Quiet (Gruvia one-shot)

Day 2 – Quiet

Gray considered himself to be strong. Not only in the physical sense but also emotionally. Composure was easy enough to keep and it wasn't difficult to wipe his face of any emotion. He supposed he was a hardass from birth. He couldn't remember a time when he wasn't frowning or trying to convince people he didn't care about something.

Ur had laughed and smacked him on the head when he'd cross his arms and look away, pretending not to give a single care. She'd seen right through him. No one else had, but she had.

Maybe it was because of that that over the next years he'd continue to try and create a tough persona. He was the cool type who would shrug and nod. He liked that vibe. He was comfortable when he was acting like nothing bothered him.

It wasn't that he didn't let people in, it was that he hadn't found anyone that he wanted to let in. Ur, maybe, but she was gone now. Lyon was like a brother, and probably the closest to knowing the real Gray Fullbuster. All of Fairy Tail knew him, but not inside and out. And honestly, he liked it that way. It was easier that way. It was easier being a little mysterious than confessing what his fears and hopes were.

He had a rough exterior but on the inside he figured he was just a big softie. Which sucked. He didn't want to be someone who could be swayed by emotions or caring. He saw it as a weakness.

But then again he didn't know how to re-wire his traits so he figured he'd have to live with it.

One of those things that made him a big softie? He was sentimental. Unfortunately. No one knew it but he had two boxes filled with things that were seemingly insignificant, but meant something close to the world to him, tucked underneath his bed.

Only after a particularly draining day, or when something would make his heart ache, did he ever take out those boxes. Today was one of those days. It was his birthday. He hadn't told anyone, mainly because he didn't want people making a fuss over him, and so he'd retired to his apartment to be by himself.

And so, he'd taken out the boxes to start sifting through the contents. It'd take him down memory lane a bit, make him feel like he was at home. It was a birthday ritual, he guessed. Which sounded incredibly lame and a little sad, but it was true.

He sat down on the floor next to his bed, crossing his legs and peering into the boxes. The contents were a variable scrapbook of his life.

He had a small jar of water that'd once been the snow from the very top of the highest mountain where he'd trained with Lyon and Ur. He had vowed to climb it and bring back some snow, and when the day came that he did, he'd put it in a jar to keep forever as a sign of pride.

He had pictures upon pictures of himself as a child growing up, usually with either Lyon or Natsu's arm slung around his neck. In all of those pictures he looked the same, glaring over at the grinning boys with a scowl. It made him smile now, what a sour kid he'd been.

He had a mug from Fairy Tail. He'd stolen it the day he'd gotten there to keep as a souvenir. He'd known that it would be his home for the next half of forever the instant he stepped through the doors, so he'd been certain he needed some sort of physical representation of when he'd joined. He had his guild mark, and the only other thing in Fairy Tail as common as guild marks were beer glasses. They had to have thousands of them.

He had a single thread from Natsu's scarf. As kids when they'd fight and fight until they collapsed in exhaustion, one of the most proud moments he had was when he'd actually gotten close enough to Natsu to rip one thread from his scarf. It was insignificant but it signaled him getting stronger. Technically Natsu had won that fight, nearly blowing up into a giant fireball of anger at the thought of his scarf from Igneel being "defaced by a squinty-eyed snowman", but it'd been a time to remember nonetheless.

He had Erza's eyepatch from when she first joined the guild. After a while of not needing it she'd tossed it, wanting to rid herself of the memories it carried, and Gray had promptly dug it out of the bin and brought it back to his house.

Maybe it was a little weird to keep something like that, but it was something he didn't want to forget. Erza was one of his closest and first friends. Not only that but she was someone he looked up to not only as a mage but as a person. That eyepatch held bad memories for her, but for him, it held the Erza that he first met. She was different now and yet the same, but he didn't want to loose it.

And then of course the things he'd kept the most of were what other people had given to him. No matter what it was, if someone gave it to him, he felt the need to keep it. Maybe he'd act like it wasn't a big deal, huff and say a sarcastic 'thanks', but he'd bring it straight home and throw it in one of the boxes to keep forever.

He knew as well as anyone else at the guild that one day he could wake up and things would have changed so much that he didn't even recognize himself or his life in the mirror. As was the life of a mage. Magic changed people, and as life wore on, through wear and tear sometimes people changed without realizing it.

If one day, he were to wake up and something had happened to drastically change his life, he knew he could go to those boxes, look through the things people had given him, and remember what sorts of things he used to do. He wished he'd kept things from Ur. That was before he'd begun stockpiling absolutely everything.

He had the shirt Makarov had given him for his ninth birthday. He had the note that said "Meet me in the back of the guild so I can kick your ass!" from Natsu. He had the rather gaudy necklace Lucy had gotten him from one of her missions, saying that she had no idea what he'd want but the necklace had had something that looked kinda like an icicle on it so she'd chosen that.

He had the brass knuckles Mira had given to him in her wild days. He had a shirt Elfman had made for all the men in the guild that said 'be a man' on the backs. He had a little drawing of himself –which looked very distorted and a little scary- from Asuka. He had an engraved sword he'd gotten from Erza on Christmas.

He kept literally everything, stacks upon stacks of seemingly useless things which meant the world to him, tucked into boxes underneath his bed.

He would be beyond embarrassed if someone from the guild were to uncover them, but he wasn't ashamed. He didn't want anyone to find out, but he understood it wouldn't be the end of the world.

Well, he took that back, there was one thing he never wanted to be uncovered.

He held up the scarf Juvia had given to him and sighed. In all reality he wouldn't mind if someone found it, as long as it wasn't her, and no one told her he'd kept it. For all she knew he'd thrown it away long ago.

Juvia was perhaps the person who gave him the most things. However, they were usually edible and as much as he wanted to keep whatever someone gave to him, he didn't want to attract bugs and foul smells with molding 'Gray-sama cookies' or anything of the like. So he'd been glad, in a way, when he'd received the scarf.

Sure it'd been on a rough day and he'd left it to rot in the snow, but after he'd dug it back up, wrapping it around his neck and nearly feeling the warmth she'd put into it, he grew to have very fond feelings for the piece of fabric.

After all, Juvia was perhaps the person he was around most nowadays. Whether it was of his own accord or not, they spent a lot of time together. It was only fitting if he had something to remember her by, and something he enjoyed as well.

He ran his fingers over the scarf with a smile, nearly jumping out of his skin as a few hurried and loud knocks suddenly sounded at his door.

"Gray-sama? Is Gray-sama home?!" Speak of the devil. He scrambled to his feet, desperately throwing things back into his boxes.

"Y-yeah Juvia, I'm home," he called, stuffing papers and pictures back into stacks. She'd sounded a little panicked, but surely it was something that could wait long enough for him to put everything back in its place.

"Juvia's coming in!"

Apparently it wasn't.

"Wha-wait no-" As his door flung open he flopped back down on the floor, trying to make himself as large as possible in hopes of concealing the boxes which were now only about half underneath his bed, their lids sitting on the ground next to him.

He watched in horror as she looked around his apartment in panic. When she laid eyes on him her entire persona relaxed, and holding a hand to her chest in relief, she closed and locked his door behind her. Wait. His door had been locked.

"How did you get in?" he asked, a little hesitant to hear the answer.

Juvia turned back to him and held up a key ring full to the brim with keys. "Juvia had a key made for Gray-sama's apartment." She smiled proudly to herself as he gaped. She had to be freaking kidding. This was a whole new level to her stalker tendencies. She seemed to sense his disapproval and quickly shook her head at him. "Oh no, it's only for emergencies. Juvia wouldn't use it if it weren't an emergency."

He gestured at the door. "And what makes this an emergency?"

"Oh!" she exclaimed, bustling over and kneeling down in front of him, the most worried of looks plastered onto her face. "Where were you? I didn't see you today in the guild and no one else had either. Is Gray-sama okay?" She looked genuinely concerned.

Anyone else in the guild got a little suspicious if he wasn't on a job and hadn't shown up at the guild in a day, but not enough so to check up on him. It was odd to have someone that worried about him. Odd but a little comforting. Although it would've been more comforting had she waited until he could open the door and hadn't made a key of her own.

"Yeah, I'm fine," he said carefully, watching as her eyes flitted all around the room.

"If Gray-sama is fine, why is he home all alone doing nothing on a nice day like today?"

"Umm…" He tried to come up with a reasonable answer –which was hard since his apartment was particularly barren and not really a place that held many entertaining things to do- but she cut him off before he could spew out an excuse.

"What's that?" she questioned, tilting her head as she craned her neck to look around behind him. She pointed at the box lids on the floor and then behind him to where he assumed she caught a glimpse of one of the boxes.

Crap. "N-Nothing," he stuttered, sliding to the side to try and cut off her view of the boxes.

"No, that's definitely something. What was Gray-sama looking at?" she asked. "Juvia wants to see!" With a smile her hand shot around behind him and yanked the box out from underneath the bed to sit in front of her.

She just really didn't understand the principle of personal space or privacy, did she?

She 'ooed' as she began shuffling through the contents of the box. He thanked Mavis it'd been the one without the scarf, and while she was so engrossed in what she was finding, he snaked a hand into the other cardboard container and pulled out the fabric, wadding it up in his palm and holding it behind his back.

"What is all this stuff?" Juvia asked, holding up the little container of water and looking through it like a magnifying glass.

He cleared his throat uncomfortably. He could lie, but honestly she'd probably see right through him. And if she did catch him in a lie, she probably wouldn't let it go until the end of eternity, or when she found out what was in the boxes, whichever came first. No, lying wasn't a good option, but he needed to make one thing clear first. "I'll tell you what it is but you have to promise me you won't tell anyone else about it."

Her eyes shifted over to him in confusion. She gave one curt nod.

"Say it. Say you promise you'll keep quiet and keep these things between us." Although he'd hoped whoever would eventually find these boxes wouldn't be Juvia, he guessed he could think of a few other people who would've probably been worse.

"Juvia promises," she said with gusto. It was obvious she was now about ten times more curious than she had been two seconds ago, not only that, but he could already spot the giddy smile crossing her face, spawned from knowing that he'd entrusted her with a secret he hadn't told anyone else. Oh goody. This should be fun.

"They're just… mementos." He flinched as she let out a fascinated sigh.

"Ooh, Gray-sama keeps mementos?" She pulled out the Fairy Tail mug and scoured it with her eyes. "Juvia wouldn't have taken you to be someone who held onto things."

He rolled his eyes, not dignifying her comment with an answer, mainly because he wasn't sure what to say.

Her eyes flitted back to the other box beneath the bed and without hesitation she pulled it out as well. He gave himself a mental high-five that he'd removed the scarf beforehand and balled it even tighter in his fist.

She rifled through the second box quickly. He knew she was most likely going to spend the entire day going through every single item, but she was doing a quick inventory sweep beforehand. She pulled out a stack of photos and squealed. "Little Gray-sama is so cute~!" she breathed, turning around the picture to show him.

He nodded. He'd seen the picture a thousand times.

For the next few minutes she went through every picture, giggling and blushing and swooning over the different ages of 'Gray-sama' she saw. But just as he'd expect from his certified stalker and number one fan, it only took a little while for her to notice he was hiding something else.

She looked up from the picture she was holding, her eyebrows pinched as she pointed to his arms behind his back. "What're you holding?"

He was absolutely positive he looked like a deer in the headlights. "Me? Oh, nothing." He pulled out one arm and showed her his empty hand. She frowned further. Crap, she hadn't bought it.

"What is it?" She grinned, setting the stack of pictures down and crawling closer to him.

"Nothing. It's nothing," he reassured her, turning his back as far away from her as possible.

"What is Gray-sama hiding? He doesn't need to be shy!" she squealed. This was some sort of a game to her. He had no idea what she'd do if she found out he'd kept the scarf she'd given him but he was absolutely positive it wouldn't be something he wanted. Why did she have to be so damn observant?

And then she pounced.

For the next few minutes a variable whirl of arms and legs occurred as they both wrestled with one another, Gray trying his absolute best to keep the scarf in his balled up hand away from her. They rolled around on the ground, bumping into dressers and knocking over lamps. And after a few things were frozen, he was hit in the face with a blob of her water, and he received more bruises than he ever had wanted, she somehow managed to get ahold of his hand, ripping the scarf from his grasp and smoothing it out to its full potential.

He cursed to himself as he sat back up, panting and internally flinching for what was to come.

She stared at the scarf in her hands, her eyes widening as she made the connection. Her hands clasped the fabric tight as she looked up to him. He winced.

Her mouth opened slightly, moving around aimlessly as she looked for the words before closing again when she couldn't find them, instead her lips gently curving into a smile. She stared at him then, for how long, he didn't know, an emotion he couldn't exactly place sparking her eyes aglow.

And without a single word she leaned forward, reaching and carefully draping the scarf around his neck. She stayed close for a moment more, that same look in her eyes brightening before she leaned back with a very slight nod.

She turned back to the boxes then, going back to her giggling self as she picked back up the pictures and he stared at her in disbelief.

She hadn't said a single thing. She'd stayed completely quiet. He hadn't even known that silence was within Juvia's repertoire when it came to him, let alone when she found out that the scarf she'd given to him that meant so much to her, apparently meant something special to him as well.

And he felt a smile of his own begin to twitch at his mouth as she dove back into the box's contents like a tornado. That look in her eyes had been something special; something he hadn't seen before and something he truly hoped he'd see again.

Juvia was crazy, and exhausting, and a little too much to handle sometimes, but deep down she was more than just a squealing mess of a girl who was in love with him. She was a woman who enjoyed things, felt emotions to the maximum, and could truly appreciate something, even if it was just the fact that he'd kept a simple scarf, without needing a single word.