All Rights to Hiro Mashima

Canonverse. No time period. Fluff. :3

BEWARE! I CAN'T STOP WRITING FLUFF FOR THESE TWO! HELP!

Day 5: Serpent

In which Cobra sets off with the perfect plan in mind, then returns just so fucking done with everything.

It was perfect.

Well, it was perfect until it wasn't. But by then he couldn't back out of the mission without looking like a douchebag. A wimpy little pansy with no sense of Fairy Tail pride or whatever those morons had that he was still reluctant to name. He didn't even want to think about the fact that it was rubbing off on him, that was a problem for another time.

The mission was simple.

Retrieve a lost artifact.

Outskirts of Snowdrop.

Reward: 1 million Jewels and a silver Celestial key.

See Madame Silvestro for instructions.

Nothing he couldn't handle, so he took the paper, had the She-Devil stamp it and with a small smile on his usually grumpy face he had left that freaky guild where they gave everyone they met a second chance and welcomed their enemies with open arms. He had been…confused when they didn't outright attack Crime Sorciere and completely bewildered when he watched as Lucy gave Sorano a hug.

That was…slightly terrifying, but he got over it. All the Fairies just so much love and forgiveness in there big sappy hearts and it was a little disgusting, but hey. It kept him alive and intact, and able to watch the golden girl that captured his complete attention almost immediately after walking through those big wooden doors.

It was perfect, his plan. The silver key was supposed to be a peace offering to the woman who had completely eclipsed everything he had ever known and caused his mind to melt and his soul to fucking reach out and try to grab her own. She was like…his other half and he loved the way her soul sounded, how it mingled and sang in his presence.

But he knew exactly squat about relationships and women in general. Flings and fuck buddies and one-night stands he understood (from experience, of course, he still couldn't quite believe how many people were turned on by scars and his brooding personality), but the mushy feelings in his stupid blackened heart that he didn't even know could work properly anymore took him off guard and blindsided him in their intensity. He didn't even know how he could feel so much for a woman he couldn't even speak to without fear of making a complete and utter ass out of himself.

Therefore, the plan.

The perfect plan with the perfect easy mission with the perfect key as a reward which would work as the perfect icebreaker. He had watched her from afar, grinding his teeth in absolute misery as every one of his family started to mingle and chat and get to know Lucy and all he could do was listen to the sound of her soul and her voice as she spoke to other people that weren't him.

Because he was a goddamn pussy and he knew it. A little baby snake that couldn't get up the courage to approach the woman that glowed brighter than the sun in his eyes. She was caring where he was ambivalent, she laughed where he scowled, she opened her arms where he shied away and hid. She was the light to his dark. He admired her and watched from behind a smoke screen of snark and bluster and poison barbed retorts. Because that was all he had. Inside he was just truly a little boy left alone in the dark of the Tower, just Erik.

So he hid behind Cobra and vowed never to come out.

But he wanted her to know him. All of him, Cobra and Erik alike. But how could she do that when he kept her at arm's length? And what would she find if she did finally know him, all of him? How could he even speak to the one person he had actively tried to sacrifice to a gigantic clock to bring about the apocalypse filled with chaos and confusion because he was tired of the world?

But as time went on, and he observed her like the creeper he was from his dark corner of the guild hall, he noticed that she gave all of them the same smile that she gave her best friend, her team mates, her family.

And that burned him down to his core. He wanted to see that glowing smile turned towards him. He wanted to make her laugh and smile and giggle and shine so bright that his eyes would hurt but he wouldn't look away.

So that gave him the push to try and figure out how to break that shell of silence that he had with her. She seemed to respect his need, and other than familiar greetings and a quip back and forth here and there, she gave him his space. And he hated that distance with a passion.

The mission was a stroke of good luck and inspiration. How many times had he heard her soul sing when the mention of keys or her spirits came up? It was perfect and easy.

Until it wasn't.

The artifact was held within a maze, in the dark, in a damp cave that was filled with puddles, lichen, and mold.

Those weren't a problem for him. He grew up in the dark and it welcomed him back like an old friend. He felt comfortable in it even though he had witnessed and felt unspeakable things in the dark.

But caves held one thing he absolutely hated.

Bats.

Hundreds upon hundreds of bats that clung to the walls and the ceiling watching and waiting for him to make the first move.

He wasn't afraid of them either. More annoyed. They were blind – ironically like he was – and used echolocation to find their way around.

It was their screeches that he loathed with everything he had. It got into his head and echoed so loud that his ears started to bleed from the sound. Even if he covered his ears, or had ear plugs, he could still hear them.

He avoided caves like the plague (except for the fact that plagues actually gave him strength instead of killing him, seeing as it was usually a toxin or poison to most people, but not to him.)

He looked at their beady little eyes, just watching him, looking all smug upside down. So he shot them a one finger salute and scowled. "Fucking bats. Why did it have to be bats?" Then he really asked himself if it was worth it, to put himself through all that agony.

The answer was yes, it would always be yes. If it meant that Lucy smiled at him all teeth and sunshine and blazing glory. She was most definitely worth it and he was just desperate enough to want to talk to her about something, anything, that he would do this.

But only if it was for her, even if she didn't know that.

It took him five and a half hours to search that underground maze, turning and twisting, dead ends and all for that stupid artifact. It took him much longer than he thought it was because he tried to make absolutely no sound.

No sound meant the bats stayed put sleeping in their little nooks and crannies and his ears were saved.

Finally, there it was, sitting on a pedestal like a freaking adventure movie in a small beam of sunlight, was the stupid artifact that had somehow gotten lost underground in a maze cave. The whole thing was preposterous and all he could do was roll his eyes at the ceiling because making scathing remarks and cursing his luck would have meant words and sound and the bats had left him alone for the most part. Nothing he couldn't handle.

Until he stumbled in his haste to get the little gold broach thing (was it shaped like a bird? Was that a peacock? Whatever…) and kicked a damn big rock into the wall of the cavern.

That was noise, and it echoed and he knew what was coming almost immediately after but all he could do was clamp his hands over his ears and curse. "Shit."

All the bats left in a screeching mass of flapping bodies, and even if they didn't venture down that far into the maze and stuck around the beginning of the cave and a few of the closest passages…every sound bounced and echoed and volleyed off the stone walls until it was a cacophony of the worst noise he had ever heard.

Thirty seconds in and his eyes rolled up into his head and he fainted dead away, thankful for the darkness that came rushing up to greet him. His old friend was back and he relished in the fact it was silent.

-ooo-

He woke up to a ringing in his ears and a massive migraine, his hands clenched around a single golden broach with a lump on his head where he hit the ground.

With a groan he lifted himself off the hard stone floor and decided to just get this over and done with, he needed to get back to the requesters house so he could get his reward, then onto a train to become mildly nauseous for three hours then back to Magnolia so that he could start something with Lucy.

At this point, he didn't even care if all she did was smile at him and never looked at him again, it would have been worth it because at least something happened and he was the cause of it.

It took him significantly less time to find his way back outside, and the ringing in his ears had finally stopped, but he had bled a little and the stickiness was just…disgusting against his over shirt and skin and hair.

He stripped and washed the blood off of himself and his clothes in the first stream he came across, laid for a good hour on a flat boulder in the sun completely naked to dry, then proceeded on his way back to the requesters little stone house to claim his prize.

The old wizened woman with a curious gleam in her eyes handed him a sack full of jewels in exchange for the stupid brooch thing (it had belonged to my late husband! He was a puzzle freak you know…as if that explained the underground cave maze) and laid a small flat box in one of his hands.

Cobra didn't even look at it, just gave a grunt and nodded, then left ready to just finish this day.

The train ride was uneventful – if roiling nausea for three hours could be classified as uneventful – and he made it back into Magnolia in the early evening when the day was just winding down into night. The stars were just peeking out from behind the clouds and there was a slight breeze washing away the stifling heat of the summer afternoon.

In his gloriously easy perfect plan, he was going to give the key to Lucy as nonchalantly as possible when it was just the two of them and act as if he didn't give a crap whether she liked it or not, even though her reactions were fascinating to him.

But not now.

He was done with this day.

He was done with the bats.

And the underground cave maze.

And the stomach knotting train ride.

And his frustration and need and annoyance that he couldn't spit out two words around Lucy because he was being a damn coward about it.

He was done with his heart being in a vice.

Cobra wanted Lucy to know, right here, right now, with every single fucking member of their stupidly proud guild watching them, that he wanted her. In every single way possible. And he didn't care that he would probably be pounded into the ground for even approaching her at all.

Because he was done.

He had bled out his ears today and he deemed it high time to get his shit together and show the girl that he was fucking interested in her and thought she was the most amazing thing since Mira had started to add shaved Hemlock to his favourite meals.

He slammed the heavy doors open with a barely concealed growl and only a few people looked his way – this was the customary greeting of tried and true Fairy Tail mages so it wasn't obvious he was pissed, the members of this guild lacked all subtlety and tact, and those doors took an absolute beating constantly – and fucking stalked, like a fucking lion or panther or whatever over to where the woman who had captured his attention was sitting without a clue about how done he was with this day.

She didn't have a goddamn clue and so he wanted to give her one. A really obvious one.

(If he wasn't as pissed off, he would have been a little more wary about approaching the table that housed the only two people that had ever beat him in a fight (other than Jellal, but Cobra still thinks he cheated somehow) and instead waited for a more opportune moment. But he didn't, because he was just, so, done.)

He could feel the gazes of all the eyes of the people that were following his path towards the heavy hitters in their guild, worried for a bit that Cobra had lost it again and planned to do something untoward against their sweet little Celestial Mage.

Again.

"—has he lost his mind?"

"—he should know better than to make Titania mad—"

"—I'll bet anyone a hundred jewels that she'll use that hammer on him again…"

He rolled his eye and snarled. So done, so incredibly, undeniably done with the gossipers and this day and the bats and everything and fucking shit he didn't even give a damn if Titania ripped off his arms and beat him with them for even attempting what he was about to.

Cobra stalked past the tiny guild master who sat beside his hulking grandson, and the entire body of the guild breathed in once in tandem to see what Makarov would do to the clearly pissed off poisonous bastard slinking his way through the beer hall on a direct path towards the one person they all loved without a single doubt.

But no one moved as Makarov gave no intention of stopping his path and only gave the Poison Slayer a slight quirk of his brow in question. He was ignored as Cobra had only one person he wanted to speak to at the moment, and Makarov was not the blonde in question.

Finally reaching their table – the guild hall had gone silent again for the first time in months – Cobra slammed down the little box he had never looked inside of (belatedly realising that he should have probably verified that there was indeed a key inside it) and growled.

"I got this on the last mission I was on. I can't use it, but you can."

He looked down at her, seething a little at the stupid day he had just had, and watched her crack open the box. Her eyes blew wide with disbelief, then gratitude, then happiness.

Then she smiled.

She had fucking smiled at him and didn't that just make him feel like he was the fucking King of Fiore? It made this whole shit day he had worth it. Everything that had weighed heavily on his mind melted away and he mentally sighed in bliss as her soul trilled in elation.

"Cobra…you want me to have him? Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"Do you know what this means to me?"

"Yes." He said, but then lowered his voice to a whisper for only her. "I can hear it."

And he could, her damn beautiful soul lit up like a firecracker and sang like a choir of angels. It was terrifyingly beautiful and he just wanted to keep listening to it, all day, and all night. Always.

"…Thank you."

He nodded and turned to walk away, but then decided, to hell with caution and threw everything out of his mind for once in his life and stopped over thinking things. He looked at her with his one eye and glared a little, daring her to say no. "We're going on a date tomorrow. Be ready."

She answered with a smirk that had his mind reeling, while his face stayed – thankfully – placid. "Pick me up at eight."

Her soul sang happily as he listened to Erza lean over and demand to know what was going on between them. To which he heard her state that whatever it was, it was only just beginning.

This time he truly walked away from her and his other guild mates who were left gawking in his wake while the boom of the double doors signalled his exit.

That night, after he had stopped to think about it, he was a bit frightened about how Titania might come after his ass, but he didn't truly care because Lucy had smiled that smile at him. For him.

Because of him.

Shit, he was a sappy little bitch, wasn't he?

-ooo-

The next night, in a big open field covered in springy grass, Lucy told him that she had waited to make a contract with her new spirit because she wanted him to be there. He had told her that he didn't actually know what key he had given her, which prompted a telling of his day that left her giggling at his misfortune.

He flicked her in the forehead when she laughed at how he hated bats, and she pouted and it was the most adorable thing he had ever seen. All Cobra wanted to kiss her and hold her and stroke her hair and damn he was probably in love. Holy mother of Mavis when had that happened?

Oh well.

Wasn't much he could do about it and that little ball of happiness in his own soul felt too good to be afraid of it.

"So you really don't know the key you gave me? The new friend I'm about to make?"

"Didn't even look into the box."

"That was dumb."

He shrugged then. "I trusted the old lady…to a point. But I just wanted to get back to the guild." To you. Cobra didn't say that out loud, but damn did he ever want to, he really wanted to see the look on her face.

"Then, I think this was either fate or just dumb luck. Or just some weird irony. Something like that…"

"What is?"

She spun around in place and cocked a hip out in a way that showed she meant absolute business and ohfuckinghell he was screwed cause he found her no nonsense tone and the way she held her body incredibly enticing. He was terminally in love with just…everything she was. "Just watch."

And he did watch, as Lucy called the Great Serpent, Serpens from beyond the Celestial Gates and beckoned him to her side. Cobra decided that he liked this spirit very much, and the spirit had, in turn, liked him, which Lucy was very happy about. Serpens reminded him a little of Cubellios but was a bright acidic green that he thought looked entirely perfect for a snake.

She then taught him about the stars while they laid out under the turning sky on that field, Serpens coiled in their lap like a scaly puppy. He did listen to her words and her voice, but he mostly listened to her soul, that was humming along with his.

It was more than he could have hoped for, and when he told her that he would listen to bats for the rest of his life if she kept smiling like that at him – he had turned into a gigantic fucking sap somewhere along the way and he didn't even give two shits about it – she gave him another smile and kissed him soundly.

He told her to call him Erik, so she did in between breathless kisses and small giggles. Then when the night started to turn into dawn and Serpens had finally poofed back to wherever he had come from, he had carried her sleeping form back into her house – she should really learn to lock that window – placed her keys down on her bedside table and flopped on her couch asleep before he knew it.

When he woke to the sight and smell of the blonde cooking breakfast and humming a tune that sounded suspiciously like her own soulful song, he mentally thanked all that was holy for this chance that he had, bats and all, to start something with this woman that smiled at him with the sun in her eyes.

Tomorrow: Invitation

Stay crazy,

LoadedEel