notes: this is trash, i am garbage. also i am sorry this is like really angry and full of major danger angst.
disclaimer: sorry charlie.
dedication: to all the girls afraid of something most people think is easy, or who are angry about something they can't change.
x
{i promised myself i wouldn't let you complete me}
x
She can count the number of times she's been in love on one hand.
One.
Two.
Two fingers.
Two fucking fingers.
x
The first one ruins her.
He breaks her bleeding, naïve, teenage girl heart and douses her lovely dreams with gasoline. He strikes the match and drops it into her life. He sets them ablaze.
He isn't there when she tries to put the fire out—by herself—tries to salvage anything she possibly can of what she knew to be true. Her life goes up in smoke, and it's suffocating. A wildfire is hard to quell once it's started. It devours everything in its path, and it leaves nothing but devastation behind.
(She wasn't always this way—wasn't always so angry and bitter.)
Her heart has been exposed, it's bleeding out onto the pavement, and she can't stop it. It's raw and aching, a cavity within her chest that won't heal, that won't close. How could she have been so stupid? So fucking naïve? Love, she thinks, as she stands in the middle of the embers and flames destroying her, what a lie.
Liar, liar, I'm going to set you on fire. I'll string you up on a telephone wire.
She's not giving someone else the chance to burn her like that again. She rips her heart off her sleeve and buries it herself.
Cheater, cheater, hopeful heart eater. Had another and didn't love her. What a shame she found out about the other.
Cinderella and all those other fairy tales about true love are fucking stupid, anyway.
x
She rolls the cigarette between her fingers and exhales. The smoke that leaves her lips is hazy stories of the past, memories hidden away in an attempt to forget. She does an awful lot to try and destroy herself, he tells her sometimes. Oh, she knows. It's intentional.
("Those thing will kill you, you know? They'll steal your breath away, right out of your lungs. You won't even see it coming.")
Her smile is predatory, something fierce and something feral. She's a girl with no strings, no fears—no, not afraid of anyone but herself, anything but her own insecurities, of falling in love—and she's on the warpath. She's something, like the sharp edges of just-dropped glass, the sizzle of electricity in the air before a lightning strike. She's carnal, venomous, and she'll eat you alive.
She's a monster girl, all dangerous flutters of her lashes, fishnets and leather jackets, icy blue eyes with a raging storm inside. If you collide with her, you'll go down like the Titanic. Heaven forbid you get caught up in that tragedy, a lost sailor at sea. Her smile screams 'there will be no survivors,' and her kiss is like drowning in freezing water. She's a suicide bomb, the shrapnel in an explosion that embeds itself into your skin. She's a heart attack dressed in black, with long legs and looks to kill.
Juvia is used to guys kissing her just to shut her up. She's asked for it, and of course they comply. But not him. Not fucking Gray Surge with his kind eyes, gentle tone of voice, weird overdressing habit, and his stupid, stupid crush on her.
She breaks the hearts of men like it's her civil duty—she can have anyone she wants, then they become old toys and she tosses them away. One by one down the line—like dominoes, ring around the rosie, they all fall down. She strings them up by their hearts with her pretty pretty laugh and her jaded smiles, bruises them with her poison kiss, and burns them with her words. But.
Not him.
Instead, she pushes Gray Surge away.
Or at least, she tries. He's a persistent bastard with his seven layers and stupid red scarf. He greets her with a bright smile on his face no matter what venomous lies she spits at him, the worst parts of herself that she throws his way, no matter if her bite leaves marks that might never fully heal. He's always around, though. And even when he isn't, he is. Probably because her best friend is the girlfriend to his best friend, so they see each other more often than she'd like.
Lucy was an idiot, falling for that maniac crybaby with an insane need for speed. She's told the blonde this multiple times. Lucy always replies with "fuck off, Juvia." Because he makes her happy, somehow, and maybe that's something she'll never really been able to understand. When is the last time she was truly happy? Juvia can't even remember.
She has a little black book of one night stands, but Gray? He has nothing like that. In fact, he's probably every girl's dream boyfriend—caring, compassionate, gentle, sweet, and what-fucking-ever. But he spends all his time trying to catch her attention, trying to help her no matter how many times she tells him to fuck off, to leave her alone.
Once in a while, she almost gives in. To his soft gaze when he looks at her, to his shy smile. But he can't fix her. He can't sew her back together and make her better. She's worn at the edges, torn and broken. Probably beyond repair.
Juvia leans her head back against the brick wall and looks at the stars. She's always been afraid of pushing him too far, though. He's the kind of guy who breaks easily, and she's done it before. She's watched him fall to pieces in front of her, and maybe in some sadistic way, she liked it. It's never happened with anyone else before, she's the only one who holds that kind of power over him.
But she worries, because she doesn't want to lose him completely. He already seems so far away, despite the fact that he's always hanging around her. She's terrified that one day she might push too far, and he'll be gone. He'll leave her just like everyone else, and Juvia isn't sure if she can handle that. She distances herself, from him, from those feelings that occasionally bubble to the surface. She stomps them out with her stilettos and drowns them in shots and free drinks.
It's never enough—will never be enough.
"I thought I might find you here."
She breathes smoke through her nose and doesn't turn to look at him. This familiar figure, this one constant in her life. He always shows up, whether she wants him to or not.
Gray leans against the wall next to her and looks her over. "It's freezing out, Juvia."
She glances down at her short leather skirt, her ripped stockings, thin blouse, and the leather jacket barely keeping the bite off her arms. Maybe she hadn't even noticed the cold until he appeared, dressed like he was headed to the fucking South Pole.
He heaves a sigh and slips off one of his three jackets before carefully draping it over her shoulders. This is the kind of prince charming she used to dream about when she was younger, and she wonders how different her life would be if she'd fallen in love with him first.
"Do you hate me?" he asks suddenly, looking more than a little surprised that the words actually spilled from his mouth.
Juvia bites down hard on her cigarette and doesn't look at him. "Yes."
No.
Gray swallows and stares at a frozen puddle on the ground. It's snowing tonight—is it still night?—and it sends a shiver down her spine. Or maybe that's just him. He's silent for a few long moments. He doesn't push her, he never does.
"Can you…tell me why?"
His voice is quiet, and it cracks. This is it, she thinks, this is what she's been dreading. She's set the charge, and now the explosion is sure to follow. She's still so damn stupid.
Juvia lets the poison between her teeth fall from her lips, and it sizzles in the snow on the ground. She turns to look at him, and her heart involuntarily jumpstarts. Maybe she does hate him, just a little, for reviving something she'd thought had died a long time ago.
Frankenstein's monster, she thinks sardonically.
"Listen Surge," her tone is a heavy sigh. She's so tired, of lying and running away from everything. From him. "You're annoying, okay. And you should just stay away from me. I'll ruin you."
He looks up at her, the expression on her face, and he doesn't believe her.
Gray Surge never does.
"You won't," he replies, taking a step forward. She takes one back in return. "You haven't."
Juvia shrinks away from him. "But I will. It's so disgusting," she sneers, "you're in love with me, aren't you? For how long, Surge? Dammit, this wasn't supposed to happen."
He stares at her, long and hard, looking the strongest she's ever seen him. "You've known it all along, Juvia. Don't lie. How could you not notice?"
She bites her lip and shakes her head, thinking of a million and one ways this could go wrong. Maybe it already has. Her heart is beating in her chest like the music of the club she'd come out of, and her mascara is running. Great, is she crying?
"I'm not the kind of girl you bring home for Thanksgiving," she shouts, "or to meet your family. I'm a trainwreck, Gray."
He shoves his hands into his pockets. "I guess it's a good thing I don't have anyone waiting at home for me, then."
Juvia scoffs. "You don't give up, do you?"
"Nope, not when it comes to you."
Looking at him, she drinks it all in. His slight smile, his patience with a girl like her. God, she loves him. So she does something she swore she'd never do.
She gives in.
Juvia brushes her hair back and sighs, taking a few steps to stop beside him. She glances at him from the corner of her eye. "Take me home then, loser. I'm cold, and you look like you're about to suffocate."
Gray almost doesn't believe her. But this time, he does.
x
Dozens of boys fall in love with Juvia, but she does not fall back. Until she does.
He could kill her, she knows. He steals the breath right out of her lungs. She didn't even see it coming.
x
{i didn't mean to fall in love tonight}
end notes: i guarantee you ambivia is going to show up and be like, "MARCY YOU WROTE EDO!GRUVIA WHAT." jaykay i love you amenah. don't me mad. and i didn't know how to end this so it sucketh much. sorry.