004. Victory
Gray/Erza – The first, and only time he ever won against her.
Gray Fullbuster is fifteen years old and determined. And possibly insane. Twice a week, he attempts to get over his crippling fear of the scariest girl known to humanity, slams his head against a wall to make sure he's feeling suicidal enough to face her, and goes to meet Erza.
In retrospect, he was still slightly shell-shocked that Erza had agreed to their arrangement.
"Get up. Again."
Erza's snappy command makes Gray groan, feeling the ache of bruises in places that he didn't even know existed. He pushes himself ungracefully up from the ground, half-heartedly slamming his hands together for what feels like the hundredth time and watching an ice sword materialize in his grip.
Maybe having such a merciless monster of a girl instruct him in swordplay hadn't been the brightest of his ideas. One week of this, and he was already about ready to drop dead.
"Are you prepared, Gray?"
No, he thinks sarcastically, but he raises the sword in a defensive position nevertheless. "Bring it on!" Gray shouts with more bravado than he feels.
The words are hardly out of his mouth when he finds himself on the ground, flat on his back with all the air knocked out of him. Again. The ice sword lies next to him in two cleanly cut pieces, and the culprit herself has one knee on his chest, her own shiny sword planted in the ground a centimeter away from Gray's neck, just the slightest bit too close for comfort.
"It seems that I win again, Gray." There is just the slightest upturn of a mischievous smile to her lips. Damn it!
"Erza… Heavy…" he gasps, but it's apparently the wrong thing to say as Erza's eyes narrow dangerously. He means her armor, but the lack of oxygen was making Gray less than coherent at the moment.
She leans into his face, their noses almost touching, voice low and deadly in the tone that usually preludes a horribly painful and humiliating asskicking. "What did you say?"
There are any number of responses as the time spent in their admittedly awkward position stretches longer, and longer. They are so very close to each other. He suddenly wonders why he has never noticed the lighter flecks of color in her brown eyes, the way Erza's scarlet hair hangs down just so that it tickles his cheeks, that beautifully determined expression even when she's practically crushing the life out of him, her lips pursed in a somewhat childish pout, and more, more, so much more.
Whether it was the absence of air to his brain, a brilliant second of incomprehensible genius in tactics, or a tremendous surge of idiocy coupled with a death wish, Gray would never know. In that moment, he somehow manages to sit up, flip Erza onto her back in a quick movement, and lands a solid kiss on her lips.
"Do I win?"
The fate that awaited Gray after that was just a little worse than death, but locked away in a corner of his mind, only one thought lingered.
Worth it.
A/N: Helloooo there, headcanon. Gray had to learn how to use swords from someone, right?