Note: Guess who got tired of writing a bunch of recovery chapters? No, it's not a trick question; the answer is me. Yay, baby time skip. Trust me, you guys would probably get tired of reading a bunch of chapters of Gray sleeping too.

Disclaimer: The author denies all responsibility for damages that might result from laughing at this story, including but not limited to food in keyboards and accidental strife in relationships.

: )

Chapter 14

(In which Gray can't keep his hands off his magic and learns about a new local legend.)

When Gray woke up to find both Happy and Natsu still in the room, he was annoyed. He understood that part of this was his own fault because he'd basically held Happy hostage, and he could even acknowledge that his friends were just trying to be nice. That wasn't the part he was annoyed about.

He was mostly annoyed by what else Natsu and Happy staying here meant. Not even the implication that they were still worried and fussing over him, although Gray wasn't super thrilled about that either. He was annoyed because his friends were still looking after him instead of looking after themselves. Because Natsu and Happy should be hanging out with the girls, or at least be doing something other than dozing in here from boredom. And Gray could definitely—kind of, sort of, maybe—take care of himself now.

It seemed like everyone was starting to settle back down a little, but Gray could still remember their frightened faces as they watched him writhe around in pain, Natsu's anger born of fear as he ranted, Lucy's tear-filled eyes as she held his hand, Erza's exhaustion and worry as she sat with him through the night. He understood why things had turned out like this, he could appreciate that it was only this way because they cared about him, but he was tired of watching them wait around on him.

Gray sighed and stretched out, uncurling his limbs. The movement dislodged Happy, who was still curled up in a drowsy ball against his chest.

The Exceed yawned and opened his eyes. "Gra–?"

"Shh," Gray whispered, grinning crookedly as he nodded towards the other bed, where Natsu's boredom must have eventually gotten the better of him.

Happy rolled his eyes at the sleeping dragon slayer, but obediently lowered his voice. "How are you feeling?"

Gray shrugged. The rest seemed to have done him some good, at least. He was still achy and overheated, but he felt stronger and less shaky.

"Alright."

He stood up carefully, pausing a moment to make sure that he wouldn't just topple right back over. Well, he was still weak, but at least he could stay upright and move around a little. Trailing one hand along the wall just in case, he stepped over to Natsu's bed.

"What are you doing?" Happy asked.

"I don't know if it will work and it's probably a really bad idea either way, but it would be worth it to see the look on his face," Gray replied, a smirk tugging at his lips.

"Uh, are you really sure that–?"

"Yup."

Gray took a steadying breath and braced himself. This was going to hurt, but he really did want to see Natsu's face. And more than that, he needed to know if he was still capable of this. So he cautiously reached for his magic and teased it out, letting his hands flutter into familiar gestures.

The parasitic magic inside him immediately protested and the simmering heat in his chest blazed up into an inferno, but he just gritted his teeth and tried to concentrate on the ice in the midst of the flames. It took several long seconds, but he eventually found what he was looking for and managed to mold a couple small chips of ice. They weren't much to look at, they were truly abysmal specimens, but Gray had made them.

He felt a triumphant smile creep over his face. Even though it hurt like hell and he might regret it later, he couldn't help but feel intensely relieved to know that he could still do a little magic, even if it wasn't much. He still didn't know if his magic would ever go back to normal, but just knowing that it wasn't gone for good made him want to cry in relief.

Shaking himself out of his reverie, Gray dropped the ice cubes down Natsu's shirt. The instant reaction was gratifying. Natsu's eyes immediately flew open and he sat bolt upright, yelping loudly and scrabbling at the ice.

Gray laughed, wrapping his arms around his ribs in a vain attempt to stop them from aching with the movement. Slumping back against the wall because his little party trick had left him more exhausted than he'd like to admit and the fire was still hungry, he grinned at his friend.

"What the hell?" Natsu demanded, turning on him.

The sound of running footsteps started up outside in the hallway, which perhaps wasn't surprising since Natsu was loud enough to wake the dead.

"Your face," Gray managed between breathy laughs. "It was priceless!"

"Why would you do that? Ugh!"

"It was either that or get you in trouble with Erza like I said I would. You should be thanking me."

Gray glanced over as Lucy and Erza appeared in the doorway, both looking half-panicked. Oops. They were probably worried that something had happened to him. He smiled at them reassuringly and tried to keep the pain off his face.

"Seriously? I can't believe you–" Natsu broke off and frowned. "Wait, did you just use magic?"

Gray's smile turned into a lopsided grin. "Yeah," he said with great satisfaction.

"Magic?" Lucy's eyes lit up. "That's great! See, we told you it would work out!"

Erza started to smile as well but then frowned instead, her brows knitting together. "Didn't you say that you thought the reason you started having seizures again was that you tried to use your magic?"

Gray winced and averted his gaze. She'd picked up on that a little too quickly. He knew that using his magic would have consequences, but he had just needed to know that he could do it anyway. Besides, he was certainly stronger now than he had been last time he'd tried, even if he was still pretty weak. He didn't think that he had to worry about something as bad as seizures this time around. Pain, yes. Heat and vicious magic attacks, yes. Seizures, no. At this point, he had been without his magic for so long and was so worried about it that he'd take any side effect besides death.

"Don't worry, I'm not as weak as I was then," he said cheerfully. "No more seizures."

Happy eyed him disapprovingly. "You know, you managed to stand on your own pretty well before pulling that stunt. Now you're sliding down the wall. Seriously, you looked a lot better when you first woke up."

"It's not a big deal."

"Ha. I think even you know better, considering that you said you knew this was a bad idea before trying it."

"Still worth it."

"You idiot," Natsu growled, standing up to glower at him. "Out of everything you could have done, you decided to risk your health on making ice cubes to wake me up with? Seriously?"

"Oh, Gray," Lucy said, sighing and shaking her head.

"Maybe you shouldn't be trying to use your magic until you recover more," Erza added. It was phrased as a suggestion, but definitely had the tone of a command.

"And–" Natsu broke off and his scowl deepened. "Why are you still grinning like an idiot?"

To be fair, Gray really was trying to wipe the stupid grin off his face. He just couldn't seem to quite manage it, because the corners of his mouth kept creeping upwards of their own accord. It would only make the others more irritated that he was smiling while they were lecturing him, but he couldn't help it.

"I did magic," he answered, eyes lighting up as the excitement temporarily drowned out some of the pain. "Thank God."

Despite their annoyance with his stupidity, his friends softened visibly.

"We told you it would work out," Lucy said again, smiling.

"Oh, alright," Erza conceded, shaking her head. For a brief second, a smile played at the corners of her lips too. "It's good to know that you're recovering and can still use your magic." Her eyes hardened again as she added, "But now that we know that, you need to take a break and not use any more until you've recovered more. We don't want to see you losing progress because you're trying to do too much too fast."

Gray nodded and tried to look suitably chastened, dropping his gaze to the ground and fighting to keep the goofy grin at bay.

"I'm serious, Gray. No magic."

"No magic," he agreed.

He almost meant it.

Leaving his magic alone was easier said than done. It was like having a scab that was impossible not to pick at, even if it was kind of gross and wasn't the best idea in the world. Or like waiting for a message from someone and being unable to stop continually checking to see if it had arrived, despite knowing that if it wasn't there two minutes ago then it probably wouldn't be there now.

Gray tried, he really did, but it was impossible to ignore it completely. He had to keep testing his magic to see if it was getting stronger, if it was going back to normal, if the amulet's magic was starting to put up less of a fight. He didn't usually try to actually use his magic, so in that way he was following Erza's orders, in letter if not in spirit.

What he would do was test his magic. Mostly he just reached for it, grasped it, made sure that he could mold it if he wanted to. In essence, he was just poking at it. Usually that was alright. He might get a spike of pain or heat, perhaps a dull ache or weariness, but that wasn't too bad.

The problem was that, occasionally, the amulet's magic poked back.

That usually manifested itself as hell on earth, although it was becoming more bearable over time as the foreign magic continued to lose its potency. Sometimes the heat came back to consume him, the constant and mildly uncomfortable overheated feeling blazing up into a raging fire for a bit. Sometimes the pain was so intense that it would set his whole body shaking and nausea would rear its ugly head again. And then afterwards he usually felt like he needed to sleep for a week, although he tried to tone it down so that he didn't worry his friends.

Maybe it wasn't the best thing to be doing right now, but Gray was careful and that would have to be enough since he couldn't seem to stop entirely. He was careful not to try to do too much, and to wait until he was alone or no one was paying attention, although that was easier said than done because sometimes that scab itched something fierce and he couldn't help himself from poking at it.

The one absolute rule was to never even so much as look at his magic funny right before eating. Last time he'd done that, he'd instantly become nauseous and had then thrown everything up, even setting aside the trembling fit that had come right before. He had learned his lesson.

On the bright side, the nausea wasn't usually too bad anymore and Sara had brewed up some kind of medicine to help keep it that way. As a result, Gray was able to keep food down now, even though he still had to eat small portions.

The constant tiredness and weakness were harder to shake. He could usually get around on his own with little to no assistance, but he was still unsteady and slow sometimes. And although he wasn't sleeping twenty hours a day anymore, he was almost always in some stage of tiredness, from mildly drowsy to completely exhausted. As much as he wanted to cut down on the sleeping, he still ended up sneaking in the occasional nap when things got to be too much.

This was one of those times. The exhaustion had swept over him out of nowhere, and he'd tried fighting it off for all of five minutes before Erza finally told him to just go take a nap if he couldn't keep his eyes open. Although he resented being sent to naptime like a toddler, Gray gratefully retreated to his bed and slept like the dead for… Well, he wasn't sure exactly how long he had slept. Since he was now allowed to sleep by himself, he hadn't had anyone to tell him what time it was when he woke up.

Sure, he could have just gone and asked, but then everyone would know that he was awake. And as bad as it sounded, he didn't particularly want them to know that just yet. His friends were great and thankfully they weren't as freaked out as they had been a few days ago, but they were still always hovering over him and watching every move he made. It wasn't quite as smothering as it had been in the beginning, but Gray had always liked to have some time to himself and being around his friends every moment of the day was driving him crazy.

But really, he just wanted some time to test out his magic without getting yelled at. In the few days since the official no-magic decree had been handed down by Erza, Gray had only dared try to use his magic once. Well, twice, if you counted right now.

He had settled himself cross-legged on the floor next to his bed and resolved to take ten or fifteen minutes to play with his magic before hunting down the others. Last time he'd tried this it had tired him out so much that he had just keeled over, which was why he'd chosen to start on the floor this time.

On the one hand, he was a little reluctant to try again because if something went wrong then it wouldn't be a lot of fun and Erza might strangle him if she found out. But on the other hand, he'd been feeling pretty good for the last day and a half, and the amulet's magic hadn't unsheathed its claws on him again when he'd poked at his magic. He took this as a good sign, and hoped that it meant he wouldn't suffer too many adverse effects this time around.

Still, he was cautious as he cycled through some basic molding techniques and scrutinized the ice he created. The results were half satisfying and half disappointing. It was definitely better than that pathetic molding he'd been doing back in the desert, but his magic was still clumsy and more brittle than it should be.

The most satisfying thing was that although using his magic was draining and left him exhausted, it didn't hurt the way he was afraid it would. Maybe the foreign magic was weak enough now that it couldn't do much. He could still feel a faint echo of it curling in his chest, but aside from the tiredness and uncomfortable heat, there wasn't much sign of it.

Maybe that meant they'd be able to go home soon. Gray had been hoping that they could head back to the guild now that he was feeling strong enough to make the trip, but Erza had also decreed that they weren't leaving until the amulet's magic had disappeared completely and Sara had done an exhaustive magical examination to make sure that he really was alright. It was taking much too long, and although Gray had grown more comfortable with the villagers and appreciated all they'd done for him, he was tired of the desert. He was ready to go back to air conditioning.

He was debating whether to keep going a little farther or call it a day and go find the others, when he heard quiet footsteps approaching from the hallway.

"Shit," he mumbled.

Waving his hands to dispel all evidence of his misdeeds, he jumped to his feet and collapsed onto the bed, closing his eyes and forcing his breathing to even out. Usually his friends would leave him alone while he slept, but occasionally someone would drop by to check on him anyway. Thankfully Natsu had decided that things were all good again and had mostly gone back to his normal annoying self, even if there was still always something lingering beneath his cheerful exterior. He might not see any reason to drop by, but every once in a while one of the girls would. Mostly Lucy, and Gray recognized her footsteps now. He'd gotten better at telling everyone's apart now that he'd spent so much time listening for them.

The door creaked open softly, and Gray considered his options. He could continue to pretend he was asleep, but then he'd probably be stuck in here for another half hour or so to allay suspicions, and he didn't want to risk pushing himself too far with his magic. Or he could 'wake up', since he had been about to go track down his friends anyway.

Silence cloaked the room for a long moment, and then came the sound of the door swinging shut. Gray stretched, rustling the blankets. The door paused, and when he opened his eyes, he saw Lucy watching him with a guilty expression.

"Oh, I didn't mean to wake you up," she said.

Well, Gray had certainly thought this out well. He grinned and opened his mouth to reassure her, but paused to smother a genuine yawn first.

"It's okay. Seriously. I'm tired of sleeping anyway."

One corner of her mouth twitched upwards. "You're just trying to make me feel better."

Yeah, but not for the reason she was thinking. Gray sighed and slithered out of bed, pausing for a moment to take stock of his internal state. He was tired, but not so weak that he was going to fall over. Good.

"If you say so," he said finally. "So, Luce, what brings you here?"

"I was just, uh…" She trailed off and flushed, her gaze dropping to the ground as she shifted awkwardly from foot to foot.

Gray hid a grin. "You were checking up on me because you're having a hard time kicking the habit."

"Um, yeah, kind of," she mumbled. "Well, the others were occupied, so it's not like I really had anything better to do."

"Occupied? What are they doing?"

"Well, you know how we said that we've been getting to know some of the villagers over the past few weeks since there's not much to do while you're asleep?"

"So they're hanging out with villagers? Why aren't you?"

"Not exactly." Lucy shook her head, her embarrassment melting into exasperation. "I mean, that's what it started off as. Natsu was bored, so he and Happy went to play with some of the kids. And then, next thing we know, half the village is on fire."

"What?"

"Okay, maybe not half," Lucy conceded. "But he got overexcited and wrecked a few buildings, and Erza's been yelling at him."

Gray sighed and rolled his eyes. He supposed that it was too much to expect Natsu to go weeks without destroying something.

"Great." A sly smirk spread across his face. "Well, while they're 'occupied', why don't we go take a stroll around the village? I'm sick of being cooped up. I'll even take the heat at this point."

Every couple days or so, he'd get antsy enough to brave the sweltering outdoors heat. Inside was usually more along the lines of uncomfortably warm, but being out in the sun was a whole other story. Still, he could only stay inside for so long before feeling caged.

Lucy hesitated. "Well, if you're feeling up to it…"

"I'm fine," Gray said with a chuckle, heading for the door.

The two friends slipped outside, but Gray paused and peered around the corner of the building as he heard raised voices. Well, raised voice. Natsu was looking pretty cowed already, shuffling his feet and peering at the ground as Happy fluttered by his side for moral support. Erza was downright furious, eyes blazing and hands jabbing the air sharply to punctuate her words.

"…and you thought it was a good idea to destroy their homes? Really? They've been nothing but nice to us for weeks, and after everything they've done for Gray…"

Gray winced automatically. Sara and the village leader, along with a few other nervous villagers, were hovering anxiously on the sidelines as they watched the altercation, but no one dared interfere. Gray didn't blame them.

"Wow, she's really mad," he said quietly.

"Yeah." Lucy sighed. "I think it's worse because we've been living off of their hospitality for a couple weeks now, and you would have died if it weren't for them. So repaying them by wrecking their village seems pretty bad."

"I guess." Gray was grateful too, although he wished that everything didn't always seem to circle back to him.

A smoking wreck behind Erza caught Gray's eye, and he resisted the urge to let out a low whistle as he surveyed the damage. There were at least two or three buildings that had holes blasted into them and had clearly sustained some fire damage.

"Wow, he really did a number on them, huh?"

Lucy smirked. "Yeah. I imagine your room would've looked about the same if he'd used a roar in it."

Gray gave her a look of injured innocence. "Are you saying that you think I lied? I'm deeply wounded."

"I'm not saying anything," she said, chuckling and shaking her head.

"…and what do you have to say for yourself?" Erza demanded.

"It was an accident," Natsu mumbled.

"An accident? An accident? I'll show you an accident!"

Gray ducked back behind the building, dragging Lucy with him, as Erza pounced at Natsu and the dragon slayer yelped and took off running. Gray must have missed some impressive yelling, because Natsu wouldn't be running away without a good reason. Usually he wouldn't pass up the opportunity to fight Erza.

The spectators all watched, wide-eyed, as the irate requip mage chased after Natsu and Happy, waving a sword around as she continued her tirade.

"I'm sorry!" Natsu wailed, disappearing in between a row of houses, Erza hot on his heels.

"Oh, you will be!"

Gray clapped a hand over his mouth to muffle his laughter. "Oh man, this is great."

"You wouldn't think it was as funny if she was targeting you," Lucy remarked.

"Ah, but she's not. I'm too much of a poor little invalid to be worth targeting."

"That excuse will only work for so long, you know."

"Good," Gray muttered. He was tired of being the resident invalid.

"Well, it was only a matter of time before he slipped up. And with how stressed out everyone has been… Well, I guess it's not surprising that it blew up into a big thing."

Gray bit his lip and shrugged halfheartedly. He had a pretty good idea of how much he'd scared everyone without all the reminders. Glancing around, he spotted a viable escape route that would take them past the spectators unseen.

"Why don't we go that way?" he suggested. "And let's keep an eye out for Erza and the flame-brained idiot. I don't want to get caught up in that mess."

Lucy arched an eyebrow. "I get wanting to avoid Natsu's predicament, but why are you trying to get around everyone else too?"

Gray grinned, eyes shining. "It'll be fun to see how far we can get without anyone seeing us. Like a game."

"You're such a child sometimes," she muttered, shaking her head. "You do realize that this is a village? Where lots of people live? Lots of people are inside their houses, and they'll see us as we go past if they look out."

"You're such a spoilsport, Lucy. Come on, I've been bored out of my mind. Humor me."

Lucy rolled her eyes, but after a few more teasing comments, she agreed to play along. In truth, it didn't really turn out like Gray had envisioned, mostly because Lucy was right. He decided that he would settle for just staying out of the way of the rest of the team and the villagers he was actually acquainted with. If no one approached them and tried to talk, then it was basically like no one saw them. Good enough. In any case, as long as they avoided the team, Sara, and the village leader, no one would ask questions.

It seemed a little silly, but in the end it was just a way of postponing the inevitable. Concerns about Gray's health had diminished over the past few days, but they'd definitely pop up again once everyone saw that he was awake. His friends would have to ask him how he was feeling, Sara might want to do another checkup, and some kind of comment related to his condition would crop up eventually. Gray appreciated the concern, but it was a little much. The only upside was that Natsu was finally back to mostly normal and would now sooner crack dumb jokes at Gray's expense than nag him about his condition. He could be annoying, but Gray appreciated the normalcy.

What Gray did not appreciate was the heat. He had the feeling that his stroll with Lucy would be a short one. Even sticking to what sparse shadows they could find between the buildings, the desert sun beating down on them quickly became uncomfortable. It sapped Gray's energy and left him more exhausted than before, but he stubbornly ignored it in favor of chatting cheerfully with Lucy.

"Oh crap," he hissed, cutting off Lucy's story of yet another dumb thing Natsu had managed to do.

Yanking the blonde back between a couple houses, he motioned for her to be quiet as Natsu went racing past, Erza still following behind him and Happy encouraging him to run faster. Gray and Lucy watched until their friends had disappeared again, although they were still loud enough to be easily heard.

"Honestly," Gray muttered, shaking his head. "They've been at it for nearly ten minutes now."

"Either Erza's really mad or she's enjoying it," Lucy agreed with a laugh.

Gray opened his mouth to respond, but nearly jumped out of his skin when something touched his shoulder. Spinning around, he was just in time to see a dark-skinned villager retreat a couple steps to watch him with unreadable eyes. Lucy let out an undignified squeak as she whipped around as well, and Gray idly reflected that they'd just lost their non-game.

"Ugh, you almost scared the life out of me," Lucy mumbled, resting her hand over her chest for a moment as she waited for her heartrate to slow back down.

"Can we help you?" Gray added politely.

"I, ah, just wanted to say thank you," the villager said, shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot. He kept darting nervous looks at Gray, who wasn't sure what the problem was.

"Uh…"

Gray had been cloistered inside for most of the time he'd been here and most of the villagers were still rather wary of strangers, although they seemed to have started warming up to the rest of the team while Gray was unconscious and then recovering, so he hadn't really talked to many people aside from the team, Sara, and the village leader. His other interactions with the villagers had mostly been brief, although a couple of the kidnapping victims they'd rescued from the treasure hunters had stopped by to express their gratitude.

Oh. Gray squinted at the boy—he couldn't be older than maybe sixteen or seventeen—and tried to remember if he'd seen him back at the city. It was hard to say. He hadn't exactly been in his right mind then.

"You…were one of the ones kidnapped by the treasure hunters?" Gray asked slowly.

"Yes, I was with group you found first. You took us to Lucy."

The boy nodded at Lucy, who smiled back at him. Gray resisted the urge to roll his eyes. The villagers seemed to have taken a liking to Lucy, perhaps because she'd spent more time trying to get to know them. A lot of them would talk to her in ways they wouldn't talk to the others, and they all seemed to know her name, even when some of the other mages got stuck with descriptive labels.

"Yeah, sorry," Gray apologized sheepishly. "My memory is still kind of fuzzy."

"Yes, the heat stroke." The villager immediately turned his attention away from Lucy and started giving Gray that funny look again. Come to think of it, a lot of the villagers he'd interacted with had looked at him like that. He wasn't sure why. "We are very impressed that you saved us while heat stroke was so bad."

His nervous expression softened into something almost admiring. "So I wanted to thank you for rescuing me and my friends."

"Uh, I didn't really–"

"Thank you, God Slayer."

The boy turned and scampered off, leaving Gray blinking after him uncertainly.

"What the hell?" he wondered aloud.

Lucy started laughing, and he turned his blank stare to her instead. It took her a few seconds to calm down enough to speak.

"I'm surprised it took this long for someone to say that in front of you."

"Huh?"

"It's your new nickname," she explained cheerfully.

"I don't understand," Gray said forlornly, totally lost. "And why do all the villagers look like they're afraid I'm going to eat them or something?"

Lucy frowned a little. "Oh, you haven't figured it out yet?"

"What?"

"Remember what the villagers think the amulet was?"

It took Gray a second, but then his eyes widened slightly. "You don't mean–?"

"A god," Lucy confirmed, nodding. She smiled at him gently. "They aren't scared of you, Gray. They're in awe of you. They think you killed a powerful and dangerous god."

Gray stared at her. "But I didn't."

"No, but they think you did."

"And you didn't set them straight?"

"Who are we to stomp all over their beliefs?" she asked with a shrug. "They really believe this stuff. And anyway, it's kind of cool to have a 'God Slayer' for a friend."

"Don't they know that there already are god slayers?" Gray mumbled, still stunned.

Lucy laughed. "I doubt it. They don't know much about magic, if you recall, and god slayers are pretty obscure to start with."

Gray groaned and rubbed at his face tiredly. "This is screwed up on so many levels."

"Why? It's kind of sweet. You're like a local hero now. The kids all want to be you. They play 'desert god vs. God Slayer'. It's adorable."

"Except that I'm not a god slayer and I didn't kill anything except for a couple treasure hunters," he said sourly, ignoring Lucy's wince. "I think they'd find it a lot less impressive if they realized that all I really did was stumble around like an idiot with heat stroke for a few days, take out a couple weak enemies with truly pathetic molding, and try to contain the amulet's magic with a lousy shield that ultimately failed."

Lucy tried to smooth out her grimace and then nudged Gray conspiratorially. "Lighten up," she said cheerfully. "Enjoy your newfound fame. You're a legend! Like, seriously, I could make a great novel out of this." She threw her arms out wide, her gaze going out of focus slightly as she laid out the plot. "Sexy hero gets lost in desert and suffers from severe heat stroke, but manages to find ancient, cursed city and valiantly fights all-powerful desert god, sustaining terrible injuries but pulling off an impossible victory despite his weakened state. That's a bestseller right there."

"Well, I'll take the 'sexy' part, anyway," Gray deadpanned.

"Huh?" It took Lucy a second, but then she flushed. "Oh! I, uh, I didn't mean–"

Gray chuckled. "Novels are all about exaggeration anyway, I suppose. I guess it could make a good story if you overlooked some things. Word of advice: leave out the unattractive vomiting and fainting. Oh, and definitely smooth out the part where your hero basically has no idea what's going on around him because he can't focus on anything.

"Huh, you're right, this is a lot better when you romanticize it," he added, grinning. "Make sure you gloss over how bad my molding got. Good heroes have to have impressive magic. And give me a really cool god to fight and make the win really heroic and all that. Oh, and maybe leave out the part about passing out afterwards. That's kind of lame."

He paused as he noticed the unhappy look Lucy was giving him. Arching an eyebrow in question, he wondered what had gotten into her. Wasn't she the one who had started this?

"Maybe it would make a better story if I didn't exaggerate anything," she said quietly. "It's already impressive enough how it is."

Gray snorted. "Who wants to read chapter after chapter of some fool wandering around the desert lost, slowly succumbing to heat stroke? Boring. And seriously, having a god would be way cooler than what anticlimactic thing we actually ended up with. Plus extra chapters of recovery where the protagonist is unconscious for days and then spends half his time sleeping even once he finally wakes up? No one wants to read that, Luce. You're an author, aren't you? Sometimes you have to pander to the readers. I'm starting to question your literary savvy."

Lucy didn't so much as crack a smile. Instead, she sighed heavily and fixed him with a serious, melancholy look.

"Sometimes I think you're too hard on yourself, Gray. Yeah, this wasn't a really smooth job and we screwed a lot of things up and you didn't speak up when you should have. But you know, in the end, we still managed to make it work. Maybe it would have been more flashy if you'd singlehandedly fought off a god or whatever, but isn't the truth already impressive enough? Not many people could have held off such a powerful magic even at full strength, much less when half dead from heat stroke. Maybe you didn't kill a god like the villagers think you did, but does that really mean that they're wrong to call you a hero anyway?"

Gray opened his mouth, paused, and slowly closed it again. What was he really supposed to say to that?

"She lllllllikes him!"

Gray and Lucy both jumped in surprise and whipped around, eyes wide. Sure enough, Happy was hovering in the air behind them, a smug smirk plastered on his face. Natsu and Erza were there as well, but thankfully the requip mage appeared a lot calmer than before, although Natsu was still throwing her nervous looks and edging away.

"Stupid cat!" Lucy hissed, face red. "Where did you even come from, anyway?"

"Erza finally decided to let Natsu live," the Exceed said happily, still looking much too pleased with himself. "So we went looking for you, but you weren't inside and Gray wasn't in our room."

"And just how long have you been there?" Lucy demanded. "You shouldn't sneak up on people and eavesdrop like that!"

"Not very long," Erza replied dismissively. "I was all for leaving and letting you two have your chat, but someone decided to interrupt anyway." She directed a glare at Happy, who suddenly looked a lot less smug as he wilted under her gaze.

Gray hid a smirk of his own. To be honest, he wasn't all that disappointed that he and Lucy had been interrupted. Things had been getting a little heavy for his taste.

"She is right though, you know," Erza added. Gray grimaced faintly and leaned back against the building behind him. "I can't say much for your intelligence since you were stupid not to tell us what was going on, but you did do an impressive job of holding off the amulet."

"Point taken," Gray mumbled with a sigh, shifting uncomfortably. He missed the days when he wasn't always the center of attention. Let Natsu have the limelight—Gray was over it.

He was about to suggest that they head back inside since the heat was wearing him down and giving him the beginnings of another headache, but Natsu finally seemed to lose his fear of Erza.

"I dunno, it was kind of lame," the dragon slayer said critically. "I mean, you passed out afterwards, and all you've done since then is sleep."

Erza drew herself up to her full height and rounded on him, her eyes blazing as she prepared to chew him out again. Natsu shrank back, realizing his mistake, and looked like he might be about to take off running again. Gray briefly entertained the idea of letting this run its course, but even though it would be amusing to see Natsu get in trouble again, he'd really rather get everyone back inside. It was hot out here.

"You should be more respectful, flame brain," he drawled haughtily, crossing his arms loosely across his chest, careful of his still-tender ribs, and letting his lips drift into a sardonic half-smile. "After all, I am a hero of legend, slayer of gods, and you are but a lowly dragon slayer. I'm afraid that you are sorely outclassed."

"What?"

Gray choked back a laugh as Natsu instantly forgot about the imminent threat and abandoned his escape attempt in order to glower at his rival. Lucy was trying and failing to hide a grin, Happy didn't even bother trying not to laugh, and even Erza paused and deflated a little, a small smile playing at the corners of her lips.

"You're an impostor!" Natsu fumed, throwing his hands in the air. "At least I'm the real deal!"

"Ha, did you miss that whole part about–?" Gray had pushed away from the wall to stand upright again, but stumbled back a half-step as a brief wave of dizziness made his head spin. Sucking in a ragged breath, he slumped back against the wall and closed his eyes as he waited for the vertigo to pass.

"Gray? Gray!"

"Just a second," he mumbled, the words heavy and awkward in his mouth.

He took a few more seconds to pull himself together, to wait for the dizziness to recede to a bearable level and the sudden nausea to retreat, and then opened his eyes again. Unsurprisingly, everyone looked like they were about to go into panic mode again, and even Natsu was looking worried, his annoyance fading away. Gray sighed heavily and straightened up, letting the fingers of one hand just barely brush against the wall in case of another attack.

"I'm okay, but can we go inside now?" he asked tiredly, shoulders slumping a little as heat-induced exhaustion fell over him once more. "It's really hot out here."

"Of course," Erza said immediately. "You shouldn't be out in the heat for too long. But are you sure–?"

"Yeah," he interrupted, turning away as he made his leaden feet start moving back towards the leader's house. "The heat always does this to me eventually. Usually it wouldn't happen so quickly, but I'm still pretty weak right now."

His friends followed him back, pestering him with worried questions about his health. He wanted to ask why they were so worried now when this was all fairly commonplace stuff that happened often enough if he was out in the heat for too long, but he knew the answer so he didn't bother.

"Could you tone it down?" he grumbled eventually. "I can feel another headache coming on, and you're not really helping."

"Headache?" Natsu asked. "Since when do you get headaches?"

Gray scowled, his discomfort making him irritable. "Since almost every time I'm out in extreme heat for more than a few minutes."

Natsu blinked at him uncertainly and then frowned. "I didn't know…"

"Of course you didn't," Gray snapped. "You think I'd give you more ammunition to taunt me with?"

"I guess that explains why you weren't happy with Natsu that morning you woke him up and he yelled in your face," Lucy remarked with a sigh.

Gray paused to stare at her blankly. His memories from their desert trip were still fragmented, and it wasn't easy to sort through them when his head was throbbing.

"Oh," he said after a few seconds as he finally figured out what she was talking about. "Yeah, that was why."

"Huh, I thought it was weird how you just said that he was being too loud instead of getting annoyed at him for being a jerk," Happy said.

"I wasn't a jerk," Natsu muttered.

"Uh, yeah, you were."

"Whatever."

"It's fine," Gray interrupted, shaking his head as he started into the building. "It doesn't mat–" He broke off and stopped short just inside the door, his brow furrowing in confusion.

"Gray?" Erza asked cautiously.

"That's weird," he mumbled to himself. "I don't really feel it anymore."

"Don't feel what?"

Gray ignored her for a moment, instead focusing his attention inwards as he searched for the presence that had become all too familiar over the past days. It wasn't there. Or maybe it was hiding or something. Maybe there were still echoes lingering somewhere, but he could barely feel it at all.

"What don't you feel, Gray?" Lucy pressed.

He frowned and looked up at his friends. "It's too cool in here. Well, it's uncomfortably warm, obviously, but it's not super hot."

"Duh," Natsu said, rolling his eyes. Apparently the stupidity of Gray's response had convinced him that nothing was really wrong. "It's cooler inside."

"Well yeah, but… It's usually always burning hot now, because of the amulet's magic. But I don't feel it."

Gray frowned down at himself. That normal burning in his chest wasn't there, and his blood didn't feel superheated as if his veins ran with fire. It was true that the internal heat had started fading to a more bearable level these days, along with the other symptoms of the dying magic, but surely he should still be able to feel some of it.

"You don't feel the amulet's magic?" Erza asked. Her eyes lit up for a second, before a frown crept over her face again. "But you weren't looking too good just a minute ago."

Gray waved off her concern impatiently. "That's just normal heat stuff. I don't need the amulet for that."

"So you're okay now?" Natsu asked hopefully, a relieved grin spreading across his face.

"Aw, it's cute how much you care," Lucy cooed.

Natsu immediately flushed and tried to backpedal. "No, no, I don't! I, uh, I…I want to go home. Yeah. And we haven't been able to because the stupid ice block got himself hurt. But if he's fine now then we can go back to the guild already."

Lucy started snickering and Erza smirked.

"Oh boy, the denial is too much to take," Happy muttered, rolling his eyes. "Why am I always stuck with these idiots?"

Gray snorted, but was only half paying attention. "I don't know if it's totally gone or not. I guess I'll have to wait and see if I can feel it again later. Or maybe Sara can check it out, although maybe we should wait for that in case it's still here after all. Wouldn't want her to get caught up in it."

"I don't mind taking a look," the healer said, appearing in the doorway. "If it's still too strong then I can pull out, no harm done. But at this point, I doubt it's still strong enough to do much damage to me."

Gray just shrugged, long since past the point of being surprised when people randomly popped up out of nowhere. Lucy, on the other hand, seemed to be getting fed up with people always sneaking up behind them.

"Again?" she complained. "Where do you people keep coming from?"

Sara blinked at her blankly. "Sorry? I was actually waiting for Gray to come back inside so that I could give him his daily checkup. I saw you two lurking around outside, but I figured that I'd wait until you came back in."

"Oh." Lucy flushed and shuffled her feet awkwardly. "Sorry."

"It's fine." Sara smiled over at Gray. "Why don't we get you sitting down? The heat hasn't seemed to have done you any favors. And then I'll poke around a little and see if I can figure out what's going on."

Gray nodded and followed her out of the room, collapsing into a chair gratefully at the soonest possible moment. The throbbing in his head had receded to a dull ache and he wasn't feeling as dizzy anymore, but he still felt drained and weary from the heat.

He stayed quiet and watched Sara through half-lidded eyes as she reached out with her magic and tentatively probed at his, her brows furrowed slightly in concentration. She didn't immediately freak out or pull back, so maybe that was a good sign. His friends had all quieted as well, even Natsu, and it was like everyone was holding their breath as they waited for the verdict, Gray included.

After a couple minutes, the healer sat back and studied Gray contemplatively. He got the feeling that this was going to be a 'good news, bad news' kind of scenario. But she did look faintly pleased, so he decided that maybe it was okay to start breathing again.

"Well?" Erza demanded, leaning forward.

"There's still a little of the foreign magic, but it's basically only an echo at this point," Sara said finally, directing her attention towards Gray. "It wasn't strong enough to really do anything to me, and it's not doing much to you anymore either."

"Huh," Gray mused. "With how strong it started off, I'm kind of surprised that it burned itself out so quickly. I figured I'd have to put up with it for a lot longer."

"Well, your magic was already fighting it while you were unconscious," Lucy reasoned. "Maybe you had already mostly won the war by the time you woke up."

Gray shrugged. He wouldn't know. He'd been unconscious.

"Or maybe part of it is that continuing to use your magic was actually helpful for getting rid of the foreign stuff, even if the immediate symptoms seemed bad," Sara added.

Gray's eyes widened. "What? How did you know–?"

He broke off and winced, darting a nervous look at Erza. It took the requip mage a second to put the pieces together, but then she turned a ferocious scowl on Gray.

"What? I thought I told you not to keep using your magic!"

"Uh…" He deflated a little. "Sorry? It wasn't really that much though."

Erza opened her mouth to chew him out some more, but Sara stepped in smoothly.

"I didn't know, per se," she said, smiling slightly. "But you and your friends are the type of mages with such a strong connection to their magic that it's really an extension of themselves. It's hard to imagine that you haven't at least played with it a little."

Gray smiled sheepishly. "Yeah…"

"Well, my theory is that because the amulet's magic basically latches on to yours, you're actually expelling some of it every time you use your own magic. Whatever foreign magic is piggybacking on your magic gets pushed out into the world with your magic and woven into your spells. The reason it had such negative side effects was probably because you didn't have enough magic left in your 'container' to continue combating what foreign magic was left inside you, and the ratio of foreign to native magic was too high. Now that you're stronger, you can expel some of the magic but keep enough of yours inside yourself to keep fighting whatever's left over."

Gray considered that for a moment and then shrugged. Theoretically it made sense, although it was still kind of weird to think about it in concrete terms.

Then he bit his lip and steeled himself. "And what's the bad news?"

Sara sighed, her smile fading. "It looks like there might be some damage to your magic container. It's…cracked, I guess."

Gray swallowed hard as an image of his splintering shield suddenly formed in his mind, the jagged cracks spiderwebbing its surface until it exploded into a hail of icy shards.

"What does that mean?" Lucy asked fearfully, when Gray didn't respond.

"It means…" Sara sighed and ran a hand through her hair. "I'm not sure, exactly. It's not really that much damage. If it was serious then we would already be seeing problems. Think of it more like a few hairline cracks—they're not very big, but we should keep an eye on them. It looks like your magic has actually… Well, it's like your magic sort of sealed them over. Some of the magic in your 'container' is basically coating the walls to seal the cracks, so they aren't doing any extra damage."

"So… What should I expect?" Gray asked quietly, frowning down at his hands.

He didn't like the thought of being broken, damaged, defective. And he wasn't sure that he liked the implications either. He didn't know what kind of terrible things might result from something like this, and he wasn't sure that he wanted to find out.

"I can't say for sure, but I can theorize," Sara said, grimacing faintly. "It's kind of like that amulet. It contained an immense amount of magic, but once it was cracked open its magic became unstable and somewhat uncontrollable. The outpouring of magic back in the city might have been triggered by the treasure hunter trying to unleash it, but part of it is just because it was so unstable after being damaged.

"The magic container is kind of like that, and my main worry is that if the cracks get bigger or your magic fails to seal them properly, it might make your magic unstable or even release a catastrophic surge of magic that you can't control. Don't freak out yet, though. It's really not so bad and right now it's under control. I'd just say to be careful not to use all of your magic up. You have a very deep reservoir of magic so that shouldn't be an issue in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, but I'll admit that I've heard of Fairy Tail and your tendency to overdo things.

"If you ever get to the point where you have to wring out every last drop of magic to stop a powerful enemy or something, you'll end up dragging out the magic that's sealing the cracks and you'll no longer have that barrier. I can't say what exactly would happen, but I doubt it would be good. It might not be as catastrophic because in that case you'd already be out of magic and couldn't unleash anything, but once your magic starts regenerating, it might start seeping out of the cracks or becoming otherwise uncontrollable, with potentially disastrous results."

Gray stared at her numbly, a sick feeling curling in his stomach. His friends looked equally horrified, and the healer winced.

"That's a definite worst case scenario," she assured them hurriedly. "It should really never get to that point. I'm just saying that you should be careful if you ever run into a situation where you have to use an extraordinary amount of magic." She glanced over at Erza and the others. "And you guys should probably keep an eye on him to make sure that he doesn't overdo it."

"Yeah," Erza mumbled, still looking faintly stunned. "We will."

Gray pursed his lips. It was true that he was a Fairy Tail mage and Fairy Tail mages had a tendency to overdo things and push themselves to their limits. But still, he didn't usually have to push himself to the point where he was entirely out of magic, not unless they were in a really dire situation. Did it worry him that he might not be able to perform adequately in those situations anymore without possibly hurting himself and others? Definitely. But in most situations, it shouldn't be a big deal. Hopefully.

He tried to ignore the fact that he had been in just such a situation a couple weeks ago, when he'd had to use every last drop of magic to maintain his shield so that everyone could get out of the city and escape the amulet's wrath. He tried to imagine how many more people might have died if he couldn't have lasted that long. No, he didn't really want to think about that right now.

Gray cleared his throat, eager to change the subject before either he or his friends really lost it. "So… Does this mean that we can go home now?"

His teammates all shot him looks with varying degrees of disbelief and worry, but he ignored them. Sara looked uncertain for a moment as well, before smiling faintly.

"Yes. The amulet's magic is basically gone except for a few lingering traces, so you should be fine to go now." Her smile widened a little. "It might do you some good to finish recovering somewhere where it isn't terribly hot all the time."

Despite himself, Gray's lips curved upwards. "Thank goodness. I can't wait to get back to normal temperatures."

The healer chuckled, but then sobered a little. "I think it's possible that those cracks are small enough that they might start slowly healing over. Your magic seems to be trying to fix them. Right now those are temporary stopgap measures, but it's possible that your magic will eventually find a more permanent solution. Maybe you can come back down sometime and let me take another look to see if things are fixing themselves."

Gray grinned crookedly. "Or maybe you can take a trip to Magnolia one day so that I don't have to brave the heat again."

"Maybe I will," she said with a laugh.

Gray would be lying if he said that the hope didn't help a little. The thought of things going back to normal was reassuring, even if he wasn't quite sure that would happen yet. And in any case, he'd rather not worry about something that might not become a problem. He really was sick of constantly worrying about his magic and health.

So instead, he turned to his companions and smiled. "Let's go home."

Note: Gray thinks you're all silly for reading this story ; ) Wow, it got all meta there for a second lol And yes, I was waiting to make that dumb joke about god slayers from almost the very beginning. I'm so sorry.

Yeah, this is about the point where I kind of lost patience for this story, if you couldn't tell. But there are still two more chapters that I was more excited to write, so yay for those, I guess.

emmahoshi: The disclaimer was necessary, based on some reviews I got last chapter. *nod nod* A better question is, how could Natsu not be overexcited and end up burning half a village? This is Natsu we're talking about lol I think maybe Gray was mostly trying to talk me out of posting this story because he didn't want you all to see it ; ) Happy has the best timing ever lol We're told almost nothing about devil slayers in canon, so who knows? I'm not sure Mashima himself really knows... Fights are all well and good, but I tend to be more interested in the aftermath and in-between times :3 Well, it's not like I could just stop writing here lol Although I was thinking about just having one more chapter... But with all the magic container stuff, it was hard to justify not having another chapter in Gray's POV.