The first three weeks had been worse than a nightmare. He'd been stripped and searched, made to sit as an inmate with dull scissors sheered through his hair, and finally led with wide eyes and mouth firmly shut to the infirmary. It was a long, pristinely white hallway that swallowed him whole and spat him into a ward with over a dozen cots. Men were in different stages of withdrawal and he could smell their fevers from where he stood. The nurse was as mean as the guard that had gripped his arm and forced him in. His voice was gruff and hard, telling him about the black circlet that would be his new, longsuffering tormenter, and of the expected time for him to recover.

One week for most, two for those who had exceptionally high concentrations of magic. As it turned out he'd managed to take three. After the fever had gotten too high to bear they'd put him under and when he next woke he couldn't tell if it'd been a dream or not. He remembered voices talking, utterances of how he wasn't stable, and a voice he was familiar with saying something about lightening his dosage, he'd sign off on it. When he'd come to again his entire body was shaking and he was cold, colder than he'd ever been in his entire life, and empty. Godswas he empty.

He was dying. He had to be dying.

A part of him was gone that had never been severed from him before. He felt like while his mind had been absent they'd taken a spoon to his chest and painstakingly removed his fire, his Magic, his heart, his everything. He'd tried to move but in his weakness he'd been unable. His body was heavy, so heavy he didn't understand how he couldn't be breaking the cot beneath him. But how could he be so heavy and yet so agonizingly empty?

It was midway through his third week that Davian had appeared at his bedside. Major Davian Bishop, with glasses pushed to the top of his nose, black hair neatly tied in a topknot and a clipboard in his hands; he was reading notes when he had opened his eyes. An eyebrow arched up sharply.

"Decided to join the living, Mr. Redfox?" he'd stated coolly and Gajeel couldn't even think. He just blinked and waited for something to happen, to be told he had to get up, or maybe just to be addressed again. Davian studied him before he turned to someone outside of Gajeel's line of sight, "I'll sign off on a few more days."

Walking for the first time had been abysmal in every sense. He'd stumbled like some new lamb and his limbs shook with a type of weakness he'd never known or would ever wish on another, but he'd found a way to get himself out the door and down the hall. Davian had been waiting for him at the entrance along with a few transfers, leading them inside with the type of authority and poise men envied. As soon as the door opened Gajeel was greeted with the stench of men and wave upon wave of aggression and lethal hunger. Pride – the malicious type that embraced only the sort of men who killed and plundered and never accepted the word mercy – dripped off of every surface, clung to each shadow, and pervaded the entire essence of the place.

Oh! he knew this feeling. He breathed it in the same way a husband does the sweet scent of home after he'd been gone on some long and taxing trip. He was a wound, finally stitched back together to heal when it was suddenly, maliciously, painfullyripped open once more. It took him aback and he had to pause, mind reeling and blood singing. It was dreadful and haunting and familiar but he so utterly wasn't what it demanded. He was without rage, without hate, without so long having been exposed to the toxic vibration of men fighting like mad dogs to be the biggest, the baddest, and the strongest. Oh gods alive, he was new again and it brought the sort of wretched hope that bleeding, helpless, innocent things have whilst being led to the slaughter. He was a child walking through those doors. He was weak. He was alone. And when the guards pulled shut those magically reinforced portals he was suddenly in his tomb staring down the butcher with waiting and bloodied knife.

"Welcome home, gentlemen," Davian's words were like acid dripping onto the back of his neck and Gajeel set his jaw as a strange, frenetic energy rose in his veins that triggered fierce pain in his neck.

Home.

He approached this fresh hell with the experience of a man who's done this once before. The weakness was secondary, the panic of his heart silenced, and the shuffle to his feet now a sure, proud walk. Rules he'd set for himself at Phantom Lord surged back to life. Back straight, fists clenched, guard up, body ready to move at all times. He heard the clamor as they headed for the cellblock. Curious eyes were deviating from what they were doing to check out the fresh meat. A few faces Gajeel recognized and they in turn recognized him. Whispers started.

Kurogane had finally been caught.

He learned the law quickly and not without misstep. The guards were nearly as cruel as the inmates and took out their anger gleefully when the Major wasn't around to hear about it. Maybe he'd stepped too close to a guard on the way back to his cellblock or maybe the guy had just heard one too many jeers at his expense, but Gajeel heard the swing of the baton before he felt it. He was berated for dodging out of the way and another guard closed in on him from behind. When everything was said and done he'd made his way back to his cell with pain in his gut and a bruise on his eye.

"Get in my way again, trash, and you'll be in the infirmary next time."

It was the inmates with the most trivial offenses that tended to have the loudest mouths. From a desire to prove they belonged or some pent-up need to exact revenge on what once were stronger mages, Gajeel wasn't sure. All he knew was it was some guy in for aggravated assault who'd squared up against him in the mess hall. Eyes watched, taking in anxiously what happened when the new guy was pitted against a five-year veteran. Gajeel hadn't even needed to land a punch on the guy to get him down and it all ended in a flash of his fingers wrenching sandy hair down into the table. Blood spurted from his nose and Gajeel stepped over him, sweeping eyes to the men immediately around him, sharper teeth bared and red eyes blazing. It was a powerful and necessary message.

Don't mess with me.I know what I'm doing.

The old aggression came back naturally and it was as if there hadn't been a break in time when he'd decided to no longer live this kind of life. He slipped back into the persona of Kurogane and with it came an old, insistent itch. He craved the madness of a fight, of getting lost in ferocity and rage and physically putting into another being the special fear that only emerges from pain. He needed ruin and the sweet release that violence could grant. Keeping the itch pent up had him wishing for his own destruction; made his skin yen for a sharp edge to entreat heat and blood.

His only mitigation was regimen. He adhered himself to the schedule, forced tired body and stressed mind to awaken with the morning call.

"5:30 headcount, people. Be at your cell door in five minutes or receive a citation."

Like a machine he pulled his trousers on. His white shirt was tucked in and boots laced and tied. He was always standing and waiting at his cell door when the suits came by. They always called him by number and he'd stare quietly as they passed. He'd moved outside while other men went back to sleep or relaxed quietly in their cells. He'd run, he'd lift, and he'd be in the showers before most attempted to venture out. Breakfast, work, lunch, work, and then dinner before he retired to his cell, exhausted and angry and biting for a fight. The next day was the same and each new awakening brought with it that constant dread and abhorrence. Each morning he'd stare at his reflection in the mirror and in his head he'd repeat his mantra before the doors opened. Back straight, fists clenched, guard up, body ready to move at all times. That was what you needed to survive. That was how you kept from being one of the guys preyed on, taken from, and thrown to the side like the filthy pieces of wasted humanity they all were.

This was his new-old normal. His Phantom Lord with a new flavor. His hell.

Waiting to see Laxus turned into the longest week of his life and when he was finally ushered from the prison wing the most devouring anxiousness filled him from the very soles of his feet to the top of his being. Every step he took towards the visiting area made his stomach sink further and further into his toes. How was he supposed to face him? After so many days of silence all he'd managed to write was the most meaningless of letters. And then being presented, seeing him sitting there, eyes swimming with quiet fury after being forced to have his magic subdued, seemed to strike him right through the chest. It was like everything was suddenly real and previously he truly could have convinced himself it was all some fever dream. But that glass between them couldn't be denied, neither could the restraints at his neck and wrists and feet. The hope of freedom had never been so heavily squashed as when Laxus's fingers had hit the invisible barrier. The brief flash of sadness in Laxus's eyes made his heart feel like it was festering in its rot.

It just took that instant and Gajeel had been sobered. As easy as it was to be swept up in the chaotic, animalistic scrabble he'd been thrown headfirst into, those golden eyes brought him back down. He didn't want this; he hatedthis. He wasn't going to slip so quietly back into the savage, unregenerate man that he once was. It was so easy to forget in his confinement what was waiting for him with freedom. At that point, he felt severed from the other men in the prison and a different, far softer need than before anchored him to who he really was, the better man he had become. Beneath the constant tumult of hostility and vehemence there stirred a cold current in his chest, the swift bite of loneliness and the pang of missing something he'd come far too accustomed to.

Didn't he think once that he shouldn't get close to things that could leave? Wasn't it morbidly ironic, then, that it was he who did the leaving behind instead of Laxus? He missed him in a way he hadn't missed anyone before and it was a powerful sadness at ached at him when the cell doors were closed and he was alone on his shabby bed staring at the pale grey ceiling. To the sounds of men arguing and taking what they wanted from each other in the cover of darkness, Gajeel tried to think of a place far away from his captivity. Sometimes he'd wake with his arms wrapped tightly around himself and at the furthest reaches of his mind he'd hold onto a dream that all wasn't what it had seemed the day before, this was some nightmare he'd wake from in the arms of a blonde man large enough to chase the bleak images away. He was always disappointed when the call would come over the PA.

"5:30 headcount, people. Be at your cell door in five minutes or receive a citation."

Like clockwork it started all over again. He told himself that in time he'd be used to this, he'd live, he'd survive, and it was truly one of the most bitter thoughts he'd ever had but not an incorrect one. It only took another week before he'd adjusted to faces and names, groups and gangs. A job opened on the scrapyard and he'd been quick to snatch it up as soon as he heard. No one wanted to sort heavy pieces of metal in the bitter cold but to Gajeel it was his only opportunity to truly eat. That first bite of iron after so long had hurt his teeth and stung his nose like the scent of blood but it was delicious. He quickly learned his limit before his collar would react and he'd always hide a couple screws beneath his tongue to savor later. Every day he was stripped and searched. Being made of metal meant the sensors went off every time he walked through them and the guards didn't mind taking the chance to humiliate him.

After he finally reached his forty-five days of good behavior, Laxus sent him enough money that he could get the nicest receiver afforded to the prisoners. There was no way in hell he'd be buying it with his daily salary from the scrapyard, a pension that was laughable, all things considered. It wasn't like they were offered many luxuries, after all. He felt absolutely ridiculous brushing his teeth and fussing over his hair before their first call. It had grown quickly once he'd been munching on iron and now rested just past his shoulders. The grungy waves were a little straighter, a little more him, but still extremely short in comparison to what it once had been. He'd settled on his bed, back to the wall with a perfect view of anyone who might walk past his cell, and pushed through the butterflies that had suddenly turned his stomach. There was a snap of magic, a screen appeared and floated before him, and Gajeel found that he suddenly felt unable to breathe in the brief seconds he awaited a response.

Blearily at first and then abruptly snapped into clarity, Laxus appeared. Gold eyes blazed and an annoyed look was plastered across his face until the blonde focused on him. A slim, tense smile pulled across his lips and he almost looked sheepish.

"Hey there, delinquent," that rumbled purr made him melt where he sat and he clutched at the tiny sphere in his hands, a lifeline keeping him from drowning.

"Hey, Sparky," his reply was weak in ears, quiet and unsure, but to Laxus it sounded foreign in a different way. He sounded haggard and exhausted and Laxus could clearly see his sharp teeth as he spoke unhindered. It dawned on Laxus that he must keep tighter lips when around Fairy Tail, possibly started when he'd joined and wanted to seem less intimidating, but when thrown into an environment where intimidation was the only way one did things he'd reverted to his more pronounced way of speaking.

"You look better," Laxus said coolly. It was but a lie and a truth. The black eye was gone and his hair was a little longer, but his eyes looked dead and empty.

"You look like hell," Gajeel's lip quirked just slightly and Laxus rolled his eyes. He felt like hell. It had been two weeks since he'd visited and he had such little to show for it, hardly a lead and nothing of any real help. He felt as hopeless as Gajeel looked but he didn't want to show it. He pulled Gajeel's red scarf closer around his neck, sitting in the shabby hotel he, Juvia, and Mirajane had rented, waiting for one of them to return and tell him it was time to go, "Is that my scarf?"

"Maybe it is," Laxus forced the smile to his face and could feel the tips of his ears start to burn, "Used to smell like you."

A little bit of light entered Gajeel's eyes, "Cute."

"I ain't cute."

"You're right… yer beautiful," red eyes flashed past the screen to what Laxus suspected was his cell door, checking to be sure no one had heard him.

"I thought we agreed you had poor taste?" his smile became a little more genuine.

"I never agreed ta that."

His voice was more abrasive than Laxus remembered it. He was becoming cold; they both were, Laxus supposed, just in different ways. Silence fell between them as they both tried to figure out what to say. There was so much empty air.

Gajeel cleared his throat, "Where are ya?"

"A shitty hotel in Oleander."

His brow furrowed, "Oleander? Never heard of it."

"That's because it's about a fourth the size of Magnolia… and you know how big Magnolia is."

"Yer out in the sticks, then?" he smirked, "Doesn't sound like yer kind 'a place."

"It's not," Laxus growled and then sighed, "…but we're following a lead. Hoping to catch one of those bastards."

Gajeel blinked at him slowly, "You… you're doing a stakeout?"

"Yes."

A wide, wicked grin broke out across his face, "Gods alive, you're havin' a helluvah time, aren't ya?"

Laxus set his jaw, "We've been here all of four hours and I'm already tired of waiting."

"That's the name of the game," his sneer somehow got wider, "ya gotta wait until they slip up. Ya know, those used to be some of my favorite missions."

"With the way you always run headfirst into shit? I have a hard time believing that," despite it all, Laxus was beginning to relax. Seeing him, even in his current state of disarray wearing an orange jumpsuit, made him happy. He craved the contact, missed his voice. He was starting to feel a little warmer.

"T's true. Nothin' scares people like a stranger knowing all their habits," his voice dropped to a dangerous octave, "That's the best way to get in people's heads is to tail 'em."

Something in Gajeel's voice made a thrill go through his veins but he silenced it, "Yeah, well, I need answers."

Gajeel tilted his head to the side, eyes shifting as he thought, and he asked a question Laxus didn't expect, "Do ya know who yer lookin' for?"

"No," he admitted, "We don't have a lot to go on, just that a guy has been luring kids away and no one sees them again. Only one kid witnessed it happen and the description sounded like… well…"

"Right," Gajeel scratched at the back of his neck, "Have ya tried sniffing around? Seein' what you can pick up?"

"My nose isn't as good as yours," he bit those words out tersely, but it sounded less like he was admitting defeat to Gajeel's prowess and more like contempt at his own ineptitude.

"Since when did you start quittin' before even trying?" he said slyly but the humor was lost on the blonde.

"I'll admit it, I'm no good at this shit. Throw me against a strong mage and I won't hesitate. This sneakin' around, searching for clues… waiting…" he shook his head and lightning snapped around him, causing the lacrima to pick up the magical interference and threaten to go out before he could reign in his emotions, "I hate it, Gajeel."

"That's what Juvia's there for," Gajeel replied gently, his smile fading, "ta help ya in the right direction."

"Oi! Kurogane!" Gajeel's eyes flickered upwards and his face suddenly became stoic. Laxus raised a brow at him, "Transfers comin' in. Ya gonna check 'em out?"

"I'm busy," was all he replied and Laxus watched as his eyes travelled, following whoever had called out to him.

"Who was that?"

"Guy from the Southern Wolves. Him and some guys from his old guild an' Phantom got a gang of sorts… safety in numbers thing," he muttered before hesitantly turning his eyes back to Laxus, "They want me ta join 'em so they've started bein' friendly. I'm not interested but they don't need ta know that."

"Eh? Why not?"

"I gotta family, I don't need another one," Gajeel growled, stretching as he did so, "Sides… that shit don't come fer free. Nobody's gonna make me do anythin' I don' want to."

Laxus suddenly felt heavy, "…you, uh, you doin' ok?"

Gajeel wouldn't look him in the eyes, "Whaddaya mean, Sparky?"

Laxus didn't know how to put it into words, wrestled with his inability to speak. He always got like this when it mattered, it seemed. He was worried. Gajeel looked tense, like he was ready to fight as soon as someone stepped too close. There was darkness in his eyes that Laxus shuddered to ponder too closely at, anger where just a couple months ago there'd been mirth. Had the thought already seeped in that he may never be able to leave this place? What happened if Laxus failed and couldn't make true his promise? Was he depressed in such a deprived and angry place? Did he feel like he had to kill again, to be cold and ruthless and blend in to what was around him? Did he feel as lost as Laxus did? Or half as lonely?

The question hung there like the timbre of the last note of a song. Laxus didn't speak, just set his teeth and brushed at his scar. Gajeel's movement drew his eyes and Gajeel was pulling his hair to the side, fingering the collar around his throat.

"I miss hearing you sing," Laxus spoke quietly, let the aloneness he felt so deep in his chest seep into his words. He was so bad at expressing himself, "I wanted to record you… kept tryin' to convince myself to ask and… I guess I kept talking myself out of it because I could just hear you anytime."

"Didn't know you liked it so much," it was a lie, the ghost of a smile at his lips said it all.

"I bet you didn't," he chuckled, although it wasn't his usual sound. The sadness was there, it was everywhere, in everything, "I bet you've written half a dozen songs about how much you miss me already."

"Ever heard the sayin' caged birds don't sing?" Gajeel muttered.

"Even still, I bet you get the itch."

"I get the itch ta do a lotta stuff in here," he wasn't mean, flippant maybe, but not mean, "don't mean I act on it."

"Ah… that may be the saddest thing I've heard you say so far."

Laxus's words were far too serious a thing for either of them to handle in that moment. He saw the raven's vein jump as he clenched his teeth, those eyes turn dark again, and suddenly Laxus felt his throat close harshly. Why did everything said end up so miserable?

"I'm sorry," Laxus mumbled, "I'm didn't mean-"

"Yer fine, Sparky. It ain't you," he wasn't even speaking anymore, his words were just a breath and he put his knuckle to his lips, his ring touching them, "T's rough right now… but that's what we do, don't we? We keep goin' even when we don't think we can."

Laxus mirrored him, pressed the steel of his own ring to his lips, "We've been through worse."

"Yeah… this ain't shit."

It was a stupid, senseless gesture, but Laxus kissed his ring and glanced up at him, "I miss you,"

The look that passed over Gajeel's face made his heart flip, that cursed thing around his neck flashing for just a second but this time Gajeel didn't grimace. He returned his kiss on his own steel and Laxus could have sworn he felt the words through the vast amount of space between them, falling from the visage of his love as if he weren't just an image projected before him. They were quiet and sincere, as if he were afraid speaking them too loud would get him caught in some terrible crime but he still had to say them aloud.

"I love you."

And it was like that almost every day. They'd found ways to work past the seriousness and pretend conversation could be casual and simple. Laxus at some point made an offhanded comment that if Gajeel was so bored maybe he should get some culture. The next day he was informed Gajeel was going to start reading the classics. He'd recommended Dracula first, figuring the edgy man would love it, and a quick murmur about how there was no way he'd understand the prose set enough of a defiant fire in Gajeel that the next time they spoke he'd already started it. They forced banter, made half-hearted jokes and laughs at the other's expense. Some days they could almost say they'd succeeded in their attempts to make this normal and easy and less helpless and sordid. But at the end of it all it would be the same. Each time they said goodbye the darkness crept back. The light left their eyes. It felt less like saying goodbye until tomorrow and more like goodbye forever.

Gajeel would give him that same out he'd done when Laxus had visited him; it was ok to leave him behind. Laxus would snuff and sigh and pretend he'd actually humor the idea.

"I'll talk to you tomorrow. Don't keep me waiting."

"Aye, sir."

Author's Note:

Me, opening laptop to write this chapter: Yes, Gajeel is in prison! Let's get this shindig started!

Me, staring at my screen halfway through my first sentence: ...I... I know nothing about prison...

Googles furiously for the next two days

Ah, poor Gajeel. I just keep putting him through the ringer. I'm sucha bitch.

For those of you who are waiting for Laxus to be the absolute badass motherfucker he is, hang in there. Your time is coming...

...and that's all I'll say on the matter MWAHAHAHA!

As always, thank you for reading :) Hoppy Easter, beautiful beans! I hope God, or Ishtar, or whatever it is you believe in blesses you this spring! And if you believe in nothing, then accept my positive Spring Vibes! :)