Gajeel knew Levy collected books — had known since his early days in Fairy Tail, when he'd taken it upon himself to scope out each member and noticed her frequent trips to the guild library. But he had vastly underestimated the sheer volume of tomes the petite girl owned. He'd been in Levy's dorm in Fairy Hills a few times, but only during the dead of night, usually after a mission, when he was either too exhausted to make the extra distance to his own home or too protective to leave her alone. Sure, he could smell the ink and leather and glue, but he found no reason in wasting time to observe his dim surroundings when he could focus on Levy instead — undressed and sleepy and dragging him to bed, no less.

So when Gajeel returned early from training and saw the mountain of books in front of his house, he was dumbfounded, his face betraying a rare expression of utter disbelief and bewilderment. They were piled up in Erza's massive wagon, an enormous tower of bound paper supported precariously by what looked to him like four very small wheels.

"Oh, Gajeel!" A light rustle came from behind the books and Levy's small head popped up.

"You're finally back, I was wondering where you went. Erza-san already helped me with the hard part, so now all you have to do is help me move them in!" she chirped cheerfully, the lilt in her voice seemingly mocking the enormous task he suddenly faced.

Five minutes later, when Levy assigned him to build bookcases while she put her collection roughly in order, Gajeel realized that the spare room he'd intended on using as an indoor scrapyard would instead be turned into her personal library. He suppressed a groan but obliged to her command; he should have seen this coming, an inevitable condition to living with her, and the faster they got this done, the better. He ended up building her four iron bookcases that reached from the floor to the ceiling, and then an extra fifth one for good measure, anticipating the endless trips to the bookstore he would undoubtedly endure in the future.

The rest of the day was spent bringing them into the house, Levy lugging in twenty medium-sized books for every ten large ones that Gajeel carried. He also helped shelve most of them, since Levy was too short to reach any higher than the fifth shelf, but not before he amusedly watched her jumping and pushing books into place.

It was well past midnight when the two rested on the couch, tired from a day's work of moving, organizing, and reorganizing.

"Thank you," she said softly, "for doing this. For all of it." She clamped both hands on his and leaned into his arm, tracing the studs and brushing her cheek against his muscle before she continued.

"I know you didn't sign up for any of this, but I didn't want you to take back what you said, about me moving in, so I just… did it." Her voiced dropped. "I'm sorry, I didn't even ask for your permission, and — it's not even my house."

Gajeel grunted and pulled her onto his lap, resting his chin on the crown of her head. He let her words sink in, felt her body tense up with anxiety for his response, before he cleared his throat.

"Hey now, who said I was gonna regret what I said? Dragons don't go back on their word. And now that you're settled in, don't start thinking that you can move out anytime soon," he smirked.

"Just, next time, give a guy a warning, yeah?"

Levy looked at him with bright, watery eyes as he let out a throaty laugh, combing his fingers through her hair, and she knew then that he wanted her there, with him. She let her body relax against him, giving her sore muscles a chance to recover, and soon fell asleep in his embrace.