Gray's hand lurched out and tore the assignment notice from the board, seconds before Natsu's grubby little fingers could. He took full advantage of their height disparity, holding the sheet high in the air as he stumbled out from the crowd teeming at the mission wall. He straightened the sheet out in his hands, satisfied, more so as Natsu bristled behind him—like it mattered; Gray had seen the job first. And there was also the pressing matter of upcoming rent dues, which he'd neglected to take care of for reasons.
The mission was called in by one of Fairy Tail's regular clients, one of those less corrupt merchant guilds to the southlands, situated deep in the forests a ways away from Magnolia. They found themselves beset by thieves and bandits on a bimonthly freaking basis, but the outlaws were always too easily shunted by one or two mages, a real curbstomping battle. It was a two-day mission tops, and best of all, it promised way more cash this time around than any other. A windfall, on Gray's part. He was rearing to kick some shoddy criminal ass, anyway. Solo-style.
But then, Juvia.
"Juvia!" he shouted, and didn't have to say another word—she sent a whole goddamn wave of river water barreling towards his way, and it was too easy to freeze it whole as it swept up the bandits between them in its flow. He'd only gotten the chance to batter a few of them, bust up some trees. Maybe it could be considered a win for Fairy Tail, he supposed, to have gotten this far without lasting and costly property destruction. It sure as hell wasn't as satisfying, though.
From here, they just had to interrogate one of the unlucky bastards caught in the ice—hopefully before they succumbed to hypothermia—in order to locate the group's base of operations.
They'd probably fit some property damage in there, if the leader wouldn't come quietly. They typically did; bands of roaming criminals like this had zero ties, and zero magic with which to defend themselves from Fairy Tail mages. Gray surveyed his work as Juvia came trouncing to his side, dripping wet from splashing in the river.
"That was easy," Gray said, hands on his hips. So easy, in fact, that the urge to toss off his shirt hadn't even occurred to him once. Juvia smiled indulgently and searched their quarry of captives, numbered at about ten, for someone still sensible enough to filch information from. By her calculation, if she and Gray finished the job quickly enough, they could collect their reward and be walking back to Magnolia in time to watch a lovely sunset together.
She glanced heavenward, happy at the thought. The dark clouds were discouraging—she frowned, miffed by the possible loss of her nice plans—
And then she heard rustling. Juvia swerved on her heels, an inch ahead of Gray, as a loose thief ducked out of one of the bushes and started running for the hills, cape billowing behind him. He was fast, but Gray and Juvia were both thinking the same thing: He was just going to lead them back to the thieves' guild grounds.
Juvia glanced at Gray for confirmation, pleased when he nodded at her with a smile, and so it was that they gave chase to the last standing rogue, both of them having a splendid time of it. The course was uphill and steep, but that didn't seem to deter either of them.
It occurred to Juvia that Gray was actually racing with her, so she sped up. The thief was still in their sights, far enough away that he thought perhaps he could actually escape. That wasn't a possibility, though. Gray was pulling ahead, and Juvia could have laughed at the wonderful look on his face and let him win this silly game just so he'd keep it, and she thought about her lonely, dreary missions that were always all business, and she considered the idea of—maybe, finally—asking Gray to take their partnership to a solidity to match that of Natsu and Lucy's, because if they could do it, she and Gray certainly could, if he wouldn't mind, maybe, possibly, but if he actually said yes, oh, oh, oh, she'd just— she'd—
Gray fell. On his face. Hard.
Juvia skidded to a stop, regardless of their target making his getaway, and jerked down to look at him as he shuddered from the surprise impact. "What the hell," she heard him grind out, and she trailed down from his back to his knees to his ankle, which was gripped by a hand sticking out from the bush. Juvia remained calm, trying to figure that out, and in that split second she saw Gray freeze the hand holding him down. In that split second, she was also stabbed in the back.
She felt the familiar sensation of the blade driving through her, gliding through her, but never quite hitting, as no one could cut through water. She slipped a glare over her shoulder—how dare this person disrupt her as she fretted for her loved one after such a nasty fall—but she saw that their numbers had increased. She felt no disquiet over that; she merely twisted her body up and up and up, a small cyclone, and rammed into them like she always did.
They didn't see that coming. The looks on their faces when they watched her body become water were also familiar ones. Yes, Juvia was well aware that she was far outside the realm of normalcy, and in a slot reserved for the terrifying, cold and inhuman.
On a mission, she supposed she could fulfill all three of those requirements. Gray-sama expected her to—and far below her, he was flinging men left and right, breaking the ground with shoots of ice, slinging swords and lances. She could have settled for watching him for hours, he was so cute when he was unleashing devastation on the lawless. He hadn't taken his clothes off yet, but…
Juvia turned her head, seeking out some hopeful proof that they hadn't been led to a pointless ambush but to the last defenses of a desperate thieves' guild. But at the end of the clearing, there was just a towering wall of rocks, crumbling and shaking slightly because of the ruckus Juvia could feel her partner making down there. She eyed the rocks, edging closer to it in her cyclone form, surprised when she saw two hooded figures emerge at the head of the rubble. The first was unmistakably the quick little runt that had surprised and outrun them.
The second pulled her hood down, and Juvia reverted to her normal form so as to catch Gray's attention. He looked up as she pointed—"Gray-sama! A woman!"
"I thought I told you it didn't matter if it was a man or a woman, Juvia, I'd still hand their asses to—"
The woman in question had been making a gesture of searching, hand situated at her forehead, and Juvia saw her eyes fall on her partner. "Yoo-hoo! Hello!" she called out, distant and loud and disarmingly friendly, which stumped both of the Fairy Tail mages a tad. She shook her hand a bit as she waved, some overplayed caricature of a courtly lady.
"You wouldn't happen to be Salamander, would you?"
Juvia watched Gray crack a scowl. She sighed—his joyous expression from beforehand had been so lovely, she wanted to frame it and hang it up in her room. Why'd this lady have to go and make him frown like that? She felt feelings of displeasure already. Her Gray-sama was worlds away from Natsu Dragneel.
"Do I look like a hotheaded destructive moron to you, huh?" Gray shouted back, stomping his foot into the dirt. The hooded woman, quizzical, peered down at the wreckage of his wake: shards of ice sticking up in unimaginable places, patches of muddied or frozen earth, felled trees and shredded brush, not to mention the multitude of bodies—beaten senseless, of course, not killed. Juvia felt a sense of pride at the sight, as if they'd already won.
"Well, Salamander has ridiculous pink hair!" he supplemented, as he had obviously not made his point.
"I see!" The woman turned to her companion at the top of the rocks, and Juvia heard Gray shift from foot to foot in annoyance. "What a waste of a plan," the woman said, when she'd turned back to them.
Juvia contracted her brow. "Plan?"
"My magic works better in high elevation! So I'm sorry, but I'll have to pay you back in full for all those horrid things you did!" Her words echoed in the clearing, in the wet air.
So it was a lure, after all. More disappointing was the fact that it wasn't entirely a band of magicless thieves, after all. Gray would have to be more careful, which she could see him register on his face, eyes narrowed and stance unmistakably defensive. Yes, right. They were Fairy Tail mages, and this would be no issue at all.
That moment of breezy confidence was shattered, though, just as soon as Gray's first ice shield exploded after instantaneous contact with a magic too fast to be seen as anything other than a flash. She didn't take the time to gawk. She felt urgency surge through her veins, even as her veins lost form and became water.
Juvia was already rising, amassing her element, climbing and climbing to choke this woman before she could hurt Gray, because if Gray could not protect himself, then surely, Juvia, Juvia could—
Water whirling as her feet, Juvia was three-quarters to the top when she heard him. First, some muttered word, then, frantic yelling:
"Juvia! Juvia, lightning!"
"Let Juvia accompany you," she'd requested, with steeled resolve and interlaced hands hanging in front of her dress. "Please."
He'd considered this for ten seconds. The situation tended to change when it was just the two of them, but Juvia had never fell short of excellent on any of their missions—this would be their third. He was in the midst of this thought and halfway to sure, I guess when she turned her doe eyes at him, assuming he needed extra persuasion.
"It's not just that I would like to go with Gray-sama this time," she remarked, tucking a strand of hair away behind her ear, "although it is probably sixty percent that. Juvia also really needs a job. For rent."
She'd jabbed her dainty finger at the reward listed in a way that Gray thought was pretty forward, and he'd paused, peering at the ground (indifferently noticing his pants were not on at the moment.) It wasn't like he could say no to her—ignoring her was usually easier and more effective, but he couldn't do that after being asked outright. He shrugged, and glanced around for his errant pair of jeans. (Was that Natsu holding them? That prick. )
"Yeah, okay." He walked straight past her in his haste to retrieve his pants from that pink-haired little shit, and couldn't be bothered to notice the way she lit up, or the way her eyes followed him across the room. (He clocked Natsu in the face.)
When she fell, she was drawn into herself, into one tight, aching, burning form, and steam rolled off of her but it hurt. She fell, and she was not sure she could expand before she hit the ground. She fell, and she thought that she might hear a dizzying crack rather than a splash and she thought most of all that Gray would be upset with her, and that she'd be upset with herself for failing him so utterly. And then she thought, Gray-sama will definitely, definitely catch me.
He didn't.
She fell on him.
She thought she heard the air escape him, but there was no crack, for which she was overwhelmingly thankful. She felt limp and useless and agonized, twitching from the aftershocks but desperately trying not to pass out, at least. Gray had made a shield to their side, even though it was useless, she thought, but even her thought-voice was getting dim. He grabbed her when he sat up, cursing, and hauled her over his shoulder like a sack of flour (not like a princess, she thought hazily.)
"Hold on," he told her, and she was bouncing because he was running, just barely dodging a strike of thunder, and Juvia shut her eyes at the light pounding in her head. They were still closed when they started moving—Gray had iced over a section of the downhill incline, and Juvia grasped onto him tightly as soon as she realized they were slipping down on it, gliding over the ice, making an escape. She felt woozy, and the burn hadn't quite gone away, and the shame hadn't quite gone away.
He treaded heavy, and the wet leaves crackled under each enduring step. The air was crisp and wet, thanks to the conspicuous overhang of rain clouds.
"Those aren't my fault," Juvia had said, and gripped his shoulders firmer.
"Nobody said it was," he'd responded, with enough of an edge to quiet her down for the moment.
She'd grown her hair out again. It trailed against his bare back and bounced when he hefted her up into a better position. She wasn't heavy, but for the time being, the rain woman was dead weight. He couldn't help but feel vaguely responsible, although, firstly, it was that nasty thief's cowardly doing, not his, and secondly, Juvia didn't seem to mind the injury at all.
She breathed warm air on the back of his neck and settled like she was sleeping—he could swear he felt her nuzzle her cheek against his shoulder, which was alarming, but not enough to stir him from his foul mood. He continued to kick through cumbersome undergrowth, eyes out for an apt place to set up camp.
It was quiet in the woods and Gray was dissatisfied and Gray was tense and Gray wanted to sink his fist through a tree, but Juvia draped herself over him with amorous ease and shifted so her chin rested over his shoulder. She seemed at peace like that. He grunted.
"Thank you," she murmured, "Gray-sama." There was a slow movement that definitely approximated a hug, and Gray had to tack 'uneasiness' onto his current emotional catalog. He couldn't quite bring himself to be annoyed with her, though, so he was not so cutting-curt when he responded with, "Did you get hit just so I'd carry you?"
He was sure he'd forced the distaste and sharpness from his tone, and rather spoke with some detached curiosity, but there was a beat of still silence before Juvia sagged against him more.
"No. Juvia is not that crazy," she said emphatically.
Then Gray felt like a grade A asshole for even asking to begin with, but he still had his doubts about that.
Maybe I'll come back and rewrite this but I wanted to post it tonight. I think I was not restraining my wordiness and I wonder if it made it hard to read? Were the descriptions of actions and locations incomprehensible? Were the characters in character? (Next chapter will have more characterizing, I think~ ) I just really wanted to do Juvia and Gray on a mission, because they've totally fought together before, and they have this team dynamic of Gray calling the shots and Juvia following them right away because she loves him, but her love for him can also cause her to be a wildcard. Also their being alone together, and the attitudes they adopt when they're on a job. And so I have plans, I guess? ahhh I wish this came out better.