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The Misadventures of Slitherfuck and Metalface

Chapter 25: Dragon Historia, pt 3

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

"The spoken language of dragons is known as Emelogian, or 'Sound of [a Dragon's] Tongue', in their ancestral language. Written language is referred to separately as Yulilogian, meaning 'Mark Made [by a Dragon]'." ~ Dragon Historia, pg 212

Chapter Twenty-five: Dragon Historia, pt 3

The rain outside did not lessen after Cobra left for the guild.

Gajeel moved a wooden crate of tools away from the couch, silently signaling that was where Juvia was welcome to sit, and went upstairs to fetch and toss a clean towel at the soaked water mage that had walked all the way to his house without an umbrella. He then threw himself down in one of the boxy armchairs nearby.

"You look like you had a rough night," Gajeel said by way of a greeting. He scratched under the collar of the black t-shirt he threw on for her sake.

Juvia's expression wilted and her eyes immediately deflected to the floor, pulling the towel tight around her shoulders. "Juvia has not had a good night, Gajeel is right," she said quietly. Her dark eyes flicked up to look at the iron dragon. "Cobra said that Gajeel has also had a bad night."

"Apparently it's goin' around."

"Oh... Cobra, too? But he said-"

"Nah," Gajeel shook his head, black mane shaking from the motion. "But he thinks there's something more to it. Heard something he didn't like, maybe."

"Is his hearing that accurate...?" Juvia blinked. Talking seemed to be distracting her from whatever nightmare had caused her to lose control of her rain magic, which was a relief to them both.

Gajeel opened his mouth to reply, then closed it as he thought on the question. "Honestly couldn't tell ya. But I trust him when he says shit like that."

The bluenette woman let out a short laugh that ended in a sniffle and she rubbed her nose with the edge of the towel. "Gajeel is making friends, Juvia sees. It's nice to see he has someone he can trust."

"Yeah," Gajeel sucked in a sharp breath. "A friend… Sure." And nothing else, not while Juvia was around. Nope!

"Sorry, Juvia didn't mean to imply Gajeel has no friends. But he isn't usually sociable. Juvia is happy for him, finding a friend to be on a team with." Slowly, the frown returned to her face and she again pulled the towel around her. "Juvia couldn't wake up from the nightmare last night. She tried, but… It was as if someone was holding her down, making her stay in the dream…"

A wave of dizziness hit Gajeel as he recalled the twisting sensation his own nightmare had, how every time he figured out something wasn't right the dream would warp further. "Makin' ya stay in there, huh..."

She nodded. "Juvia dreamt of the day Phantom Lord invaded Magnolia. She was on top of the guild hall with Gray, like the first time Juvia met him, but Lucy and Cana were there this time, too. But Juvia- she-" The rain outside started falling even harder, the static sound of it on the roof turned into a muted roaring. "They fell. Juvia- Juvia pushed them. She was happy about it in her dream. But awake, Juvia knows this wasn't real, knows it wasn't how that happened and-"

"You didn't push them, Juv," Gajeel cut her off before she spiraled too deep. "Look at me. You didn't push them. They're okay. They're probably at the guild with Cobra and the rest."

Again she sniffled, wiping her nose with the towel. "It's true that Juvia hasn't checked in at the guild today," she said with a small voice, accepting what Gajeel said.

"Besides, these're just stupid dreams." A frown tugged at the corner of his mouth. "They'll stop one way or another, even if we gotta go crack someone's skull to stop 'em."

"What did Gajeel dream of?" When he fixed her with a sour scowl, she aimed a dreary, pointed frown right back at him. "Juvia said hers, now it's Gajeel's turn. That's fair."

Ignoring the heat rising to his face, he stubbornly turned his head away so that he didn't have to look at her while he described his own nightmare. "I got stuck in the Phantom Lord guild hall, okay? I got stuck in there and I couldn't get out, and all the air got sucked outta the room or some shit. All the windows and doors were gone. There were no exits, I was suffocating ta death." He grit his fangs inside his mouth, then out a single, heaving sigh. "It feels stupid sayin' what it was about out loud. I mean, if Cobra wasn't th-" Gajeel caught himself right on that word, his tongue still pressed to his teeth. He took another deep breath. "I-I mean, if he didn't come wake me up, 'cause I woke him up, then I dunno if the nightmare would've gotten worse."

Thankfully Juvia didn't cling to his slip-up. "Suffocating usually results in death, does it not...?"

Gajeel's shoulders laxed at his secret relationship save. "That's really what you took away from that story?"

She smiled, a little mended expression, before quietly asking: "What does Gajeel think it is? That's causing the dreams."

"I dunno." He melted back into the chair, sinking low and staring at the ceiling. "We both thought Phantom Lord was behind us, it makes sense that we wouldn't take news of it comin' back too well. So, I guess I thought it was just a shitty dream until you showed up."

"Juvia wonders if any of the others have had them, or if it's just us."

"Others…?"

"Well," she started, "If Gajeel is right, and he and Juvia are the only ones having the dreams, it makes sense. But if others in Fairy Tail, or other members of the Element Four, really were having them, then Cobra would be right."

"Element Four?" Gajeel blinked at her. "Yer the only one I still talk to, Juv. I have no friggin' idea what happened to the rest of the clowns from that circus."

"Oh! Juvia has Totomaru's lacriphone frequency number. We could try calling him! Where does Gajeel keep his...?" She turned, glancing around the living room for a crystal lacrima ball comm installation.

"I ain't got a lacriphone hookup in my house," Gajeel snorted indignantly. "I don't want someone calling me. If somebody wants my attention, they'd better come get it the old fashioned way."


If someone had told him that the day would start with one of the worst nightmares in his life and then progress to standing in a public lacriphone booth - in the rain - to talk about said nightmare with one of his ex-coworkers, Gajeel would've have punched them square in the face twice. Once for fun, then for implying he'd willingly talk about his feelings to anybody ever. (Well… anyone but his mate.) But there he was, cramped in the small wooden booth that held a round, crystal clear lacrima orb on a bolted pedestal.

Juvia placed her fingers on the orb and adjusted the frequency of the outbound call they wanted to make.

"Yo," the image of the young man with half-black and half-white hair appeared in the clear ball. "Oh, Juvia!" Totomaru brightened, then immediately looked puzzled. "… And Gajeel, too…?"

"Hello, Totomaru," Juvia greeted with a smile. "It has been a while..."

The iron dragon knew the fire mage had always been a little sweet on Juvia, and, dealing with a string of bad breakups, she'd been absolutely oblivious. He used to think it was kind of pathetic - chasing after someone, trying to get that someone to notice you in a certain way. Now Gajeel understood that feeling. Gajeel still felt a little sorry for Totomaru - just not in the same way he used to. (He had been successful wooing someone, after all…)

Even as Juvia explained the reasoning for their call, it was obvious the old flame was still burning bright at one end.

"Well, yeah I had a weird nightmare last night, but I just thought it was because I went out drinking with my coworkers," Totomaru waved his hand dismissively, "Weekend and all that."

"Coworkers?"

"I'm up in Era these days. Scored a job at a primary magic academy teaching a class on basic fire spells." He scratched his right temple, smiling sheepishly. "Kinda hard to get into a new guild with a Guild War on your record. Luckily, there's always a big need for elemental magic teachers…" His dark brows lowered and his head tilted slightly to the side. "But you're asking about nightmares as if you had them on the same night."

Gajeel snorted. "Ya mean you haven't heard yet?"

"Heard what, exactly?"

"Somebody's getting the old band back together. 'Cept they're not inviting us headliners."

Totomaru's expression hardened with worry. "Phantom Lord's back?" When both Gajeel and Juvia nodded, he shook his head, exhaling a breath that blew his bangs away from his face. "Shit."

"We wanted to know if it was just Juvia n' me they were going after, since we joined up with Fairy Tail," Gajeel said. "Juvia said yer the only other former Element Four she talks to, so we figured we'd ask ya."

"Oh, really?" Totomaru's face was practically glowing at that. "Well, I've got job security now. I wouldn't join back up with whoever thinks they're Fiore's next Jose Porla."

"What about the others, Totomaru," Juvia asked, "Have you heard anything about them?"

"Not much," Totomaru shook his head again, his dual-colored bangs bouncing from the motion. "Last I heard, Sol shipped back to his home country. His work visa was only for Phantom Lord and he couldn't register with a new guild in time to renew it. I don't think he's too upset, though. You guys know he's always hated the food here."

"And the weather," Juvia mumbled sheepishly.

"And the music, and all the trains, and his list goes on."

"And you two are over in Fairyland." Totomaru said it with amusement, obviously not taking issue with their choice. "I finished my teaching degree just before the Guild War, so I've tapped out of guild flunkie life. I think the only one of us that I haven't heard anything about is Aria." The fire mage's mouth slanted to the side in thought, his finger pointing through the image at Gajeel. "And that kid. The one with the bad buzz cut. The one that used to follow you around all the time at our main base. What was his name- Ryan or something...?"

A wave of dizziness washed over Gajeel at the mention of the child. He knew exactly who Totomaru was talking about. He hadn't seen or thought of the gloomy kid that followed him around the streets of Oak Town like some kind of puppy since before Phantom Lord's aggression against Fairy Tail had escalated out into the open.

Ya i buul logiagem, cha ti, he remembered the little kid with the big red eyes saying to him - in perfect Draconic. It was the first thing the kid ever said to him: I am Dragonkin, like you. But that had been years ago.

The kid had been young when he first started hanging around Phantom Lord. Real young. He was seven years old when they'd first met, Gajeel remembered that. (Seven years seemed to be a weird theme a lot of the Dragonslayers had with their pasts… at least the First Generation, anyways. It was a pattern Gajeel was becoming more and more aware of, though what it meant he had no clue.) And what age the kid would be now, well… Gajeel couldn't guess. Maybe ten? A little older? Maybe Wendy's age, he eventually decided. That seemed right. He'd met the kid five years ago.

Ya i buul logiagem, chat ti. Even if the kid did speak flawless Emelogian, Gajeel hadn't paid the kid any mind. If he was a baby Dragonslayer, the kid had come to the wrong person for help. Gajeel had been an outright wild thing at fifteen years old, still adjusting to being around most people after Jose had recruited him off the lawless streets of Denish. He didn't have the time or patience to babysit some hatchling who'd barely manifested his element and fled for the shadows every time he got spooked instead of fighting like a real dragon.

Ya i buul logiagem, chat ti. Even as big of a prick as Gajeel had been to the kid, the kid still followed him around adoringly, and eventually the kid started saying something more terrifying... Ya i ti nagurru, Gajeel.

"Ryos," Gajeel said absently. He leaned against the back of the booth for balance, trying to fight off the guilty vertigo that had overtaken him. "The kid's name was Ryos Cheney."

"Yeah, that's the one."


It wasn't exactly a lie when he said he needed to get some air.

Gajeel closed the door to the lacriphone booth behind him and leaned his weight against the side as Juvia and Totomaru finished catching up. Pressing his skull back against the booth, he shut his eyes and let the drizzling rain fall and dampen his hair and clothes further.

Phantom Lord coming back was not something he had ever expected to deal with. But, Gajeel figured, if anyone should have to clean up the mess, it should be him. Phantom Lord rose to power because of him; because Jose had pushed him to the top. It was only right that Gajeel be the one to bury those ghosts for good.

A buzzing hotness made itself known in the back of his mind; his mate's anger briefly flaring, notably annoyed at something. A smile cracked across Gajeel's tired features. His mate was probably ticked off at Salamander, if he had to guess.

This mess with Phantom Lord wasn't affecting only him, he reminded himself. I'm not alone at the top anymore. He had Cobra. He had Juvia, maybe Totomaru on his side, too. This was an attack on Fairy Tail, and the rest of his new guild wouldn't exactly take this shit lying down once that news broke.

The sound of small, scuffling feet on wet gravel made him crack one eye open.

He wished he hadn't.

Big red eyes stared up at him from behind inky black bangs and the wet hood of a night black hoodie.

"Hello, big brother."

Notes:

What smol!Rogue said:
Ya i buul logiagem, chat ti = I am a dragon's child, same as you
Ya i ti nagurru, Gajeel = I am your younger brother, Gajeel

Do I have a whole dictionary of dragon language made up for this? Why, yes, I do.