Chapter 7: Friendly Laughter
There was some struggle getting down the stairs, because Gray stubbornly insisted he would do it himself, but they got there.
Mirajane walked into the hall first, holding open the door for Gray, Natsu followed right behind.
"Natsu!" Lucy hopped out of the seat Natsu'd left her at earlier and walked over to them, followed by happy. "You must be Raven!" she said, looking Gray over with genuine concern in her eyes, "how do you feel?"
Gray stammered a bit, unsure of how to reply, he looked at Natsu, who gave him a reassuring smile, "I'm fine," his voice still sounded like shit and he could see that Lucy noticed it by the way she winced when he spoke, "thanks...-"
"Lucy." She smiled kindly, "I look forward to getting to know you!"
"Right, Lucy," Gray smiled back at her, "yeah, me too."
"I'm Happy!" Happy said as he spread his wings to fly up to Gray's level.
"Well, I'm happy, too, I suppose." Gray joked, though he knew that the others would think he meant it.
Happy looked confused for a second before he spoke again, "no, my name is Happy."
"Oh," Gray said, feigning embarrassment, "then I'm Raven."
"Are you a mage, Raven?" Happy asked, probably already having forgotten about the mix up, "you look strong."
Gray choked on his breath and Natsu coughed at the same time, that was still a sensitive subject. "N-no," he said, but recovered quickly, "no, I'm not a mage. I used to want to be one, though. Never got around to it."
"Then why are you so strong?" He asked stubbornly, landing on Natsu's shoulder.
"I, um…" he was never that good at improv, "I teach a boxing class back home?"
Happy frowned, unsatisfied with the answer, "then why…"
"Happy, that's enough, she just woke up." Natsu quickly interrupted, saving Gray from further interrogation."
"Aye, sir!" He saluted to Natsu, "come sit with us, Raven!"
Gray smiled, first at Happy and then at Natsu, grateful for the save. He hopped over to the table and gratefully accepted Levy's offer to take the crutches from him so that he could lower himself onto the bench. Levy stashed the crutches underneath the seats where no-one could trip over them.
"How do you feel, Raven? I'm Levy, by the way." The blunette said, she kept standing at the head of the table by Gray's side whilst Natsu and Lucy slid into the seats next to Gray and Wendy.
"Thanks for the help, Levy." He said politely, "I'm alright, I just feel like I got hit by a horse-led carriage after running a marathon."
She chuckled, "certainly doesn't sound like you're fine."
Gray grinned at her in a way that Natsu thought looked a suspicious amount like his old grin, for a second he feared that maybe Levy would recognize him, she helped hex the charm, after all, and she was smart enough to figure such things out. "Believe me, Levy," he said, and Natsu thought he'd never get used to that feminine voice, "I've had hangovers worse than this."
Levy laughed again and made room for Mirajane, who held out a tray with drinks for everyone, she dropped a glass of ice tea in front of Gray and laid out two candies with.
"This will be really cold, but it's good for your sore throat." She winked at him with a smile and he smiled back, that sure was a good excuse for him to drink his iced drinks the way he likes them; freezing cold.
"Thanks, Mira... jane," he quickly added, trying not to sound like he'd known Mirajane for years. He took a sip of his drink and popped one of the candies into his mouth, sucking on it happily. Then he looked at Carla and Wendy, who sat across from him, and smiled at them. He felt like Wendy was looking at him a little suspiciously and Natsu worried suddenly that she would smell that he was Gray. Gray had realized the same thing so decided to go all ooc. "Well aren't you a cutie," he hung a little over the table, getting on eye-height with Carla, "such a cute kittywitty. Gah! I could just eat you right up!"
Natsu snickered in his hand, knowing that Gray was mainly doing that because every sane person knew not to get too friendly with Carla. If Wendy had been suspicious, she must've thought he was either suicidal, or that he really was a she and she had been wrong about the scent.
Carla made an undignified sound and looked away, her nose high up in the air and with her posh little accent she said, "someone should school you on proper etiquettes, miss. That's just plain rude."
Wendy smiled at her exceed and then at Gray, all suspicion seemed to have slipped her mind: "hello, I'm Wendy! I'm a healer, so if you want me to take a look at those injuries I could check you up in a bit," she offered, polite and friendly, like Carla had thought her. Then she motioned towards the white, still offended, exceed, "and this is my best friend Carla."
"Hey Wendy, I like your hair color," his smile was unapologetically conspiring and Natsu realized he was trying to base their bond over their kinship in hair color, although his was still a couple shades darker than Wendy's. "And I'm sorry Cara if I offended you, I just love cats."
"It's Carla." The white exceed grumbled, but her manners forced her to accept his apology and look him in the eye. His dazzling smile made it impossible even for her to stay mad.
Wendy had blushed lightly at Gray's comment and run a finger to one of her long pigtails, "thanks, I like your hair, too!"
The conversation flowed quite fluently after that. Gray was, after all, an expert on diverting the topic off of himself and onto others. That's how he'd lived his life without ever giving his friends too much of a look into his past and that's how he kept them now from prying into his identity. With subtle questions he kept diverting the topic onto others and passing on questions to his neighbors.
"So," Levy asked, "where are you from, Raven?"
"Gah," Gray sighed in fake exasperation, "I wish I was from here, Magnolia seems great, do you all live here?"
And on they went.
Natsu wondered if after half an hour they still hadn't figured out they hadn't learned anything about Gray, yet. It caused a slight smile to form on his lips, even as a woman, Gray was still a cunning asshole.
A couple more minutes passed before Natsu dropped his hand on Gray's shoulder, who looked at him with his giant doe-eyes open in confusion, "how do you feel now, Raven?" Natsu asked.
Gray smiled at him, grateful for his concern, "alright, I suppose. My entire body feels exhausted and my muscles are all cramped up, but otherwise I'm good." He had at least rehydrated plenty, thanks to Mirajane's nonstop supply of iced drinks. His throat felt much better, too.
"How about we get something to eat and then get you back into a bed?" Mirajane said as she stopped by their table again, "we'll massage out your muscles and you can sleep a little more, rest up." She smiled encouragingly and Gray nodded.
Mirajane brought some food over to them a little later, it wasn't Gray's favorite food, but it was something Mirajane knew he liked to eat, so it wasn't too suspicious. She got Natsu a light snack while she was at it. Since it was around 9, he'd already had his dinner. Gray casually poked the food and calmly ate while the girls all chatted against him as if he was their new best friend and Natsu smiled about the fact that Gray had gotten everyone to like him that quickly.
After he'd eaten, Natsu took the crutches out from underneath the bench and handed them to Gray, pulling him up by his elbow whilst he steadied himself. Gray said goodbye to the girls and followed Natsu back to the infirmary. They bickered a bit more about how they were going to get up the stairs, until Natsu agreed to let Gray try by himself as long as Natsu got to walk behind so that he could catch his rival if he fell.
"Do you still feel weak?" Natsu asked as soon as they'd reached the top of the stairs. They slowly made their way to the infirmary and Gray went to sit down on the bed he'd slept in.
"Not really," Gray admitted, "my muscles just ache and my body's tired. Nothing a little sleep and a good massage won't fix."
"I can massage you, if you want? A little heat will help your muscles relax." Natsu offered. He didn't know why he said that, he hated giving massages, although his magic did help wonders on sore muscles.
Gray looked at him with one delicate and perfect eyebrow raised, clearly questioning ulterior motives to the offer. "You're not going to touch my butt or anything, are you?" He was pulling off his combat boots blindly while looking up at Natsu in question.
"B-bastard!" Natsu exclaimed, becoming flustered, "why would I want to touch your butt? Gross!" But he couldn't keep his eyes off said butt when Gray jumped off the bed again to shimmy the cargo pants down his legs.
"Fine," Gray said, snapping Natsu out of his daze, "but you gotta help me out of this top. How woman wrestle themselves out of these tight things is a mystery to me." He had his arms crossed over his chest, as though he was being stubborn, but his gaze was cast off to the side and a light pink hue had pulled over his nose and cheeks. His bottom lip stuck out in a cute pout.
Natsu's face turned pink itself at the sight, but he quickly shook it off. "Aw, little damsel in distress all tied up in her own clothes? Your prince charming is here, princess." He mocked, but he held his hands out to Gray, waving them to sign him to step a little closer.
Gray refused to make eye contact while he stepped closer and raised his arms above his head so that Natsu could grab the hem of the top.
Careful, either not to hurt her, or to keep himself in suspense of the next moment, he lifted the hem, slowly peeling it off Gray's breasts, revealing the white lacy bra and the guild mark on his bouncy mounts. There was a beautiful couple of seconds when Gray's sight was obscured by the fabric of the top and Natsu got to shamelessly look over his teammate's body. The white bra and panties left nothing to the imagination, and Natsu loved the way Gray hopped from one leg to the other to wiggle out of the shirt, making his boobs bounce playfully. Way too soon, Gray was freed from his confinements and hopped back on the bed, hissing through his lips at what Natsu assumed was the cold of the infirmary.
"Fuck, I haven't felt cold in a decade!" Gray groaned, "be useful for once and warm me up, will you, flame brain?" He turned around to lay on his stomach, but quickly decided that that wasn't comfortable and shoved a pillow under his stomach. Natsu got him a new pillow for his head before he rubbed his hands together.
"I'm only allowing you to boss me around this time because you're a sad case and I feel bad for you." Natsu warned, knowing in his heart that it was a lie, but he said nothing more as he placed his heated hands on Gray's shoulders and started kneading out the knots.
"Yeah, yeah, whatever," Gray sighed happily, "just don't stop." The order was followed by a loud moan when Natsu roughly pushed his fingers into one of the knots in his shoulders. He halted his actions immediately and Gray seemed to stop breathing, his eyes wide and his face bright red, mirroring the color of Natsu's face.
Natsu recovered the quickest –mentally, at least- and placed his hands back on Gray's shoulder with a loud chuckle, "am I making your pussy wet, Gray?"
"Shut up, asshole!" Gray could only reply as he closed his eyes. Over the course of the massage, Gray had started moaning more often, having forgotten about his inhibitions. Natsu hadn't spoken up about it anymore, but he'd noticed every single one of those moans, rocking through his body like earthquakes. He wasn't even nearly done with Gray's calves when he realized that something wasn't right. He looked down to find that his infirmary-supplied sweatpants had a quite noticeable tent in them.
"Ugh, Natsu, don't stop." Gray moaned and Natsu swallowed hard.
"D-don't moan my name like that, stupid!" he mumbled, though he wondered if it was even audible for Gray.
Apparently not, because Gray spoke up again, "that feels so good." Followed not even two seconds later with, "ah, yes, right there," and the cherry on top, "a little harder, deeper."
Natsu wondered if Gray was shitting him, but the male-turned-female seemed completely out of it, all the while Natsu's boner was starting to seriously ache. He moved over to Gray's other calf, leaning over Gray' a little more, causing his member to rub against the mattress.
Natsu let out a soft moan, barely able to keep himself in enough not to be noticed by Gray.
He looked over at his rival and saw that Gray seemed to have fallen asleep, he exhaled deeply and kept massaging Gray's calf whilst softly rubbing his member against the mattress. His face beat red in embarrassment and fear that Gray would wake up and beat his ass, but also not being able to help himself.
AN:
So I brought the smut down to a minimum, I hope y'all can live with that. To me it just symbolizes Natsu's body reacting to Gray, even if Natsu's mind isn't ready to accept his feelings just yet. Furthermore, I am terribly sorry for this taking as long as it did, I'm just... well I watched Voltron and I'm kind of all into that fandom at the moment. Writing fics and reading fics (Keithstan here). If you're into voltron let me know I might drop a fic on here.
Also, bit more fairy tail related. I've been working on a short story that came to me when I was watching the last season of FT (been keeping up so far) and I'm thinking of maybe posting a two-shot of DimariaxUltear called Fleeting Moments. The first shot would be Ultear describing her loneliness in the time rifts all by herself and just her thoughts and prayers and dreams and everything, it's a little dark but nothing too heavy, kind of poetic. The second shot would be Ultear finding out that every once in a while, for a few fleeting moments she's not alone in the time rift whenever Dimaria stops the time. It's about how Ultear, who's on the brink of losing her mind, falls in love with Dimaria because she is Ultear's only connection to reality.
