Author's Note: Hey there! This is just a little one-shot I came up with one night when I was half asleep, and I thought you readers might like it. This takes place right after the Phantom Lord arc, when Gajeel is first accepted into the guild. Hope you enjoy!

Disclaimer: I do not own Fairy Tail. It is the sole property of Hiro Mashima.

Iron Roses

by: SmurfLuvsCookies

Levy still got nightmares.

They began a few days after she got out of the hospital, besieging her slumber nearly every night for two weeks. Levy remembered procrastinating at night, reading, writing, doing something, anything to keep her from falling asleep just so she wouldn't have to endure the contorted, kaleidoscopic images of the attack. Not only did the memories harass her in her waking hours, but they haunted her sleep as well.

Jet and Droy said they sometimes got nightmares too, but Levy knew that their bad dreams, while they might have been frightening, didn't torment them like her's did. The Iron Dragonslayer had taken them down when they tried to protect her. They weren't conscious for most of it. They wouldn't have seen or felt or heard the things she had.

His menacing red eyes were a common occurrence in her dreams, glowing like hot coals of hate and spite. She remembered his sharp, bloody grin, and his deep laugh. It hadn't made sense to her why he was laughing; pain was not funny. It hurt, and she couldn't understand why Gajeel Redfox was laughing while he made her hurt. After her mind was cleared of the fuzzy influence of pain, she knew that it was because he was a sadist; he was evil. He enjoyed others' suffering.

And his big hands, which were so like the hands of Elfman or Gray or Natsu, hands that she associated with safety and warmth; she remembered those. But his hands had caused her agony, something that she knew none of her friends would ever do. Now Levy flinched when someone reached out to her. Levy didn't feel safe anymore.

Gajeel Redfox had broken bones, and he had broken skin, and he broke blood vessels that became bruises the next morning. But Levy's body wasn't the only thing that was broken that night. He'd also broken her heart when he crucified Jet and Droy on the tree like some kind of sacrifice to a cruel deity. He wounded her pride when she was reduced to pleading and begging for him to stop hurting them. He mauled her sense of security when he completely overwhelmed them and Levy was forced to come to the realization that there was nothing she or anyone else could do about it. He shattered the way she viewed the world, for Levy had always been a firm believer in finding the good in anyone. She didn't think that there was any good in Gajeel Redfox.

In summary, the Iron Dragonslayer had broken Levy's spirit.

Her bodily injuries were long healed, but Levy wasn't sure how long it would take for her to reassemble her inner self. She felt tainted now more than ever, when all she wanted was to be wholesome again.

And just when the healing process was underway, just when Levy was starting to feel well again, Makarov let him in.

Levy knew the Master meant well. He'd explained all of his reasons to the guild, and they were perfectly acceptable ones. In fact, Levy agreed with him on a logical level. But that didn't stop the cold dread that filled her bones, or the booming fear that roared in her ears when she saw him sitting in the guild. Her guild, with her friends, in her world. This all belonged to her, and even though Levy wasn't a selfish person, she did not want to share this with Gajeel Redfox. She did not want him encroaching upon her territory, because she did not want him to hurt her again.

Levy laid in her bed thinking about all this, recovering from a nightmare of anguish and scarlet eyes and bloodied hands. She silently hoped that none of the others had heard her screaming. It would not do to appear weak now. Levy was tired, so tired, of being small and weak. It was time for her to get stronger.

Repeating this thought in her head over and over, shutting out the echoes of chilling laughter that lingered in her mind, Levy closed her eyes and went to sleep.

Levy shuddered at the cold touch of his fingers on her stomach, feeling exposed and violated and utterly humiliated as he carefully traced Phantom Lord's insignia on her skin. The paint gave off a metallic scent like blood...or was that actually blood? Levy couldn't tell. The world tipped and swirled around her, blinking in and out of focus.

"There," he growled, the very sound of his voice sending shivers down her spine "You're all done. You should be fuckin' proud to wear this sign. Fairy trash like you ain't worthy of it." Levy flinched as he leaned in closer. He had a peculiar aroma, almost like the way cold smelled in winter. It wasn't an unpleasant scent, but that didn't seem right to Levy. Weren't bad people supposed to smell bad?

She quaked when he cupped her chin in his hand, a gesture that would have been gentle and intimate in any other situation. Levy felt a tear run down her cheek as he turned her head, forcing her to look at him. He wasn't ugly. He was intimidating, certainly, but he wasn't ugly. She gazed into his bloodred eyes, two bright rubies in the night, filled with loathing and contempt. Yes, those eyes were ugly.

"You scared, shorty?" he asked her in a whisper.

Levy didn't answer. Gajeel tipped his head back and laughed and laughed and laughed, like she had just told a very funny joke. Then he grinned at her with a savage joy that reminded her of a wolf.

"You should be."

Levy awoke with a violent gasp, bolting out of bed with wild eyes. Her heart pounded in her chest with the power of a drum. Her knees were like jelly; they buckled, and pain shot up her legs when she landed on the hard floor. She wrapped her arms around herself, curling up into a ball. Tentatively she reached down and slipped her fingers under her shirt, feeling the smooth skin of her belly. The Phantom Lord mark was long gone, but it had taken days of vicious scrubbing in the shower to rid of it. Then she had to endure the turgid red sore where she'd removed the first layer of skin trying to get it off.

Levy almost screamed when she heard a sound at her door, but she caught herself and managed to cut it off at the small shriek prey makes when it knows it's been cornered by a predator. It's probably just one of the girls, she thought, but that didn't stop the flow of blood that roared in her ears, or the rapid thump-thump, thump-thump of her heart. Quietly she crawled over to the door and stood up before it, undoing her newly acquired locks and taking a deep breath before she opened the door.

No one was outside the dark corridor, but she did notice something at the foot of her door. Curiously she leaned down to inspect it, squinting in the limited light that the moon provided from the windows.

It was a bouquet of roses, each one pristine and beautiful. Levy blinked, then smiled. The bouquet perfect, exactly the gesture of kindness she needed right then. She brushed her finger along the soft petal of a blossom, and her blood ran cold.

Each and every rose was made of iron.

Levy recoiled as if she'd just been electrocuted. There was only one person who had this degree of command over such an element. She sank to the ground and stared at them, emotions crashing within her like a tropical storm.

Gajeel Redfox had been here. Here, in Fairy Hills, just outside her door. Outside her home. The very notion paralyzed her with fear. She half expected him to slither out of the shadows and laugh while he struck her again. Panic clawed up her throat and threatened to evolve into a scream of utter terror, but she swallowed it down. Her hands shook, so she balled them into fists.

Flowers. Gajeel Redfox didn't need flowers to scare her. Levy didn't think he was discreet enough for that anyway; he seemed more straightforward with his wrath. And flowers were usually a good thing, a gift, a present.

An...apology?

Levy wasn't sure. Carefully she ran her finger along a petal, and she marveled at the smooth the surface of the iron, at the elegant craftsmanship. It would have taken anyone, even the Iron Dragonslayer, a good deal of time to accomplish this. Not the kind of dedication that simple sadism would warrant. Besides, Levy didn't sense any hostility from the iron roses. In fact, the bouquet was one of the most beautiful things she'd ever seen.

Somewhere deep inside of her, Levy felt a part of her broken self fit back together.

She smiled tenderly as she caressed the sparkling rose. It only made sense that the hands which had dismantled her to begin with would also be the ones to handle her repairs. Hands that didn't seem so menacing now that she saw they were just as capable of beautiful creations as they were of painful destruction.

Levy took the roses inside and placed them on the kitchen counter, far away from her bed but, yes, still in her home. Then she crawled back under the blankets and stared up at the ceiling, hugging a pillow to her chest and willing herself to relax. As her eyelids drooped, heavy from fatigue, she thought to herself, Maybe there's some good in Gajeel after all.

And she fell into a dreamless sleep.