if you be my star i'll be your sky

“I’m home,” he says, voice slurred. It’s obvious to Juvia he’s been drinking the whole night. Before he can even reach the bed, his shirt and pants are gone and forgotten on the floor. Gray crawls up the mattress and slumps down beside her, arm draped across her body as he closes his eyes and nuzzles his face in the crook of her neck. “I missed you,” he breathes against her skin.

Juvia brings her hand to his head and weaves her fingers through his hair. “You were only gone for a few hours, Gray-sama.”

“Still,” he grumbles. “Lyon’s a pain in the ass.”

She chuckles. “Did you have fun with him, though? You two haven’t seen each other in a while.”

Gray grunts something that vaguely sounds like an affirmative, and she hums softly. He falls into silence, chest rising and falling calmly, drowsy by the alcohol as she caresses his scalp, carding her fingers through his hair. He breathes in and out and, stirring, murmurs in her hair, “You smell so good.”

She smiles. “Gray-sama smells nice too.”

“No,” he grunts. He breathes deeply and slowly, gradually being lured to sleep. “I reek of cheap beer.”

“Well, Gray-sama’s smell is Juvia’s favorite smell,” she says. She listens to the silence in the room; dim light filtering through the curtains as Gray’s warmth envelops her. Her fingers gently massage his scalp, feeling the softness of his unruly hair. She loves him so much.

When he speaks, his voice is raspy, slurred and barely audible, but clear enough for her to hear. “Marry me,” he says. Juvia smiles, softly, fingers tenderly combing through his hair as his words get lost in the dark bedroom and his breathing falls into a regular pattern, and she knows sleep has finally taken him.

She chuckles. “We are already married, Gray-sama.”

“Nothing.” Juvia fidgets on the couch beside him, keeping her eyes trained on the TV in front of them.

Gray side-glances her before returning his attention to the TV as well. It’s a lazy Saturday afternoon where not even she has felt like changing from her pajamas. The hot chocolate she was drinking is now only an empty cold mug that sits on the coffee table as they watch reruns from an old sitcom neither of them used to watch. And he can’t really pay attention to the TV show because not only he doesn’t know a single thing about the characters or plot, but also he feels her eyes falling upon him again—it’s like she’s freaking examining him.

He heaves an annoyed sigh through his nose. “What is it, Juvia?”

“It’s nothing, Gray-sama. Really,” she is quick to say. “Juvia was just thinking about something.”

“‘Bout what?”

“Nothing important.”

He scowls, not convinced. A few seconds pass in which the laugh tracks from the sitcom are the only sound that fills the living room. Juvia occasionally snitches glances at him, and hugs her legs close to her chest, looking back at the TV once Gray catches her gaze again. Before he has a chance to say anything, however, she gets up from the couch and leaves the room without a word.

Gray frowns at her quietness. She usually announces to him whatever she is going to do, even if she’s just going to the bathroom or getting a glass of water. Her silence brews an uneasy feeling in his gut that she is up to something, but he brushes it off. It’s not atypical for Juvia to act weird.

Just when he starts getting somewhat entranced by the jokes on the TV, making his lips quirk in a subtle smile, Gray feels something delicate lightly brushing against his neck. His hand clasps onto it at once, and he can hear Juvia trying to muffle a giggle that comes out like a snort. Without looking, he reaches behind his head and grabs her arm, pulling her forward until she topples over the couch and lands on her back next to him, head on his lap, giggling uncontrollably.

“What are you doing?” he asks her with a scowl.

Juvia is holding a long bright-pink feather in her hands that she uses to hide the smile her cheeks fail to contain. “Juvia wanted to know if Gray-sama was ticklish.”

He can recognize the plume from one time when Juvia suggested that they “spiced things up” in bed a little, to which he promptly refused at the time. He was—and still is, to be quite honest—slightly uncomfortable with some of her ideas of fun. (Besides, it’s not like things have ever gotten boring with her anyway.) But he actually forgot that she kept that damn feather.

“Here’s your answer,” he says, “I’m not ticklish.”

She rolls on her elbows and rests her chin in the palms of her hands, looking up at him and smiling as she twirls the feather between her fingers. “Juvia doesn’t believe that.”

“Well, I am not.”

“Everyone’s a bit ticklish, Gray-sama.” Her lips curl up with malice. “You just have to find the right spot.”

He doesn’t need further hints to understand her intents. He narrows his eyes at her. “Don’t.”

“Come on, Gray-sama.” She curls her fingers in a teasing predatory way in front of her face, the feather swinging menacingly in her hand.

“Juvia, I’m warning you.”

She doesn’t abandon her stance, and, seeing she’s not going to give up, he moves to seize her wrist. She is quicker, though, and the plume falls from her hands when she lunges against him and her fingers find his waist. “Tickle attack!” Juvia cries out as she deploys her assault on him.

Gray tries to get away from her, but she is all over him on the couch, her arms snaking behind his back when he tries to push her off him. “Stop—!” he uselessly says as her deft fingers continue to tickle him.

“No!” she exclaims, laughing.

I am not fucking ticklish, he wants to tell her, but the words cannot get to his mouth as Juvia’s fingers swiftly find crevices under his jaw and behind his shoulder that make him squirm involuntarily. Gray bites the inside of his cheek to keep himself from laughing; he’s definitely not letting her win.

Trying to fight back her unyielding assault, he grasps her arms. Yet her hold on him is strong, and her fingers run from his waist to his armpits to his neck in a frenetic rhythm. His leg kicks the air and a chuckle bursts out of his lips against his will. “Juvia—”

She knows she’s getting to him, he can see as she grins in satisfaction.

“Juvia!” he chokes out. “Stop—” He wants to get her off him, but his muscles don’t obey him and she takes advantage of his vulnerability to run her fingers through every sensitive spot he didn’t even know he had all the while giggling like crazy in her girlish way.

Gray presses his lips together when he’s about to chortle, and he’s pretty sure spit came out from his mouth. This elicits more laughter from Juvia, and she increases the intensity of her tickling, tightening her hold on him so that Gray can’t get her off him. Finally, he is unable to hold back, and laughter erupts from his mouth when she finds one particular nerve under his arm. Gray tries to contain it, but it is useless as Juvia squeals in delight and laughs, tickling him some more. The sound of her laughter is the sweetest, and for a moment he doesn’t even care that he’s bursting in laughter himself, the two of them tangled in a mess of arms and legs and Juvia’s hair.

She wraps him in a hug as she snakes her fingers behind his back and buries her face in the crook of his neck, hot breath from her laughter fanning against his skin and messy hair tickling his cheek. A renewed strength jolts through his body, and, at last, Gray manages to grab Juvia’s wrists and take her hands off him. She tries to wriggle free from his grasp, but she is weak from laughing, and he is determined to not let her win.

In an effort to escape him while he keeps his hold on her, Juvia rolls her body and falls from the couch, bringing Gray down with her. They land on the floor with him on his back and her on top. Her wrists slip free from his hold in the moment of distraction and she tries to use the advantage to resume her tickling, but this time he is faster than her and rolls them over, straddling her hips and restraining her wrists again by pinning them above her head.

Juvia doesn’t try to fight back. Instead, she smiles widely at him, chest heaving as she regains the breath she’s lost in their small battle. Gray finds himself grinning at her, too, while small chuckles still insist in leaving his lips.

“Juvia did it,” she says proudly, chest puffing out under his gaze.

“Did what? You lost.”

“No, Juvia won. She proved that Gray-sama is ticklish.”

He regards her below him—her unwavering proud grin and glinting eyes—and chuckles, shaking his head and letting go of her wrists to run a hand through his hair. “You’re the worst,” he says with a grin, leaning back and hoisting himself up so he can offer her a hand.

Juvia takes it, and he pulls her up. She doesn’t let go of his hand just yet, lightly squeezing it as she smiles sweetly at him. “Juvia just loves the sound of Gray-sama’s laughter,” she says. Her hand slips from his and she hugs him, nuzzling her cheek on his chest. “Gray-sama usually doesn’t laugh so freely like this. Juvia loves that she can get this sound all to herself.”

A soft smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. When Juvia lets go of him, Gray gestures to the pink feather that has been discarded on the floor. “Just make sure to keep that, because I’m having my revenge tonight.”

She lets out a delicate moan and sits upright, languidly watching his figure straddled underneath her through thick eyelashes. “You don’t like Juvia’s dresses?”

His thumb hooks on a belt loop from her jeans. She feels the weight of his gaze on her, and how it lingers just a little longer on her exposed black bra. He likes to act like he doesn’t care, but she knows exactly how much effect she has on him.

 “You know I do,” he says, “but you also know that I’m crazy about your legs, and damn they look good in skinny pants.”

Her lips curl in a smile and she laughs through her nose. She looks down to her hands resting on his naked torso, and her fingers start tracing the lines formed by his muscles—his toned chest and abdomen that are all hers to touch—and the scars that mark his imperfections. Her fingers follow the shape of the guild mark he has on his chest, and brush against the silver chain he always carries around his neck, spreading at the portion of skin where she can feel the steady rhythm of his heart.

The smile on her face slowly withers.

She leans down and brings her head closer to him, resting her ear against his chest—skin and muscle and bones being the only barriers between her and his beating heart.

He’s alive.

She closes her eyes. The thumping sound tells her that his blood is running—the same blood that she once spilled when fighting him on a rooftop, having only the rain as their witness—and the warmth that emanates from him and enters her skin and her own heart is not an illusion.

He’s alive.

“Is something wrong, Juvia?” There’s a slightly concerned and confused tone behind his voice.

“No.” She sits back up, hair spilling over her shoulder as the tips of her fingers come to rest on his chest again. She looks away, her voice barely a whisper when she speaks. “…It’s just the nightmares Juvia keeps having.”

“Nightmares?” He scrutinizes her. “You didn’t tell me about them.”

She takes a hesitant breath, biting the inner side of her lip. “Ever since the dragon attack…when we had that vision of Gray-sama dying…that vision hasn’t left Juvia alone. Juvia often dreams of Gray-sama dying… Dying again and again.” She lightly traces the shape of one of his scars—they make him feel so human. “Sometimes Juvia has to make sure he is still alive.”

She draws invisible patterns with her finger on his chest, sometimes following his scars and sometimes not. He regards her for a few dragged seconds: her eyebrows knitted together, eyes trained on the patterns she draws; almost looking as if she’s holding back tears—as she too often does when she’s upset.

“Hey,” he calls. She looks back at him almost reluctantly. He grabs her arm and gently pulls her closer, snuggling her up against his chest. Weaving his fingers through her hair, he inhales the sweet scent of her shampoo and places a kiss on the top of her head. “I’m not going anywhere, ‘kay? I’m here with you. I’ll always be.”

          I wanna be yours, I wanna be yours

Her hands on his back pull him closer to her, nails digging on his skin, craving for the steady beat he provides her.

“Gray-sama…” she whispers, back arching as a strangled moan escapes her lips. He loves the sight of her pale skin flushed, blue hair sticking to her body covered in a thin layer of sweat.

Her voice is lost when he covers her mouth with his, their lips and tongues moving along with the music. His hands feel her flesh, feverishly hot—hair sticking up at the contact. She presses her body further against his touch, rocking in unison with him; and when his mouth leaves hers, she’s back to making her own sweet music with her moans.

His slow thrusts follow the rhythm of the song. Her legs, wrapped around him, hold him tighter when he reaches a particular spot, bringing a smirk to his face—he has learned very well to get the reactions he wants from her.

She gazes intently at him in luscious desire before he goes in again, slow and deep, and her dark eyes roll back as her eyelids flutter close. His name leaves her lips in breathless moans, her chest heaving, glistening with sweat under the dim light of the room.

          Touch me, yeah           I want you to touch me there

Holding her by the hip, he rolls his own with hers. Her nails leave desperate scratch marks on his back, but he doesn’t mind them amidst the heat that envelops them. His breathing, too, is irregular, intercalated with grunted moans of his own—he hates and loves how she can get those sounds from his mouth, something that he wouldn’t let anyone else do to him.

          Make me feel like I am breathing           Feel like I am human

Rolling his hips again and angling them just in the right way, he manages to get an anguished, muffled cry from her. Her nails drag hard against his red skin—and he is sure she is drawing blood from him—causing him to hiss from the burning sensation left by her scratches.

He brings his face down to savage her neck. Tilting her head to the side, she gives him ample space for his tongue to taste her flesh. His teeth scrape against her skin, nibbling at her as his tongue feels the rapid pulse of blood running through her veins, mirroring his own blood that rushes in his ears. He lets his tongue slowly trail the skin of her neck as the song fades out to switch to the next one, before hiking up her leg and—

          NAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANTS INGONYAAAAAAAAAAAAMA BAGITHI BABA

Juvia suddenly chokes. Gray stops what he’s doing, a look of utter surprise and confusion crossing his face as an unexpected African chant echoes in the room.

          Sithi uhm ingonyama

“Oh god. Oh god, oh god, oh god,” Juvia mutters to herself, hiding her face in her hands.

Gray glances to the iPod that’s on its dock on a shelf across the room. “What the hell happened there?” He can vaguely see the cover from the soundtrack of The Lion King being displayed on the device’s digital screen.

“Juvia is so, so, so terribly sorry, Gray-sama.”

He looks down at her. Even though her hands are covering her face and there’s barely any light in the room, he can see her cheeks flaming in red.

“Juvia has completely killed the mood,” she mumbles behind her palms. “Juvia is so sorry. She wasn’t supposed to have added this song to her and Gray-sama’s special playlist; she doesn’t know what it’s doing there. It was an accident, Gray-sama, please forgive me.”

His breathing still a bit uneven, and he snorts. The situation is just so ridiculous. “Nobody’s blaming you for anything.”

She peeks at him through her fingers, but doesn’t say anything. He gently holds her by the wrist and takes her hand away from her face, letting his lips brush against hers. “So you like Disney musicals, huh?”

Her breathing is irregular, but she manages to mutter a “mm-hm” against his mouth. Her other hand naturally drops to the side, and he brings his own hand to cup her face.

She doesn’t seem to care about the song playing in the background anymore once her mouth parts wider and their tongues find each other again. He kisses her slowly, tasting her, letting his tongue trace her bottom lip and earning a timid moan from her.

Gray pulls back just enough to say, “You know…actually, I think this song fits the situation pretty well.”

When she looks at him quizzically, he whispers in her ear, “After all, we are continuing the circle of life right now, aren’t we?” He smirks, and the astonished look that her face assumes as it acquires the deepest shade of red is definitely one of the best things he’s seen today.