AN: My first attempt at participating in a pair week and set prompt.
Hope you enjoy it!
This is the day! I thought as I walked to the guild reminiscing over the past year and how so much had changed. If you had asked me a year ago if I could see myself with Gajeel I would have said 'no way' and pointed out that his treatment of me during the Phantom Lord fiasco was not a good starting point for a relationship. But after the Grand Magic Games and the Dragon attack he had come up to me demanding I go on a date with him; he took my stunned silence as confirmation and told me when and where before he walked off. After the shock had worn off I grabbed Levy and ran back to our inn, praying that it was still intact.
We spent the next couple of hours giggling as we got me ready for my impromptu date. My hair was styled into an elegant bun with ringlets hanging on the sides of my face. Since Dragon's Slayers had amazing senses I refrained from putting makeup on, knowing that it bugged both Natsu and Wendy when I wore it. As for my clothes I put on a floor length, ruby red gown, I had bought to wear to the end of the games celebration, whether we won or lost. It had a tight corset as the top and then flared out at the hips, similar to the gowns I had worn, once upon a time. Surprisingly it didn't take that long for me to get ready, and we just sat on my bed predicting how it would go. It was then that Levy and I decided that this moment needed to be captured, it was my first date after all.
He took me out to a fancy foreign restaurant, why I will never understand, but it was fun non the I had tried to take a picture of him, he turned his head away at the last moment, making the subject of my picture a blur. All he did was shrug and chuckle at my disappointment when I reviewed the picture. As our date when on I continued to take pictures of what I thought were him but he continued to duck out of or ruin them at the last minute for the rest of the night. No matter how sneaky I thought I was being he still caught on and was able to avoid getting his picture taken.
This wasn't just a one time occurrence either. For all of the time we have been going out I have yet to get a good picture of him, or of us; no matter how many times I asked, Gajeel wouldn't do it. From then on it had become a game of sorts for us, his avoidance skills vs my sneaking capabilities. Every time I tried, I failed and had to listen to Gajeel say that "I didn't need a picture because we're always together". True, we have been inseparable, even going so far as making our own team, Divine Retribution, after Team Natsu got disbanded a couple of months ago for causing too much destruction and debt. Master let me off with a warning, saying if I caused anywhere near the amount of damage Natsu, Gray and Erza had I would be confined to paper work for two months. I Shuddered at the memory of Master's hopeful gleam in his eye at the thought of me being cooped up in his office, doing the paperwork for so long. This had me thinking of the punishments the rest of Team Natsu had received.
A part of me felt bad for them, but then again all three of them had ignored all of my warnings about the amount of destruction they had caused, playing it off as if it was nothing. The one time I had offered to help Master with his paper work I saw a mound that reached the ceiling. When I asked him how that stack had gotten so large he just responded with a tortured look and a pathetic growl, 'Team Natsu', since then I had tried to hold them back more and more to no avail. I guess when the stack became two, then three –floor to ceiling- stacks it pushed Master over the edge, enough to disband his biggest headache, my former team and dictate punishments for the three that had caused all of the damage.
Erza, much to her dislike had to take over Mira's job while she was out on an S-Class mission with her siblings – leaving her return open ended. Uncharacteristically she had whined and pleaded with Makarov for any other punishment. Her ideas ranged from beatings from Virgo, using her extensive collection of 'toys' to cleaning all of the guild's bathrooms for an entire year to being his personal maid- outfit and all; that one almost swayed him, but in the end he did not relent; leaving her in an inconsolable heap on the floor. Everyone knew that Erza hated being confined to the guild for long. She enjoyed the thrill of the chase, the adrenaline pumping through her body during each fight. To other's this job would be a walk in the park, simple and easy, but to Erza it was the worst thing that could have happen to her.
As for Natsu's punishment… well it was just bad luck that Happy's parents had come in to request a Mage to help during the Harvest for the Fall. Four months of menial tasks, and no fighting was better than any punishment Master could have come up with. Happy was excited, since Wendy and Carla, mainly Carla, had agreed to go with them to ensure Natsu followed the no fighting rule. Natsu was anything but, whining as Happy carried him off to the Exceed village with a giggling Wendy behind them.
As for gray I don't know how Juvia convinced Master, but she was to be Gray's babysitter and roommate for the next month. Going on jobs him with, trapping him in a water sphere of he got too rowdy; making sure he was clothed at all times. It was silly, but considering that most of Gray's fines were from 'indecent exposure', I thought it was a good punishment.
Walking into the guild I looked around for my best friend, spotting her with her nose in a book I snuck up on her planning to scare her. Right as I was about to yell in her ear, Gajeel shook me as he yelled "Boo" in his gravelly voice.
"Ahh!" I screamed as I whirled around to lightly smack him. "Quit doing that! I almost had her" I said, crossing my arms and pouting.
Leaning close to my ear he spoke "I'm sorry Bunny, I'll make it up to you." Before he could pull away I held his head in place with my hand in his hair. Gently tugging him closer until our lips were barely touching, I whispered, "what can I have?" while keeping eye contact.
"Anything" he responded, trying to close the distance between us, but my grip in his hair stopped his movement.
Flicking my tongue out to lick his bottom lip, I continued to stare into his red eyes, "Anything?" I said moving my body closer but keeping our lips apart. Gulping, he nodded too focused on the feel of my body on his and my subtle movement of my hips grinding into his.
With a smile I closed the distance and gave in to the kiss we both had wanted. Somewhere along the lines we had forgotten where we were as we attack each other's mouths, dueling for dominance with our tongues. Neither one of us seemed to need air as we kept at it, Gajeel had just lifted me up with his hands on my bottom so I could wrap my legs around his waist, we my ears register clapping. Breaking away, gasping for air, I swiveled my head to see who had disturbed us. I looked around to see that the entire guild had been watching our display; some of their faces were red and looked away after being caught staring, while others continued to stare, waiting for the show to continue.
Blushing like mad I pushed at Gajeel's chest, indicating that I wanted to be put down. Once I had composed myself, I smirked, remembering his promise. "I'll collect my 'anything' now." I said patting myself down, looking for my camera. I guess patting myself down wasn't such a good idea considering what we had just interrupted, but that didn't come to mind until I felt him throw me over his shoulder before he barreled out of the guild, making a bee line to, what I assumed, was my apartment.
"Gajeel put me down! This isn't what I meant by my anything" I said while beating on his back. When he stopped I got a good look at his buns of steel and could resist giving him a little pinch.
Growling he set me down in front of him, making sure I slid down his front; when I moved to step away he pulled me back to hide his obvious arousal. Enjoying the feel of him rubbing against me I tried to focus enough to get my camera ready behind my back without him knowing. But became more distracted as he attacked my neck, sucking on my most tender spot, behind my ear.
"Ga...ah...Gajeel wait a minute. We can do that after I get my 'anything'." He listened for once, halting his delicious movements and pulling his mouth off of my neck with a 'pop', but still keeping our body's together. Using catching my breath for a moment as an excuse, I readied the camera with one hand and tried to make my hair look semi-decent with the other.
Having caught my breath and fixed my hair, I gave him a smile before I raised myself on my toes to give him another searing kiss, except this time I had my camera ready. Mid-kiss I stuck my arm out and pointed it towards us ready to snap a picture at the perfect moment.
In the months that I had been asking for a single picture I thought of the moment I wanted to capture the most. At first I just wanted a normal picture of the two of us smiling, but I knew that his smile wouldn't be genuine. There were only a few occasions that could get him to smile genuinely, like clockwork. Two of them were while we were in the privacy of our homes, doing the horizontal, sometimes vertical, tango – I definitely wasn't going to try taking one as we did THAT, too much risk of exposure. Another was when he was beating Natsu and Gray, actually anything, to a pulp – I didn't think that would have been a good picture to keep; it definitely wasn't an easy one to get if I wanted to be in it with him.
The easiest one and the last scenario I thought of was when our lips parted after one of our kisses. It didn't matter what kind of kiss it was, gentle or not, at the end of it he would always stare into my eyes and smile for a few seconds afterwards. That was the moment I wanted immortalized, the two of us staring into each other's eyes with all of the love we felt for each other visible to anyone who was watching.
As our lips parted, we both did exactly as I had predicted and in that moment I took our first selfie as a couple. When Gajeel heard the click of the camera his smile was wiped off of his face and in its place was a fierce frown. "Bunny" he growled menacingly.
Scrambling backwards I quickly sent the picture to my newly bought lacrima screen I had left at Levy's for safe keeping and put the camera in my pocket and held my hands out before me. "Please Gajeel. Let me keep this one picture! There is no harm in it, right? I know we are always together, but I want one in case we ever have to go on different missions, or are separated expectantly!" I had backed up to the ledge of the river I always walked on, on my way home. Looking around for an escape I contemplated leaping into the river, but was worried that the anti-water spell on my camera wouldn't hold up and the original picture would get ruined. Resorting to desperate measure I said the fateful words. "I'll do anything you want, if you let me keep the picture!" I said right as he reached me.
Pausing for a second, a devious smirk appeared on his scowling face. "Fine, but I better not see that picture in the paper" he grumbled. Smirking at me he lifted me up without a word and headed to my apartment. "Be prepared Bunny, I have just the thing for my 'anything' tonight."
We had our night of passion, a common occurrence since we had taken our relationship to the next stage a month ago. From all of our teasing earlier it was hot and fast, leaving both of us completely breathless and tired. We wound up dozing off a couple of hours in each others arms, before Gajeel shook me awake demanding I get up and ready for the shoot. Looking at him in confusion I noticed a tripod across the room pointing towards a chair in the middle of a spot light. Gulping I feared for the worst.
Shaking my head in denial I looked him in the eye and said "no".
"You promised Bunny, and Celestial Mages never break their promises" he said as he walked away with a towel around his hips. "Go take a shower, I'll leave your outfit out on the bed for you."
Prolonging the inevitable I took a long shower, hoping Gajeel would forget about this ridiculousness and choose something else to be his 'anything'. But as I got out of the shower and was drying myself off I could hear him singing. Hanging my head I walked out of the bathroom, resigned to my fate. Numb I put on the ridiculous bunny outfit he had made me wear as his reward after the Grand Magic Games and walked towards his awaiting hand.
There were more pictures taken that night, except they weren't for me. Turns out Gajeel had wanted pictures to taken of the two of us in our 'performance attire' to put on the cover of his record he made a week ago but he didn't know how to ask me.
Stupid bunny suit!
Let me know what you think! Please and thank you!