Disclaimer: You know the drill. I don't own anything.

Warning: Natsu came out as very OoC. My apologies…


Chapter Two

The light-grey haired man's eyes lifted, from scanning the menu towards the newcomer.

"You're late." He said, sternly.

Gray shrugged and sat down, smirking. "I was busy. You know, with stuff… You should try it too, Lyon, maybe that way you'd relax a little."

Lyon seemed to be trying to refrain himself from glaring, as they were in a public space. Gray kept smirking.

"You know that I don't have time to spend doing those frivolities. My work takes all my time, if you forgot…" He folded the menu and placed it on the table top.

"You could take a break, you know? Or, half a day. Things wouldn't crash down and burn," Gray remarked, chin resting in the palm of his hand. "But how are things, anyway? Everything going well?"

Lyon cleared his throat and nodded. "Yes, business is flourishing. The number of people looking for our products reduplicated and everything's going fine."

The conversation stopped momentarily as they ordered their food and drinks. While the waiter disappeared, Lyon turned to Gray, serious again.

"By the way, your package has been sent already. It'll probably be at your house. Don't forget to take care of it, guard it safely and to take it."

Gray crossed his arms and glared. "Who do you think I am? A small child? I know how to take care of things. And no, I won't forget to take it." He started toying with his napkin, his mood having gone sour.

The waiter came back with their drinks. She served them and went back.

Lyon was smirking, seemingly nonplussed by Gray's antics. He produced an envelope from one of the pockets of his coat, which was hanging behind him.

"Don't you start with that. Here, I have something that'll probably lift your bad mood." he extended his arm, until the white paper was right in front of Gray's face. "I have a letter from Ultear. Apparently her vacations took her to Dubai. She seems to be having fun."

Gray grabbed the envelope and opened it, taking the letter and unfolding it. It was the same thing as usual; she was having a lot of fun and seeing amazing things and meeting awesome people but she still had to keep travelling. How she misses her brothers so much and how they would love to see what she's seeing. As he finished reading he couldn't help but wonder aloud; "When will she come back to Tokyo? It's been such a long time since we last met each other. I can barely remember her. And she never calls, just sends these letters…"

As the model was looking down at the paper, he didn't see Lyon going tense. The grey haired one was silent, his mouth hanging open until he caught himself and scoffed, while leaning back on his chair and forcibly relaxing.

Gray lifted his eyes towards his brother.

"You know how she needs to travel. She should continue doing it. We have the money to support her. You can't forget that it's good for her health, after the incident with mother…"

With a sigh Gray folded back the letter and put it back on the envelope.

"I do know but, I miss her."


On the outside, the two figures from before were sitting on their nondescript car. The weather was turning and becoming unpleasant so they had had to take refuge.

"There you have it. The famous celebrities, each more empty than the other…" the pink haired one said, hand rummaging through the paper bag that held their food.

"What do you want? We live shallow times. The only thing that matters is that you're famous. No matter how. You just have to have a scandal and you're in the spotlight. I don't understand this concept of being famous just for the sake of being famous. It makes no sense." The red haired one shook her head, leaning forward and crossing her arms on top of the steering wheel. "Will you hurry with the food? I only hear you rummaging inside the bag."

"I'm trying to find your food. It must be at the bottom…"

"That's because you nearly ordered the whole restaurant, Natsu. Your stomach is a bottomless pit, isn't it?"

"We've been partnered for less than a fortnight and you already know me that well. Good to know." Natsu grinned openly at her, finally presenting her with the food. When the red head rolled her eyes and started eating, his face scrunched in mock hurt and he pouted. "Your attitude wounds me, Erza."

"As long as you're hurt you're not spouting nonsense. Now, back to work," she said between bites on her hamburger, going back to the serious and focused (and sometimes scary) detective that was Erza Scarlet. "What do we know about this case?"

"Right!" Natsu replied as he chewed on his first hamburger and shoved some fries to his mouth. "Well, youchnomp beein' 're f-" His tirade stopped as the other lifted a hand to make him shut up, face scrunched in disgust.

"Chew and swallow first, talk later. Are we clear?"

Natsu started laughing and nearly choked on the food but, complied.

"As I was saying, you haven't been here for long but there are some ideas that you probably have already. A part of this case has been a public affair some time ago." Natsu gave another bite and chewed, pensively. "There have been several deaths due to an unknown substance that's been in the black market for quite a while. The first deaths date from five years ago. Our main suspect is the person that the Ice Shard went to meet now."

"Wait, Ice Shard? What-?" Erza was confused.

Natsu waved and cut her off, "It's a long story. As I was saying, we have high suspicion that the person that Gray Fullbuster has just went to meet is at the head of the producers of that substance."

"Okay, and the substance is called 'Life Elixir'…" added Erza, flipping through some files that she had taken from the back seat.

Natsu grabbed another bunch of files and, after placing the precious bag of food on the dashboard, took some gory pictures and skimmed through them. He made a face before turning to his partner. "Yes. It seems that all of these deaths," he spread out the pictures on his lap, "were caused because the victims drank it."

"But… I don't think that I understand it very well…"

"Oh, right. You came from Hokkaido a little while ago, you probably only heard these news through the media and, therefore, distorted… Right. So, let me update you; the Elixir was an invention by the genial scientist, Ur Milkovich. She, somehow found and perfected the formula for eternal rejuvenating. She used to work for Grimoire Heart Research Corporation but as soon as she found this (and copyrighted it) she left and created her own enterprise, Iced Æterna, Inc. That's a very wealthy and expanding company, as you know. Their products are of great quality and very expensive. This is one of the reasons why we also have our suspicion towards them, there are registers of large sums of money that have no reason… well, we know that there's money laundering somewhere in the middle of this." Natsu paused to take a sip of his drink.

"Huh, where was I? Oh, right. Ur had a daughter, Ultear, and by some unknown reason, she adopted two boys, Gray and Lyon. And, at the same time, she kept working in her lab. Turns out that one day there was a big explosion at the lab. To this day nobody knows who, what or how but, somehow, some reagents got mixed together and… well, huge boom. Ur survived but a good number of people died, more were injured and, due to the chemical nature of the wounds, the majority of that people were seriously injured. Records said that her daughter was one of those people." Natsu grabbed one folder and started looking for something as he spoke. Not finding it, he leaned back on the seat and continued.

"Her situation was, apparently, so serious that she went under the grid and nobody knows what happened in the end. Although the most likely case is that she died." Natsu picked the photos and ordered the files into a pile.

"I remember hearing the news about the explosion. It was a nasty thing," Erza recalled.

Natsu nodded. "Yeah. Well, afterwards, the scientist went mad at the loss. In one minute we heard that she had gone on a sort of rampage, trying to repeat the disaster but at the same time she was taking care of the boys. After a while she disappeared. Plain and simple as that." He shrugged. "Apparently one of the boys, Lyon, took her place in front of the Iced Æterna, Inc.… but we have some info on the shadow company – which has been selling the 'Life Elixir' – and he's also at the head of it. These illicit transactions might explain the immense income he's getting. Their finances are being studied but, despite this suspicion, we don't have anything." Natsu leaned back and exhaled noisily. "This situation has the higher ups under a lot of stress. Besides, this has parts which are off the books so if something happens we're all in for a huge mess… The old man, I mean, the boss said that the opposition's already moving so, our time's running out – fast."

"So that's why they ended up calling me here…" Erza concluded. "They didn't give me a proper explanation."

"This is under wraps, don't forget. So the boss couldn't tell you, earlier. But your contribution is going to be important. You're very methodical and had a case with something minimally similar…"

"You mean the Inada case? Hm, you do know how bad that ended up, right?" Unconsciously her hand raised to her right eye before clenching and hitting the wheel.

"This one's different. But it might be helpful… But, time to work again. They're leaving."

They watched as the restaurant's security crew got into motion as the 'brothers' exited the restaurant.

Natsu noticed that Gray was looking towards him and, after a while, his eyes bore straight into Natsu's. This elicited a smile from the pink haired one, who folded his arms on the dashboard and leaned forward.

'We meet again, Ice Shard, huh…?'


Despite the intermittent flashes Gray noticed that the pair he had noticed earlier was still there. 'Strange,' he thought. 'if they're not paparazzi they have no reason to be here. And if they're paparazzi they should be here following us, I think. Then again… me and Lyon aren't the only celebrities here they could… Ha! We're the only thing that matters here, right now.' As he was wondering about this, his eyes met the pink haired ones and he felt a shiver run down his spine.

Strangely it's anticipation, this thing he feels.


The lights of the cars that passed on the street danced on the ceiling of Gray's dark room.

He's lying on his king sized bed, staring idly at the fugitive lights that appear every now and then. After a while he starts to squirm, not finding a comfortable position, feeling constricted. He doesn't take long to realize that the boxers that he's still wearing (the rest of his clothes have been discarded on his way to his room and make a trail through the flat) are what's making him feel this way. In no time they're flying to some far corner of the room. Gray stretches and flops on the bed.

He met with Juvia after his dinner with Lyon. They went out for a coffee in one of the new and hyped coffee shops that he had heard of. It was okay. What wasn't all that much to his taste was the mindless chit chat that they had. Did she have to be so boring and shy? He should have rented a hotel room for some fun. Not this. This tired him immensely.

He turns and looks at the clock. It reads 02:48. He has to sleep! In the morning (or, more accurately, in four hours) he has to get up and go meet with Lucy to start the day – and he had to have his rest. Then again, what was it she had said? He didn't pay attention, looking at her boobs and all…

No! Thinking about that is not going to help matters.

Unless…

It was true that jerking off relaxed him – he should've thought of that earlier – and would probably make sleep come faster but…

He couldn't do it. He was feeling weird. Could it be that Ultear's letter had disturbed him in any way, after three months of absence? Or was it the other man's stare…? Many men had looked at him but never so…

Gray could feel a chill travelling his limbs.

He turned to his back again and spread out on the bed.

In the end, although with some difficulty, Gray managed to fall asleep.


A/N: First of all, I apologize for taking so long to post this chapter. I had some unexpected things happening…

Anyway, not much happens in this chapter. Except the immense OoC-ness. I'm so, so sorry for that. But it was the way the Muse wanted so… what can a poor writer do? XD
Anyway, I hope the chapter was enjoyable, in the least.

As usual, my thanks to Subkulture for the beta – I don't know what I would do without you. :D

Feedback is always appreciated. See you in a month.