Doodles and Draws

🏎️~

After Laxus gets kicked off Fairy Tail’s team, Ivan is furious that he refuses his offer to join Raven Tail. He’s been stewing in bitterness ever since Makarov did the same thing to him back in the day, and getting snubbed by his son’s haughty disdain is his final straw. Shifting focus from his previous lackluster efforts to drag FT down, he starts forming a vindictive plan to make Laxus regret it.

Since Laxus’s mom is completely unheard of, I tend to give her whatever backstory I find convenient, and in this AU, she was an engineer who built the car Laxus now drives. It was her passion project, working on the engine’s efficiency and power with unconventional modifications, and Ivan used to drive it to test her designs. Laxus refuses to even consider driving anything else partially because of what it means to him, and partially because there’s no other machine like it; they don’t work the way he wants them to.

She died before fully finalizing it. The reason the car is so difficult to work on is because it’s essentially a prototype. No blueprints, doesn’t adhere to any standards, and she configured the parts however she could while experimenting, so the engine’s very unintuitive to assemble and it was never optimized for repairs. Gajeel’s not really one for designing machines, but he is remarkably good at reverse engineering them. It’s why he’s able to fix the car at all, and yet he flat out doesn’t know what some of the parts are. He’s convinced some of them do nothing at all and they were probably added for future ideas or they’re vestiges of old ones, but he’s too afraid to take them out in case the entire thing stops working.

To Gajeel, the whole situation is an admirable, engrossing, huge pain in the ass. He hates this car and he’s obsessed with it. He has a particularly thoughtful approach to his work and the countless hours spent puzzling it out feels like he’s getting to know the machine. He also regularly returns to the conclusion he reached the moment he first popped the hood: that Laxus’s mom was a fucking lunatic (/respectful and excited).

-

Laxus doesn’t trust Gajeel, so he goes out of his way to push him around, scrutinizing and criticizing him, and generally bullying him. He refuses to acknowledge it, but Laxus is sort of scared of Gajeel at first. Whether or not Laxus gets through his races in one piece depends entirely on a stranger, and his instinct is to browbeat Gajeel till he’s too afraid to risk fucking up. He treats him pretty bad the first couple months. Gajeel, for his part, is so used to that kind of shit that he never contests it. He gives Laxus some attitude at times, but otherwise he takes it without complaint. Respectful, considerate treatment isn’t something he ever learned to expect. Since being useful was Gajeel’s only source of stability for a long time, he chronically overworks.

Juvia urges him to get to know the rest of the team and be friendly with them, which Gajeel stubbornly declines. He has enough on his plate without trying to make friends too. Yet he can’t get out of working with them, and when he does, he finds little commonalities that bring them a bit closer than coworkers. Bickslow’s shameless sense of humor as he banters with him in the pit, Mira’s frequent singing as she works and her curiosity about his own music, Freed’s sharp-minded study of his work so he can factor the mechanics into his race plans, Ever’s constant willingness to swap gossip while they’re all on the road. They connect with Gajeel, and the way they so often do, Laxus’s friends force him to get a clue when they start calling him out on being an ass to Gajeel for no reason, vouching for his good qualities they’ve noticed.

But of course, Ivan is not helping. If Laxus is bad, Ivan is way worse, and he’s more than willing to make good on every threat he makes. Gajeel’s constantly walking a super fine line of giving him accurate info to placate him, ensuring nothing sensitive gets through, getting dirt on them, all without being caught. It’s hard enough coming up with excuses not to sabotage Laxus’s car like Ivan keeps telling him to. Between the three Dreyars, Gajeel’s dealing with an overwhelming amount of work. Even though he dodges around it as much as possible, he does have a very real limit, and he has to demand that Laxus adjust his driving.

It doesn’t exactly go over well, but Laxus knows if he fucks everything up over this, the rest of the team will murder him, so they’re forced to play nice. Seeing Gajeel passed out mid-repair, still wedged under the car, hits Laxus hard. He has to decide whether he cares about Gajeel or not, and he doesn’t have the luxury of lying to himself this time. If he didn’t care, he’d just shove him and wake him up- he is sleeping on the job- yet he can’t bring himself to do it. It makes him very conscious that the amount of work he personally puts on Gajeel will decide whether or not he gives out.

So Laxus and Gajeel start a routine of discussing the cascading effect of his driving down to the smallest parts of the car.

They’re good for each other. Laxus forces Gajeel to stick up for himself, and unlike every ill-fated attempt he made in the Phantom Lord gang, this time it actually works. It’s rocky at first, but things get better. As it does, it matters that Laxus is trying to change not just because he has to, but because he wants to do right by him. Laxus proves he won’t take the way Gajeel stood up for himself and use it against him, taking advantage of vulnerabilities he had to admit or interpreting his limits as incompetence. And it bolsters Gajeel’s self-respect, making him realize he’s a lot better at articulating his expertise than he was led to believe.

Laxus feels less in the dark and distrusting about the work Gajeel does and he can get that past stress out of his head while he’s racing. It also feels good to be on better terms with him. Although proving his independence was mostly about his abilities and his career, it bled over into his personal life more than he realized. Almost his entire team followed him from Fairy Tail, and although he cares for them immensely, there are moments he fears that FT’s the only reason they ever bothered getting to know him. He doesn’t feel that around Gajeel considering he was predisposed to hate Laxus, and the way he’s come around to him now is down to Laxus’s own growth, not his old team. Gajeel gives him a self assurance he struggles to find.

As a whole, Laxus’s aggression and discontent relaxes and unravels as things progress. Being independent of Makarov and FT eases the pressure and insecurity he was endlessly competing against. Nothing he did was good enough to satisfy his critics while he was with FT because they attributed his success to having a spot on such an affluent team in the first place. Every race he won with FT was subject to the same disparagement, nothing would disprove it, and Laxus was incessantly unsatisfied and straining for more.

Maintaining his performance with a rag-tag craw doesn’t silence all criticism. After all he still owes plenty to his family’s team- his experience, his car, his money- yet the comments stop getting under his skin. That stuff is sort of bare minimum in a sport like this, and although some people still aren’t impressed, Laxus has full proof that he’s personally doing a vital share of the work his new team requires and it hasn’t stopped him from performing at his best. He didn’t think that he needed any proof- he’s always insisted he doesn’t owe his success to nepotism, but it makes a world of difference to experience it so unequivocally. Incendiary remarks that he wouldn’t cut it without his grandaddy’s team now just sound fucking dumb to him, not threatening. Laxus knows better, and that’s that.

It also deflates his ego to feel like he’s racing for more than himself. His races are the direct results of his team, and his results ensure the team can keep going. Fairy Tail outfits a whole slew of racers, Laxus was only ever one of their many prospects, and no matter how much they appreciated his contributions, they’d still manage fine without him. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, and having a team that’s so dependent on him isn’t exactly ideal, but it keeps him from thinking of winning solely as a means to prove himself.

(At least he doesn’t have to wrestle with racing against FT now, since they’re mostly focused on pair racing or other team formats; Laxus was their only solo racer of note. (Also, even though he was FT’s most deliberately dangerous driver- with the best intentions in the world, Erza is actually 5x more hazardous. Team Natsu out there begging for their lives whenever she gets it in her head that she’s learned to drive.))

On a practical level, Laxus has also taken on a lot more of the back-end work since he’s only got a skeleton crew of lunatics, so he simply doesn’t have the time to dwell on all that shit. It really dwindles in importance next to the heaps of urgent expense sheets and schedules and contracts. And it’s not just him, everyone else is wearing extra hats too (except technically Gajeel, but that’s because he’s singlehandedly doing a job that ought to have a whole team of its own). He can better appreciate how much everyone’s contributing, and how his own results really do matter for them in return. Laxus grows confident in himself, his capabilities, and the team he’s got behind him, and he’s better for it.

-

Laxus acquires this weird quality of being both the favorite to win while also being an underdog of sorts, since his team is operating at the brink of catastrophe 24/7. Like by all rights they shouldn’t be able to pull this off, just logistically, and that along with his efforts to clean up his act gain him more popularity. With fans, not press. PR is a train wreck. Laxus has never been good in interviews, but now he’s also sleep deprived, over caffeinated, with a thousand other things on his mind, and he’s dangerously liable to answer any question with “I don’t give a shit about that.” Mira’s ability to intervene, redirect officials, and invent normal explanations for the unhinged shit the team says in public is superhuman, no one knows how she does it. Laxus’s comms can almost never be broadcast because he’s constantly swearing, but when they are, the back and forth between him and Bickslow is fucking iconic. It’s astonishing they actually achieve any communication with all the time they spend being catty.

Combined with his long history of incidents and scandals, the team’s basically unsponsorable. Laxus does essentially all of the budgeting since the rest of the team isn’t great at math other than Gajeel, who’s said to his face that he’s doubling his pay if he ever gets his hands on payroll. Nonetheless, all of them have individually considered embezzlement at different points of time. Retired politician Yajima with his bougie restaurant is their only sponsor because he likes Laxus (Laxus’s number is 8 because of 8 Island lol). The team adores him, he always gets the VIP treatment, and he’s completely incongruous with the team’s vibes of general anarchy. Otherwise, Laxus pays for stuff out of pocket, or it comes from the frankly frightening amount of money they get from Cana, who regularly commits gambling fraud by doing sports betting based on her magic card predictions and insider info from FT and Raijin. Don’t worry about it.

Laxus is the only one frequently in the public eye, but the others will crop up more or less, and as people notice the grab-bag of eccentric personalities and the close, odd dynamic between them all, they garner a little popularity themselves. Despite Mira’s attempts to insist they technically aren’t affiliated with Cana, she somehow gets the most media attention after her and Laxus. There’s a particularly memorable mishap when the League holds a PR stunt where the cars are shown to the public, except Laxus’s car is still busted from the previous race. So Gajeel’s actively working on it during the expo and nearly bites Laxus’s head off for asking how it’s going while they’re trying to film a feature. This becomes even more confusing a week later when Juvia confidently tells the press that Gajeel is Laxus’s favorite. At one point, an interviewer asks him if that means he gets special privilege to drive Laxus’s car, and Lead Mechanic Gajeel is quoted as having said in all seriousness, “Are you kidding me? You couldn’t get me in there- That thing’s a death trap.” Laxus’s only comment is to deny all allegations of picking favorites like he could get sued for it. (It would cause an irreparable rift in the team.)

The car is the real favorite. Nobody thought that someone could be more possessive of it than Laxus is already, but Gajeel’s giving him a run for his money. Fixing it is a point of pride by now, in a “it’s personal” kind of way. He’s in too deep to let this fuck ass car get the better of him. He and Laxus both think of the car as theirs and Gajeel’s started a campaign to make Laxus refer to it as “our car” like they’re in some sort of deranged custody battle. They act divorced before even getting together; they still fight loads, but it’s morphed into a batshit form of flirting now. The sexual tension is considerable and only held back by the constant, borderline burn-out.

Of course, Laxus denies and Gajeel deflects any apparent interest in the other, but it’s not just bickering and teasing that suggest otherwise. While Gajeel watches the races and all the dangerous fights on the track, he’s no longer just focused on the car or the repairs he’ll have to do afterwards, he’s thinking of Laxus and desperately wondering if he’ll make it through alright. And when Laxus accommodates for the durability of the car as he drives, he’ll say it’s necessary to prove he can keep up his successful career without FT, but he has the memory of Gajeel passed out under the chassis in his head every time. The two of them are no longer the exception to the team’s ride or die bonds- and just in time, because the late season keeps getting more and more out of hand.

-

Regrettably, Gajeel’s workload never lets up despite Laxus taking pains to keep the car in better shape, because at the same pace he respects that and learns what to do, Raven Tail is getting more and more aggressive. The damage Laxus would be minimizing happens in near crashes with them anyway. It’s hard to say what’s more run down, the car or Gajeel. The work he’s putting in to fulfill all his obligations to Makarov, to act the part that Ivan expects of him, and to carry his own in Laxus’s understaffed team, is brutally taxing. He’s in rough shape as time goes on, yet he’s beginning to feel backed into a corner by how sticky and involved things have gotten, and he can’t parse another viable option than trying to force himself through it. So he grits his teeth and doesn’t mention how unsustainable it feels. What Gajeel doesn’t count on is the rest of the team noticing his plight.

Genuinely, the best he expected was tolerance. It’s not that he thinks they’re callous, he’s just never been able to trust anyone else to look out for him. Their tight-knit, endless loyalty didn’t extend to him, he wasn’t part of the preestablished in-group, they just needed him to do a job and he never considered the possibility they might like to be friends with him too. Way more than anyone in his old gang did, the team respects and appreciates his work, yet that’s also not the reason they care about him. He’s still getting his work done- for now at least- and yet they still fret over him when other little things start to slip, stuff that shouldn’t mean anything to anyone but him. Working through meals, dozing off during meetings, leaving his hair a total mess. They don’t impact the team, yet they matter to his friends and each time he stumbles, they offer to help.

Before, the attention would’ve put him on the defensive, trying twice as hard to cover up whatever lapse gave him away, since it never meant anything good when his vulnerabilities were noticed. But things are different now and Gajeel challenges the surly habits that tell him otherwise and learns to lean on their support. For once, he’s around a group of people he doesn’t want to keep out, and he’s figuring out ways to take his walls down to let them in. It’s tricky and it’s slow, but Gajeel already feels so much more himself. Like anyone associated with FT, they wanted a chance to bring him into the fold from the start, and no matter how much he struggles to see it from where he’s standing, Gajeel fits right in with them too. He only took Makarov’s job as a means to get back on his feet, but he keeps finding he wants to remain a part of Laxus’s team after the rest is done.

But that means getting it done. For a while, Gajeel tells them that they shouldn’t worry about him, that he’s fine, expecting that his troubles are almost over. He’s just looking for a few more documents to add to Makarov’s case for banning Raven Tail. But right before he shows the evidence to the League, Raven Tail’s suddenly approved to race in the championship. Gajeel’s convinced a higher-up caved to their bribes.

It’s a worst case scenario and Gajeel doesn’t know what to do. He can’t safely get out of Raven Tail while the team’s still racing and thus impossible for him to avoid. They’d tear him apart the first chance they got. And with the season ending soon, Ivan’s demands for Gajeel to undermine Raijin are getting much more aggressive and he can’t keep inventing reasons not to. He’s had to pivot to making false promises and praying he can find a way out before Ivan loses his patience with him.

Now his workload has doubled down instead of relenting and he’s finally hitting that hard limit. Right before the championship too, when everyone is fully focused on a push for first place. It’s his worst nightmare, and now he really is out of options. But in the wake of the team’s unexpected concern and consideration, Gajeel goes against every instinct and sits them down to tell them everything he’s tangled up in. After several intensely heated discussions, and with the original plan in pieces, the whole crew is now committed to full blown war plans to help Gajeel bring about Ivan’s downfall.

Even though they’re all so busy with the last races, at this point in their feud, they take the opportunity to contribute to fucking over Raven Tail as a welcome catharsis. Freed and Evergreen put Gajeel’s insight on their plans to work in their own strategies, Cana and Bickslow brainstorm more plausible reasons he can use to dodge Ivan’s orders, Mira and Juvia find ways to disrupt the “time off” he actually has to spend working for Ivan, and Laxus watches it all like a hawk, desperately hoping Gajeel won’t be worked over by his mess of a family. He just tries to get through the prelims with minimal issues and give Gajeel a chance to escape from the pressure when they’re together.

-

Although pair racing generally gets slightly higher viewership than solo racing because it’s faster paced and more chaotic, the solo championship race is always the most viewed event and the most prestigious title since solo is without a doubt the most strenuous and demanding format. (The cars run on Self Energy plugs, so not only do solo drivers need the focus to both drive and fight, they also need enough magic.) It’s all hands on deck and the day before the race is turmoil. Gajeel’s constant, unstraying presence elbow deep in the engine is the only fixed point amidst the seven others running all over the place.

At 1 in the morning, still in the middle of slaving over the car, Gajeel collapses. He just drops, as far as they can tell, not entirely unconscious but in a painful, incoherent stupor. The whole team’s about to buckle and blow up, then Juvia uncovers bandages wrapped under his headband, blood steadily seeping through.

They’re torn between giving him space to rest and hopefully bounce back, and grilling him over what happened because they’re freaking out and they don’t know, but Laxus demands that they back off. As they get him onto the couch, he seethes, “It was my dad, wasn’t it?” And Gajeel just nods weakly once.

(Gajeel had seen Ivan lay hands on his team members when they underperformed before, but so far he hadn’t been put through the same treatment. He made his peace with that risk knowing as an iron mage, he has an easy time resisting a punch, but apparently Ivan had the same thought since he hit him with a wrench when his back was turned.)

In the ensuing chaos of that revelation, Laxus contacts Makarov to recruit FT’s medic, Porlyusica, to help. Laxus drags him aside to demand he let Gajeel out of his obligation to spy on Raven Tail, defending his choice to tell Raijin the truth behind Makarov’s back. Makarov is shocked to see Gajeel in such a state. His intentions are good, but he gets tunnel vision when it comes to Ivan, and he never fully recognized the serious strain that- in all fairness- Gajeel tried his hardest to hide from him.

It’s the first time the two have properly talked since Laxus got kicked out, and the charged situation doesn’t help, yet they come to an understanding and Makarov agrees that the Raven Tail issue has gotten too out of hand and he can’t ask any more of Gajeel. Freed points out the car isn’t finished and Laxus immediately asserts he won’t race tomorrow; there’s nothing about it worth sacrificing Gajeel’s health. It’s a bitter end to the season and the team is subdued, but no one else can take his place and they’d never force him to keep working.

So they wait around to hear from Porlyusica. When he finds Laxus brooding apart from the others, Makarov observes, “You wouldn’t have fought for your friends like this before. You’ve really changed.” Laxus just mumbles, “Guess so,” but he can tell Makarov’s sincerely proud of him. And seeing the way he’s turned himself around makes the hurt of his son’s transgressions a little easier to bear.

After an hour, Porlyusica finally lets them see Gajeel; he’s back up, shaky but coherent. Seeing Makarov is an unpleasant surprise, but after talking to Laxus and having time to think things over, he’s far from angry that he brought Raijin into the loop. He’s just glad they’ve been looking out for him. Albeit reluctantly, Gajeel tells them what happened with Ivan. The whole room thrums with fury and Makarov looks like he wants to weep, but in the moment they focus on their relief that he’ll be fine.

Gajeel wants to keep working where he left off and Laxus is immediately against it, putting his foot down and ready to do whatever it takes to make him see sense. But Gajeel won’t budge and he’s gotten plenty comfortable standing up to Laxus.

It’s the last race. Laxus is the only one they’re after, so if he drops out, Raven Tail will drive a clean race and they’re likely to win it, which would drag out their struggles to get them disbanded for an entire new season. Dropping out would put Gajeel in a position that, he argues, would be even worse than the one he’s in now. He has a stake in this too and he insists he can and will fix their car. Laxus hates it and no one else likes it either, but what Gajeel said is true and they have to trust his judgment on the state of the car and himself, and hesitantly accept his call.

(There could be a Gajeel & Metalicana sub plot that comes to a head here bc I crave the chance to do more with their relationship. I won’t get into it on top of everything, but I’m putting a pin in it.)

They’ve never cut it so close, but by the morning of the race, the car’s good to go.

Gajeel passes out the moment he’s done and Juvia insists on staying with him, to the objection of no one. It’s down to the rest of the team to see to the race. Mira fends off any interviews; they’re all out for blood and past the point of pretending otherwise. Doing the final prep next to Raven Tail nearly ends in a brawl in the middle the track before Laxus unintentionally defuses the impending murder by making his firmly denied crush inescapably clear. (He’s lucky things are still so tense or they’d have hung him out to dry for that.) It does however concisely remind them there’s no doubt they can trust Laxus to get the revenge they all want during the race.

For the first few laps, before they can really break away from the pack, Raven Tail doesn’t engage in any notable way. It should be the calm before the storm, yet Laxus has something else to contend with. It takes him a lap to notice, but the car isn’t handling like it should. He can feel something knock on the turns. It’s far from the most obvious problem the car’s had, but Laxus can tell that something’s off, so he very reluctantly instructs Bickslow to contact Juvia so she can wake up Gajeel and get him on the comms. Laxus tells him exactly he’s noticed and Gajeel struggles to keep up while his mind still feels scrambled, fumbling to take stock of himself- which is when he finds a tiny engine part that he’d stashed in his pocket so that he wouldn’t lose such a vital component before he could reinstall it. Still in his pocket. He demands Laxus make the next possible pit stop and rushes to the track as best he can with Juvia.

Gajeel has to make the repair mid-race, but the car’s so hot he has to turn completely iron to do it safely, meaning eyes closed, mouth shut. He has to reattach it by transforming his arm through all the parts since he can’t disassemble it, only by touch while he can’t see, in the amount of time he can hold his breath. And he does it. No pit stop has ever made Laxus feel more helpless than those gruelingly long seconds watching Gajeel pressed so close to the engine block it burns through his hair.

The moment Gajeel shuts the hood and clears him, he stomps all his frustration down on the pedal and the car roars off without a hitch. (If he hadn’t learned to drive more efficiently, the engine would have already gone up in flames.)

As expected, Raven Tail is out to get him and he’s never been so hard pressed to fend them off before. It seems like they’ll get themselves banned just in this one race so long as it means Laxus doesn’t finish in one piece. That’s when, out of nowhere, they draw up so close they almost take out his steering with a blast of eerily familiar magic and Laxus realizes that’s exactly what this is- an all or nothing attempt to take him out because Ivan’s the one behind the wheel. The League barred him from racing years back, but he must’ve used an illusion to switch out so he could deal with Laxus himself. And it’s clear why- he’s head and shoulders above the drivers he’s ordered around all season.

At the same time, it almost comes as a relief. This is exactly the sort of chance they’ve been looking for. The League won’t have any choice but to ban them after something this egregious. He just needs Ivan to show his hand. It goes against an old instinct to target him in return, to play just as dirty and get his pound of flesh first and foremost, racing and reputation be damned, and its roots run even deeper than his past misconduct when it comes to his dad. But he keeps his temper in check without giving in and focuses on the race, determined not to let his anger at Ivan lure him into ruining what his whole team spent the past year working on.

If only it was easy to best him. When Ivan’s car falls back out of range faster than it has any right to, Gajeel’s explanation of their modifications suddenly makes sense and Laxus knows he can’t trust what he sees. They tuned it to his dad’s magic. Obscuring a car’s position with illusion magic is incredibly dangerous; it’s what got Ivan banned from driving to begin with.

 His steering is grinding now, and if Ivan gets another shot in, he won’t even have to make contact- Laxus won’t have enough control to make the next turn. But Laxus knows his dad. He also knows the type of person and the sort of driving his dad still expects of him. And he has Bickslow relay the illusory position of his car second by second so he knows where Ivan wants him to think he is. He stays to the left to cover his side and keeps his foot on the gas up until he has to brake for the turn. Especially after seeing what happened to Gajeel yesterday, it is harrowing for the team to watch. They’re terrified they’re about to lose Laxus and gutted knowing that’s what Ivan is after. Yet when he tries to run Laxus off the road, he anticipates it at exactly the right time and place and counter attacks, and Ivan is the one who barely escapes crashing headlong into the barricades.

It’s too late in the race to recover. Laxus knows his dad’s machine isn’t fast enough to catch up to his and he finishes the final lap in first place.

Despite Laxus’s considerable resistance to getting overwrought after a brutal race, in combination with the past 24 hours, he staggers out of the car like he’s shell shocked. No celebration about winning- he’s still processing that he survived. Car smoking perilously, Ivan crosses the line and storms out in a seething rage at the same time Raijin rushes to intervene and it’s actually Mira who gets the closest to murdering Ivan that day. The moment he turns on Laxus, she’s gone full Satan Soul standing him down in the middle of the track and there’ll be blood if he makes another move. The Raijin Tribe are there backing her up in a matter of seconds, followed by Cana and Juvia helping Gajeel. Laxus snaps out of the worst of his daze when Ivan turns his eye on him, fully aware that he double crossed him, and he plants himself right in the middle of his dad’s line of sight.

If that wasn’t enough, basically all of the Fairy Tail team came to watch Laxus, and Makarov is so appalled at Ivan that he’s forcing his way onto the track too. The whole situation gets so incredibly close to complete carnage the crisis is only averted when security shows up and detains Ivan before anyone else can get at him.

-

Gajeel finally gets carted to the hospital for a proper exam and dramatically bemoans being restricted from joining their series of ragers celebrating Laxus’s win, Raven Tail’s dissolution, and Ivan’s arrest. Naturally, the team promises to have more once he can drink again. Cana also negotiates with Lucy to arrange for Cancer to fix Gajeel’s hair to help cheer him up. The prescribed month of rest goes over significantly better, without any need for the team’s eagerness to enforce it. (Laxus gets a spray bottle to deter Gajeel from overworking next season, a plan that goes very smoothly and has absolutely no unforeseen ramifications for him and the team as a whole.) He takes time to decompress, and although they’re glad he’s getting the rest he needs, it’s also a bit listless without him around much.

Laxus doesn’t rejoin Fairy Tail- Raijin grew too meaningful to them to just dissolve it- but they do form an official partnership so they can share resources and Raijin won’t be scraping by anymore. Cana finally gets a real role on the team, and she enjoys giving Laxus grief by demanding back pay he still can’t afford and she doesn’t really need. He actually also gets put on medical leave, but the car’s still in shambles, so he can’t train anyway. The whole team ends up taking a well earned break and returning to the lives they put on hold in between laying down some plans for next season.

After a month goes by, Gajeel’s back in the garage giving the car a general inspection, studious and unhurried. It’s almost unrecognizable seeing him work in undisturbed quiet. Bickslow’s put out that he snuck by them without any fanfare, but Gajeel’s already gotten away with it and he slots back into place as naturally as anything. Laxus is relieved, of course, but something still feels unsatisfied, and he goes to the garage to seek him out.

-

Metalicana (all the dragons are people in this au) is also an iron mage who works mainly as a mechanic. He might as well be a hermit, perfectly content living by himself in the absolute middle of nowhere despite being wheelchair-bound. He gets most his work repairing expensive farming equipment for people out in the countryside; he can fix anything. Especially when it comes to older machines that companies don’t service or manufacture anymore, if it’s at all possible, he’ll recreate parts in iron to get them working again and save people from spending an exorbitant amount on replacement equipment. He’s something of an unsung hero to the rural community.

He takes Gajeel in when he’s three, and since it’s just them, Metalicana occupies a lot of his time teaching him everything he knows about magic and machinery. Gajeel takes to it like a duck to water, he loves it, and loves him just as much. At a glance, Metalicana’s mannerisms make him seem coarse and detached, but in practice he puts so much care into raising Gajeel, and Gajeel can make him smile and laugh like nothing else. They have a very happy life between the two of them. But down the line, a series of complications including money being tight, lack of nearby support, and particularly struggling to get Gajeel to school consistently because of where they live and his own disabilities, leads to Metalicana losing custody of Gajeel when he’s thirteen. He fights as hard as he can, but he simply doesn’t stand a chance. Even so, Gajeel’s hurt beyond words and bitterly angry at his dad- it’s kinda the only way he can really process being completely uprooted when he’s still just a kid.

Unfortunately, that resentment only builds after they’re separated. He falls through the cracks of the foster system and has to fend for himself when the support he ought to get falls through. His total lack of friends or family and his admittedly stunted social skills make it that much worse. And that’s the situation that gets him caught up in Jose’s gang. At first they just have him service the junk cars they use for unsavory jobs and getaways, but they keep dragging him into more and more. They have no respect for an oddity and an outcast like him, and for years (before Juvia gets involved) he’s the youngest by far, so they harass him relentlessly, a far cry from his old home.

Metalicana’s fucking heartbroken, and he does everything he can to keep Gajeel from slipping away entirely. As if the restrictions of the foster system wouldn’t make it hard enough, Metalicana lives all but off the grid and has basically no means to travel, especially not short notice. Everything he can do just isn’t enough. On Gajeel’s end he feels more and more abandoned by perpetual distance, misunderstandings, and lapses in communication- which have their reasons, but of course Gajeel’s left in the dark regarding what happened. Gajeel’s whole situation is a wreck and his stress and misery finds an outlet partially in blaming Metalicana. In truth, he misses his dad so, so much, but that’s just another pitiable dilemma he’s powerless to fix, so he’d rather contain it in anger than face the pain and heartache for what it is.

By the time he’s eighteen and Metalicana has more freedom to reach out and he’s had time to access better means to do so, Gajeel had cut all contact. No current phone number, no updated address, no nothing- wherever Gajeel’s gone, Metalicana can’t reach him anymore.

They’ve been estranged a few years by the time Gajeel applies at Raijin. When Laxus first has him look at the car- of course his first thought was, Wow whoever made this is insane- but his swift second thought is, My dad would fucking love to see this thing. He pushes down the ache of it. His vitriol cooled off some when he got older, but he’s not great at letting go of grudges. That gets more complicated, however, when the work he’s now doing reminds him so much of Metalicana teaching it to him by his side. Although all the work is still putting Gajeel through the wringer, the company he’s keeping and the way they make him feel has improved exponentially, and he keeps thinking about his dad more and more now that he actually has room for the grief. He considers trying to reach out a few times, but he’s deterred by habit and the time between them. Also, he hasn’t quite reached a place he’s proud of yet- almost-! but it’s still a bit of a shit show so he’s sort of embarrassed of possibly seeing his dad again.

When Gajeel collapses before the championship, while the team has to wait for Porlyusica, Cana posits if there’s anyone in Gajeel’s personal life they should contact so that they know what’s going on. It seems doubtful when even Juvia shrugs helplessly, but Laxus decides he should at least try, and discovers that Metalicana is still the emergency contact in Gajeel’s phone. Up until very recently, he had no one to replace him with.

Laxus doesn’t know what to make of Metalicana’s barrage of worry and desperation, something that encompasses more than just his halting explanation that Gajeel got hurt in an uncertain incident. Gajeel is his only concern and he’d clearly do anything for him, begging to know where he is, so Laxus tells him. Since losing track of him, Metalicana had planned and saved and arranged to travel at the drop of a hat if it could mean reaching Gajeel and he asserts he’s leaving immediately. When he hears that Laxus contacted his dad and that he’s on his way, Gajeel feels a lot of things, all of which he elects to ignore until the car is finished.

I can’t settle on if I want Metalicana to get there before the last race or sometime after. I think after would suit the pacing and structure better, but I’m also tempted by the concept of Metalicana assisting Gajeel with the car in the final hours so he finally has help when he’s hurt and in need, and reversing his childhood as Metalicana’s assistant while he worked on intricate equipment to illustrate the respectable capability Gajeel’s grown into.

Regardless, the last of Gajeel’s lingering resentment falls like a house of cards the moment Metalicana sees him again with such a torrent of relief and love and he instantly knows what he desperately wondered for so long- that his dad always wanted to be there for him and cares no matter what happens. Metalicana’s so incredibly proud of him, getting Gajeel all flustered congratulating him for making it to the big racing league from fixing tractors in the boonies. He doesn’t dwell on his past mistakes either, assuring him they clearly haven’t defined who he is and all that matters to him is that he’s alright.