I seriously have no excuse... Anyway, I'm happy if there are still some people following this! If you are, thank you so much!
Diclaimer: I don't own anything.
Chapter 8: It.. worked?
We heard a gunshot.
Natsu and I exchanged quick glances before picking up our pace. "This way!" Natsu yelled back to me and disappeared behind some brushwood. I followed and, after getting beat by a couple of stray branches and receiving some bruises, stepped out of it, my whip grabbed firmly, only to run right into Natsu's back. Right when I was about to give him an earful, my gaze landed on the pitiful figure of a bald man on the ground. He was wearing black clothes and looked like he could use some band-aids. A few steps further into the clearing, Gray was lying on the ground, seemingly unconscious. Juvia was crouched over him, tears running down her face, and pressed her hands against Gray's abdomen. They were covered in dark red liquid and I gasped when I realized that it was blood. Gray had been hit with a bullet.
"Gray!" Natsu and I both exclaimed and darted into their direction. "Juvia what happened?" I asked, putting my right hand on her shoulder.
Juvia's eyes were wide with panic and her breath was halting as she tried to frantically explain what was going on. "He pushed me away! I could have dodged it, but he came out of the brushwood and pushed me away. Gray-sama! Open your eyes! You can't die! Gray-sama!"
"Juvia calm down." My eyes darted to Gray's pale face.
"Gray-sama!"
"I said calm down." My eyes couldn't leave Gray's face. Just now... did he...?
"Gray-sama!" Juvia started crying and shaking even more uncontrollably.
"I SAID CALM DOWN, GODDAMMIT!" Gray exclaimed and grabbed her forearm. Juvia's crying and screaming stopped as her eyes slowly made their way up to Gray's face. Even though he was still pretty pale, his eyes were open.
"Gray!" I said, leaning down a bit. "Are you feeling okay?"
"Yeah, it was just a graze. Could you please stop making a big deal out of it?"
Now that Juvia had removed her hands and I took a better look at his wound, I saw that, even though it was more than a simple "graze", the wound didn't look all that lethal. The bullet had probably missed all the vital organs.
Juvia was mumbling something to herself while Gray sat up straight and froze the wound with his hand, effectively stopping the bleeding.
"Man, that was really lame you know?" Natsu was crouching next to him with an incredibly bored expression.
"You trying to provoke me, flame brain?"
"Juvia, are you okay?" I turned to look at her, ignoring the usual bickering between Gray and Natsu.
"No big deal?" she muttered with a murderous expression on her face. "No. BIG. DEAL?!" Suddenly, she moved forward and punched Gray in the face, knocking him down. Her fists kept raining down on his chest, but there was no force behind them anymore, as Juvia continued hitting him, with tears streaming down her features.
"Juvia, what..." Gray started but was interrupted by her.
"How is it not a big deal?" she cried. "You could have died! Why did you push Juvia away? Bullets don't work on Juvia, you didn't have to take the damage! What would Juvia have done if the bullet had hit your heart? Why are you always doing these reckless things?"
Gray lifted his right hand up to his head and scratched the back of it. "It was a reflex, I didn't have time to think about it."
"Don't do that ever again!" Juvia yelled and pulled Gray up by his necklace until there were only a few inches separating their noses and looked him in the eyes, crying all the time. "Don't you EVER do something like that again. What would Juvia do without you?"
Gray was silent for a moment and just let her cry before answering. "So don't go running off into dangerous situations all alone. You're making me worried."
Now it was Juvia's turn to fall silent. To be honest, I felt kind of awkward watching this whole situation with Natsu because I felt that it wasn't something a third party should disturb. But I couldn't tear my eyes away from the scene in front of me.
"Gray-sama, you idiot!" Juvia yelled and hiccuped. "Juvia is an S-class mage, she can handle one lousy thief. Stop being so kind to Juvia! Stop making Juvia misunderstand!"
Gray shut her up by pulling her into a hug and I took that as our cue to leave. So I simply tugged at Natsu's sleeve and nodded into the direction we came from.
"So it kind of worked, huh", Natsu said as he leisurely walked along the trail leading back to the city.
"Y-Yeah! All according to plan!" I said, not very convincingly.
"Well, let's go back then!" he said and flashed me one of his sunshine smiles, triggering all kinds of reactions in my guts. "Lucy's gonna be thrilled when she hears this!"
"Gyaa~ Gray-samaaa~!" The whole guild was watching Gray and Juvia who were sitting at one of the tables in the back of the hall.
"Stop clinging to me!" Gray yelled and tried to push Juvia away.
Lucy was sitting with her future counterpart, Natsu, Sakura, Haru and Erza at the table next to them. They had returned just a few moments before.
"Hey, wait a minute...", future Lucy uttered. "Didn't you say the plan worked? They're the same as before, aren't they?"
"Beats me...", I answered and frowned. "I swear they were all over each other before. Right, Natsu?"
"Hm?" Natsu raised his head and gave her a questioning look, all the while stuffing his mouth with food.
"Daddy, you're spilling food everywhere", Sakura, who was sitting right next to him, said to which Natsu started answering some indistinguishable gibberish.
"Daddy, I can't understand you, your mouth is full of food!" Sakura laughed and clapped her hands.
"Gray-sama, where are you going?"
My head jerked to the direction Juvia's voice came from. Gray had gotten up and started walking towards the guild's entrance.
"Gonna grab something to eat", he simply responded. Juvia lowered her eyes and was about sit down again when he turned back and continued with a smile. "You coming, or what?"
Juvia's face lit up and her eyes started sparkling. "Yes!" she exclaimed happily, ran over to Gray's side and both of them walked out of the guild, holding hands.
I hope those of you who are still here, enjoyed this chapter of Gruvia fluff! Anyway, I'm always happy about any kind of feedback, positive or negative, so please leave a review and until next time!