GrayLu Week 2017

Loud

A sort of continuation of day one.

GrayLu Week 2017: Loud

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Sometimes, at night, he would go walking.

Gray had been having nightmares since he was young, but they'd stopped sometime after he'd lost Ur; at least, they'd stopped temporarily. Ever since Team Natsu had formed, however, they were starting back up, and they were worse than ever before.

So sometimes at night, he wandered.

Gray was, at his core, a lost soul to begin with. Magnolia was so hollow at night, and his feet carried him down stone streets and broken pathways. The dark changed little about the town; in fact, nothing changed at all. Not even the sky. The stars seemed even to haunt him in their constant stillness. The clear and quiet world above him felt so immovable, like there was nothing in the world that would change unless they could manage to keep spinning. Gray had felt still for a long time. There was nothing louder than his own thoughts, and it seemed hopeless he would ever change.

Tonight though, he decided, would be different.

Like clockwork, his shirt came off as he reached the only other building in Magnolia in which he felt comfortable. His body entered autopilot as he began climbing the ivy leading up to the window, his hands reaching for places already worn from his ventures previous, his feet searching for holes already found. When Gray reached the window, he hesitated; he always did. But this time, finally, after a moment of pondering, he tapped on the window: once, twice, then three times. He waited.

It took only seconds for the blonde to slowly lift her head. She seemed confused, and he couldn't blame her. He tapped on the glass once more, and her head snapped around, revealing tired eyes and sleepy red cheeks. Gray smiled, but she frowned.

Lucy didn't hesitate to open the window though, allowing him to silently slip inside. "Gray?" her sleepy voice mumbled. She sat up further, rubbing her tired and driven eyes. "Am I dreaming?"

Gray couldn't help but let out a short, quiet laugh. "You dream about me?" he asked, climbing over her bed to stand beside it. He grinned at the blush that spread across Lucy's cheeks, watching as she turned to shut the window again, trying to hide her embarrassed features.

"Shut up," she mumbled.

"That wasn't a no," he reminded her.

She scoffed.

He grinned.

"What are you doing here?" Lucy whined. "It's gotta be at least midnight, and we're meant to leave on a job tomorrow."

Gray didn't say anything at first, dropping his shirt somewhere uncared for. "You didn't let me come by for your next chapter," he lied feebly. Lucy didn't quite buy it, but didn't feel like prying; he looked a mess.

"That's because it isn't quite done," she reasoned coolly, paralleling the way her ribcage felt tight at the memory of dancing with him in the rain. Lucy hadn't spoken to him since. She'd been holed up in her apartment writing.

Gray raised his eyebrows, lowering himself to sit on the floor and scratching at the guild mark on his chest. It was a habit he picked up when he was nervous or uncomfortable. The guild always had been a reminder of the family he'd been able to forge there, a reminder of why he fought.

"It's been days, Luce," Gray sighed. "You're avoiding me."

Lucy blushed, fully awake now. "I am not!"

She wasn't exactly lying. She really hadn't been trying to avoid him, it was just convenient it had worked out that way. Besides, the stories in her head were screaming at her to get them out, to give them life, and she'd been unable to ignore the yelling in her mind.

Gray was too tired, and frankly, too distressed, to laugh at how flustered she was. "Just tell me what you're thinking," he begged, leaning back with one hand while the other ran over his face and through his hair. "I've been here the last few nights watching you, and I can't figure out what you want from me, and the thoughts in my head are screaming so loud I can barely breathe!" Gray was exasperatedly yelling, before becoming quiet. "So tell me all of it; the good and the not-so-good. Tell me all of it."

Lucy's face suddenly flickered to anger. Her words were loud. "You've been spying on me?!"

Gray huffed, his voice rising to match hers. "Lucy, nobody in the guild had heard from you!" he reminded her. He felt sick for yelling at her. "I was just worried," he mumbled. "So I came to check on you."

Lucy's face was hot with embarrassment. She hadn't even realized in her writing fever she'd probably sparked concern. She lowered her eyes, suddenly focusing on her hands as she knotted her fingers together. "Sorry," she said, much quieter. She hadn't even considered their voices waking the neighbors until now.

Silence stretched between them, words flying through her mind as she tried to piece together what to say to him. Lucy was a writer, after all. Words were her specialty... except when it came to Gray. He seemed to steal all the eloquent sentences she could create, reducing her instead to a blushing, defensive mess. Truth be told, she was just afraid of saying the wrong thing; when writing, she could think it over a thousand times before it was finalized. With talking? It felt so foreign to her.

The quiet was unsettling to Gray. Hope was fading from his chest every moment that passed, and as if something snapped inside of him, he began crying. "Please..." he whispered, silent tears streaking down his cheeks. "Just tell me what I did wrong."

The sight of Gray's tears brought alarm to the forefront of Lucy's brain. As if acting on instinct, the blonde threw herself from her bed, launching directly into the defeated frame of her teammate. She wrapped her arms tightly around him, and he fought every fiber of his being not to hold her.

"Am I going to lose you?" Gray's words were barely there. "Please, Luce. I can't lose my family; not again."

The audible crack in his voice matched the feeling of Lucy's heart shattering against her ribcage. "No!" she finally managed to make her lips form the words, hanging onto him like her life depended on it. "No, Gray. I'm not going anywhere."

The smallest of sobs racked Gray's figure. His arms suddenly encased her, both of them falling back with their joined weight. The stillness of the night became alive again. The air seemed to dance in time to his pounding heart, audible against his chest where Lucy rested her head, just above his guild mark. Relief flooded every inch of Gray's being.

A few minutes passed, and silence enveloped them again. Lucy sat up for a moment, finding his eyes in light of the moon and slowly taking his hand, bringing them both to their feet. She coaxed him into her bed, and in the darkness, their bodies tangled, spooning against each other with no need for vocal cues. Gray held her close; Lucy relaxed completely for the first time in days. Sleep was inevitable. His head was remarkably silent. Everything was still again.

Well, except for the stars.

Gray looked out the window, and with the celestial mage beside him, even the stars danced.