a/n: Another volley from Mister Monster. This is part of my oneshot anniversary celebration! I've spent four years on fanfiction, whoo!

dedication: To the red ribbon of destiny.

disclaimer: I don't own Fairy Tail.

summary: Nightmares and daydreams. – Lucy/Natsu, Gajeel/Levy, Gray/Juvia, Erza/Jellal.

we see what we want to see

Lucy's favorite fantasy world is the one where she's a princess. A true princess, not just a daughter of a rich man, and a beloved princess. Her mother is alive and smiling at her – her father loves her and shows it. She twirls in beautiful dresses in exotic castles. She eats decadent feasts in golden rooms. She lies in beds softer than clouds.

But her favorite part of the dream is the ball – she's all dressed up and she's nervous. Nervous because this is the dance that is her future. And she walks out onto the dance floor and she ignores the gasps at her beauty for she has eyes only for one man.

They dance. He is an excellent dancer, graceful and strong. His roguish charm won her over from his first words and she can see the hint of dragon in his smile.

She dances with her prince for the rest of eternity.

Lucy comes back to reality when the cart goes over a particularly nasty pothole. Wincing as she rubs the bump on her head, Lucy turns to look at her companion. Natsu is on the bottom of the cart, looking faintly green and scowling even in his sleep.

Lucy smiles and reaches over to ruffle his hair. She may not be a princess, but he's still her prince.

Natsu's fighting monsters and dragons and evil. Every slash of fire sends another one of his enemies to the ground, dead. Every roar brings them down. And the fierce light in his eyes is enough to unnerve them.

But he's still losing.

No matter how many of them he hits and curses and insults, it's still not enough. It'll never be enough, not to catch up to the golden light ahead. They've trapped her and trapped him and he doesn't have enough power to save them both. He can't leave her. He won't.

So he'll die, inch by inch, as an enemy has a lucky shot in a thousand. He'll die until he wakes up, gasping for air.

But he wakes up to her brilliant smile, so it doesn't even matter. Until he feels the roiling motion of the cart and promptly pukes.

Gajeel likes imagining that he's back with Metalicana. It's a silly dream and he hasn't told anyone, but he has this picture in his head. Metalicana is napping in the sun, the brightness reflecting off of iron-gray scales. He's iron to match and also lying in the grass.

But his head is in her lap. He's closing his eyes, and pretending to ignore that she's braiding his hair, and she, in turn, hums a soft, familiar song that drifts in and out of hearing. It's perfect – it's his whole family there in one place and it's enough.

Metalicana cracks open an eye and just looks at him and Gajeel can understand the expression, but she doesn't notice and continues singing her discordant tune, off in her own world.

There's no threat, no mission, no war. Just Gajeel and his two most favorite people in the world and a lazy summer afternoon.

Unfortunately, he can't completely tune out the background noise of the guild and flinches when a barrel goes flying past him. Fairy Tail has started one of their infamous bar fights and he sighs, getting up to leave, but Levy's there, slumped across her notes, incredibly still asleep. Her mess of blue hair is all over the table.

Gajeel's expression softens a bit, but no one catches it and he roughly shakes her awake, ignoring the twist in his gut as Levy blinks at him with sleep-blurred eyes.

It may be Fairy Tail instead of Metalicana and a noisy bar instead of a peaceful hill, but Gajeel can still hear her absentminded humming.

Levy's not trapped. Not fighting, not captured, not tortured. No, she's standing there silently. She wants to move, but she doesn't and the only thing keeping her here is her own will.

He's getting tortured. He's getting every piece of revenge doled out by every person he's ever done harm to. They have the right, they've always had the right, but he fixes his gaze with hers. He stares at her silent and unmoving as he gets everything he's always deserved.

Levy can fight back against them, subdue them. But she won't. Because deep down, there's a part of her that wonders at his dark past, that wonders at all the girls like her, the girls he tortured in Phantom's name.

And a part of her wants revenge.

And she'll stand there for eternity, watching him in pain. She'll stand until she wakes, sick with guilt.

But he's there, giving her that exasperated half-smile. And then a chair hits her in the back.

Juvia has so many fantasies that it's difficult to say which ones she likes more. But there is one that she likes most. It's raining, as it always rains, but this time, she's enjoying it. She's laughing and jumping in puddles and dancing under the downpour.

And he's laughing with her, holding her hands. He's fully clothed – this isn't one of those fantasies – and he sweeps off his jacket to drape around her shoulders. He's looking at her like she's the brightest star in the sky, like for once she is the center of his world.

Juvia comes out of it as a raindrop hits her head. It's soon followed by another, then another and it delves into a full out storm. Juvia extends the umbrella and looks at Gray. He's still asleep, frowning. She smiles and wakes him.

She may not be the center of his world, but he has a smile just for her.

In Gray's nightmares, the world is on fire. He can feel the heat curling around him and he coughs on ash. It's sickening, the warmth, but Gray's thoughts are with another. She's there as well – looking at him with those wide blue eyes as they hold her over a fire. She's screaming as they burn her.

He presses against the metal bars, and ignores his own burning skin. He is an ice mage brought up in winter but she's even worse. She is water made human and she's evaporating into thin air. They are killing her, bit by bit.

He reaches out to take her hand – he doesn't care about signals, about feelings, about how far he's willing to go with this girl. It's a comfort and she's dying.

He'll hold her hands as they dissolve in his. He'll hold them until he wakes up, coughing from the heat.

But she's there, smiling her shy little smile. And then Gray feels the rain on his back.

Jellal has a favorite dream that he pulls out on a rainy day. It's sustained him for months on end, when he was at his lowest. In it, he's cooking – it doesn't matter what, but it's simple and it smells delicious. The smell draws the other inhabitants of the house.

She's the first one down, pressing a kiss to his lips and leaning her head on his shoulder, watching him stir and chop. The others follow quickly – their youngest throws herself on them, grasping on his leg while their oldest perches on top of the table and peers over his shoulder.

They lay out the table for dinner and sit and talk and laugh and eat. It's perfect, it's his family, it's everything Jellal has dreamt of since he was a little boy.

A light snore interrupts his thoughts and he looks to the other end of the room. Erza is sleeping off the effects of a hangover and he knows better than to wake her. But she gets up on her own, scrunching her nose before blinking open her eyes.

He may not have a family, but Erza is enough for him.

Erza dreams of screams, of dying children, of a tower of death. She stands and watches as he's taken away, taken inside – taken from her.

It's the start of everything and it's what she wishes she could change.

She can hear his screams as they try to force him open to the darkest mage who ever lived. As they tear him apart and force someone else inside. As they corrupt him into a liar, a thief, a murderer.

She stands and watches – she is too weak to help, to fight, to do anything but be silent as she watches him turn into a monster.

She's crying as he looks at her with those cold eyes. She's crying as she wakes up, her heart beating fast.

But he's there, smiling softly at her. And then she feels the hangover and hunches over with a splitting headache.

fin

a/n: So, just a look at pairings and what they dream of.