Archive of Our Own

Gray is pretty sure that someone has slipped something into his drink. It’s not that his vision is blurred – although maybe slightly fuzzy from the alcohol already in his system – or that his balance is gone, or any movement is delayed or impossible. He certainly doesn’t feel like he’s missing any chunks in his motor skills either.

But because in the heart of the stingy, yet clean club; amongst the neon lights and heavy music, Gray’s eyes catch onto something, or rather someone, that gives him the impression he’s well and truly tripping.

Gray remembers back to his childhood, before Deliora attacked his village, all the way back to when his mother used to play a game with him. It was a simple game; the rules non-existent and easy enough for a five-year-old to comprehend them, called Odd One Out.

His mother used to give him simple enough choices – lettuce, carrot, apple or rose, daisy, tree. Obviously, apple and tree would be wrong. It wasn’t a hard game. Gray was proud of the skill his five-year-old self had. The main difference between his childhood-self and the adult-self currently standing in a nightclub, was that there were never any trick questions.

Gray thinks for a moment. Gay club, a – perhaps – spiked drink, Laxus Dreyar.

Gray continues staring, waiting for the image of the Lightening Dragon to disappear. Gray narrows his eyes, reasoning that his drink must’ve been tampered with, because there was no way on Earthland Laxus would ever step foot into a gay bar.

Maybe he’s lost…

Laxus looks in his direction, cold blue eyes connecting with his own, shattering Gray’s entire theory about being drugged. One can’t simply conjure the severity of the stare being directed his way. Laxus presses his lips into a thin line and makes his way over to the bar – unfortunately where Gray finds himself seated.

“You lost, Laxus?” Gray asks, before he can help himself. Maybe his drinks have been on the stronger side.

“Fuck off, stripper.” The blond orders a drink from the bartender, a nice guy with a black shirt and a glittery nametag that reads Buzz. Silence builds between them until Buzz returns with the drink. Laxus fetches it without a moment’s hesitation, taking a heavy gulp.

Gray stares at him for a little longer, feeling his lips twitch into a grin –how amusing. “You know you're in a gay bar, right?”

Laxus gives him a side glance, his tone sarcastic, “No, I thought the male strippers were for the entertainment of all the women here.”

Gray laughs, getting a head turn from Laxus, who looks back into the crowd of men without much of a pause. Gray also glances back into the crowd, eyes surveying the crowd of bodies, the movements, those who were out of beat with the music thumping through the room.

“You wanna have sex?” Laxus asks, entirely too nonchalantly.

Gray does a double take, caught off guard by the bluntness, used to at least some flirting from guys. He takes a glance at Laxus, before returning his eyes to the room, looking at two men seemingly having an argument to the side of the dance floor. “Sorry,” he grimaces, “I don’t fuck Guild members.”

Laxus frowns, a small “hm” escaping his throat. Laxus gives him a once over, before staring critically into the crowd, a furrow between his brows, “Might be shit out of luck tonight, then.”

Gray isn’t too fussed on the matter at hand. Sure, he had been a little pent up lately, but it had always been a custom of his, even before he realised he was gay, that he would never do anything with a Guild Mate. There were too many complications, too many things that would just end badly. If he didn’t find anyone looking for a good time tonight, he’d just have to come back.

Gray takes a sip of his drink, smiling into the lip of the glass, “At least I have a chance with someone who knows how to wear a coat.”

Laxus glares at him, “Don’t worry, snowflake, I changed my mind.”

“Did you?” Gray raised an eyebrow. Such a prick. “Didn’t realise your standards were so high.”

He sees Laxus’ eyebrow raise, ever-so-slightly, “Yeah, exhibitionists don’t really do it for me, you know.” He smirks, not in the cocky way that Gray did – in the way that meant he thought he’d won.

“It’s okay, Laxus, really. I’d let the brunette over there take a ride before you any day.” Gray gestures, to a man by the corner of the bar, with ears on the larger side of large and the teeth of a meth head.

“I didn’t pick you for a bottom – but I mean you are a little bitch, so it makes sense.”

Gray scoffs, “Honestly, I'm not really fussed about where I am in the bedroom.” He shrugged, “Who knows, if you got the stick out of your ass you might enjoy something else up there.”

The glare Laxus gives him would have made him a little apprehensive any other day, but right now Laxus can’t do anything. How could Laxus – Fairy Tail’s ‘Womaniser’ – explain to his grandfather, master of Fiore’s top guild, that he had caused damages in a gay bar. From the twitch in Laxus’ jaw, Gray knows the blonde is having the same thought process.

“Shut it, Frosty.”

Gray laughs as Laxus rejoins the crowd. When Gray’s finished his drink, he walks into the thick of it, having the decency to keep away from Laxus. No point in someone recognising the both of them here, much less together.

-0-

If Gray has realised anything about sharing a space with Laxus, it’s that the man has an imposing aura. Not so much when he was younger, when he was a lanky, awkward teen who simply had an affinity for rock n roll, but certainly after. Gray knows Laxus looks scary, knows that he’s built like a brick shithouse; paired with the facial scar and the perpetually crossed arms, it’s a striking picture.

Gray’s not even really sure why his eyes keep lingering on the blond. But between his own dancing, he finds his eyes locked onto the dragon slayer. He’s ninety percent sure it’s just curiosity, something he’s watching because yes, it’s an odd sight. It doesn’t make sense in Gray’s head. He feels like his brain is trying to gather enough information to create a clear picture of who Laxus is. Everything already there is being overwritten the longer he stares at him.

It's as Gray’s dancing with a man taller than him, built nicely, with purple eyes and silver hair that it clicks. It makes sense. All of it makes sense. The grouchiness, the determination to prove himself, to make a name for himself, to separate himself from the reputation of his family. God, Gray feels like an idiot, because of course Laxus is gay. No one has an identity crisis this long without being queer.

The song changes, beat slowing, more bass vibrating through the floors. Gray slips into it, body moving slowly, languidly. The guy’s hands travel along his body, one on his hip, one curled, splayed across his sternum. Gray leans into it, following his movements.

The drinks must be getting to his head, the lights are blurring, neon swoops and sways, flashes here and there as Gray’s eyes slip close. He feels the man’s lips on his neck, feels himself arching into it. The music feels alive under his skin as they move together.

The song shifts again, Gray’s eyes open. As far as dancing goes, it’s an awkward transition in the music, feels too upbeat. The bass is still there, but it’s become more dull, less sensual. The guy behind him doesn’t pick up on it though, so Gray lets himself be unbothered. He feels the right kind of floaty, even if his eyes open with more focus now that the last song is over.

Naturally – or not really at all, actually – his eyes find Laxus. He’s sitting at a table, coat off, purple shirt stretched tight across his chest, as he leans back. His legs are spread, the tight leather of his pants doing nothing to hide the thick muscles of his thighs. The thickness of another part of him Gray is doing his best not to look at.

He's got a man in front of him, who’s dancing low and slow in front of him. His hairs on the longer side, face soft and delicate and somewhat, vaguely, Freed-like. Interesting… Gray can feel himself smirking, feels like he’s figured out something new about Laxus. Not that Gray can really be surprised.

Gray’s never seen Freed dance, but he’s not sure it would be like this, not with the sways of this man’s hips, or the way he turns from time to time, showing every little bit of his arsenal to Laxus. Gray nearly laughs imagining the rune-mage leading Laxus through a waltz, in a club like this.

Probably the smirk, Gray realises, is what Laxus senses. When he looks at Gray, eyes still hungry and dark and trailing up from the twink in front of him. Gray raises a brow, letting Laxus know that he knows. It’s meant to be a tease, nothing serious. But this is Laxus after all.

His eyes harden and flick back down to the guy in front of him, who’s now grinding on him. Laxus’ hands lift from his hips as he speaks into the guy’s ear, and he stands. Gray’s eyes follow him to the bar. He blinks his sight away just as his own dance partner asks him if he wants to get out of here. Gray nods.

-0-

Now Gray’s not the classiest of people, even on his best days. And maybe Natsu’s continuous quips of him being an exhibitionist aren’t so far off the mark because Gray feels perfectly content as his dance partner has him up against the wall of the club, near the back entrance, with his tongue down his throat.

Gray can’t complain, not when a man has the skill to back up the looks. Gray groans as he does something magical with his tongue. There’re hands under his shirt, palming at the skin of Gray’s lower stomach. Gray has his own hands coiled around silky-soft hair as he kisses him back just as wantonly.

He can hear the music in the club, dull as the sounds of nightlife surround them. He can hear his own gasps and moans, the sound of his lips as they find the man’s. He can feel the brick wall, cold and harsh against his shoulder blades, can feel the warmth of the man’s body on his own. Gray feels like electricity is pumping under his skin, in the best way.

He’s flipped around, hands coming up automatically to brace himself against the wall, he’s pretty sure he laughs. One hand stays his chest, the other moving to his hip. Gray feels the guy’s dick against his ass, might even push back against it.

The hand on his hip tightens, and Gray feels hot breath on his ear as the he whispers, low and dirty, “Was gonna take you home, but I might as well take you right here. Needy enough for it.”

Gray chuckles, definitely not a refusal, and cranes his neck so he can look into purple eyes. “Get on with it, then,”

Gray feels the man pressing into him harder. Gray’s head falls against the brick when his hand makes its way inside his jeans, rubbing at his dick. “Fuck,” he says a little too breathlessly, finally.

Gray undoes the zipper, gives the guy more room to get him off, pressing his body back into the other’s. it feels great, especially when the guy gets his hand around Gray’s dick and pulls, the roughness of his hand making Gray feel a little dizzy.

“Flynn?” The guy behind him stiffens, and Gray looks up, registering the voice a second late. Another guy stands, with blue hair similar in shade to Juvia’s. His eyes are wide, his voice, now making its way to Gray’s ears is full of hurt and betrayal.

Fuck…

“Fuck, babe… it’s uh…” The hand leaves his pants and Gray brings a hand to his mouth, turning his face down and slightly away. He cannot be recognised like this.

 Jason would have a field day with this one.

“It’s not what it looks like…”

Gray bites his hand, willing himself not to laugh, because God, it is exactly what it looks like. He hears the other guy scoff, sees him walking away in his peripheral vision. He stares at the brick wall in front of him, equal parts mortified and shocked at the hilarity of the situation.

“Shit, I uh—” he doesn’t justify himself, simply runs after the other guy.

Gray keeps staring at the wall, until they round the corner. Then, he zips up his pants, and lowers himself to the ground with a groan, listening half-heartedly to the argument drifting from around the corner. A laugh slips past him, as he lifts his ass, reaching into his back pocket to take his smokes out.

It's somewhat bent and crinkled at the butt, but Gray lights it anyway, taking a drag and exhaling as he shakes his head, snorting.

“Didn’t take you for a homewrecker, Snowflake.”

Gray looks up. Laxus stands, hands in his pockets, stupid fucking coat hanging over his shoulders in what Gray can now, full-heartedly describe as, the gayest cape he has ever seen.

Gray raises an eyebrow, “Didn’t take you for a voyeur either, but here we are.” Gray does spend a moment wondering how long Laxus had been there. Gray should probably feel a little ashamed. Natsu can never know, he vows to himself.

“Kinda two sides to the exhibitionist coin…”

“Ah,” Gray grins, watching as Laxus walks towards him, “So he admits it…”

Laxus kicks his foot playfully before he sits next to Gray, knees bent and a punched-out groan escaping him when he does. “Got another?” he asks, nodding towards the cigarette.

Gray holds the pack out in offering. It’s probably best he doesn’t smoke the whole pack anyway. But it’s that time of year. It’s probably ironic he hates winter, given his magic, but every bad thing in his life seems to happen when snow falls from the sky.

“So,” he says, cautiously, blowing out smoke. “Freed?”

Gray expects Laxus to tell him to fuck off, but the blond takes a slow drag from his cigarette, exhaling as he says, far too whimsical, “Yeah, Freed,”

“Does he know?” Is Gray’s follow up.

Laxus runs a hand through his hair, “Nah… not from me, but he’s not an idiot—” Laxus seems stumped for a moment, trying to find the right words. “He’s good, you know?” Laxus takes another puff, “I got too much shit going on to bring him into it.”

Gray laughs, dry and short, “You know he kisses the ground you walk on.”

“That’s the problem,” Laxus sighs, heavy, “I’m not a good person,” Gray feels himself somewhat surprised by the self-awareness, “I have a shitty personality and so much fucking baggage it’s actually insane. I know that. And he would justify anything if it meant…” he trails off.

“If it meant being with you.” Gray finishes, nodding, knowing, suddenly, exactly what he means.

“Yeah,” he sounds tired. “I gotta figure my own shit out first.”

Gray bumps him with his shoulder, grinning, “Doesn’t sound all that shitty to me,”

Laxus laughs. They sit in silence for a while longer. Gray hears the booming of the club, behind his head. The grounds gotten warmer the longer he sits, but it’s still cold, still feels like he’s floating somewhere between reality and surrealism. When Gray finishes his cigarette, he can’t help but light another. He offers the pack to Laxus, but the blonde shakes his head.

“So, you don’t fuck Guild members…” Laxus says slowly. Gray might’ve thought it suggestive if he couldn’t hear the plain curiosity in the words. “Why’s that?”

Gray shrugs, looking at the faded signage on the side of the building across from them, “It complicates shit. Makes things awkward when it doesn’t work out. Had a few opportunities too,” he gives Laxus a look, “never feels like the right thing to do.”

Laxus shuffles a little, letting one of his legs fall. “I don’t know about that,” he starts, “everyone in Fairy Tail loves each other too much, you know, kind makes it easy not to blow up. Fucking’s less important than that kind of love, yeah?”

Gray sighs. The blond’s not wrong. He knows if he fucked someone from the guild it wouldn’t change anything. The baseline of the relationship is already strong enough, already surpasses anything ‘no-strings-attached’. It couldn’t really get messy. “Mmm,”

“So, that’s it then?” Laxus says, smirking, “You don’t want sex, you want more.”

Gray looks at him, raising an eyebrow.

Laxus grins, turning to him somewhat. There’s a knowing glint in his eye, “You don’t want to sleep with someone from the guild because you don’t want things to go back to friends.” Gray stares at him, trying to keep his face blank even as his heart begins to race, “And, hmm,” Laxus pauses, eyes squinting as he thinks and Gray hopes to God he doesn’t see through it. “The most loyal friend you have…” He looks at Gray, eyes sharp, shiny. Gray feels paralysed by the stare. “Natsu.”

Gray’s heart skips a beat, his eyes might even widen just slightly because Laxus smiles and nods, like he knows he’s right and Gray feels the denial building in his chest, feels it clawing its way up his throat. He clears it, leaning his head against the brick, let’s the cold wash over him as he looks up at the cloudy sky. He takes the last drag of his smoke, on the exhale, Gray admits it, “Yeah,” his lips press together in a smile that feels more like a grimace, “Natsu.”

Laxus laughs. It’s not cold or demeaning, but sounds like it’s come out unbidden, “Why?”

Gray groans, putting his cigarette out, glancing at the concrete as he does. He rubs a hand over his eyes, feeling himself laugh too. “I don’t know…” he whines, “It’s Natsu.”

Laxus laughs a little harder and Gray finds himself matching it as he shakes his head. It’s never made much sense to him either, but at this point, it is what it is. “It’s a bit fucking masochistic, don’t you think?” Laxus wheezes.

Gray laughs louder, feeling like he wants to cry, “Sue me, I’m touch-starved.”

Laxus throws his head back, peals of laughter forcing their way out as he rubs his eyes. His laughter calms somewhat, as he turns to Gray with a shit eating grin, “Didn’t look it before.”

“Oh, God, don’t remind me…” Gray groans.

Laxus seems to sober. Gray dreads to think of what comes next, because, he now knows, that Laxus is a curious bastard, and he, with a few drinks in, is too lippy for his own good. “Why haven’t you told him?”

Gray sighs. It’s complicated. Way too complicated for him to even try to broach in one night, as drunk as he is. He pulls his knees up to his chest, leaning his head on his arm as he rests in on top. “I don’t even think Natsu realises there’s a dick between his legs, let alone that he can use it.”

Laxus snorts, “I think you’d be surprised. Little shit isn’t as naïve as you would think.”

Gray frowns, head turning to face the blond, “What do you mean?” It comes out softer than Gray would like.

Laxus purses his lips, staring ahead, “Pretty sure Natsu’s slept with more of the guild that he hasn’t.”

“What?” Gray says, sitting up straight. “No way in hell.”

Laxus taps his own nose, “This thing don’t lie.”

“Who?” Gray demands. He feels like his chests aching.

Laxus stares at him for a moment, blinking, “Do you really wanna know?”

Gray thinks about it, thinks about the knowing and not knowing. Thinks about knowing all of it or knowing without the specifics. “No, not really.” He says.

Laxus nods, they drift into silence after that.

-0-

The next day feels like sludge. He had gone home and kept the drinks pouring, kept the cigarettes burning, and Gray feels the consequences of it as he sits in the guild, trying to tune out Gajeel’s singing, the conversation Lucy and Erza are having, the general chaos of Fairy Tail. He tries to put his head on the table and sleep when Levy and Evergreen join them.

He at least looks as hungover as he feels, which at first, gets him lots of shit from his guild mates, asking him about his ‘big night’. Eventually, thankfully, he is left alone. He tries not to think about Natsu too much, even when the idiot charges into the guild and demands a fight. Gray just waves his hand, shooing him and the dragon slayer takes the hint, running to the stage and kicking Gajeel in the face instead.

It's easy not to think when his head keeps throbbing, pulsing low in his ears. It doesn’t leave much room for thought.

The next day however, his body having cured itself of his hangover, is pure torture.

Not at first. It’s all fine until Natsu comes in. He hangs around the bar, talking to Mira, grinning from ear to ear, and Gray’s traitorous mind begins to wonder. And then with every guild member Natsu acknowledges, his brain supplies him with an equally terrible scenario.

Flashes of glistening skin, hot heavy breaths, Natsu’s face pinched tight as he groans. Gray sits in the guild, head buried in his arms, imagining every hypothetical possible.

It starts with Mira’s milky, white legs wrapped around Natsu’s waist as she sits on top of the bar, head thrown back, hair messy; Natsu’s face buried in her neck. He can almost hear their skin slapping together with how vivid the picture is.

Natsu says hi to Cana and Gray’s mind – for some reason that makes more sense the more he thinks about it – supplies him with the image of her pegging him, hand fisted in his hair as he’s on all fours on her bed.

He blinks at the two of them, trying to clear the image of Cana’s breasts bouncing with every thrust.

Natsu makes his way through his introductions and every one of them is pure hell for Gray.

He imagines Lisanna riding him in their little hut in the forest, Erza tying him up and having her way with him, even paints a steamy picture of Natsu and Juvia in a hot tub. When Gray thinks it might finally be over, Natsu slaps Bixlow on the back; the siege mage turns around with his tongue hanging out of his head and Gray can only welcome that image into his head.

Natsu literally glances at Laki and Gray can see her blowing him behind the guild. Levy yells at him for almost spilling water on her book and Gray gets a flash of her hands gripping the edge of the table, face screwed up, mouth open. Then Natsu puts his arm around Lucy’s shoulder and Gray is remined of all the times Lucy’s complained about him sleeping in her bed.

Gray’s heart aches at that one. At the tenderness of the visual his brain conjures. He sees Lucy’s hands holding him to her, soft, slow kisses, the moon lighting them up from the window above her bed. He sees the way Natsu would open her slowly, carefully, how it would be soft and quiet and not at all rough. He can practically hear them whispering, smiling, laughing in a soft, carefree way.

Gray leaves the guild, feeling unbearably cold. He doesn’t wait around for Natsu to get to him, knowing that the image his mind conjures will be pure fantasy.

-0-

Gray’s knocking on the door before he loses the courage to. It swings open a couple seconds later and Laxus just stares at him and sighs. He leaves the door open when he walks back into the depths of the house. Gray kicks it shut behind him. “I changed my mind.”

Laxus is still walking away from him, past the living room, which is spacious and modern, while still holding onto its own kind of charm. “I figured.”

Gray hovers in the entry way of the house, not sure what to do with himself now that he’s here. A grey couch curves around a wonky, zebra patterned rug. The walls are white, even though there’s a sage green wall to the right of him, lined with shelves full of records. Opposite it, a lacrima screen is hung on the wall across from the couch. Gray looks between the abstract art lining the room.

He finally looks towards Laxus through a large cut out in the far wall that peaks into the kitchen. A bench connects the kitchen to the living, three seats lined up along the living room side. Gray can almost imagine his team sitting there, filling the gaps.

He spies the different spirits lined up on the bench, watching as Laxus begins pouring different ones into a mixer. Laxus makes the drinks in a well-practiced fashion, he salts the glasses, watches him take a jar of olives out of the fridge, and simply blinks at him when Laxus hands him a martini. It looks like it came out of a magazine.

“I’m not doing this shit without a drink in my hand.”

Gray stares at him, truly takes the time to think about what it is he is asking before he responds, “Yeah. Completely fair.”

Laxus takes a sip, sighing through his nose. Gray finds himself mirroring him. Laxus doesn’t seem to be in a rush, Gray thinks, watching the blond as he seems to dissociate as he sits on the couch. Either that, or he’s doing one hell of a checklist.

Gray lets him take all the time he needs, just sits back and enjoys his drink, even finds himself mildly infuriated because it tastes absolutely phenomenal, which is never something he will ever admit.

“So,” Laxus seems to blink back into focus. “How do you wanna do this? You wanna say names or you want the whole history?”

Gray blinks. “I don’t know.” He takes another sip, feeling himself deflate when he realises he’s only got another two sips left, if he takes his time. “Maybe just start from the beginning?”

Laxus nods. The blond scratches his chin, where a light stubble has grown. “Well, his first time was with Lisanna, right before she well…” he grimaces.

Gray nods, having expected her to be on the list, “Yeah, I figured that one would’ve happened.”

Laxus pinches his lips together, “Think he took a break after that, then him and Cana got drunk one night.” Laxus thinks for a moment, no doubt thinking back, “Don’t think they actually fucked the first time but definitely got pretty handsy.”

“The first time?” Gray asks, feeling his eyebrows shoot up.

Laxus nods, “Yeah, I know he fooled around with her a couple times, think Mira joined in too.”

Natsu’s been having threesomes and you’ve thought he was a virgin this whole time. Gray feels like a fucking idiot. The surprise of it has him sipping one of his last sips. He hopes it isn’t premature.

“After that, I think he and Loke got together a few times.” Even though it’s one of his best friends, Gray still feels like cheering. He’s not without a chance. “Then Erza—”

“Erza!?” Gray more or less shouts, eyes wide. He feels sick.

Laxus looks just as affronted. “Yeah, nearly fell over when that happened. Only once though.” Laxus shakes his head, “Must’ve been rough.”

Gray runs his hand through his hair, starting to wonder if this was a good idea. Definitely not.

“Definitely slept with some old members, Chico and him had a thing for a month of two, called it off, then he fucked Mickey for a couple of weeks. After that, Jet and Droy, yes, at the same time – close your mouth.”

Gray does. Audibly.

“After Gajeel joined, they fucked.”

“You’re shitting me.”

“Hand to God,” Laxus raises said hand. “Weird dragon slayer hierarchy thing, don’t try and understand, just accept it.”

“Hierarchy?” Gray wants to laugh. He knew dragon slayers were weird but… jeez.

Laxus grits his teeth, “Yep. No one thought to tell me that one before they shoved the Lacrima in,”

Sue him, Gray’s curious. “Who’s at the top?”

He can only assume it would be Natsu. It makes the most sense, given he’s beaten them all physically before. The thought of Natsu. Rolling over and letting it happen doesn’t make a whole lot of sense in his head.

“Wendy,” Laxus says.

Gray chokes, “Wendy?!” He stares at Laxus, lip curling in disgust, “She’s a child, Laxus,”

Laxus’ hand whacks him upside the head as he looks at Gray equally outraged, “It ain’t like that, pervert.” Laxus shakes his head until his face clears from his grimace. “Dragons are destructive by nature; Sky dragons are the only dragons that have restoration magic. They’re automatically catapulted to the top of the chain.”

Gray blinks, letting it sink in. “And the rest of you guys fuck each other to figure out the rest?”

Laxus presses his lips together, sighing through his nose, “Pretty much.” He takes a sip, giving Gray a pointed look, “You don’t try and understand, you just accept it,”

Gray smirks, head tilting as he exhales, connecting the dots. “…did you just accept it, Laxus?” There may be a tear in his eye as he tries to hold his laugh in.

“With Natsu? Fuck no.”

Gray gives him a look, a look that hopefully suggests that he figured as much, and it wasn’t what he was asking. To his shock, a touch of pink dusts itself across Laxus’ cheeks.

“Tell anyone and you’re dead.”

Gray presses his lips together, tries not to laugh but a snort comes out anyway.

“Shut it, Frosty.”

Gray raises his hand as a peace offering, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” But curiosity strikes him while he’s down, “Who—”

“Gajeel.”

Gray’s eyebrows shoot up. Gajeel and Laxus… It’s Laxus who takes a sip this time. “…How… was that…?”

Laxus nods absentmindedly, tongue clicking, looking steadfast at the lacrima screen even though nothing’s on it. “Surprisingly good. Piercings don’t stop below the belt.” Laxus clears his throat, barely giving Gray the appropriate time to acknowledge that particular piece of information. “Yeah, Natsu also fucked Juvia.”

Gray closes his eyes, resting his head on his hands. Are you kidding me? “Was this before or after she was stalking me?”

Laxus laughs, “Somewhere in the middle.”

Gray feels like deflating, “She could’ve at least given me a break then.”

Laxus chuckles, taking another sip, “After my excommunication, I have no idea. After Tenrou, I would say he took a break, but the Grand Magic Games kinda opened up his network so I’m not really sure it counts.”

“So, he’s actually a whore,” Gray says, a little mournfully.

“I tried telling you,”

“Anyone now?”

“Last person before Tartarus was Max, probably a week before. In that year after, no clue. Think him and Lisanna have had a night or two since. Had a steady thing for about three months with Yukino. Since Alvarez, up to now, no one new.”

Gray lets the information sink in. He doesn’t get it. Can’t understand how the dragon slayer’s nocturnal activities have been under his nose this whole time. A part of him, a huge part he denies being there, wonders why he had never wanted Gray. And maybe, with all the vulnerability recently shared between them, Gray feels safe enough to ask. “Why not me?”

It comes out more curious than hurt – thank God for small miracles – even if Gray feels like his ribs are cracking under the weight of his breath.

Laxus finishes his drink, settling Gray with a befuddled expression, “The real question is why everyone? It’s weird for a dragon slayer at least. I mean we all sleep around a little, but it’s usually that you meet someone and it’s a one and done deal. I have Freed, Gajeel has Levy. Really, that’s what confuses me the most.”

Gray frowns, “Yeah, but you’re also a man-slut.”

Laxus raises a finger at Gray, “I take offense to that,” he lowers his hand, rubbing his chin again. “It’s different though. Gajeel only got around because he didn’t think Levy was gonna give him a chance. I know that Freed’s waiting on me, but in the meantime, there’s no real restriction. We both do as we please. Even Sting and Rogue fuck around, but they come back to each other.”

“So, Natsu?” Gray asks again, ignoring the bombshell. ‘Twin Dragons’ has a horrifying new connotation to it now.

“He might revisit someone every now and then but there’s no pattern, no one he keeps coming back to. It’s… weird.”

“So, why not me?”

“Well,” Laxus shrugs. “You’ve never shown an interest.” Gray thinks about trying to refute it but stops. Really, he hasn’t. He’s been on his best behaviour, kept everything hidden from the dragon slayer under the guise of the bullshit rivalry they have with each other. “Not with anyone in the guild at least. Who knows, sleep with someone in Fairy Tail, you might get your chance with Natsu.”

And then it clicks in Gray’s head. Of course, if he hasn’t slept with anyone in the guild, Natsu wouldn’t know he was open to the idea – he’s not, not really, but the dragon slayer doesn’t need to know that.

“Laxus,” Gray says, taking his final sip, putting his glass down on the coffee table. He turns to the dragon slayer, making sure they hold eye contact. “You need to fuck me.”

Laxus gives him a look of disbelief, that slowly drops as realisation dawns clearly on his face, “Oh, you’re actually serious?”

-0-

Gray’s not sure what to think about sex with Laxus. It’s not something he would’ve given much thought too, had this opportunity had not come about. But now that he was in the throes of it, Gray could say confidently that he hadn’t expected this.

Laxus is a kisser. Not a bad one either, if the breathless feeling in Gray’s chest is anything to go by. His lips are soft and demanding at the same time, hands big as they canvas Gray’s body, delicate when they stretch him open.

Gray hadn’t expected missionary either, but he’s assuming, deep in the trenches of Laxus’ heart, that he might be a romantic. It’s harder to believe now than it ever would’ve been to imagine that Laxus was gay. But Laxus kisses him slowly, keeps him relaxed, gives him some praise too as he slides his – frankly too big – cock into Gray.

He clings to Gray while he fucks him, has his arms wrapped under his back and holds onto his shoulders for purchase. He groans low in his ear, kisses his neck, and Gray can hear the pants and punched out moans he’s making as Laxus moves way too gently inside him.

“F-uck, Laxus, stop,” he gasps at a slightly harder thrust, feeling his nerves light up for just a moment, before the dragon slayer halts, looking into Gray’s eyes with what could potentially be concern. Gray grinds his hips down, wantonly, “No don’t stop, actually,” he whines, “Stop fucking around!” he demands.

Laxus still hasn’t moved. A hand uncurls from Gray’s shoulder, Laxus uses it hold himself up, get his knees under him. “You sure?”

Somewhat panting from the movement, Gray opens his eyes to glare at him, “Get on with it.”

Before Gray has much time to do anything, Laxus has one of his legs hooked over his shoulder, both hands clutching his hips and then he thrusts.

“Fuck,” Gray chokes out, feeling a little bit like he shouldn’t have been so sure. Laxus keeps his pace fast and hard, dick more or less punching in and out of Gray. He hits Gray’s prostate dead on after some trial and error. Gray’s not sure the noise that comes out of him is fully human.

“Fuck, Gray—”

Laxus pistons his hips, dragging his dick deliciously against that spot and Gray feels his breathing shorten, feels heat coiling in his gut. “Fuck, fuck, fuck—”

It feels good. Too good. Gray reaches a hand down, tries to squeeze the base of his cock to hold off the inevitable but Laxus grabs his hand, holds it above his head with what must be a third arm because Gray’s sure he’s everywhere. He wants to scream. With the way Laxus is fucking him, Gray doesn’t want to come, wants to let it build longer, wants it to feel extraordinary.

“Fuck, Laxus – nng – fuck, slow down or I’m gonna cum,” he manages to get out.

Laxus’ pants sound closer to a satisfied laugh. He reaches down and Gray watches as his hand wraps around his dick, feels the rough skin of his palm as he strokes Gray slow, fucks him fast. Disorients his body. Gray’s hips thrust up into his hand, but then, Laxus’ dick feels nothing short of incredible. Gray feels incredibly conflicted.

He feels his orgasm building, hard and slow, pressure building in his gut, dick already wet with precum. And then he watches Laxus smirk, in the midst of Gray’s eyes squeezing shut.

“Open your eyes, Gray,”

He manages, with great effort, because Laxus’ hand on his dick shouldn’t feel so good, his dick shouldn’t be shoving every thought out of Gray’s mind. With his eyes closed, he doesn’t have to worry about the visual.

With his eyes open he can see the flush on Laxus’ cheeks, can see the shine of his skin. Fuck, he can see just how far Laxus is pulling out before shoving back in, even if his perspective is skewed.

And then Laxus goes back to stroking his dick and Gray thinks he’s well and truly done for. More of this and he’s passing out. Laxus’ hand glows gold and Gray feels his breath stutter in his chest, hand lifting to reach out and shove the dragon slayer off. But then he feels it, the miniscule, tiny, really, bit of lightning engulfing his dick – Gray is done for.

He doesn’t have time to warn Laxus, although, as he screams through his orgasm, body tensing as ropes of cum shoot across his chest and Laxus’ hand – because of course the bastard is still stroking him – Gray thinks that he might’ve known exactly what he was doing.

He’s just pulled his trump card.

Laxus lasts a couple more thrusts before he’s pulling out and coming over Gray’s stomach in ribbons.

Gray feels heavy and weightless, both like he’s breathing for the first time yet light-headed because he’s not sure he’s breathing at all. He’s not sure he can move, even when Laxus lowers his legs back down to the bed and Gray feels utterly powerless.

Laxus lays on the bed next to him, huffing.

Gray’s stuck staring at the ceiling, not sure if he can move his head, let alone speak. “d’ya really,” Gray swallows, willing his lungs to work, “electrocute my dick?”

Laxus laughs breathily, “Yeah, s’good right?”

Gray makes a sound of affirmation, not really a word at all. Gray lets his eyes droop shut, body sinking into the sheets.

-0-

“Okay, so when you get home, don’t shower for another hour.”

Gray’s pulling his shirt on, pants undone but over his hips. He looks at Laxus with a grimace. “Not sure if you remember, but cumming all over me is kinda gross,”

Laxus sighs, long and drawn out, “I know it’s fucked, idiot, but you’ll… smell more potent tomorrow.”

Gray zips up his pants, shaking his head, “Dragon slayers are fucked, man,”

Laxus might laugh at him, but Gray doesn’t think he’s wrong. He goes home, walks back even though his ass is throbbing, and his head feels too clear for the every-day bustle of Magnolia. His apartment door closes behind him, clicking shut and Gray lays on his bed, even when he very much wants to have a shower, to clean himself of sweat and cum – even if Laxus was enough of a gentleman to wipe it off him – and get into bed and finally pass out.

Gray lays on top of the sheets, worrying about the next day, if Natsu will even realise. He wonders what will happen, if he’ll get angry or if he’ll judge him, or – the more traitorous part of his brain thinks – if the dragon slayer will get jealous, drag Gray back to his house, maybe even have his way with him. Gray thinks that Natsu would probably fuck him within an inch of his life if it meant getting Laxus’ scent off his body.

At least, he hopes.

Gray falls asleep before his shower, dreaming of nothing, but waking up at the usual time and feeling like he’s slept for days. He groans as his eyes open, as he realises, he still feels disgusting, like there’s mud caked onto his body. He drags himself to his shower, strips off and stands under the hot water as he wakes up. Then he scrubs every inch of his body until he feels clean and slightly less awful about the whole thing.

It's the most dedicated he’s been to manipulating someone. It doesn’t sit well in his chest.

Gray brushes his teeth, runs his hands through his hair to get it somewhat in place, and is walking out the door with his button down still open. He’s halfway there when he feels the cold breeze on his chest. He looks down and sees his shirt is gone, continues walking even though it annoys him – it had been a week old at best.

After he pushes open the doors of the guild, he orders a coffee from Mira, feeling like he’s going to need it, and makes his way to his usual table. Sitting down next to Lucy as usual and listening to her conversation with Erza and Levy, even says hi back and adds a few quips of his own to their conversation. Cana comes over to throw a shirt at Gray – her idea to start a collection bin in the Guild wasn’t the dumbest idea, even if it was completely patronising – and chats with the girls as Gray sips his coffee, head leaning against the wooden wall behind him.

He hears Natsu come in before he sees him. He’s talking to Happy, something about fish. He punches Gajeel in the jaw in some semblance of greeting, considering Gajeel just punches him back and they carry on. Gray lets his eyes track the fire mage as he goes about his usual greetings, feels himself frown when he engages with anyone that was on the list.

Gray would consider it critical thinking. He just wonders how Natsu of all people was able to broach the subject, and then actually follow through. It’s odd. Sue him, Gray’s curious.

The fire mage makes his way over to their table, gait wobbly and bouncy. Gray wants to smile. “Hey, Luce! Happy wants to know if you have any money so he can get a fish,” Natsu’s grinning at the blonde, smile wide as she drops her head to the table, groaning.

“Natsu, you can’t try and manipulate me into feeding your cat.” She pleads.

“Technically,” Natsu grin turns cheeky, “He’s an exceed. And he wanted me to ask you because no one else will.” He drags a chair over, sitting down on it backwards, dropping his head so he’s eye level with Lucy, “Please~”

Gray snorts, “Feed your own cat, Flame-brain,”

Natsu sits up, looking at him, scowl in place, “I would but someone stole all my money in poker,” he says, accusatory.

Gray crosses his arms across his chest, “Gotta get better then,”

Erza stands, smiling as she reaches out, grasping both their shoulders, squeezing entirely too tight. Gray’s sure he can hear his bones creaking, “You boys are so cute with your competitions, it’s good to see you guys aren’t fighting like little kids anymore.”

Gray rubs his shoulder when she walks off, staring back at the fire mage, who is rolling his shoulder in circles too.

Lucy shakes her head at the redhead, “I’m going to go buy your cat a fish,” she says, standing, “Don’t kill each other while we’re gone.”

She’s barely left the table when Natsu starts up again, “You might be better at poker, stripper, but I’ll be beat you in a fight any day,”

And Gray cannot not rise to the challenge; it’s in his blood at this point. “In your dreams, squinty-eyes,”

Natsu narrows his eyes at him, further proving his point. He throws his arm onto the table, bent at the elbow as he holds his hand out to Gray, grinning at him in a way that has no right to be as gorgeous as it is. “Bring it on, pervert,”

Gray strips the shirt Cana gave him, bringing his hand up, clasping it with Natsu’s. The fire mage’s nose twitches, head tilting just a tad as he stares at Gray, fire dancing in his eyes. The arm wrestle promptly begins.

It’s the fairest arm wrestle they’ve had, Gray thinks. Usually, it’s a low blow kind of fight they have when one of them is too injured to throw punches, a victor clear early on. But right now, they’re both fine, healthy, strong. Gray’s hand feels warm holding onto Natsu’s. Finds his grin is infectious as he smirks at the fire mage, pushing his arm a little further, watches Natsu’s start leaning ever so slightly.

“Just give up, mouth breather,”

And Natsu pushes back, grunting, “In your dreams, princess,”

It goes in tandem like that, both gaining the upper hand, then the other. Vague insults passed between them that make as much sense as they do hurt. Gray’s genuinely not sure who will win, even when he does put his all into it. He knows Natsu’s doing the same, based on the irritated look on his face. It’s always been like this, though. Both of them trying hard to beat the other, both stretching their limits, so they don’t fall behind.

It's as mutually beneficial as it is stupid.

Gray thinks back to the night outside the club, it feels like weeks ago even though it was only Saturday. He’s never been able to explain it properly, why he fights so eagerly with the person he cares about the most strongly. It’s not something as pathetic as ‘touch-starved’, but as Gray grits his teeth and pushes his arm as far as it’ll go, watching Natsu’s neck strain as he tries to bring back some advantage, Gray thinks he understands it a little more.

He wants Natsu to push him, wants him to always expect the most, wants him to always give his all. He wants an equal, someone who won’t relent, who won’t give up. Someone just as stubborn as he is. The thrill of the fight is just a bonus.

It’s as Gray’s sure he’s about to win, calling Natsu everything from ‘lizard’ to ‘puff the magic dragon’, that Erza slams her armoured hands on the table, tone deadly as she simply says, “Boys.”. He and Natsu both let go simultaneously, retracting their hands to their sides and giving the redhead their own equally unconvincing stares of innocence.

Gray feels the warmth lingering on his hand, traces his palm under the table like he can feel the energy thrumming underneath the skin, like he can move it through his whole body if he was determined enough.

“We’ve got a job,” Erza announces as Lucy steps up behind her, “West. A dark guild is hiding out in an old castle. Two-hundred thousand jewels. Each. If we get it done before Sunday. We’ll meet at the train station in an hour.” Natsu groans, ready to start pleading. “If,” Erza cuts him off, holding a hand to his face, “we don’t get it done before Sunday, the reward won’t be enough to spend the night in Balsam Village.”

Right now, the hot springs feel like heaven on Earthland to Gray. He stands up, taking his shirt from the floor and throwing it over his head. He has to pack, more determined than ever to wipe out a dark guild.

He leaves the guild, hearing Natsu continue whining and Lucy trying to placate him. Erza huffs a laugh at Gray’s rapid departure and Gray nearly skips home to pack. It doesn’t take him long to shove enough clothes into his rug sack. He always packs a little on the heavier side, always the clothes he’s not going to miss when he inevitably loses them in the wind.

The train station is quiet, not surprising considering it’s three in the afternoon on a Wednesday, but it’s nice anyway. Gray takes a seat as he waits for his team to show up, tapping his foot on the ground as he lets the minutes tick by. He’s usually always the first to get there. On occasion Lucy beats him to it, especially if the reward has anything to do with magical items. But for this kind of mission, it’s equal chance between her and Natsu. And Happy, of course.

Considering Erza’s usually the last one to arrive, it’s surprising how strict she is on the time frame.

He hears footsteps approaching and gives Lucy a tired smile as she takes a seat next to him. She lets out a sigh as she puts her bag on the ground, looping her foot through the handle. “Ready?” she asks, nudging his shoulder.

Gray smiles. “Ready for Hosenka, that’s for sure.”

Lucy laughs, “Yeah, you can say that again.” A train pulls into the station, a few people walking past them as they depart. “I need a break from the Guild. As much as I love them, sometimes I just don’t have the energy, you know?”

Gray does. He knows that the love he has for Fairy Tail is infinite, but he knows what she means. Fairy Tail is a loud place, something’s always going on, seems to never know peace for more than a week. After Tartarus he had been a little relieved. He had needed the break, needed to sort through his head, needed to figure out how to deal with the fact that his dad had died all over again and had given him magic he had never heard of before.

And yeah, Juvia had been there, which had been the real cherry on top of the entire shit-show. She hadn’t been as overbearing, had even leant him an ear and a shoulder to cry on when shit got rough. She had been more calm, more sane, than he had known her to be.

When the guilt of killing his dad would get to her, would make her go quiet, would make rain start falling outside, they’d talk about it. Gray would forgive her, because really, his dad had only been a prisoner in his own body. When he had held her after she had killed Keyes, feeling a mix of gratitude and pain and pressure from the responsibility on his shoulders, none of it had been for show. He was grateful, still is.

And she had asked him, on one of her own rough nights, the burning question she had been holding in all this time, wondering, with more vulnerability, more sadness than Gray would’ve thought, if he would ever love her. Gray had told her the truth. That no, he never could. He still remembers the look on her face, the way it seemed to go tired, eyes dryer than he’d imagined. He had given her the explanation, that he already loved someone. Really, that they were quite similar. Both chasing someone who could never return their feelings.

Juvia had held his hand, had squeezed it as the rain cleared. She had given him a kiss on the cheek, a rueful smile and Gray had left to infiltrate the Alvarez Empire the next morning.

“Yeah,” he says, “I get it.” Because he had needed a break. He had needed to be surrounded by no one he cared about to remember that he truly did love the guild back home. It hadn’t been easy. “You think one night in a spa is gonna do it?”

Lucy laughs, slumping further into the seat. “God, I don’t even think a month would do the trick,”

“As long as Natsu doesn’t get us kicked out, I think we should be okay.”

A fist connects with his shoulder and Gray stands, already knowing who just from the way it hits the skin. He’s sure he could pick Natsu out of a crowd deaf and blind. “What’s that supposed to mean, popsicle?”

Gray turns right as the fire mage leans in; their temples pressed together as Gray feels his irritation bubble over. “Figure it out, flame for brains!”

Natsu swings and Gray dodges, swinging back. It’s a series of punches that don’t land, both too in tune with the other not to know the other’s tactics. They keep it up for a while, both playing into the anger and the rivalry. It feels good, cathartic, even if they both keep missing.

“At this rate, the both of you are going to get us kicked out.” Gray distantly hears Happy say.

Right as Natsu’s arm’s swinging on a right hook he freezes, momentarily, arm slowing in momentum as he wraps it around Gray’s shoulder. Gray reaches around the dragon slayer reflexively, even before he sees the silhouette of Erza’s ridiculous number of suitcases. His side feels warm where it presses against Natsu. It’s comforting, even if it is just for show.

Erza stops before them, nodding in satisfaction at the sight of them not arguing. Thank God for dragon slayers. “This is our train, let’s go.”

Erza walks up to one of the attendants, handing him the lead to her luggage before boarding the train. He and Natsu both snicker at the bewildered look on his face, even when Lucy apologises profusely and follows Erza, Happy trailing after her.

“Must be new,” Gray mumbles, pulling his arm back to himself.

Natsu’s seems to linger for just a moment before he also pulls back, “I swear, she barely even changes clothes.”

Gray scoffs, walking towards the train doors, “Can’t she just requip it from some weird portal? What the fuck’s even in them anyway?”

Natsu laughs and then seems to sober up when he remembers he’s about to get on a train. He hesitates, a step behind Gray. “Can’t we just walk?” he asks, hopefully.

Gray glares as he turns around, “Get on the train, Natsu,”

Gray watches him cross his arms, an eyebrow raising in challenge, “Make me,”

Before he realises, he’s moved, Gray’s glaring at the idiot, standing a little too close. “I’m not missing out on an Onsen because you’re scared of movement.” He points at the doors, “Get. On. The. Train.”

Natsu grumbles as he walks ahead of Gray, hesitating at the edge of the platform. Gray kicks him in the back, smirking when he stumbles onto the vehicle, glaring over his shoulder when he gets his feet under him.

The dragon slayer complains in between his heaves for twenty minutes before Erza punches the lights out of him. As he slumps to the floor, out cold, Gray doesn’t even try to hide his smile.

-0-

Natsu comes back online thirty minutes before they arrive at their station. He’s mostly calm, greener and clammier than anything, even if a few gags have Gray’s stomach rolling in sympathy. When they do stop, he jumps up, reanimated as always and high tails it off the carriage. They’re set to meet the client and then head straight to the dark guild’s hideout, scoping the scene until the early hours of the morning to catch them as off guard as possible.

Knowing his team, Gray figures they’ll stop for food and the mandatory sight-seeing they usually do.

The client ends up being the mayor. He’s tall and wide and has a long beard and bushy eyebrows. He explains that the town is getting ready for a week of heavy tourist traffic, that he doesn’t want a dark guild taking away from anyone’s experience in Balsam Town. It’s pretty standard, even if dark guilds feel like child’s play to Gray, to the rest of his team, who have encountered far worse than the likes of ‘Ogre’s Roar’.

“Do you think Ogre’s Roar is gonna be smelly, Natsu?” Happy asks, taking a break from gnawing on his fish.  They’re all sat in the middle of an inn, Natsu is scarfing down spicy chicken, Lucy is picking at her plate of waffles, Erza quiet as she eats her cake.

“Might want to hold your breath, mouth breather,” Gray chides.

Natsu doesn’t even swallow his food when he replies, “You’re just jealous cos you wouldn’t be able to hold your breath in a fight,”

Gray frowns, flicking a piece of corn at Natsu’s head. To his dismay, the fire mage just catches it in his mouth and grins. Gray leans back, “Some of us aren’t stupid enough to actually try,”

“It’s not stupid if it works you moron ice cube.”

“How would it work, you idiot? Gonna get rid of them in twenty seconds?”

“Maybe I will!”

“I’d like to see you try,”

“You’re on!”

Lucy stands from the table, grabbing Erza’s arm and Happy’s ear, “We’re going shopping, try not to destroy an entire town, please,”

The redhead hastily scoops her last bite of cake in her mouth, trudging after the blonde. “No trouble, got it?”

They know not to disagree, even if her words are muffled by strawberry sponge cake.

He and Natsu both nod, tense until the pair is out of sight.

“You think she’d actually kill us one day?” Gray asks.

Natsu laughs, “I think Lucy would do it first.”

Gray relaxes, reaching out and stealing a piece of chicken off Natsu’s plate. He ignores Natsu’s grabby hand, taking a bite, “You’re probably right,”

“I am somewhat a genius.” Natsu puffs his chest out.

“Somewhat,” Gray says dryly.

They continue eating. The chicken’s good, even if Gray doesn’t like spicy food as much as the dragon slayer. Gray spends most of his time chewing, looking around at the other people in the inn, listening to titbits of conversation as it drifts through the room.

“So Laxus, huh?”

Gray might choke, he’s not entirely sure. But to say that he’s lost for words would be an astute observation. He clears his throat, that’s for sure. And when he looks at Natsu, his face is eerily blank, not conveying a lot, maybe curious.

“What?” is all Gray can say.

Natsu leans back in his chair, eyes not shifting from the ice wizard, “You and Laxus,” He pauses, “What’s that about?”

Gray frowns. His heart is thumping in his chest, Natsu can probably hear it, fucking dragon slayers. He tries to compose himself as much as he can, tries to look uninterested, even though he is very interested. He wants to know what Natsu thinks, wants to know why his face is blank, what it is he’s trying to keep at bay.

“I really don’t think we need to talk about my sex life,”

But he wants Natsu to want to talk about it. He feels like he needs to leave and call Laxus and say thank you, even if it sits terribly in his gut. Natsu raises an eyebrow, if only for a second. “Is it serious?” he asks.

Gray sits with the question, caught up in trying to figure out what the Natsu’s actually trying to ask. He wonders, maybe, if the dragon slayer is jealous. If it’s just curiosity. If he’s simply wondering why Laxus, out of all the people in the guild, is he the one Gray chose to sleep with.

“No,” he says slowly, frowning, “it’s not serious,”

And Natsu just nods. Doesn’t say anything else. Gray wants to throttle him.

Natsu goes back to his chicken. They don’t speak and Gray stares at him the entire time, trying to figure out what the fuck it means.

-0-

Natsu does try and hold his breath while fighting the dark guild. Even manages to take out a room of them before he sucks a breath in. Gray slaps him in the back of the head for it, even if Natsu curses him out. Fucking idiot.

It’s light work, barely an hour out of the day before the Rune Knights turn up, take everyone into custody and Gray’s settling himself into the steamy water at the hot springs. He sighs like he’s sixty and has woken up without back pain. He feels all the tension leave his body.

It’s fairly desolate, some people in the other spring over his shoulder. He has his eyes closed, more relaxed than he’s been since Alvarez. Until Natsu cannon balls into the pool. Gray’s wiping his eyes of water as Natsu resurfaces grinning at him. He can hear the grumbles of old men over his shoulder, glares at Natsu as Gray pushes hair out of his face.

“You can’t help yourself, can you?” his tone is more accusatory than anything.

Natsu keeps smiling, his own long, drawn-out sigh leaving him as he paddles to the opposite end, lowering his body onto the seat. “It’s nice here.”

“Mm,”

Gray closes his eyes again, as things go quiet. He simply relaxes, letting his thoughts drift away. It’s nice. The breeze is cool but not cold, his body warm in the water. Gray feels comfortable, intrinsically so. It’s a plus that Natsu, for once, has taken a temporary vow of silence. Gray simply listens to the wind, the way it picks up and slows down, almost sounding like the ocean.

It doesn’t last long. Gray feels eyes on him. He tries ignoring it at first, content to simply enjoy the tranquil moment he’s been giving. Then the stare seems like it’s burning into his soul. “What, Natsu?”

Gray keeps his eyes closed. It’s childish, but he’s trying to ignore him when he knows he clearly has something to say.

“You and Laxus seriously aren’t serious?”

Gray opens his eyes, sighing tiredly. His eyes readjust to the lowlights of the Onsen, to Natsu sitting across from him, arms wide over the back of the step. “We’re not talking about my sex life again,”

“You just smell a lot like him, that’s all.”

Gross. Gray grits his teeth, hearing them squeak. “Why do you care?”

Natsu seems somewhat taken aback if his frown is anything to go by, “I don’t know.” He hesitates, “It’s Laxus,”

Gray feels his irritation building, like it always does with Natsu. Bubbling over into something he can’t quite hold back, can’t temper, “As opposed to all the guildmates you’ve been with?” He watches Natsu’s eyebrows raise, before his face drop into something stoic, blank. It’s eery for Natsu standards. The kind of face he wears when he gets serious in a fight. That part of himself he’s always been bad at holding back comes through, “I’m honestly surprised you didn’t beat me to it.”

Natsu’s arms come away from the edge of the pool, “That’s different,”

“How?” Gray replies, not missing a beat.

“He’s a dragon slayer.”

“Didn’t stop you from fucking Gajeel,” And yeah, Gray’s probably a dick for it, especially name-dropping when he’s been purposefully vague.

Natsu raises an eyebrow, arms crossing over his chest, “That is completely different,”

“So, it’s different for me, but not for you?”

“Yes,”

“Explain,”

“You wouldn’t get it,” Natsu says.

“Try me,” Gray challenges, tone dry.

Natsu sighs, looking up at the sky and then settling Gray with a pointed stare, “You really want to know?”

Gray nods.

“It’s a power thing. Dynamics. Winning in a more primal way. It’s weird. Instinctual.”

Gray crosses his arms, “Ok, but I’m not a dragon slayer. Sex is just sex for me.”

Natsu narrows his eyes, crossing his arms too, “Not with a dragon slayer, it’s not.”

Gray wants to throttle him. “Elaborate.”

Natsu stares at him for a while, before he sighs, arms uncrossing so he can run one through his hair. It pulls the strands back with it, makes them stick in place with the water. Gray gulps.

“It’s… ownership,”

“Ownership?”

“I told you already. It’s power plays. Instinctual power plays. It’s never meaningless. Not with a dragon slayer.” Natsu turns his head away, and the lights hanging on the fence of the onsen catch his eyes, makes them shiny. “Everything means something. Every—” Natsu hesitates, tongue running across his teeth, “Encounter,” he settles with, “is a power grab. Domination in a completely different way. If Laxus fucked you, he either sees you as his bitch or as his.”

Gray has to hold back his laugh. Given the context of their fucking, Gray’s not sure he’s Laxus’ bitch. Nonetheless, he frowns at Natsu, “So you and Gajeel, you guys fight all the time, why not leave it at that?”

“Just because the metal head can throw a punch or too, doesn’t mean he can win at everything.” Natsu looks embarrassed. Not quite shy, just a little uncomfortable. And Gray gets it. Some part of it at least. The drive to prove who’s better, who’s stronger, who will come out on top. Probably literally in this sense.

“So… when we fight?”

Natsu blinks at him and laughs. It pisses Gray off, feels demeaning. Like there’s no similarity at all. He stares at the easy smile on Natsu’s face, at the way he seems to laugh like Gray’s an idiot. Maybe it is different. Gray wants to punch him in the face.

Natsu stands, grabbing his towel from the side of the hot spring, wrapping it around his hips, still chuckling. He steps out of the water, giving Gray a look that’s equal parts arousing and infuriating. He has a cocky smile on his face, that Gray wants to slap away. But his eyes are narrowed as he looks down at Gray, hair framing his sharp jaw, it looks dark and heated and wild. Gray feels like his heart is about to pound out of his chest.

“That’s a fight you won’t win, Snowflake,”

Gray sits in the water until he can’t stand it anymore. He feels like there’s heat under his skin, like it’s simmering the blood in his body. It’s not anger, doesn’t pulsate enough. It feels like waves moving through him, slow and even and steady.

Gray thinks, just this once, he wouldn’t mind losing.

-0-

In an attempt to avoid the Great Pillow Fight Incident (circa X783), Lucy made the executive decision to book four separate rooms. Sure, the cost ended up being more, but Gray thinks in all honesty that Lucy might’ve utilised the opportunity to ensure her own night of freedom. It checks out, Gray thinks as he brushes his teeth, given their conversation at the train station.

Erza managed to bribe Happy with fish to stay in her room, giving both Natsu and Gray a warning look when she had finished explaining her plan. Something about Happy being a bad influence.

The cat had only laughed at the accusation, not necessarily helping his case.

Gray settles into the bed, laying with his hands above his head as he stares at the roof. Hosenka is a weird place. One of the only places his team actually stayed in that didn’t result in conflict. After all, the last holiday they had resulted in Erza having to relive all the trauma of her childhood. It had made the memory sour, even now.

But so much time had passed since Hosenka. Fairy Tail had defeated the Baram Alliance, had stormed head-first into an inter-continental war and had won. Gray had lost his dad again, so had Natsu. He had wanted the fire mage dead, and he had wanted the same. It’s silly now, looking back. Gray wonders if the rivalry, the aggression, if all of it was fated.

He tries not to get into his head about it. The now is strange. A lapse of peace after such chaos, it’s unsettling.

Gray sometimes considers retiring. He won’t, not until he’s old and grey and can’t move a muscle. And certainly not before Natsu. But he thinks the idea of it could be nice. He never thought he could be part of such change. Not narcissistic enough to believe that it wouldn’t have happened without him, but enough to believe there is more he could do. If he gives up now, how many people pay the price?

Natsu must knock over something in the room next door. It thunks loud through the walls and Gray lays on his bed and is suddenly reminded of the heat simmering in his gut. He sees that grin in his head. Natsu’s hair, wet at the nape, eyes fiery. His chest––

Gray’s marching out the door of his room and pushing open the room next to his before he can really process the movement. The door swings open fast, and Natsu pokes his head out of the bathroom, toothbrush in hand and toothpaste frothing around his mouth.

“What?” He says, continuing to brush. He’s not wearing his vest, arms out and chest on display. His scarf is also neatly folded on the bedside table and Gray nearly chokes at the sight of Natsu’s neck.

Gray sighs heavily instead, “Just be quiet,” Natsu turns and spits out the toothpaste into the sink, turning back to him and crossing his arms. “some people are trying to sleep.”

Gray knows, logically, that he needs to go. That more time spent with Natsu on display is only going to result in a noticeable issue.

“Make me.”

Now, this is the issue. For as much as Natsu irritates the shit out of Gray, however much he goads him into fights and arguments and stupid fucking competitions, Gray doesn’t refuse. He’s always risen to the occasion. This will be no different.

The door slams shut behind him and Gray marches into the room, Natsu meeting him halfway as usual. They’re not exactly butting heads, not literally, just yet, but close enough that the tension feels palpable. It’s an easy situation to fall into. Easy to navigate.

“Keep it down before I do, Idiot,”

“How you gonna do that, Snowflake?”

Gray will acknowledge he swings first, but it’s not like the hit lands, and it’s not like Natsu doesn’t try to sweep his legs out from under him in the same movement. Fleetingly, Gray hears Erza in his head, admonishing the both of him, but it dissipates quickly.

They keep missing each other. It infuriates Gray. He feels like they haven’t gotten into a real fight since Alvarez, since everything was on the line. He knows he might be holding back somewhat, thinks that Natsu might be too. Maybe things are still too raw. He doesn’t like thinking about who would’ve won, not at all, not when it means one of them would be alive and the other would be gone for good.

But it is excruciating. To keep missing. For Natsu to know his tactics so well. He thinks of using magic, briefly. Then disregards the idea. He doesn’t want to be kicked out, doesn’t want to hear about the complaints that would follow. But Natsu knows his movements, and Gray knows his, like the back of his hand. But not all of them.

Natsu goes to swing at him and Gray ducks under his arm and pushes his chest, feeling the heat of him on his skin for just a moment. Gray kicks his legs out as he stumbles, watches Natsu land on his ass. The dragon slayer looks up at him from the floor, Gray thinks there’s a hint of surprise there.

“I win,” Gray turns to the door, suddenly remembering why he came in the first place, “Now go to bed, and shut the fuck–”

Gray’s body lurches back, he feels himself become weightless, for only a moment, until he’s slammed into Natsu’s bed and there’s a fist connecting with his jaw. “Not so fast, Popsicle,”

Gray doesn’t let himself get distracted by the fact that Natsu is, effectively, straddling him. He throws himself forward, smashing his forehead into Natsu’s, switching their positions before he can catch on. “Not—” Gray hits him back in the jaw, for good measure, tone final, “—fast enough, Flame Brain,”

He expects Natsu to attack him, to do something. But the dragon slayer just lays there, arms spread wide with Gray in his lap like it’s the most natural thing in the world. It probably lasts all of ten seconds before the awkwardness hits Gray and he swings right leg to get off. It must be what Natsu is waiting for though, because Natsu grabs his thigh and steals the momentum, rolling Gray back onto his back and settling himself between him.

Natsu sits up, Gray can feel the back of his own thighs resting on the tops of Natsu’s. It’s close in an entirely new way. Gray feels his heart beat speed up. “Thought you wanted a real fight for a second there, Stripper,”

And the grin is back. The stupid grin that makes Gray’s vision blur at the edges, makes his heart race a little too fast. “I’m not sure we’re fighting for the same thing,” Gray says evenly, even if it is starting to feel like his heart’s about to explode in his chest.

One of Natsu’s arms brackets Gray’s head, brings him so much closer Gray starts worrying about how much longer his dick’s going to stay in stealth mode. Gray focuses on trying to breathe.

“I’m looking for something… different,” Natsu cocks his head as he speaks, “Instinctual. Primal, even,”

Natsu doesn’t move an inch, he stares at Gray and waits for his move. Gray’s not sure what to say. He looks up at Natsu, really has to look up at him, given the positioning. It pisses him off somewhat. Amidst the panic in his brain.

He doesn’t want to speak his mind, doesn’t want to look like a fool if he gives voice to the litany of phrases inside his head screaming that this is happening. Finally happening. He doesn’t want to beg for it, not the way Natsu is trying to make him. Not with the dragon slayer looking down on him, no doubt feeling superior, like he’s won.

Gray grits his teeth and cants his hips to one side, pushing his right leg into the bed like a springboard to give him more force. He flips them, reverses the position. He takes Natsu arms, holding them above his head, leans in close enough that Natsu isn’t just looking at him, but looking up at him. Until his gaze holds some kind of vulnerability.

He keeps the eye contact as he leans in closer, until he can’t see Natsu’s face, until he’s staring over the edge of his jaw, right by his ear and mumbles low and filthy, “Good,”

He hears Natsu sigh, long and drawn out, watches his throat ripple as he swallows, head turning to look at Gray’s hands above his head, no doubt considering his next play. Gray grins, leans back just enough that Natsu thinks he’s relenting. Natsu’s body relaxes just a fraction and Gray grins, licking a strip up the side of his throat, tongue flicking against the sharp cut of his jaw.

Natsu pulls his hands outward and Gray only just catches himself before he faceplants onto the bed. And then it’s on.

Gray feels his heart jumping in his chest, feels thrilled that they’re finally having a fight, a proper fight, even as he’s thrown against the frame of the bed, feels the wind knock out of him with the force behind it. Even when he manoeuvres Natsu onto his back again, a knee and a foot on each bicep. Even when Natsu holds Gray’s hands behind his back, and Gray pulls off a feat of brilliant flexibility that has the dragon slayer cornered against the edge of the wall only a moment later.

It continues, until Natsu tackles him, has his head dangling off the side of the bed and his teeth at his throat and Gray feels harder than he’s ever been before.

Natsu’s palms at Gray’s dick like the heathen he is, and Gray has to close his eyes and grit his teeth against the moan stuck in his chest. Natsu laughs, light and airy, as he sits back up. Gray peels his eyes open. Natsu grins down at him. It’s not his normal, happy-go-lucky smile, but salacious, all teeth and too much confidence.

“Figures you like being thrown around, Princess,”

And that, while being one of the hottest things Gray has ever heard, can’t slide. Especially not when Natsu runs this thumb along the front of his throat. A part of Gray wants to give in, to let Natsu wreck him, a part that’s been alive and kicking longer than Gray will ever admit. The other part, that feels like it’s been around since he was born, refuses to accept defeat just yet.

Natsu’s hand is still on his dick, just pressure, but it feels good. The other on his throat is adding something completely different to the whole encounter. Sure, the wrestling had been sexually charged, but the slow touches are making Gray’s brain foggy.

Gray’s still trying to figure out a way to win, even when Natsu’s hand starts making the right kind of movements over his clothed dick. He sighs, feeling the tension in his body melt away. Natsu’s hand on his neck applying the right kind of pressure. Not to hurt him, not to thrill him, but to let him know, loud and clear, that he has Gray exactly where he wants him. Ownership.

He hears more than feels the zipper on his pants being undone and Gray realises he has to act now. If Natsu gets his hand directly on Gray’s cock it’ll be over before it’s really begun. Something in his gut tells him he can’t let Natsu win. He squeezes Natsu’s hips with his thighs, lets his head drop back, looks at the room, upside-down and distorted, and Gray tenses his core and throws his hips up.

They fall off the bed pretty messily. When Gray looks down, letting his head clear of the momentary dizziness, and sees Natsu, sprawled, with his back to the floor – arms wide and eyes clearing with realisation – Gray feels pretty impressed with himself.

Natsu smiles at him, not huge, closer to a smirk, but his eyes soften. Gray’s heart is racing, the dragon slayer can probably hear it. Natsu’s hands come inward, he sits up, not trying to move Gray, just so he can look at him. His hands come to rest on Gray’s thighs, wide and splayed open, squeezing. Natsu cocks his head, “Not bad,” and fuck– Gray’s done for.

Natsu’s hand trails up his thigh, squeezes around his hip. One hand stays there, holding him as the other centres on the path up his sternum. Gray feels like he can’t breathe. He can hear himself panting. Natsu’s looking at his own hand, following its movements and Gray doesn’t know what to do. His arms hang limply at his side, unsure and poised for the attack he’s sure is coming.

The dragon slayer trails his fingers up Gray’s throat, and it’s so delicate, softer than anything so far. It’s exhilarating in its own way. He holds Gray’s jaw, tilts it to the right. Gray refutes it at first, determined to keep his eyes on the fire mage. Natsu’s grip tightens and Gray lets himself go pliant, lets his head slide however Natsu wants to move it.

Natsu breathes him in. Gray can feel Natsu’s nose brushing against his throat, it almost tickles. His lips touch the skin, ever-so-slight. Accidental bumps against his flesh rather than anything deliberate. Gray shifts his jaw in Natsu’s grip, wills his hands to work. They trail up the dragon slayer’s arms, over his shoulders, over his exposed neck, until they cradle his face gently on each side. Gray just looks at him.

He looks dazed, Gray thinks, in the best way. His eyes half-lidded, lips parted to breath, pink dusted on his cheeks that matches his hair. It looks soft. It always has, but Gray can feel it now, on the tips of his fingers. He can see Natsu’s freckles, and the swirling hazel mix of his eyes has him transfixed.

Gray feels the stillness of the moment, as Natsu’s eyes stop scanning over his face, settling on his eyes too. They look at each other and it’s different to anything that’s ever been shared between them. There’s no anger, no desperation to save each other, no mirth or mockery. It’s just glancing – seeing, maybe – and yet, like everything else so far, it’s so much more.

Gray leans in and closes the gap. His eyes close even though the kiss is chaste. He allows himself to experience the moment, the softness and intrinsic warmth of Natsu’s lips, the feel of his nose on the side of Gray’s.

He lets loose all the angst he’s ever held towards the fire mage. Allows the feelings he’s been holding back for the last fifteen years to shine through.

Gray pulls away and watches Natsu open his eyes. He doesn’t say anything, just presses back in and kisses Gray again. It’s not forceful, nothing prolonged, no burst of passion or biting, nothing anywhere close to what Gray had imagined it would be. Just short, chaste kisses, separated by brief flits of eye contact. The seconds between them get shorter, the kisses get progressively longer until Gray feels like he can’t breathe.

Gray wants to pull away, wants to take a breath, but the thought of it all ending keeps him still. Natsu teases at his lips with his tongue and then pulls back. Gray pants, staring at him, feeling light-headed and like his whole body is suddenly alive.

They stare at each other again and then Natsu grips at the waistband of his pants, tugging. It’s not graceful. Gray knows he can get his own clothes off uncharacteristically fast, but he feels like he’s flailing, as his arms come up, wrapping around Natsu’s shoulders. He lets the dragon slayer take the lead if only for a moment, as Gray lifts himself to help the action. His pants slide down his thighs; Natsu tries to push Gray down, to loom over him no doubt, as he gets him exposed, but Gray’s no fool. He knows an underhanded tactic when he sees it.

He's not sure how he knows, or why, but he knows if he lets Natsu push him down, lets him expose Gray’s body, it’s as good as losing. Something in Gray’s soul is telling him fervently, that he cannot lose.

He keeps his body stiff, unrelenting. Natsu glares at him and Gray glares back, pushing Natsu’s shoulders until his body can’t handle the momentum behind the force, and his back hits the hardwood. “Nice try,”

Gray doesn’t hesitate beyond that, he reaches back, pulling at his pants at the ankle, lifting each leg one by one. Maybe he’s giving Natsu a show, he’s not entirely sure. He likes the stillness, the anticipation it brings. Natsu’s breaths are getting heavier and heavier and the sound of them passing through his lips has Gray feeling wild.

He throws the pants somewhere behind him, bracing a hand on Natsu’s chest, and bending forward to kiss him senseless. Natsu leans up into the kiss, one hand gripping his waist, the other wrapped around his jaw, pulling him in.

It’s addictive. The heat of it, the taste, the precision that slowly grows messier and messier and somehow makes it all feel better. Kissing Natsu is demanding. For every push and pull Gray feels himself growing hazy with it. It’s like a fight, unrelenting in the best way.

Suddenly, there’s a hand wrapping around his dick. Gray feels himself jolt, hears the groan that rumbles out of his chest. He pants, as Natsu swipes him thumb over the slit, gathering the moisture there and spreading it down his length. Gray sits up, staring at the dragon slayer’s hand, watching it stroke him, feeling like his whole body is lighting up.

“Fuck, Natsu,” Gray’s not sure why he’s whispering, it feels like the right move.

Natsu looks up at him, takes him in. His eyes trail up the hand Gray still has on his chest, eyes skipping to follow the movements of his own, and Gray briefly wonders what he looks like to the fire mage. Natsu’s eye darken as they work his way up his chest. He glances back down at his hand and his head tilts, just slightly, and Gray moans when Natsu drags his hand over the head of Gray’s dick.

It has heat coiling in his gut that feels more intense than anything else Gray has ever felt. He closes his eyes as he grunts, tries to block the visual of Natsu laying there, taking nothing, just pleasing him. He keeps his eyes closed as Natsu seems to double his efforts. It has Gray’s nails gripping into Natsu’s chest, his other hand holding the knee that’s bent up, bracketing him in.

And then Natsu rolls his hips up and into him, “Look at me, Gray,” Gray’s eyes shoot open, body curling inwards. He knows he moans, knows because Natsu’s eyes are shining with something akin to victory. Gray keeps his body curled, as he hovers above Natsu’s face, watches the dragon slayer swallow as he lowers himself slowly into his space – as if he wasn’t already. He drags it out, impossibly slow, not blinking, eyes not wavering.

He waits until Natsu’s hand stutters in its movements, as if uncertain, and Gray smirks, rolling his own hips into Natsu’s, feeling the thickness of him through his pants. Natsu’s eyes flutter close, like a drawn-out blink, opening to look at him, appraising him. Gray rocks his hips again, keeping the pace slow, the intensity building. Natsu chokes out a breath and Gray sits back up.

Natsu follows him this time, hand squeezing around his cock, the other his hip. When Gray presses down, Natsu pushes up. Gray can feel himself getting closer. Can feel the heat of Natsu like he’s under his skin. Natsu’s hand speeds up around his dick, Gray feels orgasm building. His chest feels rattly as he pants, moaning with each upward stroke. Natsu kisses his neck, licks the spot and toys at it with his teeth.

Gray’s whole body starts to feel hot, mindless, as he falls into Natsu’s touch. It feels good, great, perfect. He knows he’s close, won’t last long enough for this to keep going, to let it get to the real good part. “Nn– gonna,”

Gray chokes as Natsu bites into the skin on his neck, “Mn, God, Natsu!” Gray feels the hair wrapped around his fingers as he grips the strands at the back of Natsu’s head; soft, fluffy, perfect. Gray tries to pull him back, tries to look at him, but Natsu doesn’t relent.

He does something with his hand, Gray’s not really sure, just knows that it amplifies everything. He pulls Gray’s hips down, onto his own hardness and Gray shouts, hand tightening in his hair, thighs shaking. He feels cum hit his stomach, hears his own hoarse voice, feels Natsu grinning against his throat, but Gray still feels like he can’t see. Even though his eyes are open, and he knows he can, his body feels lost in the pleasure rippling through him. It seems unnecessary to focus on the visual.

Natsu strokes him through it, because of course he does. It doesn’t help the sight problem, doesn’t put an end to the pleasure until it starts hurting and even then, it’s the right kind of hurt. Gray’s reaches down, holds Natsu’s wrist hostage before he actually starts screaming. He pants, trying to catch his breath, trying to blink the dragon slayer into focus, lost in a blurred vision of pink.

Gray feels his back hit the floor, feels Natsu’s hand on his stomach, and then there’s a finger pressing against Gray’s hole. His head hits the floor, a moan echoing through the room that he vaguely recognises as his own. The ceiling comes into focus as Natsu’s sliding his finger in. Gray feels him moving it, feels his own body making aborted movements when he stretches him, taking stock of what Gray is ready for. Gray props himself up with great effort, leaning back on his elbows as he watches Natsu.

“All that—” he says hoarsely, panting between a couple of the words. “—to get me on my back?”

Natsu looks up at him, eyes clearing, “More resourceful that you thought?” He laughs.

Gray narrows his eyes, aiming for unimpressed, but Natsu picks that moment to add another finger, scissoring them inside and Gray has to breathe very pointedly before he can speak. “Underhanded, for sure,” he grunts, trying to keep his body from being so affected.

“I prefer devious,” Natsu grins, curling his fingers until Gray is gasping, back arching against the hardwood as Natsu presses right against his prostate. He tilts his head, and that cocky, mocking tone of his returns, “Feel good, Princess?”

And Gray’s dick –– traitorous bastard that it is –– seems to twitch back to life. He glares at Natsu, coiled heat rising in low in his stomach and burning through his chest.

“All it takes is a hand job and a pet name and you’re ass up, huh?”

He knows it’s not a competition, he knows it’s got nothing to do with their usual spats. But Gray can’t let him win. Not with the completely satisfied look in Natsu’s eyes. It’s not fucking, not really. The intensity is too much, beyond the kissing and the bodily pleasures. The wrestling, the fight for dominance. It’s a conquest, Gray realises. That’s what Natsu had meant.

It's different to their fights, different to the made-up anger, the stupid insults that meant nothing. It’s not fighting for the purpose of growth, or strength. It’s subjugation, in a primal, instinctive way. It has Gray’s anger rising. It’s not like their usual fights. But it is like one of them.

The one Erza had interrupted. The one where their lives were on the line. The same desperate, primal urge to destroy and maim, minus the responsibility and the high stakes attached to it. And Gray gets it, suddenly, what this is. It’s not fucking, it’s not. It’s closure. The midst of a battle. The only way they can figure out, without killing each other, who’s the strongest. It’s a finality at best. Gray feels his heart ache at the implications, but he’s an opportunist at heart.

He won’t lose.

“No wonder Laxus wanted you, you’re practically made for fucking.”

Gray snorts. He laughs back at Natsu, letting it come out cold and airy, “You sure that’s how you wanna play it?”

Natsu simply raises a brow at him, but the smirk drops off his face, eyes going dark again. It’s addictive, watching the fight waver within him. “Got something to say?”

Gray feels like he picks it up, the ego, the power trip. “At least Laxus was fucking me by now,”

It works exactly how Gray wants it too. Natsu all but growls, pulling his fingers out and shucking his pants down his hips, letting his dick be free. Not that the loose pants did much by way of restriction. Natsu strokes himself, wetting his dick with his own precum. He’s distracted and Gray very purposely avoids getting caught up in it. Gray looks up at the roof and then takes his shot.

He kicks Natsu’s shoulder, sitting up hard and fast so he can get on top. Natsu grunts, hands reaching for Gray, snarling. But Gray’s faster. He takes Natsu’s wrists before he can move them even remotely close, lifting them and letting his magic come out to play. His Devil-Slaying Magic has Natsu’s arms frozen to the side of the bed instantly.

Gray knows the strength of his magic, knows that Natsu can’t break it so easily. It doesn’t stop the dragon slayer from thrashing around, looking caged and wild. Gray takes hold of Natsu’s dick and the dragon slayer keens, body confused as to whether it should try and get away or fall into it.

He stares up at Gray with gritted teeth, body slumping. He looks up at his arms, high above his head, “Pretty sure” he grunts, eyes fluttering on Gray’s upstroke, “that’s cheating,”

“I prefer devious,” Gray grins back.

Natsu’s head falls back against the floor as he groans.

He strokes Natsu, once, twice, and pauses when he sees him retreat into his head. It’s the eerie stillness, the thinking face he does when he gets serious. Gray leans forward again, moving into the dragon slayers line of sight. He watches Natsu eyes focus on him, as if suddenly seeing him. He looks pissed. Gorgeous.

“Don’t even try to use magic. Wood and fire don’t mix well,”

“You think I don’t have enough control to not burn down a hotel?” Natsu stares at him incredulously.

Gray knows how powerful he is. He knows first-hand the strength he has, the enemies he’s overcome. He knows he was there alongside him, knows that Natsu has always come out on top. But Gray can’t let him win this one. “You won’t,”

Natsu has enough time to look confused before Gray straddles him and guides his dick to his hole. He sinks down, looking down at him, maintaining the eye contact as Natsu chokes out a punched-out groan. He blinks up at Gray when he settles against his hips, hands twitching like he wants to grab his hips.

Gray doesn’t let himself get used to it. He can feel the burn as his ass accommodates Natsu’s girth, can feel the burn of Natsu’s dick in him, filling him up, pressing everywhere he wants him. Gray lifts himself before he sinks back down and keeps himself deliberately quiet, deliberately unaffected, just so he can see and hear Natsu.

The dragon slayer groans, Gray feels his dick twitch inside him. Natsu’s legs come up, getting purchase on the floor. He thrusts up into Gray, tries to take control of the rhythm. Gray moans, but sinks firmly down, locking the muscles in his thighs. He’s not letting Natsu take over. Not this time.

Natsu glares at him and Gray waits. Even when Natsu tries to lift him with his hips alone. Gray just falls into the movement, not letting Natsu get the friction he needs. He waits it out, even though he wants to let in, wants to let Natsu win if it means getting fucked within an inch of his life. But he can’t.

Natsu starts insulting him. Tries to goad him. But Gray feels floaty, like he’s the most powerful person in the world. The words roll off him. Like he alone is above it all. He stares Natsu down until the dragon slayer stops moving, stops trying to gain the upper hand.

When – and only when – Natsu hips stop moving and he lays back and breathes, just looking at Gray, does he lean down and kiss him. Chaste and sweet. Natsu frowns into it. When Gray pulls away, Natsu looks up at him, brows furrowed.

“Good.” Gray says, voice deep. Natsu grits his teeth.

Gray starts riding him in earnest. Listens to the moans Natsu can’t swallow down. His chest reddens, then his neck. He looks beautiful and Gray can feel himself falling into it. He almost forgets the game he’s playing until Natsu’s hips are thrusting again. Gray feels at war with himself, feeling the way Natsu’s cock drives up just that little bit extra, that little bit that has him seeing stars…

Gray feels himself tighten around him. Uses more willpower than he knew he had to sit himself back down, flush on Natsu’s pelvis. Even as he pants, Gray can’t take his eyes off Natsu. He groans in frustration, pulls against Gray’s ice desperately.

He settles, body tense, abs rippling as he tries not to move. “Please,”

Gray frowns at him, “I don’t want you to beg, Natsu,”

Natsu scoffs, arms bugling as he pulls on the ice. “You don’t?”

“No,” Gray says honestly, vulnerably. “I want you to take it.”

Natsu glares at him. Gray grinds his hips, moving in circles, it feels good. Great for him, but he knows it’s not enough for Natsu. “Stop fighting me,”

Natsu grits his teeth, “Never,”

It sprouts something warm in Gray’s chest. The certainty of it. Like he ahd asked Natsu to stop breathing. Gray stares at him, nearly smiling but he holds it back. He just looks at Natsu and waits. He’s never been the patient one, that’s Gray’s specialty. He sits and waits until Natsu relents.

“Don’t I feel good?” Gray asks instead, “Nice and tight?” He starts moving his hips again. Slow, measured, deliberate. His thighs are burning, but Gray has stamina. Even if he didn’t, he wouldn’t give in. Not to Natsu.

Gray watches him fight with himself. He squeezes his eyes shut, grits his teeth even as he groans. His body relaxes. He keeps his eyes closed as he breathes through Gray’s movement. Gray hesitates, hips stuttering to a stop. He feels the air leaves his lungs, his voice clear and honest, as worry pinches in his gut, “Do you want me to stop?”

“Nnn- o!” Natsu pries open his eyes. He breathes deeply as Gray stills, “Don’t stop,” Gray starts moving again, a little uncertainly. Natsu’s eyes slam close as he breathes, “You feel good.” His hands tighten into fists, “Fuck, you feel so good,” He looks strung out. A little helpless. “Wanna touch you,”

Fuck… “No,”

“Let me,” Natsu pleads, panting hard, “I know you want to. Can feel it. Don’t you want to feel good, Gray? Stop putting in all the work? Let me wreck you?”

Gray speeds his movements up. Natsu doesn’t move, doesn’t want to risk Gray stopping again. He can tell the fire mage is close. His hands keep twitching, Gray can feel his thighs spasming every time his ass slaps against them, as he holds back the familiar urge to meet him halfway. Natsu’s getting more flushed, more restless, even if he has convinced his body to stay still.

“You’re not–” Gray says between fucking himself, panting hard. “–winning,”

Natsu plays dumb. Gray can see it, the expression he wears is forced, “Is that was this is?”

“That’s—” Gray moans, feeling his body start heating up. Everything gets more sensitive; every thrust of his hips has his body burning hotter and hotter. “—exactly what this is.”

Natsu’s stretching him so good, it feels like he’s paving the way home inside his ass. Gray feels himself moving faster, chasing the innevitable.

“You close, Gray? Gonna come again?”

Gray whines. His body wants to, probably could. Gray has to focus though, not on himself, but on Natsu, has to keep himself disconnected from all the pleasure burning him from the inside out. Gray knows if he comes, Natsu will throw him on his back. Will somehow get out of the ice keeping him still and fuck Gray through the floor. He can’t win, not when Gray’s so close to victory. “Not before you.”

Natsu’s face pinches, he breathes in, his legs bend up again. Gray thinks he’s going to try and take control of the pace, but he doesn’t. It’s a good thing too. Gray feels like he’s the only thing in his own way. Gray braces his hands on Natsu’s knees, using it to support his weight as he leans back quickens his pace.

Natsu grits his teeth, eyes dark. It’s such a fast change that Gray tries to take stock of everything around him, tries to figure out what his next move is before Natsu tries to make it for him. “You don’t wanna win, Princess.” He growls, “You don’t know what happens when you do.”

Gray stares at him, bouncing on his dick. He’s lucky Natsu’s hands are frozen to the bedframe. Gray’s pretty sure Natsu could blow on his dick and it would send him over the edge. He focuses on Natsu’s words, tries to piece together a response even though his brain doesn’t want to think, has given all control over to his dick.

“Mess up your little hierarchy, right?” Natsu tries to glare at him, but Gray can see the way he too is giving up on thoughts. “I let Laxus fuck me,” Gray wracks his memory, “Let him make me his bitch, yeah?”

Natsu grunts by way of answering, his fists tightening again.

Gray feels too close. His legs are shaking, too close to cumming, “And now, I’m using you,” The only thing holding Gray back is the lack of pressure on his dick. It feels like a double-edged sword. “Like a toy,” Gray leans in close. The angle changes, he feels Natsu throbbing within him. The ice starts creaking as Natsu pulls against it, trying to hold off. Gray clenches down around him, moaning right by his ear, “You’re mine.” He licks the same path up his throat and Natsu moans, face screwing up.

Gray hears the ice crack, has enough time to try and lift himself off his cock, and then Natsu’s wrapping his arms underneath his ribs, holding his shoulders from underneath as he pulls him down onto it. Gray shouts, feels his orgasm crest, like his body can’t quite believe it’s almost there, and then there’s teeth at his neck and Gray’s so close he feels like the world is shaking around him.

He feels himself pulse around Natsu’s cock, his hand grips Natsu’s shoulder, the other threaded in his hair. Natsu shouts and his body locks up, hips jolting and Gray feels his cum in his ass, warm and wet. Gray feels not quite real as his hand shoots down, starts rubbing his dick furiously. His legs squeeze around Natsu’s waist as he buries his head in Natsu’s shoulder.

He feels himself start cumming, in that weightless moment where nothing feels real. He breathes Natsu in, feels his mouth drop open as he moans and then Gray’s orgasm truly rips through him. Everything squeezes, his eyes, his ass, his legs, even the hand in Natsu’s hair. He tries to muffle it, doesn’t want to be too loud. He sinks his teeth into the juncture between Natsu’s neck and shoulder.

Everything blurs after that.

-0-

Gray wakes up in his bed. For a moment he thinks it was all a big, crazy dream and then he rolls over and feels his ass throb and realises, with great clarity, what happened. He tries not to freak out. Manages to hold off until he’s in the shower and the enormity of the situation hits him.

He’s scrubbing himself clean, sees the hand marks on his hips, around his waist. He runs his washcloth over his neck and fuck, he can only imagine what that looks like. He kissed Natsu. Rode him into oblivion, dominated him, for fuck’s sake. Natsu gave him a hand job. Somehow, that’s the most baffling part.

Gray presses his hand against the tile, lets the water run over his head and tries to breathe.

He had fucked Natsu, a goal of his for the last decade, under the guise of a competition. He had won, which felt good, until now. Gray gets out of the shower, uncaring of the water dripping on the floor. He wipes the steam off the mirror so he can get a good look at himself.

His mouth drops in horror, as he looks at his neck. Purple and red and definitely inflamed. He runs his fingers over it, half expecting it to disappear. It doesn’t. The skin’s not broken, thank god, but Gray just now realises he was practically turned into a chew toy.

He walks out of the bathroom, running the towel over his head as he pulls his bag onto the bed. He looks through his clothes and tries to figure out his best option. He’s been vigilant before, about stripping. He can be again. Surely, right?

He finds a turtleneck by some miracle. He doesn’t typically like them, doesn’t like how constricted they make him feel. They’re not easy to strip off though, always getting stuck around his head. It usually gives him enough of a struggle to realise what he’s doing and pull it back down.

Gray pulls it over his head and slides a pair of underwear on as Lucy knocks on the door. He’s used to the wakeup call. Usually a thirty minute warning until they need to leave. He pulls on a pair of cargo pants and his boots before throwing on a jacket.

He meets Lucy in the lobby. She has a coffee waiting for him and looks bubblier than usual. He smiles at her, taking the drink, “Good sleep?”

She hums into her coffee, “Yeah, just what I needed.” And that’s good. Gray fleetingly worried she might’ve heard something. He’s not sure he and Natsu were quiet. He doesn’t think they were obscenely loud. But if Lucy had heard something, then there would be every chance that Erza had too.

That was not a conversation Gray was having today.

The redhead comes down with her extensive luggage, dragging Natsu who honestly could still be sleeping. Gray’s heart thuds in his chest, lead sinking in his stomach. He can only pray he’s that lucky.

He’s not.

Natsu talks with Happy though, and that’s good, because he doesn’t look at Gray and that is also good, even if it hurts just a little bit.

They walk to the train station. Natsu complains the whole time and it feels normal. So normal, Gray genuinely believes he’s made the whole thing up. They get on the train and Erza knocks Natsu out. He sleeps the whole way back to Magnolia, which is nothing short of a miracle.

Lucy jokes that they should leave him on the train, Gray considers it, wonders if that would be easier than having to see the mage and know that he is officially the latest notch on Natsu’s long long belt. Happy takes sympathy on the dragon slayer and wakes him up.

Gray starts walking home before Natsu has the chance to even look at him. He walks through Magnolia thinking, listening to the everyday bustle and rustle of the town. Some of the townspeople give him a wave, he waves back with a smile, like he usually does. It feels forced though.

When he makes it to his apartment, Gray looks up at the building and sighs. He stares at it, unmoving from the street, probably looking extremely troubled, which isn’t an entirely inaccurate assessment of the situation. Gray sighs. Considers. Then keeps walking. He needs to talk to someone about this. Unfortunately for Gray, the only person who knows the entire context is Laxus.

He knocks on the blond’s door and waits. He’s not even sure if Laxus is in Magnolia. It’s entirely plausible the Raijinshū also went on a mission. Just when it feels like too long to be waiting outside someone’s house, the door opens.

Laxus stares at him, then sighs in exasperation. On the inhale he chokes, then covers his nose, then hurriedly pulls Gray inside. It’s not the strangest reaction he’s ever gotten, not considering he’s been waiting at someone’s door completely naked several times over.

“Got a spare margarita?” Gray asks, dropping himself onto the couch.

Laxus looks uncertain. Gray frowns at him and Laxus walks to the kitchen and starts making drinks. It’s an odd reaction, at the very least. He wonders if the encounter is that apparent with a dragon slayer’s nose. He wonders what it smells like. Then gets side-tracked by the idea that the dragon slayers, by nature, are the nosiest people to ever exist. Which checks out, maybe in Sting’s case, but in none of the others.

Laxus hands him a drink and it snaps Gray out of his thoughts. He takes a gulp almost immediately.

“Good night?” he asks carefully.

Gray sighs, “Yeah. Bad morning, though.”

“Mm,”

Gray looks at Laxus for a bit. The blond isn’t necessarily avoiding eye contact, but he’s backing down faster than usual. “You’re uncharacteristically quiet.” Gray frowns, “I thought you’d be laughing by now.”

Laxus looks away from him, tapping his fingers against his thigh. “What, uh… what exactly happened, Gray?”

Gray… Not the typical name Laxus calls him. Gray feels himself blush, “I think you know…”

“Yeah,” Laxus shakes his head, “I’m not sure I do,”

“We had sex,”

Laxus nods, blinking at him, “Yep. That’s the one thing I do know,”

Gray pinches his brow, “What more do you need to know?”

Laxus frowns. He takes a breath then pauses. “You smell… different…”

“Different?” Gray frowns. That was the whole point of sleeping with Laxus. Of course he’d smell different after fucking Natsu. “Laxus, I fucked you too. I’m sure I smelt ‘different’ then as well.”

“Noo~” Laxus drags out the word, laughs a little, sounding almost fearful, “You did not smell like this,”

Gray puts his drink down. Laxus follows the movement, before his eyes flick to Gray uncertainly. Gray feels dizzy. “What do I smell like, Laxus?”

“You smell like Natsu, but different. Almost like…” Laxus face freezes, then falls. He stands, pointing at him. “You need to go to Gajeel.”

Gray feels his mouth drop. He stands too, shaking his head, “I am not going to Gajeel!” He whisper-shouts. “I’m not talking about this shit with anyone else.” The thought is mortifying, “You do understand you only know because I was drunk as a skunk when I told you!”

“Mhmm, yep, I hear you, I really do.” Laxus presses his lips together, when he opens his mouth to talk, they pop. “But you really, really need to talk to Gajeel about this.”

Gray starts to feel panic rise up in him, “Laxus.” He feels his face crumple, “Laxus please tell me something seriously fucked hasn’t happened,”

Laxus just stares at him.

“I am not going to Gajeel,”

-0-

Gajeel lives in the outskirts of Magnolia. It reminds Gray of Natsu’s house if Natsu didn’t live in a glorified mushroom. His house backs onto Magnolia forest. It feels very Gajeel, even if there’s flowers in the front yard. Laxus had told him the address and practically forced Gray out of his house despite Gray’s vehement protests. It had been humbling.

The walk would’ve been nice, but every step was more time to think about the fact that something seriously horrendous must’ve happened. Gray doesn’t want to think about it, not really. But he doesn’t have anything else to think about.

He follows the walkway up to Gajeel’s house. And takes a breath before knocking on the door. Gray hears heavy footsteps get louder. The door opens a crack, a chain bolt keeping it from opening further.

A red eye peers out at him, frowning, “The fuck you doing ‘ere, stipper?”

“Laxus sent me,”

Gajeel tilts his head. Gray watches his nostrils flair, his eye widen and suddenly the door slams closed. “Fucking idiot,” he hears through the door.

Gray runs a hand through his hair, ready to beg to be let in, when he hears the chain bolt slide. The door opens wide. “Inside, now.”

Gray follows him inside. The house is beautifully decorated with antiques and old paintings, which is surprising, until Levy walks out of the bedroom wrapped in a robe, sees him, squeaks, then runs back in the room. She reappears with a flowy dress on, that sits crooked. “Gray!” She smiles, even though the blush still sits high on her cheeks, “Wasn’t expecting you,”

It feels more awkward than Gray had thought, until he notices the fact that Gajeel’s only wearing pants, and he’s blushing too. Gray looks back at Levy, sees the messy hair and then feels his own face heat up. “Oh,” he feels frozen, “Oh, god, I’m so sorry, I can come back another time!”

The room is quiet and Gray waits for anything to happen. He moves back towards the door, intent on leaving right the fuck now.

“Sit down, Gray,” Gajeel sighs heavily at the end of it.

Gray freezes, deciding to sit on one of the stools at the kitchen bench. Levy must sense something’s wrong because she comes to stand next to Gajeel and they stare at him with matching frowns. “Laxus, uh, told me to come?”

Gajeel crosses his arms. “Alright.” He rubs a hand across his chin, “Alright. Okay.” He takes a breath, resting each hand on the countertop and to prop himself so he’s eye level with Gray. “What do you know about dragon slayer sex,”

Levy chokes, bless her, and Gray lets his head hit the counter, avoiding all eye-contact. “I know you guys don’t really sleep around, but that Natsu’s an exception. And,” He lifts his head, feeling his ramble slow, “something about a hierarchy?”

Gajeel nods. “Okay,” he looks at Levy and they seem to have a whole telepathic conversation. “Okay. I get the feeling you’re going to be real shy ‘bout this. I’ll ask the questions, yeah?”

Gray nods. Feels thankful for small miracles. “You don’t fuck people in the guild.”

“No, I don’t,”

“But you fucked Laxus last week,”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Gray feels himself blush. It hadn’t been humiliating when he asked Laxus, they had gotten past that point outside the club. Talking about it now, though, feels degrading. Mortifying. A little more than a little pathetic. He breathes, stares only at Gajeel’s eyes like that makes the whole ordeal better. It is slightly hypnotic. If he dissociates.

“Laxus told me Natsu’s a manwhore. I wanted to know why we hadn’t fucked. Laxus said it was probably because I hadn’t slept with anyone in the guild. So, we slept together.”

Gajeel sighs, pinching the space between where his eyebrows should be, “Alright. So instead of talking to the Fire-fuck, you fucked another dragon slayer and let him smell it on you?”

Gray feels himself bristle. “Don’t make it sound so easy, that idiot’s been my best friend for fifteen years, I couldn’t just tell him to fuck me.” Gray shakes his head, “And have you tried talking to him? The fucking lizard talks with his fists!”

Levy stifles a laugh and Gajeel looks both betrayed and amused. “Alright, I here ya.” Gajeel, “Don’t—” he pauses, “—Don’t do that again, ya here?”

“Fuck Laxus? Yeah, I’m good, don’t worry.”

“No.” Gajeel looks at Levy, maybe for support, maybe asking her to take over. “Not just Laxus. Don’t fuck anyone else.”

Gray gawks at him, “Ever?”

“Ever.”

Gray sputters, trying to wrap his head around it. It’s not like he’s a slut, but he likes sex, isn’t a monk by any means. He blinks in realisation, “This has to do with me smelling different, right?”

“Yeah.” Gajeel’s tone is short and clipped.

“Want to explain that?”

Gajeel looks away from him, blushing.

“Gray,” Levy says, squeezing Gajeel’s arm. There’s a knowing look in her eye, like she’s figured something out, “When you and Gray were having sex,” She says it very calmly, almost like a doctor would ask ‘are you sexually active?’. “Did he bite you?”

Gray flushes. Thinks back on it and sees himself and Natsu wresting, the way his teeth were at his throat. Then again, after they had kissed, then at the end. “Uh…” He looks away, “I mean a few times, why?”

Levy looks at Gajeel, who looks at Levy. They have another one of their psychic conversations, and Gray feels like he wants to scream. He just wants them all to quit fucking around with him. Gray feels like crying for the first time in a long time.

“Can you guys, please, just tell me what’s going on? I don’t know shit about this and everyone I ask is looking at me like I’ve made some huge fucking mistake. I am freaking out here and you guys aren’t telling me shit!”

They both look at him, eyes wide. Levy sighs first, Gajeel keeps frowning at him, that same stupid mix of shock and bafflement. It’s infuriating.

“I’m sorry we’re not telling you everything, but we need to figure out what exactly has happened. It’s frustrating I know.” She gives Gajeel a pointed look, “Believe me, I know. But stressing you out over something that might be nothing is useless.” She takes a breath. “Now, I need you to show us where he bit you.”

Gray deflates. He blinks his eyes away from them. They feel watery. He breathes, pulling back the frustration. He can see where they’re coming from, he can. But it doesn’t make the situation any easier for him. He feels scared, more than a little unsettled. Like his whole body is shaky and he can’t grip anything.

He reaches up and pulls the turtleneck down, exposing his practically butchered throat. Gajeel leans heavily over the kitchen counter, inspecting it from every angle possible. He looks at Levy and shakes his head.

“No what?” Gray demands.

Gajeel looks pensive. Which is a weird look for him. It reminds Gray more of Edo-Gajeel more than Earthland Gajeel. Gajeel sighs, deeper than before. “Alright. When a dragon slayer loves someone very much—”

“Don’t patronise me,” Gray warns, already feeling too angry. Too confused. Scared.

Gajeel blinks at him, backtracking. He stares at Gray for a moment, throat bobbing. “You know dragon slayers aren’t completely human, alright. They have instincts people don’t have, compulsions, habits, whatever the fuck you wanna call it. When we want to—” he hesitates, trying to find the right words, “Be with someone, it’s different too. We naturally gravitate towards someone, drawn in by their smell and their characteristics. Change ourselves to be what they need. Real sappy shit.”

“Okay,”

“I was drawn to Levy, Laxus and Freed are pretty much guaranteed to happen at this point. Sting and Rogue, you get it.” Gray nods, following him so far. “That’s why Natsu’s weird, even to us. He wasn’t drawn to anyone, slept around as you know. It’s strange for a dragon slayer, out of character.” Gajeel shakes his head, “I don’t know what instincts that flame-freak has but they’re not the same ones I have.”

Gray shakes his head, “Laxus told me this already,”

“Yep, but that sparkplug isn’t as smart as he thinks. He knows this shit because I told him. And a dragon taught me. Which puts me as the smartest person in the room right now,” He looks at Levy, “Sorry, babe,”

Levy raises her hands, letting him take it.

“We’re monogamous creatures. Very monogamous. We chose one person, and that person is it. We mate for life. It’s a big thing. Huge. No going back kind of thing.”

It kind of makes Gray feel like he’s swallowed glass. It’s unpleasant. Makes him feel upset because sure, it had been fun, sure it had been mutually beneficial. Physically rewarding. But everything he knew about Natsu, everything he had learnt this week screamed that monogamy was not his thing, not long term at least.

Gajeel clears his throat. “When we choose that person, we mate with them. For life. It alters the smell because your scents kinda become mixed together. Smells different, not like sex, that always smells surface level.” He stares at Gray, “You don’t smell like you’ve had sex; you smell like you’ve mated with him.”

Gray drops his head to his hands. Mated. With Natsu. For life. He thinks he’s going to be sick. “How is that possible?”

“It shouldn’t be,” Levy chimes in. Gray can’t bring himself to look at them because he knows it hadn’t been intended. And if it’s true, then Gray had just forced Natsu into what was essentially high-stakes marriage, no divorce possible. “You claim a mate by biting them. Natsu may have nibbled—” Gray thinks that’s an understatement. “—But he didn’t break the skin. He didn’t claim you. That’s why it’s confusing.”

Gray massages his forehead with both hands. Natsu didn’t claim him, but it smells like he did. It doesn’t make sense. Gray replays the memory from start to finish, trying to remember if he had. If Natsu had bitten him somewhere not on the neck, but he can’t have. Gray had him essentially pinned to the floor. Except at the end, when Natsu had broken free and––

“Oh god,” He drops his hands. He stares at the kitchen bench, watches the edges go blurry.

“It’s going to be okay, Gray. I think this is probably something that will pass in time.” Levy placates.

Gray shakes his head, “What if…” Gray chokes. He gulps, trying to get his mouth to work. It feels dry, like there’s no saliva. He looks up at Gajeel, “What if I bit him?”

Gajeel stares at him for a while. The seconds stretch on. Gray tries not to blink, Gajeel doesn’t either. “Did you?”

Gray presses his lips together, “I don’t know… it’s… hazy…” He tries to remember, really tries, but it definitely hadn’t been something he’d thought to do. “Maybe,”

Gajeel turns around briefly. His hands rests on his hips and Gray stares at him a little incredulously. It’s a little too much like Levy. If he didn’t feel like he had ruined not just his own, but Natsu’s life, it might’ve been funny.

Gajeel spins back to face him after, what Gray can only assume is, his thinking time. He poises his hands on the countertop yet again, leaning over it to stare Gray down, “Did you fuck him?”

Gray tilts his head, sighing exasperatedly, “I think we’ve established that’s how I got here.”

“No, Gray,” Gajeel points at him, “Did you,” He makes a sweeping motion with his pointer finger, his other hand coming up to gesture to the air where the motion ends, “fuck him?”

Gray wants to laugh a little bit. Gajeel doesn’t seem like a talker, nor does he seem like someone who uses his hands in conversation all that much. “Did I top?”

Gajeel closes his eyes, breathing deeply, “Yes, did you top?”

Gray rolls his eyes, “No, Gajeel. I did not top.”

“Not possible then. That Salamander wouldn’t have let you gain an edge on him like that. He wouldn’t have let himself get pushed around.”

And Gray blushes because, really, he hadn’t let Natsu do any of the pushing. Gray had wanted to win, and he had.

“For god’s sake. Like it’s that simple you stupid dragon.” Levy pushes Gajeel away, stepping up where he was, she even puts her hands on the benchtop too. “Did you guys switch at any point?” Gray shakes his head after the shock of the question rubs off. “Did you, at any point, take more control over the situation than Natsu?”

Gray blushes. Levy waves her hand in gesture to him and looks at Gajeel as if to say, ‘I told you so.’ Her hand audibly slaps against her leg when it drops.

Gajeel looks pained, “Tell me what happened.” He grits his teeth, “Gonna need details, too.”

“It was a fight at first.” Gray mumbles.

He looks up to the roof, trying to avoid looking at them as he shares the more intimate parts. There’s a cobweb in the corner, above the cupboard, but it doesn’t seem like a poignant detail.

Gray feels mortified. “He asked me about Laxus before that. I asked him why it was different for me to sleep with a dragon slayer than for him to. He told me about the hierarchy. We got into a fight after that, he brought it up again and things,” Gray swallows, “escalated.” Gray turns his head to look out the window, “I didn’t want to lose, so I made sure I didn’t lose.”

Gajeel laughs and Gray looks at him scornfully, “Sorry—” he coughs, “Just… wouldn’t expect that. In my experience, it’s impossible to get that bastard to yield.”

Gray lifts an eyebrow at Gajeel, who looks anywhere but at Gray. “Yeah, well it wasn’t an easy fight, that’s for sure.”

Gajeel raises his not-brows at that, “Can’t imagine it would’ve been,” he looks at Levy in thought, “When I tried, the bastard didn’t even go down when I hit him,”

Gray doesn’t know what to say to that. He stares at Gajeel, ignoring the fact that apparently, she also knows that Gajeel and Natsu had a weird power fuck. Gajeel’s looking at him like he wants to know the secret. Gray stares back, almost daring him to ask.

It’s not like Gray can just say ‘I froze his hands to the bedframe and nearly rode him through the floor’. Even that probably wouldn’t cut it.

He changes the subject, feeling like they’ve gotten pointlessly off topic. “So, if I did bite him, what does that mean?”

Gajeel blinks, thinking. “Well, I think it means you claimed him.”

“So, we’re at square one?”

“Well, no. Not really. You’ve kinda over-complicated things, like, a fuckton.”

Gray groans, head back in his hands, “How?”

“The hierarchy,”

Gray blinks, “The hierarchy.”

Gajeel looks at Levy, “You got ya light pen?”

Gray’s pretty sure the solid script mage requips it, either that or teleports to find it in the space it takes Gray to lift his head.

Gajeel writes HIERARCHY in the air and then writes WENDY directly under it. He points, “Alright. Wendy is at the top. She’s the healer dragon, the only one of us that can speak to the spirits of dragons, automatically catapults her to the top. Now,” He writes SALAMANDER, then GAJEEL under it, then LAXUS underneath that.

“Natsu got the jump on me after I joined the guild, that puts him above me.” Gajeel draws lines between them to annunciate his point, “Then I got the jump on Laxus, which puts him under me. Now, hypothetically, if Laxus wanted to go up, he has to beat Natsu, which would put him at the top. Now, I don’t think Laxus cares enough to try, considering it’s probably the reason Salamander refuses to lose.”

He writes STING, ROGUE, and COBRA underneath Laxus. “Now Sting and Rogue have never really challenged this, but I think after the Grand Magic Games, they’re too scared to try. Cobra, I think wouldn’t be able to get the jump on Laxus, but could probably get it on me, which would him above me and bring Laxus up to me.” Gajeel draws an arrow off Cobra’s name below Natsu’s. “Him getting Natsu to submit it highly unlikely, so everything else would stay the same.”

Gajeel looks at him pointedly, “The issue is that you,” he writes GRAY above Natsu’s name, “Got him to submit, which puts you, right at the top.”

Gray frowns, momentarily ignoring the implications of that. “So, Levy’s above you?”

Levy shakes her head, “I’m the same as Gajeel. He didn’t want me to submit, I didn’t want to submit to him. Same with Sting and Rogue.” She pauses, thinking, “I imagine Freed will be above Laxus when they get around to it, Wendy will be equal with her mate, I imagine. Cobra would probably have an equal mate too.”

Gray shakes his head, “Does this,” he gestures to the messy diagram floating between them, “actually have any real implications?”

“Yeah. You’ve probably already noticed. Laxus act any different?”

Gray frowns. “Not really. He seemed pretty confused by the whole smell thing. Told me to come here,” Gray plays with the collar of his shirt, “Actually he didn’t call me a stripper, just called me Gray.”

Gajeel nods, “Yeah, that sounds about right.” He swallows, standing up, “If anyone wanted to challenge you, they can’t, not really. One because you’re not a dragon slayer, and two because the only one higher than you is Wendy, and that won’t change. Not unless Wendy has kids.”

Gray gawks at the thought.

Gajeel hands the pen back to Levy. “It’s all social dynamics, really. Not a chain of command, but a chain of respect. If anyone wanted the fuck with Wendy that would be very bad because we all follow her lead. Instinctively, we surround her to protect her, to give her strength. She gives us guidance, she heals us. It’s mutually beneficial for everyone. You, though,” Gajeel points to Frays’s name on the diagram, “You put yourself at the top, which means you’re also gonna have all the dragon slayers treating you a little different.”

Gray stares at him, mouth parted a little, “Different how?”

“Well for starters, Laxus probably won’t try and insult you again. Not unless he’s seriously pissed. It wouldn’t be as bad as insulting Wendy but it’d be up there. I feel like I want to tell you this stuff, but I also wanted to slam the door in your face and felt like I couldn’t.”

“And this only applies if I actually bit Natsu, right?”

Gajeel grunts in answer.

Gray considers it. Sure, he could ask, but the thought of trying to have this conversation with Natsu makes his head hurt. “You need to get his scarf off him,”

“Me? Try and take that fucking thing off him?” Gajeel shakes his head, “Believe it or not, I do actually like being alive.”

Gray might be an idiot on occasion. But even he has limits to his cruelty. Taking Igneel’s scarf would probably make Natsu explode the guild. Gray points at himself, shaking his head, “I’m not fucking doing it,”

“Don’t stress,” Levy rolls her eyes, waving her hand, disappearing the diagram and capping the pen, “I will sort it out,” She shakes her head, walking out of the kitchen. Gray stares after her, watching her shake her head, hearing the slightest mumble. “Bunch of pussies.”

Gray’s jaw drops, but he doesn’t say anything to refute it.

-0-

Gray goes to the Guild the next day, after holing himself up in his apartment for the night. He had been pathetic about it too, burying himself in his blankets, staring out the window. Although he wouldn’t admit it, he had even cried.

He feels guilty. Some part of his brain is telling him he’s ruined Natsu’s life. Strung them together for eternity without even telling the idiot that he didn’t hate the idea. The issue is that Gray knows how he feels. He’s known how he’s felt for a long time.

But he doesn’t know how Natsu’s felt, if he’s ever felt anything at all.

Logically, Gray doesn’t think so. He tries to wrap his head around everything he knows now. About the instincts, the power dynamics, the scents. It makes his head hurt. He knows Natsu has an apparently over-active sex drive. He knows the dragon slayer will apparently fuck anything as long as it has a hole, but sex for the sake of sex is not feelings.

That’s where Gray feels most lost. He can understand Natsu sleeping around. It makes sense, looking back. In his own experience, fighting can only alleviate so much stress, so much tension. He can’t imagine it having been much different for Natsu.

But it had been. Must’ve been.

Gray’s not sure what happens if Natsu tells him he doesn’t want it. He knows, when he thinks about it, that it would probably have repercussions for the both of them given the whole over-complicated reasoning that Natsu is a dragon slayer. He should’ve asked Gajeel. Should’ve had the knowledge so he could mentally prepare for it.

But he didn’t. And now Gray feels scared as he sits in the corner of the guild. He hasn’t touched his coffee, feels like it would come back up too fast if he tried to get any down. He pictures Natsu rejecting him entirely, feels his heart nearly crack apart at the idea alone. Gray rubs his chest, trying to breathe.

He sees Juvia’s face for some reason. In that cabin after Tartarus. The tired, empty look in her eyes when Gray told her they would never happen. He wonders how the hell she had been so strong. Gray feels weak, like he’s about to crumble to pieces.

Wendy stared at him pretty pointedly when he walked through the doors. She hadn’t said anything, hadn’t shown anything on her face either, other than mild consideration. Even Lucy seemed to sense something was wrong. She didn’t ask, still hasn’t as she talks quietly with Erza. He feels her eyes on him though, in the pauses between conversation, like she’s trying to figure it out.

He hears the doors to the guild open. Gray doesn’t look, but he knows, with a strange clarity, who’s walking through. He hears Natsu’s footsteps approach the table. Gray sees a flash of blue as Happy settles into Lucy’s lap.

He hears Erza and Lucy greet Natsu. Gray keeps his eyes on his coffee, ghosting his fingers over the handle.

“Get up,”

It stands out amongst the blur of conversation around him with a starling amount of clarity. Gray lifts his eyes. Natsu’s staring at him, still standing, seemingly looming above him. Gray tries to find the words, but his chest feels tight. Natsu looks… Gray’s not sure what it looks like.

“Get up, Gray. We need to talk,” Natsu doesn’t say anything else. He just stares at Gray until he sees his words click in Gray’s head. He turns and walks out the back doors of the guild. He can feel Lucy staring between them, he can feel Erza’s imposing aura grow.

“Gray,” Erza starts.

Gray stands, looking at her. She looks concerned, worried. Maybe she thinks they’re going to try and settle the score again. “Don’t,” he says.

Gray follows Natsu’s steps out of the guild. He sees him sitting at the edge of the river, on the embankment. He shouldn’t be surprised. After all, it’s where the most important of their fights have taken place. With one exception.

Gray treads over to him. His elbows are resting on his knees as he overlooks the water. He looks calm, but not exactly Natsu. There’s no grin, no biting words. It’s too quiet, too still.

Gray stands beside him. “What do you want to talk about?”

Natsu huffs a laugh, giving him nothing more than a raised brow, “Don’t play dumb, Gray. It doesn’t suit you,”

And it should sound mean. Rude. But it comes off as cheeky. Gray shoves him playfully with his foot before he can help it, grinning when Natsu swats it away. Gray sits down next to him. Their shoulders brush. It feels nice. Magnolia seems like it’s buzzing with life all around them. The water sounds nice. There’s a breeze. It feels perfect.

Gray knows perfect doesn’t last long. Never has. Not for him. “I bit you didn’t I?”

Natsu sighs, “Yeah,”

Gray nods to himself. It makes sense, he thinks. He has a knack for fucking things up, especially at such grand scales. “Sorry,”

“Don’t apologise.” He doesn’t sound angry, but he does at the same time. There’s a finality to the statement that has Gray feeling worse. Natsu’s tone shifts again, lighter, softer. “It’s done now. It’s not a bad thing.”

“It’s not?” Gray asks, feeling a little shell-shocked.

Natsu smiles, “Nah,”

Gray looks at him. He feels like his body is cold and hot at the same time, like it can’t decide how to feel. “What is it then?” He needs clarity, something to hold onto. Something that can hold him in place in case his soul starts chipping away.

“You talked to Gajeel, right?”

Gray nods, “Yeah, Laxus told me to,”

“Laxus?”

Gray rolls his eyes, “Yes. At that point he was the only one that was telling me anything to do with dragon slayers. It felt like the right move.”

Natsu frowns, “You could have asked me,”

Gray looks away, feeling raw. “Didn’t really seem like you wanted to talk about it.”

Natsu shakes his head, this time he’s the one that rolls his eyes, “I didn’t think it was something you’d wanna talk about over breakfast. Much less with Lucy and Erza there. Definitely not Happy.”

Gray can’t really refute that. The thought alone is humiliating.

“And I went to your house because you pretty much ran from the station, but you weren’t there. So, I went home. Wendy was waiting for me. She yelled at me.”

“Wendy yelled at you?”

Natsu nods, scratching his head, “I think it might’ve been worse than fighting Acnologia if I’m being honest,”

Gray laughs, smiling before he can help it.

“You know about mates, right?”

“Yeah,” Gray breathes.

“The others,” Natsu starts. Gray assumes he’s talking about the dragon slayers. “They all feel it. Drawn to it, I guess. I don’t know. Gajeel says he just knew with Levy. Said it scared the shit out of him because he knew he’d have to hurt her anyway. Sting and Rogue knew. Even when Laxus became a dragon slayer, he knew it was Freed.” He looks sad, Gray thinks, as he looks across the water, pinching the ends of his scarf between his fingers.

“You didn’t?” Gray guesses.

“No, I didn’t.” Natsu scratches his cheek, along the scar marring it, “Igneel didn’t explain it that way to me. They all describe it like it’s someone that you just find. That you’ll just know when you know.” He breathes deeply, staring at his hands, “But he told me it wasn’t your equal. It wasn’t someone who would bend to you, who would let you walk all over them.”

And Gray thinks it’s a pretty accurate description of their relationship up until this point. “So why didn’t you try?” he asks, softly.

“I did,” it comes out honest, yet bitter. “I fucked everyone I thought it might be, but it wasn’t. They didn’t put up a fight. It was easy, and it shouldn’t be. Not with a mate. Not for my mate.”

Gray hadn’t meant that. It makes sense. But he hadn’t meant that. He wanted to ask Natsu why he hadn’t come to him. Why he hadn’t tried sooner, why he hadn’t thought he could. But Gray doesn’t know how to ask it. Can’t figure out the right sequence of words without it coming across as needy, pathetic.

“And then you slept with Laxus,” Natsu begins. Gray feels his heart come alive. He doesn’t want to talk about it with Natsu, not even now, but he’s curious. Still wants to know what he felt when he figured it out. “And it pissed me off. Like really pissed me off,”

“Don’t tell me you were jealous, flame brain,” Gray quips, not even thinking about it.

Natsu laughs and shakes his head. “I wasn’t jealous, don’t get ahead of yourself.” Gray punches him in the shoulder for that. “I was angry. I don’t know. It felt demeaning, like he thought less of you or something.”

Gray’s not really sure what to think of that. It’s got nothing to do with the human side of things, he reasons, and probably all to do with the power dynamics among them. The ones the dragon slayers are privy to and no one else.

“So, what? You thought you’d take a shot?” It comes out pissier than Gray had intended, but it feels less like a lie and more like expression.

“It wasn’t like that and you know it.” he glares at Gray.

“Why didn’t you make a move before that then?”

It’s the real question he’s wanted to ask. He knows he hadn’t made himself a viable option, not within the guild at least. But he knows, somehow, it’s not the real reason. He knows there’s something deeper there, that Natsu hasn’t told him, that Laxus and Gajeel don’t have the answer for. Gray needs to know.

Natsu looks down at his hands. Then back out at the river, pensive, considering. “I don’t think I wanted us to change.” He glances at Gray, then away again. He looks open, vulnerable. Gray tries to breathe, tries to open himself up to the idea of it too. “There’s never been a winner between us. Not really. Not consistently. Everyone else has been someone to surpass and you’ve been this thorn in my ass since I met you.”

Gray smiles at that. It feels the same. He tries to meet Natsu halfway. “Alvarez,” He starts. They haven’t spoken about it, even now. “Well, I guess Tartarus first. When my dad—” He trails off. “He told me to kill END. Told me I had to. Gave me his magic so I could. And I wanted to, I—” Gray sighs. “I don’t know who would’ve won. I don’t want to know. It doesn’t mean anything anymore, but…”

Gray looks out at the river too, listens for a moment, as if the current will bring the words to him. “That was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.” He admits, “I was trying to kill you. I wanted to. But it was you…” He feels like crying, tries to hold it all back when his eyes start blurring. “Fuck, Natsu, I’ve been in love with you for years and suddenly it was my responsibility to put you down.”

His voice breaks on the last word. Natsu tries to take his hand and Gray pulls away, staring at him. “If Erza hadn’t––“ he chokes, “I wouldn’t have stopped. I need you to know that. You could’ve ripped me open, bled me out, but I wouldn’t have stopped until you were dead.”

“I know,” Natsu says, like it’s simple. “I wouldn’t have either, but you know that already.”

Of course Gray knew it. He had felt it, in the air between them. The stakes, the fear, the devastation. He doesn’t like thinking about it. He sees Erza between them, the way her teeth were grit, the way her arms had taken the attacks from both sides. Gray still doesn’t know how she survived it. He thinks he must’ve seen her at the last second, pulled back just enough magic that it wouldn’t obliterate her.

“That’s when I knew.” Natsu smiles.

“What?” Gray stares at him incredulously.

“I figured it out. It was always supposed to be you. Had to have been. No one else would’ve gone that far.” Natsu lays back on the embankment, hands threaded under his hair. Gray follows his movements, can’t take his eyes off of him.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asks, feeling a like all the worries between them have somehow floated away.

Natsu shrugs, “Dunno.”

Gray punches him before he can think about it. The hit lands across Natsu’s cheekbone and he sits up, holding his face with his hand. He points at Gray, glaring, pouting, “That’s just rude, you ass!”

Gray stares at him. He feels himself smiling and then a laugh forces its way out. They keep coming as he looks at Natsu who looks more and more offended with each second Gray cackles at him. Gray laughs like he just learnt how to, and he watches Natsu’s grumpy façade break away as he laughs too.

It settles between them, as they just look at each other. Gray’s cheeks hurt, deep in his jaw, but he can’t tame his joy. He doesn’t want to. “Come here, idiot,”

Natsu holds his face as they kiss. His hands are warm against his skin and Natsu’s hair is soft in his grasp. It’s a little perfect, all things considered. Natsu pulls away suddenly, and scoots back. Gray stares at him, still reeling, not quite feeling like any of it’s real.

“I gotta give you something,” Natsu says. Gray frowns, sitting up straighter. He crosses his legs under him. He watches Natsu take hold of the ends of his scarf and start unwinding it from him neck.

Gray feels his stomach drop. “No, Natsu,” he says in a rush. He tries to grab a hold of it, to wrap it back around him.

Natsu knocks his hands away. “Shut up,” he stares at it in his hands, brow creased. “It wasn’t supposed to be for me.” He looks at Gray and Gray feels like he’s about to break apart at the seams. His eyes water again, as Natsu holds it out to him. “Igneel told me to give it to my Mate, when I found them.”

“Oh,” Gray still can’t move though. He’s looking at Natsu, at him holding the most precious thing he has, offering it to him. He looks scared, Gray feels like a villain. He doesn’t know what to do. Natsu’s waiting for him to take it, Gray’s worried the world might implode if he does. “I don’t want to lose it,” Gray says honestly.

Natsu smiles, “You won’t.”

Gray tilts his head, feeling the moisture in his eyes shift with it. “Natsu I can barely keep a shirt on for more that an hour. If I lose that—” It feels unforgiveable, even thinking it.

“You won’t lose it, Gray. Same way you’ve never lost that necklace.”

Gray looks down at it. It glints in the light, always has. Always in the darkest times. He pulls it over his head, holds it in his hand. Even after all the years that have passed, it still looks beautiful. The detail remains, somehow the topaz stone in the centre remains intact, unblemished.

“Mika, my mother, she gave it to my dad when they first met.” Gray says slowly. He’s never told anyone before, didn’t think he ever would. “When Deliora came, he gave it to me.” Gray looks up at Natsu, sees the fire mage looking at it sadly. “It’s not as cool as a dragon dad, but, uh,” Gray waits for Natsu to look at him, “If you want me to have your scarf, you have to take this, okay?”

Natsu stares at him for a long time. A myriad of emotions flicker through him, Gray can’t decipher any of them. He swallows, looking up. Gray thinks his eyes look a little glassy. “Jeez, you really can’t let me win, huh?”

Gray laughs, “Never,”

Natsu smiles, eyes crinkling at the edges. He moves closer and starts wrapping the scarf around Gray’s neck. It’s soft, even though Gray knows it’s made of dragon scales. It doesn’t feel restricting, not the way scarves usually do. It feels light, but it’s warm and smells like Natsu. Gray holds the ends reverently in his hands, running the pads of his fingers over the material.

He looks up at Natsu and grins, trying to hold back another laugh, “You look naked.”

Natsu rolls his eyes, “Funny way to say you want me, pervert.”

“For as long as you’ll have me.” Gray takes the chain of the necklace in both hands, draping it over the Natsu’s head. He follows the chain around, finally sees the bite mark on Natsu’s neck. He traces the indents, shocked he had actually managed to do something like that. “Does it hurt?” he asks gently.

Natsu shakes his head, smiling, “Not at all,”

“Good,” It is good. A relief. He stares into Natsu’s eyes. Tries to look away from the mark. “We should probably go back in, huh?”

Natsu looks over his shoulder, at the guildhall. He sighs, heavily, “I think if we don’t soon, Erza will think we’re trying to kill each other.”

Gray stands with a sigh, knowing he’s probably right. As much as Gray wants to stay out here forever, he dreads to think of Erza appearing before them and breaking a bone to stop an argument that’s not happening.

Gray holds a hand out to Natsu. He takes it and Gray pulls him up. He doesn’t let go of his hand, just looks at them joined, “I’m glad,” Gray starts, pulling back. “It was me, you know?”

Natsu grins at him and shakes his head, dropping his hand. “You comin?”

He starts treading up the hill towards the back door of the Guild. Gray watches him for a moment. He looks more free without the scarf somehow. Untamed, a bit more wild. It suits him, in a new way. Gray starts following after him, trying to avert his eyes so he doesn’t keep staring. He feels like he could look at him for the rest of his life and be perfectly content.

Gray looks down instead. And then he’s staring at Natsu’s ass. Before he can convince himself not to, his hand flies out, palm upturned and slaps it. Natsu freezes abruptly, whipping around to glare at him.

Gray tries to hide his smirk, “Sorry,”

Natsu’s eyes narrow further, “You lookin for a fight, Frosty?”

Gray laughs, sidestepping him, “You looking to lose?”

Natsu gapes at him and Gray turns towards the guild and sprints. He hears Natsu shout after him. He scarcely makes it to the door first, reaching out to put his hand on the wood to signify his victory, and then Natsu is at his back, with too much force and not enough time to stop the momentum. The doors slam loudly against the walls as they swing open.

Gray feels himself hit the floor, feels Natsu’s elbow dig into his back as he tries to get up, no doubt about to claim his victory, however bullshit the claim may be. The guild’s gone a little quiet as everyone looks up at the noise.

Natsu gets to his feet first, laughing loudly and crossing his arms across his chest. Gray drags himself to his feet, slowly, grunting, “Pretty sure that’s cheating,”

“Devious,” Natsu corrects, smirking.

Gray looks away from him, barely containing his smile with a sneer. He’s not sure he’s ever going to hear the word the same ever again. He looks around the guild as he takes note, finally, of the silence that hasn’t broken. He meets Lucy’s eyes first, sees the shocked smile splitting across her face. Erza stands next to her, sword drawn before she faulters.

It’s Happy who breaks the silence, innocent voice asking the question everyone is no doubt thinking, “Why’s Gray wearing your scarf?”

Gray looks at Natsu. He scratches the back of his head a little uncertainly. He looks at Gray. The joy still clings to his face, even as his eyes grow a bit serious. He grins, squatting down to look at Happy. He pats his head and laughs, “It was always his,”

It’s a simple admission. It takes Gray’s breath away.

He knows what Igneel’s scarf means to him, everyone knows the importance, the heart still in it. Gray blinks, even as the guild erupts into noise around him. He tries to figure out why his body feels like it’s tingling all over, what the feeling is driving the reaction. He stares at Natsu, at his bare neck, the bite mark forever marring it, Gray’s necklace dangling over his chest.

He thinks he’s felt it since the day Master Makarov brought Natsu to Fairy Tail. The electrifying feeling when he threw a punch and Natsu threw one back. It’s the feeling he thought was anger in his youth, the one he realised later was so much more. It’s the feeling he had when Erza stopped the attack in Alvarez Empire, the one that came through when he saw her, and finally saw Natsu, in spite of everything else.

He looks around the guild, even though all the voices are blurred. He sees Laxus, surrounded by his team. The blond smiles and nods. Gray smiles back.

He holds the tail-ends of his scarf, finally warm.

-0-

“I still cannot comprehend how you did it,”

Gray laughs, sipping his drink. Natsu and Gajeel are throwing attacks at each other, trading insults. Gray doesn’t mind sitting back and watching. Lucy and Levy look fairly exasperated as they watch on from a nearby table. Even Erza seems to just allow it to happen. Laxus and Wendy are chatting about something on the lower floor of the Guild. It looks serious, if the way Laxus’ arms are crossed is anything to go by.

Gray looks forward again, feeling his face shift. He takes a breath, feeling completely certain.

“Alright, Freed, this is what you gotta do.”

––