flailed about, trying to think of a way to calm her. Gray would whack him upside the head for seemingly upsetting her, and Erza would crash Lucy's head to her steely bosom and tell her to cry it out, if a little dramatically.
Gajeel never really had anything like that, Lucy thought. Wendy had Charle, and although the white exceed was just as surly as Gajeel, she genuinely cared for Wendy and showed concern for her. Gajeel had only recently gotten Pantherlily, and before the black exceed came along, Gajeel was completely alone - Gajeel didn't seem to emote apart from channelling all his feelings into a usually one-sided beat-down to make himself feel better. She wondered, that if Gajeel had had a partner like Wendy had to support her in battle and emotionally, if he would have turned out differently - it amused her to think that he could have turned out like timid little Wendy. But then again, he wouldn't have been Gajeel if he had, and it was all his quirks that made him who he was.
Who he was now was the sum of his life experiences; that life that must have been hard and long, and mostly lonely and very violent, but they had turned him into what he was now. And he was a stand-offish, often violent man with a love for cats and a nearly compulsive need to keep everyone at arms length. He didn't care how one-sided a fight was (and they often were), or if his opponent was man, woman or child (very occasionally); if they threatened his way, his life or his guild, Gajeel would beat the crap out of them. Sometimes even those in his own guild even, though it was vastly limited to Natsu and, on occasion, Gray - he had sparred with Erza once, that Lucy had seen, and didn't seem very eagre to do so again, not that she could blame him.
Cracking her eye open very slowly, Lucy saw that Gajeel still had his angular eyes closed and seemingly asleep. She could tell from her body language, however, that he could leap up at any moment now and slash an enemy to ribbons before either her or Wendy could wake up. It was the same body language that Erza adapted when they stopped to rest during a job, like there was an enemy around the corner that only she could perceive, even though Natsu's nose and ears would pick it up first. It struck Lucy as very wrong, that he should have to be like that. He would jump into the anima to save them all, but he wouldn't trust his back to them, to her?
His jaw was still tense, his teeth grinding every now and then - he must be pretty deep in thought not to notice that she was looking at him now. Then again, Wendy was still making those little purring noises, so Gajeel didn't really have much of an indication, at least, that's what she thought. His face was all hard angles and piercings, with jagged dragon-like teeth and sharp, angular eyes, and it was because of this that Gajeel could look very cruel and intimidating to people. It wasn't really admitted, but a good deal of Fairy Tail were intimidated or put-off by the Iron Dragon Slayer, which really was a pity because Lucy knew that, deep down, he was a very good man.
And when he was like this, silent and without those piercing red eyes, he was quite an attractive fellow. Those hard angles that made him cruel to others were actually quite alluring; the strength of his jaw and the subtle curve of his mouth, the angular shape of his eyes and the lines of studs that sat where his eyebrows should have been. The piercings down his nose and chin drew attention to his strong features, and the multiple piercings he had along his ears added to the emphasis of him; he was Gajeel Redfox, raised by a dragon, and one of the few Dragon Slayers out there. He was thickly muscled, his shoulders square and broad, metal studs decorating his forearms like badges of honour. His arm was still bandaged, though not as heavily as before as to not draw the attention of the smaller Slayer in Lucy's lap, still purring away like a kitten than a Dragon.
Once again, Lucy was presented with the chance to look Gajeel over, without his knowledge, as the Dragon Slayer silently meditated on whatever went on in his head. The way he was reclining stretched his usually loose white pants tight over his powerful thighs, his metal-lined boots almost sticking out into the isle, and it drew Lucy's attention. Every hard line and sharp edge that made up Gajeel screamed power and strength, like you could hit him with a hammer and he'd just scoff and shake it off, and Lucy knew from recent personal experience how heavy all that muscle and metal made him; no doubt perfect for fighting and endurance. If he ever decided to, Lucy thought that he could kill her just by sitting on her.
"You're staring," Gajeel said gruffly.
He cracked a red eye open, no doubt just in time to see her face turn red, blush creeping down her neck and along her ears. Lucy knew how it looked - like she was checking him out. She wasn't - well, she was, but not in that way - and promptly began to stammer out denials while shaking her head vigorously. He really had the wrong idea about her; yes, he was attractive in his own way, but Lucy wasn't interested in him. Mostly.
She gave up on speaking and instead settled into mortified, and slightly angry because of the very ego-happy grin on the Iron Dragon Slayer's face, and if it was Gray, she would have tried to beat his head in with her suitcase. But Gray always laughed it off - he could defend himself very well for someone who laughed as much as he did - and doing such a casual interaction with Gajeel would land her somewhere unpredictable - and unpaid.
Instead, Lucy sucked it up, glared at Gajeel, and roused Wendy from her sleep.
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Author's note: you know, it was actually a little challenging to write Gajeel in a non-jackass manner. He's slowly mellowing out towards Lucy, but don't worry - he will never loose that jackass personality of his. Well, I suppose he's still a bit of a ass in this chapter - think he's still in character? I'm not sure but I like it ~
Cookies to the first person who gets the Leeroy Jenkins reference ~