Lucy collapsed face-first on her bed. That last mission had been rather painful, and she was achy all over from it. All she wanted to do was sleep it off; she'd had a bath and changed into fresh pajamas and was soooo ready to just melt into sleep. Natsu and Gray had both come out of the mission a bit roughed up as well, though most of their injuries were caused by fighting each other. Erza, of course, had taken the least damage to her body.

The door burst open, and before Lucy could even force her tired muscles to lift her off the bed, she heard Gray's voice.

"Oi, Lucy!"

She collapsed back on the bed. Whyyyyyy? I just want to sleeeeeeep! Why do they always just barge into my house?

"Got any noodles made?" he asked, ignoring her as he headed toward the kitchen. He was actually wearing his clothes for once, but bandages were visible all the way up his left arm, and she knew there were more around his opposite shoulder (and thus also his chest), as well as both of his knees.

"Erza separated you and Natsu again, didn't she?" Lucy asked flatly from the bed, her eyebrow beginning to twitch. She heard the fridge door open, and could picture him standing with his head inside, looking around for something to munch on.

"She knew he couldn't handle any more fights with me for a while," he said cheerfully. She could hear his gloating (probably undeserved) from the other room, then the fridge door closed. He probably hadn't found anything of interest, because she heard cabinet doors opening and shutting until she heard the crinkling of a plastic bag. He wandered back into the room with a bag of potato chips already open, crunching away happily.

"Go away," she muttered. Not that she expected him to.

He paused in his walking, but not in his chewing, to actually look at her for the first time.

"You look terrible," he said with his mouth not quite empty.

"Fffshrroo yoooo," she said into the pillow.

He turned and walked back into the kitchen. A moment later, she heard her kettle start to whistle, and a moment after that, she realized Gray was coming toward her again.

She pointedly ignored him until he was right beside her bed, and he placed a steaming cup on the nightstand beside her. The sound it made was what caused her to lift her face from the pillow, and he set his bag of chips beside it and motioned for her to scoot over. When she scowled and 'harumph'-ed and reburied her face in the pillow, he forcibly pushed her body enough to allow himself space to sit beside her.

"How are your injuries?" he asked.

"Fffmm," she said into the pillow.

Gray reached for the hem of her pajama top and gingerly lifted it up her back. When she started to rise up to swat him away, he put one hand on her shoulder to hold her down. His hand, as usual, was cool to the touch, but not uncomfortably cold.

"Damn, that hit you took in the back really bruised deep, didn't it?"

Lucy wanted to cry. Really, all she wanted to do was rest!

He lifted the hem a little higher on her side, just high enough to see her ribs. She could feel the places they were still a bit swollen, because her skin felt tight and hot in those spots.

"You should have done something about these," he told her. "Did you put ice on it when you got home?"

She lifted her face. "Go away," she said again, then returned her face to its previous position.

Then, she felt Gray's weight leave the bed. Just as she was going to sigh in relief, he returned with a thin towel, and she felt the bed dip again. She tried not to growl.

He lifted her shirt again to the same position he had a moment ago and positioned it so that it would stay, then draped the towel over her exposed side and back.

"Whmmphrr ooo dooin?" she asked, still not willing to look up.

"What you should've," he said, though his relaxed voice took out any sense of reprimand the statement may have otherwise carried.

Before her tired brain could think of the words to ask what he meant by that, she felt a stiff, mildly cold weight forming across her lower back on top of the towel.

Gray brought his palm to hover just a couple of inches above the bruises on her back, and a thick layer of ice formed around the shape of her body on top of the towel. As it formed, he moved his hand to spread it to her side, bracing and cooling her worst injuries at the same time.

She hated to admit it, but his ice felt good. Soothing. She finally turned her head to the side so that she could speak.

"I'm going to be too cold to sleep," she whined, just for something to whine about so he'd know she still didn't like people barging into her house and making themselves at home.

"That's why I made you tea," he said proudly. "Hot tea."

She didn't say anything, and the next thing she knew, she was waking up to the feel of a wet room-temperature towel on her back and the sight of a sleeping, mostly-nude teammate draped across her couch.

She felt herself smile in spite of her best efforts.

I'm not 100% sold on this pairing, but I'm warming up to it (haha). (I'm also only on like episode 40, so I don't know what else has happened yet in canon.)

I'm also liking the relationship between Loke and Lucy, and between Gray and Erza. I'm not much of a shipper in general, but...idk. I like sweet moments, and as an introvert, those tend to be one-on-one (or at least in pretty small groups) in my mind. So I'm not so much opposed to pairings in this fandom as I am in some other fandoms, because we actually do see flirting in canon in various directions.

All that to say, I may post different mixes in this collection, if the fancy strikes me. Just FYI.