A/N: A little drabble I wrote after chapter 334 on Tumblr. Enjoy.
The battle ended with a peal of thunder breaking the sky - hard rain pelting the heavy burdened backs of Fairy Tail members as they gathered their injured and their dead. With the dragons vanquished, the reunion of guild members in the middle of the flower blooming capital laid to waste, was a clash of embraces. Countless tears shed, of both happiness and grief. In the midst of their victory, there was loss.
Lyon Vastia would never forget the dark days that had followed. The sun blighted by storm clouds for days on end, as the guilds recovered, and Lyon had followed Juvia back to Fairy Tail.
"When will you be back? You're not joining Fairy Tail, are you?" Chelia asked, her concerned fingers dragging his sleeve as he lingered at the entrance of Lamia Scale.
"No," he answered simply and said nothing else, knowing that the master and Chelia understood the circumstances. As the Ice Mage took his first step toward what he felt would be repentance for allowing his childhood friend to fall in front of the one he loved, he felt Chelia pull him back.
"Here," she offered an umbrella, "It's pouring out."
Lyon glanced up at the sky, a wry smile warping his features. "I don't need it."
He could feel the eyes of his fellow guild members on his back as he trudged through the rain, the water already seeping through his clothing but he remained resolute in getting to Fairy Tail as fast as his legs would take him.
Juvia spent most of her days either outside, sitting by Gray Fullbuster's grave. Either sheltered beneath her umbrella, or tucked away in the dorms. Before Gray's passing, Lyon was not shy in his attempts to woo Juvia, but after the tragedy, the two seldom spoke.
Gray had once told him about the first time they had met - the look on Juvia's face as she lay on the ground in defeat, the clouds breaking to reveal the sun. The way her eyes lit up in awe, Gray always thought that she'd never seen a clear sky in her life. It was a story Lyon remembered and as soon as Lyon arrived in Fairy Tail, he made a pledge to her.
"I'll stay until you can see the clear sky again."
To his surprise, she didn't ask him to leave.
"Juvia senses that there's no changing your mind."
"Please -", he sought her gaze, "Until the rain stops, let me stay."
A heavy pause settled before Juvia asked, "What if the rain never stops."
Lyon attempted to reach for her shoulder, but the woman quietly stepped back.
"Then I'll stay."
If Lyon thought she ignored him before, now he was practically non-existent. Almost like a guardian angel that she never acknowledged.
For the next few months, Lyon faithfully stood by Juvia's side. He rarely took missions for Lamia Scale unless they were no more than a day long. And after every mission, whether he had slept or eaten yet, he returned to her. He carried her groceries, silently lingered by her side wherever she went, and wordlessly waited as they sat by Gray's grave. Lyon withstood the never ending downpour and he never asked or brought an umbrella.
Juvia had never offered to share hers either.
Nine months. As usual, the two were returning from the memorial in almost complete silence aside from the static that the rain provided.
"Shit," he mumbled beneath his breath, gasping when he realized that he'd done it out loud and covered his mouth with his forearm. The rain was as cold as ever, not that the cold bothered him, but he must've caught some bug, possibly on his last Lamia Scale mission that he had returned from this morning. His lungs rattled from the coughs that he attempted to stifle in vain.
Lyon coughed again, the sound grating against his throat as he tried to muffle it with his sleeve.
Juvia tilted her umbrella slightly to acknowledge him. "Juvia thinks Lyon-sama should go home."
The Ice Mage didn't dare move.
"Go home, Lyon-sama-"
"I said I wasn't leaving - I'm not changing my mind," he retorted unexpectedly, curbing another cough into his elbow.
She sighed heavily before answering, "Juvia was not asking you to leave forever. Just to rest."
The man remained in place, shocked by her words, and perhaps, somewhat touched. It was the first time she'd shown him any emotion ever since the tragedy.
"Thank you, Juvia-chan, but I'll be fine-"
And suddenly she'd snapped, "What good is it if you protect Juvia and don't protect yourself? Don't- Don't make the same mistake as Gray-sama did, Juvia is not worth dying over!"
The woman stomped up to him, throwing her umbrella over the two of them as she lashed out a breath's distance away. His eyes were wide and when it dawned on him what an idiot he'd been, he reached for the handle of her umbrella, where he could cover her fingers in his.
"Gray may have been an idiot sometimes, but what he'd done for you was not a mistake! Would you have his death be in vain by admitting that he protected you by some fluke or accident?"
"It shouldn't have happened," she cried, the stomp of her heel splattering water up to his knees.
"Damn right, it shouldn't have happened - I should've been there instead! You deserve to be here with the one you love, I should have taken that hit-"
The sharp slap to his jaw rung in his ears.
When it registered, he realized that she let go of the umbrella, and slipped into the rain that disguised her tears. "Stupid, Lyon-sama."
The woman marched back towards the dorm. Lyon followed in an attempt to return her umbrella, but she continued onward, letting him stumble behind. He'd gone as far as the dorm hall where she slammed the door in his face.
He stared at the umbrella in his hands, that after all this time, she finally shared with him, even if out of anger due to his stubbornness.
"Juvia..."
He must've fallen asleep by her door because the last thing he remembered was surrendering to his thoughts, his back sliding against the wall until he sat, completely exhausted. When his eyes shot open, he was warm, the familiar feel of fleece draped over his shoulders as he also noticed a thermos placed by his foot.
When the door swung open, Juvia stepped out with red rimmed eyes and peeling lips. It appeared she would've rushed right past him if he hadn't closed his fingers around her ankle.
"Juvia."
"... What?"
"I'm gonna stay - no matter what. So dying would contradict that."
"Why-"
Her words faded into something incoherent.
"Why, what?"
"Why do you do this? Gray-sama did not ask you to do this."
The Ice Mage had released her, and she didn't move. He sought her again and sensing his gaze, Juvia dared to look at him. He didn't look well, but warm at the very least, and it pained her to look at the man that only served as a reminder of her Gray-sama.
"No," she thought, "No one will ever replace Gray-sama." She held firmly to that reminder as she waited for Lyon's response.
Lyon pushed himself up to stand. "I'm doing it because I know he would've," he said and as his hands raised to grab her shoulders, the Water Mage shoved him. Determined to show his resolve, his fingers closed around her wrists.
"Oww," he cursed when he felt her boot strike down on his foot but he hadn't released his grasp. "Juvia-"
"How dare you try and replace Gray-sama-"
When Lyon yanked her towards him, she was caught off guard and stumbled into his chest. With words laced by anger, perhaps regret, he hissed, "I will never be Gray nor do I want to be."
Shrinking back due to the sting of his words, being this close, Juvia finally noticed the sweat glistening along his nose. As she let his statement sink in, his breathing was labored, every inhale, a mild wheeze.
His white knuckled hands on her wrists loosened, and just as Lyon was about to push her away and walk in the opposite direction, she'd done something that he would've never expected.
Juvia slipped each arm beneath his and hugged him.
"Wh-what?" He squeaked, either this fever had finally gotten the best of him or something had struck a cord in the normally frigid woman that never returned his affections.
"You loved Gray-sama too, didn't you?"
For a moment, his heart stopped. Feeling a familiar pang in his chest that he successfully managed to avoid these past months, Lyon clutched onto Juvia for dear life. In spite of his goal being to never leave her side, every fiber of his being urged him to run from this. To return when things between them had settled. But after months of the two rarely speaking, Juvia now demanded answers that she had every right to after he selfishly assigned himself to her as her new - whatever the hell he was.
"Do not lie to Juvia."
Hearing her voice shake, he submitted to honesty as painful as it was.
"He was the brother I never had."
Juvia squeezed him so hard, he couldn't breath and whatever came over her suddenly, he didn't care. He returned the gesture, his fingers drawing into her hair and an arm around her waist as he squeezed back. Eyes burning, he sought somewhere to hide his shame before Juvia stretched to snap his face into the crook of her neck.
Lyon had never cried so hard. "I'm so sorry, Juvia," he sobbed, "I needed some place to go- no one can ever understand what this feels like except- except-"
"Juvia understands."
Finally the truth had come to light. Lyon hadn't pledged himself to Juvia out of duty or some misplaced infatuation. Instead, his grief had sent him running and there was no one else in the world that could understand what that gaping hole felt like except for the woman who had loved his childhood friend.
"Juvia will allow Lyon-sama to stay only because he wants to stay, not because he feels like he has to. Juvia misses Gray-sama, but Juvia wants to see the sky again too. Gray-sama would want that."
He repeated the same thing he'd been saying all long, except this time, everything was out in the open.
"I'll stay, Juvia. I won't leave until the rain stops."
The months that led up to a year since the tragedy were easier. Their trips to the memorial grew less frequent, and the two shared memories of Gray, as well as other things.
The first time Lyon made love to her, Juvia was all raking fingernails. It was as if her hands disagreed for one shoved against his shoulder with all her might, while the other clutched onto the back of his neck, her half lidded eyes never straying from his. Her fingers bit into his thighs with every deliberate thrust into her, each of them whispering incoherently against each other's ears.
"Lyon-sama," she gasped once they had wilted from the peaks of their lovemaking, her limbs cast across his body to the point where neither knew where the other began.
"Hmm?" The Ice Mage hummed, pulling her close and inhaling the smell of salt, violet blossoms and petrichor.
"Do you know why Juvia stays with Lyon-sama? Will Lyon-sama always stay with Juvia?"
He laughed, "Asking me that again? I told you, until the rain-"
She smothered his words with a kiss before rising to stretch. Juvia looked over her shoulder, her blue hair in beautiful disarray as she glanced towards the window.
"Has Lyon not noticed that the rain has stopped a long time ago?"
The man blinked at her before catapulting upwards. The bed springs squeaked with the force and completely baffled, Lyon Vastia stopped to truly look up at the sky which somehow he managed to talk so much about, but had never truly kept track of. He'd somehow gotten so used to the rain, that he hadn't noticed when it lifted. How long had it been? Days? Weeks? Months?
Juvia had done nothing but laugh as his eyes wandered around the room in awe. In denial, he moved from the mattress to throw open the curtains that blinded him with light.
"I don't know what- how long has it-"
The woman approached him from behind, her nails trailing around to meet and lock her fingers against his stomach.
"Isn't it beautiful, Lyon-sama?"
The sky was the clearest gradient of blues and greens, a couple of white clouds dotting along the horizon. He could feel her chuckling, cheek pressed against his shoulder blade.
"It's - it is beautiful."
The Ice Mage spun around to kiss her when she captured his face in her hands.
"That is why Juvia stays with Lyon. Because Lyon-sama needed the sky more than Juvia did."
~Fin