steal a breath from the world

a/n: i was always disappointed that gray and juvia's year together and the reasoning behind gray leaving wasn't explained better. i guess i'm just trying to rationalize that right now and/or try to understand gray's headspace.

tw: brief mention of suicidal ideation: it is pretty vague and never explicitly said. it's a clause in the beginning and a sentence at the end, but i wanted to warn y'all, in case there are any sensitivities to that. / song title from me and my husband by mitski

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When Gray returned, it was raining and the kitchen light was on. He could see blue hair through the water-splotched window, the vague shape of Juvia's body moving around in that room. Before coming back, when talking to Erza about going into a deep cover with the dark guild, Avatar, the decision had seemed so easy; but now, looking at her, he wondered if he had made the wrong decision.

He had decided to enter through the back door, taking the long path around the house and through the garden. The cobblestones were slick with rain and when he enterd Juvia's garden, the porchlight was on, the only light illuminating the place because the storm clouds hid the moon. He stepped through the garden slowly, both because he could slip and also because he wanted to admire the place in this different yellow light.

Juvia had grown this garden in between their missions and training. Some of the flowers had started to bloom and many more green buds had appeared, which Juvia had delightedly shown him before he left a few days before. Gray was not a poetic man, but if he was, he would compare that garden to their dynamic, something Juvia had taken the initiative on, had nurtured and fostered care, so that their ease grew naturally. This was not without trouble (just like how Juvia struggled with figuring out the right amount of water for some plants): when Juvia first proposed living together, Gray gave a long talk on boundaries, so that her weird behaviour would stop. And it did. She didn't touch him or follow him to places, not unless she was invited. (Funny how Erza's advice on, you know, actually talking about things helped.)

Although he had wanted to look at the garden and the porchlight was on, he couldn't see much, only the faint hint of shadows and branches and leaves, maybe some flicks of raindrops on the rosebush near him, like tears. Through the kitchen window and the sheer curtains, Juvia seemed distracted, the shape of her body moving constantly. Internally, he considered it her window because of how many times over the past months, he had caught her simply looking out it, over at the greenery.

Yet, she didn't look out it now. She simply puttered about the kitchen, leaving Gray to his reflective – not, not reflective, scared – mood. He was scared in that quiet, tense way he got after the fight ended and the aftermath settled in. Except this fear wasn't over some guy trying to kill him, it was about what he might lose in doing the undercover mission Erza had asked him to do. There was his humanity, yes, that dark stain spreading over his arm that Porlyusica quietly winced at; but there was also the girl who stayed, stable and present, even when he couldn't be in the grief of losing his father a second time.

His keys jangled in his hands when he pulled them out of his pocket. On it were lucky charms, some from Juvia, some from other guild members and his travels. Would him going be the thing that forces Juvia to finally leave him? Lucy had stayed in Magnolia, Natsu had disappeared. Wendy went to stay with his brother and all the other guild members went their own ways. He talked to Erza, but she always moved, there but not there. When she was physically with him, it reminded him of old times and old friendship, but just as quickly, she would go and he would be alone again.

Except for Juvia. Juvia stayed and stayed and stayed. She cooked and helped figure out housing and freelance work, when trying to sit and focus and do things felt like too much. When the nightmares were bad, without insisting on conversation, she stayed by his side in the night. At his most honest, he admitted to himself that, if he had been alone, he didn't know if he would have survived.

He didn't want to think about that though. He opened the door to his and her shared home, stepping quietly inside and wiping his wet shoes on their doormat. His heart was torn between hoping that she noticed him and hoping that she didn't.

"Gray-sama!" she called in greeting. "Juvia's in the kitchen!"

He arrived at the open kitchen door and knocked on the wall near the doorframe. She turned and smiled. It didn't reach her eyes.

"Hey," he said. He remembered when he was little, the way his dad would stand in the door frame and watch his mother cook. Gray would wobble over to his dad and hug his leg and watch his mother too. This was not one of those moments, but he wanted it to be. Juvia simply smiled a small smile at him. Her eyes were puffy.

"It's raining," he added.

Her smile didn't disappear. "Juvia is glad you came back safe." She studied him, a silent question and silent worry on her face. She didn't get the answer she wanted. He watched her back face him.

"What are you making?" he asked. Her lilac apron was tied in a little bow at the small of her back. A desperate aching part of him wanted to tug it open. He didn't.

"Honey spice cookies." Juvia took the round pastries and put them on a plate with purple flowers decorating the rim. She'd bought it on one of their freelance missions. It was his favorite, although she didn't know that.

"That sounds familiar."

"A lady from the Northern Mountains gave the recipe to Juvia. Juvia thought she'd try it."

"Wait, are you making pryaniki?" His heart hurt.

Juvia glanced him. His voice must've changed. "Is that what they're called?" she asked softly.

"I'd have to try it to know."

At that, Juvia grabbed one of the cookies and stepped to the door frame. She kept her distance, two feet away from him, but held the cookie so it was only a couple inches from his mouth. "Do you want Juvia to feed you?" she teased.

Gray's lips twisted up, but he chose to grab the cookie instead. His fingers flicked over her knuckles, less than a second, before grabbing the powdered treat. He could watch her blush over what could be read as an accidental gesture of affection, but instead he bit into it. It tasted like childhood, the sweets his mom used to make, tasted like the cookies Ur used to buy in the markets for him and Lyon on Saturdays.

"It's good," he said, muffled by the crumbs.

Juvia smudged the powdered sugar from her fingers onto the hem of her apron. "Anything I could improve?"

"Everything you make is good, Ju."

"This is my first time with the recipe though."

Gray swallowed the last of the cookie. "Maybe more honey? But it's more a matter of preference. I always liked pryaniki sweeter than Lyon did."

Juvia nodded, making a noted on the recipe she'd written. The rain had lightened up to a sprinkle, the faint patter barely there in the background. Gray couldn't take his eyes off her. He didn't understand what was up with him that day – it must be a mood. Sentimentality getting the best of him.

The pryaniki wasn't helping. He remembered his mom taking the powdered cookie and holding it out for his dad, just like Juvia had to him. Except, his dad would bite from the cookie in her hand, his lips so close to her fingers, the movement a hidden eroticism that Gray only understood later. His father would finish the treat and swallow and then, kiss his mother, saying that while those were the best cookies he'd ever tasted, Mika was still the sweetest thing he'd ever have. Six-year-old Gray would make a noise of disgust seeing it, but his dad would simply laugh, powdered sugar on his cheek from Mika's hands, and say: Someday you will love someone, as much as I love your mother. Someday you will love someone, as much as I love you.

"I was thinking," Juvia said, snapping Gray out of his reminiscence. "That the flowers in the garden will all bloom soon. I thought that maybe we could have a picnic out there when they do."

"When?" he asked.

"A couple weeks, I think." His chest tightened. He'd be gone by then. Erza wanted him to officially join Avatar in little more than a week. But Juvia looked at him hopefully and he knew what she was asking.

"Sounds great," he lied. Maybe he could tell Erza to hold off on the mission, just long enough for the picnic. The mission should take first priority, he knew, but Juvia's eyes lit up at his implicit promise to stay just a little longer. Bitterly, he thought that, maybe, Erza was selfish. Or maybe, he was the selfish one.

A strand of hair had fallen out of Juvia's bun and before he could stop himself, Gray threaded the hair behind her ear. She blushed, eyes wide. Gray thought to himself that this, this sight of her, this moment between them, was domestic. His fingers had yet to leave the soft strands of her hair and she was warm. She was beautiful.

"I don't want to sleep yet," he said. Her eyelashes fluttered over her deep blue eyes. "Let's pack this up and watch a movie on the lacrima."

As they cleaned up the kitchen, as they moved to their living room and selected a movie, as Juvia fell asleep on the couch, her legs pressed against his in their comfort with each other, Gray realized he never thought that he would have this. He had though he would be dead by now, either by the hand of an enemy or his own. He never thought he might have a home and a person who cared for him, who he cared about in return.

He had to leave. He had promised Erza and he was dangerous, that stain on his skin growing higher and higher and he was responsible for a job. But he was also responsible for this house and this life and its consistency and its domesticity, something he always thought he could not have.

Gray didn't want to leave.

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a/n: tbh i prefer gruvia in au. i like it in theory (enemies turned allies turned friends turned lovers with a dash of "i will love you even though you hate yourself, i will give you the care and consistency that you lost and are afraid of and want"), but i really don't appreciate a lot of mashima's execution and the behavior displayed by both parties in universe. some of this, i guess, is grappling with that tension.

also, i know this is japanese and pryaniki is a russian dessert, but i figured with ur's last name, it wouldn't be too much of a stretch for it to be included? idk i just needed a dessert and pryaniki looked good

this is cross-posted on ao3. i appreciate getting feedback, so both constructive criticism and happy comments are definitely welcome! please let me know what you thought! 33