Still catching up on posting all these from tumblr, haha. Don't mind me.

This one is a bit cute and fluffy. I have some angst coming up. Get ready.

mending

She felt his looming body heat over her shoulder before he even said a word.

"Juvia knows Totomaru is behind her," she said, rather indifferently, threading through the white fabric. She pulled her needle well far back into the air behind her, causing the fire mage behind her to step back in order to dodge the sharp instrument.

"And what is Juvi-chan doing?" he teased, coming back close to her ear as she darted the needle back into the fabric.

The water mage sighed, exasperated. "Juvia is making dolls."

"Dolls?" he questioned, suddenly taking the seat in front of her and making himself comfortable, resting his chin on the backs of his hands, his elbows on the small square wooden table. "I didn't peg you as a doll person."

She glanced over at him, looking just beyond her stitching work.

"Juvia isn't making dolls for Juvia," she explained. "Juvia is making dolls for others."

He raised an eyebrow. "Oh," he said. "Is there some Phantom Lord fundraising campaign I don't know about?"

The guild was a little low on funds, after all—especially with the new renovations Jose was just pouring into the guild, attaching a Magic Cannon on it and in general making the whole damn building a moving robot, per se.

Juvia didn't return the lightheartedness. "Juvia is making teru teru bozu dolls."

"Teru teru bozu?" he asked, blinking. "You're not a kid anymore. You know the weather doesn't just change because—"

Then he stopped, remembering why Juvia's nickname was Rain Woman.

She dismissed his interrupted sentence, continuing to work on the cloth dolls. "Nobody likes Juvia's rain," she continued. "So Juvia is making teru teru bozu dolls to make the rain go away."

His mouth twisted into a frown and he tried to catch her eyes. "Hey, that's not true," he replied, voice softening. "I like your rain."

She pursed her lips, finally giving him her eyes. "Not everyone is like Totomaru."

They held each other's gazes for a full moment, before she immediately turned back to her stitch work. His eyes turned to the growing number of white ghost-like charms.

She had accumulated 18 by now, and she was currently working on her 19th. It didn't look like she was stopping anytime soon.

"You should be using your time doing better things than this," he told her.

She didn't stop, continuing to push and pull the needle through the fabric, continuing to crease and fold the cloth between her fingers, continuing to tie and wrap the string around the dolls.

"Hey, Juvia, hey," he repeated, with a little more urgency. He reached out and parted her hands from her work, taking both her hands in his.

He looked down at her callused fingers, prickled with red sore spots from continuous threadwork and knot tightening. He then turned his eyes back to hers, and she stared at the vacuous pools of his eyes for a few seconds.

"Let me help you," he said, gently.

It took her a moment, but she finally slowly nodded her head up and down, twice.

"Okay," she said, taking her hands back carefully. He let her fingers slip out of his palms and then picked up a spool of thread, needle, and some starting cloth material of his own.

She returned to working on her own unfinished doll, and as he began to thread, she could have sworn that the rain outside started to soften.

As always, let me know what you think! ;) (lol I actually winked at the screen while typing out that wink-y face.)

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