Gajeel slowly walked through the door to his house. He tread across the threshold of his home and sank into his plush armchair with a hiss, carefully resting his aching head on the top of the seat. It took two whole weeks to catch those damn bandits he was hired to track, and two weeks of sleeping in the woods on the hard ground had left him aching all over the place.

Gajeel had finally relaxed in his greatly missed chair when his eyes snapped open at a loud knock at the door. He lifted with a huff of pain, heading for the door and swinging it open irritably.

"What?" he growled, expecting a pink haired idiot in want of a fight. However, his brow arched when he was met with no one.

"Um…" he heard a quiet voice speak and looked down to see a blue haired girl on his door step. Gajeel blushed, realizing who he just yelled at.

"Uh- uh, h-hi, shrimp," he stammered, looking down at his boots sheepishly. "What're you doin' here?"

"Well, I baked some cake earlier and I heard that you had just come back, so I thought you might like a slice," she said, holding up a small container with confetti cake in it.

"Oh… yeah, thanks," he said, accidentally letting out a hiss when he gestured her inside. "C-Come on in."

As Levy walked through the doorway, she peered at Gajeel with a look of perplexity. "Are you okay, Gajeel? You're acting kind of funny."

"What?" Gajeel said with a dry laugh. "What are you talking about? I'm completely—" Levy smirked and pushed his back, prompting a gruff moan to escape from the back of his throat. "—completely fine," he said roughly.

"Yes, the grunt of pain signifies that you're perfectly okay, Gajeel," Levy said mockingly. "What's wrong, what happened on your job?"

"Alright, fine. Yes, I feel like shit, I had to sleep on the cold, hard ground for two weeks while trying to look for those goddamn bandits, who were elusive as fuck, by the way. They kept hiding in the friggin' trees. Two weeks without a decent place to sleep and bathing in cold rivers and what do I get out of it? Sore everything and only 50,000 jewel."

"Well," Levy began to say, setting the confetti cake on the coffee table, "maybe I can do something to help."

"No offense, Lev," Gajeel said reluctantly as he closed the door, because he'd love for her to help him, "but I don't think words are going to help in this situation."

"Not with magic, dummy. Maybe you've forgotten in the two weeks you've been gone that all I ever do is read, so of course I know of ways to ease sore muscles. You can take a bath in Epsom salts, anti-inflammatory medicines help, ice packs, and when worse comes to worse, chicken noodle soup always makes me feel better. And what works best is… w-well…" Levy slowed her speech and looked down at her feet.

"And what, shrimp? I'll take anything here, I feel like I'm dying," Gajeel said quickly.

Levy shuffled her feet and played with her fingers before saying, "Well, there's—um— there's… m-m-massage…"

Gajeel blushed a little bit at the sound of the word. "Ohhh. Well… if you say that it works best."

Levy quickly looked up at him, her entire face red as a tomato. "Y-Y-Y-You want me to give it to you?"

"No! Well, it would be nice to have a little relief, b-but you don't have to. Do you know how to give one?"

Levy shifted her weight a bit. "Yes, I've massaged Jet and Droy a couple of times after some tough missions before."

Gajeel's stomach twisted at the thought of Levy's little hands on those wackadoodles, but he quickly brushed off the jealousy. He cleared his throat and said, "If it's okay with you, I would really like a massage, please."

Pushing some of her blue hair behind her ear, Levy muttered a soft 'okay'. She took the big cushions from his couch, laid them on the floor, and told him to lay down on his stomach.

I can't believe I'm getting a massage from Levy, Gajeel thought to himself with a hidden grin. Levy sat on her legs and took his left arm in her hands. She pushed a bit on his lower arm, eliciting a definite pop from his elbow and shoulder.

"Ow! Fuck!" Gajeel voiced as pain shot up his arm. But then the pain all together diminished about two seconds later. "Ohhh fuck, that feels so much better."

"See?" Levy said with a smirk, now putting pressure into the muscles of his arms with her fingers. "I know what I'm doing, so just relax."

Gajeel let out a sigh of satisfaction as he already felt relief flood over his left arm. Levy wasn't bad at all. She popped each of his fingers and kneaded his palm with her soft hands. A couple minutes later she moved to his feet and carefully removed his boots and socks.

"Nice to see you've actually been taking care of your feet," Levy said as she set his boots to the side.

"I'm not a total pig," he snickered into the couch cushion. "Mother of fuck that feels nice." Levy giggled as she rubbed the arch of his foot. Levy knew for sure he'd be achy in his feet, what with all the chasing after bandits and such. Levy couldn't imagine how awful he must've felt out there.

She finished with the other foot and went on to do the same with his right arm that she did with the left. And then after that she began blushing again. "U-Um… Gajeel?"

"Hmm?" he hummed contently, not opening his eyes.

"I-If you want me to do your back, you're going to—um—" she stuttered, obviously embarrassed at what she had to ask him.

"I won't know unless you tell me, shrimp," he said nonchalantly.

"Y-Y-You're going to have to… to…" she gulped, took in a deep breath, and squeaked, "You're going to have to take off your shirt."

His eyes shot open, the crimson color overtaking his pupils. That was probably the moment he thanked the heavens for those damn elusive bastards.

Gajeel sat up and quickly unbuttoned his shirt, throwing it to the side before flopping back down on the cushions.

"I-I'm going to have to g-get on top of you…" Levy stammered. Her face should have caught fire by how much she was blushing.

"Okay," Gajeel replied. He felt like he was going to cry. Thank the gods for fucking criminals. She carefully climbed on top of him and straddled his hips. She began at his shoulder blades, kneading the muscles with the bottoms of her palms. The pressure immediately produced a hard groan from the back of Gajeel's throat.

Levy stopped and said worriedly, "I'm not hurting you, am I?"

Gajeel simply laughed, Levy feeling him shake beneath her. "No, no, trust me. You're doing fine. Please continue."

Levy gulped and continued, going between rubbing and pressuring the skin on his back. Feeling better, Gajeel crossed his arms on the cushion and cradled his face in them. He mostly did that to hide the fast acting blush creeping up his face. Having her soft little hands on him was bad enough, but having her soft little hands on him and her sitting on top of him was making him go crazy. It was making him want to… to… control himself because that's what real men do. But, still, having her so close to him made his heart go aflutter.

For a long time now he'd started having feelings for her, long even before Tenrou Island, he supposed. And his feelings for her had grown tenfold after that. He liked everything about her, her hair, her headbands, her love of reading. Praise her love of reading or else I wouldn't be getting a massage from the cutest girl in the guild. And her, he simply just liked her. She was nice and sweet, the first thing she thought of when she heard he was home was to bring him some homemade cake. And his favorite part about her was her height. She was tiny, and he loved that she was tiny. She was a perfect match for him, super big and tall, her being super short and small.

Levy pressured a spot on his lower back which had especially been hurting that caused a grunt of relief to resonate from him. Gajeel realized just then how vulnerable he had allowed himself to become. He'd never in his life allowed anyone to get this close to him while he was still fully conscious. I must really love this girl to let her do this.

Gajeel's eyes snapped open when he realized what word he had just used.

"I think I'm all done…" Levy said quietly as she climbed off of him. "Do you hurt anywhere else?"

Gajeel twisted into a sitting position on the cushions, scratching his chest and thinking for a moment. "I don't think so… Actually, I feel even better than before I left for the friggin' job."

Levy's eyes lit up and clapped her hands together. "I'm glad I did okay!" she said, standing up and smoothing down her orange shirt and brown shorts.

"You did more than okay, shrimp," he admitted, flexing his arms. And then he peered down at her. "How about.. I give you a thank you?"

Before Levy could say 'what do you mean?' Gajeel held her shoulders and pressed his lips to hers. After a few seconds, Levy wrapped her arms around his neck, feeling his hair against her forearms. Gajeel wrapped his own tight around her waist and lifted her from the ground, leaving her feet to dangle. The two slowly separated from one another, gazing into each other's eyes.

"So…" Gajeel murmured after a couple minutes. "You brought me cake?"

"Mm-hmm…" Levy replied back softly. "Why, do you want some?"

Gajeel licked his lips and nodded, Levy giggling as he lowered her to the floor. Levy put the couch cushions back in place as Gajeel went to the kitchen to get some plates and forks. Gajeel sat with an arm around Levy as the two munched on confetti cake and Gajeel told the story of his two week date with dirt.