xGx
Being held captive was often very dull.
It was a lot of staring blankly at the ceiling until a point in your back hurt so much it rallied you to bother turning on your side, to stare at the wall next to you until your shoulder ached something terrible, and then rinse and repeat.
Given the situation, he really wasn't in the position to complain or make requests, but by Mavis would it kill them to at least supply some cards?
He wasn't asking for a care package or an entertainment bundle, or anything, it's just that in Gray's mind it simply made sense to supply some kind tool to occupy his mind away from thoughts of escape.
Leaving him to own devices was bound to give him the time, space, and opportunity needed to come up with a groundbreaking, dare he say innovative, idea of not only breaking free and busting out of here, but also single handedly defeating anyone foolish enough to try and engage him in a rousing tussle of fisticuffs on his way out.
Allowing such an oversight to exist so blatantly honestly appeared a little irresponsible – and novice-like – on his abductors part.
All these observations could be said and jotted down for review later, but unfortunately there was a rather glaring obstacle standing in the way of all these reflections bypassing the theoretical phase; Gray wasn't having very many thoughts at the moment…
His stomach wound still hurt, yes, and while that was distracting it didn't make up the bulk of his absentmindedness, the truth was far more humbling.
Gray Fullbuster was feeling emotionally neglected.
Emotionally and literally because what the hell was taking Fairy Tail so long?!
He been here four fucking days, if his memory served him right, the pink-haired pyro had up and knight-in-shining-armored his way over to Lucy within two hours of realizing she was gone and had her back, safe and sound, before Mira had even cobbled together a dinner menu that day.
And they'd only know the girl a little over a month!
Meanwhile, ol' Gray Fullbuster was sitting here on his last legs, and he'd been a staple of the guild since before that bubblegum-haired asshole had ever taken a single step over the threshold!
Was the fact that Phantom Lord's guildhall being constantly on the move, an issue?
Yes. Of course it was, but the more Gray thought on it, the more he became convinced it was a mild inconvenience at best.
For one thing, how fast could the creaky old building even be going? He watched it approach Fairy Tail's private beach just like everyone else, and at max speed, it could have been surpassed by a snail.
Easily.
Meanwhile, Erza was known to knock down mountains. He'd personally experienced her chasing down a speeding train using nothing but a stolen magi-mobile and the spare magic strumming through her veins, just last month.
And that was just one girl.
Fairy Tail was a guild full of crazy-ass bastards just looking for an excuse to overwhelm what a single person should be capable of.
Together, they weren't just a force to be reckoned with, they were every known natural disaster, smashed together and unleashing an all mighty battle cry, gleefully beating at the war drums like it had done something personal to their mother.
Now he was supposed to believe that a stumbling, ancient decrepit guildhall had outmaneuvered them?
No. The ice mage was beginning to suspect a lack of motivation on his comrade's part.
Part of the reason Gray had had the strength to turn his nose up at, quite frankly, some of the most delicious food he'd ever sniffed out, wasn't purely because of pride; he'd honestly believed he'd be safely tucked in, tight and snuggly, in Fairy Tail's makeshift infirmary in the basement by now, while one person tended to his boo-boos and another spoon-fed him soup!
…Forgive him, his thoughts were a bit unfiltered and fuzzy due to a lack of calories needed to keep his organs functioning.
Anyway, at this point he was genuinely beginning to think he was on his own here.
The only person who appeared concerned about his well-being at the moment was the one who'd dragged him here in the first place!
Over and over, no matter how hard he glared, or what (justified) vitriol his spat, the Rain Woman dutifully entered his cell, presented him a meal they both knew he would reject – they appeared to have come to an unwritten rule, that the two of them would just blatantly ignore how vocally his stomach protested his hunger strike – and attempted to see to his wounds, before he slapped her away like an angry cat.
Each interaction was becoming weaker though, the bite he'd come in with when he'd believed a guild's worth of heros on white horses would show up and cart him off to freedom had waned in favor of a man who was hard pressed to reject grilled salmon, wild rice, asparagus, and a chocolate torte on the side…
If that little loaf of fresh bread had come with a pad of slowly melting butter on it last night, he wouldn't be the steely-eyed man he was today.
For one thing, he'd be fuller.
Every so often a little voice in his head tried to convince him that it wouldn't be weakness to take what the girl was offering, if anything it would be strength.
He'd recover faster, think clearer, all the while using up his enemies' limited resources for his own gain, and then waltz out of here once he achieved 100% recovery and they were left fighting over a water cup for sustenance.
It had some pretty valid points, he could admit. After all, it wasn't normal for Gray to sit around staring at a lit candlestick wondering if the pink haired pyro back home might have been ahead of the curb culinarily and the rest of society were just cowards missing out on a readily available snack.
One of the things that held him back was the fact the voice always seemed to show up around the same time those trays did, wafting along their scents.
Clearly the voice was under the influence of some pretty heavy stuff while dishing out it's advice – never a good sign.
Another thing that couldn't be ignored was that Gray was stubborn.
Past the point of reason, beyond the scope of his own well-being.
He couldn't help it, it was how he was raised.
Born of parents who stubbornly refused to live in a climate meant for human habitation despite not being mages in their own right, and doubling down by bringing an infant into that same environment, as if to snub their nose at common sense and logic.
Taught by a woman who insisted the only real way to learn ice magic was by throwing off your clothes, trekking through the nearest tundra without alerting any of your neighbors or close friends about your whereabouts, and spending some nights sitting directly in the line of a blizzard unprotected, despite the dozens of books and guides Gray'd come across later in life that stressed that was the fastest way to die on the planet.
Raised by a guild whose whole philosophy was to finish a job by any means necessary; laws, morality, and a basic understanding of ethics be damned.
Sure, maybe along the way you accidentally flooded a city, dishousing thousands, getting you banned from the entire county, and accruing a financial debt incomprehensible to most accountants, leaving many business majors in tears that you somehow managed to keep the guild afloat. That was ok, because at the end of the day, a nice fish family had a home to be proud of and that was the entire point of the mission you'd agreed to.
So no, he wasn't eating anytime soon. And if that meant he wouldn't be leaving his cell of his own volition, so be it.
His pitiful, starved face would make for better ammunition to emotionally guilt trip the people he'd come to know as family, anyway.
And perhaps, that would make it all worth it in the end.