Received a request to write something for Grayza week, so this is what I came up with for today's prompt on that. Went with the "soulmates share wounds" type of setup because I was feeling angsty.
Disclaimer: I do not own Fairy Tail.
Title: Connected Wounds
Pairing: Gray x Erza
Requester: anonymous
Prompt: "strings of fate/soulmates"
Porlyusica sighed as she placed a bandage over Gray's eye. "I can find no physical reason your eye suddenly stopped working," she intoned. Her normal glower was softened slightly as she continued to dress Gray's wounds. It wasn't the first time the boy had been sent to her with mysterious injuries, but this was probably the worst of them. "I can run more tests, if you like. But given your history... I expect that it's due to your link with your soulmate."
Gray's small fist clenched. Of course that's what it was. That's what it almost always was. As long as he could remember, these mysterious wounds had appeared on his body - echoes of what his soulmate was enduring. They resisted healing, for the original wounds were located elsewhere. Gray's body bore scars all over it from a person he had never met.
"You resent them?" Porlyusica asked softly, washing her hands. When Gray peered at her in confusion, she clarified with a huff, "Your soulmate, boy. Do you resent them?"
Gray unfurled his hands, and looked down at them. They were covered in small cuts, and burns he'd gotten from fighting with Natsu. Wounds that would have undoubtedly transferred to his soulmate.
His soulmate, who was now blind in one eye.
When his vision had suddenly gone dark on one side, it had been terrifying beyond measure. Almost as much as Deliora had been. But what did that mean for his soulmate, who was enduring whatever had caused it?
Gray had once overheard Porlyusica and Makarov talking, when they thought he was unconscious from a fresh batch of wounds on his back. 'They look like whip wounds,' they'd said, then.
His fists clenched once more. "No," he said, his voice filled with a deadly, icy calm. "I hate whoever is doing this to them. My soulmate hasn't done anything wrong. And when I..." Gray swallowed, hard. "When I find them, I'm going to protect them. So they never get hurt like this again. And when I find who did this to them, I'm gonna make them pay."
The elderly healer regarded her young patient carefully. That was a dangerous attitude to have, if he wanted to live a long live with his soulmate. Whoever had done this didn't care that they were hurting children, and not just the one in front of them. They were so completely confident that they could get away with it, that they didn't care about the evidence appearing elsewhere, on someone else who conceivably could get help.
Then she sighed. Ah, well. She'd have a talk with Makarov again about the boy's reckless nature. Gray was just as bad as Natsu in that regard, only better at keeping it hidden.
"Then let's discuss some possible options for your eye," she told him.
Gray nodded. "Okay."
"Without the original, there's no way to tell if this blindness will be permanent or not. If it is, we could always remove and replace it with a prosthetic..."
