Disclaimer: I do not own Fairy Tail.
The ex-Phantom had had minimal success in the beginning of his stay with Tail. His past was cemented in the darkest towns and with the warped audiences that inhabited the old voodoo shops and haunted bones of decaying mansions. Gajeel Redfox was the man cloaked in shadows, with devilish red eyes and eerily gleaming canines.
He was the stuff of nightmares and belonged swept under the bed with the rest of the things that plagued silent nights.
Months in the Tail's ring were spent weathering the audience members that left the second he walked through Fried's curtain and performing to a handful of people that did it more out of favor to the old ringleader rather than the knife throwing underdog.
It grated on his nerves and the threadbare string of patience he had on reserve, but three and a half months were by no means enough for someone as stained as him to redeem himself.
Or convince the hurried and nervous customers to stay and to give him the chance to make his own living.
The irony that his past plagued him the worst in the end wasn't lost on him. The fact had been was constantly thrown in his face when, for the first time in ten years, Pantherlily was once again housing him and putting food in his belly. Even Makarov had added another strike to his pride in the next moment by consoling him. The old man had sat him down and assured him that Tail wouldn't put anyone out when it was obvious their best was being given and that he, especially, was making good on Makarov's offer of redemption.
Gajeel had quickly drawn the line with all the charitable mush after his meeting with Makarov and when he caught sight of the look pitying Salamander was giving him from across the dining tent, making to leave his usual spot to offer the juggler something. Something he wouldn't accept on the coldest day out on the streets. That look had been enough for him.
And he disappeared for two weeks.
The ancient history had become involuntary routine that pushed him further during every practice he had in the big top. Gajeel shook his head of the memories and refocused his mind.
He threw his oldest knife with all his might, watching with satisfaction as it nicked the bottom on a beam in the ceiling. He knew the second Laki saw the imperfection, Gajeel'd have it handed to him, but the chink of the knife slicing the lumber was music to his ears at that point.
The juggler steadied his focus and drove his muscles to perfect the act, the bitter taste of those missing two weeks simmering just below the dull thrum of exhaustion. Most of it had been spent drowning in enough liquor to make Cana giddy, but there were enough instances of sobriety for him to get shaken and get his act together.
"-ajeel…Gajeel?"
The knife thrower was pulled out of his thoughts, rusted sword halfway raised above his head when Levy appeared at his side. He lowered the sword and smirked down at her once she had approached him. "Bit dangerous to be interrupting this particular practice time, half pint."
The elephant rider scoffed and readjusted the package she held in her arms. "You wouldn't have hit me. Besides, that thing's so rusted and dulled, it couldn't slice a split hair."
Gajeel growled and none-too-gently flicked her forehead. "Oi, you don't hear me naggin' on yer accessories or that antique you call an elephant." Levy raised an eyebrow at that, serving to make the man fidget and grunt petulantly. "Fine, I haven't nagged on 'em in awhile."
She hummed and smiled. "No, you haven't. And, since good behavior is so rare for you-"
"Hey!"
"-I've got a little positive reinforcement."
"Really now?" The look he served her was nothing short of devilish, burning her cheeks with an unfamiliar ease.
Levy scowled at his mischievous countenance and tried to balance the package in one arm so she could punch him with the other. "Oh, come off it."
He side-stepped her energetic punch and raised his hands in forfeit. "All right, all right. Ya've got my attention."
The elephant rider sniffed disbelievingly, but knelt to the ground anyways. She gently settled the bulging burlap sack on the ground and unwound the twine tied carefully to keep the material in place. Gajeel awkwardly watched her, unsure if he was meant to follow her into the dirt or stay where he was. The decision was made for him when she popped back up, the burlap gone and only newspaper- he distantly noted it was the Funnies section- wrapped around what she held in her arms.
She beamed and tilted her head expectantly. "Well?"
Gajeel raised a thin brow at her and glanced at the gift. "Yer're serious?" Levy opened her mouth to remark, but he stopped her with a wave of his hand. "Don't. Fine, I get it. I'll open it." He sighed and began to tear into the paper, allowing the shredded pieces to fall to their feet. Ready to be done with the wait, he began to edge his finger under a rip and run it down the side to finish off the paper.
"Ah, careful!" His hand froze on the paper with her shout. She blushed at his bemused expression and cleared her throat. "Sorry, it's just- uh- wouldn't suggest opening it like that."
He shrugged and simply pulled a section of paper that ran the length of the gift off the top, dumbstruck with the sharp gleam that met his eye. Gajeel carefully reached in and gripped warm leather, the grip of a brand new sword.
"Th-they're dual swords. It wasn't exactly what we had talked about, b-but I remembered you said something about wanting a set some day…And I wanted to surprise you."
The knife thrower balanced the sword in his hands, inspecting the craftsmanship and smirking down at her. "And am I s'pposed to believe you managed to forge a sword all on yer own, shorty?"
She chuckled and shifted from foot to foot. "I had some help."
"Define 'some'."
"Natsu, Gray, Elfman, and a one or two favors paid back to Makarov in my name?"
Gajeel scoffed and ran his hand over the flat edge of the sword, almost taken aback when he found no imperfections. "More impressed you managed to assemble a team like that to help ya."
"It wasn't easy. It involved a lot of incentive."
"Incentive?" He raised a brow at her. A part of him was hoping Lil' wouldn't find out and get him in trouble for her having to do some unsightly favor for him, and the other was amused to see what exactly she had agreed to do for him.
He mentally kicked himself for that last thought, because that was adding more to the situation than what it really was and a habit like that was bound to get him in deep trouble with the likes of her.
"Natsu's dish duty for a month, Gray wants a few adjustments done to the rafters to keep him from getting frostbite- again, and Elfman didn't request anything. Though, I think that had more to do with a fear of what his sisters would do if they found out he tried to pull a stunt like Natsu and Gray. Although, Gray's is kind of understandable. Loss of limb withstanding and all."
"Tch, remind me to have a talk with Heartfilia about what her beau's been up to."
Levy laughed and rolled her eyes. "She'd feed him to Carla and then we'd be down a fire breather!"
Gajeel ticked his head. "That would be the point."
"You're terrible. Hard to believe you were raised by such a good man like Lil'." She reached into the paper and hefted the sword back up, letting the paper fall to the ground to inspect the sword herself. "So, what do you think?"
He wrapped his hand around hers at the hilt, nudging her slim fingers off the grip so he could take it. "That you shouldn't be holdin' a sword right in front of your face." She only snorted at his chastisement and folded her arms in front of her chest. "To be honest, I'm still more impressed by the fact you managed to wrangle that group together without burning down the cirque." Gajeel grinned down at her. "They're good."
Her shoulders relaxed, her arms falling loosely to her sides and shyly rocking her weight on her heels. "Good."
The well-known smirk was back in place as his canines flashed in the corner of his mouth. "This where you're expectin' me to repay that little stunt of appreciation you pulled back in the dinner tent?"
Levy flushed and stumbled on a step backward, only managing to stutter incoherently. It was Gajeel's turn to snort as he moved to hold both of the swords in one hand and settle the other on her head, ruffling her loose hair in-between his fingers.
"Don't worry about it." He blamed the package for originally blocking his view, but for the first time he noticed the absence of fraying bandages over her shoulder. "Yer arm doin' better?"
"Wha- Oh." She blinked owlishly, glancing down to the newly freed appendage and closed her hand into a fist, as if realizing it for the first time just as he was. "Yeah, Lily and Porlyusica cut me out of the sling this morning, actually. They cleared me for a stint in the ring for tonight's show, sans elephant tumbling that is."
Gajeel dropped his hand from her hair, detouring to her shoulder before letting his hand fall back to his side. He didn't miss the way her eyes followed his hands after they fell away, steadfastly watching as he moved one of his new swords back to the hand that was on her head moments ago. He flexed his fingers against the grips in the closest he would allow himself to come to excitement, reminding himself Pantherlily would be the only one privy to the comfort he found in the feel and smell of new leather.
The elephant rider looked back up at him, pinning him with the de yeux de biche he didn't stand a chance against, and smirked. It was in that moment he realized she knew and he didn't ever stand a chance at pulling wool over her eyes.
He sighed and glanced toward the rafters, damning her cheeky grin and the satisfaction of victory seeping into the tent. "Thanks. Ya happy now?"
Levy waited until he dropped his head again and met her eye. She winked without missing a beat, grinning. "Infinitely."
The knife thrower eased into the tent, indifferently taking in his audience before halting in the middle of the ring.
Gajeel Redfox wasn't about drumbeats or smokescreens, he threw knives and swords and there was nothing inherently magical or mysterious about it. He tossed the gleaming swords to the dirt at his feet and let the audience watch with bated breath as he lazily pulled a wad of material from his trousers' pocket and tied it around his head with an easy practice. The ivory shade of the bandana emphasized the hard edge to his eyes and the warm tone of his skin.
He reached for his swords, standing straight once more and nodding his head.
Music floated like vapor on the tension that wound around the room and he smirked; just because he wasn't about the theatrics the other's used, didn't necessarily mean he was against music altogether.
The juggler stretched his arms and back, seemingly unphased by the more impatient grunts from his audience.
A man in a well-tailored suit scoffed loudly, echoing into the rafters and right back down into the audience. The sound snapped the tension and broke whatever hold the knife thrower had been covertly, and expertly, settling over the people.
The suited man stood and glowered at the man in the ring.
"A circus man should have a fair bit more curtsey to those that put coin in his pockets by at least pretending to be interested in being professional." He angrily pointed a finger at the man silently standing in the ring, who slowly turned his full gaze to the man dressed up in the dirty stands. "We're not spending our good money waiting on you to take your time before pretending you can actually throw sharp knives."
Murmurs pulsed over the instrumentals, drowning out the record Gajeel himself had spent weeks finding for his act. He remained tactfully passive in his spot as, like on a cue, the business man continued.
"Makarov isn't owed this big a favor."
Behind the curtains, Gajeel could make out the faint sound of his boss cursing his name and whatever plan the ex-Phantom had concocted in the short expanse of silence that followed the angry visitor's insult.
The statement had rolled off the man's tongue like venom, but it merely drew a smile from the juggler. Several audience members cringed at the sight, the movement of his mouth strained and just a little too shadowed for what they expected from Makarov's people. The suited man stood and reached to place an expensive hat over his slick head of hair, but was immediately stopped when something caught his sleeve. The force yanked his arm to the side and the sound of expensive fabric split over the chords of Gajeel's music and gossiping show-goers.
A pocket knife laid buried in a wooden beam, holding the man's sleeve perfectly in place.
The audience's attention swept back to the man in the ring, leisurely settling his hands in his pockets and amusedly raising an eyebrow. "Might ought to stay for this one, pretend doesn't exist here."
It would be the last show anyone dared leave their seats once Gajeel Redfox strolled into the ring.
The cub snatched Gajeel's gloved hand and gnawed on the appendage, crying in protest when the gruff man yanked his hand back and glowered at the puncture holes in the material.
"I just bought these, brat." The little lion only growled, a sound that came out more as a mewl, as he batted with all his strength at Gajeel's arms.
Lily snorted, continuing the laborious task of bathing Carla and Happy, the latter of which had wriggled out of his hold twice and flung soap halfway across the Tail's yard and up the tents near by. "You keep on callin' that little one brat and he's gonna think it's his name. Then you'll have to answer to Wendy."
Gajeel scoffed. "I'm not gonna train the thing to answer to it. I wouldn't take the fun out of it for a kid, she's been bent over paper and pen for weeks tryin' to come up with a name." He lowered his eyes on the older man and snorted when Happy head-butted Lily, streaking soap and water across his cheek. "If yer're so wise, what do you call it?"
The menagerie man smiled. "Never the same thing twice, and I usually stick to noises to get his attention. I just have to jangle my keys and he comes runnin'." Lily watched in amusement as Gajeel rolled the cub out of his lap and gently shoved him around to get him to play. "If you ever get tired of throwing sharp objects or finally lose an eye doin' it, you ought to consider taking on the menagerie."
With a raised brow and narrowed eyes, Gajeel approached the giant basin Lily was bent over. The cub was comically attached to his boot, happy to be dragged around the dirt and unphased by the fact Gajeel no longer seemed concerned with him. "The hell's that supposed to mean? Yer're not leavin' the cirque, are you?"
He laughed, drying a hand and scrubbing it over the scarred skin by his eye. "Not for a long time yet, so don't go planning the party yet. It was merely a casual observation."
"Nothin' you do er say is 'merely casual observation', Lil'. What're you gettin' at?"
Lily sighed and splashed water at Gajeel's boots, earning him a derisive grunt from his charge and a surprised mewl from the cub. "Nothing, right now. I won't be around forever and you'd be a good man to bequeath it all to."
"Don't start writing your will now, old man." Gajeel snatched the cub by his scruff and lazily dropped him in front of the lioness. "Have fun lickin' the soap off."
Carla watched him stride away, her eyes steady and narrowed on his person. Her cub fidgeted in her hold, gaining her attention as she held onto him tighter and began to clean his back.
Gajeel tossed his gloves to the ground and rolled up his sleeves, moving to hold Happy in place as Lily tipped Mirajane's old pitcher filled with water over the big cat's head. Once they were certain all the soap had been rinsed out, Lily rubbed a thick towel over Happy's head. The lion fought against the treatment, trying to bat the towel away and play tug-o-war with his keeper.
Carla circled her mouth around the cub's neck and hopped back into the cage with Lily's command. As always, Happy lead a chase around the tents before the two men could corner him and get him back in the cage.
Lily locked the door and turned back to Gajeel. "Are you going to stick around and help an old man with bathing the elephant?"
The knife thrower snorted, stuffing the abandoned gloves back into his pocket. "Depends, is that an invitation, or are you tellin' me I'm going to whether I like it or not?"
"If I said which, would it matter? You never listened to me anyways, errant brat that you were." He reached forward nudged Gajeel's head with a broad palm. It was a wonder to the older man that he had managed to stay taller than Gajeel after all these years, even if it was only by a head.
"Oi, would you cut that out? It wasn't funny all those years ago and it ain't funny now." He shoved Lily's hand away and resituated the headband that had been moved in the scuffle.
"It was and it is, you're just too much of a sourpuss." Lily stepped forward, unlocking Aurora's cage door and closely watching the old animal as she stepped out. "You've become quite fond of that headband, though."
"I'm not fond of a scrap of fabric."
Lily leaned past Aurora's broad chest to level a look at Gajeel. "Ah, but the girl who gave it to you?"
"What're you fishin' for?"
"I'm not fishing for anything." Lily pulled the extra basin of water, graciously provided by Juvia, up next to the pachyderm and placed her trunk into it. He scratched at her weathered hide and smiled at her. "Are you ready for a bath, old girl?"
Aurora's ears flapped happily as she shifted her weight on her feet a few times. Lily stepped away from her and watched as the water was sucked into her trunk. Aurora lifted it to her shoulder and sprayed and the water over her back, dropping her trunk back into the water to repeat the process. Lily bent down and grabbed a bottle of soap and rag, then spilled the soap into the remaining water and soaked the rag. Aurora dutifully bowed to the ground, enough for Lily to climb up her shoulder and reach her back to start washing.
Gajeel chuckled and rolled his eyes. "You and that elephant's antics are an act all its own."
"Ah, but her big heart belongs to Levy and I couldn't very well take the little sparrow's spot." Lily sighed and sat up, pausing in his work to meet Gajeel's eye. "But there is something that resides next to Aurora in that big heart of hers."
Gajeel didn't say anything to that, even though he could've- there was a whole damn circus Levy had grown up with and loved. If he had, it would have meant more lecturing from Lily and no real comebacks after the older man was done talking his ear off. He folded his arms and leveled his glare off to the side, where he caught sight of the short outline of her with a book in front of her face, making her way right for the menagerie.
Gajeel swore his old guardian had planned it.
A/N: This chapter has one purpose, when you figure it out- you'll know what's to come.