notes— lauren don't read this omg
like titans
;;
Claws. Her hands are claws.
"Juvia. Juvia, come on."
They are hooks and knives and curled iron claws, catching on their own accord, not letting go, not letting go, she can't let go, she can't control them—
"Juvia, please, we're going, come on," and the voice tugs at her, the physicality of it a palpable thrum against her blood-rusted skin. Warmth rubs into the crook of her elbow and she's yanked back, back, away from him.
Eyes closed, she shakes her head desperately, a wordless whimper escaping her mouth.
"Please," and the voice cracks on the word, "please, Juvia, we have to go—"
"We—" Caught on a sob, she lurches forward, fingers hooking into the wet fabric again. "Please, we can't—"
"We have to."
"We can't just leave him like this, we c-can't—" But it's hopeless, she can't get the words out without crying, without her throat closing up around dry, rancid air. So she just lets the claws sink back into the fabric, lets his blood run in little rivulets down her wrists, and shakes him with as much force as she can muster.
A heavy thud from far away, but not far away enough. The sound echoes through the warehouse; it's as if the walls of the office they're hiding in are vibrating with the oncoming storm. She knows it's not true, knows it's her imagination, but she can see them against the dark of her closed eyelids, she can see their blank stares and gnashing teeth and bloodless limbs reaching out to catch her.
A burning heat against her cheek, and when she opens her eyes, Gray's staring at her. He's smiling. But the hand cradling her face is trembling, and she cannot ignore the bloodshot red veining the whites of his eyes. Clammy and pale and soaked with blood, she thinks she's never wanted to keep him more than this moment.
"P-Please," Juvia whispers to him, "please, please, please—"
The smile flattens into a grimace and the lucid moment is lost. Gray falls back into the coma-like state, the final indicative stage of the fever taking hold. He has minutes.
Juvia feels like she's losing a forever.
"Come back! Come back, Gray, don't leave me—"
Natsu is hissing at her, "Shut the fuck up," and Lucy's hands are fluttering over Juvia's shoulders uselessly.
"Juvia, come on." Lucy grabs her arm and pulls her away from Gray's limp form. He falls to the floor with a dull thump, doesn't even wince as the floor presses against the three deep gouges the bites left on his lower chest. "Look at me!" Lucy's shaking her, panicking. "There's nothing we can do for him. We have to leave! We have to leave now or they're gonna find us, Juvia, alright? They are coming."
"Lucy." Natsu's voice is hollow. "We can't just…" When Juvia looks over at him, he's staring at the shivering body on the floor, eyes dull. "I don't want to let him turn into one of them. He deserves better than that."
"We all deserve better," Juvia finds herself whispering.
"Well, what can we do for him?" When Lucy wipes at his tears, it leaves a streak of blood and dirt on her cheek. "There's nothing we can do, Natsu. We can't save him."
He shakes his head wordlessly, gaze locked on his dying best friend. After a moment, his whole expression crumbles and he turns away. Another louder crash from outside, and Juvia wonders if she's imagining the disgusting rasping gurgles, or if they really are close enough for them to hear. Natsu's voice is barely audible when he speaks again. "He wouldn't have left us like this."
Of course, that's the basic truth of it. Gray wouldn't have left them like this, Juvia knows, because he wouldn't let them get in this situation in the first place. That's why Lucy, Natsu, and Juvia have shallow surface wounds and Gray's lying in a puddle of his blood with chunks of his flesh gouged away from his body.
Juvia can't even ask why, because she knows why. But it doesn't make it any easier, knowing that she's losing him because he cared too much. It doesn't keep the shoulder-wracking sobs hidden in her chest like she wishes she could.
This is who he is, she realises in that moment. Those upturned lips, his trembling hand, and eyes that can only say 'sorry, please finish this one without me'; this is who he's always been, and Juvia has loved him for it.
"I'm staying." Her throat clears up as the words choking her finally come out in a voice clearer than she thought she was capable of. "I'm staying with him. I won't leave him."
The look Natsu gives her is a bullet to the chest. But she accepts that.
"Juvia…" Lucy whispers, and she has never sounded so broken, and Juvia accepts that.
"They're getting closer," she tells them quietly. It's as if the weight on her shoulders has left, like something with wings has suddenly flown from her ribs. She can finally stand up straight, and she does so, looking her friends in the eye, to tell them goodbye.
She has lived through more goodbyes than she can count. Before, after, and even now with the dead slamming manic hands against a locked door that will only hold for so long, there is no escaping what she knows; that life is but a prolonged goodbye. And it hurts — even the good ones hurt. And this is a good one; whispered please lives and last little smiles and a window through which two people slipped out — that is not the worst goodbye Juvia has known.
Her claws turn to hands turn to fingers turn to butterfly touches against his neck. He isn't breathing. His skin burns, and when she sees the infinitesimal twitch of his finger, she accepts that. Juvia holds him closer, squeezes her eyes shut, and breathes against Gray's hair, "No more goodbyes."
.
.
.
if i could start again
a million miles away,
i would keep myself.
(oh, i would find a way.)
notes2— ...this was shit wasn't it