I've been bad, I've been wrong, playing a dangerous game

Gray let Ultear sit in silence when they got into his car. He didn't even put the radio on, which was unusual for him, not that Ultear was in a position to appreciate the inconsistencies in his usual behaviour, inconsistencies that would have told her he was worried. She was thinking about Flare, and she was thinking about Ivan, and she was thinking about the man that lingered by her car. She was thinking about the nagging feeling that someone had been following her for days, and the absolute proof now that she had been correct.

That knowledge made her second-guess every encounter she'd had since the moment she met Flare and stepped into something very real and very dangerous, something she didn't quite understand.

Laxus' card was burning a hole in her pocket. She needed to talk to him, though she was wary. If she did visit him, would she be getting herself in even deeper? Was he part of all this? How could he not be? He was Ivan's son, and Flare's stepbrother.

He'd treated Ivan with a distinct lack of respect, though, she couldn't misconstrue that. He hadn't wiped his shoes before entering the house, he'd yelled at Ivan when he saw what was going on with Flare. So he wasn't an Ivan fan. But did that then mean that he was a friend of Flare's?

She didn't think that was apt, either. Laxus Dreyar was an enigma.

The car stopped. Ultear blinked; they were at Gray's apartment already. Gray turned to her; in the glow of his outdoor light, he looked even less put together than he had in her hallway. There were bags beneath his eyes. He hadn't been sleeping much if Ultear had to hazard a guess. The question was, who was it that was keeping him awake, and did she care enough to ask? She didn't think any answer he gave her would make her smile.

His eyes could burn a hole through her. "Are you going to tell me what's going on?"

Now that he'd asked, there wasn't any way he was going to drop it until she spilled. She could choose where to tell him, though, and his car in the dark wasn't good for her. "Let's get inside."

He got out of the car first. Ultear rushed to keep up. She didn't want to be out in the open for any longer than she had to be. Which was ridiculous; she'd never been afraid of the dark before and she didn't like starting now. She couldn't make her feet slow any more than she could control her heart rate.

"Hey," called someone from the end of the driveway and Ultear almost screamed. She whipped around, ready to fight again, but it was only Cana slinking up the cracked concrete, a beer in her hand and ripped jeans on her hips. She looked between Ultear and Gray with her eyebrows raised. "I saw you race by my house when you were supposed to stop by. Where's the fire?"

Gray sighed. "I got your money inside. I was going to drop it off in the morning."

"The boss wants it tonight," she informed him.

Gray shook his head and opened the door. "Come in then, make it quick. Ultear was annoyed but that didn't stop her from triple-locking the door once Cana was inside. Gray said, "Give me a sec," and disappeared and it was just Ultear and Cana.

"You look like you've seen a ghost and Gray's pricklier than usual," Cana commented. "What's going on?"

"Nothing."

"Come on, Ultear, don't give me that crap. We know each other better than that."

Drunk Cana was much more open than sober Cana, the kind of girl you could tell your fuckups to because she had her fair share of fuckups herself. Most horrifying, though, was that Ultear found herself wanting to tell her. Cana might actually understand.

She opened her mouth; the truth came rushing out. "It's Flare."

Cana rolled her eyes. "It's always Flare."

"It's not just Flare, though," Ultear tried to make her understand. "I put my nose where it didn't belong and I pushed Ivan Dreyar and then he sent someone after me." She wrapped her arms around her body. "Like, a guy showed up at my car when I was leaving Natsu's. He gave me some fucking line about wanting a ride home and when I said no, he tried to grab me and haul me off. Can you believe that? Who the fuck sends someone after a person? That's like—like mafia shit. It freaked me out." There, she said it aloud and the world didn't collapse. She was scared.

Cana's lips were pursed. "I'm sorry, I thought you just said you pushed Ivan Dreyar."

"Thanks, Echo," Ultear responded.

Cana looked at her for a long time. "You know who he is, right?"

"Flare's stepfather or something, but really I think the term asshole will suffice," Ultear bit out. She was unnerved by the intense expression on Cana's face.

Cana shook her head and pulled up her sleeve, showing off her Raven Tail tattoo. "This is Ivan Dreyar."

Ultear didn't understand her at first, then it donned on her. "Raven Tail is his?" Cana nodded her head slowly and Ultear cursed. She knew her hit-first-ask-questions-later attitude was going to get her into trouble one day. "Now what?"

"I don't know," Cana said. "How did things end?"

"With Natsu and this guy Jellal kicking the fuck out of Ivan's lapdog." She couldn't get the image of Natsu moving so violently, silhouetted in the light of his respectable apartment building, Jellal at his side, watching with approval.

"Well," Cana pulled down her sleeve. "The good news is, if Natsu and Jellal Fernandez are getting involved, Ivan's not likely to come after you again, he probably won't want to risk starting a war. The bad news is, you're under the lens of this city's two biggest shakers. Keep your nose clean, Ultear, pissing off the wrong person's how Natsu got into so much trouble." She looked towards the hallway and Ultear realized that Gray had been listening to the entire conversation. His arms were crossed over his chest and he looked agitated. Cana asked, "You have the money?"

Gray unfolded his arms and handed over a taped stack of cash. "Here."

"Thank you." Cana plucked it out of his hands and helped herself to the door. "See ya."

"That's it?" Ultear asked.

"What else do you want me to say? Good luck? You're scrappy, Ultear, you always come out with just a scratched nose." She yanked open the door and stumbled out. Ultear closed it after her harder than necessary.

"Sometimes…"

Gray raised his eyebrow.

Ultear huffed. "I can't tell if she hates me or not."

"I don't think Cana knows," Gray responded.

Ultear turned on him. "She's being dramatic. About Ivan."

"Maybe. Or maybe you should file a police report with my dad."

Just what she needed, more Silver. Aside from that, though, "Then I'd have cops knocking on Natsu's door and fucking things up for him when he's just starting to turn things around." Sort of, at least.

"You already put yourself out there for him. Remember when those guys were tuning him up and you stepped in and you were almost charged with assault with a weapon?" How could she forget? She spent the night in a cell, wondering what the rest of her life would look like with that kind of mark on her record. Gray concluded, "If you did owe him something, you don't now."

He was right. Or at least a little bit. "If Ivan bothers me again, I'll pursue it," Ultear responded, "but not before."

Gray shook his head and disappeared into the kitchen. Ultear could hear him open and close a bottle twice. She found him with a coffee mug full of cheap whisky. "No need to drink on my behalf."

"You're the only reason I drink," he muttered and took another swallow.

"I'm flattered."

"It wasn't a compliment."

Ultear sidled between him and the counter and swiped the glass from his hand. The alcohol burned all the way down her throat and into her stomach and she didn't mind at all. It was probably going to be the only reason she slept that night. "Before I went to Natsu's, I fought with Flare. Kind of."

"Holy fuck. What else?" Gray snapped and took the whisky back.

"You don't get it. She was fucking with my mom," Ultear said defensively.

"How?"

She didn't have to tell him. She didn't want to. At least, not very badly. She'd rather control the rumor mill, though, if Flare started running her mouth to get back at her and twisted the story around to Gray. "I wanted to find something on your dad. Something to make my mom kick him out for good. Flare said she could get into his laptop. So when I went to work the other day, she tried. She couldn't find anything, though, so she started writing notes."

"Notes?"

"Like the kind I used to send you in high school?" Ultear suggested. "The ones you'd burn after, just to clarify."

Gray's eyebrows came together. "Seriously?"

Ultear couldn't tell which part he was annoyed with, her example or her blunder. "I didn't ask her to. She just did it, and now my mom thinks he's fucking around on her and I have to explain to her he's not—or at least that those notes didn't come from an actual girl he was banging—and everything is the fucking worst. I'm so shitty."

Gray sighed and filled up the cup again, though he handed it to Ultear. "You're not shitty."

"I feel shitty. I always do stupid stuff like this. It's like it's the only thing I can do. Well, at least." She was horrified to realize that her eyes were stinging. She gulped back whisky and they watered for a different reason. Gray wasn't fooled, though. That was the bad part of living with someone for so long, they got to know all of the ways you tried to bunch your feelings up and smother them.

Gray took the cup from her hand; his body was against hers, warm and comforting. She wondered if he knew how earnest he looked just then. "Everyone fucks up. You're not the kind of person to start a fire and walk away from it, though, which is more than what most people can say. You'll fix it."

Ultear kissed him without thinking too much about it and after a brief, startled moment, he returned it. It took her some time to realize that she wasn't kissing him the way she was supposed to be kissing him. This was much too chaste. Gentle. It said a myriad of unsetting things. She covered up her fumble by trying to make it something else entirely.

She broke away and made him set down the glass of whisky, then led him through the townhouse by the tips of his fingers. She slowed only to peek out the window by the door on the way by, she couldn't help it. There was no one there that she could spot.

In his room, Ultear closed that door, too, and turned on him. Gray let her undo his shirt and his pants without any fight; he met her frantic touches with gentle ones that frustrated her as much as they soothed. The fingers sliding down her spine and pulling up her bunny dress were patient. She wanted roughness. And yet, she felt like she was getting exactly what she needed. So she didn't demand any different.

She tried not to think too hard about that, either, when he laid her down on the bed and put his weight on top of her, fingers between her thighs, mouth on hers. The tension dripped from her body one stroke of his fingers at a time. She came.

Gray waited until she stopped arching and whimpering to put a condom on and enter her. Ultear stopped thinking about the complicated things altogether; she saved that for after, when her body was buzzing and there was a drop of sweat between her collarbones, and Gray was beside her, spent, close enough that it could be intimate. If she wanted it to be. She did not. She was curious, though. Curious enough to shatter the quietness.

"Gray?"

"Mm?"

"Why did you have money for Cana?"

He took so long to answer, Ultear thought he went to sleep. "It came with the last delivery I did."

"Of car parts?"

"That's what the box was marked," he muttered.

"But that's not what was in the box."

Gray didn't answer her with anything but a light snore. Ultear sighed and closed her eyes. The next time she opened them, there was late-afternoon sunlight coming in through the window, shining on the bed and making her hot. She was alone but her phone was jangling by her head. Gray's caller ID photo was filling up the screen.

"Hello?" Her voice cracked; she cleared it.

"Hey. Finally." Gray sounded more chipper than usual.

"Where are you?"

"I just had to run out for a few. I'll be back soon, though, and I'll drive you home."

Ultear checked the clock. It was two forty-five. PM. "Fuck. I have to go." There was no way her mom would have waited that long to talk to Silver. Ultear threw the blankets off and hunted for her clothes. Her underwear was on the floor, her bra on Gray's dresser. Her dress was kicked under the bed.

Gray was still talking, telling her, "Don't go anywhere, I'll be back in like, forty minutes."

"I can't wait forty minutes," Ultear said. "I'll text you when I get home." That was the best she could do. She hung up despite Gray's bitching and hopped into her clothes. Her phone was lighting up; when it went to voicemail, she saw that her mom had tried to call her. Seven times. And she'd slept through every single one of them.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck." Ultear hurried downstairs and put on her boots. She locked Gray's door behind herself.

Crisp spring air whirled around her. She made her steps so long, she was basically jogging. A bike kicked to life a street over, and when it turned at the stop sign, Ultear saw that it was Cana. She thought for sure Cana was going to stop when she rolled past her at twenty-five but Cana barely even looked at her. Ultear tried not to sweat it; she had bigger, worse things to think about than Cana's coldness.

A block in and four phone calls to the house later, Ultear waved down a taxi and hopped into the back. For once, she wasn't mad about how fast the driver went, or the cost of going across town. When they pulled into the driveway, her mom's car was still parked where Ultear had put it last night. So why isn't she answering? Her mind flew through a million terrible scenarios. She paid the cab driver and exited without saying thank you.

It was at the front door where she snagged up. What would she do if she entered the house and something really, really weird had happened? She wasn't sure what, exactly, but something. Why else wouldn't her mother answer the phone?

Just go in. Ultear rolled her shoulders back and unlocked the door.

Her mother didn't keep her in suspense, she was in Ultear's immediate view, sitting at the kitchen table again, drinking a coffee that smelled like it was many times too strong. She lifted her eyes and pegged Ultear with an expression that was much colder than Ultear had anticipated.

"Hi."

Ur pointed at the chair across from her. "Sit." Off-balance, Ultear kicked off her shoes and entered the house cautiously. She pulled out the chair and lowered herself in and Ur reached behind herself and took the notes Flare had written off the counter. "Tell me about these."

Her mother had a way about her when she was angry. She could make Ultear admit just about anything. She blabbed. "It was stupid and shitty but I was tired of Silver, and the other day you were upset, and I'd had enough, so—"

Ur's throat turned red. "So you got your friend to write these letters."

"What? No. Yes, she wrote them, but no, I didn't get her to. I—"

"She already told me. And apologized."

Ultear's thoughts chugged. "She did what?"

"She came over this morning and we talked about it. She was really upset. I can't believe you'd make her do something like this, Ultear."

Her mind was still struggling. "No—that's not how it went. I wanted to catch Silver being shitty because he's always shitty but when Flare went through his laptop—"

"You got her to violate his personal files?" Ur asked and Ultear saw the bear trap close around her.

"I…" She had nothing.

"I've been really patient," Ur said. "I can't do this anymore, though. I want you to look for an apartment, Ultear, and I want you out of this house just as soon as you find one. We can talk again after you've dropped this stupid vendetta against Silver and have apologized."

Ultear was suddenly furious. "I'm not apologizing. Not about him being a terrible person. The notes? Fine, but you can't deny he's a giant piece of shit."

"Enough."

"He's been fucking other people!" Ultear pressed.

"We're past that now."

"Oh. My god. See? You don't respect yourself to tell him to get lost, so how do you expect him to respect you?"

"I said that's enough."

"If you're past all that, why don't you tell me why you were crying the other night?" Ultear jabbed. "It wasn't about the damn insurance. No one cries about that."

Ur's mouth got hard and narrow. She stood so abruptly, Ultear thought she was about to be smacked. Ur went to the garbage, though, and ripped through old coffee filters and chicken Styrofoam and plastic that couldn't be recycled and pulled out the paper she'd been leaning over. It'd been torn into six pieces. She threw them onto the table in front of Ultear and opened them up so Ultear could try to piece them together.

She was looking at an image, taken from high up at night. There was a driveway and a car that she recognized, and two people in the front seat that she knew all too well. There was the white bow she almost always kept in her hair, and there was Gray's tattoo sleeve, his arm wrapped around her bare back. Ultear's stomach plummeted. She put on a brave face, though.

"So what?"

Ur looked livid. "He's your brother."

"Not by blood."

"In every other sense of the word! If Silver saw this… His career could be ruined."

She didn't care. "Where did it come from?" But she knew. This picture was taken from her very own room.

"I found rolled up in the newspaper that morning," Ur said.

"But you kept it from me when I asked about it."

"I didn't know how to approach it. I still don't. I know you need to stop, though, for Silver's sake. And for your own."

"Because people will talk? Oh, no," Ultear hissed. "They already do. The last guy I was fucking got taken to jail for killing someone. Fucking my brother? That's small-time in comparison."

Ur was giving no quarter. "This is the kind of thing that will follow you for the rest of your life. Make it right."

She wanted to scream. Her mother passed by her and mounted the stairs. Ultear chased after her but Ur closed herself in her bedroom and all Ultear could do was stare helplessly at the door, trying to figure out her next move.

Leave, her mind suggested, and once she thought of that, she knew there was no other option. Her mom didn't want her there any more than she wanted to be there.

She packed everything that she thought was maybe important to her, which turned out to be very little. A couple of books she loved, some hair accessories, clothes and some shoes. That was all. She stuffed every bit of it into her travel bag and threw it over her back. It was so heavy she was off-balance going down the stairs.

She left her mom's boots where they were and put on her running shoes, though they looked stupid with her dress, and stepped outside. The sun was getting low in the sky; it refracted off the roof of Silver's cruiser when he pulled into the driveway. He got out looking totally burned out and exhausted.

"Ultear," he called as she steamrolled past him. "What's with the bag?" Ultear didn't have any words for him; Silver never needed her go-ahead to speak, though, and his deductive reasoning was sound enough, despite her consistently saying he was a bad and lazy cop. "Where are you going to go?"

She knew abruptly that her mother had told Silver all about the notes. Her chest was burning hot with shame. "I don't know. Gray's, probably."

"Come back inside."

"No."

"Don't be stupid."

"See? This is part of the reason I hate you so much," Ultear told him. "You always have this smug attitude."

He didn't apologize. "There was another girl gone missing."

"So what? Girls go missing all the time."

"Not in Magnolia."

She paused. "What?"

He spoke in short sentences so maybe she'd understand. "Last night. A girl. Sorano Agria. She was a nurse at the hospital. She went missing. It's all over the news." She thought maybe the name was familiar but she couldn't exactly place it. Silver added, "It's really similar to how that Strauss girl went missing. Come in, we'll talk about it."

She hated that he was trying to be the bigger, more reasonable person. "That guy's in jail. It's not relevant. You know better than I do, not everyone that goes missing ends up dead."

Silver hit her with, "The case against Strauss' accused killer might be getting repealed. There's new evidence to suggest he didn't do it, which means whoever took Lisanna Strauss could still out there."

Ultear wasn't sure what to say to that. She was sure that she didn't want to be there, though, so she kept on her way with her duffle bag over her shoulder. Killers be damned.

Despite Gray's assurance that he'd only be forty minutes, his house was still empty when Ultear showed, and he wasn't answering his phone. She threw all of her things in his bedroom, positive that he wouldn't deny her a place to stay, no matter how badly she messed up.

Her stomach was cramping; Ultear realized that she hadn't eaten in hours. She tried making herself dinner. The only thing good Gray had was macaroni and cheese. She ate it all greedily, almost finishing the entire box. She washed her dishes then, and, bored, started drinking the whisky Gray had opened last night.

It wasn't very fun drinking by herself.

She thought about texting Cana but wasn't drunk enough for that. She messaged Gray again and told him to get more whisky. He still wasn't answering his phone. She was starting to think it was a problem with her device. She shoved it into her pocket, annoyed, and returned upstairs to find something to change into, something appropriate for a trip to Fairy Tail. She didn't want to be alone anymore.

A/N: I'm sure I'm going to get questions about it—or maybe not, but maybe you'll be thinking about it. In my universe here, Ultear only knows Angel by Angel, not Sorano. So. Thanks for reading. Thanks for your reviews. Sorry I'm going so slow lately. Life is hard.