Sometimes I Don't Mind

Three days after Cana fails the S-Class exam, she shows up in Gray's apartment with a duffle bag in one hand and a bottle of Fireball in the other.

His eyes go real wide and she doesn't know if it's because he's surprised to see her or if it's because she looks like shit.

Her hair is up in a messy bun and she's wearing a shirt that says "Top Bitch" and a pair of teeny, denim shorts. The smarmy grin she has plastered on her face is brittle, uneven. Her shoulders are shaking and she tries to pretend that it's because of the cold and not because she feels as if someone has just emotionally kicked the shit out of her. Her eyes are puffy too and her knuckles are a little raw from all the crying. But it's okay because it's Gray and he never points out these kinds of things, even if he notices them.

That's kind of entire point why she decided to come here. She's not looking for any sympathy or advice. He's absolutely shit at that kind of thing anyway. All she really wants is to not be alone and have some company and he can give her that.

He says something about being happy to know that she's not dead or whatever and she responds by making a comment about his crappy furniture. Then, before he can say anything else, she walks past him and makes a beeline towards Loke's old room.

"Um...what are you doing?" he asks as he follows her. She flops down on the bed, takes a couple of magazines out and tips the rim of the Fireball into her mouth.

"The lease in my dorm is up," she says. It's not actually. But he doesn't need to know that.

"Yeah, so?" he says, still confused.

She looks at him as if he's the dumbest person in the world. He just might be.

She settles back against the bed and declares, "I live here now."

She looks away from him and starts reading her magazine, as if the matter's settled. He just looks at her as if she's crazy. Maybe she is.

"Fine. But you're cooking," he tells her.

"Whatever," she says. She's not meeting his eyes and she knows she's giving herself away.

"Okay," Gray says. His brows are still furrowed in what she knows is concern and he keeps doing that weird, awkward shuffling thing he does whenever he wants to make someone feel better but doesn't really know how.

He fiddles with his necklace and quietly says, "Do you want to—''

"No," she says as she turns away from him.

He stares at her from doorway for a few seconds before turning around and leaving. Three seconds after the door's pushed shut, she sits up, leans forward, presses her palms against her face and finally allows herself to cry.

And look, she's not usually this pathetic, even on a bad day. She failed the exam before and usually, she gets over it after downing five bottles of beer and half a pint of ice cream. But one of the examiners was Gildarts and what was supposed to be her big moment to impress him, ended with her totally sucking and embarrassing herself in front of him. She can't even look him in the eye anymore without feeling like she's somehow disappointed him. He's this insanely powerful, unbeatable mage and his own fucking daughter can't even last five seconds in a fight with him. Every time she thinks about it, she feels like crying or throwing up and all she really wants to do is crawl in a hole somewhere and die.

No, seriously. She's not even being dramatic.

And yes, she's perfectly aware that it's stupid of her to feel this way since he doesn't even know that he's her dad yet. It's not like you can disappoint someone who doesn't even know how much he means to you.

She thinks that she's just finally starting to realize just how much this whole Gildarts thing has fucked her up.

She stops crying at around midnight and after about five minutes of staring at the ceiling, decides that she doesn't want to lie in bed alone. She stands up, moves towards the kitchen and drinks a glass of water. Then, she heads to Gray's room. He's already asleep but she crawls into his bed anyway and buries her face against the pillow.

Honestly, she kind of just needs someone right now.

It takes a while for Gray to notice her presence but when he does, he raises his head and blearily says, "Hey. You okay?"

"Yeah," she mumbles.

She's thankful that Gray knows her well enough to just nod his head and say okay instead of calling her out on the lie.

"Fuck! What the hell, Cana?" Gray screeches. He turns beet red and his hands immediately shoot up to cover his eyes.

She gives him a slightly amused look. "What?"

"What do you mean what? You're fucking naked!" he yells.

She rolls her eyes and puts her hands on her hips. "I'm wearing a towel."

"Yeah but you can't just go around...like that," he mumbles as he takes a step backwards. He's acting as if she's got cooties. It's a little hilarious.

"Like you don't go around flashing your dick to everyone—''

"Hey! That's different and you know it!" he defensively says. He starts blabbering about it being an impulse and how he's made progress with controlling it. She just laughs in his face and shakes her head before heading towards her room and purposely leaving the door half-open.

Living with Gray is making her feel less shitty and she thinks that all she really needs is a couple of days more before she starts being her old self again. He hasn't once asked her about the whole thing too, so she's pretty grateful for that. The last thing she needs is to be reminded about how fucking awful she was during the test or a sermon about how she shouldn't let her worth be defined by a rank.

They're also actually pretty good at this whole roommate thing.

They share all the housework and even though they argue over who gets to clean the bathroom, Gray always ends up doing it anyway. He's not making her pay for half the rent too because he understands that their living situation isn't permanent and that her decision to crash with him was a spur of the moment kind of thing. She pays for the groceries though and does all the cooking because she's not a bitch and she really is grateful for all that he's doing for her.

She's having a lot of fun messing with him too. He likes to act like he's cool shit but it doesn't take much to get him flustered. She leaves her underwear on the couch sometimes because she knows it freaks him out. And she always eats his favorite bag of chips even though he's specifically told her not to. She replaces the pack of course but it's funny watching him bitch to her about not taking his stuff. She also makes him buy her tampons and other weird stuff she's craving on her period. Surprisingly enough, he doesn't find it that embarrassing to buy girl products in public. So you know, plus points for him.

She knows that he's probably still confused why she's being so dramatic over something as stupid as an exam but he hasn't asked for an explanation. That's kind of why she loves him, actually. He can tell when she wants him to bug her about a problem she's having and when she just wants him to leave her alone and pretend like nothing's wrong.

Anyway, she's just finished putting her shirt on when Gray knocks on her door and says, "Yo. Hurry up. We're going to miss the party at the guild."

"What kind of party?" she says. She's still a little iffy about going to the guild because that means she's going to have to pretend that she's okay. She doesn't want them to figure out that she's not either, because Erza has just passed the test and she's not selfish enough to ruin that.

"Going away party," he says.

"For who?"

"Gildarts."

"What?"

"Gildarts. He's going away on a 100-year mission or something. The whole guild is throwing him a party," Gray says.

She steps outside the room, stunned. "100 years? As in he's going to be gone for 100 years?"

"Yeah, I guess so," he shrugs. He's wearing a neat-looking polo and a pair of slacks and it's clear that the party they're throwing is going to be formal. His brows crease when he sees what she's wearing. "Didn't I tell you this?"

She looks at half-eaten container of take-out sloppily lying at the foot of the couch and tries to suppress the...whatever that's attempting to burst from her chest. "Let's ditch the party."

Gray blinks at her in confusion. "What?"

"Let's go somewhere," she says. She attempts to give him another one of her smarmy grins but the corners of her mouth won't go all of the way so she just ends up looking weird.

"Where?" he asks. He's stopped looking at her if she's gone insane and is now acting as if her refusing to go to a party and see her other friends is perfectly normal.

Honest to god, she loves him for that.

She thinks for a second, and then shrugs. "I don't know."

The two of them end up staying in and having a movie marathon. Gray orders pizza and she scores some wine coolers from a nearby convenience store with her fake ID (she started drinking last year so she's used to stuff like this). The movie they're watching right now is a trashy romance movie about a girl who's forbidden to be with this boy. Gray's already drunk as fuck (which is just weak because come on, they drank wine coolers) and she knows that he only drank half as much as he did because romance movies bore him.

Maybe it's the alcohol but she suddenly starts talking about the exam. "Just so you know...I didn't wanna go to the party because of Erza, okay?"

Gray takes a bite out of his pizza and doesn't look at her. "What's Erza got to do with it?"

"Oh stop acting like you don't know," she retorts. Maybe he's just doing it so that she won't feel guilty or whatever.

But she knows that he's aware that part of the reason why she hasn't been going to the guild lately is because of Erza and Mirajane. The two of them are S-class mages now and honestly, she can't be in a room with them for more than five minutes without wanting to punch something.

It's selfish, she knows. But she can't help but feel even more pathetic because she was here in the guild first. And yet, they managed to get so much more farther than her.

"So why didn't you go?" he asks. His voice is slurred and she knows that he's just one more sip away from completely passing out.

"I dunno. Maybe because Gildarts is there or something," she says.

"So what?" he mumbles.

For a second, she's tempted to tell him the real reason why she's upset. He'd understand because he knows what it feels like to lose parents. But then, she decides not to because her situation is a little different. Gildarts isn't dead. He's not even missing. He's literally just right there. Which makes everything more painful, when you think about it. It sounds super corny and lame but nothing hurts more than being so far away from a person who's physically close to you.

"I guess I feel embarrassed," she finally says.

"Because of the test?" he asks.

"Yeah." She looks at the back of her hands, looks at the way her thumb kind of crooks and wonders if Gildart's thumb is also like this. "I just wanted to impress him."

Gray nods in understanding. Suddenly, she's afraid that he's somehow found her out.

He takes one more sip from his wine cooler and says, "Yeah, I get you. Everyone wants to impress Gildarts."

He stays awake for about fifteen minutes more before lying his head on her lap and falling asleep. Midway through the movie, she starts crying because a scene comes up between the father and the daughter and the dad's looking all upset because he feels like his daughter's picking the boy over him. And she ends up hating the girl because the bitch doesn't even know how lucky she is to have a father who loves her enough to never let her go. If she were the girl, she'd pick to be with her dad any day.

She closes her eyes tight, as if that will be enough to make her stop feeling like this. But she can still feel the tears slipping down her cheeks. She stops the movie and switches to a cartoon but it turns out to be about a fish dad who does everything he can to bring his fish son back home. It just makes her feel sad all over again so she turns the TV off and drinks what's left of the wine coolers. She tries to distract herself but all she can think about is how Gildarts is leaving tomorrow and how she's missed her only chance to say goodbye to him and how it won't matter if she passes the S-Class exam in the future because he'll be gone for 100 years and she won't be able to tell him anyway.

All she's ever really wanted was to be good enough to be his daughter.

And apparently, she can't even do that right.

They go and have dinner with Loke one night at this place that sells great ramen. Loke talks about all the girls he's dated over the past week and Gray just sort of nods his head and pretends as if he knows what it's like to actually be in a relationship. Having to hear Loke talk about all of his recent exploits is disgusting but it gets her mind off things and making fun of his lame pick-up lines is pretty fun. So as the two of them are walking home, she's in a bit of a high.

"Red light!"

The two of them stop and she nearly trips and falls face-first on the ground. It's okay though because Gray manages to grab her elbow before she can.

"What the hell? Red light already?" Cana mumbles.

Gray nods his head. "I know. The traffic lights are rigged. The time for the green light is way shorter than the time for the red light."

"Bastards," she says and then, she starts laughing and leaning against his shoulder. Surprisingly, Gray laughs too and doesn't give her another one of his weirded out looks.

"Green light!" she says. The two of them sprint forward and don't stop until the red light comes on.

They continue walking like this until they find a bench and decide to rest. Gray opens up the plastic bag full of their leftovers and takes out a the sushi container. He takes a piece out and pops it into his mouth and she calls him disgusting for using his fingers. Then, she tips her head upwards and looks at the stars, sees how for once, they're all condensed into little clusters instead of just pinpricks.

"I know that constellation," she says, grinning and pointing at a spindly line of stars.

"Yeah? What is it?"

"That's Orion's Belt."

"Doesn't look like a belt. Looks like a line."

"That's 'cause it's not supposed to look exactly like a belt, dumbass."

"Tch. It's the constellation that's dumb," he snorts.

"You're dumb," she snaps back.

A long stretch of silence passes between them.

"Hey," she suddenly says.

"Yeah?"

"Thanks for being my boy, you know?" she tells him. She places her head on his shoulder and kind of curls into him.

He shrugs. "Sure."

He avoids her gaze and starts talking about Natsu and the last fight they had but she's sure that he's only doing that because she's made him feel stuff.

She shows up to the guild one morning and Gray makes a comment about how she's finally stopped acting so weird. She responds by telling him to shut up and he just rolls his eyes and looks away. She manages to talk to Erza and Mira too, without feeling like crap, so she definitely feels like she's making progress. She's not one hundred percent okay yet but she does feel like her life isn't that much of a mess and she's mostly gotten over the whole 100 year mission thing.

Mostly.

(She still feels kind of off, but whatever.)

So to reward herself, she drags Gray to a spa so they can get some massages and maybe even some mani-pedis. Gray complains about it being a waste of time and how there's no way in fucking hell he's going to let anyone put shit on his nails. But he comes along anyway and they spend the next three days getting pampered like royalty. They get massages and Cana even manages to get Gray to join the meditation. Gray acts like a flustered schoolboy when they do the sauna and when she asks him about it, he says that it feels like incest because he sees her as his sister or something. She rolls her eyes because you wouldn't think that he feels that way given how he shows his naked ass to her (and everyone else) ninety-eight percent of the time.

She has a room of her own but she ends up crashing in Gray's room. She didn't mean to start feeling miserable all over again. But while she was having her mud bath, she started thinking about what would've happened if she just grabbed her dick and outright told Gildarts that she's his daughter.

But what if it goes wrong?

What if he doesn't want to be her dad? She's always thought that as long as she gets to tell him, she'll move on with her life and stop obsessing over it. She didn't know much she needed and wanted him to love her back and accept her until she realized that he might not.

She knocks on Gray's door and instead of looking surprised to find her standing there, he just has this resigned look on his face, as if he's finally gotten used to her showing up unannounced in his sleeping place.

She crawls onto one side of his bed and wraps herself with covers. Gray lies down next to her, faces the wall and mumbles, "This is so weird."

And just to mess with him a little, she curls into him and kind of whispers, "No homo."

Gray laughs, which is surprising, because he usually has a humongous stick shoved up his ass.

She has a sneaking suspicion that he just did that because he wants to make her feel better or something.

"Gray..." she says.

She doesn't want to tell him about the whole Gildarts-situation because she knows that he's just going to end up asking questions. But she does want advice and she feels like he's the best person who can help her. Obviously, their situation is different—his dad's dead and he's never going to have a "Dad, I am your son" moment. He's her friend though and she can't really imagine sharing a problem like this with someone else.

"What?"

"Have you ever...wanted to tell someone something but missed the chance to do so?"

He shrugs. "No, not really."

"But if that did happen...what would you do?"

"I dunno. I'd just tell them, I guess."

"But I just told you that you already can't."

"Why?"

"'Cause the person's going away."

"So, I'd make sure to tell them before they go away."

"What if you're scared?"

"Why would I be scared?"

She shrugs. "I don't know. I'm just...scared that he might...I don't know. Reject me."

Gray turns to look at her and knits his brow in confusion. "Wait. Is this about a boy?"

She starts laughing because he looks legit afraid, as if the thought of her asking for love tips seriously freaks him out.

"Not exactly."

"Why couldn't you tell him about...whatever it is that you wanted to tell him?" he says, sounding more alert and interested.

She tries to sound as casual as she possibly can. "I don't know. I just...I mean do you ever get the feeling that you can't be a person's anything unless you're good enough?"

"Good enough for what?"

"Stuff."

He raises his brows. "Is this about exam again?"

"Maybe."

He gives an annoyed sigh and faces the wall. "You know, you should just get the fuck over it."

"Excuse me?" she says because that's literally the rudest thing she has ever heard. And yeah, she knows that Gray's an idiot and he says stupid, insensitive stuff all the time. But she at least thought that he would know her a little better than to drop such an asshole comment towards her.

"I mean, I just don't get why you're so hung up about this. You're..." He trails off, clears his throat and rubs the back of his neck. She tenses slightly, just waiting for him to say something about how she shouldn't let a stupid test invalidate her.

"What?"

He's clearly embarrassed over what he's about to say next because it takes him forever to reply.

"Dude, what? Tell me," she insistently says.

"You're kind of the most amazing person I know," he says and he sounds so sincere that for the first time since she's started battling being miserable, she feels like things are finally starting to look up.

He doesn't say anything more and they spend the rest of the night talking about how annoying their last missions were.

She's halfway asleep when she murmurs, "You really are my best friend."

Gray doesn't say anything back for a long time. And then he goes "yeah" but she's already far too drowsy to really hear it.

She decides to move out a day after their "spa retreat." Erza has finally noticed that she hasn't been living in her dorm for the past few months and she doesn't want anyone to find out that she's been living with Gray. It's going to cause a lot of talk and even though she's feeling better, she doesn't want to have to deal with explaining to people that she and Gray are just friends.

Things have been easier though.

She's gone back to the guild and has taken up a few missions with Erza and Mira. She thinks that she's also come to terms with Gildarts going away on a 100 year mission. She's not stupid enough to think that she's completely okay with it and there will always be a part of her that will hate herself for not being S-Class and telling him when she had the chance. But her chest doesn't do that weird squeezing thing whenever she thinks about it anymore. She's going to have other chances to pass the S-Class exam and even though he'll be gone, there's always mail. The mission is supposed be a secret buts Gildarts is a bigshot mage and he's shit at being conspicuous (whole towns rearrange their fucking roads whenever he arrives). She's sure she'll find out where he is when the time comes.

She's also decided to lay low on the whole S-Class thing for a while. She's probably going to be picked again next year but she doesn't think she'll go through with it. She just needs the time off to rest and train and do stuff that makes her happy. Plus, she's scared for fucking up (yet again) and there are only so many times you can fail before you start feeling like you really do suck.

Anyway, she and Gray are cleaning out her closet. She plans on giving away all the clothes she's brought over to his apartment to charity. And look, it's not as if her time here was completely horrible. Gray's been really nice and he's helped her get through the weird shit she's been feeling. But the whole time she was here, her life was a fucking disaster and she does not want to be reminded of that.

She pulls out a pink shirt from the drawer and she's just about to stuff into the box when Gray says, "Wait."

"What?"

"Don't throw this out."

"Why not?"

He takes the shirt and holds it out for her to see. Her brows knit together in confusion. She doesn't get what's so special about it. It's pretty standard. Yeah, the "Top Bitch" writing is kind of funny but she has way more shirts back at the dorm with funnier sayings.

He shrugs. "Just don't. It's cool."

"It's okay," she says as she grabs it and stuffs it into the box. She gives him a pointed look. "And you already know why I'm throwing all my stuff away."

"Yeah, but..."

"But what?"

"Nothing," he says. He continues to tape the boxes up but his mouth is set into a thin line and his forehead is all scrunched up.

What is up with that shirt?

She fishes it out from the box and examines it, trying to see why Gray is really bent on keeping it. Now that she thinks about it, there's something vaguely familiar about it...

"Oh my god," she says.

He looks up and raises a brow. "Huh?"

"Oh my god," she says again, her mouth curling into a little smirk. "You remembered."

Gray flushes and he immediately avoids her gaze. "Remember what?

Cana pulls the shirt up against her chest. "This is what I wore when I first came here. Holy shit. You're being sentimental."

"The shirt's cool, that's all," he insistently says.

"Shut up. You totally remembered and want me to keep it for sentimental purposes," she says. He shifts in his place and starts taping up the boxes with more force. She just grins because he's such an emotional cripple that he can't even admit that he treasures the time they spent together or whatever.

She feels so sorry for the poor chick who's going to end up falling for him.

"That was months ago," she says. She leans forward and waggles the shirt in front of his face. "How do you even remember?"

"I don't! I just thought that the shirt was nice," he says.

"Since when did you become a fashion expert?"

"Fuck off, Cana," he grumbles as he turns away from her.

"Come on. Just admit it." She triumphantly tilts her chin up. "You want me to keep this shirt because you're going to miss me."

He doesn't say anything for a few seconds and she thinks that maybe he's going to tell her that she's crazy or deny it or something. But then he looks up and shrugs, "Yeah. Maybe I will."

And then, she leans over to hug him because she's going to miss him too and even though she hasn't properly told him yet, she's grateful that he's been so patient with her all throughout her entire crazy girl drama.

"I'm gonna miss you too," she says. She presses her head against his chest and thinks about how lucky she is to have him for her friend.

He runs her fingers across her hair and whispers, "No homo."

And she just laughs and hopes that this doesn't become a thing between the two of them because she meant it as a one-off joke the first time.

Then, she flings one of her panties at his face and he yelps and falls backwards. She spends the rest of the day laughing at him and making fun of his fear of underwear. He retaliates by hiding all of her booze and pretending to be deaf when she starts screaming at him to tell her.

Yup.

She's really going to miss this.

Author's Note: This was a request from tumblr and partially inspired by this prompt I once saw. The prompt goes something along the lines of person A moving out and person B remembering the shirt Person A wore when he/she moved in. Anyway, this isn't as nonsense as I wanted it to be because I started thinking about Cana and how her whole thing with Gildarts was so messed up. If I did the Math right, then she was fifteen years old when he left for his 100-year mission (she was born at X766 and Gildarts left at X781). Could you just imagine how she would've felt? And fifteen is particularly difficult age too. It's that age where your emotions are all mixed up and you start figuring out how sucky the world is. So I could imagine her feeling sad for a very long time. I re-watched the scene where she tells him that she's his daughter and I felt so emotional, like holy cripes, can you imagine how relieved she must've been to finally tell him? And I also think she started drinking early. You do not chug that much alcohol without starting at relatively young age.

Okay, enough of me rambling.

As always, thank you for reading and tell me what you think if you have the time! :)