The World Is Ugly

by StevMarie

It was just a mission. That was how it started. It wasn't pain, it wasn't agony, it wasn't Laxus in a rage of lightning and Gajeel helpless in his wake. Feelings weren't supposed to be hurt, blood wasn't supposed to be spilled; now the world is spinning out of control and they're plummeting to the ground unable to stop it. What can be said? The world Is ugly.

126. Chapter 126

Author's Notes:

Happy (belated) Solstice, Blessed Yule, and Merry Christmas beautiful beans!

I wanted to upload more than just this but the holidays are hectic. Hopefully I'll have another few chapters up before the new year :)

TW:
Blood
Gratuitous sun/moon references
Emotional Smut

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Chapter 126:

"What?" Laxus asked, startled.

"I know these mountains like the back of my hand... but you want me pretty bad. How far do ya think we can get before you catch me?" he said, his eyes flashing in excitement, "Chase me."

"This... this sounds like a bad idea..." Laxus muttered, sagging farther into the tree he was leaning on.

"Does it?" Gajeel said dreamily, taking a step back from him, his muscles tensing. Laxus responded without thought, snapping towards him a step, "Chase me."

"Gajeel..." Laxus warned, already feeling the response bubbling up in his veins. It rolled against his insides, looking for release, urging him to pounce.

"Laxus..." he mocked him, his voice dipping, "I want you to chase me... and when you catch me, I want you to drive me insane."

"I'm going to kill you..." he breathed. His magic was surging up in his blood. Warmth was returning to his chest, breathing life into itself, sinking into his ribcage, "...and I won't be able to get you help this time."

"You won't." Gajeel grinned, his eyebrows raising and falling back down again, "But I sure fucking hope you try."

Laxus gritted his teeth against the urge to do just that, "I'm serious, Gajeel. This shit scares me."

Gajeel's wicked look lost a bit of its severity. "You know how I feel, Laxus. I was pretty plain about it back home."

"And you know how I feel." Laxus said, equally as unyielding. His mind fuzzied, and he couldn't think of a good reason. He opted to just say the truth, "I keep remembering the cave, Gajeel. Seeing you like that, not knowing if you'd make it... carrying you to the hospital... I couldn't forgive myself if it happened again."

"Yeah... ok." Gajeel sighed. He wasn't defeated, though. Instead, his mind was working. A small, amorous smile crept onto his face, "We've done this before, haven't we? Tiptoed around each other?"

"Thought those days were over." Laxus snorted, crossing his arms tightly to stem a rush of pinpricks, "I feel like a giant."

"Powerful and casting a large shadow?" Gajeel said somewhat wistfully.

"Unintentionally breaking everything I touch." Laxus muttered.

"Oh." Gajeel gazed off into the forest, eyes searching their depths for something. Silence extended for a while before he spoke again, his voice distant but thoughtful, "I don't... really like talkin'... in the heat of things."

Laxus blinked, not understanding at first. The words had to sink in. He furrowed his brow.

"What?"

"Being confused about what's going on makes you upset. Anger turns inta violence pretty quickly. I'll... talk you through whatever is in my head." Gajeel said, still looking out into the forest, "And you... you should ask me for permission."

"Permission?" Laxus asked, still not really grasping what he was getting at.

"Consent. That's what you want from me, it's what you're looking for. Knowing I vaguely want you isn't enough. My body tellin' you it feels a certain way doesn't mean my mind, right? We've done that song and dance." Gajeel said gently, "Ask me... and I'll give you permission. We might have to figure somethin' else out later, but for now... we need to communicate better."

Laxus took another step towards him. Static was beginning to make the atmosphere sizzle, "What if I ask and you say no? If I don't... stop?"

"I can stop you long enough to get away," Gajeel said, swallowing hard as his eyes ran over him, "My iron can tie you down and... you'll shock yourself. Maybe it'll make you come back, or maybe it'll just hold you enough for me to figure something else out. Just... don't leave the mountains. I'll come find ya in a few days when it's not so intense and we can try again."

Laxus considered it, really considered it. He began to shake his head.

"Are you going to deny me... Laxus?" Gajeel asked, his inflection trying to make a mockery of his hurt. Laxus's heart throbbed, and his breath fled him, "Do you really not want me?"

"You know that's not..." his voice was stolen from him at even the thought, twisting to nothing but a wrecked whisper. He felt so thoroughly the impulse to surge forward, to grab hold of him. He wanted him desperately. The heat in his chest flashed harshly, reminding him just how badly, "I want you, Gajeel... so much it... it hurts."

"Trust me to know my body's limits," Gajeel said earnestly, "I want you, too, Laxus. In every way possible."

"Even... like this?" Laxus breathed, fisting his hand over his heart, trying to stem the fire rising inside him. He saw the flash of his own claws, reminded himself to be gentle lest he ruin his own shirt.

"Especially like this." Gajeel grinned, nothing kind in the way he was regarding him now.

"Ok... ok. I'll trust you. I'll..." Laxus's heart was beginning to beat harder, reason spiraling away from him. He heard thunder rumbling over the distant mountains, "Whatever you want, Gajeel, I'll give you whatever you want."

"Alright," Gajeel's breath hitched. He wasn't just excited, but also eager to please. "So... will you ask me...? Please?"

"You won't get far. I can move fast when I want to," Laxus said, his stomach swooping. He approached another step and Gajeel retreated, inching towards the tree line, "I'll catch you. I won't let you get away..."

"What will you do?" Gajeel asked. His heart was already starting to race, thrumming up into his ears. The more Laxus lost his white-knuckled grip on his control, the more he itched to run, to be caught, to be held down and feel those strong hands tear into him. He ran his tongue over his lip, "When you catch me?"

Not an if. Never an if. Only a when.

Laxus's eyes were growing distant. Gajeel always thought it was strange when he heard the phrase darkened with desire, but that's what it was. It was like a shadow alighted there. His golden eyes were hazy, his pupils expanded as he took him in. A thread of electricity was pulled into existence, slithering between them.

"You're mine, Gajeel. Did you know that? Your body, your soul... all of it. All the best parts of you and the worst, belong to me." Laxus's voice spun down, lowering into a growl. He was expectant, ready to hunt Gajeel down, to drag him to ground. He wanted him. He needed him. He saw Gajeel's throat roll as he swallowed.

"Is that right...?" he said, breathlessly.

"I'm going to find every place you let him touch you..." he said, eyes traveling across him, his mind's eye remembering what he'd witnessed in Bickslow's memory. It made his vision vignette with red, "and I'm going to make it mine again."

"Laxus..." It was more a gasp than anything. He looked startled, but not frightened, like he hadn't expected Laxus to put words to his possessiveness. Like he hadn't expected him to actually do something about it.

"Will I scare you...?" he approached him, another step, and Gajeel retreated two, "If I don't hold back? Gajeel... I don't want to hold back."

"Don't," Gajeel's voice was shaking with excitement, rough where he was trying to sound calm, "D-Don't..."

What a dangerous game this was. Laxus could feel it tearing into his chest already, his lungs, his heart, the need to catch him and what he'd do to him when he did. His eye throbbed, "Can I hunt you down, Gajeel?"

"Yesss..." Gajeel hissed, his entire body tense and ready to snap.

"I'll count to ten." Laxus whispered, his heart trilling up into his throat.

Gajeel shivered because for an instant the blonde looked wild, unhinged, barely containing himself, and then it rapidly faded. In the blink of an eye his entire demeanor changed; it twisted into the confidence that only comes with indisputable power, in the knowledge he couldn't be stopped, that he would soon get what he wanted... and that was Gajeel. A smug smile eased across his face and he gazed up at him through his lashes.

This was a game... so long as they remembered it was.

"Gajeel... Run."

He did. He shot off into the forest like his life depended on it, something unbearably close to terror propelling his legs to move faster than they ever had in his life. He heard brontide swing low over the shoulders of the mountains. Lightning flashed overhead. Birds startled from his approach, and he whizzed through the trees, weaving in and out, eyes keen and searching for the best routes to take. He swung northeast, heading deeper into the forest, into the Casraines.

It felt like he was running forever, the rush of his flight making it hard to hear past the pulse that had swelled up into his ears. His chest clenched with painful surprise when he felt energy blanket the forest, spreading outward and unescapable like the ocean rolling over him. Static flooded the air, turning it thick with a hyperactive hum, lighting the forest as the air charged. It broke into startling existence, inherently attracted to his physiology. His skin teemed with energy where static snapped at him; his hair stood on end. A warm wind soughed through the trees, bringing with it the foreboding manifestation of a storm. His stomach twisted. Something whisked up his spine, the back of his neck, and then the world swallowed him in unbearable pressure.

Gajeel stumbled and fell to his knees in the wake of magic that swelled and swelled and swelled, a breadth he knew had an ending but to him seemed insurmountable. The forest lit up with a caustic flash of light. Thunder bound through the Casraines, a noise that tumbled down the mountain and fell atop him, crushing him with its weight and intensity. Gajeel clutched at the earth beneath him, dug his hands into fallen leaves and damp loam. He wasn't scared, he wasn't, but his limbs still quaked. His breath hitched, took on a frantic pace as he felt in all its awesome totality the magic Laxus carried and kept meticulously inside. The violence of him, the effusive dominance, the inevitability; things Gajeel had never felt in their entirety before but were snapped into reality and he knew immediately were inherent to him and carefully kept hidden, in check, only coming out in watered-down glimpses like flashes of heat lightning on the horizon, now laid open and patient like a waiting trap.

Natsu had once described to him what it was like when Gildarts had released his full magical pressure on him, how it had staggered him and he'd fallen to his knees in abject terror. He wondered if this was worse, because it felt like he was being smothered by the weight of magic that extended far past what nature ever intended. Being a dragon slayer meant boundless potential. Feeling his own power soaring to knew and unknown heights was not uncommon. But this... The power to open the skies, to send it down destructively, to pervade the atmosphere, saturating everything in lightning, in thunder, in magic. He trembled in the wake of it, and then the thrill of simply being chased blossomed into something adjacent to panic. He felt the pressure shift, a ripple turned into a tidal wave as its epicenter moved... towards him.

He scrambled to his feet, shooting through the undergrowth like a hare fleeing for its life. The low hum of static grew louder, making the air tremble as if someone had strummed a base cord. The trees shook, swaying in the merciless wind of an impending storm. Gajeel had a place in mind, somewhere he had to get to, and he focused on that, used it as an anchor as he loped deeper into the forest, quiet as smoke. He needed to make himself small, to try to go undetected, but he wasn't sure it was possible. Lightning responded to Laxus's call, was an extension of himself... and it was everywhere. Gajeel couldn't be free of it. And it bore down on him like the eyes of a predator to its accustomed prey; tenacious and hungry.

If he were honest, he hadn't thought things were going to go quite like this. He'd never been hunted, not like this. He'd used himself as bait before, he'd run from fights, he'd even had to hide out from enemies before. But this was something different entirely. Excitement danced alongside dread, turning what should have been him confidently slipping seamlessly into the forest of his childhood into him sprinting from what was coming. He could feel the weight of Laxus's presence in the distance, could feel it patiently waiting. A count of ten? Gajeel had been running far longer than that, clearing a vast distance. This game, if that was what it still was, felt more like Laxus standing there until he got bored, watching him, knowing how futile the effort was to get away, until he decided to end it when he came for him.

How many times had they sparred and Gajeel thought he'd had him on the ropes? How many times had he wrestled with him, pinned him to the bed, had his way? Even the safe house, when Gajeel had been unhinged and dominating. Was this the same man from back then? The entire time, had he just allowed Gajeel to do whatever he wished? He could have stopped him at any time, overpowered him in an instant… he just didn't. He just chose to keep this power locked inside, to be vulnerable. How dreadfully intimidating. Just how disillusioned had Gajeel been?

Gajeel had a tendency to liken himself to a wolf; sometimes waiting hungrily in the woods, sometimes with teeth covered in blood and satisfied, and sometimes biting what held him back, rabid, ravenous. But solitary wolves, though frightening things, couldn't cause much harm. Had Gajeel been pitted against another wolf, or even a tiger, he wouldn't be as scared as he was right now. But he was quickly learning that Laxus was not a hungry creature that walked this earth. He was simply and mercilessly a force of nature. A flood, a mudslide, a hurricane. He was not something that could simply be withstood, let alone fought off. And he was coming…

Gajeel felt it, and terror made his blood turn cold. The storm shifted, making room for something with intent, parting. An esoteric reality was shifting the very air he breathed. He bounded through trees that grew larger and larger as he headed into a valley. He found an animal path that went steeply down a hill, using his momentum and gravity to slide down into the gully. His haste made him clumsy. His boot caught something he didn't take the care to see and he went tumbling the last few meters down, landing in a huff on the forest floor. He pushed himself up in the next instant, but it was already too late. Lightning and thunder cracked overhead, nearly on top of him, and a shadow cut a jagged shape across him.

He didn't look back, just ran. His heart was in his throat, his lungs screaming. Adrenaline and exhilaration slowed his mind to simple things, the chief among them being escape. He was a silvery shadow that slid beneath fallen trees and dashed through low-hanging branches, running from the livid white light that kept close to his heels. He called his magic as he approached the looming face of a mountain, ignoring the scorch of static that clung to him searching for relief in unyielding iron. He threw spears, felt the impact of them in the ground beneath his feet, and called iron scales to shiver up his arms. He leapt, grabbing one of the spears and climbing up a sheer cliff. In seconds he was high above the ground, scaling straight upwards. Warm wind tore at his clothes, entreating him to fall from his great height. At a vicious crack of thunder, Gajeel paused and glanced downward.

Laxus stood there on the ground, a god incarnate gazing up to him. Did he have any idea how he looked and how it made Gajeel's heart race? Long tentrils of lectricity unfurled from him, sizzling from his hips, his shoulders, his knuckles. They cast harsh shadows across his body and highlighted every immaculate piece of him. Power wasn't just sexy when enshrining his shoulders, it was bewitching. Golden eyes, predatorial now that something implicit had been unlocked inside of him, sparked with blistering color; the flashing of lightning that was trapped inside of him. It was like he glowed from the inside. His radiance made him look divine. A halcyon façade was tamped down rigidly over the carnality brimming beneath it. His magic rolled off of him, bending nature around him without his intention, the weight of it bowing the ground beneath him and causing the trees to lean away. He was incredible, a thing Gajeel couldn't believe stood before him now. Laxus's hands, tipped in yellow claws, flexed, betraying his voracity.

How did he make danger look like beauty? Gajeel's chest ached to see him. Violence was something that never scared him, and certainly this kind didn't either. He was, at his heart, a hedonist seeking pleasure wherever he could find it, running headlong for it when he could. He was a pendulum of a man, swinging swiftly from a high to a low, searching for pieces of heaven to pierce the misery of reality. The best piece of it was below him, staring at him with lips barely parted, chest heaving, fucking him with is eyes alone. The promise made him want to stop this silly game and drop down to his love who watched and waited patiently, eyes sweeping the cliff for a place to stand. But he had a goal in mind. In a roguish display, Gajeel gripped one of his spears and leaned from the rock face, dangling like he might just jump down to him. It was a quiet dare. Come and get me.

"Darling..." Laxus's voice rumbled with thunder called down from the heavens. At hearing the endearment, Gajeel felt his heart had just been lanced with an arrow. He knew what it meant Laxus called him such sweet things, "Where are you running to?"

"Can't make it easy for you, can I?" he asked coolly, though he felt like a shrew clinging to the mountainside, just out of reach from the claws of the shrike, "How else will I keep you interested?"

Glowing eyes flickered up and down his body, "I can think of a few ways."

"Do you want me?" Gajeel purred, and Laxus shivered. Cruel, he knew, to provoke him like this. But Gajeel enjoyed seeing him hungry.

Lightning struck meters above him, a threat, and one he didn't take seriously. Resplendent eyes rolled back up towards him. He didn't need to answer. Gajeel could see it as clearly as if it had been written on his face. He wasn't just hungry, but ravenous.

Gajeel grinned, "Then come and get me."

In a flash of light, he vanished, and the storm took on a harsher wind. Gajeel turned his hands back to his task and climbed.

He knew this place well. Far enough that Oak Town was no longer in their sights, and forested with giants millennia in the making, he and his Father had lived in this mountain range. Beneath the massive twisting roots of trees and the rich forest loam, the soil turned black in its saturation of iron ore, reddish where it broke through to the open air and oxidized. These cliff-sides were banded with color, the belly of the earth jutting upwards towards the sky not in sloping shoulders worn with age, but striking and tall, akin to the sharp-ridged teeth of a fox's skull.

To travel into the depths of this place was like stepping back in time; The Casraines, the closest thing to eternity mankind would ever see and knew innately it held no claim to. There was a wildness here that couldn't be captured, much less tamed, and this was made apparent by the complete lack of humanity. There were no homesteads, scarcely loggers or even the reclusive trapper out in these depths. Mutterings of peeking shadows that hid behind trees, demons that screeched in the mammoths brushing the sky, and the wolves, bears, and cougars that thrived on the large rams, elk, and moose here kept most from invading these spaces. Daylight was fleeting in these mountains which towered up from the valleys, reaching towards the sky to puncture it, and scraping the clouds. Men were scared of this place, and the remoteness was a home to Gajeel more than even Fairy Tail had become.

This place of darkness and death to many was brimming with pure and simple life to him. Animals were bold, the fear of the violence of hunters and farmers a foreign thing confined to the spaces around the city, never quite reaching past the first few miles of forest. No one knew how tall these trees could grow, only that they were the largest in Fiore, both in height and in diameter. Size, here, was on a different scale than the rest of the world, and it could hide a dragon and its human son easily. This was a soft place for Gajeel, a place of fondness, before he'd learned the ugliness of the world beyond. It was the very reason why, when he'd stumbled to Phantom Lord so long ago, he was marked by his red eyes and sharper teeth as an outcast. He was a thing of the wilds, the Casraines, a beast that had snuck in and taken human form but couldn't quite shake the animal in him. But he had long since stopped caring about being called a demon.

And now he was here again, playing a cat and mouse game with what might be the love of his life. It was a gift to the blonde, pieces of him he still kept carefully but would give willingly, eagerly, in good faith that Laxus wouldn't break them. The last of what he knowingly carried alone. He wanted to prove himself and awaited Laxus's response with a shiver up his spine.

The mountain Gajeel was climbing now was one he held a particular reverence for. It was one he used to retreat to when life as a mercenary became too much and he needed a reprieve. Times when he'd gone into heat, times when he'd been overwhelmed, times when he was avoiding Hajime's, and then later, Jose's wrath, he'd come here. The place he had told Laxus of where the night was dotted with brilliant stars, where he could glance the seam of the sky that Laxus had been so enamored with, and a frigid lake warmed by a natural spring in its center, waters as still as glass that emptied down the mountain in a gentle stream. Alders, maples, firs, and casraine trees - for which the mountains earned their name - the trees which towered far taller than all the others, with bark nearly grey in color and leaves so deep an emerald green they appeared black in the shadow of the mountain range, grew tall and untouched at the top and ringed the lake like steadfast sentinels. It was untarnished and untamed beauty, and he knew Laxus would love it. He'd love it even more knowing it was a place Gajeel took refuge in.

He could feel Laxus's magic growing strong again as he found a new way up the mountain, pinpointing Gajeel's own presence in an instant, and heading straight for him. The iron dragon slayer crested the edge of the cliff and threw back his head, gaging the distance to the top of the mountain, and quickly realized he wouldn't make it before Laxus fell upon him. It didn't stop him from trying, though. He took off, keeping close to rocks he knew well but would prove poor footing for Laxus to land on if he tried to follow. It was while he was digging his hands into reddish gravel on a steep incline towards the top that he felt a wave of pressure roll over him and he staggered. He glanced over to see Laxus waiting on a ledge, still out of reach, but closer. A bloodthirsty look danced across his face and Gajeel saw teeth that were sharper than he was used to when he smiled.

"You're running out of places to run to, my love," he purred, leaning against the wall of stone beside him.

Gajeel huffed, his arms and legs burning from his frantic climb, "Is that what you think?"

"It's what I know," his voice was low, his patience running thin. He dared a step forward but wasn't willing to come onto unstable ground. "Come back to me, baby. It's... it's starting to hurt. You're so close."

Gajeel's heart throbbed and he slipped slightly, regained his hold and pulled himself back up, "Admit you give up."

Laxus chuckled darkly. His smile was fond but his eyes were not, "You're trying to piss me off."

Gajeel released his grip on the gravel, leaning into the balls of his feet to hold him on the side of the mountain. He leaned his elbow onto his knee, trying to appear at ease and even debonair before him to hide how his insides trembled. He ran his tongue over his teeth plainly, eliciting a dark and alluring noise from the blonde.

"Are you angry, baby?" he teased, all sharp teeth. "Tell me you're angry."

"I'll show you I'm angry," his eyes bowed with his desire, his face dusting with unchecked crimson. His voice changed to one nearly pleading, "Call me baby again?"

Gajeel's bravado left him. He hadn't even realized he'd said it. He never did, did he? It never occurred to him Laxus would crave such a simple term of endearment. Actually, he always assumed he'd be adverse. He himself had never been fond of such mediocre pet names, it was one of the many reasons he tended to tag people with nicknames. To Gajeel, Sparky and fairy both were meant to be affectionate. But they were lacking, he supposed. He could call him baby if it was what Laxus enjoyed... though it sounded strange and tired coming from his mouth.

"Please?" Laxus sighed, "You told me to ask and... I asked."

"Do you like it when I call you baby?" Gajeel asked gently. Laxus rolled his head against the wall, nearly curling into it. He was clutching at his chest again, a shiver running through him, "You're such a traditional man, Laxus."

"Is that bad?" Laxus asked, his eyes rolling back over to him lazily. The light that danced around the blonde was enchanting in a way that knocked the breath from him.

"Of course not." Gajeel replied, "It's one of the things I love about you."

"I want you, Gajeel." Laxus huffed, the red of his blush turning deeper. A fang of lightning split the sky and thunder cracked, "I'm going to get you."

"I can't wait." Gajeel's voice shook as he watched him, his muscles tensed in case Laxus actually did.

The blonde's gaze danced over the edge towards where the gravel ended and turned into a steep drop. He was still leery of heights. It was the only reason Gajeel had made it so far. They both knew if he wished, he could summon his lightning body and send them both careening down. Gajeel watched as Laxus ran his hand over his face, his fingers lingering over his own lips. His eyes flashed brilliant and yellow and lightning struck the mountain. The rumble of thunder sent rocks tumbling down around Gajeel. The raven dug his talons in to keep from slipping with them. In the next blink, Laxus was gone again, and Gajeel's stomach twisted.

Another several minutes of scaling cliffsides, of digging metallic talons into rock and pulling himself up, sometimes by his arms alone. Distantly, in the back of his mind, he wondered what the exhaustion would mean for him later. He pushed it back, not allowing it to take root. He felt the overbearing presence of Laxus near, searching for ways to get to him, coming up slim on avenues. But Gajeel could see where his luck was going to run out. The cliff ended just a few meters above him. It would only be a matter of time before Laxus found him without means of escape. Gajeel had to spring, had to make a break for the top. In his head he could see it, several tens of meters of open fern-and-shrub-covered ground before the first of the towering trees broke. If he could make it, maybe zigzagging through the casraine trees would keep Laxus off his game enough that he'd make it to the top.

His stomach flipped as he lengthened his arms, got his feet beneath him. He took in a deep, steadying breath. He couldn't taste Laxus on the wind, so maybe he was far enough away that this could work. He shot up the last few feet and staggered to a halt, his heart stopping. He was staring at another sharp cliff, another hundred-yard climb before he made it close to the top. He'd misjudged, thinking the branches above were far closer than they actually had been.

Thunder rolled over him and he snapped his head around just in time to see Laxus barreling towards him. He yelped and scrambled away, tripping over himself in his blind haste. Hands grabbed hold of him and threw him against the wall. He fought back futilely. Pale hands slipped over his wrists and forced them down on either side of his head. His heart crawled up into his throat and shivers ripped through him. Golden eyes stabbed into him. Electricity slithered in the air and overtop of him, making his flesh buzz. Gajeel arched his back in his attempt to pull his arms free, his mind fraying the more he was kept pinned down this way. But his hips slated against the blonde's, and he felt the very real and stiff manifestation of his lust, now grinding against him in search for that friction once more.

"I've caught you," his voice was tight, a breathless growl at the base of Gajeel's throat, "Can I make you mine now?"

"W-wait, I…" Gajeel squirmed when the hands gripping his wrists tightened, a nearly painful hold with claws threatening the back of his hands, "Laxus, please, my wrists…"

"I played your game. I asked. Gajeel… I want you…"

His tongue ran a long, languid trail up his throat. Gajeel felt the threat of his fangs and he squeezed his eyes shut. His stomach twisted and writhed, iron pushing up to wait just on the other side of his teeth. His own arousal stirred, thrumming against where Laxus pressed against him. Gajeel whined, trying to keep his goal in mind. He remembered what their deal had been miles away from here, back on the trail leading to the mountains.

"The top," he said, breathless, "I want to get to the top. Please."

"Gajeel…" the air shook and lightning struck just a few feet away. The sound barrier broke, making Gajeel flinch into the body above him seeking protection from it. Laxus pulled back only enough that he could catch his gaze from the far corner of his eye, "I'm getting angry."

"I'm not fighting. I'm not trying to get away. You'll like it. I promise," Gajeel rushed, his voice a plea, "T-take me there. You can take me there."

Laxus leaned back, craned his head back to glance to the top and gage the distance himself. Gajeel's hands and arms were trembling. He tried to focus on how it was Laxus holding him down like this, no one else, not restraints, but those pale white hands that he so adored. He gritted his teeth and screwed his eyes shut, trying to remember… to ignore the way his thrill was changing to dread. Panic was beginning to crowd in on him. Panic, bitter in his mouth.

"Laxus, my wrists… please…" his voice screwed up into a whine, "Please, you know I… I don't like when… please, hold me anywhere else."

Laxus released him in an instant. Gajeel dropped his arms, relief making him gasp. He was staring directly into Laxus's chest, how it was heaving where he was barely restraining himself. He placed his hands on either side of him, his fingers splayed as he leaned in close, trapping Gajeel against the wall. He swooped down to crash into his lips, dragging a moan from the raven as he bent willingly to whatever he wanted. Laxus rocked into him, hard and hungry, his tongue parting his lips. Gajeel resigned to the idea of being fucked mercilessly against the side of the mountain until Laxus's voice pierced through the haze quickly descending over his thoughts.

"Let's do something dangerous." He spoke into his mouth and Gajeel gasped.

"What?"

"I've been learning about myself while you've been away," he said, his voice deep and rasping. Lightning came to life, stilting up and around them. Gajeel immediately recognized it, though he'd never seen it like this before. After what Orotrushit had done to him, he knew what it was. His heart shuddered anxiously, picking up speed as Laxus ran his hand up his hips, his stomach, pressing wide and commanding against his chest. Something dark and wicked painted across Laxus's face alongside stark shadows, "I can give you some of this… and then I should be able to control it in you."

Gajeel's eyes flew wide, "G-gods alive…"

"Can I?" Laxus asked in a way that said he was only allowed one answer.

"Are you going to kill me?" Gajeel whispered.

"Of course not." Laxus said, grinning, a glint in his eye that was very unlike him to have. "But I might own you."

Gajeel's own life energy flickered to existence when Laxus called to it. His whole body hummed at it being summoned, at seeing it for the second time in his life. After that, what happened to him was sudden and made his vision, his mind, his everything blank with white light. Something… happened. He didn't understand it, his senses overwhelmed immediately.

Gajeel was a dragon slayer. He had eaten iron to climb to new heights, had dabbled with absorbing carbon to turn hard as steel, was accustomed to soaring past what he'd always believed was the limit to his magical power and ability, passion or determination or that hopelessly unrelenting Fairy Tail spirit pushing him to somehow become beyond what he'd thought possible, to hold more magic in his hands when he should run out. But this felt like liquid Ethernano had just been injected straight into his veins. It burned. It felt divine. But it wasn't his, it wasn't an element he could ingest and utilize, so instead of feeding into his body's natural ability to reach a greater height, it just felt like his whole body was going to burn itself out like lithium caught on fire. He'd be a sudden bright light and then nothing, he was sure of it.

The noise he made was wanton and dissolute. He staggered and gripped onto Laxus who held him gently, looking down at him, somehow, with benevolence and superiority at the same time. He could see it in his eyes, feel it in the way he touched him. Oh, you little creature, is it too much to bear? Gajeel dug his hands into his shirt, shaking and only standing because Laxus didn't let him fall.

"T-take it back… Laxus…" he forgot how to breathe, his head swimming, "It's… too much…"

"Oh, darling, that was nothing," Laxus purred.

"N-nothing?" disbelief twisted his voice higher.

"You have no idea…" Laxus breathed into his mouth, his voice dropping to a thick whisper, "…just how much it rages inside."

"Laxus…" Gajeel whispered, honesty all he could muster in this state, "I don't think I can handle this."

"Then let's let it out, hm?" He hummed into his lips, dropping his hands down to his thighs. Gajeel didn't even care, didn't fight. He clung to Laxus's neck as he was lifted from the ground. The blonde grinded into him and let out a groan, "When it's this bad, when you feel like you can't stand it, you have to let it go."

"H-How?" Gajeel gritted his teeth, buried his face into Laxus's chest.

"I'll show you." He breathed, "Don't let go of me."

Gajeel's senses flooded with sensations he couldn't describe, could hardly fathom. He was blinded by light. The borders of his body shattered. He became twisted with stilting, whirling madness, and threaded into another consciousness though he couldn't recognize it as he was now. He was reduced to nothing but blind emotion, raw and only able to be felt in its entirety. Rage, desire, exhilaration, passion, fear, lust, bliss. To not be stifled or kept in, to have surged past what was natural and change, become scattered, tearing apart and winding back together again in heat lightning and plasma. Flashes of searing yellow and blistering emerald bled into one another until they couldn't be told apart any longer. Shifting states of reality ruptured what could exist of burning silence. He couldn't have screamed so loud.

There was just magic, just lightning, just them, splitting apart atoms and air and atmosphere. Not celestial alignment, not eclipse, but the light spectrum coalescing into one vibrant white point. Something new, unknown, undiscovered. Gajeel couldn't stand it. It was too much. His grip, whatever it was, slipped and he fell faster than gravity would have permitted. He rocketed into the ground and lay there, his body's edges fighting to find their appropriate places, to hold him in again, to turn back to its usual state of matter. The world was swirling and blinding and colorful. His mind couldn't process what it was or what it meant. He was too busy trying to remember what his body was and find out why it was shaking so much.

Energy alighted with grace before him. Laxus stepped into the world enshrined in thunder and searing light, and the lightning still trapped in Gajeel stirred at his approach. His back arched and it felt like electricity jolted up his spine, sinking fangs somewhere at the base of his skull. When had his scales come out? He hadn't summoned them. Shouldn't he have been in agony from lightning traveling through metal, conductive and destructive, searing his body like fire and making his muscles contort and spasm? Perhaps they were already, but it was different. Not pain, not anguish, but treading along the maddening edge of ecstasy in a way that was more than he could stand, nonetheless. A border, a tightrope, and to fall on either side would mean something incredible and awful.

"Gajeel." Gajeel's soul shook at hearing his name, like he'd forgotten it and it had been bestowed upon him again, "I told you not to let go of me."

"M'sorry… I couldn't… I-I can't…"

Hands grabbed hold of him, lifted his still shivering form from the ground. Gajeel immediately clung to him as he carried him the short distance up the mountain, past the last of the massive trees until they gave way to a clearing that in turn spilled into the gentle, lapping edge of a lake. Mist gathered in the center, masking the other edge in the distance. A pack hit the ground, and Gajeel was placed gracelessly next to it. Laxus was over him in the next second.

"I played your game, Gajeel, and I've taken you where you wanted," Laxus said grinding his hips against his love's. Gajeel's head was still spinning, but Laxus's hands were on either side of him, fisting into the ferns around him. Lightning filled the sky with dawn breaking, and Gajeel shivered, "Have I been good to you, darling? Did I give you everything you wanted?"

"Y-yes..." Gajeel said, pushing himself up on his elbows, shaking as Laxus pressed his weight to him. Tendrils of light rippled over his body as he concentrated on releasing his hold on magic meant to keep him safe. Silver that refracted the light in Laxus dissolved as Gajeel let out a whine.

"Then tell me I can have you," he sighed, tilting his head to the side to leave a sweltering kiss against Gajeel's jaw, another at the soft of his neck, lower, to where his neck blended seamlessly into his shoulder, "Gajeel... can I have you? Please?"

"Yes..." Gajeel said, groaning as Laxus grinded against him again. He pushed up into him, searching for rhythm to join him in. He felt Laxus trail a hand down to his knee, pulling him where he wished so they could feel each other better, "Fuck, baby, yes."

Laxus, in his haste to get him naked beneath him, curled wanting fingers into his shirt and shredded it under claws that were too sharp, ripped it straight off of him. Gajeel gasped and worried his bottom lip like a virgin, eyes wide at a display he would have never imagined coming from the blonde. It made his stomach do a giddy little flip, anticipation and intimidation mixing together delightfully. He himself was delicately slipping hands over wide shoulders, pulling fabric from the small of Laxus's back, easing him bare and exposing the stark black of his tattoo to the night. Glittering scales that held the same shade and velvet smoothness as the petals of brilliant yellow daylilies were unveiled, sloping down a pale spine and framing the figure of him, clutching at hips, the backs of his arms, haloing his shoulders and the back of his neck, his jawline. Gajeel wanted to see their endings, to see every gorgeous place Laxus was kissed by draconic magic, to run tongue and teeth along them and see how he would react to it. Were they like his? Did they shield him and make him maddeningly numb? Or were they different, alive to sensation in a way his weren't?

Gajeel grinned at hearing the hard tap of the backsides of talons fumbling against his belt buckle, hands that slowed as Laxus huffed, eyes growing distant as he chased his high against the seam of his pants, still pressed flush to Gajeel who laid back and accepted and reciprocated with aching want, his breaths caught in the ones tumbling from the thunder dragon. Laxus fell onto his hands, lost in rhythm. Gajeel studied the way his blonde hair curled against his forehead, following gravity and caressing the creases that formed between his brows as he rutted against him with abandon.

"All that fire just to take me like a teenager about to get caught," Gajeel breathed. The distance in golden eyes snapped to point-blank range, aimed at his jugular now that he'd been provoked, "I didn't say I minded it."

Anger at Gajeel's taunt snapped at Laxus's insides, fanning his flames. He moved a hand slowly and purposefully, circling Gajeel's throat and pushing his head back into the dirt. There was no room for argument in his cold tone, "Take off your belt."

Gajeel obliged without hesitation, and by the time he was done, Laxus was getting lost in him again. The blonde buried his nose into his neck and inhaled him. Gajeel shivered at the sigh that ran down his exposed chest, drawing gooseflesh down to his navel. The flat of his tongue ran up the straight line of his jaw. Teeth worried at the studs in his ear. Gajeel tried to concentrate on freeing him from his pants, deft hands cupping his shaft to aid in his chase. Laxus's hips were starting to grow frantic, pushing harder into his hand. Gajeel's heart leapt up into his throat in response, anxious as the pulse he still had confined in his pants.

"Fuck... it feels good..." Laxus panted against his neck.

"Yes, baby," he reveled when Laxus shivered at the simple word. Perhaps it was his atoms still buzzing, but Gajeel spoke when normally he wouldn't. He leaned up and crooned into Laxus's ear: "Did you know? I love watching you take what you want from me."

Laxus moaned and his eyes rolled back. His hips snapped forward harshly once, twice, and his muscles became unbearably tight where they sheltered Gajeel beneath him. His own chest heaved when Laxus pressed his forehead to his shoulder and spilled into his hand, a sound like a growl swallowed by the long column of a pale throat. Laxus shuddered as he caught his breath, glowing in his aftershocks of pleasure, and Gajeel waited patiently. He knew well this wasn't going to be the end. There would be no true ending until they had become so much more intwined than they were right now. Laxus hadn't bitten him yet.

He remembered the feel of sharp teeth against his throat in a different life, when Laxus had taken him forcibly, violently, against his every protest. He remembered how his body had come alive in response, how even touches meant to harm felt delightful. In these kinder circumstances, Gajeel was restless to feel that bite now. They had come so close in the street, when Laxus's restraint had broken and rushed over him like the flood freed from the walls of the dam that contained it. To have to deny them both the pleasure was painful. Now he was impatient, restless and unsettled, so ready for his blood to be on his love's teeth, no matter how disturbed the thought was.

"Do you feel good, fairy?" Gajeel asked gently, cupping his face and running his thumb down the edge of his scar. Laxus shivered to just this delicate touch as for a few blissful seconds he was given reprieve before heat would swell in him once more and drive him headfirst into indulgence again.

"I don't like being like this..." he muttered, his breaths already returning to their faster pace. His dick was stiffening in Gajeel's grasp once more. His own twitched to feel his rising desire so absolutely in the palm of his hand, "Just taking... not giving..."

"You can take whatever you want from me, baby. I enjoy it." Gajeel sighed, lifting his hips so Laxus could hurriedly shimmy his pants down him. He stifled a grin at the blonde's frustration when he couldn't pull them off of him.

"Your boots... fuck..." Laxus snarled under his breath, "I fucking hate these things."

"Don't remember ya having a problem with 'em before," Gajeel drawled, trying not to be too smug.

Laxus was tearing at his laces, pulling off the offensive clothing and throwing them to the side. It was while watching his petulant display that Gajeel suddenly remembered something, and before Laxus could angrily pull his pants from him he fished into his pocket to pull out a vile. Laxus's eyes hazed over at seeing it, scarlet dotting his exposed chest. A promise for their future. He felt the ache in his chest, in his groin, to just abandon pretense and take what he was owed from the body beneath him. But... wait, no...

"N-Not... yet..." his voice dropped, already thick with his longing. Lightning flickered overhead, lighting the night sky with fission and heat. It made Laxus's eyes flash in the darkness, "I want... to do something for you... before..."

Before, as if he wasn't already getting lost in his body's urges, stronger this time now that he'd achieved a fraction of what it craved so desperately. He probably shouldn't have been, but Gajeel was endeared by it. The fact that he tried. Gajeel certainly hadn't. He'd been single-minded in his search for pleasure. Although, it was true they both experienced these things differently. To him, watching his partner achieve sweet heights was just as decadent as achieving his own and he relished it. Laxus was a tad more self-centered. He had to remember himself, remind himself he wanted to be considerate. If left to his own devices, stripped bare of inhibitions, he would take until his body gave out.

Gajeel ran his tongue against the inside of his teeth to stem the urge to lean forward and kiss his throat, to be patient, pliant. To simply feel and be felt. His hands twitched, begging to reach out and touch.

"Go ahead," he nudged him with his knee, "Whatever you want to do to me, baby."

Laxus shivered and gasped, those words stirring the searing heat in his veins, making his mind go fuzzy. Gajeel enjoyed seeing him this way. He was always so measured, so calm, unfazed. Every time he'd entreated Gajeel to lose control, he'd always kept his white-knuckle grip on his own and looked graceful while he did it, like it wasn't even a struggle, while Gajeel had to constantly think don't hurt him too much this time. To see him on the verge of losing himself, to hear the impending storm and see lightning race across the sky after every touch, every time he said baby, every time Gajeel presented himself to him, was sublime. He tried to remember that when Laxus's taloned hands pulled apart his knees, as he settled between them.

His tongue laved over his head, tasting the pearl of his desire threatening to tumble free. Laxus paused, ran his tongue over his lip, considering it.

"Fuck…" Gajeel swore, impatient. He bared his teeth in a grimace, fisting his hands into dirt to not stir. Golden eyes flashed to him, holding his gaze enticingly as he let the entire flat of his tongue run up his length.

If he'd had something in his mouth to bite, he would have snapped it in half when Laxus's mouth closed around him, savoring him before it drove downward. Gajeel lifted his hips to meet him, slipping into the wet clutch of his throat like it was made for him. He felt sharp teeth running his length, an added danger that drove him wild. The grazing sharpness, a tease against sensitive flesh, made him writhe when Laxus pulled slowly back. His mind and body buzzed, braced for him to come back down, but he didn't.

In his mind, Gajeel knew the taste was probably different, new, when his senses were heightened in this state. Textures had new qualities, and it was clear Laxus was aware of them by the way he held every piece of fabric as they'd packed, often lost in sensation to the point Gajeel packed for him, lest they never leave. Smells contained an extra edge, a fierceness dulled when magic didn't rage quite so ferociously. Gajeel should be thankful that Laxus enjoyed his taste, but it was maddening to wait. To let him take his time.

Laxus pulled back completely, a curious look on his face as he ran his tongue over his teeth. Gajeel saw venom gather and slip away in one brush of his muscle. Something like jealousy twinged inside him, a string plucked but not left to sing. Laxus still hadn't bitten him. Why?

"You taste… nice." Laxus hummed, slipping his hands to clutch beneath his thighs now. Gajeel winced, confused with the way he was lifting his hips. It dawned on him when Laxus dipped back down between his legs.

"Wait, wait, you don't-" a tongue ran long and languid against his opening, and Gajeel couldn't help it, he arched his back to it, bending almost to the point that only his shoulder blades touched the ground. He liked that. Oh, gods alive he liked that. His protest ended in a cry to the heavens, "-have to do that!"

He heard the bastard chuckle darkly, "I think maybe I do."

"You said… you said…" words escaped him like smoke between his fingers when hands spread him farther, his tongue returning to making his stomach bunch tightly. It trailed up, that lecherous tease, tasting the softest places of him before Laxus ducked his head back down again. Gajeel let out a noise only a whore should make, and it had Laxus pulling back slightly, eyes wide and nearly maniacle.

"You didn't tell me you liked this." Laxus accused, running the tip of his nose against his thigh, "I would have tried it if you asked."

"I didn't... I didn't know!" Gajeel defended, his breath a rush when Laxus delved back down into him. Sweeping tastes turned more focused, something that explored, searching for spots that made him breathless, "You said... fuck! It was a hard no! I wouldn't… I wouldn't ask… you… ahh…"

Gajeel rolled his eyes back, his every thought scattering when his tongue pressed harder against him, slipping inside. The sound he made was graceless, a half-choked keen. Laxus hummed, a sound of enjoyment, like savoring a meal he was particularly fond of. He stopped his applications and Gajeel's body relaxed in a huff, him not realizing just how he'd tensed until he released his muscles and his grip on the earth beneath him. He scrambled up onto his elbows, gazing down at the licentious creature between his legs, this thing that had thoroughly surprised him once again, who was currently wetting his fingers with slick saliva, savoring even this with half-lidded eyes. His breathing was ragged, like it had been him being eaten alive instead of Gajeel. It was the flash of claws that brought Gajeel back down.

"Wait, Laxus..."

Lightning struck a tree nearby and Laxus looked over at him with something adjacent to anger. A protest? Wait? He was immediately spiraling into thoughts he'd held in the back of his mind ever since he'd been in Bickslow's house. After how lost Gajeel had been just a moment ago to suddenly turn around like this, eyes brimming with caution? Laxus had no idea why, and his hazed mind jumped to the first conclusion it could find, stabbing him with white-hot jealousy. How was Gajeel to know? It really wasn't fair.

"No."

"No?" Gajeel breathed, dubious and intimidated.

"I liked the sounds you were making," he huffed, placing a kiss against his thigh.

"I need you to slow down for a second-"

Laxus screwed his eyes shut like a battle was happening in his head and he needed to concentrate on it instead of him. Whatever the battle was, the thing that made him angry won out, because he dug his claws into Gajeel's thighs and pulled him closer. Gajeel's breath left him and he tried to pull himself back, stunned into hesitant movement from sharp points digging into soft flesh, things that were not intent on pleasure but threat. That action, however frail it was, was the wrong thing to do. Laxus was over him a second later and there was static charging the air.

"Why are you pulling away from me?" he demanded, his hand immediately searching for and finding his throat. He pushed him roughly into the dirt and Gajeel gripped onto him, his heart thrumming in his chest. He should probably be scared, he knew, but his dick ached at him instead.

"Calm down, calm down." Gajeel breathed quickly, "Let me explain-"

Laxus's voice spiraled down into a menacing growl that made the air between them quiver, "You let someone else touch you and now I can't?"

Gajeel's breathing stuttered to a halt, his brain fried, filling with a damning amount of nothing. Laxus's anger pitched upward at his silence, teetering on rage as his claws dug into the flesh of his neck. Gajeel swallowed and fought to contain a deranged grin. He knew Laxus was possessive. He'd always been possessive. Now he was also a threat, and it made a thrill race through Gajeel's circuits in a way that was shameless. To not just be wanted, to be something to be jealous for... Gajeel craved more.

"It wasn't... like that." he hissed as the hand around his throat tightened. He winced when sharp points broke skin.

"But that's not what you said, is it?" Laxus growled, and Gajeel felt the blood in his face drain slightly, "It's all your fault, remember? You should have just left."

"I'm not gonna be the reason you and Bickslow stop bein' friends," he gritted out, eyes watching cautiously the electricity that sparked around Laxus at hearing his name.

"Then you let him touch you…" Laxus's eyes flashed. His hand dug into his thigh, drawing his aching erection to his own. Gajeel let out a sigh, noticed the way Laxus's eyes swam when he swallowed hard under his hand, "These places were only meant for me, and you let someone else have them."

"Let is a strong word…" he said shakily, he licked his lips. A whine broke free when the skin of his leg gave beneath dragon's talons, "Did-did Freed tell you?"

"I saw it," Laxus said, the memory foggy but there, shrouded in scarlet where his rage had taken him, "I know exactly what happened."

"You just gotta know everything, don't cha?" Gajeel bared his teeth as claws dug deeper, "That new talent of yers… dangerous… ahh…! Fuck."

"Because I know you're a liar?" Laxus charged, pressing hips to him. His tongue ran against his sharper teeth, resisting an urgent need to bite. "Maybe it'll finally teach you to stop taking blame that doesn't belong to you."

Gajeel snapped his hands to his belt loops, dragged his hips flush against his own. He chased friction for just a moment… just one, glorious moment… His eyes betrayed his frustration. Pain made him search for relief from it. Laxus's tongue against him would feel divine. He hadn't bitten him. It stung. His heart ached with the need of it.

"So you know," he said, his voice in shreds deep in his throat. A grin pulling across his face despite the hubris of it, "that he couldn't get me hard? Or did he not pay attention to that? Fucking sociopath, doesn't care about anyone except himself. Not like you, though, right baby?"

The anger in Laxus immediately twisted into something else, coloring with desire, pride. His breathing hitched. The air between them shook with static. Laxus's eyes bored into him, growing distant as he breathed him in. The scent of blood… made him heady…

"I'm not denying you," Gajeel gritted out, flashing his teeth as he pulled at the hand that gripped his throat. The grip eased enough that he could turn his head and bare the fresh marks Laxus had left. Golden eyes widened in surprise, a bit of sanity clawing it's way back to the forefront, "I wanted to show you how to use these… for both our sakes."

Laxus let out a choked sound, pulling back immediately. Worry fought lust viciously to the point he closed his eyes and leaned back onto his heels. He threw his head back and sighed, trying to calm down.

"Goddamn it."

"It's fine, fairy," Gajeel said gruffly, more frustrated now than ever.

He grabbed his hand and dragged him back down again. Laxus's jaw clenched, his eyes became tight. Restraint was so difficult like this. It felt like a curse, a punishment. And he'd done nothing wrong.

Gajeel summoned his scales just up to his elbows, ignoring the snap of lightning attracted to him. He held Laxus's hand gently, talons cupping talons. But Gajeel's were like knives whereas Laxus's were just those of an animal.

"A half inch long… they'll cut through to tissue if you put your weight on me," Gajeel said gently. He placed his hand flush to his chest and hissed out a sigh, trying to contain himself, "Go ahead."

"Go… ahead…?" Laxus breathed, suddenly extremely daunted and aroused and unsettled and-

Gajeel pressed against his knuckle, pushing his finger into him until a bead of red swelled. Laxus stared, enraptured. It had taken no effort at all.

"Can you feel how it gives?" Gajeel's eyes were stabbing into him with intensity Laxus felt all the way into his lower belly. His voice rumbled lowly, a purr, "I told ya there is pain that I like. You can give it to me, but ya gotta be gentle, baby."

Experimentally, Laxus made a swift line across his chest. Gajeel didn't even flinch. It was a thin thing derived from the gentlest touch Laxus could muster, and when he was done he snapped back his hand like Gajeel might bite him. He didn't, just gazed at him with half-lidded eyes, still resting on his elbows, waiting. Not phased, certainly not satisfied. It wasn't even deep enough to cause blood to gather into a droplet. Gajeel raised a brow as if to say that's it?

Laxus's mind spiraled to the many times Gajeel had sunk his claws into him. Had it been that easy the whole time? And his talons were so much sharper, longer, curled and honed for use in a fight. He marveled at Gajeel's hands, and the raven followed his gaze and presented one of them for him. He'd once said he had knives on his hands. For the first time, those words held reality.

"Yours are so sharp," Laxus said, his voice caught between a horrified whisper and a gasp. How many times had he begged Gajeel to let loose? To dig them into him and tear him open? If Laxus could cut him so deeply with just his own, what would happen if Gajeel had let loose? Completely?

Gajeel sighed and reached for him, trailing a newly realized danger against the pale of Laxus's throat, across his jugular, the point of a blade ghosting down his neck gently, pretending not to be a threat at all. He had a faraway look and he let out a low hum, considering his actions as he did them.

"I can cut ya to the bone, fairy, with little effort. What's it called? Featherlight?" he said, and Laxus felt his skin break. A grin tugged at Gajeel's mouth, something wicked. Laxus braced himself, breathless, "Only featherlight touches for you… my love."

His eyes were swimming with blood and Laxus gasped as talons raked down his chest. He cried out, shuddered, but he couldn't recoil because a hand threaded into the blonde hair at the base of his skull, pulling him down as Gajeel surged up to him. His tongue ran across the fresh cut and sensation made Laxus's body thrill. He gasped and a moan tumbled out of him, as surprised to be there as Laxus was making it. A breath sighed against the hot wound, inciting gooseflesh that fled to every part of him. He groaned, finding himself clutching Gajeel closer, eyes wide at what his body was doing in the wake of pain. A kiss pressed to a fresh wound, soft skin that eased the pain, made it flower with something so totally different.

"Gajeel..." his stomach bunched when his tongue returned, laving at him gently. Featherlight. Laxus groaned, entangled fingers into jet black hair, keeping him trapped close. He felt Gajeel's dick twitch against him, and in the haze of this new experience he remembered he hadn't given him any release. Here he was reeling and neglecting his partner so thoroughly. How despicable.

When Gajeel pulled back from him, he was licking blood off his lips. Laxus's heart was still racing, heat making his flesh prickle with desperation. More, he wanted more…

"Do you see, baby? There can be pleasure here, too, but you gotta be gentle with me. There's a fine line. Just this once, fairy, I'll give you permission to treat me like I'm glass…" Gajeel hummed, laying back down and presenting his body for the blonde once again. His cheeks tinged with wine; how hilarious to be shy after the self-indulgent thing he'd just done. Laxus quickly realized why. Gajeel hated asking for things, "I want you to... to finger me, Laxus. But for both our sakes, you gotta use your fingertips."

Laxus's heart jumped up into his throat. And damn him, was he supposed to argue with that? He did, however, have the wherewithal now to hesitate and pick up the vial Gajeel had held earlier. He slicked his fingers, eased inside, marveling at heat and the way he clutched so tightly to him. Laxus's own desire was stirring, aching and impatient against his thigh. It throbbed when Gajeel sighed, trying to relax to him. He sank in up to his knuckle but he couldn't curl his fingers inside. He had claws, and he didn't want to cause damage.

Gajeel arched his back, his whole body despairing for the need to let go. But it wasn't enough. Laxus was leaning against his knee, watching him intently as he writhed to his hand. A second finger in and he was no closer. Moving slow like this, without that delectable twist, wasn't near enough to get him off. It was just enough to make him mad, to stoke his flame higher but not allow him that spark. He let out a gasp, squeezed his eyes shut against the frustration. If Laxus bit him, it wouldn't be so bad. It would be easier. They'd be in tune to each other. Why didn't he? Why?

"I can't believe you let someone else see you like this," Laxus's tone was derisive and Gajeel's stomach clenched. A third finger slid in and he couldn't catch his breath, red bleeding into his borders as he tried to grind in a way that he could seek release. He couldn't, of course, and he was starting to feel Laxus was doing it on purpose. Couldn't he go just a little deeper? Chase his pleasure just a tiny bit more?

"Laxusss..." he hissed, his muscles aching with how taut his body was, "M-more..."

"You didn't beg for him like that, did you?"

Gajeel barked out a laugh, sure he must be joking. He cracked his eyes open to look down at him and immediately felt his stomach knot over itself. Laxus's features had darkened with avarice, with malice. The barrel of his chest expanded and contracted heavily, each breath making sparks bite at the air around his mouth. He looked dreadful, a terror with glittering gold eyes simmering between his legs. He thrusted in deeper and Gajeel tried to stay relaxed, harrowed by talons that didn't know their own strength.

"I don't beg," he gritted through his teeth.

"Not for anyone?" Laxus prompted darkly, drawing back out with terrible slowness before sinking back in with a slight curl that finally, finally hit Gajeel where he wanted it. He moaned, menaced in a way he never had been before.

"Is that what you want? Me to beg?" Gajeel challenged him, bracing for those talons and telling himself he could handle it if they cut into him so long as they brought relief with them. They didn't, though. Laxus pulled them out and his body uncoiled just for a dampened hand to hook beneath his knee and drag him down. He grunted in surprise.

"Maybe I do." Laxus said, slipping his shoulder beneath his knee and placing a hand on his other thigh, spreading him as far as he could manage. He pressed his dick against him, slid in slowly.

"I don't beg..." Gajeel sighed, arching into him. "And I didn't fuckin' beg for him."

Laxus looked pissed, like he'd reach through the vacuous space between them and tear out his throat if he said one wrong thing. Gajeel wanted him to. He wanted to feel those teeth.

"Did he stretch you like I can, baby?" Laxus growled.

Gajeel might have felt better if there'd been a smirk playing at his lips but there wasn't.

"Laxus..." his tone contained a warning. Laxus sheathed inside of him, hitting a place that made his stomach swoop, "You and yer fuckin' pride."

"Did he fuck you as deep as I can?" he asked, leaning into him now. Claws cut his skin like velvet before he crawled on top of him, his body blocking out the world beyond with light that faded all else to darkness. He couldn't look past him, could just see him and all his churning rage surging to the surface.

"No." Gajeel bit, "And you know he couldn't."

He thrust into him harshly. Gajeel grinded down onto him with the rhythm, his body aching for more. He felt his desire weeping free from his dick, still so hard and desperate it was starting to incite pain. He tried to hold onto Laxus's arms, to gain leverage to aid his chase, but Laxus knocked him off. He bared his teeth, getting angry.

"What the hell Laxus...?" it felt like he hated him, like he didn't want him to touch him. Why?

He was lording over him, fucking into him ruthlessly. His breaths were getting shorter, his hips snapping forward in a way that let Gajeel know he was close. His dick was impossibly hard inside of him, the curve sweeping against his nerves in a way that made his eyes roll back. He was edging close to his ending as well, so desperate for it that his muscles were tightening again, holding himself perfectly to feel it. He wanted to hold onto Laxus, but when he tried he shook him off again. Angry. Why was he suddenly so angry?

He leaned down, his breath ghosting against Gajeel's ear, falling over his throat. For a blissful moment he thought maybe this was finally it. Laxus would bite him and he'd finally taste venom. Instead, gilded eyes looked into swimming rubies and static raced into the atmosphere. Thunder rampaged as Laxus pressed his lips against his earlobe.

"Does he know you like it deep when I come inside?"

"You fucking bastard," Gajeel growled, snapping arms around him and holding him down so he couldn't stop. He pounded into him and finally, finally, the rubber-band-snap of his orgasm ripped through him. He arched his back, let out a cry that veered on the edge of a sob when ecstatic shivers broke across his body. Laxus swore against his hair and came, burying to his hilt inside of him. Gajeel sighed, refusing to let him go as he shook around him, reveling in aftershocks.

He thought that might be the end of it, they could finally move on. With Laxus's release, sanity would descend for just a moment. His fury would abate, the edge of his magic lessen, except that Laxus still hadn't bitten him. Gajeel, painfully aware of it, his chest aching more and more from the fact he hadn't, tried to hope maybe he just didn't crave it like he had when he'd been in heat. He wasn't denying him, he just didn't know. All of that fizzled away, though, when Laxus pulled back slightly, his face screwed into a scowl.

"Fuck... it's worse... how is it worse...?" he snarled, "It's worse."

Gajeel couldn't even say anything, because hands circled his throat and slammed him into the ground. His teeth knocked into each other, and he scrambled to grip Laxus's wrists, to hold him back if only a little. Lightning struck a tree nearby. Thunder fell over them in crushing waves. Gajeel could see Laxus's breaths, each one snapping with more and more static that his magic unleashed around them. It bit into Gajeel's skin, making him flinch.

"Your blood too hot, baby?" Gajeel asked, his voice lilting with provocation. Laxus's eyes were dancing with desire battling chaos. Gajeel ran his tongue over his teeth and watched him shiver over him, "Need help getting it out of you?"

Green magic sparked. Lightning zipped up and down iron-clad arms as Gajeel dug his claws into Laxus's shoulders, raking them down as he gasped, threw his head back and groaned. His breath was in tatters when Gajeel was done, chasing oxygen like it was fleeing for its life. He cursed, his voice broken as he stared down at Gajeel, a look on his face like he didn't know if he should return in kind or just fuck him again. Gajeel smirked, a vindictive thing.

"Want me to kiss it better?"

Laxus's eye twitched and he set his lips into a snarl. He fucked up into him mercilessly, using him coldly, cruelly. The hands around his throat closed and for a moment Gajeel couldn't breathe. When his head was swimming, his pulse pounding up into his brain, Laxus let him go to suck in a breath with relief. Tears were collecting in his eyes. Did he hate him? Why did it feel like he hated him? His chest throbbed painfully and he gritted his teeth against it.

"Fuck, Gajeel, next time you're angry come home and be angry with me. Take it out on me. Hit me. Draw blood. I don't fucking care..." he was mantling him, lightning bleeding into everything. It whited out Gajeel's vision, made him taste acid in his mouth. He felt dizzy as it seared up his arms, leaving livid trails and making the world hum and vibrate. It seared into him, striking hot and making his lower stomach constrict. He let out a strangled cry. Laxus didn't slow, just kept his relentless pace deep into him, making his insides feel alight and galvanized. He felt incandescent, like he was burning, "If you need to self-destruct, Gajeel, I'll hurt you. Next time, don't do this to me. Don't get drunk and fuck around with someone else. I'm the only one allowed to do this to you, see you like this. Don't you understand that? You're mine, Gajeel."

Gajeel couldn't speak, could just whimper as he punctured deep into him. He wasn't trying to hold back his hands anymore, just hanging on for dear life. Laxus's rhythm was changing again, growing frantic, and Gajeel had hardly recharged from the last time. His mind reeled. He clenched and unclenched his jaw, fighting back the water in his eyes.

"Do you know how much it drove me insane to smell your scent in that fucking house... in his room? He was my best friend Gajeel, and you let him touch you? Are you going to break my record player next? Should I hide the dishes so you can't throw them at me?"

"Wh-what?" Gajeel gasped, confused and wounded. He tried to push it down, to ignore the pang his words incited. It wasn't him, it was him in heat. There was a difference. He wouldn't think these things in his right mind… right?

He still didn't bite him, despite how he clearly struggled. It felt like rejection. Mixed with Laxus's harsh words, his actions… it hurt.

"If you're just going to hurt things that belong to me, then maybe I should just tie up your fucking hands."

It all turned to panic when Laxus swept up his hands, his one large hand holding both of his wrists and forcing them above his head. Gajeel scrambled, pulling against him but he had strength and leverage and lightning. Gajeel cried out and arched his back. Lightning struck so close that the hair on the back of his neck stood on end. Laxus's free hand slipped to the crook of his knee, pulling it up so he could fuck him deeper. But it wasn't pleasure anymore, just white terror that sank like a serpent's bite into Gajeel's heart.

"Laxus, Laxus, Laxus, Laxus!" he hissed. His mind whirled as painful pinpricks flushed beneath his skin. He was being held down, he was being held down.

Laxus chuckled and Gajeel's blood ran cold, "I thought you didn't beg?"

Green light flashed. He saw the look of confusion in Laxus's eyes when metal exploded from the ground. He couldn't lunge away though, because it quickly curled around his legs, his hips, anchoring him place. Lightning jumped to them and Laxus winced, grappling at unyielding iron like he could make it stop with his hands. Gajeel dragged himself from under him, scrabbling away a few feet before thunder fell and made him freeze, bracing to be struck by the raging heavens. He clutched at his chest and fought to breathe, staring at the ground and counting fallen leaves. He could taste bile in the back of his throat. It took him a few minutes to calm himself, to realize that the ringing in his ears wasn't thunder in the distance but his own pulse rushing against his eardrums. Once he realized, he was able to hear past it, to the worry-filled voice talking lowly, shakily.

"Did I hurt you? I'm sorry... Gajeel, answer me, please? I'm sorry..."

He didn't look sorry. He looked enraged, electricity crackling around him as he held onto roughly formed metal. He looked like if he got the chance, he'd drag Gajeel back under him. His hands flexed, hungry, and Gajeel didn't know what for anymore. He was too busy trying to calm his panic.

"Are you angry with me?" Gajeel breathed, his voice shredded, "You're really... angry? With me?"

"What?" Laxus felt like he'd just been struck. Concern was fighting tooth and nail to keep down the tempest still raging inside of him, to hold it back, to grip it by the collar and dig in its heels like the master of a rabid dog. Laxus clutched at iron twisting painfully into his hips, staying aloft in his scarlet ocean by their cold bite alone. He could see the stark red of blood on the inside of Gajeel's thigh, glistening against his throat. He wanted to rip his own nails off, snap them off one by one. Had he hurt him? Oh fuck... not again...

He found himself staring, losing himself in the tremble of Gajeel's hands. Say something. Articulate. Except that he couldn't. There was just red beneath him and black hands trying to drag him back under. The iron meant he'd fucked up, big time. And Gajeel was winding down from a panic attack. Fucking say something. He was angry. Say something!

"N-no... yes. Yes, I'm... not at you, I just... I'm angry. I don't know why. I'm sorry."

Gajeel wasn't answering him again, just staring at the ground and wiping at his eyes. Laxus's heart was shredding itself apart. He lurched for him but couldn't move, couldn't get free. He wanted to hold him something terrible, to brush his tears away. What could he do? Gajeel was shaking, his face darkening with despair, and he couldn't get free, probably shouldn't get free. How long would it be before his concern sank and the haze of his heat sizzled back to the surface?

"You said... you'd tell me what's in your head." Laxus tried, anxious as he ran his thumbs over iron and wished it was Gajeel in his hands instead. It felt nice. Everything felt nice, except for his skin crawling. That was maddening, mind-numbing, excruciating. Relief, he needed relief, "Please tell me-"

"You were supposed to ask me for permission!" Gajeel yelled back at him, eyes blazing. Laxus swallowed, horrified. Guilt twisted his insides. Oh gods no... no not again.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, I'm-" his voice left him and he cringed into iron, "What did I do? Did you tell me to stop? Oh fuck..."

"My wrists... Laxus..." Gajeel said, his voice gentler but still awful, "You wouldn't let me go."

Laxus shut his eyes, remembering it clearly. He folded his hands in front of his face, "I'm sorry. I know. I just... It didn't feel important. Fuck. I'm sorry."

"You want me to leave." Gajeel said quietly, brokenly, "Th-that's what it is, isn't it? You want me to leave."

"What?" Laxus's eyes snapped open. Again, he fought the urge to reach for him, to pull him close, not that he could confined like this. Maybe he could. He shouldn't, "Did I say that? I didn't say that."

"You don't want me here," Gajeel said, a tear breaking free and rolling down his face, not of panic but of deep sadness, "If that's really what you want, I'll go."

Everything in Laxus's body screamed no so harshly he had to shut his eyes against it. Lightning struck between them, once, twice, three times. Everything shook with thunder. His atoms buzzed, red haze making his vision close in. He didn't want him to go. The opposite, the opposite! Laxus craved him like rain to the burning; he was incandescent and Gajeel was blissfully cool waters. Every fiber of his being wanted him so desperately he could taste it. What had he done to make him think something like that? He would have doubled over from the feeling of uncomfortable warmth and drowning need if he weren't already being held steadfastly in iron. He didn't even feel the electricity snapping at him through it anymore. It was just red, red.

It didn't feel like he was saying I'll leave. It felt like he was saying I'll never come back. But if Laxus had hurt him, if he'd lost control that badly, then should he tell him to stay? Gajeel was crying and Laxus didn't know what to fucking do. He couldn't rend iron, he couldn't bend it from him. He wanted to. Oh, he wanted to.

"T-tell me…" why did his voice come out like that? Like he was outraged? A growl that could only mean he was beside himself with anger? Gajeel looked hurt, "…what I did that makes you think that."

"You won't bite me." he said, barely a whisper and Laxus's shoulders dropped.

He full-body shivered at the idea. Oh, how he hated the taste of the venom, how bitter it was, how thick it was to swallow. "I c-can't..."

"Why?" he asked directly, not hiding his hurt, "Why the hell not?"

Laxus glared up at him, everything in him fighting to not just flash forward in that moment. Lightning body was such a useful spell. He could scatter his atoms in an eyeblink, and the metal wouldn't bite him anymore. He could drag Gajeel into the dirt. Take him again, and again, and again. Didn't want him? Didn't want him? He'd be lucky if he ever left this godforsaken mountain. He'd like to see him try to leave. The chase had been fun. He wouldn't mind doing it again.

He'd been staring too long. He hadn't answered his question. What even was it again? The red frothed up, igniting his marrow. It would burn him alive if he didn't find relief soon. His bones would turn to plasma and sear through muscle, sinew, tissue, dropping out of him like stones. Gajeel was right in the worst sort of way. Laxus didn't want him here, he'd fucking die without him.

He spoke slowly, carefully, having to think hard to grasp each word, each syllable, to taste them on his tongue, and then to push them out. Like a beast speaking for the first time, they didn't feel right in his mouth. An abomination. Why even speak at all?

"You can't say no." It was all he could get out before he couldn't concentrate again. Why was he resisting? If Gajeel wanted bitten, why shouldn't he fill him to the brim with venom? He could choke on it, fucking drink it if it made him feel better. Bite him over and over and-

"But I did. I have before."

In the cave. He'd told him to stop even after the venom, but Laxus hadn't listened. Again, he wasn't listening. Again, he'd hurt him. The right thing to do would be to tell Gajeel to leave.

"I'm sorry," Laxus mumbled into his hands, running them through his hair. He felt like he was going insane. The two halves of him were fierce and fought each other like tigers, "I didn't want… to-to take your choice."

"This is exactly why I didn't want to tell you what happened, Laxus." Oh, his words cut like a knife and Laxus shivered. Violent. He wanted to get violent. Fucking focus Gajeel is talking to you. "Do you hate me?"

"Hate you?" his breath left him. His everything shook. Lightning struck and he didn't know, didn't care, where. It blinded him for just a second and then he could see Gajeel again. He dropped his forehead into his hands, trying to contain himself, "No."

What a fucking insufficient word. No. He didn't just not hate him, he wasn't sure he had the ability to. He'd watched him kill, through the vagary of a lacrima and first hand. He'd seen him covered in blood, wretched, angry, raging at the gods and the world and himself. He'd seen him broken, battered, bleeding. He'd watched him tear out his own heart, fight demons, win. Every dreadful part of him, all of the darkness, the shadow, the ugly, and he was still so beautiful it took Laxus's breath away.

Perfect. Beautiful. There he was, naked on a bed of ferns, fallen leaves, deep, rich soil, just as the gods always intended; this animal from the woods that drove him absolutely crazy, that enticed that same savagery out of him, made him drunk on lunacy. Eyes that burned like suns trapped behind stained glass, that said let the animal of your body love what it loves and don't deny me to witness it. His everything, the light in his darkest moments. His very own moonlight; the embodiment of all his chaos, sybaritic enjoyment, indulgence, soft light and the encapsulating shadow of night, the thing that broke every boundary he had in all the best ways. He made Laxus lose control, looked into a sun bright enough to set ablaze everything beneath it and found delight in it. Laxus had never been his truest self until Gajeel dragged it screaming out of him, opened his horizons, showed him new and hedonistic things.

He'd never enjoyed the woods until Gajeel had lured him into the wild. Nature was an inconvenience, leaving him bare to cruel weather and pests. Now he knew better. It was alluring, sacred, and deserved every bit of reverence in him. This animal, untamed and trying desperately to pretend to be, left its mark in blood on him, showed him how to be a heathen that danced in moonlight. Laxus had never enjoyed the sight of blood before, and now he searched for it in draconic eyes, craved the taste of it. Because of him. Hate him? How could he possibly? He was sure he couldn't live without him. What would he be tomorrow if Gajeel left him today? He'd waste away out here, begging for the taste of him on his lips.

Gajeel had been talking to him and Laxus hadn't heard a word of it. He should have felt guilty, but he didn't. He was talking about how things were different, they had changed. This would be different than the last time. They cared for each other now and somehow that made all the difference. And didn't Laxus know it. He was an idiot through and through. He told Gajeel he'd trust him to know his own body, but here he was undermining brilliant moonlight with what he thought was right. And it had hurt him. Not again. He wouldn't make this mistake again. They were different now; he wouldn't hurt him again unless he asked for it.

Gajeel was in the middle of a sentence when Laxus broke his borders. A microsecond and he was over him. Gajeel scrambled back but Laxus trapped him with his arms around him. Red eyes searched into his, wide and unsure of what to do. Laxus had never been more sure of something in his life.

"Don't go, don't leave me like this, Gajeel. I adore you. I don't want you to go. Give me a second chance, please? I'll be better. I promise. Maybe you are, but I'm not above begging. I'm so sorry. I'll give you whatever you want, baby, please just stay with me."

He cupped the side of his face, enjoying the feel of his skin under his fingertips. The give of it, like Gajeel had shown him; he appreciated its softness under his talons. Featherlight, he ran his thumb over a thin trail left by tears. Gajeel's scent was changing in the air, despair being chased away. Yes, he could be better, he could make it better. Gajeel was going to let him. Wasn't that so like him, giving life to something Laxus didn't deserve? Second chance after second chance after second chance, always opening himself back up for him even when Laxus caused him harm. Like the flower which rises again after being trampled, blooming forth its brilliant color, defiant of pain as it searched for his sweet sunlight.

Relief... Laxus was relieved. He was a great and overpowering sun, and he had burned creation beneath him. Too much light would scorch the hillsides. He'd fucked up again. But Gajeel would let him try again. They deserved it, the both of them, a love that was calamitous, that prevailed when others would give up. Try again. And again. Until he got it right. Until they learned to love each other right. All existence was just an infinity of second chances.

"I'm supposed to ask permission? Can I bite you, Gajeel?" Laxus breathed, threading his fingers into raven hair and tipping his head back, exposing the length of his throat. Each place broken by talons glistened up at him, rubies breaking free and slipping down skin. His tongue was over them and when he felt Gajeel's moan slip free his entire body lit up. He spoke into his skin, lips ghosting downward, "Tell me. T-Tell me yes, at least. Or let me pretend I didn't just take the choice from you."

Gajeel swallowed and Laxus was diving down before he could speak. He bit him on one of his favorite sensitive places, where the curve of his neck turned into the thinner flesh that covered his clavicle. He bit down until he tasted blood, until he felt Gajeel arch up beneath him and his moan twisted into a scream. Both of their bodies came alive. Magic swelled up from everywhere, green and yellow dancing, entwining. Insane, insane, he felt insane. Electricity was everywhere, around them both, mixing with strange and beautiful color. Gajeel was breathing quickly but his eyes didn't hold pain anymore. He was clutching Laxus like letting go meant he'd lose him.

Laxus kissed him as his power and influence descended on the mountain. As in Magnolia, so too now did a storm rage around them. He held nothing back, didn't try. Let the world break apart around them, let him be the one to destroy it, he didn't fucking care. Gajeel was moaning his name like it was the sweetest thing in the world to taste in his mouth. Laxus was thinking if you want my venom so badly, take every drop I have. Whatever you want. I want to give you everything you want. His stomach did something strange and he let out a strangled noise when he heard Gajeel sigh, "Finally." like he was falling into a bed of roses. Black rivulets sifted through his fingers, luxuriant gossamer strands the color of night and flecked with starlight where it caught flashes of his livid static's light.

Gajeel's spine curled from electricity that ran across his skin. For the second time in his life, it didn't hurt. It was ecstatic, and his eyes rolled back when Laxus's mouth closed over the bite he'd left and sucked at tender flesh. He clutched at blonde hair, moaning at the feeling, at how his entire body responded to it. The thunder dragon was slipping down, biting his chest, running his tongue over his nipple as his hand travelled southward, wrapping around his aching dick. He fisted his hand against the blonde's scalp, his body already quivering, legs shaking as he stroked him with a tight fist. Laxus drew back, licking his lips as he made Gajeel's head spin.

"What do you want? Tell me." he begged him, desperate. His body wasn't burning anymore, though, but a different single-mindedness had appeared: to be everything his mate needed. His mate, Gajeel, his moon and its dark side, his everything, the magic in his veins, his wings to fly, "I want to give it to you. I won't deny you anything, baby. Please tell me."

Gajeel couldn't breathe. Everything Laxus was, his heart and spirit, his ego, his individuality, the manifestation of his every emotion and thought, filled the air with vibration, a music he could understand now that he'd tasted his venom, and it was so much. Laxus was so dreadfully good with magic, and there was no wonder to him why. His entire soul was inside it. Every pent-up emotion, the truth in his words, the depth at which he felt it, lit the world with the entire color spectrum, in lightning that was beautiful. Laxus was so still, so stoic, how did he keep so much trapped inside? How did it not consume him? Gajeel was being consumed by it, lost in it, like the ocean had fallen on him and no one had told him not to fill his lungs with burning salt water. His own magic was responding, unveiling itself not as blades meant to cut but hundreds of thousands of mirrors that reflected and refracted light. It looked like fairies filling the air. Speckles of light were everywhere. A fairytale, an unreality that was nirvanic, sublime.

You. That was all I wanted. I just wanted you. All of you. Like this. To not hide anything, to be one in a way no one will ever understand but us. That's what I want. Give it to me.

Laxus responded, a deep understanding between them that didn't need words. He splayed his fingers against Gajeel's soft belly, the points of his claws making delightful dents into his skin. He swallowed him down to the hilt and Gajeel threw his head back. The world whirled around him. Did up and down even exist like this? He screamed Laxus's name when he came into the depth of his throat, the lines of him fraying when Laxus hummed around him in appreciation. Released him slicked and glistening. His sharp teeth sank into his thigh as his finger pushed inside, reclaiming places he'd already been with a new passion. When he pulled back from him, Gajeel collapsed, his muscles already tightening again. Yellow claws dug into his thigh, trying so hard to be gentle as he twisted Gajeel's hips.

"Am I still your god, darling?" Laxus huffed, surrounding him where he still lay on his stomach, "You promised me you'd worship. Get on your knees, baby."

He did, and Laxus slipped back into him and sighed. He was still slick, still ready. It was seamless, easy, and Laxus gripped a fistful of his hair and pulled his neck back.

"Good to me," he said and enjoyed the way Gajeel trembled more than what was natural, than how he should. Laxus should be melted by this, his heart breaking. This touch-starved thing beneath him craved gentleness as much as he craved violence, "So damn good to me, baby, taking me like this... I know you like it deep this way, like an animal."

He moaned and it twisted into a whine, "Laxus... again... please..."

Laxus pressed his nose into his neck, breathing him in. The arousal, the scent that made him feral; it made his head spin just as much as the taste of it in his mouth when he dug his teeth into him again. Gajeel cried into the dirt as Laxus fucked him with abandon, chasing pleasure for them both. Laxus groaned and buried his face into his shoulder when he came. Gajeel gasped when he pulled out of him. The heat abated slightly, but he was still so thirsty for the man writhing beneath him. His legs ached, exhaustion creeping in. But... but he still wanted... more...

"Fuck..." Laxus collapsed to the side, staring up into red eyes blearily. His arms were sore, but he dragged Gajeel down by his hair to kiss him as deeply as he could manage. Made a trail down his throat, licked at broken skin and reveled in how Gajeel's eyes would roll back and he'd moan. What had he done to him before? He sighed against them and watched him tremble, his dick twitching back to life. Laxus groaned, not sure when he had started jacking himself off but aware of it now because of the fatigue in his limbs. "Shit..."

Gajeel brushed his hand away, pulled himself astride him. As if they were made for him to hold, Laxus slipped his hands over Gajeel's thighs, directing how he wanted him.

Gajeel clicked his teeth over him, "I know what you like, fairy."

He took him in one fluid motion and they both moaned. Gajeel leaned back on his hips. Laxus watched him pull the curtain of his hair over his shoulder, his arms over his head, displaying himself for Laxus's eyes alone, enticing him. It wasn't necessary. Laxus was already enamored by the look of him. Every scar on his body was the tail of a comet rushing across the night sky of him. Beautiful, he was beautiful, his own god in his own way, displaying power and resplendency in every movement of him, haloed by the ferocious glare of lightning flashing around them.

"Are you making yourself look pretty for me, love?" Laxus purred.

His smile was a little mischievous, a little embarrassed, "Maybe."

Laxus sighed dreamily, "You don't have to try."

What had he ever done before him? How had he lived before knowing him? He hadn't. Fuck, had he lived at all his whole life? But now he was here, they were together more intimately than Laxus ever dreamed possible. They were inextricable from each other now, to pull them apart would mean to destroy the heavens. Gajeel belonged to him, his mate. All his. Forever.

He didn't wait for him to move on his own, dug his claws into him and moved him. Gajeel threw his head back, letting out a beautiful noise as Laxus brought his hips down.

"Mine... Gajeel... t-tell me you're mine."

"I'm yours." he said without hesitation, eyes off in the distance. His chest was heaving like he couldn't catch his breath, "J-just yours. Yours."

"Forever." Laxus huffed, snapping up into him, making him cry out again. Oh gods, he loved that sound. Give him more. Louder.

"F-forever..." he started, his brow furrowing as he watched the world around them shattering with light and reflection and them, a shadow on his face like sorrow or worry, "Forever is a long time, Laxus."

"Not long enough. It'll never be long enough." he sighed out. Gajeel was taking over, picking up the pace he wanted. Laxus laid back and took it, his body thrumming with light, with pleasure, rapture approaching in the corners of his mind, "N-never. I'll never get enough, fuck, baby, please...!"

A noise like a whimper. Gajeel's voice could barely pierce the haze of euphoria, it was so quiet, like he was frightened. His body was beginning to stutter, climbing to the height of delectation.

"F-forever... I'm yours forever, Laxus...!" the strength of his voice grew, "I want you forever, too, l-love... I..."

"Yess... t-tell me... you're obsessed with me, again."

"More than fucking obsessed, love. Fuck, I... I've known you, I can't live in a world without you now. I'd... I'd kill for you, mîn luz."

Magic grew intense, potent, like Gajeel was swearing something into existence. Laxus's own magic responded, his soul trembling at what was being laid bare. It felt like Gajeel was cupping his heart in his hands and whispering some dreadful secret. Fear. Of losing him, of something happening to him, of Laxus being used against him. He felt like he was choking on that darkness in him, bubbling up to the surface. The dark side of his moon, the things people weren't meant to see, to hear, just like when he'd told Laxus he'd wanted to not just have him but live inside him. He'd called himself bloodthirsty, and now Laxus felt it raw and unfettered, making the air sharp. A waking hell, Laxus remembered, the most beautiful hell he'd ever seen flashing in blood-filled eyes.

"I love you, Laxus. You're what makes me believe there's still beauty in this world... swête weder, I'd burn the world if you're not in it anymore, if I never knew you again."

Draconic. A song he longed to know; music that made something ancient within him stir. He was calling him sweet nothings in draconic, and then saying he'd go dark without him. He would have never thought in a million years his ears would hear things like this and think them such sweet promises. His heart swelled and he coiled his spine, his body growing tight with his ravished eventuality coming soon realized.

"Again..." he whispered, "Call me... again..."

"Swête weder..." Gajeel tossed his head back, his long hair falling down his back. "Mîn... mîn lîeg. Mîn... mîn yst."

Laxus teetered on the edge of oblivion, shutting his eyes as he dug his claws into Gajeel's thighs, raking them down to pull him into him. Thunder fell upon them. He heard Gajeel scream his name and felt his core tighten and shiver around him. Laxus lost it. He came and it felt like the fire blazing in his bones seared hotter than it ever had before, turning him radioactive, breaking apart every tenuous fiber of him before he collapsed. Gajeel's arms caught himself on either side of Laxus's head. A curtain of black fell around him as he dropped his head, exhausted. Laxus pulled slick hands from his legs, rolled him onto his side to face him, drew him close, and kissed him. He kissed him until the raven stopped shivering beside him, until his breaths came in slow again, and then he kept kissing him until red eyes could resist fatigue no longer.

He pulled him close, and they both fell into a dark sleep.