Happy Friday! All I'm going to say about this week's chapter is... did anyone see this coming? XD
- K. Chandler
Gray opened his eyes to the sensation of an elephant mashing its massive foot over his skull. He peeled his face off the couch slowly, sure that the imprint of the fabric had been pressed into the side of his face.
Normally, he was pretty good about respecting the line between fun and too much fun. Gray had the feeling he was about to find himself on the too-much-fun side of the line. Lately, that seemed to be happening more often than it should.
His mouth tasted vaguely like cherry, and he was wearing nothing but his boxers. His clothes—shirt, pants, jacket, at least one shoe—had been tossed his in a pile on the floor.
What had he done last night?! He couldn't remember, which was probably a bad sign.
Gray shuffled into his bedroom, looking for something to wear that didn't smell like booze.
What he saw in his bed sent him stumbling, crashing to the floor when he couldn't recover his balance.
"What the… Hibiki?" shouted Gray.
The Pegasus mage looked a mess with his suit jacket crinkled and his tie wrapped around his head like a bandana. In his arms, he clutched Gray's other shoe.
Hibiki woke with a start, jolting up in bed with a hoarse shout. He blinked wildly, his hair sticking up in uneven tufts. "Whaa—?" Hibiki screeched. "Where am I!? What am I doing here? Why are you naked?" yelped Hibiki when his eyes fell on Gray.
The volume made him wince, but he couldn't even keep his own voice down, let alone worry about Hibiki's.
"I'm always naked!" Gray shouted back, before he realized what a weird thing that was to shout at another man. On second thought, it would probably have been even weirder to shout that at one of the girls.
"That doesn't help," said Hibiki. "Would you put some clothes on before you scar me for life? And quit yelling."
"Just as soon as you get out of my bed," retorted Gray. Still, he fumbled for a change of clothes, wanting to be through with this humiliating situation as quickly as possible.
"Wait. Your bed?" said Hibiki, scrambling to stand, but falling with a crash, tangled in the sheets.
"Yes, my bed," said Gray, getting dressed quicker than he had ever remembered. Normally, he was better at getting his clothes off than putting them back on. Not today. "This is my house…"
"Well, what am I doing here?" said Hibiki.
"I don't know," said Gray. "What are you doing here?"
"You don't know?" said Hibiki. "You mean you don't remember…"
Remember? Between the pounding in his skull and the early morning panic, last night was a complete blur.
"No. Do you?" said Gray.
"Sort of," said Hibiki. "I played Power Hour with Cana. She pretty much destroyed me, but it's Cana. Then, I think you came over and we ended up doing more shots."
"Cana?" croaked Gray.
Oh, crap.
Gray rejoined his friends on the dance floor, pushing through the throng of bodies. Loke had disappeared and so had Eve and Flare, but Cana and Hibiki were still jamming near the center of the room.
"Yo."
"Gray!" chirped Cana. "You're back."
"I'm back," said Gray. If he was going to do this, he might as well go along and try to have fun. Otherwise, he'd never be able to free himself of the constant thoughts of Erza.
"You strike out again?" she asked.
"I wouldn't call it that," said Gray. "She just wasn't my type."
"You mean she was totally your type, and the whole thing hit too close to home," retorted Cana.
"Your point?"
"Gray, you have to let it go. Do something fun. Wild. Crazy," Cana urged.
"That's not going to help," said Gray.
"What you're doing isn't helping," Cana said, her amber eyes surveying him seriously. "Yeah. At this rate, nothing is going to help if you insist on being this way."
"All right, what would you do?"
"Another round of shots," said Cana without hesitation.
Of course. Just when he thought she was being serious, it had to go back to the alcohol.
"I'm serious, Gray," said Cana, almost as if reading his mind. "You're too uptight right now. You're thinking too much and second guessing everything. Silence those thoughts and give yourself permission to live in the moment. What would you do if nothing else mattered?"
What would he do? Would he have kissed Flare? Would he have kept flirting with Kagura? Would he even be hesitating at the prospect of another round of shots?
"Yeah, let's do it," said Gray.
"Really?" asked Cana.
"Yeah," decided Gray.
Because why the heck not? At this point, it couldn't hurt.
"Yes!" cheered Cana, pumping her fist in the air.
"But nothing too crazy, okay?" hedged Gray. He didn't like how Cana's eyes lit up. "I've already started the night with a couple of whiskeys."
"You dork," laughed Cana. "Don't worry. I'll take care of you. Where'd Hibiki get off to? Come on, Hibiki! Gray's joining. This round's on me!" said Cana.
"Cana, no more shots," said Hibiki. "I'm done. I'm done."
"Just one more round," said Cana. "Come on."
"No, no, no," said Hibiki, waving a hand at her. "No more."
"It doesn't have to be shots. Cocktail. Rum and coke. Fruity, girly drink. Come on," wheedled Cana.
In the end, Cana ended up with a dozen tequila shots and, true to her word, she had paid for Hibiki's martini and some sort of mystery cocktail for Gray.
"You're crazy for letting her order for you," said Hibiki.
"Says the guy who played Power Hour with her," said Gray.
"She didn't give me a choice!" said Hibiki.
"You'll like it, I promise," Cana said to Gray. "You're a whiskey guy, right? This is bourbon, mostly. Well, less than mostly."
Gray eyed up the bright red glass that was set in front of him. An orange wedge had been pressed onto the rim of the glass and a single cherry floated amongst the ice cubes. It didn't taste bad either, the burn of alcohol having been muted by the unsurprising fruity taste.
"What do you think?" prompted Cana.
"It's different…" said Gray. It wasn't something he would have picked for himself, but he didn't dislike it.
"Different is good," said Cana.
"Different is good," agreed Gray.
Cana was different too. Cana was pretty much as far from Erza as he could get, unless he wanted to go the Lucy route. But still, Cana's company was nice, in its own way.
"You gonna eat that?" asked Cana, pointing at the fruit garnishing his drink.
"Go for it," he said.
Cana snatched away the fruits away, munching on the orange and sucking the juice from it before tossing the cherry into her mouth. She spit the pit into one of her empty glasses and a held out the knotted cherry stem between her clenched teeth.
"Still got it," bragged Cana with a cheeky grin before removing the stem from her lips with two fingers and dropping it into the glass as well.
"Only you would think that tying knots in cherry stems is a worthy hobby, Miss Cana," teased Hibiki.
"Think you could do better?" challenged Cana playfully.
"Unfortunately, no," said Hibiki. "I'll have to concede gracefully here."
"What's the big deal about that?" asked Gray. The cherry thing was just a parlor trick, wasn't it? It's the kind of stupid thing that he could see some of the guys at the guild getting all super competitive about.
Cana and Hibiki exchanged glances.
"What?" asked Gray. Was he missing something here?
Cana knocked back another shot of tequila. "I can show you, if you want. Wanna try something else different?" asked Cana.
"Why not?" said Gray. At this point, hanging out with Cana and Hibiki was more fun than he'd had all night. How bad could it possibly be?
Cana grinned, her eyes flashing wickedly as she put a hand against his jaw.
He couldn't tell if the alcohol was slowing his reactions or increasing the thrill that stirred in his chest at her dandelion-light touch. At some subconscious level, Gray knew what was coming next.
But he was still surprised when Cana's mouth connected with his.
...and, Ladies and Gents, there's Gray's first kiss... Who called it? Anybody? XD
I know Gray probably feels OOC here. But I was trying to figure out what he'd be like when both moody (he's somewhere between sulking and throwing a tantrum, depending on who he's with) and now drunk (again). No, he's not an alcoholic... this is just his vice of choice for venting his frustrations. But to what end?
Next time, in [Mazeverse] Of Redheads, Warriors and Best Friends, Gray Gone Wild... and what happens after: He'd regret this tomorrow. But for now, Gray couldn't have cared less.
Stop back next Friday for the final installment, or just follow me, Karine of R011ingThunder.