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The thing is- Gajeel knows that failing to speak up when he discovered who has the same soulmate mark as him would just further his reputation as a dishonest, insensitive bastard. He’d surely have to be if he treats even his own soulmate with such selfish, cagey disregard, so it’s not a good look that Gajeel hasn’t breathed a single word about his soulmate (not even violent swearing- which was really, sorely tempting.) But given that Gajeel first spotted the matching mark when Laxus was fresh off an attempt to murder the entire population of Magnolia and actively trying to put Salamander in the ground, he stands by his decision.
It’s not a matter of doubt. He had a clear view and it covers Laxus’s entire back: an ambiguous, symmetrical array of thin, black lines arcing outwards on either side of the central axis of his spine. Less abstract than it looks at a glance, they’re actually electromagnetic field lines, which- now that he has the context- feels a bit on the nose. In the moment, he could not have been more fucking exasperated.
Subsequent time to reflect hasn’t made it any less of a pain in the ass, unfortunately. Gajeel does not want anything to do with that man. On one hand, he doesn’t have the luxury of forgetting that if things happened just a little differently and Laxus had joined the battle against Phantom, he’d be the heartless aggressor of their first encounters. So he won’t count Laxus out for what he did, but he still ain’t exactly impressed so far. The fact that they’re soulmates does imply he’ll make up for it in time, and at least that’s something because, on first impression, Laxus is a real piece of work and Gajeel has more than enough on his plate without him. He’s in no rush to bring this to his attention and he’s not so convinced that he owes him much of anything either.
He’s pretty- he’ll give him that much- but Gajeel’s withholding judgment on the rest. Laxus can go be his own problem for a while and hopefully figure some shit out. Till then, no thanks.
Not that it makes a difference; while he’s still entrenched in Raven Tail, Gajeel has no choice in the matter. He’s already unwittingly skirted disaster in the first weeks of his mission, before he had any idea that Ivan would immediately recognize the mark from his son’s back, and his ignorance just as easily could’ve doomed him from the start. No lie is gonna save his skin if Ivan finds out the truth.
If Gajeel did tell Laxus that they’re soulmates, he’d have to keep it secret at all costs, and Gajeel flat out doesn’t trust him to, if simply because he’s not at liberty to explain why it’s so important. There’s just no point mulling over what he should and shouldn’t say until he’s done taking care of the Dreyars. He can’t tell Laxus even if he wanted to.
Which gets a bit thorny when Gajeel starts wanting to.
His dealings with Raven Tail cause their paths to cross (or maybe it’s fate, if the old tales are to be believed), and each interaction paints a fuller picture of the other dragon slayer. A normal person would probably find his harshness less approachable, but Gajeel’s never pretended to be one of those. He doesn’t feel so self-conscious around a fellow outcast, enough that, together, he doesn’t feel like an outcast at all, and Laxus takes that unvetted candor in stride. He’s hardworking and deliberate despite their past fight, and his anger reveals itself as more insecure than hateful.
He’s not completely sure about Laxus yet, that just needs time, but Gajeel knows he doesn’t want to keep him indefinitely in the dark. He deserves the truth, and Gajeel’s trying to teach himself how to do the right thing. He doesn’t want to be the one ruining the even playing field between them which has otherwise done so much to bring them closer.
Yet it doesn’t undo the danger he’s in.
He can’t risk showing his back at all anymore, not with Laxus, around Raven Tail, or at the guild. There’s no way to know how many people in Fairy Tail have seen Laxus’s mark before, and even if he’s been as taciturn as Gajeel hopes, it can’t be less than one person and he frankly doesn’t even want to wonder what Makarov might make of this. So Gajeel keeps his mouth shut and his back covered and ignores his budding- ugh- conscience berating him for it. Maybe Laxus did him a favor by crashing out and getting expelled from the guild, otherwise, this would be infinitely more awkward.
Like- for example- if both of them were recruited onto the same small team required to share close quarters during a full week of competition.
Just his luck.
The part that pisses Gajeel off the most is that he can’t get that mad about it. The oft-repeated belief about soulmates is that fate will bring them into contact and ensure they build their predetermined connection no matter how anyone tries to influence it. The two of them are going to end up in each other’s business regardless. Maybe he could’ve turned the master down, but he figured it wasn’t worth the trouble.
He thought Laxus’s unannounced appearance on Tenroujima might have been fate’s way to get things going, but he barely had a minute to ponder it before Acnologia brought his fanciful notions to a grinding halt. It felt wrong for it to end without something more, but he still never imagined they’d survive at the expense of seven years. Seven years just gone, torn away between one instant and the next. That hole is the pervasive, determining factor destabilizing all of their lives, the first thought in their minds whenever they try to decide how to proceed, the first crash starting off an avalanche of change. Makarov’s attempt to retire proves to be wishful thinking, but Gildarts takes the chance to reel Laxus back into the guild. Into regular proximity with Gajeel.
He probably should have bit the bullet and told him when he and the master agreed to bring him up to speed on the situation with Raven Tail, but the seven year absence put his mission in such a dire state that Gajeel couldn’t bring himself to add yet another volatile variable. Now he gets the entire Grand Magic Games to stress over the unresolved prospect with Laxus’s persistent presence as a constant reminder that there’s no solution to be had. Figures all the pressure and deliberation he gladly put out of mind during their training months would come back to bite him.
And who could’ve guessed it, the first one he runs into in Crocus just so happens to be Laxus, half a smile on his lips and an ambitious spark in his eye. “Redfox,” he calls out, flagging him down as if Gajeel hadn’t already caught his scent, heard his heartbeat, and felt his magnetism on the other side of the block. “Hell of a lot of people to turn out for this thing, huh?”
“Anyone picked your pockets yet?”
Laxus cocks an eyebrow without giving him the satisfaction of checking. “What pickpocket is gonna target the poorest guild in Fiore?” Gajeel huffs at the riposte, then swats aside the fluffy edge of his coat and Laxus lets him dig his wallet out of his back pocket with an amused look. Flipping it open, a miserable seventy jewel stare up at him and he heaves a resigned sigh. “Sorry I can’t take ya out to steak dinner,” Laxus teases as he shoves it back without bothering to take the money.
“Chivalry’s dead.”
“Surely you’re not saying that you can’t treat me...?”
Gajeel simply turns his pockets out; no sense in carrying an empty wallet. “These pickpockets man, I’m tellin’ ya,” he insists gravely, and Laxus’s guffaw gives him a smug rush. “I swear I had that fifty thousand jewel on me a few minutes ago. Guess I’ll have to cancel our reservation at the Grand Lumiere...”
“Oh, just reschedule for after we’ve won,” Laxus chuckles, deep voice cocksure and smooth and something in Gajeel’s gut pinches like warmth spiked with guilt. It feels contemptibly insincere to keep being so casual with Laxus while he continues hiding the truth, but apparently he can’t fucking help himself. He feels... dirty. As they meet up with the rest of the team, Gajeel considers the possibility of telling him while they’re here. He’ll have at least a few opportunities to get Laxus alone during the Games. Since the Raven Tail situation has settled into limbo and he can’t count on it getting resolved any time soon, traipsing off to the overcrowded capital city where they’ll have the entire country’s eyes on them while they compete seems like a decently safe setting to talk, away from Raven’s shadowy scheming.
Until they fucking show up. As participants! Who the fuck at Era signed off on that shit?!
On top of the obvious, Ivan and his clowns are making him look bad. Gajeel would’ve known about this if he’d been able to do his job, half the reason he’s spying on them at all is to give advanced warning about their plans, but seven years of deficit was too much to make up for in one short foray to Raven’s base and it undermined all of the confidence he’d coaxed Ivan to place in him. Legalizing the guild explains a handful of things he noticed, but he can still only guess as to why in the world they’d join the Grand Magic Games. It was out of his control, and Gajeel tells himself no one would’ve done better in his circumstances, but it doesn’t change the nerve-wracking feeling that he’s underperformed.
The master doesn’t reprimand him when he pulls him aside, but each increasingly stressful time Gajeel’s forced to answer his questions with ‘I don’t know’ culminates in Makarov’s tense, frustrated sigh, and he fears he was only spared because their chance to talk privately barely lasted two minutes. When Laxus follows suit that night, he seems more worried than frustrated, and it would’ve been more sweet if Gajeel didn’t have to threaten to wring his neck before all the fretful glances give him away. Sighing softly, Laxus sends him one more for the road and then rests a hand on his back, probably for less than a second, yet even through his shirt, it still leaves his skin tingling, his spine straight, and his lungs short of breath. Damn it all.
His soulmark is harder to hide like this. Still doable, but it puts him on edge. It’s worse needing to pray that Laxus hides his; if Juvia sees it, it’s all over. He just wants to have this done with by now. Usually, Juvia is his go to confidant for whatever, but this is one instance where he wants her to know least of all. From where he stands, it’s plain to see that her vehemence as a hopeless romantic was her way of enduring their miserable days in Phantom Lord, so Gajeel really doesn’t want to resent her for it. His methods were worse. But it makes her so jealous and intrusive about his soulmate mark that it’s impossible to discuss without ending up at each other’s throats. She would do anything for her own soulmark, and acts like that makes her the authority on all of Gajeel’s feelings and choices about his own. It’s a tough break for Gray that he doesn’t have his own mark that might have convinced her to back off- and that he’s buck-ass nude too often to pretend otherwise. (Gajeel wonders, sometimes, if anyone else in Fairy Tail has a soulmate, but he hasn’t earned quite enough audacity yet to ask.) It feels more like luck that the first couple days go by without incident.
Gajeel can’t decide if it’s still lucky or not when the drama-hungry organizers pick Laxus to be the opponent against his dad’s guild. He has to practice what he preached when Raven Tail’s masked mage seizes the upper hand, containing his concern before it reaches his surface. He can’t drop the act now, and besides, the thought of screwing up after he just hazed Laxus for his shitty poker face is too much for his pride to bear. But it’s a grueling test to watch the armored bastard tear into him. It doesn’t sit right, it doesn’t feel right, and for as alarming as the match looks, something in his gut isn’t convinced that there’s any reason to fear Laxus would lose like this. Gajeel wants and tries to have faith in it- he just wishes he didn’t have to stand aside and watch the grisly conjecture.
For Laxus to take out Raven Tail’s entire team at once, Ivan included, and give the Council grounds to arrest all five of them is such a cohesive solution to Gajeel’s troubles that it’s easier to believe that’s the illusion. He got out, he won’t have to keep watching his every step, he’s safe. In a way, it’s hard to watch this buckling part of their family finally collapse, and yet when they drag Ivan away, so much festering strife and uncertainty goes with him.
And Raven Tail was the reason for hiding the knowledge he and Laxus are soulmates. If he doesn’t go through with it now, he can’t blame anything but cynical reticence for holding him back. He’ll be honest to Laxus if he’s been at all honest with himself.
Staunchly ignoring how it frazzles his nerves worse than infiltrating Raven Tail ever did, Gajeel goes to confront Laxus when the day’s games are done. Upon finding Team B’s hotel suite unoccupied, Gajeel follows the remaining hints of his scent through the streets, grateful that the usual crowds are currently preoccupied with drinking the city dry.
Ever the forerunner, his keen hearing picks up on the sounds of people murmuring from the edge of a park which, after only a little further, he recognizes as a conversation between Laxus and the master. A serious conversation, judging by the low voices and measured cadence, and Gajeel halts. No doubt they need it in light of what happened today, and have for who knows how long before that. He’s gathered that it’s not easy for Makarov and Laxus to talk rather than argue, but things are healing and the recovery demands space that can’t accommodate a revelation like soulmates.
Gajeel forces himself to slow down and back off. He’s been stressing himself out trying to figure out this confession, but the point isn’t the convenience of getting it off his chest. He’s trying to respect Laxus’s feelings, and interrupting this seems strictly antithetical.
He doesn’t have to bully his way into the first available moment. He’ll tell him tomorrow.
Then tomorrow brings a dragon boneyard, portentous ghosts, impending draconification, a secret plot to kill Zeref in the past, and the royal army capturing Lucy then holding her hostage for their victory in the Games. It’s like a cruel joke, but Gajeel’s too grim to find it funny.
At the same time, it feels like he’s both being cornered, and taking the easy way out. He’s already painfully wary of telling Laxus they’re soulmates- he’d be glad to avoid the confrontation altogether! Not so long ago, he would’ve done that without question. But he’s been working so hard to be a better person, and each time he’s disrupted means a new chance to give in to temptation, and the more taxing it gets for him to muster his resolve over and over and over. It feels like failure to put it off again, but he’d feel fucking bad commandeering the trouble they’re in just to add another thing for Laxus to figure out how to deal with. Not to mention it’d be an immense distraction when they have a responsibility to focus on getting Lucy back.
He’ll wait for this to blow over. It will blow over.
The final day of the Games lasts a lifetime, one thing after another and each worse than the last. A malignant shadow possessing his oldest friend and forcing them to fight, the royal family throwing open a gate through time for a weapon that never fired, seven baneful and indomitable dragons from four hundred years ago hellbent on destroying humanity, that shadow of his friend from seven years from now conspiring to rule whatever’s left, an inexplicable vision showing him a fragment of a different future and his own imminent death, a god damn blood moon- On July seventh, by the way, of all fucking days!
When Salamander finally succeeds in destroying the gate, time has already been butchered past the point of recovery. The threat is over but the same can’t be said of his work. Gajeel had to focus so singularly on battling the dragon he couldn’t keep track of his guild- Levy’s here, and his ears quiver strenuously trying to take attendance from the crush of voices surrounding him, but if anyone was hit by the roar that got past him... Or- wait, did that only happen in the vision?
Gajeel feels like a machine binding up, on the brink of breaking down. He rushes through a headcount, barely registering the words directed at him and doing even less to reply, simply trying not to panic when he can’t find the ones who were scattered elsewhere in the city. He almost freaks out anyway upon backtracking to the central square only to find it empty, and it takes him minutes to pick up a scent through the suffocating smoke. It only takes a few seconds of following it, though, to run headlong into Evergreen, her eyes anxiously searching elsewhere.
“Thank god- Where’s Laxus?”
“The castle- why? What is it- what-?!”
“It’s not- No, nothing’s wrong,” he cuts in, “I just- gotta talk to him.”
“Everyone’s fine,” she pants raggedly. “We went to help Wendy and Mira.” Gajeel shudders and attempts to let the relief sink in enough to catch his breath. Lingering a moment, Evergreen’s focus falls on him then, examining him closely enough to frown and she points the way she came. “You ought to go- Get healed. Do you know where the others are?”
He points the other way. “I’ll go, I’ll go,” Gajeel promises, already trying to map out the best route there even though his injuries couldn’t be further from his mind. He believes her, but without seeing Laxus for himself, his nerves won’t give him any peace.
But even they can’t compete with a caustic urgency blistering up his throat out of fear for Rogue. He probably doesn’t have any right to get so worked up after the way he treated him all those years ago, but his gut isn’t listening to reason right now, and it’s dread all the way down. I’m finding Laxus after this, and I won’t lose the chance to tell him this time, he tells the desperation still frantically beating its wings against the cage of his ribs.
Gajeel just needs to know that the kid’s okay.
Or at least that he’s still with them, because in reality, Rogue looks anything but okay. Gajeel’s whole chest contracts, threatening to cave when he spots him across the way, curled up and crushed in on himself. Damn it- he didn’t deserve it! Even from afar, Gajeel could tell that he’s so determined to grow and do better, and it’s so fucking unfair that he had to face some far flung, contingent future where he failed, and it almost cost him everything he has now, too. What do you even do after that? All he wants is to be able to do something, anything to ease a bit of the kid’s pain. -Except Rogue’s not a kid now, and Gajeel didn’t do him any good even when he was. Imposing on his grief just to wring out awkward, empty words of comfort would be useless. At least Sting is there, looking about as manic as Gajeel feels just in a far more bubbly way, and Gajeel would bet anything that he’s got the match to the soulmark on Rogue’s sternum. The other two tigers aren’t far behind, undaunted by what transpired. They’re the friends who have been there for him, not Gajeel.
He spots Lamia’s little sky mage darting around them, an impromptu clinic established by the flock of injured mages who’ve converged to be treated. Caught in the uncomfortable crossroads of nonstop exertion keeping his stress at full throttle and his body simply running out of adrenaline to fuel it, Gajeel’s beginning to pulse all over with pain. It implores him to go over to Chelia, but he’s already been backing up without realizing, and he doesn’t want Rogue to feel put upon, and it’d make it take even longer to find Laxus, and-
Fuck it, fuck it-! He’ll manage, just get to the castle.
He’s spent too much time already, but he can rush, he’s a dragon slayer, something minor like his lungs burning won’t stop him, he had to slow down when he reached the throng of soldiers to look, not because it feels like they’re full of needles now. He lets the sound of his shrill breath fill his ears, they’re ringing anyway, and he ignores the complaints thrown at him as he pushes past bodies, head swivelling. The miasma of smells hammers through his skull and there’s no parsing them. He could just try shouting, but he’d need air and there’s not enough room- goddamn it, give him room-!
A hand grabs his shoulder from behind and Gajeel chokes, ducks and staggers forward, then whirls around, ready to fight, or failing that, scream-
Oh- Oh, thank fuck, it’s just Laxus. Battered but alright. What a relief, his chest can deflate- breath bursting- and he can try to start talking down his panic. When ’ll his nerves catch a break?
Then the beat passes and the panic abates enough for him to process that Laxus isn’t looking at him but staring transfixed down at his shoulder, hand still hovering, and Gajeel’s relief withers as he realizes there’s no fabric or gauze left to cover his mark. Too overloaded to catch it in time, a defeated moan penetrates the tension between them.
Startled out of a daze, Laxus stiffens up, his eyes now fitfully flitting up to meet his. “Wait- Did you know?” he demands in disbelief.
Gajeel doesn’t have time to despair the way he wants- It’s already too late. “Listen-” he croaks, his mind diverting all energy to run at full speed as if half its gears and pistons weren’t currently busted. Maybe, if it tries hard enough, he can still fix this. “I was trying to tell you sooner than this, I just...!” But the alarm that settles onto Laxus’s face when his suspicions are confirmed trips him at the starting line.
“But- How-” His gaze won’t settle, as if he’ll find any answers written on his skin other than the one he already saw. The white of his eyes fully encircles the blue. “When did you realize?!”
“...In the cathedral,” Gajeel admits weakly.
“That-!”
Laxus steps back. That long. Gajeel flinches- of course he flinches. The better part of a year (he refuses to say seven) has passed since then; he doesn’t understand how this got so far away from him. “I know,” Gajeel pleads, “I-I only...” But his tongue sticks to the roof of his mouth and his thoughts shudder to a useless halt, the strain he’s under surpassing the fumes he’s running on.
Laxus doesn’t give him a jump start either; there’s no anger or interrogation to push him into action, just silence. The shock on his face has faded into something melancholy and unmoored, and his eyes settle on his palm and the long, red streak of blood printed there by Gajeel’s shoulder. He shakes his head, but Gajeel can’t tell if it’s a refusal or an effort to reorient.
“...It’s waited this long already,” Laxus says finally. “It can wait for you to get your wounds seen to.”
“But-”
“Go see Wendy. I’ll wait. It’s not like I’ve been busy making other plans for tonight.” The joke rings hollow as he peers around at the rubble that was previously Crocus. Gajeel feels like he should be arguing, but his voice still won’t cooperate and when Laxus nudges him in the direction of the others, it’s close enough to Mirajane that she notices the state he’s in and promptly grabs him by the arm in a steel grip. She pulls him away to Wendy as Laxus seats himself on a smashed up retaining wall.
So Gajeel goes along, telling himself he can use the chance to try to gather his thoughts, then proceeds to spend the time breathing like it’s his first taste of air without thinking at all. The soothing light of Wendy’s magic glows faintly through his eyelids as it gently chips away at his pain and minutes pass unheeded.
“Don’t overdo it!” Carla’s prim voice pipes up, and Gajeel cracks an eye open.
Through a hazy gauze of heavy lashes, he sees Wendy wipe sweat from her forehead as she says, “I just need to finish first.” He catches up with his body and takes stock of himself, sensing only mild tingling in the place of each major wound and he stays her skinny wrist.
“Spare yer strength, kid, ya’ve done more than enough.” He’s numb enough that the rest hardly matters anyway.
Big brown eyes blink at him, shadowed below by pale bruises. “But...”
When Gajeel reaches out and gently musses up her bangs, she relaxes and lets him jostle her before he pulls his fingers through with care that her hair falls the way she likes it. She sits back down, but looks unconvinced peering at him as he stiffly picks himself off the ground. “I... got something I gotta take care of. So can you promise me yer gonna take care of yerself?” Wendy stares for a moment longer, then huddles up and nods, and Carla’s look of satisfaction is the proof he needs to know she’ll rest.
Making his way back, Gajeel doesn’t push himself to the same reckless pace he did before, but he focuses on keeping it steady, refusing to entertain the impulse to stall. Laxus isn’t where he left him, but his scent’s still fresh and easy to follow around and through a broken gap in the rampart to a secluded niche behind the rubble of the Eclipse Gate where there’s no worry of being overheard. Laxus’s claimed a wayward chunk of marble, sitting still with his forearms crossed on his knees, and Gajeel goes to meet him.
It feels horribly akin to approaching the bench to be put on trial, but then Laxus stirs and scooches left to give him room to sit beside him, and Gajeel won’t question the good turn. Maybe Laxus is just as eager not to face him head on. The only sound as he settles is the quiet click of gravel.
“It felt too dangerous to say anything about it while I was still spying on Raven Tail,” Gajeel announces without preamble, eyes on the ground. “I probably shoulda told you anyway once the master and I explained it all, but... I was paranoid,” he admits unceremoniously. “The less people who knew, the safer I felt.”
“Shit,” Laxus breathes, back bowed under a grave weight. “Did the old man... No, I guess not. Shit, that whole fucking time...”
Gajeel winces again at that, scrambling for any way to defend himself against the interval. “I planned to tell you after you took them out, but shit just kept happening...!” he pleads helplessly. He looks out at the wreckage and has the out of place impulse to laugh disparagingly. Seven dragons invading through a time machine. He never had a fucking chance. “Maybe it’s good that you found out now,” he posits, levity straining, “I was gettin’ convinced the sky would fall before I could tell you.”
Goes to show the kind of night they’ve had that Laxus glances up just to check. “Ever told me you were trying to find me.”
“Oh.” Laxus was already looking for him when he saw. “Yeah. I was going to tell you now, but- you beat me to it,” he says, hoping it sounds believable. All he wants is to dispel the careless impression of the undeniable reality. “I swear I wasn’t putting it off... I just... might as well have been,” he surrenders.
For a while, Laxus seems to digest that. Gajeel’s not sure that was good enough, but he can’t come up with anything more that feels appropriate to add, so he sits in lame silence. Eventually, Laxus glances over at him from the corner of his eye, though his voice lags behind for a moment. “You sure it’s not just that you thought better of dealing with a soulmate like me?” he questions in the weak guise of a jape.
Gajeel cringes, sheepishly squirming through an apologetic guilt that falls short of actual remorse. “...Not for a while,” he offers in concession, then shrugs loose his hunch best he can and looks elsewhere to mumble, “-Might’ve taken me like a month.” Again, it’s the sort of thing he knows would sound awful to an onlooker, but honesty is the whole point of this and Laxus knows what he did- he wouldn’t be back in the guild otherwise- so Gajeel’s not going to spare his feelings.
Laxus takes that without objection. “Fair. Generous.” he revises with a wave of his hand, tense and pensive. “God knows I gave you every reason to.”
Gajeel huffs and shrugs again, falling fully back open this time. “Look, I ain’t gonna be the one to act like there’s no way to make up for what you did. I’m already banking on the hope that it doesn’t work like that.” And really, what right does he have to hold a grudge? It was nasty work, the way Laxus attacked the guild, but out of the entire guild, Gajeel’s the one deserved it. The ache of learning his soulmate doled out the punishment is besides the point. There’s no good reason for Laxus to look so guilty. “I won’t excuse it, but... Hey, you haven’t made a habit of it so far.”
Grunting, Laxus’s expression twists up, a wry smile around his tight voiced reply, “You sure you don’t need to raise your standards?”
Gajeel considers returning the question, given his own history, then he hesitates. If Laxus doesn’t want to deal with a soulmate like him, maybe he’s trying to put him off deliberately. “I... I’m not trying to put you on the spot,” Gajeel insists wanly, the heaviness of his fatigue outweighing lead. “I’m not gonna impose on your life anywhere you don’t me, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
Shaking himself, Laxus spits out fast and jumbled, “No, I- Shit- I wasn’t trying to say that...!” He straightens up finally. “That’s not-” He stops and empties his lungs entirely, rubbing his face where it’s not wrapped up in bandages. Gajeel waits as he regathers his thoughts before he eventually tries to clarify. “You’ve had all this time to process everything, and I... I don’t know what,” his jaw tightens impatiently as he selects the words, “expectations this sets.”
Frowning, Gajeel doesn’t want to leave him hanging, but he doesn’t know exactly what Laxus is asking for either, and he’s not willing to risk getting it wrong. Not when Laxus is this uncomfortable. He only retracts more in the face of Gajeel’s uncertainty, picking at his nails with two sharp motions. “...What do we do now?”
He is tense.
It’s hard not to feel trapped by the inviolability of their marks. “I mean, I was going to suggest- we do nothing...? It’s just- I mean-” Gajeel falters, hating to sound so unenthused about it. “I figure the amount of time we’ve spent together probably just passed a day in total...? I’ve known a long time, sure, but I still don’t know about- getting together with you or whatever.” His face burns so hot, but he can’t bitch out now. “Just... don’t be a stranger, ya know, an’ otherwise we can just wait and see for now.”
Laxus still eyes him with cautious uncertainty, and Gajeel can’t really blame him. Whenever you hear people dream about soulmates, it’s always love at first sight.
Striving to spin his frayed thoughts back into an articulate thread, Gajeel wrings out, “I don’t get why people with a ‘natural bond fated to unfold’ wanna immediately... impose their romantic fantasy on it before anything natural’s even developed! Shit’s weird...!” He doesn’t want to be owed romance if that means feeling deprived without it. After tasting so much bitterness in his life, he’s not about to set himself up for more disappointment by propping up his expectations for someone else on a pile of preferences he picked alone.
If this guarantee of something good can balance out any of the strife, Gajeel wants it in whatever form it’ll take.
As Laxus shifts and breathes distinctly, Gajeel recognizes the stab of relief: welcome, yes, but a harsh shock to the system. His breath short and too fast, he japes, “Wow, hah, yeah, you really are my soulmate!” teetering on fraught exertion that then tips over, and he immediately bites down on his lip and clams up. Wordlessly, Gajeel stays patient for as long as Laxus needs to sort through his own reactions without plowing past him to pick them apart first. It’s the least he can do, since this is the part he did get a months long head start on.
Composure gradually evening out, Laxus lifts his head up again after a while. Speaking slowly, he elaborates, “The soulmate stuff tends to stress me out, but tonight,” his eyes rove the smoldering city, “the thought of having this connection that’s still sure to happen, no matter what, is... comforting, I guess.”
“Hah,” Gajeel exhales, a touch affected. “’s not every day that someone finds me comforting, blondie,” he teases and he flashes Laxus a saw-toothed grin, knowing how he seems: a troublemaking punk currently beaten half to hell, all red flags and too rough around the edges to be comfortable. Laxus pulls an exasperated look back at him and rolls his eyes, but his smile stays warm and a little part of Gajeel thrills at the fact he doesn’t take it back. Lazily, he elbows his ribs and Gajeel sways without resistance. “Geehee.”
They lapse into silence, and Gajeel lays back against the rubble, groaning faintly in relief. Eyes closed, he hears Laxus ask, “You alright?”
“Yeah,” he rasps, unmoving. “So fuckin’ glad the cat’s out the bag.” He basks in the long lost sense of ease like a tide rolling in to envelop him, then impulsively decides to share, “The worst kind of secret is one you don’t plan to keep, because that means you have to worry about how to hide it and how to say it at the same time.”
“...No one else knows?” Gajeel shakes his head. “Do you want... the guild to know...?”
His eyes snap back open and his mouth purses. “Uh- I won’t make you hide it, but- um, maybe a big announcement can wait...”
Laxus is nodding before he’s even finished. “Agreed.” Gajeel swings his arm up, Laxus clasps his hand, and they shake.
“God, we’re already great at this soulmate shit,” Gajeel declares, getting drunk on his exhaustion, and Laxus laughs. “Got so much in common. Both too close to the chest, both tried to wreck our own guild...”
“-Both still alive,” Laxus supplies. Gajeel hums in accordance. They’ve surely done enough that no one could fault them for slacking off, so they avail of their survival together and watch the hazy sky turn slowly red like the blood between the gaps in their bandages and the thin black lines on both their backs.