When Lyon walked into the guild, Yuka's first words were, "You look terrible."
Lyon scrounged up a halfhearted glower. "Gee, thanks."
"No, seriously. You look like you haven't slept in a week, and you haven't combed your hair. For someone so vain, it's like the apocalypse."
"I am not vain," Lyon grumbled, hastily finger-combing his hair. He hadn't thought to look in the mirror before leaving his apartment, and obviously that had been a mistake. The not-knowing would drive him crazy.
Yuka snorted loudly, leading a whole chorus of snorts and muffled snickers. Lyon looked around the guild suspiciously and caught a few smirks, but no one seemed keen on admitting their amusement to him. Huffing to himself, he stomped over to the table the team had laid claim to. Maybe Yuka would at least keep his voice down then and not involve the entire guild in his ribbing.
He eyed Sherry suspiciously, trying to decide if she was fighting a smile or he was just being paranoid. "What?"
Sherry cleared her throat and pressed her lips back into a straight line. "Yuka is right," she said more seriously. "You don't look well. Those circles under your eyes have only been getting darker, and you've been distracted and out of sorts lately."
"Since the Games," Toby volunteered, and Lyon was so shocked he had picked up on it that he didn't deny it. Toby was not the most observant of people.
"Ohhh?" Yuka smirked. "Still bent out of shape about losing to Fairy Tail and that stupid kid Gra–?"
He broke off abruptly, the humor sliding off his face as he exchanged a look with Sherry and Toby. Lyon cringed.
"Is this about Gray?" Sherry asked carefully.
Lyon rallied with a scowl. "Ha! Why on earth would–?"
"Lyon," she said more firmly. "Are you still upset about Gray and the dragonlings?"
Lyon wished he hadn't told them about that, but he'd been so shaken and everything had happened so fast…
I watched him die, he wanted to say. I watched him die right in front of me, and I couldn't do anything about it.
But of course he couldn't say that. It was so raw still, and pathetic when Gray was fine. For all he knew, the whole incident had never happened at all and everyone had just gotten weird visions of a possible future for a minute or two, some warping of space-time by the Eclipse Gate. It was just as likely as the Gate somehow rewinding time.
It didn't seem to matter, though. Lyon could still hear the screams in his ears sometimes, his and Juvia's and Meredy's. He could see the blood and Gray's glassy, staring eyes in his dreams, feel the helpless horror and grief. If his brain was in particularly fine form and unwilling to censor the most grisly details, he could even see all the holes–
He shook his head sharply, like he could shake the thoughts right out, and blinked rapidly a few times to clear the visions from his mind's eye.
"I'm fine," he said.
Sherry did not seem convinced. "It's okay to still be upset. It sounds pretty scary."
"Why don't you just visit him, then?" Yuka grunted.
Sherry brightened considerably. "What a great idea! You can go profess your love and–" Lyon choked on his own spit and began coughing, and she rolled her eyes. "Your brotherly love. And maybe talk things out with him."
Lyon snatched up the glass of water Toby shoved across the table at him and sipped at it until he could breathe again and his face cooled a little.
"Guys don't really profess love," Yuka explained while Lyon recovered.
"Well, whyever not?" Sherry asked, outraged. "You're too good for love?"
"That's not–"
"Or you want to be loved, but you're too good to admit that you love someone else in return? Don't be ridiculous. Sometimes people just need to hear that you love them, you know. I swear, if I have to hear about any more of this toxic masculinity crap…"
Yuka wilted as Sherry's voice rose, and Lyon could see him visibly regretting the life choices that had led him to this point. Lyon decided that he probably ought to step in again and save Yuka from himself.
"Talk out what?" he rasped.
"Huh?" Sherry paused mid-tirade, her brows knitting together.
"You said to talk things out with Gray. Talk out what, exactly?"
She brightened again. "Oh, about whatever's on your mind. Maybe part of the reason it bothers you so much is that you didn't get the chance to say all the things you needed to say to him, so then Tenrou and the dragonlings were hard because you lost him without getting to say goodbye."
Lyon frowned at her. "Doesn't it seem rather morbid to walk up and say goodbye? I don't think that would make death any easier either."
"Of course not," Sherry huffed. "Don't be ridiculous. If there are things you want him to know or still need to say or want to hash out, but you're waiting because it seems too hard or awkward and you'll have all the time in the world to do it later… You might not always have that time, is what I'm saying. When you lose that and you never get the chance to say those things, never know if he understood how you felt or if you should have spelled it out while you could, that makes it hurt so much more. Unfinished business and all that. You don't need to say your goodbyes now, just make sure the important things are out of the way."
Lyon exchanged a skeptical look with Yuka, who raised his eyebrows but had the sense to keep his mouth shut this time.
Were there things he hadn't said to Gray yet that he probably should? Well, maybe. But did it matter that much? He wasn't really the type to spell everything out in words and 'profess his love', and neither was Gray. It sounded terrible.
"I guess," he said unenthusiastically.
"Or just go check on him and reassure yourself he's fine, and leave the mushy stuff for another time," Yuka muttered, unable to contain himself any longer.
"Boys," Sherry said, rolling her eyes to the heavens.
Lyon smiled despite himself. "Okay, okay," he said. "Maybe I'll look in on him and go from there. Thanks for all the advice."
They smiled and wished him luck and sent him on his way, but Lyon dragged his feet. There was a reason he hadn't made this trip after Tenrou and wasn't jumping to try it now: Gray wouldn't make it easy.
Gray was not in the Fairy Tail guild hall when Lyon arrived. While Lyon found this troublesome, he suspected it would be the least of the difficulties Gray threw his way today. He spotted Juvia talking to Gajeel on the far side of the hall, but he didn't approach. He was not here for her today and couldn't afford to be distracted.
He was spared the trouble of flagging someone down to ask where he might find Gray.
"Lyon!" Lucy said, spotting him almost at once. She elbowed Natsu, and they moved in a pack towards the door with Erza and Happy. "What are you doing here?"
"Gray isn't here right now," Erza added, and Lyon scowled at the assumption that he must be here for Gray. Not that he supposed he had many other reasons to stop by out of the blue, aside from wooing Juvia, perhaps.
"I see that," he grumbled. "What's he doing?"
Natsu shrugged. "Holed up in his apartment, probably. Supposedly, he has a cold."
"Supposedly?"
"That's what he says, anyway. Dunno if it's true or not. He's been kind of mopey, so he could also just be looking for an excuse to sulk on his own."
"Mopey?" Lyon repeated with a frown.
"You're even more boring than I remember," Natsu muttered. "Are you just going to repeat everything I say?"
Lyon glared at him, and Erza smacked him none too gently in the side. Natsu yelped and backed away a few paces, eyeing her warily.
"He's seemed a little down," Happy said. "Or distracted, at least. I don't know. He's been pretty normal, I guess, but he's seemed kind of moody when we aren't looking."
"I think it started around the time of the Games," Lucy volunteered. "I thought he'd be more excited that we won, but…"
"I'm telling you, he seemed perfectly fine after the Games, but then I caught him crying in the carriage on the way home," Erza said.
"He was not," Natsu said.
"Yes, he was."
Natsu rolled his eyes. "If he was, do you think he'd want you to go around telling people that?"
Erza pursed her lips. Lyon rubbed at his face with a sigh. At least he didn't have to go digging for information. Fairy Tail seemed more than willing to overshare everything without being asked.
"I still think it's something to do with the dragonlings," Happy said.
Lyon gave him a sharp look. "Has he said anything about them?"
How ironic would it be if he had been fussing and stressing about the dragonlings and Gray had been doing the same all along? Maybe he really should have dropped by sooner.
"Well, no," Lucy admitted. "He hasn't said anything about them at all. We only found out from Juvia. But it seems like a likely culprit. I mean, dying? Even for only a minute? I think I'd be pretty traumatized."
"I'm telling you," Erza said, "he seemed fine after we fought the dragons. It was only in the carriage–"
"Enough about the carriage," Natsu grumbled. Erza glared at him, and he retreated another step.
"I'm not saying that's not part of it," she said. "It does sound like the most obvious explanation. Just… Maybe there's something else too."
"Or maybe it just hit him later," Happy suggested.
"I dunno," Natsu said. "He never seemed all that upset about trying to off himself with iced shell."
Lyon winced and flinched back. Gray's team wore various grimaces and worried expressions.
"Right," he said before anyone else could add their thoughts on iced shell or otherwise. "Thanks for the heads up."
"Maybe you could try talking to him," Lucy said. "He doesn't seem to want to talk about it with us, but you were there."
Lyon rocked back a step, regretting this conversation already despite all the information he'd gleaned. "I don't know," he hedged. "We don't really–"
"You are going to see him while you're here, aren't you?" Erza asked suspiciously. "You aren't only looking to bother Juvia?"
Lyon scowled. "I'm not here for Juvia," he said stiffly.
"Perfect. Then why don't you check up on him and see how he's feeling? Maybe you can get something out of him. He's been pretty quiet lately."
Lyon didn't think that was actually a request, but he figured it wasn't worth his while to kick up a fuss when it was what he planned to do anyway.
"Yeah, I guess," he said unenthusiastically. "I'll stop by his place and see what's up."
The Fairy Tail mages wished him luck as he beat a hasty retreat, and he had no doubt that he'd need it. Even if their concern was exaggerated, any sign that something wasn't right with Gray was a potential cause for concern since he tended to keep his feelings under lock and key.
Lyon still remembered how to find Gray's apartment after all this time, and he did not give himself the chance to hesitate before rapping smartly on the door. When no sound came from inside, he knocked again, louder. And again.
"I'm coming, I'm coming," grumbled a voice from inside. "Geez."
The door swung open just a couple of inches, and Gray peered out.
"Hey," Lyon said.
Gray squinted at him. "You aren't who I was expecting to show up here."
"Sorry to disappoint. Can I come in?"
"I guess." Gray pulled the door open and stepped back. The room was dark, shades shut tight against the afternoon sun, and he flicked on the light switch.
"What are you doing sitting around in the dark?"
"I live here. I can do whatever I want. A better question would be what you're doing here."
Lyon wasn't sure how to answer that. "I heard you were sick."
Gray snorted. "Surely you didn't come all the way down here to check on my cold?"
It wasn't that Lyon had forgotten how annoying Gray could be, but maybe the seven years of his absence had dulled the edges of his memory a little
"Your friends think you're upset about something," he said with a scowl.
"My friends are nosy," Gray said dryly. He raised an eyebrow at Lyon. "Are you sure you're not upset? You don't look so great, actually."
"I'm fine," Lyon said stiffly. He should have checked a mirror to see why everyone kept commenting on his appearance.
"Good," said Gray. "So am I."
In truth, Gray didn't look terrible. He looked fine enough, but maybe there was something just a little off about him. He didn't look like a raccoon, but soft gray smudges lingered under his eyes. The lines of his face were just a little too hard, too stiff. His eyes glittered like broken glass, hollow but sharp.
Or maybe Lyon was imagining things. It was hard to say, really, and he might not have seen anything amiss if Fairy Tail hadn't put the notion in his head.
"Want to come out and go for a walk? We can talk along the way."
"Walk where?" Gray asked, giving him a strange look.
"I don't know," Lyon said defensively. "Around. It would be good for you to get some sun instead of sitting in the dark all day."
"Gee, thanks, Mom," Gray said, rolling his eyes.
Lyon glared at him. "You don't sound like you have a cold at all. I think you're just moping around."
"You really… Oh, whatever. We can walk if you want to. At least it will keep you out of my pantry."
Lyon wasn't hungry anyway, so he ushered Gray back out of the apartment.
"So, what's up with you?" he asked.
Gray ignored him. "We can walk down to the park, if you want. The river will be nice."
"Lead the way. Your friends think you're shaken up from the dragonlings."
Gray shot him a sidelong look and picked up the pace as he led them down the street. "Who told them about the dragonlings? You or Juvia?"
"Juvia."
"Figures."
"Why are you hiding that from them? It seems important enough to tell them."
"It's not a secret." Gray shrugged and walked along the canal until he turned the corner. "They would always have found out sooner or later."
"Then why not tell them yourself?"
"Because they'd make a big fuss out of it. And see? Now they're all worried that I'm upset about it. And I'm not. I'm fine. It's not a big deal, but I knew they'd try to make it into one."
Lyon pressed his lips into a tight line and clenched his hands into fists at his sides. Not a big deal? It was a big deal to him, and Gray's nonchalance rubbed him the wrong way. Couldn't he see that it did matter?
"Look," he started carefully. Gray leveled him with an unimpressed look, already bored of where the conversation was going, and made a beeline down a side street and towards an expanse of grass marking the boundary of Magnolia's park. "It's okay to be a little shaken up about it. It was definitely…something. Like, that's a lot to take in, whether it was actually something that happened or just a vision of something that could have."
Gray made an unamused sound in the back of his throat, something halfway between a snort and a scoff.
Lyon squinted at him. "What?"
"Nothing."
"No, it's definitely something."
Gray shrugged and fixed his eyes on the ground. "I don't think it was some vision or hallucination. I think it happened and was undone."
"Oh." That did not make Lyon feel better. He thought so too, but it still made a sick feeling twist in his stomach. It would be terrible either way, but far worse if it wasn't just some horrifying dream or shared hallucination. He did not like to think about Gray dead, even temporarily. "Well, whatever crazy nonsense the Eclipse Gate–"
Gray gave a full-on snort this time, and Lyon threw him a sharp look.
"What now? And don't say nothing."
Gray shrugged again. "I don't think it was the Eclipse Gate."
"Oh?" Lyon asked uncertainly. "It would make sense for the Gate or Future Rogue to have messed up the timestream, considering what a mess they'd made of it already."
"Yeah. That would be the obvious culprit."
"Well, what do you think happened, then?" Lyon asked, since Gray was obviously not convinced.
"…I don't know."
"You obviously have some kind of theory."
Gray did not respond immediately. Leaving the path, he traipsed across the grassy lawn and then down to the riverbank. He stopped at the edge, a little too close for Lyon's liking, and watched the sunshine sparkling on the water.
Lyon shifted impatiently beside him. "Gray?"
Gray sighed through his nose. "I don't know what exactly happened, but as for who… Well, who else do we know who uses time magic?"
"Time magic?" Lyon repeated with a frown. Magic manipulating time was rare—probably a good thing, considering what a mess the Eclipse Gate had made of everything. He couldn't think of anything off the top of his head. "No one, really. Well, I guess except for Ul…tear…" He trailed off. Gray said nothing, but his grimace was confirmation enough. "Why do you think it was Ultear?"
"Because I saw her after. When I was on the carriage heading home."
Lyon's breath caught in his throat. He remembered Erza's insistence that Gray had been crying in the carriage, that something besides the dragonlings had happened, and he knew that he had just about uncovered the heart of the issue.
"What happened to Ultear?" When Gray didn't answer, Lyon repeated himself more sharply. "Gray. What happened to Ultear?"
He couldn't say he knew Ultear very well, and half the time he'd known her she'd been in disguise as Zalty on Galuna, but they'd had a few run-ins during the years Gray had been missing. She was Ur's daughter, and that connected her to them. He didn't want anything bad to happen to her. Gray's cagey reticence made him nervous.
Gray jammed his hands into his pockets and looked up at the sky. "I saw her on the side of the road," he said slowly, like each word had to be pried from between his jaws. "When we were leaving. She was… Well, I don't know how else to put it. She was old." Now the words poured out faster, like he was trying to justify himself or get them out before he lost his nerve. "I didn't recognize her at first—you know, on account of being old—but it was definitely her, I'm sure of it. I wanted to stop the carriage and talk to her, but she just kind of shook her head at me and I… I didn't. She didn't seem hurt, she was smiling, but… I mean, she had to have lost like fifty years. Can you imagine losing fifty years? I only lost seven, and at least that didn't actually shorten my life. I mean, I don't think it did."
"She's old?" Lyon repeated, trying to process Gray's rambling. "Like…"
"The wrinkles and gray hair and everything. I put out some feelers, but I don't know where she ended up. Apparently, she disappeared and left a note for Jellal and Meredy saying she was fine. They don't know what happened. I didn't tell them, but… I don't know. I haven't decided yet if I should. But I mean, it's exactly the kind of thing you'd expect to see if a mage was playing with the timestream and a spell went wrong, right? I mean, I've never seen anything like it, but… It has a sort of symmetry, doesn't it? If you rewind time in exchange for having your own taken from the future? Backwards and forwards. I don't know what the spell was supposed to do, but I'm sure it was her."
"That's…" Lyon didn't know what to say to that. He tried to picture Ultear elderly and couldn't manage it. "That's terrible. She couldn't have rewound time more than a minute or two. Fifty years seems like a steep price."
"Considering that one minute restored entire lives…"
Lyon shrugged, but then caught something in Gray's voice and started. Oh. Suddenly he saw what the rest of the problem was, and it went deeper than he'd thought. Trying to get to the core of Gray's feelings was like peeling back an onion one bitter layer at a time.
"You don't think she saw what happened and cast the spell to save you, do you?" Lyon asked carefully.
Gray shrugged, face frozen in a mask. "How should I know?" he asked flatly. "I didn't stop the carriage and ask. It seems just as likely that she didn't know and cast it for another reason. Anything could have made her want to undo something that just happened. Or maybe it was just that we were all failing against the dragons, so she tried to go back to the start of the whole mess and stop the Eclipse Gate from opening in the first place. I don't know, Lyon. It could have been anything. It doesn't matter."
He turned on his heel and started walking down the bank, scuffing his boots through the long grass. Lyon frowned at his back and followed more slowly. Had he misjudged? He had been so sure for a second there that Gray was blaming himself because Ultear's sacrifice had saved him, much as Ur's had. But if so, that wasn't the response he would have expected. It sounded too reasonable.
"Right, so she might not even have been trying to save you," Lyon said, catching up to him.
"It doesn't matter," Gray said again.
"So you're not upset about that?" When Gray didn't answer, Lyon sighed. "Okay, good, I guess. I thought maybe this went back to everything with Ur–"
"Don't talk to me about Ur," Gray said, his voice raw. Lyon started in surprise at the undisguised anguish glittering in his eyes.
"Sorry, I didn't–"
"Her daughter just saved me and lost her youth and half her life for it."
"But if she didn't even mean to–"
"It doesn't matter," Gray snapped again. He picked up the pace abruptly, lengthening his strides to eat up the ground.
Lyon had to jog a couple of steps to catch up, and even then the pace was punishing. His heart sank into his stomach. When Gray said it didn't matter, he didn't mean that he wasn't agonizing over whether Ultear had been trying to save him. It meant that it didn't matter whether she had or not, because he would blame himself either way. She had saved him, whether that was her intention or not, and she had sacrificed herself for it just like Ur. And that, Lyon knew, was not something Gray could swallow so easily.
"It does matter," he insisted, clamping a hand around Gray's arm and dragging him to a stop. "What you feel matters, Gray."
Gray barked out a harsh laugh and tried to rip his arm out of Lyon's grasp. Lyon held on for dear life, digging in his fingers until he was sure they'd leave bruises behind.
"Get off," Gray snapped. "I don't see why you're out here making a fuss. I was stupid enough to get tagged by dragonlings, and she was stupid enough to play with spells she couldn't handle. It's done. There's nothing I can do about it. She could have left well enough alone, but she didn't and now it's done."
Lyon dug his nails in harder, until Gray hissed in pain. "What do you mean, she should have left well enough alone?" he demanded. "You still don't get it, do you? It does matter. It is a big deal. Do you know why I'm here? I'm here because I have nightmares about watching you die. I still see the blood, the holes. I hear everyone screaming, and I'm calling for Chelia but I know it's too late. You died, Gray. You died, and I had just gotten you back. I already lost you for seven years—and everyone thought you were dead, even if we kept looking—and just about the first thing you did when you got back was die. Right when I'd just found you again. It is a big deal, Gray. It's a big deal to me. And you're going to sit here and sulk because you're not dead?
"You can't keep blaming yourself for the choices other people make. She did what she thought she had to. Not everything is about you. Maybe it's my fault too because I blamed you for Ur, but I was young and stupid and made a mistake. And you were young and stupid and made a mistake. Not everything is your fault, Gray, and it does matter. You went off the rails where Ur was involved! You kept trying to kill yourself with iced shell! Don't you dare go back to that, not over this. Not ever."
They stared at each other, Lyon trembling with anger and fear while Gray stared back wide-eyed, surprise eclipsing his bitterness. Then Gray's face seemed to crumple all at once, the hard lines melting into something soft and vulnerable that had been trapped underneath. He pressed his free hand to his face, but not before Lyon glimpsed the beginnings of tears gleaming in his eyes.
"Sorry," he rasped, his voice wavering ever so slightly. "It's not like that. I'm not about to set off on some suicidal rampage or anything. Just… I keep seeing her, you know? I keep seeing her with half her life gone, knowing that I would have been dead otherwise. She saved me, whether she meant to or not, and… And she's Ur's daughter, too. I don't know what to do with that. Just… Life isn't fair, and I haven't come to terms with it yet. I just keep seeing her and wishing there was something I could have done. That I had stopped the carriage, at the very least. But in the end, there's really nothing I can do."
Lyon released Gray's arm and bit his lip, wishing he knew how to make this better. He had never been particularly good at handling emotionally fraught situations in general or knowing what he was supposed to say to make someone feel better, and Gray was mystifying enough on his own. Lyon had never been very good at figuring out how to talk Gray off ledges.
"We can't make someone else's choices for them," he said. "All we can do is our best. You're not to blame for her choices. Their choices."
"Yeah." Gray scrubbed at his face vigorously and snuffled as he worked at pulling himself together. "It's fine, just… Not yet. It will just take a little while to come to terms with it, that's all. It's still raw."
"Maybe don't think about it like a sacrifice," Lyon suggested. "It's a gift, really. It's kind of corny, but it's also true. She'd be happy to know you're still alive. Everyone is happy that you're still here."
Sniffing one more time, Gray dropped his arm and shoved his hands back into his pockets. His eyes were a little shiny and rimmed faintly with red, the lines of his face were tired and world-weary now, but he didn't look like he was about to go on another rant or 'suicidal rampage'.
"Yeah… I'm okay." Gray sighed and looked away. "Or I will be. Sorry for being dismissive about it, but you really don't have to worry about me."
"Of course I do," Lyon grumbled. "You're always getting yourself into trouble."
Gray made a wheezy sound halfway to a laugh. "Sure seems that way. But really… Sorry for worrying you, but I'm fine. I'll be more careful. I'm not planning to die anytime soon, and it seems like I always bounce back anyway."
It was Lyon's turn to look away. His throat felt tight with all the words he'd never said, but he didn't know how to say them either, or how to make Gray listen. He wasn't prepared to spill out all his fears or regrets or hopes, and certainly not to 'profess his love', whatever that meant. Not yet, anyway. Maybe someday, but he'd do his best not to take time for granted anymore.
"I can't lose you," he choked out finally. "Not again. I want you to be a part of whatever future I'm building. Okay?"
Gray swallowed hard. "Okay," he mumbled.
They stood there awkwardly for another minute, neither of them quite looking at the other. Then Lyon bit the bullet and wrapped Gray in a hug. He had an extra seven years on his little brother now, which meant that he would have to be the more mature of the two. Gray went stiff, but kept his mouth shut and didn't pull away.
"I'm glad you're not dead," Lyon mumbled.
Gray sighed. "Yeah, me too," he said tiredly.
Lyon let him go—now wasn't the time to be pushing his luck—and Gray stepped back immediately. "Well," he said, but he didn't know what else there was to say.
"Thanks for coming to check on me," Gray said, rallying and trying for a more breezy tone. "Even if you nearly ripped my arm off."
Lyon winced. The fingerprints on Gray's arm were already starting to purple and bruise.
"Sorry. You should probably put some ice on that."
"I'm sure it's fine. Do you want to get some ice cream? You can treat to make up for accosting me."
Lyon was certainly not too mature for ice cream.
So off they went, not quite touching but side by side nonetheless. It was clear the topic was closed for now, and Lyon couldn't say he was disappointed. The confrontation had been tense, and they could both use a little time to recover. He was content with steering the conversation to safer waters.
If he still had unfinished business or things that needed to be said, he'd address them later, one bit at a time. He would not make the mistake of assuming they had forever again, would not take each day for granted. But it seemed morbid to think of each day being their last, especially when they hopefully had bright futures ahead of them still.
There were still infinite possibilities laid out before them, good and bad. They had all the futures in the world to choose from, even if some might be unavoidable or slip through their fingers or be undone. Even if they didn't know where each one led. All they could do was take each day, each choice, one at a time, doing the best they could.
