Pragma- longstanding love

He never needed things as useless as friendship, not since he was a child and definitely not since he had Cubellios. Had no use of it since he drew in to his sound magic and could hear people's souls. He didn't need any silly notions of nakama and any of that frilly bullshit. That was until he saw her when they came after Fairy Tail in his time in Oración Seis. At first, he denied it, the pull he felt; which only served to feed his rage even more. What did those pathetic Fairies know anyways?! All he wanted to do was to cause them pain, pain for having everything that he could only dream of.

Then there was the Infinity Clock fiasco, where they hunted down every celestial mage and drove them to extinction, burning them alive in the church. Cobra watched with giddiness as their souls cried for the mercy he wouldn't grant them. Then there she was again, like a cockroach that wouldn't die. Even being devoured in to the clock, she remained loyal to her friends and family to the very end. That was the second time something inside of him called out to her soul. Trying to pull him closer to the blonde.

After she returned from being frozen for seven years, it gave him time to understand just what it was that drove him to her. The lacrima that was implanted inside of him housed a dragon soul, and it was his dragon soul that was reaching out to her. Reaching out to it's mate. It was only in her presence that Cobra yearned to know what friendship felt like, what it meant to have her longstanding sense of love aimed at him. It boiled his blood when the fire slayer would get too close, had him nearly in a murderous rage when he watched him climb in to her window during the nights he couldn't fight the pull that brought him back to Magnolia time and time again.

He hated that she fought against his hold, did she really not want to be near him that much? He held tighter the more she fought against him.

"Will you fucking stop it?!" his patience was wearing thin. He moved quickly away from the carnage he left behind, his dragon force slowly receding back in to himself. Lucy froze, stilling her movements. In all the times their paths crossed these recent months, Cobra never yelled at her like he did in that instance.

"What is your deal?" Lucy glared at him, staring at the expanse of his back, secretly enjoying the way his muscles shifted under his skin as he moved. Though she could have gone without the press of his shoulder in to her stomach, but right now she didn't want to push her luck.

"You are! How hard is it to fucking listen when someone tells you to do something." He was growing more and move livid the more she questioned him. Couldn't she see that this was a part of him he didn't want her to see? No matter how much he tried to tame the madness that made him who he was, regardless how much he wanted to change he wouldn't be able to. That he was just a monster.

"You do not own me, Erik." If he wanted a fight, she would give him a fight. She should have braced herself from the way his shoulder slightly shifted. Should have noticed the heat from his palm that pressed against her lower back. But she ignored the warning signs, and she found herself against the rough bark of a tree, pinned by his hand over her clavicle. He drew his face closer to hers, close enough for their breaths to mingle. His single amethyst eye leveled with her mocha ones.

"Keep using that name, Lucy, and we will be having a different conversation." The way he said her name instead of his nickname for her had her shook. It brought with it a shiver down her spine, and she fully wanted to explore where that kind of conversation would lead. His eye dipped to her lips, plump and waiting to be taken. He wanted to fight it, whatever hold she had over him, but at the same time he wanted to dive further in to it. To revel in the surge of dopamine and ecstasy that would be sure to follow.

"Damn it all." He groaned out before he took her lips hungrily. He nearly purred in satisfaction when she met his hunger with her own. The way she responded to him was better than he could ever imagine, but he knew he should pull away from her before he fell to far. Yet, every time he tried, her soul sung like a choir angels and she moaned low in her throat and he fell deeper. The release of dopamine was more than he could hope for as he angled her face so he could get more of her, drinking in her taste like fine aged wine.

After what seemed like years instead of mere minutes he pulled away from her, with a hooded eye. Her breathing was ragged, chest heaving for air, cheeks flushed. He nearly whined at the sight of her, his muscles quivering with restraint as he pulled away from her. He wanted to keep kissing her, to see if it would finally purge the thoughts of her from his mind. Yet it seemed to only fan the flames ever higher and he just found himself more lost than before.

"When I tell you, you listen. I am not trying to own you," Lies! His mind screamed at him. "It is for your own safety." He whispered, his voice was a low rumble. Lucy just nodded, for once her voice was lost to her. Cobra pushed away from her, and winched when he remembered the wound on her back. He turned her so her back was facing him.

"What are you.." She didn't even get to finish her sentence before Cobra yanked up her shirt to make sure he didn't cause her anymore harm. He frowned when all he was met was the pink puckered skin, his fingers traced the skin gently which caused goosebumps to spring up across her back. Cobra was amused by the way her body reacted to his touch.

"When did this happen?" He asked, frowning as he stared at the nearly flawless skin.

"This morning. I figured it was because your saliva also contains enzymes that produce ascorbic acids." Lucy explained. "So it is like how you are able to ingest poison and create an antidote for it. You just basically protected me on a cellular level by helping my skin cells to regenerate. " Lucy shrugged her shoulder, thankful for the slight distraction from her flushed cheeks.

"This wasn't supposed to be able to happen Bright Eyes." Cobra pulled away so she could fix her shirt, ignoring the urge to touch more of her.

"Why not?" She wandered. Cobra did not want to have this conversation with her, not now, not when he was still trying to figure out just what she meant to him.

"Just because." He left it at that, moving away from her before he gave in to his more basic instincts to ravage her. Lucy followed behind him quietly, chewing over the information she had gathered.

While dinner was being cooked, Lucy took off out of ear shot of the group and away from the overbearing slayer. With what happened with the mage and the kiss, he seemed to stick to her like a bur to skin.

'Has to be a slayer thing.' Lucy grumbled as she moved past the hill until she was for sure she would finally sure she would have some privacy. Away from the curious eyes that were certainly trying to make sense of the sudden change in the most ruthless man in Fiore.

"Open, gate of the southern Cross! Curmudgeon!" Lucy arched the silver key in the air before her, and soon the old cross sat cross legged before her.

"Lucy, what a pleasant surprise. You know Leo has been in a tizzy since you banned him from opening his own gate." The old cross chuckled. Lucy had completely forgotten about that. She sighed heavily.

"It is what he gets for being such a perv! Anyways, grandpa Crux. I need to do some research." Lucy leaned in close, causing the cross to mimic her actions listening intently as she told him about the string and the clingy slayer.

"Is that so? How curious indeed! I will need to check the celestial library and converse with the Spirit King of course." Crux stroked his oddly shaped mustache. Lucy nodded and watched as he disappeared. The next one she summoned was Leo, who looked every bit of a brooding child and Lucy couldn't help but throw her head back and laugh.

"This should be considered cruel and usual punishment, Princess." Leo whined. In all his time as a golden key, he was never banned from opening his own gate since he gained the power to do so.

"I'm sure Virgo would say otherwise." Lucy wiped the tears from her cheeks. Leo could only agree with her.

"If you promise not to open your gate while I'm bathing again, I will lift the ban." She was caught off guard by the sudden change in the air, of the dark aura that suddenly surrounded them. She shifted uncomfortably, feeling the surge of rage that filtered through the string that bound her and the angry Slayer together.

"You did what?" that voice was recognizable any where to Lucy, and she groaned internally, slapping her hand over her eyes.

"Slayer." Leo greeted Cobra coldly. Though his holder may have forgiven Cobra for the sins he had committed against her in the years past, he and the other spirits that held contracts with her did not. People may forgive and forget, but the stars did not.

"Cub." Cobra stared down at the Lion who sat next to Lucy. Enjoying the fact the spirit had to crane his neck back to look up at him.

"I can assure you, Slayer. I am far from a cub." Leo rose to his feet, fixing the lapels of his suit and dusting the dust from his slacks.

"You are treading dangerous waters." Cobra warned him, he would only do it once. If the lion didn't back off and away from his mate, he would not hesitate.

"That is enough, Cobra." Lucy jumped to her feet and got between the duo. Cobra ignored her, his vision going red when the lion dared to pull Lucy away from him and used his body to shield her away from him.

"He is dangerous Lucy, what are you thinking hanging around his kind?" Leo's eyes never left Cobra, who's body was poised to strike out.

"My kind, is that it? What exactly is my kind, Leo?" Cobra spat out between clenched teeth. His restraint was tearing, and his dragon roared out for blood.

"Criminals. Murders. I could go on." Leo made the mistake of taking his eyes away from Cobra for a millisecond to make sure Lucy still stood behind him, and that was all it took for the Slayer to strike like the deadly snake of his name sake. It was only Lucy pushing Leo out of the way that saved the spirit from the blow. How she was able to react that quickly was beyond anyone's knowledge, chalk it up to the adrenaline coursing through her or whatever. She didn't have time to sit and debate what caused her to move almost faster than Laxus's lightning, but one moment Cobra was striking out at Leo than the next moment Lucy held Leo's gate key and slashed it through the air.

"Force close, gate of the Lion!" Lucy screamed out, forcing Leo to return to the celestial realm. Adrenaline pounded in her veins, blood roared in her ears. Her heart felt as if it was going to burst out of her chest. Now it was just her and a seething slayer. Cobra didn't understand why she was so angry, or why she couldn't understand why he was so angry. Hell, he can barely understand what these changes were doing to him at this point. He wasn't a jealous person by nature, never cared about anyone enough to even understand what it meant. Yet, it filled every pore in his body right now. The sight of anyone else but him being so close to her, and her allowing it drove him even more crazy than what he already was.

"Are you fucking stupid?" Her words were like a physical blow to him. Causing him to take a step backwards.

"Excuse me?" He wasn't prepared for her to strike out at him the way she did, didn't hear the telltale signs of her muscles shifting. He barely dodged the kick that was aimed to his head, only felt the aftershock of the air whooshing past his head.

"No one touches my spirits!" Lucy snarled and launched herself at him, with her hands splade out like claws. She wasn't thinking about the repercussions of trying to fight a slayer of his caliber, never even went up against one before now. It was her duty as a celestial mage to protect her contracts, from friend and from foe it didn't matter who it was.

"He was challenging me." Cobra blocked another blow. He didn't want to fight her, not her of all people, so all he could was dodge her strikes and let her back him up.

"You slayers are all the same," her skin began to glow gold, her magic crackled around her. Any other time, Cobra would be in awe of it, of how beautiful it made her. Right now it made him nervous; he heard stories of Scary Lucy from Sorano, of her Lucy kicks. "Always asserting your dominance, trying to bend everyone to you." Lucy's breathing was coming in harsh pants as she struck out time and time again with her fists and her feet.

"It isn't like that!" Cobra caught her fist, yanking her towards him and caging her in to his arms.

"Let go of me!" Lucy howled, kicking her feet out against him. Cobra grunted when her foot connected harshly with his shin painfully.

"Shit, Bright Eyes that hurt!" Cobra grunted as he hauled her up so her feet couldn't gain any traction. Soon, she reverted to throwing her elbows any which way she could and at anything she could reach. Slamming in to his ribs on occasion.

"Okay, okay, enough!" Cobra couldn't help but admire her for protecting her spirits the way that she did. Even against him, he was impressed with her tenacity and ferocity of which she would go to the lengths to do it. Lucy felt exhaustion grip her, the adrenaline finally leaving her as she allowed him to support her full weight.

"For what it is worth, I'm sorry Bright Eyes." Cobra was not one for apologies, never had a reason to be sorry before. His apology was only met with silence, and he wanted to do nothing short of crawling under a rock with his tail between his legs. Lucy ignored his apology not wanting to hear it while she was still over taken by his audacity to attack one of her spirits.

She stomped her way back to camp, ignoring the curious and worried glances that were tossed her way as she passed Cobra's tent and made her way towards Meredy and Sorano's tent instead. The other two girls shared a knowing look while the guys looked over the fire at each other. Giving the sulking poison slayer space, a deep frown etched on his face. Meredy and Sorano followed Lucy into their tent and closed the flaps, setting up a privacy ruin so not even Cobra could hear anything even with his sound magic.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Meredy asked as Lucy paced the tiny space of their tent.

"The absolute nerve of that guy!" Lucy let out a snarl that would do any of the slayers proud. She took a calming breath every lap she paced, feeling her anger slowly ebb away.

"What did he do?" Sorano patted the space next to her, smiling kindly as Lucy plopped down next to her than just allowed herself to flop backwards on her back.

"He tried to hurt one of my spirits." Lucy felt the familiar tug of exhaustion, ignoring it so she could regale what had happened to the eager ears next to her. She had missed this, talking with other females and the beginning of budding friendships.

"Yikes." Meredy rubbed Lucy's back soothingly as she listened to the blonde. The two girls knew Cobra wasn't one to do anything without reasonable cause, but going as far as to attack one of Lucy's spirits just because he overheard a conversation and just assumed the worse wasn't like the poison slayer at all. The trio spent a couple of hours talking; laughing, crying, and comforting each other through past traumas.

"I think you should talk with him, Luce. He maybe a jerk most times, but Cobra is a good man. He is viscously loyal and protective, just like the other slayers are." Meredy smiled, her eyes twinkling like she held the biggest secret. Lucy sighed and looked at the flap of the tents with her anger lone gone, all that was left was her anxiety now.

"Alright, alright. I will go." Lucy pouted. It was time to put on her big girl pants and deal with what had transpired between Cobra and her. Don't get her wrong, she was still very pissed off, but once Meredy and Sorano had shared what little they came to learn about him, she felt she understood the situation better. Trudging across the campsite, she made her way towards the tent Cobra had graciously shared with her.

"Cobra, I'm coming in." She called before she entered the tent. Cobra was sat on his bed, swaying side to side with a loopy grin on his face.

"Luushy, you've come bacck." Cobra's words were slurred, his eyes glazed over as he reached out to her. His hand falling limply next to him. Lucy was flabbergasted at the sight before her, and couldn't help but nudge at him with her foot.

"Are you drunk?" She asked him.

"Juusst a lil bit." Truth was he was way past drunk and in to a different level of the sense. As a poison slayer he shouldn't be able to get drunk because his body absorbed the alcohol almost faster than it would process. But his curiosity of the batrachtoxin that Lucy had gifted him was too strong to fight. It only took a few drops from the dropper under his tongue to induce the first wave of intoxication, and once it hit his system it just got worse. Lucy didn't know whether to laugh or hit him at this point, he just looked so cute with his eyes droopy and his face slack. His cheeks were flushed and his body was lax.

"You are making it hard to be mad at you, you know." Lucy came to sit behind his prone form, placing his head in her lap.

"I don't want you mad at me." Cobra slurred sleepily, his face screwing up when the first wave of nausea hit him from no where.

"Would serve you right if you vomited every where, but you just look so miserable right now." Lucy took pity on him and began to gently roll him on his side and began to soothingly rub his back with one hand while the other brushed against Virgo's key.

"Yes princess?" Virgo appeared next to Lucy, frowning at the slayer in her lap. "Is he ill?" Virgo crouched down to get a better look at him.

"No, just drunk. The batrachtoxin hit him harder than he thought it would. He just needs food and rest." Virgo nodded and disappeared, coming back just a few minutes later with a platter of crackers and cheese along with bottles of water. "Thank you." With that she nudged the snoozing slayer awake.

"Eat." She mused as he grumbled something unintelligible under his breath. "You did this to yourself. Be glad I'm even doing this for you after the way you acted." She couldn't help but smile at how cute Cobra was when his walls were done, when he wasn't glaring at everything and everyone that dared to cross his path. She watched dutifully as he ate the food in front of him, letting her mind wander.

"Why do you do that?" Cobra asked, his glazed eyes staring in to her somber ones.

"Do what?" She asked, confused as to what he was talking about.

"Shut out your soul." He continued to stare at her his eyebrows crinkling as she shifted uncomfortably. Did she want to tell him the truth about why she kept her soul quiet around him? She wasn't one to beat around the bush or sugar coat things around people weather they were friends or not.

"I do it because of you." She spoke lowly, her voice barely audible even in such a small confined space.

"Because of me?" She watched as his confusion morph in to something darker that simply broke her heart.

"I know that hearing them can some times cause discomfort and if it is bad enough-pain. We have a seith mage in our guild, and he can hear souls too. Not like you can, but the concept is the same. On especially bad days, he has nosebleeds. Some times even his ears bleed if the soul is in incredible amounts of agony. I learned to quiet my soul so I wouldn't cause him pain. Just like I don't want to cause you any pain. Contrary to how we met in the beginning, Cobra, I would never want to intentionally cause you any amount of pain." Even the thought of her hurting him in any form caused goosebumps to break out over her skin and her heart to stutter in her chest.

Lucy was never one for violence unless it was to protect herself or others she considered family or friends. She didn't know where Cobra sat on the scale, but she knew that he was becoming something close to her heart, and she didn't know how to deal with it. Especially now she was healing, and she would soon part ways with Crime Sorcière to continue on her own path.

Cobra was taken back by her speech, he had never had anyone be so concerned about his magic and how it effected him, or so considerate towards him in general. And here was this female that he allowed in his space, whom he tried to kill on multiple occasions, and she still put in more care and effort in to understanding than anyone ever attempted.

"You could make a man fall head over heels for you talking like that Bright Eyes." Cobra gave her a lopsided grin. Lucy felt her cheeks heat as she blushed at his words.

"Get some sleep Cobra, let's hope the drunkenness will dissolve in your system and you will be sober in the morning." Lucy gave a soft smile when his snores filled the small space, she took up his usual perch by the tent entrance, keeping a vigilant eye around the sleeping camp. Even Midnight wasn't out sitting in his usual spot by the campfire, the night was too chilly to be out even with the heat it put off. She let her mind wander a little longer before laying in her own bed roll.