Magic
Chapter 2
The team arrived at the employer's home bright and early the next day, per their employer's instruction. Unfortunately their employer wasn't there, and they had to wait for the man for two hours, which wouldn't have been half as bad if Natsu wasn't complaining about a hangover and empty stomach. Gray had managed not to look at his friend all morning, which, regarding their history, wasn't anything different than usual. He still couldn't get over that feeling he had for a moment the previous night, and he didn't trust himself not to feel it again if he were to look at his friend.
It was especially worse after he fell asleep. Gray had dreamt that he was enjoying a steamy night with someone, and when he looked up to see Natsu's face, the dream Gray freaked out just as much as the real Gray would have, and Gray jumped awake, covered in sweat, and when he glanced at Natsu's sleeping form on the other side of the room, images of his dream flashed before his eyes, and that was when he determined not to look at Natsu until he could calm down his nerves.
By the end of the second hour, Natsu's complaining had reached to ear splitting whining, which Gray was able to tune out with his own problems, until Natsu put his arm around Gray's shoulders. Gray didn't even know what was being said, but the second he felt someone touching him, Gray grabbed the arm and swung Natsu away from him, the other man landing in a explosion of dust.
When he realized what he had done, Gray blushed and placed a hand behind his head, embarrassed to be caught with his head in the clouds like that in front of his other teammates.
"Ah, sorry about that," he said, deducing who he had thrown by simple math. Erza, Lucy, and Happy were all staring at him, meaning Natsu was the one he had thrown. "Er, sorry, Natsu."
Immediately Natsu jumped up and shoved his face into Gray's. "What hell was that for? You got a problem or something?"
Gray pushed away, not wishing to be so close to Natsu. The other man was so warm, which could have been because of Natsu's nature, but it felt so comforting that Gray couldn't stand being so close to him at the moment - not that he didn't want to be standing so close or anything.
"Eh, sorry, I'm just not in the mood to deal with it this morning," Gray mumbled, leaning against the wall of the house.
"Well, take your crabbiness and shove it," Natsu grumbled.
As Natsu stomped off to pass the time, Erza leaned against the wall next to Gray. "You okay? We'll need you in your right mind if we're going to pull this mission off."
"Yeah, I'm fine." He turned away from the woman, crossing his arms. He really wasn't in the mood, but doing a difficult mission might put him in his right mind, and he'd be able to forget about everything that's happened. Hopefully there was some sort of fighting involved, otherwise he might just go crazy.
Speak of the devil, their employer walked up from the road. He was a tall man, around twenty-five years old, black hair, green eyes, totally average. When he noticed the team, he froze, his eyes widening, and then he started crying. He threw himself at Lucy's feet.
"You're finally here!" the man cried. "I can't believe you've finally come!"
Lucy blinked and stepped away from him, glancing back at Erza, who took the role of leader and stepped in front of Lucy. "Yes, we're here. What can we help you with?"
The man looked up, smiled, and stood up. "I still can't believe you're all finally here. I'm such big trouble that you're like visions from heaven!"
Natsu rolled his eyes, then held up a fist. "Just tell us who we're going to beat so we can get paid!"
Lucy punched Natsu's arm, but he just looked at her and shrugged.
"Ah, yes," the man said, wiping his eyes. "Would you like to come in for tea?"
"No," Gray said through his teeth. "Just tell us what we're doing."
"Okay." Sighing, the man took a piece of paper out of his coat, and handed it to Erza, who opened it to reveal a picture of a jewel encrusted sewing needle. "This was given to me by my grandmother," the man said. "It's a very valuable family heirloom. A week ago, someone broke into my home and stole it. I hired an investigator to find it, but she turned out to be useless, only able to tell me that whoever stole it had hidden it in a haystack on Mt. Io."
"Which one is Mt. Io?" Erza inquired, looking at the mountain range in front of her, all the way on the other side of the town.
"The middle one, the biggest one."
"And it's on top?" Gray growled. His fingers twitched, wanting to grab Natsu and strangle him. They could be sun tanning right now, instead of going mountain climbing.
"Guarded by the thief, no doubt," Erza said.
"Must be someone strong," Lucy squeaked. "Otherwise, why else would this be S-Class?"
Erza folded the paper and handed it to Lucy. "Let's get going. We need to get there as fast as possible."
"Why?" the man asked. "I don't think there's a time limit…"
"The beach," Erza said, giving the man a sideways glance, which confused him. He wanted to cower in fear at her look, but was also confused by her answer.
Without another word, Erza led the group away from the man's house on their long trek to across the town, and then up the mountain.
A/N: Okay, I know this is very short, and not much has happened, but after being distracted by other things, and then having writer's block (already!), I decided to just quickly post chapter 2, give you time to soak it up, and then I'll post up 3 next week - I gots things that I'm doing this weekend, so absolutely no time to write in ANYTHING that I'm working on. -sadface!-
And I also changed the rating, since it'll actually be awhile before they actually get down and dirty, so really there's no point in this story being M right now. But just keep this as a note: It will be changed! Just not for awhile, yet.
Well, thanks for reviewing/favoriting/alerting this story, and much more is appreciated.