Melting an Iron Heart [Gale] {The Fairy Tail Love Chronicles; Book 1}

Chapter Twenty

*Levy*

Levy could feel that Himiko was irritated her plan hadn't worked. She hadn't anticipated Gajeel's indifferent attitude, and it angered her. Not Levy. She felt hurt that Gajeel had been using her as a way to get to Elite Helix. I guess I should have known. What other reason would someone like him have to hang out with some like me—if not to fight boredom.

“Ah!” Levy groaned, quietly. Levy had to grab onto the bookshelf when she felt suddenly dizzy, the spinning room not helping her headache. Himiko tsked in annoyance at her throbbing head.

“It looks like your time is nearly up, little fairy,” Himiko chuckled darkly. What do you mean? Again, Himiko tsked inside of her head. “The flaw with my magic is that it only works for about a month.” When Himiko felt Levy's excitement, she cut her off quickly. “Because of the toxins in the gas that they have to breathe in for my magic to work, after one month of being under my spell, the host of my magic will meet one of two fates.”

Levy didn't like the sound of that. Almost to afraid to know, she asked, what are they?

“You will lose your free will to me forever, and turn into nothing more than a vessel for me to use.” Or? “Or you will die. Either way, you won't exist anymore.” Levy felt her knees give out, and she crumpled against the bookshelf. If things weren't resolved quickly, she would die. It had already been two and a half weeks, so she had very little time left.

“This is boring now, so I'm leaving,” Himiko said in a huffy voice, pulling out of Levy's mind painfully. Levy shouted in surprise, not appreciating all of the stress her poor brain was going through.

“What is it?” Gajeel asked. Despite his indifference earlier, he was the first one to her, helping her off the floor.

“Gajeel, Himiko, she--” Levy cut off, Himiko's watchful ears catching her trying to tell Gajeel what had happened. “No, it's nothing,” was what she ended up telling him. “I tripped. You can go back to work now.”

“You sure?” He was looking at her strangely. For some stupid reason, she blushed.

“Of course I'm sure. I tripped.” She looked back at the stack of books she had been working on, ignoring him until he returned to help Jet and Droy. When he was gone, Levy sighed heavily. Although he had halfway confessed to caring about her the day before, he now acted like he didn't care at all about her. Was it really just him following me around until Elite Helix showed up? Was all of his insistence on protecting me just so he wouldn't miss an opportunity to fight with them again?

Levy felt her heart breaking a little. Although she too had acted indifferent towards him, she at least did it to protect him from Himiko. What motive would he have to lie about not caring about her? She hadn't known Gajeel to ever be the type to care enough about something to lie, so she couldn't imagine that he would lie about only being with her as a means to an end. It must be true then. Since he doesn't know about Himiko, he wouldn't have any reason at all to lie about that.

She sighed again, frustrated with herself for thinking that Gajeel might have been growing feelings for her. It was just wishful thinking, stupid.

*Gajeel*

Gajeel glanced periodically at Levy from the next isle, just to confirm that her eyes were back to normal. He breathed a sigh of relief when the brown was as large as it usually was. What does that mean, then? Does Himiko just pop in an out of Levy's mind when she feels like it? Or is she always in there, like some disgusting parasite? He wanted to approach Levy with the topic, but held back for fear that the latter was true.

Gajeel begins to get irritated when Levy doesn't try to talk to him for the rest of the job. Nor does she even acknowledge his existence on the train ride home, and she only says goodbye to Jet and Droy when they reached the guildhall. He followed her outside when she dismissed herself, not being able to take the silence any longer.

“That's it!” He snapped, grabbing her arm to keep her from leaving.

“Gajeel!” Levy squeaked, fighting against his hold on her as he dragged her into Magnolia. “What are you doing?”

“Come with me,” he said.

“Gajeel,” Lily said in a disapproving voice.

“Go back to the guild. I'll be back later.” Gajeel wanted to talk to Levy—alone. Feeling her still struggle against his grasp, he went into the first bar he saw. He sat her down in a booth across from him, frowning at her angrily. He almost chuckled when she mirrored his frown. It's kind of pathetic how not scary she is.

“What is the meaning of all this?” Levy shot at him. Her orange headband had come loose during his rough handling, so she tightened it. She crossed her arms over her small chest, huffing in impatience when he didn't answer her. “Well?” She asked again.

“Why have you been avoiding me? You haven't even really looked at me since I found you in Oshibana, and it's irritating.”

“I haven't been avoiding--”

“Cut the crap. I know you're mad about something.”

It was Levy's turn to look irritated. “It's none of your business!”

“To hell it's not! You go from fine one minute, to not talking to me the next. So, tell me what your problem is.” Gajeel knew he wasn't being very sensitive, but he didn't care.

“You know, I don't think Elite Helix is going to attack me in broad daylight, so just go,” she said, turning her head away from him.

“What are--” Oh. So she heard that. Damn. Gajeel hadn't planned on her being able to hear what he said if Himiko had been controlling her. “I didn't mean that. I'm sorry--”

“It doesn't matter,” Levy said, voice tight. “You wanted to know my problem. I told you. Now go away.”

“How do you get the right to be so angry at me?” Gajeel growled, pounding his fist on the table in frustration. “You have been doing the same thing to me since you got back after you were missing for two weeks!”

“You wouldn't understand,” Levy said. All of Gajeel's anger evaporated when a glistening tear made it's way down Levy's cheek. She wiped hastily at it, obviously hoping that he hadn't seen it.

“Ah, damn it Levy, I'm sorry. I was just mad because you hadn't been talking to me, so I said stupid things back in Oshibana.” Although he was still frustrated and confused, he couldn't stay angry with Levy. She was the only person he found himself incapable if being mad at—even if she was hiding things from him.

After several minutes of silence, Gajeel stood, holding out his hand to help her up. “You should continue staying at my house for now.” He felt his cheeks get annoyingly hot when she said nothing, and just stared at him with those large brown eyes. “I-I don't like the idea of you being alone. God knows those two idiots couldn't protect you.” Nice, dumb-ass. Insulting her friends is definitely the way to get her to agree.

“Sure,” she nodded, taking his hand. He was surprised that she had agreed without argument. The same heat from before returned to his face, so he cleared his throat and started walking, though, he never did let go of Levy's hand.

That's the end of chapter 20! :D So, what did you think? I would love your thoughts/comments/suggestions! :3 Thank you for reading, and I hope you liked it! <3