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“Listen. I know that this is rich as hell coming from me, but this is by far the worst decision I’ve ever made and I’ve never regretted anything more, I can tell you that much.”
As if on cue, a bar stool slammed into the back of his head and Cobra let out a very undignified yelp as the force of it drove his face into the counter in front of him. Kinana didn’t try very hard to stifle her laugh. There was a disgruntled noise as Midnight blinked wearily, the sudden movement of the shoulder they’d been using as a pillow waking them up.
“These people are fucking crazy. You’re all crazy. It’s times like these that make me almost want to go back to camping in the woods with Jellal,” the dragon slayer groaned, the new red spot on his forehead becoming more apparent with every second. “And that’s saying something. How you manage to sleep through this shit is beyond me,” he said as he turned to his partner, flicking their forehead.
“Ow,” Midnight grumbled, still not fully awake.
“You’ll get used to it Erik, I promise,” Kinana laughed again, setting down the glass she had been drying. “It’s been a full month since we took you two in, I’m surprised it’s taking this long to adjust.”
“Nobody even gave us a warning that this was… that this was like this,” Cobra sputtered, gesturing towards the guild hall which was currently in shambles and steadily continuing down that path. He watched as some poor mage whose name he hadn’t yet learned got a faceful of someone’s magic and was slammed into the wall unconscious. “It’s a bloody wonder that this guild functions at all. I just don’t understand how you people live like this.”
“You’re the one that decided on Fairy Tail of all places,” Midnight reminded him with a yawn. Cobra huffed as he looked back at them, ruffling their messy hair.
“Well, it always could’ve been worse I guess, we could’ve gotten stuck in a guild with Sol again,” Cobra grinned as Midnight half-heartedly smacked his hand from their hair. “Now that would’ve been hell.”
“ASSHOLE! I HEARD THAT!”
“Ah shit I forgot she’s here visi-” Cobra couldn’t even finish his sentence before he found himself in a chokehold.
“Wanna say that again Erik?” Angel asked sweetly, tightening her grip. The dragon slayer desperately tried to pry her off, choking out apologies. “You’re gonna have to speak up, it’s awfully loud in here.”
“Mid… help…” he managed to choke out, still trying to break from Angel’s iron grip.
Midnight blinked slowly, giving a small shrug. “You asked for it? I’m not sure what you want me to do here,” they said, head resting on their hand. They gave a small smirk at the look of betrayal in Cobra’s eyes, reaching out with their free hand and taking their turn to ruffle the other’s hair. “You’re a big strong dragon slayer you can do it,” they cooed.
Cobra desperately turned his gaze to Kinana who merely gave him a “don’t look at me” expression. After a few more seconds of struggling he wheezed out a proper apology as he lightly hit Angel’s arm to release him. She gave a satisfied huff and he fell forward coughing as she let him go, Midnight giving him some not so sympathetic pats on the back.
“I come all the way from Crocus to visit your ungrateful ass, and this is the thanks I get.” Angel huffed again. “Next time I will make you go out there instead and you’ll have to find some sort of transportation to get there.”
Cobra audibly groaned, still doubled over. “No please anything but that.” Midnight let out a soft laugh and Kinana stifled a giggle. “You all hate me, just leave me here to suffer,” he whined, with his right arm blindly swatting at his partner. “Oh the betrayal. It stings.”
Midnight easily caught the offending hand. “Have we finally learned our lesson about antagonizing Sol?” they asked with a smirk in their tone, pressing a gentle kiss to the knuckles of the hand they’d caught. Cobra muttered something unintelligible, face still hidden but the tips of his ears turning red.
Angel jokingly pretended to gag, making a dramatic show of having to look away. “I never thought you two would be so sappy, not in a million years. How far we’ve fallen.”
“Speaking of sappy why didn’t you bring Iris?” Midnight asked, lowering Cobra’s hand but maintaining their grasp on it. “We still haven’t met her. Were you worried we’d scare her off?” they teased.
“Oh sure nowadays you’re about as menacing as a teddy bear, I’m sure she’d run for the hills,” Angel snarked as she rounded back on them, trying to play off the fact that her face was now also tinted red. Midnight raised an eyebrow at the statement. “And for. Your. Information.” She enunciated each word with a poke to Midnight’s forehead, each punctuated by an ‘ow’ on their part. “She got tied up on this last job so she couldn’t make it back in time,” she sighed, crossing her arms.
Midnight hummed. They’d only heard about Iris briefly the last time they’d spoken with Angel over lacrima, and even that had consisted of a lot of incoherent swooning on her end.
“Must be rough,” Cobra finally piped in, plopping his head onto the counter. “Mid refuses to go anywhere without me,” he said smugly as he grinned at the other. Midnight smiled sweetly back at him before crushing his hand. “Ow ow ow I’m sorry I’m sorry please-“
Angel laughed, finally taking a seat at the bar next to Midnight. “Damn, Erik at this point you’re gonna be left with nobody on your side and half your bones broken,” she joked, folding her arms on the counter and laying her head down on them.
“Mid’s just a sadist,” Cobra groaned, lightly shaking the hand he’d finally retrieved to regain feeling in it.
Midnight tilted their head, another smirk playing at their lips. “You’ve known this. You knew what you were signing up for.” Angel snorted.
“Hey how are Sawyer and Richard? Haven’t heard from them much and I know they stopped through here a few weeks ago,” she said as she tried to conceal her pout.
“Was just Sawyer that popped in, they were on a different continent or some shit like that, I can’t remember where he said they were at,” Cobra replied, and then suddenly laughed. “Oh get this, get this, that Jet guy? He challenged Sawyer. Sawyer! To a race.” He could barely get the words out through his laughter.
Angel let out a low whistle. “Didn’t know they came that stupid.”
“They seem to be doing well enough though,” Midnight said with a small smile. “Sawyer told us a lot about the places they’ve been, their reunion with Richard’s brother, people they’ve met along the way. I’m surprised they’re not sick of it yet.”
“To each their own, ya know?” Angel stated with a smile of her own. “I’m glad to hear they’re out enjoying life, it’s what we all desperately needed.” The other two sat in silent agreement, the small group of them remaining in that comfortable silence for a short while.
The three of them soon lapsed into comfortable small talk as they caught up with each other, Kinana having left shortly beforehand to continue attending to the bar. It had been five months. Five short months, five long months, since the final battle against Acnologia. Since they physically and finally legally, gained their freedom.
Angel had almost immediately left for Sabertooth, and none of them could fault her for that after seeing how happy being reunited with her sister had made her. Shortly after her departure from the group, Hoteye had announced that he would be leaving as well to reunite with his own long lost sibling, and after some deliberation Racer had decided to go with him. “It’ll be great to see the world y’know?”
Midnight and Cobra had stayed with Jellal and Meredy the longest, for a few different reasons. It was easy, it had been very easy being largely unaffiliated with other guilds, and Midnight in particular had a lot of complicated feelings around what they now wanted to do and if they actually wanted to rejoin an official guild. Cobra knew the biggest reason was secretly the guilt they still harbored over everything that happened before under his control, but never pushed the subject and he’d be damned if he left their side again.
It hadn’t been until four months later when by sheer… coincidence? Luck? Maybe fate even, that they had run into Natsu while passing through a small town near Magnolia. Cobra would be the first to admit that during conversation of joining an official guild again Fairy Tail was always at the forefront of his mind; he’d gained a strange sort of bond with them through Kinana and his fellow dragon slayers, so in terms of acceptance he wanted to place his bets with them. It was Midnight that needed convincing, which this chance meeting seemed to do. It really did feel like fate.
Natsu had been out on a small errand with Gray, and the two of them had addressed the whole group of them so warmly that Midnight found themself entirely stunned and frozen in place. They knew it had been easy to overlook their presence before, when all of these guilds were fighting for survival itself, but they never expected when met face to face with the guild they had helped hurt and terrorize that they personally would be met with such acceptance.
Midnight didn’t remember meeting Natsu at any point, but judging by his reaction upon seeing them (“Hey! You’re the one that was always asleep! I demand a rematch!”) they had definitely come into contact during the Nirvana incident. They were still stunned into speechlessness as the two dragon slayers then got into a friendly spat, Gray in the meantime catching up with Jellal and Meredy. The whole scene felt so… normal? And they got the overwhelming sense that maybe, maybe this was always where the two of them were supposed to end up after all.
After a lengthy conversation that following night the decision had been made, and Jellal and Meredy with their knowing smiles seemed to have known before the two of them had even said anything. They said their goodbyes that next morning.
Taking that first step into Fairy Tail’s guild hall had been quite possibly the hardest thing Midnight had ever done, even with Cobra firmly at their side. Erza, having taken over as guildmaster had been the first to greet them, smiling kindly as she caught sight of them.
Midnight couldn’t utter a single word as she had walked over to them, frozen in place and throat completely locked up. This was the one person they had most directly hurt, tortured even, and they had no idea what to say to her at the time. Before they could even manage to push a fervent apology past the stone in their throat and run like hell in the opposite direction, they found themself along with Cobra enveloped in a somewhat painful, but very warm embrace.
“Welcome home,” had been the two simple words she had given to them, and the powerful kindness and acceptance behind them had brought relieved tears to Midnight’s eyes and lifted a weight they hadn’t known they’d been carrying. Cobra would never admit to his own tears that day. They’d found somewhere to call home. Finally. Finally. Together.
It felt like an eternity he passed since then, yet at the same time like it had happened just yesterday. The quickness with which everything had fallen perfectly into place and the rightness of it all was almost terrifying, as if everything had always been leading up to this. It was strange, it was so strange to feel at home after so, so long.
The five of them had found happiness in their own ways, taking back lives that were stolen from them so cruelly. The heavy weights, the chains that bound them for far, far too many years had finally been tossed aside and broken.
My prayer…
To see my brother once more.
They’d been happily reunited in some distant country far from Fiore, continuing to happily travel the world.
To be faster than anyone.
As it turns out, Jet is a very, very sore loser when it comes to contests of speed.
To disappear into the sky like an angel.
With Charle on her back as they flew (after a lot of begging) she was fairly reminiscent of a real angel, right?
To hear the voice of my first friend.
Kinana was always the first to greet the two of them upon entering the guild hall, always accompanied with a warm smile.
To sleep in a quiet place.
Well… Fairy Tail was exactly the opposite of that, but it was something far more important: it was safe , and it was home.
With their own hands, with their own strength they had granted their prayers, even if it was long, long overdue. The future smiled upon them, for the very first time something that felt kind and welcoming and so, so full of hope.
Do fairies have tails?
They had the rest of their lives, the rest of eternity, to embark on that endless adventure.