GrayLu Week 2016 Day 3
Prompt: Letters
Only one day behind now! I hope you enjoy the second half of this part of the overarching story.
\(^u^)/
Chapter 3 – Set in Paper
Fairy Tail University, Part II
The team was standing outside a café in the town where they were conducting their first real mission together. After almost three months of nothing but inter-university challenges, they'd been given an honest-to-goodness assignment – a chance to win both fame and fortune – and now this… The street was buckled and pitted from Gray and Natsu's (mercifully brief) fight. Not all of Erza's shopping had survived, though, and she wasn't happy about it. Mind you, at least they hadn't fried, or flash-frozen, Erza's giant piece of cake. Lucy shuddered at the possibility. It had been a bad enough – and weird enough – morning as it was.
Erza was lecturing the two guys about the evils of blowing up or damaging things while the team was out on a mission.
"We're supposed to responsible, adult mages! Couldn't you two just, I don't know, arm-wrestle or something?
"Sure thing Erza! No problem! Right Gray? Uh – Gray?"
Natsu was obviously worried about what Erza would do when she found out that one of her shopping bags was smouldering.
"Sorry, Erza. I'm going back to my room." Gray turned to Lucy as if to say goodbye, but instead he just stared at her for a minute and then stalked off down the street toward the hotel.
"Man… that was seriously rude…" commented Natsu. "I should go talk to the guy…"
"NO!" said both women in unison.
Happy gave an annoyed "hey!" from where he had curled himself into Lucy soft chest. Looking down, it suddenly occurred to Lucy that maybe… if Gray had meant to say goodbye… and if he was actually interested in her… then seeing Natsu's pet cuddled against her breasts might have upset him. Damn.
There was a sudden wail from Natsu.
"Aw man! My DVDs! And most of the guys' faces have melted right off the front cover!"
He showed the heavily damaged DVD case to the two women. Erza gave him a sympathetic, but distracted nod.
"I need another slice of cake," she announced. "And don't think I didn't notice what you did to my new clothes, Natsu. When you go replace the DVDs, you can pick up the movies for me if they have them."
Natsu gaped at her: "You mean you like Haku- argh!"
"No. Of course not." Erza looked perfectly calm as she made her sword disappear again. "But bring me the movies. Lucy – watch what's left of my shopping for me, please."
The pink-haired Slayer went off grumbling, Happy hovering around his head occasionally saying "Aye, sir!"
He left Lucy holding the DVD case. The one image still mostly intact showed a young man with dark, midnight blue – or maybe indigo? – hair and serious deep blue eyes. Huh. It was her favourite character. Apparently she went for a certain type… She sighed.
"Hey Erza!" she called after the red-head. "You bought some really cute writing paper earlier – can I use a couple of pages? I really need to write a quick letter to somebody… Just to clear something up."
Erza looked back over her shoulder, and the impression of silvery armour seemed stronger for a second or two. She gave Lucy a knowing look.
"No problem, Lucy. I got it for you, anyway. Just had the feeling that you might want some…"
Lucy shot the statuesque red-head a grateful look.
"You're amazing, Erza, thank you."
Her friend and senpai went into the café, and Lucy found the writing paper and fished a pen out of her purse. She realized that it had chibi versions of her favourite anime character on it, and that made her smile. Fortunately, her seat at the outdoor patio table was currently in the shade, so she was able to push her sunglasses up onto her head. Now… what to write?
After thinking for several minutes (and not noticing that Erza had tactfully failed to return), Lucy put the date, the time and her location – "the café down the street from the hotel" – at the top of the letter. Now, what was the most important thing she wanted to convey?
Dear Gray,
I'm sorry things went a little strangely this morning.
This is embarrassing to write, but for some reason I feel like it's important to straighten things out with you this way – in writing, without other people showing up and maybe giving you the wrong impression. So here goes. I don't have any kind of romantic relationship with Natsu. He's one of my best friends and he insists on sleeping at my dorm more often than I'd like, but that's it. I'll always try to be there to back him up, but that's because we're friends and team-mates.
The only [x-ed out "person"] guy I want to spend more time with and get to know better is you. I hope that doesn't make things weird between us? (I'm completely embarrassed now, so I really hope this letter actually does some good.)
About this morning… For some reason I've been thinking a lot about the original Fairy Tail guild. Back then, the mages always wore the Fairy Tail mark somewhere on their body. I have no idea why, but this morning I kept having these weird visions of you having a dark blue FTU crest on your upper right chest. So if you thought that I was staring at you, then that's part of it.
If you want to get together some time, could you let me know? If not, please forget that you ever, ever got this letter. (I know, "as-if" right?)
Lucy
She couldn't figure out how to sign her name. "Yours truly" or "Yours sincerely" sounded too formal (plus the first one sounded too much like "truly yours", which was a bit much). "Affectionately yours" and "Love" were right out. After considering several options, she skipped them all and just wrote her name on its own.
She wondered if she would have the guts to deliver the letter. As she was sitting there staring at it, Erza came out of the café. She smiled when she saw the letter.
"All done, then? Shall we go back to the hotel? We should make sure that Gray's ready to have lunch and head out on the part of our mission. I don't want to leave the Tear of the Horribly Mutilated Death God in the hands of evil mages any longer than necessary. Here, I'll take that for you."
Before Lucy could protest, her letter in its pretty matching envelope was whisked off the table and into Erza's personal silver and red purse (guaranteed to be fire- and water-resistant, as well as bullet-proof). Erza smiled at Lucy.
"Don't worry, I'll deliver it as soon as we get in."
"That's what I'm worried about. I like my anxieties to age a bit…"
"Interesting idea, but no. I need you ready and back in the right headspace two hours from now."
Lucy nodded obediently. It had been a foregone conclusion, really.
So she had to make sure things were okay with Gray within the next two hours? That seemed like a pretty tight deadline. It was too bad that none of her spirits were particularly well-versed in human relationships.
Much like her.
Lucy went up to her room to change. It had the featureless, beige and brown of hotel rooms everywhere, but she didn't mind. She kicked off her sandals and stretched out on the bed. After a while, she held her arm up so that she could see the back of her right hand. There was nothing there of course.
A few minutes after that – maybe twenty minutes after they'd gotten in – there was a tentative knock on her door. That meant it wasn't Natsu: he'd have tried to walk straight in and then complained about the door being locked. Her heart started to pound.
"Just a sec! Who's there?"
"It's Gray." She couldn't read his tone.
She jumped up and straightened the light comforter, then took a deep breath and unlocked the door.
"Hey." Gray was standing just a little back from the door, looking wary. Remarkably, he was fully dressed. "So… can I come in?"
"Sure." Lucy wasn't sure what to think, but she stepped back and then closed the door after him. "Um, do you want some water or something? I know we're having lunch soon…"
Great. She was babbling. She looked around vaguely to make sure that she hadn't left any clothes lying on the one comfortable chair.
"Oh!" She couldn't repress a slight cry of surprise when she turned to see Gray rapidly strip off his T-shirt and toss it unheedingly onto the floor.
Gray froze at the sound and immediately looked down. "Damn. Sorry, Lucy."
He picked up the shirt, looked at it blankly for a moment, then folded it neatly and set it on the small coffee table.
Okay. He's in my room, he's taken off his shirt and he looks… really, really good. He wouldn't do all this just to tell me that I'm nuts or something, right?
Gray cleared his throat. The necklace he always wore moved a little, catching the light.
"So…"
"So?"
"Thanks for the letter."
When he didn't add anything, Lucy huffed out a short breath and tried not to get annoyed. Hadn't she done enough already to make things work – if they were going to work?
"You're welcome."
"… I really suck at this."
"It depends what you're trying to accomplish," Lucy replied a little snarkily. She closed her lips on what she had been going to say next because it wasn't all that nice.
"Yeah, I know. Like, if I'm trying to come across like an idiot then I'm doing great, right?"
He smiled wryly at her and she laughed.
"That was pretty much it. Sorry."
"Not your fault. Anyway, what I wanted to tell you – one of the things – is that I wasn't just freaked out at Natsu this morning. This is going to sound completely ridiculous, but… I kept imagining a crest on the back of your hand. Right hand. Pink."
Automatically, they both looked at the back of her right hand, but it was bare and nothing happened.
"I saw that too, though," Lucy reassured him. "So it's definitely not just you. That's wild. I wonder what Erza will say? Heck… maybe we should tell the Master back at the FTU…"
"Lucy, right now I'm just glad I'm not the only one seeing things. And also, I'm glad you're not actually, um, you know… seeing Natsu."
Lucy barely heard the last two words, since they were spoken so softly.
"I think I can safely say that right now I'm seeing a lot more of you than any other guy," she deadpanned.
Gray actually cracked another smile.
"Yeah, yeah, I know. But…" He closed the distance between them and put his arms very carefully and loosely around her shoulders, watching her carefully to make sure it was okay. "You never complain. Not really. In fact, you seem to like what you see – I think?"
Lucy was suddenly feeling both warmer and slightly cooler at the same time. It was an interesting sensation, but one that she'd appreciate more if she could breathe.
"Not fair. I never know what you're thinking."
"I thought you were falling for Natsu. I didn't like it, but I didn't want you to feel like being on the team was a problem. I mean… He's always staying with you, you adore Happy, and you two are always chattering on about life, school, the latest anime – you know?"
"Oh yeah? What about you? You've flirted with half the girls we've seen when we've been out doing challenges! You smile at them and then go all quiet when I'm around – I mean, seriously?!"
The Ice-Make mage turned a little pink at that. Probably because it was true.
"To be fair…" he began.
"… they were the ones flirting with you, I get it. But to be fair…"
This time, Gray laughed and put his fingers gently against her lips.
"I know. Natsu was the one who always wanted to stay in your room, and since I was barely even speaking to you at that point…"
Lucy grinned against his fingers. She liked where this was going. A lot, actually. But there were formalities to be observed after all. Especially since they seemed to have a knack for misunderstandings.
"So, what did you come to tell me, exactly? That you were jealous of Natsu? Or that you were seeing things?" Her words came out a little garbled, because his fingers were still there, but she knew she'd conveyed the message.
Gray grimaced and drew a deep breath. He put both arms back around her shoulders and his dark blue eyes looked steadily down into her brown ones.
"I figure if I'm holding you then I'm less likely to take the rest of my clothes off, which might be awkward. So, um, yeah. Right. … I like you a lot Lucy. I was hoping maybe we could go out together and see how things go."
Lucy covered herself with shame by squeaking as if she were a schoolgirl. Since dignity had flown out the window anyway, she buried her head against his chest, right where she'd seen the blue Fairy Tail mark. Finally! She'd been wanting to do this for weeks now. Gray responded by pulling her in closer, which made her a little dizzy, but definitely in a good kind of way.
"I'll take that as a yes," he murmured in her ear.
Thank you for reading! Hope you enjoyed this story arc. Off to Chapter 4 - Prompt: Drunk
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