SUSTIVA
PART TWO
Yellow
(2)
XXX
They left their seats and Gray followed Z through the corridors, the man in front of him looked fragile suddenly. For one moment, Gray was tempted to hug him but he restrained himself, sighing softly.
"Back to basics," said Gray, seating back.
The sun – that was previously eclipsed by heavy clouds emerging from the dark sky – dimly lighted Gray's peaceful face. He felt ready to sleep again.
"Hey!" Z was still standing up, with a worried face. "Would you accept to exchange your place with me?"
"Yes… Why?"
"I just want to have the sun on my face… But if you want it…"
"No, no, I do prefer not to have that hot thing right on me. This dark seat is way better actually!"
"Thanks, night bird!" sang Z, impish, sitting and enjoying the light.
But the pianist did not look satisfied:
"So, are you finally gonna explain why you come to Crocus" Asked Zeref, playful :
"I already told you! Or… Yes I definitively told you."
"But you said there was a friend you wanted to meet there too, right?"
"Oh…"
Gray eyes shuttered for some seconds, he exhaled air and rubbed his fingers on his long legs. Sun was hitting on Z's grin.
"So you just can't tell me?"
"He is not really a friend, actually…"
"Tell me, tell me everything, I want to know. Looks like you have a pretty bad story! And yet, I'm sure it is not that bad!"
Gray chuckled and then sighed, suddenly tired:
"Yep, but there is really nothing funny or interesting with all this crap. Tell you…"
"I don't care, even if it takes three hours, I want to know, really! And we have time."
"But, what if I don't want to talk about that? You just think about my confort sometimes?"Asked Gray, smirking.
"I know you want to tell me… Because… It can help. You know that talking is the best thing to counter sadness!" Said the pianist.
"I'm not sure of that… But, if you insist… I want to know your own story after… Damn! You're so selfish!"
"Cool! I bet you will laugh out loud before the train arrives to Crocus."
"It already happened, ass…"
"Hey, don't insult me! You deserve better than that."
"You mean, insulting you is like belittling myself or something?"
"Yes… you don't deserve that"
"… I really don't deserve anything…"
And Gray closed his eyes.
"Well," he continued, "I'm ok with talking but I'm already tired just thinking of it. Could you just ask me questions?"
"Great! Suits me! Let's go…"
A man passed near their window. It was the first stop and people were slowly walking in the metal station. The train had stilled, which gave Gray a slight fear suddenly.
"So… First question… You really left your house and all your friends for a weekend at Crocus?"
"Yes… But… I don't know if I still have such friends there."
"You mean you just escaped from your guild because you had an argument with them?"
"No… But you are right in a sense: I escaped… I really hate that idea but I had to. I'm just a coward…" Gray scratched his hair with wariness.
"Tell me. You surely had great friends in your guild?"
Fable OST 3 Sanctuary
"Fairy Tail… You certainly know our guild. Yeah… In fact I had some guys with whom I always trained myself. The same guys in missions, the same guys everywhere. Yet I don't know why we were always together but… after all… We were Team Natsu."
"Natsu, like, Natsu Dragneer?" Z's eyes widened.
"You know him?"
"Yes, he is a dragon slayer of fire, isn't he?"
"Yep…."
"I have been told about him."
"He is quite famous in Magnolia… He destroyed a lot of great monuments actually. That silly Salamander…" Gray smiled. "But luckily we also had Erza in our team. I bet you know her!"
"No… Erza you said?"
"And the last one was Lucy… Lucy Heartfillia. We were four."
Z suddenly had a flash :
"Erza Scarlet?"
"Yes! Also known as Titania!"
"Yeah, I heard of her great feats." Z said dreamily.
"She is not the happiest person of the guild but she is the strongest and the most comprehensive of them all… So we formed that team. Team Natsu…
And we were, like, invincible at that time… I mean, like one year ago. Even with the worst situations we could just rise and beat the enemies. Each time… And yet, we were not that intelligent… How were we so powerful? Still don't know."
"You felt like gods…" Said Z, absently.
"Yeah, maybe, and all the missions were dangerous. We defeated so manly deadly situations… I must say Natsu and I were like daredevils… We took so much risks, and we survived to everything though. Many times I felt that my death was really close, you know… Very close. So close that I was mentally saying goodbye to my friends…"
"Gray, Gray, oh my! What's wrong…?" Cried a voice near the young man's ear.
Lost in the vast fields of a farm, surrounded by yellow meadows and green apple trees, Gray was lying on the hot grass, his eyes, focused on a red-haired woman, talking to him with a sad face, shaking his head to make him react. Yes… He was alive, but how bad beaten up ?
"Erza, how is he?" A guy around his age asked desperately, approaching with fire in his hands".
"Wendy will be able to save him, he's just hurt at his stomach…" Said Erza. "Natsu, you need to find that bastard and let him know that we do not accept such attacks in Fairy Tail!"
"Courage Gray, I'm gonna go after those berks for you!" And Natsu, that stupid and funny little dragon ran out of Gray's field of vision.
"A daredevil, you said?"
"Yes… And I was not the only one. We could tell it's something special with our guild."
"Ahah, okay, it seems you had great friends!" Z was smiling like never before, eyes wide open.
"But I never had any big conflict with all them…" Gray smiled. "Or just with Natsu… Yeah… Stupid story… We were like rivals a year ago."
"Rivals? Ah, you are an ice mage I bet!"
"Yes…"
"Well that explains your rivalry, plus the fact that you wear a t-shirt at the moment…" Z ran his gaze down Gray's body.
"In part only. Because when we had eighteen and nineteen that rivalry just burst and we became like enemies… I suppose our relation drastically changed there."
"What happened?" Z refocused on Gray's eyes.
"Ah… We became more or less rivals in love…"
"Oh… But this is too epic!" Cried Z excited.
"No, haha, not at all! In fact… When I and Natsu had our birthday – because it is a tradition to celebrate our anniversaries on the very same day; double party you see – I felt I was getting really old not to have any mate…"
"Ah… You know, you don't have to be worry about that; there are tons of guys like you who never had any real love story for up twenty years… Look at me!"
Gary arched an eyebrow:
"Well, I should have met you before… You would have told me this. But I really felt like shit at that time… So I was telling myself… Why couldn't I pick the first girl I like a little and have a good time with her? After all, it was just a first try, and love stories at our age were not serious…"
"So?" Asked Z with restlessness.
"So I looked around me during the party and…"
She was there, sat with the others at the table, and yet he could only see her… Her blond and sleek hair flowing on her neck.
He had never looked at her like that before… Wait… How could Lucy possibly be… attractive? Of course, Gray had felt the need to touch her at times, just in his thoughts, or even kiss her… But, this sensation now was more than a yearning…
And then, he met the Natsu's eyes, the dragonslayer had approached him while he was looking at Lucy.
"Hey, you're dreaming or what? Come on, you don't you want to fight? The party would be like shit if there was no fight!"
"Natsu?" Gray took a very serious tone. "You think I could have a chance with Lucy?"
"What?" Asked Natsu.
The Salamander stopped, and then opened wide his eyes, before suddenly bursting and holding Gray by his chin:
"You… How can you do that to me? I was the very first on her, you ice bastard!"
"Wait! What did you just say?" Gray simply couldn't understand Natsu's reaction.
"I said you leave Lucy to me, ice freak! She is mine! Why do you suddenly have any interest in her? You are always talking about your stupid Lyon!"
"Shut the fuck up Natsu!" Gray pulled himself away and stared at Natsu with a dark look. "Since when is Lucy only for you stupid flamebrain! If you were that concerned, she would've been your girlfriend for years!"
"You…" And Natsu punched Gray, with anger, sending him up to Mirajane's counter.
"You mean there was a love triangle with Natsu and Lucy?" Z seemed happy with this.
Gray felt pain to tell this episode to Z. The only one where him and Natsu had a real (and thus short) fight. After all, it was the really first time that Natsu could be so furious. His friend, attacking him, as if he was deeply attached to Lucy. There was no doubt now...
"Yeah… But I quickly stopped everything… I was just stupid. I knew Natsu had feelings for her and I played dumb with him…"
A strange alarm came from Gray's watch. He stopped it and sighed.
"Sorry, I have to take my pills…"
Z watched Gray. He was searching in his pocket for a white little white box. He took from it two orange pills and rapidly swallowed them.
"Sorry…"
"No, that's fine. I just wonder why they paint them with strange colors… Orange? Seriously?"
"Oh… The color did the same thing on me, but I'm ok with it now… I just don't care" Gray chuckled.
"So, continue your story, there is like a dilemma with Lucy and Natsu"
"Oh… A week later, after hours of eye-fighting with Natsu, I gave up and told everything to that flaming idiot. Even if he was quite impossible to turn around, I finally won his friendship back… More or less… I think he was still scared of me at that point. Because it seemed Lucy was quite interested in me… and I never realized it…"
"Oh…, that's stupid, indeed!"
"Thanks Z" Gray smiled. "You're so helpful sometimes…"
"Haha, sorry, but it is the truth after all, you had to tell her you had feelings!"
"I never loved her! I just thought so. It was not even a crush… Just, dreams and little…"
"So you never dated her?"
"No… And maybe I was better for us after all… Now she seems happy…"
"But you don't…"
"My actual state is not due to Lucy… I'm quite weak with the cure, but the worst is to have… Oh, just let it…" Gray closed his eyes again.
"Oh, sorry… Are we going on a rude passage?" Z had a concerned face.
"… Not really but… Yep." Admitted the ice mage.
"You know, even if you feel it could be the end of the world, your are alive, that's the most important…"
"Yeah, just stop with your bullshit already."
Z felt a sting on his chest. He moved back and watched the hot fields vibrating slowly. The wind was making them thrill with strange movements. He began to feel sleepy.
"Sorry… I just want to make you feel better."
"Yeah… Just try not to tell silly things like this. You are like a child sometimes…"
"I know…" Z smiled for a while. "So… after this love triangle?"
"I… I was living on my own… I started to move alone and make quests in solitary. Maybe I just didn't want to meet Lucy and Natsu again and make things awkward… So I made my way."
"Ok… You wanted to think about yourself, nothing wrong with that…"
"No, indeed, and I began to go often to the town, in order to pass time… Looking for good bars and restaurants. I met some cool guys.
Though I had this idea to make out with someone, creeping in my brain. I was searching for an occasion… and I felt quite sad at that time… I… I was surely suffering from being alone… Also I started to have some strange feelings. Like… Well…" Gray shrugged and smiled slightly, running a hand over his forehead.
"What? Come on! You seem shy suddenly!"
"Haha… I… Well I started to flirt with a lot of people… Sometimes I was just talking normally, but… It happened that I could kiss a stranger after an hour of… nothing…"
"Wow, seems you have great powers of seduction! Your language skills, maybe?"
"No ahah, certainly not." Gray chortled.
"So you finally got your lady?"
"No… Not really… In fact… I managed to find some nice people…"
"Good! What was her name?"
"Oh, it was a man…"
Z narrowed his eyes:
"So… Wait, you met a new friend?"
"No, I slept with him…" Gray's heart started beating faster.
Z's smile fall.
"Euh… Ok…"
"I don't want to bother or make you uncomfortable, you know, just tell me if I am." Said Gray.
"No! But, I… I just thought you were into girls… Why?"
"Because I am not paying attention to gender…"
"Alright… You were sad at this point?"
Listen to : Mihály Vig - Valuska
"No! Ahah, no! I had always felt something for men before… The thing is that I had troubles to admit it at the beginning… And even more because of Natsu, always around me, teasing me… But as I told you I just couldn't see myself with someone before my nineteenth birthday… I was attracted, but not more… Or so I thought… And then those feelings ran out of my heart and I began to take things seriously…"
"So… You are with him now?" Z still was unsure. "Wow, but I have a strange impression here… I could have not imagined that you would be…"
"Attracted to men? Well, me neither… Until I just realized with that guy in the bar. His story just cleared my mind. Because we were talking of our respective stories, he made me understand that I was in love… In an 'Oh so platonic love'… In fact, I was so rough-and-tumble with this that I could flirt with almost anyone… I was so sad and lost in that big town… But he told me to run for my sake to him and tell everything…"
"Wait… You mean you are in love with another man?"
"Yeah… With that white-haired guy from Crocus…Lyon…"
Z paused, and then looked to the sky. Gray, on his side, was a little bothered by all this questions but felt relief as he was telling everything. The name of his beloved ice-mage turned his heart for a moment; he felt his eyes hazed by tears.
"I could not understand it before, but I had such great time with Lyon when Ur, our master, trained us in the snow… Years with him, sharing all our sensations, all our bad times and experiences… Then I made a terribly stupid and egoist thing and we were torn apart for years.
At the age of nineteen, I just took conscience of my love for him. It was not that hard, but I was really convinced that it could not be love… I trusted in my little feelings for Lucy, I wanted to believe that it was possible to have my life with her… But the more I was thinking about her and the less I felt the thing pleasant… Lyon… He began to haunt me… I was always thinking about him, dreaming about him – and what dreams.
Him, and only him. And yet I could not tell Lyon of my feelings at that time, I was not very sure of myself and I never had any experience… And of course, he had to be mad about that girl, Juvia, a water mage of Fairy Tail that was completely reluctant to his love… Poor Lyon… I was a little like him in fact – always searching for my love –, but he could confess to her, not me… or not at that time… The last time I saw him, maybe four months ago; it was in Fairy Tail, for a party between our two guilds. "
The bathroom door opened and one could hear some happy voices from the guild's tavern.
"Gray, why are you crying?" Asked a gentle voice behind the young ice mage.
Gray turned to Lyon, half naked, his shapely body shining under the lamp of the bathroom.
"No, don't mind me…" Gray wiped the tears away and tried to ease himself.
"You know," and Lyon placed his hand on Gray's shoulder, gently smiling" if you are still thinking about Deliora and Ur, I want you to stop now! Those things are past now, and you know perfectly that nobody but that demon is responsible of our master's death…"
"No Lyon, that's not it…" Gray stepped aside and looked at the cold glass of water he was drinking before starting to weep.
"Come on! I don't like when you make this sad head! Juvia was even worried about you. You seem so sleepy!"
"I just feel strange… I… I don't know myself, sorry…"Gray was thinking back to Juvia's cold look on him, she was sitting at the white-haired guy right side, a hand placed on Lyon's lap.
"I know you know" Lyon chuckled "But you are like always trying to hide! Come on Gray! This is very troubling for all of us. First I learn that team Natsu is gone... No more Gray? Why did you stop to go with them on missions? Then it seems you make your own business alone and you only speak – and rarely – to Mirajane with your sad face… What happened, you've changed so much! "
The other young ice mage couldn't stand any longer what he heard – all was true, so true and hurtful – and let tears pour from his eyes. Lyon hugged Gray carefully, feeling the cold ice mage's heart beat faster. Gray suddenly lost control and an awkward sensation was filling him.
"Thanks Lyon, but I'm just stupid…"
"Ohhh… stop that Gray…"
Lyon shook a little the other and said with a gorgeous smile:
"If there is something you want to tell me, I'm open…"
"But I just moved back and abandoned the idea to live with him… Until now… I've waited way too long. I thought that to fly away from him was the good solution, but I really can't find rest like this… I feel so sick, so sick of myself and of the world; of everyone sometimes. This is like a general disgust. I'm so stupid, so stupid fuck!" Gray rubbed his eyes with anger." I'm just sick and I can't cure myself from that stupid story… I'm so… I'm a fucking coward!
As if not telling everything could be a good thing for me, and even for Lyon… I saw him four months ago, and it seems like if it was yesterday, and at the same time, I miss him so much. His beautiful face lit by the blues glows of the winter sky, ice drowning us in its flow – I could feel as if I was in a peaceful swimming pool when I was looking at him.
I can't even believe I have this feeling inside me. Ache stole my mind. Worth heckled my soul. I'm awaiting the verdict and patient as long as there is hope. I was living with the hope, the desperate hope that Lyon could love me back. Huh... Love... Beautiful disgrace! Beautiful dark force! Love, I would spit that word of my heart, but at times I cannot do anything to fight against it, nothing, it has hindered me savagely ... And now I sit between his ties of iron and flesh, I 'm lost in the maze of invisible chains that lacerate my body from side to side. Mercies, bitter…
Ah ... the night is sweet; I would just melt away… I feel myself in a swamp without end ... I'm lounging in my chair and talking to you, would love to fly, really, flying and not to be sinking. You see now? You see now why I have to talk to him? ... Why do I have to tell him today if it is possible, if I don't want to go crazy, to rehash these endless stories? I want to see him now, from the deepest of heart, I want to see and feel him again… Even if he is with someone else. I prefer to be friends with him than nothing…" Gray paused a while, suddenly opening wide his eyes, realizing something. "In fact this trip is just for him…"
XXX
