The Pad is Open again!

Compliments to the Chef is a rewrite of my previous fic of the same name. It holds the same premise, but with a revised story. You can follow me on FFNet/AO3 to get alerts (xambedo) or go ahead and bookmark the tag I’ll be using. Until then, enjoy this lil flashback snippet of their first meeting.

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CHAPTER ONE: HALF BAKED IDEAS                  

In the end everything can be broken. It didn’t matter how much steel Gajeel forged around himself, he was flesh and bone on the inside. Vulnerable. To fists, and to feelings. Even the ones he swore he didn’t have.

Maybe that’s why he didn’t remember it–the night the walls came down. The truth stirred in his sleep, at ease in the shadows, leaving cobwebs in the messy myriad of memories in his mind. But it was there. And one day, Gajeel would see it again.

Because even the darkest of nights had to end.

In his dreams Gajeel saw a door in the darkness. It wasn’t a big door, the room beyond gravid with promises of warm memories and forgotten treasures. He’d need to duck in order to pass beneath the frame–but he never got the chance. He woke to glaring sunlight, colours flashing behind sore, heavy eyelids. His fading bruise still throbbed in the corner of his left eye. He’d deserved the punch, but that didn’t make it any less painful.

The persistent memories offered by temptress dreams left his veins cold, and he ached to remember, if only for a moment. He turned towards his bedside table, slapped the empty space and groaned. He found his phone dangling by the cord, knocked aside in his sleep again. He gathered it cable-first into his hands. One message. Unknown number.

I’m remarrying.

Gajeel snorted and slung his phone across the bed. He wouldn’t be needing this today. How was he supposed to respond to something like that? Congrats on finding my number; let’s see if you’re any better at losing it.

He sat and sighed, the sound a slip between the steel walls thick around his heart. He sealed the crack shut and cast the message from mind. Everything hurt first thing in a morning, he didn’t need the added stress of his mother’s tenth wedding weighing on him as well. Joints clicked, muscles ached, but Gajeel’s heart returned to its empty, protected shell.

He checked his hands, curling fingers tight, feeling the skin fold at the creases, surprisingly cold for a summer morning. His knuckles stung with bruises and cuts, and a dribble of blood split from the skin.

Gajeel’s hands had broken many things, but they were all he had left, and his only means of atoning. It was true they’d grown used to the shape of fists, but these fingers knew how to do more than that now–how to craft and cook.

——–

“You can’t open late. You’ll tarnish your perfect record.”

His lips hovered across her neck, a kiss of breath tickling her skin. Would he really jeapordize his morning business over a silly bet? Was he willing to go that for just to torment her? Yes. Yes he was. Because this was Gajeel Stubborn Jerk Redfox. And Levy was in way over her head.

Gajeel’s fingers tangled with her apron strings, dancing dangerously close to her naked back. She’d meant only to tease him for sport, a little revenge after last night’s moment. But now the spatula was in the other hand, as he’d so flippantly remarked when they met, and Levy had nothing left to turn over this passion with. Today she was destined to burn.

“I never took you for the wild type,” he said, unfastening her apron strings and holding them together with one hand. “I thought you’d prefer things a little more structured.”

He palmed her backside and Levy jumped, realising then he was referring to her mismatched underwear. The blood in her cheeks sought eagerly to match shades with the bra she’d chosen.

“You make me that way,” she confessed.

She heard him swallow. “Shit, Lev. I was only teasin’ to see how far you’d take this. Now we really are going to be late.”

Levy shuddered–from the tips of her toes to the ends of her messy hair, she felt only his presence, and the magnitude of his hands moving around her waist and–

Gajeel grew up knowing only how to break things. So when Black Steel’s owner decided to take him on, he jumped at the chance to be a chef–to be a good son. Everything was perfect, until Metalicana disappeared, leaving only a note and borrowed dreams. Ready to abandon everything to his loneliness, Gajeel’s life is transformed by a steamy encounter with the McGarden’s runaway daughter, and all of the ghosts that haunt her.

CHAPTER ONE: HALF BAKED IDEAS

In the end everything can be broken. When Gajeel woke, the first thing he did was check his hands. The creases of his palms, how the skin folded with his fingers, and how the knuckles on his fists were still raw with dried blood. Bruised. Always bruised. Gajeel’s temper was stitched into his soul so tight no one could ever unravel it. He’d never been good at much. Easier to break things and leave a trail of hurt than to pick up the pieces and carry the burden home every night.

When Gajeel crawled into bed, he did so empty and light, and he always woke much the same. He sat up now to stretch away the dreamless night, reaching up to the ceiling, so that the aches could disappear from his fingertips.  

Panels of sunlight created a path to his bedroom door, and Gajeel threw himself onto the hardwood floor and shoved it open to a new day.

Routines were hard to break, and so he moved sheepishly to Metalicana’s door, tapped softly on the wood before remembering, with sudden clarity, that no one would be there to answer.

Gajeel hated days off, but Metalicana had insisted, that just one day a week, Black Steel be closed to the outside world. That Gajeel should explore beyond the kitchen. But what else could he do? Preparing food, feeling the slice of steel through vegetables, cracking eggs into a pan–it was all he knew how to do. Cooking required breaking things. And that’s exactly why Gajeel was so damn good at it.

With a yawn that stretched on for the duration of his walk to the bathroom, Gajeel scrubbed his face in the mirror, watched the fatigue roll away from his crimson eyes, and the dark shadows underneath settle in for a new day. Those eyes ticked to the note atop the mirror, taped at each corner. He’d hung it there as a reminder. Never get involved with someone else’s dreams. 

I’m leaving Black Steel to you, son. Take care of it. 

Asshole. Metalicana had always been impulsive, but he’d never been gone for this long. Before it had always seemed like he was testing Gajeel. Helping him find his feet in an oddly paternal, oddly psychotic kind of way. Now, it just seemed cruel. Five months was a long time to leave someone alone with a restaurant. Metalicana had left behind his reputation, but the shoes were too large, and Gajeel could never make them fit. 

Gajevy Week Day 2: Proposal

I’ve always headcanoned that Gajeel makes gifts out of iron for Levy, especially because of that one doodle in vol. 47 where he makes her an iron book cover, and because of that one picture on Mashima’s twitter where they have matching metal necklaces, so I also headcanon that he’d make an engagement ring himself too ;w; I always forget to post stuff for this shipweek, so I worked hard on this prompt this time! Also, there’s not much talking for a ‘proposal’, but one of this ship’s dynamics is that they understand each other well even without saying much, so~

somewhat of a prequel lol:

Gajevyweek: Day one- Letters

Man it’s been a while since I wrote for this fandom, so I’m a bit rusty (please forgive!) 

Gajevy week; Letters

Levy couldn’t remember when the guild had gotten all the board games, but most of them were well used and loved. Some of them weren’t as playable as they had been when they were new; missing more than half of the pieces and serving as a fond memory instead. As such, those that were completely done were displayed in the guild library, stained and worn down. 

Lately, those games had been replaced so the newer generation had a chance to make their own memories with them. Though, she had noticed some of the older members joining in on games as well, bringing a smile to her lips. So, she wasn’t the only one to slip in a few games here and there between jobs. 

However, the one person she hadn’t expected to see playing them was Gajeel, even though she should have figured as much. It had been a pleasant surprise, and she giggled each time she watched him play with the youngest members. He played with as much vigor as though he was fighting with Natsu, but none of the vitriol. If anything, he was more supportive of his opponents, cheering loudly if they won and feigning shocked surprise if they “got him”. He’d clutch his chest and fall over comically as Asuska would squeal and high five Romeo.