it’s (not) lonely at the top (anymore)
Needed to cheer myself up ‘cause I’ve had a bad day, so I wrote a JelRay. Enjoy, guys!
For as long as Jellal can remember, he’s been looking over his shoulder. Guarding his own back, saving himself, leaving others to take the fall as he made his escape, quick and quiet. No one mattered, nothing mattered but getting to the top, changing this rotten system.
No one mattered, until Gray.
Gray is smirks and crooked grins and something too pure for this black world. Gray is hope and light and a promise for the future. Gray is the leader that Jellal could never be – the leader that the revolution needs now more than ever, and Jellal is happy to step down in lieu of him.
Gray is Jellal’s everything; his sun, his moon, his stars. Jellal loves him so much he thinks he might break from the weight of his feelings.
He tells Gray so one night, in the locker rooms after a gruelling sparring practice. Training for the war ahead – the armies of the Magic Council will be no slouch, and they must be prepared.
Gray only laughs, a deep sound that echoes in the cramped space. “That’s love, isn’t it?” he asks, dark eyes dancing merrily. “That unfaltering passion for someone, that feeling of really coming alive when you’re with them.”
Jellal smiles. “You always have the right words.”
“That was from a book I used to love as a kid,” Gray admits sheepishly.
Jellal laughs, and is immediately surprised at how easily the mirth seems to come. It always does, with Gray. “Daybreak, right?” he teases. Gray won’t shut up about that book. He’s always quoting some phrase or the other from it; figures that this one is from it too.
“You know me so well,” Gray says, elbowing him gently. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
It’s a lie, and they both know it. Jellal is the one that can’t find his way without Gray. Gray is ruthless and dangerous and kind and welcoming all at the same time – a deadly combination of it all. He could survive if you left him in the most dangerous jungle for five weeks without food or water; he’d probably come out riding on the back of a tiger or something.
“I know,” Jellal answers softly and kisses Gray.
It’s all he needs, right now. All he needs to survive this harsh and broken world.
All he needs, for now, is the comfort of someone’s loving arms and the promise that he still has something to come home to.
