Chapter Text
If Gray had been paying attention, he would have said it all started just a few days before New Years when Juvia asked him to travel with her for the holiday. If he could defend himself in this instance, he would say that he still gets a knee-jerk reaction whenever Juvia starts “fluttering.”
Fluttering, in Juvia’s case, meant declaring her love and proposing increasingly ridiculous ideas in order to convince them to start dating. Spinning, hand flapping, that sing-song voice she got whenever she imagined some insane fantasy of the both of them. She seemed particularly excited about this idea.
“A temple for lovers,” Juvia sighed, snuggling closer into his chest. It didn’t matter how many times she did this, he never knew where to put his arms. “Just Gray-sama and Juvia, welcoming in the New Year.”
“I already made plans,” Gray said, gently prying her arms off of him. Or trying to.
Immediately, she lifted her face, that blissful smile disappearing into pout. “But Juvia already bought tickets!” she insisted. She fluttered a bit, hands waving at her sides to keep calm. “If Gray-sama wanted to do something else--”
“I’m making a trip with Lyon,” he told her, already regretting giving her ammunition for a tantrum.
True to form, Juvia squawked, fists balling tight at her diaphragm. “Juvia will go too! She won’t let--”
“ Enough .” He didn’t want to explain that they were putting up a memorial for Ur in her hometown. Juvia always got... weird whenever his past was brought up. Not in a bad way, just--small and quiet, like she was walking on eggshells around him. Juvia going on a tantrum could be frustrating, but it was manageable because it was familiar. Gray didn’t know what to do with a Juvia that seemed almost afraid of him.
But as he lifted his eyes to hers, he realized she was carefully watching his face. Shit.
“...Sorry,” he muttered, eyes going to a point just to the right of her.
“It’s okay, Gray-sama. Juvia will wait for you,” she said gently, which only made him feel worse.
“No, its--” He sighed again, dragging a hand down his face. “You don’t have to wait for me if you had plans too.”
Juvia peered up at him with those large dark eyes, head tilting like a small puppy’s. “But it’s a temple for lovers.”
Oh. Right.
“We aren’t lovers anyway,” Gray says before he can stop himself. He watches as something behind Juvia’s eyes fade, the rest of her face dropping slowly as she processes those words. Behind him, he can hear Lucy suck in air through her teeth, the way she does when Natsu or Happy say something stupid to a client and she can’t think of a way to do damage control.
“Right,” Juvia says after a moment. She takes a step back, putting a distance between them that feels… uncomfortable. She smiles at him but he knows from the way it doesn’t reach her eyes that she’s hurt. “Juvia will go anyway. She hopes Gray-sama has a good time Lyon-kun.”
Watching her retreat from the guild hall leaves a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach. Usually that was the part where she’d kick off into a fit of pouting and whining in an attempt to at least get him to comfort her. She knew if she cried, she’d at least get some form of his attention.
This time it was nothing more than a weak smile and strangely reasonable farewell.
“Penalty!”
He turns to see Happy on the table with Natsu and Lucy seated across from each other. Happy has his arm crossed in an X, trying to approximate his face in what would probably be a grimace. Natsu is straddling the bench, eyes darting from where Juvia is leaving through the entrance and Gray before him. Lucy is the only one not looking at him, face pressed into the palms of her hands in the universal sign of grief and exasperation.
“ Penalty! ” Happy shouts again, raising his crossed arms to better show Gray.
Natsu jolts back from the shock of watching Juvia be level-headed over a rejection. “Yeah, penalty, ice cream cone!” He smugly crosses his arms in mimicry with Happy. “Penalty!”
“Penalty!”
“Penalty!”
“Penalty!”
“Penal--”
“ Quit it! ” Lucy screeches, fists slamming on the table top.
Happy and Natsu go into the routine of “ Lucy scary! ”, but Lucy’s glare shifts easily from them and onto him.
“At least tell me you know that was the wrong thing to say,” she demands. “And put your pants on.”
Shit. He fumbles with clothes, stalling for time. Whatever he’s going to say is probably the wrong thing and it won’t matter if he doesn’t know why.
“We’re not though. We’re not even dating,” he says. It’s the truth, but for whatever reason Lucy keeps glaring at him.
“No,” she says slowly, fingers tapping on the tabletop. Natsu and Happy have gone deathly quiet. “You haven’t.”
There’s something in the way she says it, with that look on her face that makes a cold feeling of dread tingle down him. Like she knows something. Like she--but she wouldn’t know. Couldn’t she?
In a loud guild hall her glassy pink fingernails tap out a cascade that booms in his ear drums. He suddenly feels hot all over and the sweat makes him feel clammy.
“Put your pants back on.”
“Shit!” He had his thumb hooked on the elastic of his briefs.
This time he intentionally fumbles a bit, stalling to put all of his clothes back on, or at least the pieces that are at his feet currently . Maybe if Juvia isn’t too upset with him, she’ll find the others and bring it back to him. If there’s one thing that unites him and Lucy, it’s that they both spend a major portion of their money replacing clothes.
When he looks back up, no longer with the excuse of redressing himself, Lucy’s still watching him.
He puts his hands on his hips, immediately feels stupid and tries to keep them at his side.
“Well, we’re not.” He eventually answers her earlier question.
Lucy looks thoroughly unimpressed, but this time at least she turns her face away from him and back to her book.
Gray lets out a breath he’d been holding (as do Natsu and Happy) and just as he’s about to turn away Lucy’s voice calls out to him.
“Is it really something unavoidable? You can’t put it off or let Juvia come?” She still isn’t looking at him, but he feels like he’s being tested. Like she’s waiting for the correct answer only she knows about.
“Yeah.” He feels angry. He tries to attach that anger to Lucy who’s giving him the third degree but it doesn’t feel right. Natsu’s an idiot and Happy goes along with it but they’re too quiet in this. He feels hot all over, starting from his shoulder and working down. (He checks that he’s still wearing clothes.)
“Well.” Lucy’s staring so intensely at her book that he’s worried for a moment it might catch fire. “Have fun then.”
She pulls the book up to her face, which has gone pointedly disinterested.
A dismissal.
He clicks his tongue, feeling funnier, and retreats like Juvia.
The walk home doesn’t calm him down. The anger stews in his chest, spreading up his neck, across his shoulders.
We’re not even dating.
The heat of his anger lodges itself in his throat and sticks there like a hard stone. The image of Juvia’s face falling replays in his mind. Dark eyes in an upturned face. The memory changes, the same dark eyes looking up at him, collapsed on the street, too drunk to stand but hanging onto his every word.
You’re my responsibility, right?
A poor answer for what he promised.
I’ll give you an answer when this is all over .
Acnologia, END, and Zeref all defeated but in the fallout it’s hard to say when it’s over with, what with having to live with all the pieces that need to be picked up and assembled back together. Replacements found for what was lost. Deciding what was worth rebuilding. Progress seemed so slow but it’s over a year now and he’s ashamed to admit that he hasn’t actually done a whole lot of serious thinking about it..
Which isn’t to say he hasn’t had any thought at all. Maybe not directly. Ur had pointed out to him once that his instincts were good because he could use scraps of info to complete a bigger picture before he even knew there was a bigger picture to consider. It’s what made his detail work so good, even if it meant that he’d occasionally get hung up on said details.
He thinks of Juvia in pieces. The way her hair shifts when she tilts her head. Talking with her hands. The way things felt when she smiled. Her hands clenched together, trying to stay still when she’s upset. Large dark eyes, taking everything in.
“You try to play it cool,” Ur had told him. “But you’re just as obsessive as I am about things. Once you commit to something, you produce great things. But you’ve got to stop nitpicking at the flaws you expect to find before you even do something.”
Make a decision and commit to it. Easy to do with magic, harder with something as tenuous as a relationship. How do you even start one with someone you’ve known for years, someone who has been... particularly open about possible life plans she wants to live out, each one more outlandish than the last? Past experience has shown that even the smallest bit of affection is blown out of proportion: a compliment on her mechanical form is a wedding vow, her cooking transformed into what she’ll teach their sixty something grandkids, food he shares with her becomes souvenirs.
(Gray will admit, though, that living with her tamed a few of those domestic bliss fantasies. She still rejoiced whenever they did things together during that time, suddenly able to live a reality she always envisioned, even if it wasn’t as wondrous as she made it out to be. Even more begrudgingly he’ll admit that he too enjoyed living together with her. Errands became small adventures with her imagination tagging along and it was hard to be irritable in contrast with her glowing cheer.)
He wants to start at the beginning, where normal people usually start. It’s stupid, but he still thinks about how his parents would recount how they met and fell in love. Romance has always made him feel awkward. As a kid he’d moan and gnash his teeth whenever he heard his father’s voice start with “And to think you wouldn’t be here if your mother hadn’t punched me in the face.”
“I didn’t punch you in the face,” his mother would say.
“Broke my nose anyway.” And the way he said it, eyes shining like he could still see her since the first time, Gray never once doubted that love was real. The experience left him knowing that the standards and the stakes were high for something like that. It took years for his parents to get married, his mother had told him once. A lot of work that made all of it worth it.
“Forever’s a long time. You can’t take shortcuts.” His mother would’ve gotten along great with Ur.
If he says he wants a relationship with Juvia, she’ll buy a wedding venue if she hasn’t already. Gray knows now that her feelings aren’t as shallow as he used to think them. They’re intense and loud, and as much as he might be mortified with how she chooses to express them with, they’ve also been as steadfast and genuine. She’s known what she’s wanted since the beginning and Gray has been playing catch up this entire time. The first time he noticed that he cared for her in a way that was undeniably more than that of a fellow guildmate was followed by an intense few weeks of self-denial and rationalizations. The rollercoaster of emotions that happened whenever they were together was agony for someone as emotionally constipated as him; the strangeness of a deeper feeling of comfort in one person, the initial panic of realizing who it was, and the ensuing guilt and turmoil of his own personal baggage colliding into it all.
Gray just needs to figure out how to broach this without sending her off on another flight of fancy. No shortcuts for what he is currently considering as his own personal ethics as well as for her benefit.
Yeah right, you coward . He reached behind him for a pillow to smother himself with. Behind his eyes, he could still see the fragile look Juvia had before she pretended his coldness didn’t bother her. Only one of us needs to get their shit together and it’s not her.
*
Lyon and Gray raise Ur’s memorial without incident. A speech is given by them both followed by members of the nearby towns that still remembered her and the history that she took part in, of her impact on magical lore and practices. Gray even manages to stay in most of his clothes, if only because Lyon makes sure to keep elbowing him every time he went to peel something off.
It’s only afterwards once all their self-imposed responsibilities are over and they’re sitting at a bar that Ur had always steered them away from that Lyon decides now’s a good time to break the peace.
“I expected Juvia to be with you for this.” Whatever look Lyon’s giving him ruins whatever contented, lightly buzzed feeling Gray had going.
He counts to ten in his head because fighting in the guild hall is one thing and getting kicked out of a bar stopped being brag-worthy when it got him banned from every drinking establishment in Magnolia for a year. He tells himself that Lyon’s all he has of his time with Ur and he shouldn’t throw that away just yet.
“Meredy wanted to go because she thought Juvia would come, but was already asked to attend to something she couldn’t say no to. Told me to say hello for her.”
“Thought you said you were over Juvia,” is all Gray says before putting the beer bottle to his lips so he doesn’t say something else that’ll start a fight.
Lyon’s gives him a withering look. “You’re not listening.”
“Sure I am.”
When Gray doesn’t offer anything more, Lyon starts again in that tone Gray remembers as him being shit-head little know-it-all. “Firstly, to get it out of the way, I never said I was over Juvia.”
It shouldn’t piss him off, but it does. He stares at the rings of condensation leftover by the beer bottle, the stains of older rings eating through the wood of the bar counter.
Lyon, self-absorbed as always, either doesn’t notice the building anger or doesn’t care enough to stop himself. “All I said was that I’d stop pursuing her since she’s made her feelings for you clear. Which brings us back to why I thought she’d be here for this.”
Nope. Gray leans back, starting to look for an exit to this conversation, but Lyon grabs him by the shoulder to pull him closer.
“In deference to her, I’ve given you a lot of leeway. My experience with you has also been a benefit here.”
“The hell is that supposed to mean?” Gray spits, turning an eye on him.
Lyon looks unimpressed. “That you become so obsessed with doing what you think is the right thing that you don’t consider how others or even yourself is thinking or feeling.”
Gray imagines shoving his elbow in his dumb face for a good satisfying second before reminding himself they’re both renting rooms at the same hotel and it won’t be as satisfying walking away from a fight just to walk next to the guy you decked for the next several blocks.
“I don’t want a lecture from you,” he says, finally.
Strangely, Lyon lets him go with a shrug. “Alright,” he says before turning back to his own drink.
The Fairy Tail mage gapes at him. “Alright?”
There it is, that smug looking grin of someone who thinks he’s won something. “Yes, Gray. No lecture for you. If you don’t want perfectly reasonable advice then there’s really nothing left to do but wait for whatever it is you’re planning to do.”
Gray stares at him for a moment more. Everything screams trap here. A few minutes pass, with Lyon calmly sipping at his ale, shoulders relaxed as the room continues around them.
The next time Lyon takes a sip, Gray asks, “Who are you and what have you done with Lyon?”
Gratifyingly, Lyon chokes. “I’m serious,” he chokes. He grunts around a cough. “I can accept you’re a lost cause when it comes to something as dire as feelings .”
“Asshole. Just say what you want, it’s never stopped you before.”
Lyon hums, pretending to consider it seriously, while Gray flags down the bartender for more drinks.
“Whatever I say, you’re just going to be dramatic about it. Which is the problem, really.”
“ Excuse me?”
The other mage levels him a look. “Lost Iced Shell. Word gets around when they start telling legends about that day.”
Gray is spared from having to come up with a response to that by the arrival of new drinks.
“You see a problem and go with the first solution you can think of, determined to pull it off. Everything else fades away. No second guessing yourself or you’ll realize how utterly stupid said plan is. Or maybe it’s because you have perpetual blinders on to other people’s feelings, as well as your own, that you’re even capable going through with said plans.”
“I know how she feels about me.”
The white haired mage rolls his eyes. “Oh, good. Here I am, so relieved to find out you aren’t that hopeless. I also won’t waste my time asking how you feel about her if just to keep you from running out the front door in terror. I just want to let you know that sometimes…” Lyon picks a piece of invisible lint from his cuffs in practiced nonchalance. “You pick the wrong move to make in situations like this.”
“I know what I’m doing,” Gray grits out.
“Sure you do.” Lyon’s smile is all condescension. “That’s why I got a sim call from Juvia telling me to keep my hands off you before I left.”
Gray pauses over that piece of info. Seems like normal Juvia behavior. Maybe she really did bounce back after their--fight? If that’s what you could call it. He’s watched her hiss at Lucy for getting “too intimate” with him while in the same breath invite her over to her dorm for a sleepover.
“Why does she insist we’re love rivals?” Lyon murmured into his glass.
“Because she knows you’re important to me,” Gray answers, watching Lyon splutter ale all over the counter again.
The red of his face reaches to the tips of his ears as Lyon shoots an unhappy look at him. “Well,” he coughs. “Well, that’s--Well.” He averts his gaze to wiping away the mess in front of him.
“Guess I’m not as hopeless as you think I am.”
“Only just,” his brother replies, likely just to get the last word in.
*
The trip back to Fairy Tail is uneventful. It reminds Gray that the only advantage to traveling alone is that it gets done faster, if only because he has the option of not being restricted by a dragon mage’s delicate condition. Other than that, traveling like this is boring, no one to talk to with only stiff muscles from the suffering of it.
It’s because of that that he decides to head directly from the train station to the guild hall just to remind himself what being around people is like. Nothing like the endless cacophony of cheering guildmates and all out brawls to remind him he’s home.
“Too bad about this weather,” he thinks aloud. Overhead, dark clouds block out the sky, an ominous omen of what looks to be a pretty powerful thunderstorm.
Despite the threat of rain, outside the guildhall is… a weird guy. Gray isn’t sure how to describe him other than the vibe he gets. In all honesty, he’s sure that Lucy would probably call him Princely type, with a cool guy’s looking face. (Gray squints. Or maybe it’s just a pretty boy? It all feels arbitrary, but Lucy can get weirdly insistent on these things.) There’s a stylized X peeking out from under blue bangs, which he keeps playing with in what seems to be an attempt to hide as much of his face as possible. That’s the thing that gets to Gray the most; a guy trying to hide behind his massive cloak, trying to hide in plain view outside the guild doors.
And doing a poor job of it, Gray thinks as he watches the guy flinch at the sound of thunder overhead.
“Can I help you?” Gray calls over.
The man looks shocked at being addressed but recovers quickly. “Oh, uh--no, it’s alright. I’m here at Erza’s discretion,” he answers easily enough, but when he smiles it looks sickly. “ I just felt...that it would be best to wait out here for her.” He wiggles his fingers, as if that explains anything.
“You can always wait inside,” Gray says. “Looks like it’s about to rain.”
A weird look crosses the man’s face and Gray would almost call it guilty. “And just this morning it had been sunny.” The man cracks lamely. He doesn’t attempt to go inside.
Neither does Gray.
“You sure Erza knows your here? I could go get her for you if you want.”
The man shakes his head vehemently. “No, no, no. I mean, yes , she knows I’m here but, uh, no, I think it would be best for me to wait outside. Don’t let me keep you out in this weather.” Another growl of thunder punctuates the statement.
“At least let me get your name,” Gray insists, keeping up the facade of nonchalance. He holds out his hand. “Mine’s Gray Fullbuster.”
This time he clocks the look of mild panic that crosses the man’s face, eyes twitching between his face and the outstretched hand. A beat passes before he seems to steel himself with a deep inhale, slowly reaching out to take the hand for himself.
“Bora,” the man says finally. “You can call me Bora.”
Gray doesn’t immediately let go, keeping the hand in a firm grip. The name seems familiar. The face isn’t.
To his credit, Bora doesn’t back down from Gray’s glare. “We haven’t met,” Bora tells him firmly, as if he can read the suspicious look for what it is.
“If you say so.” He lets go and feels some satisfaction in the way he spots Bora clenching his fist to get the stiffness out.
Gray pushes opens the doors without anymore delay. Bora doesn’t seem immediately dangerous, but Gray can now feel a strange vibration in the air, or maybe his gut, that something’s about to go wrong. Maybe not guild-destroying wrong, but not exactly something he’s ready to ignore.
He scans the packed crowd of the guildhall, a normal sight for rainy days like this, searching for that distinctive shade of red. He doesn’t get very far when a hand reaches up from the din to grab at his elbow and he’s being pulled down to half his height.
“Gray,” Cana says right into his ear, warm and stinking of ale. “Prepare your ass and head to the backroom.”
“What’s happening?” he asks. Does it have to do with Bora, he wants to say.
But Cana just grins lecherously at him, eyes glinting darkly. “Seems Juvia is need of rescuing by her brave white knight. Get on it!”
She sends him on his way with a slap to the ass that has enough force to propel him forward.
“And don’t screw it up!” she cackles as he flips her off. It just makes her laugh harder, and she tosses back his shirt to him in retaliation.
But Gray doesn’t want to see Juvia yet, so he hits up the bar proper to ask Mira.
“She’s in the backroom with the Master. But I’m not sure--”
“Do you know the guy out front? Bora? He says he’s here for Erza but won’t come inside.”
A strange smile skirts it's way up Mira’s face. “Oh I don’t blame him. Did you know he’s Juvia’s ex, Gray? I’m starting to think Juvia has a type.”
What.
“What?”
“I said I think she has a type,” Mira chirps, and the glint in her eye is similar to the one Cana.
“No, I mean—” Gray’s head whips around as if Bora would be standing there at the entrance now. “Her ex?”
“Yes.”
It feels like he’s missed a step while going down a flight of stairs.
“Like an ex-boyfriend.”
“That’s right,” Mira says with no small amount of smug satisfaction.
“Oh,” is all he can really say to that.
Her ex-boyfriend, Bora. Is that why the name was familiar? He feels like he would have remembered something that earth shattering.
Unless Juvia told him while he had been tuning her out, Gray thinks with a wince. He’s gotten into the habit of doing that when she gets fluttery.
But would it make sense for her to do that? Bring up another guy like that? Juvia has blinders on when it comes to him in any other situation so why would—
His mind replays the conversation he and Bora had outside. The refusal to come in. The guilty, skulking way he had lurked just outside the entrance. The way he seemed to know Gray by name alone.
The realization makes him laugh out loud. Juvia must have broken up with him! And it must have been something too if he’s still wincing over it after all these years.
“Poor guy,” he says finally, grinning at a wary looking Mira.
The barmaid’s eyebrows shoot up. “Poor him ?”
Gray laughs again, relief rushing through him. “I guess you’re right. I mean how badly do you mess up that Juvia puts her foot down?”
That’s...actually a good question. The thought sobers him instantly.
“Is she here? Have you seen her?”
Mira points back to the Master’s office, eyebrows furrowed in deep concern. “With Erza and the others, but—”
“Thanks,” he says automatically, already moving towards the office. He hears Mira call out to him, but whatever it is, it can wait.
Gray knows he’s going to want front row seats to this mess.
-
Approaching the Master’s office, the voices inside are just as loud as the guild itself. He tilts his ear, picking apart the voices: Lucy’s angry yelling is familiar, and he’s only somewhat surprised to hear Gajeel’s rumbling running alongside it. Somewhere in there, he can hear the voices of Erza and the Master using their Reasonable voices.
He can’t hear Juvia, however.
As he’s reaching for the door handle, however, it swings open and staring up at him with large dark eyes is Juvia.
Gray recovers his outstretched hand up into a wave. “Hey--”
The door slams closed in his face.
Gray only has a moment to contemplate the door before he can hear Juvia’s muffled screams coming through it.
When the door opens once more, it’s Lucy’s pained expression looking up at him.
“Hi, Gray. Would you like to come inside?”