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Chapter Text

The boat ride back from Galuna island was the longest trip Gray had ever known. Lucy and Erza dozed on each other’s shoulders and Natsu hung off the side of the boat, sick as a dog with Happy consoling him quietly.

Deliora. Lyon. Ur.

It was all so much. Too much.

And every time Gray met Natsu’s eyes, there was that look in them that made Gray’s stomach clench.

“How’s dyin’ gonna settle this, Gray?” Natsu had snarled at him, clutching his arm with a desperation Gray had never seen in him before. “’Cause it sounds like you’re runnin’ away, to me.”

And then, because he had been blindsided and impulsive and devastated, Gray had tried it again—had tried to sacrifice himself for the greater good, for Ur, for Lyon. After all, what importance was his life if it meant saving countless others? If it meant being with Ur again? With his mom and dad?

But Natsu had stepped right into the line of fire of Gray’s Iced Shell, square shouldered and a finality in his voice that struck Gray in the chest. “Go ahead and cast your spell. But I’m not movin’.”

Tucked next to a bag of rations in a boat the demons of Galuna island had given them, Gray dropped his head in his hands in shame.

His shoulders hitched against his will, all that emotional crap he was usually so good at smothering dredging right back up again. He was raw and exposed in front of his team, but he was also exhausted and reeling and in this moment he didn’t care.

The boat rocked in the quiet of the night, but not from the waves. A shoulder brushed against his—Gray would know that impossibly warm aura anywhere, like a radiator had plopped right next to him. Gray sniffled and turned his head away, refusing to meet Natsu’s eyes, refusing to see that look again.

But Natsu didn’t say anything. He just shuffled down to lean his head against the ridge of the boat and tried not to lose his stomach again. He just offered Gray closeness, and, for once, Gray didn’t mind the warmth chasing some of the ice in his chest away. Lucy and Erza watched with questions in their eyes, seeming to realize for the first time that they had missed something, but they let it be.

Natsu didn’t speak, but his simple presence next to Gray was worth more than anything he could have said in that moment.

“I’m not movin’.”

… and maybe Gray didn’t want him to.

Gray walked all the way to his brooding cliff, picked out a spot to sit and watch the moon rise, and fished a cigarette from his pocket before he realized he didn’t have a lighter.

“Dammit,” he said under his breath, wiggling his vice in between his fingers. He looked out over Magnolia’s great lake. The Guildhall was off on the other side of the shore, glinting from the monstrous iron rods that had been hammered into its walls. The stars were appearing in the sky as twilight turned to night. The water reminded him of Ur, and his heart ached.

He resigned himself to lying on his back and mulling over Galuna Island. Without a chance to even catch their breath properly (or suffer whatever punishment was waiting for them for taking on an S-Class quest without permission), they had come to see their home had been attacked. All the emotions of the past few days had reached a boiling point in Gray, and he had become quiet as his team got caught up on what had happened.

He had stolen away from Lucy’s apartment when he felt that familiar heaviness settling in his chest like lead again. He just needed a few minutes, and then he’d go back to the “slumber party” they were all required to have since Phantom Lord’s assault on the Guildhall.

He stared at the stars with an unlit cigarette hanging from his teeth, still seeing Deliora, a burning village, and Ur’s final goodbye swathed in icy roses in his mind.

How useless he was. How stupid.

He hadn’t stopped Deliora then, and he was just as worthless on the island. He hadn’t stopped Lyon from going down a path of darkness. He had barely stopped himself from making a decision he couldn’t take back.

Scratch that—Natsu had stopped him from making a decision he couldn’t take back.

‘Pathetic.’

He slung an arm over his eyes with a sigh, listening to the sounds of the night and silently mourning those he would have died to see again, not so long ago. He was used to the cold, but his chest was frigid in a way that chilled him to the bone.

He jolted awake to a voice creeping up to his secret brooding cliff.

When had he dozed off?

“Figured I’d find ya here. We’re supposed to stick together. Erza’s ma—ad.”

Not so secret anymore. If it ever had been. This wasn’t the first time this voice had surprised him here.

Curse dragon noses and their tracking abilities.

Gray tilted his head back to see Natsu with his arms crossed and leaning over him with a small smirk. Gray rolled his eyes with a scowl, teetering the cigarette in his mouth and preparing for the lecture that usually followed the dragonslayer about it.

“They’re so nasty,” Natsu often complained. “I ain’t even the one usin’ it and it’s makin’ my lungs sick.”

But no such lecture came tonight. Instead, Natsu snapped his fingers and his thumb sparked with a tiny flame. Gray’s eyebrows rose, and he offered the cigarette with his lips. Natsu lit the end of it, and Gray finally sat up with a deep drag of it.

Natsu came to stand by his shoulder, hooking his hands behind his head and watching the stars glitter on the lake.

Gray blew out smoke away from Natsu’s direction, but the dragonslayer’s sensitive nose still wrinkled. He drew a knee up and rested his elbow on it. “Thought you were against these,” he said, mainly to break up the silence and the strange prickles in his stomach.

Natsu just shrugged, still staring at the lake. “I ain’t your mom.”

Gray’s heart fell. The wound that was Ur’s passing was raw all over again, too fresh and too heavy and too cold. He took another drag of his cigarette.

“That’s a terrifying thought,” Gray said with a sigh of smoke.

Natsu scoffed, but didn’t retort.

They were silent for a while, just sitting within the peace of the night, watching the city lights glitter in the distance and listening to the crickets in the grass.

The uneasiness in Gray’s gut grew. Natsu wasn’t quiet for no reason.

Eventually, Natsu seemed to have enough of the silence.

“Never really mentioned Leigh-Anne before. Didn’t know you had a brother.”

Ah.

“It’s Lyon. Ur—” he looked away, “My master trained us both. Lyon just… lost his way, after she died. Took it hard.”

“… Looks like he wasn’t the only one.”

Gray glanced back at Natsu. He was staring down at him from the corner of his eye, trying to gauge his reaction. Gray took another drag of his cigarette, maybe to stall, maybe to help relieve the ball of nerves building in his chest.

The new scar on his head pulsed like cruel proof of his shortcomings on the island—and from back when Ur died. It had taken him a long time to come out of his shell at the guild. It had taken even longer to take that hissing ball of hurt and loss within him and put it towards something productive—like making sure Natsu didn’t outpace him in their magic training.

“I ain’t apologizin’,” Natsu blurted, and Gray’s head snapped back up. He was looking out at the lake again, his brows furrowed solemnly. His hands unlocked from behind his head and crossed over his chest, instead.

“… what?”

“Back on the island. I ain’t apologizin’ for…” Natsu glanced away, then. “… for stoppin’ your spell.”

Gray’s lips parted in realization. “…oh.” Shame crept into the back of his neck.

“I know you’re not good with all the touchy-feely crap,” Natsu began to speak quickly, as if he would lose his nerve if he slowed down, “Hell, I ain’t either, but…”

His eyes found Gray’s again, sharp and reptilian, an intensity in them Natsu only reserved for his most passionate battles.

“You even think about doin’ somethin’ like that again, you come to me first, alright?”

Gray’s jaw dropped slightly, and he blinked up at him. “Natsu…”

“Promise me, Gray.” His voice had an undercurrent of hurt in it that Gray had never heard before, and it did something awful to his insides.

Gray could only nod, his heart hammering in his chest.

Natsu’s lip curled into an involuntary snarl, a threat and a plea all at once. “Say it.”

Maybe it was the rawness from everything that had happened. Maybe it was the way Natsu’s green eyes were almost shining in the night. Maybe it was the relief that the ice in his chest was melting in the wake of Natsu’s searing stare, but Gray found himself swallowing down the dryness in his throat and stuttering out—

“Uh—yeah. Yes. I promise.”

Natsu held his gaze for a moment, seemingly searching for something before approving of whatever he saw in Gray’s face with a nod.

“Good,” Natsu sighed, and looked back to the lake. His tone was closer to their usual banter when he added, “Ya break it, and I’ll break you.”

Gray scoffed despite the lump climbing up his throat. He blinked the unbidden stinging in his eyes away and took a final puff of his cigarette before smothering it in the dirt.

“Come back soon. Erza’s gonna kill me if she thinks I flaked on trackin’ ya down.” Natsu began to turn and leave Gray to his brooding again. Or maybe he just knew he needed a moment.

“Natsu,” Gray said lowly, his stomach prickling all over again. Natsu glanced back with an eyebrow cocked. “… Thank you.”

Natsu’s shoulders unwound somewhat, but his face remained steely. He held his gaze for a moment, olive reading midnight blues, before he nodded once and walked away.

Once the prickles in his stomach went away, Gray was left with that dagger of ice stabbing him melting somewhat. It made room for something like fairy wings fluttering in his chest.

Gray ran a hand through his raven hair and flopped back onto the grass to watch the stars, again. Puzzlement surfaced through the shame creeping through his grief.

Ugh. Emotions.

It was strange. He’d known Natsu for years. He was an emotional, loud-mouthed, pyromantic idiot. He drove Gray up the wall on the best days and deserved an icy clobbering on the worst.

So why was this the first time he didn’t want Natsu to leave him alone?

Chapter Text

“Where are they?” Gray demanded the moment he came back to the circle of his guildmates. Fighting the rain woman had taken more out of him than he thought it would have. His side was already forming a large bruise, and small slices from razor sharp wings of water were gouged all over his skin.

Phantom Lord’s guildhall was crumbling into the lake behind Fairy Tail’s smashed home, kneeling like a knight with its top half blown off. Gajeel’s steel rods were still protruding from Fairy Tail’s guild, sinking rubble into cobblestone and jutting up slabs of concrete amid the debris.

Their guildmates were battered and bruised, but everyone seemed to be accounted for.

Almost everyone.

“We’ve found Elfman, Erza and Master,” Mira reported, bandages on her head but eyes alight with authority. “Someone spotted Happy and Lucy in the air. We haven’t seen Natsu since his fight with Gajeel.”

Everyone had seen Natsu’s fight with the iron dragonslayer. Fireworks had exploded above the Phantom Lord’s malfunctioning mobile guild before Gray felt a ripple of magic in the air that he wouldn’t mistake for anything else. Hot, righteous and angry—he knew in an instant it was Natsu.

A final explosion had shaken the ground beneath his feet as he rushed to provide any backup he could, but by the time he reached the guildhall, a triumph had begun buzzing through the air, and he knew that they’d won.

Happy flew into view with an unconscious Lucy, and the guild’s anger swelled at the sight of her. She had been beaten. Gray would never admit to the fire flaring in his belly at the sight of it, but his fury was ill-hidden, and he grit his teeth.

“Who did this to her?” He demanded as she was whisked away to the front of Porlyusica’s queue.

“Don’t worry,” Happy said with a seriousness that was rare for him, “Natsu made sure he got what he deserved.”

“Where is he?”

“Still up there,” Happy’s battered wings opened back up again. “I’m about to go get him. He’s hurt, too.”

Gray’s mouth worked on its own when he blurted, “Take me to him.”

Happy’s eyes widened a little in surprise, but he nodded and grabbed Gray by his shoulders.

Natsu was hurt. Bruises were already forming in stark patches on his ribs, his arms, his face. Purple swelling was blooming along his jaw and up into his hairline on the left side of his face. Blood was coming from his mouth and nose, and his eyes were fluttering. Gray’s feet began running before he was even on the rubble. Distant sounds of the malfunctioning guildhall rumbled his footing, metal scraping metal as the travelling building fell apart.

“Natsu!”

“...’ey… Gray…” He wheezed and held up a limp peace sign with his fingers. “W’ won…”

Gray scanned the area but found no more enemies, beaten or otherwise.

“Looks like Gajeel ran off,” Happy said.

Gray knelt next to Natsu, his hands hovering unsurely. He hadn’t really had a plan, per se, but now that he had laid eyes and seen that Natsu was mostly okay, a deep exhaustion was rooting itself in him.

Natsu blinked blearily and glanced around. “’ere’s Luce…?” he slurred, “She ‘kay…?”

“She will be. She’s with Porlyusica,” Gray nodded. It was then that he saw the blood coming from Natsu’s temple, and his brows furrowed in concern.

“’kay…” he panted and let his head thump back down into the rubble.

“You look like shit,” Gray said, and before he could think, he was helping Natsu sit up, but the dragonslayer just lolled into his shoulder woozily.

“Y-… shit…” Blood dripped into Natsu’s eye, blotting Gray’s shoulder and the bandages there.

“I think he’s got a concussion,” Gray muttered at Happy’s worried look. It wouldn’t be the first time. He squinted to see a nasty slash in his hairline.

Natsu’s brows furrowed in confusion, his eyes not-all-the-way-open. “No… ‘ve got drag’slay magic…”

“Alright,” Gray huffed around the strange concern balling up in his chest, and began to haul him up. “Let’s go, flame brain.”

Natsu hung limply on Gray’s back, his bruised arms over Gray’s shoulders and his slashed legs supported by the ice mage’s arms.

“Stay awake,” Gray said as he picked his way through the rubble.

Natsu grunted with a not-all-the-way-awake noise, and it was then that Gray caught Happy’s confused stare.

“What?”

“Wouldn’t it be easier if I just flew him down?” The cat asked, his wings shuffling behind him.

Gray paused, but then Natsu’s cheek pressed against his neck, gritty and slick with blood, and the ice mage found he didn’t have the heart to let him go.

In his arms, Natsu was safe. So that’s where he’d stay.

Brushing past the confusion at such an absurd notion, Gray dug up his voice from the flutters in his stomach. “You’re tired. I got it from here.”

Happy sighed with a grateful smile. Then, he flew up to land on Gray’s head like he was his personal chauffeur. “Thanks, Gray. It’s nice to be the one carried around for once. You’re the best!”

Gray rolled his eyes with a small smirk. “Y’hear that, Natsu? At least someone appreciates my help. Not all of us can bellyache after gettin’ our asses handed to us.”

“W’mm… Won,” Natsu reiterated with a half-hearted growl that rumbled against Gray’s back.

“Yeah, yeah,” Gray scoffed. He shuffled his cargo into a better hold and started down the destroyed guildhall. From here, he could see his destroyed home, the guildhall reduced to rubble and surrounded by his guildmates. “We won.”

When Gray visited the local hospital-turned-Fairy Tail-infirmary, it was with a piece of strawberry cake, a bag of fire-salt chips, and a mystery novel.

He knocked on the door and entered without waiting for a response, shuffling the bag in his hand and shutting it quietly behind him with his foot.

“Gray,” Erza smiled at him softly. She was sitting up in her bed with her legs crossed and her hair pulled back. She wore her armor, as always, and kept getting chastised by the nurses about it when they came to change her bandages.

The next two beds were Lucy and Natsu’s, who were both asleep in the late-afternoon sunlight filtering through the window. Happy was curled up next to Natsu’s arm and snoozing in a patch of sun.

Bandages were wound around and around Natsu’s head, and Lucy was in a hospital gown with her own mummification of gauze.

“Hey,” Gray said, “How you guys doin’?”

“Well enough,” Erza said, and nodded to the two dozers, “Lucy seems to be coming along fine, and Natsu is more lucid today than he was yesterday.”

Gray nodded as he pulled out the plastic container of strawberry cake with a small smirk. “Thought you guys could use a little pick-me-up. The guild’s already trying to plan how to rebuild the guildhall. You better get back on your feet quick if you don’t want Jet to install a racing track right through the middle of it.”

Erza chuckled; she didn’t bother hiding the way she lit up at the sight of her favorite dessert. “You’re very kind, Gray,” Erza said as she took the cake.

Gray’s eyes darted to Natsu. Guilt wormed into him.

It was true that he had wanted to do something nice for them all while they recovered, but… it hadn’t started out that way. Somehow, he had been less hurt than them and had been shooed out of the infirmary shortly after dropping off Natsu.

Left to his own devices and a strange sense that he was being followed, Gray was wandering the city when he spotted a spicy snack he had seen a certain dragonslayer wolf down many a time. Next thing he knew, he was buying them. It was only after he had the fire-salt chips that he realized it may be weird to only get a gift for the dragonslayer (never mind the fact that it was weird he had bought anything for him at all)… hence the other treats he had brought.

Gray blushed. “Ah, it’s nothin’. Gives coal-for-brains another reason to owe me.”

Erza raised a brow. “Ah, of course.”

“What’s that look for?”

“Nothing,” Erza said coyly, and opened her parcel of cake.

Gray glared suspiciously but placed the book on Lucy’s side table. As he put the chips on Natsu’s table, the crinkle of the bag caused the dragonslayer to stir.

“…’ray?” Natsu groaned and peeled his eyes open. “Wha’do…?” Then Natsu winced at the light hitting his face and turned his face into his pillow. “…no.”

Gray rolled his eyes and lightly tossed the chips onto Natsu’s lap. Happy blinked awake. “Brought you guys a snack. Wanted to make sure you weren’t just lazin’ around.”

At this, Natsu seemed to wake up a little more and stiffly turned back to Gray. His eyes were bleary, not quite focusing as they trailed away from him to another occupant in the room.

“Lucy’s still alright, Natsu,” Erza said without looking up from her cake. “Relax.”

Natsu sighed in relief and leaned back into his pillow, his hand coming to claim the chips.

“How’s the noggin?” Gray asked.

Natsu’s eyes dragged back to him, and his lip turned into something of a pout. “Dumb.”

“Besides that.”

“Ugh,” was all Natsu said with a roll of his eyes. His fingers were clumsy as they fumbled with the chip bag, and when he finally dropped it, Gray reached and opened it for him.

“Por’sica keeps wakin’ me up,” Natsu mumbled grumpily, “Can’t get’ny sleep.”

“She’s just doing her job, Natsu. She says he’ll be off his feet for a day or two more,” Erza said, stabbing a strawberry with her fork. “But that he should be fine. He’s been sensitive to noise, so please try not to get into a spat, you two.”

Natsu busied himself with shoving chips into his mouth, and the smell of the spices on them made Gray’s eyes sting.

“Th’nks,” Natsu said around the crumbs falling from his mouth.

“Sure,” Gray gave a half-shrug.

Happy yawned and gave a mighty stretch. “Yeah, thanks for the ride yesterday, Gray. I think I sprained a wing carrying Lucy’s big butt. It really helped us out!”

“Huh?” Natsu asked, wrist-deep in the chip bag.

“You don’t remember?” Happy asked with a tilt of his head. “Gray came and picked you up. He was super worried about you!”

“I was not!” Gray snapped perhaps too quickly—too loudly—and Natsu winced. “Ah, I mean—I was just—Shut it, cat!”

Happy giggled and his tail swished. Erza stifled a laugh from her bed as Natsu blinked at all of them dumbly, crunching on chips.

Lucy stirred, then, and all sound tapered off. “Gray…?” she whispered. She rubbed her eyes and sat up gingerly. “Hey.”

“Luce,” Natsu said, blinking heavily. “Y’r ‘wake.”

She smiled softly, relieved. “So are you.”

Suddenly very aware that he was standing in between them, Gray cleared his throat and stepped to the foot of their beds, gesturing to Lucy’s side table. “Brought ya somethin’, since I figured you’d get tired of just layin’ here listenin’ to Scorch Mark’s snoring all day.”

Lucy smiled at the book and picked it up excitedly, despite her tired eyes and stiff limbs. “Gray! I’ve been dying to read—”

“Whose sore bark?” Natsu blurted. “The tree…?”

Gray felt his brain misfire as he tried to make sense of that.

“The tree,” Natsu repeated, as if they were idiots. “They still hurt?”

“Ah… go back to sleep, buddy,” Happy chuckled, patting his arm. Natsu looked down at him, slack-jawed, as the dented gears in his brain tried to turn.

“No, I mean,” Natsu shook his head and brought a hand gingerly to the red splotch on the bandages there. He took a breath to gather his sluggish thoughts. “The tree people… The… Levy, and…”

“Oh,” Erza carefully prepped another bite of her cake. “Yes, Natsu. Levy, Jet and Droy are all recovering nicely. They stopped by this morning, remember?”

Natsu stared. “… No.”

Gray’s gut twinged in sympathy. Concussions sucked. He would know. Erza alone had given him enough of them to practically be an expert on them.

“That’s alright. Just rest, Natsu,” Lucy said gently.

“Man, that guy really knocked you out of it,” Gray said, wandering closer to Natsu’s bed again. Just how strong was this “Black Steel Gajeel” if he was enough to put Natsu on his ass? He had won but… it looked like it was just barely.

Anger burned in his belly again at the guild that had endangered his own—at the man that had hurt Levy, Lucy, and Natsu—

When Natsu’s heavy eyes met his, the fury in his stomach gave way to something akin to a cooling breeze. He couldn’t help but smirk sympathetically. “How many lights are even on in there, huh?”

There was a long pause.

“…’nuff to kick y’r ass,” Natsu finally grumbled, but then he titled his bandaged head back into his pillow. All the fight seemed to be draining out of him, his recovering energy reserves trying to pull him back into unconsciousness.

Lucy’s face fell, and she thumbed the corner of her book. “He found me in Phantom Lord’s guild. When he saw what Gajeel did…”

Her lip quivered, and tears welled in her eyes. “Everyone got so hurt… The guildhall is destroyed… This is all my—”

“Now, I didn’t come all the way down here to hear all that,” Gray interrupted not unkindly.

Erza nodded in agreement. “We’ve been over this, Lucy. You can’t blame yourself. You’re one of us, now.”

Lucy began to cry in earnest. “Thank you,” she said, and buried her face in her hands. “I love you guys so much.”

Gray nodded to her though she couldn’t see it.

Natsu’s tired eyes were open again, but they looked past Gray and were fondly landing on Lucy.

Gray hung around until Natsu fell asleep again with one hand still in the chip bag and crumbs littering his chest. Gray quietly moved the bag to the side, gave him one last look over that settled some of the bizarre worry in his gut, and said his goodbyes to Erza and Lucy.

When he asked about Erza’s knowing look again, she simply shrugged and took the last bite of her cake with a smirk.

Natsu’s head was killing him.

Getting walloped by steel rods for arms over and over had “knocked a few screws loose” as Gray had so elegantly described it. Porlyusica’s intervention had kept him from any lasting brain damage, but he was still swimming in the strange haze of a concussion. Once he, Erza and Lucy were finally released from the hospital (as long as they absolutely did not strain themselves in any way), they came to find the construction of the guildhall well under way.

Natsu was shooed away multiple times from helping out, much to his disdain. This was his guildhall, too!

And then the Rune Knights arrived, and the whole guild had been dragged into interrogations. After Natsu’s less-than-coherent recounting of the whole event in which they “kicked Phantom Lord’s ass so hard they’ll be tastin’ his foot for weeks,” and his description of when he “knocked Gajeel down an iron peg,” he was exhausted and finding his vision swimming somewhat.

“You sure you don’t wanna have Porlyusica look at your head one last time?” Happy asked as he flew next to him. They were making their way down the cobblestone streets of Magnolia, drinking in the peace that was finally settling back into the city.

Natsu scoffed. “And have the old hag yell at me again? No, thanks.” Then, he grinned, “Plus, Erza’s not allowed to so much as lay a finger on me ‘till she gives the ‘all clear!’ Next chance I get, I’m gonna jump her,” he cackled.

A sweat drop appeared on Happy’s forehead. “I don’t think that’s gonna go how you want it to…”

As they made their way to Lucy’s apartment, Natsu’s eye caught another apartment building—one he had passed for years, but had never really been in, before.

Trying to dig up memories was like trudging through mud lately, but a nugget from a few nights ago came back to him. His chest twinged with a worry he wasn’t used to feeling for the ice mage. Gray could take care of himself… but he was sulking in a way that wasn’t normal for him—more somber… more lonesome. Galuna was still fresh in Natsu’s mind. He couldn’t help but wonder how Gray was dealing with all of it.

Something in his gut soured at the distant sound of Gray’s desperate voice, his devastated expression, his willingness to just… disappear forever.

He tried to imagine the guildhall without Gray’s stupid smirk at the bar, and he was left with a cold, empty feeling sneaking into him.

“…Natsu?” Happy asked, and Natsu blinked the memories away. “You spaced out there, for a sec. Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah, sorry,” Natsu said distractedly. “I just… Wait out here for a minute, okay? I’ll be right back.”

Happy blinked after him, but Natsu was already approaching the apartment door. Locked. He looked up, saw a few windows, and pursed his lips. He hopped with a small “hup!” and began to scale the wall like an unleashed lizard.

“Natsu, what are you doing?!” Happy exclaimed. “This isn’t Lucy’s apartment! You can’t break into this one!”

“It’s fine,” Natsu grunted. He squinted into one of the windows and saw toys strewn on the floor of a living room. Nope, not that one. He shimmied to the next window, ignoring the small gasps of pedestrians on the street.

A shriek made his ears perk and he locked eyes with a man and woman sitting at their dining table with lunch in between them. He scowled and moved on. Not that one either.

Then, the third window on the right was obscured by drawn curtains, but a little crack in them yielded a glimpse of clothes strewn across the floor. Natsu recognized one of those jackets… most of them, actually. The glass was cold, already fogging up from Natsu just being near it. The scent of pine and fresh snow made his nose twitch.

“Bingo,” he muttered, fiddled with the windowpane until it swiveled open, and dumped himself in. He landed on a heap that had his head protesting with a twist of nausea in his stomach, but he shook it off and scanned the room.

There was a small sofa, a stack of books on the coffee table next to an abandoned mug, and a rug, which puzzled him more than anything else. Maybe because of his concussion. Or maybe because it was weird.

“Since when do Gray’s feet get cold?” He muttered.

There was a kitchen divided from the living room by a counter, and two doors that Natsu assumed were a bed and bath. He lifted his nose and tasted the air.

Maybe his head was still a little loose. He could have sworn that Gray was here—

The bathroom door opened, and the shirtless ice mage froze when he locked eyes with Natsu.

Natsu waved. “Yo.”

“What the hell are you doing here?!” Gray shouted. He looked at the front door, which was still locked with the little chain, and then looked at the window as he pieced something together. “Did you break in?!”

Natsu jammed a thumb towards the window. “It was open.”

“It was not!” Then he raised a fist like he would lunge at the dragonslayer, but his eyes darted to the corner of Natsu’s still-lightly-bandaged head, and he reluctantly lowered his arms.

Natsu shrugged easily and strode further into the room. “Nice place. Could use a fireplace, or somethin’, though.”

It was bare bones. Really bare bones. There was no personality in it at all. No trees growing in it, or anything. Just a picture of some snowy mountains hung above the couch and some cute little weights in the corner. Natsu almost felt bad for him.

“Are you the one that’s been following me all day? Is that how you found out where I live?” Gray asked incredulously.

“I know where everyone lives.”

“… I’m gonna need you to elaborate on that.”

Natsu just shrugged with a smirk.

He looked Gray up and down. He still had a few bruises from the spat on Galuna and then Phantom Lord but otherwise looked fine. Smelled fine, if maybe a little sad.

Natsu would be sad too if he could only lift those pathetic weights.

“I know we show up at Lucy’s as a joke, but this is—"

Natsu wandered around while Gray yapped until his eye caught a jar of candy on his kitchen counter…

…nope. Not candy.

Mints. Gross. Who kept a jar of mints—?

“—hearin’ anything I say, Natsu? Or did you finally melt your eardrums?”

Natsu turned dumbly to Gray, a little slack jawed. “Mints?” He asked with a cocked eyebrow and gestured to the jar.

Gray blinked like he was realizing he was the only sane person in the room. Yeah, right. He had a rug.

Idiot.

“What is happening right now?” Gray asked with his hands to his temples. “Wait, you’re still concussed. Are you confused? Did you actually mean to break into Lucy’s—?”

Natsu rolled his eyes. “Why does everyone keep asking me that?”

Gray paused. “Who’s ‘everyone’?”

“You and Happy.”

Gray’s brows furrowed in confusion, and he went to look out the window.

Natsu heard Happy shout, “Oh! Hi, Gray!” before Gray gave a small, distracted wave back. Gray slowly turned back to Natsu, who was poking a small snow globe on his bookshelf.

His tone became something more guarded. “…What are you doing here, then, Natsu?” He asked.

Natsu met his eyes for a moment. His steely blue gaze was searching Natsu’s face, his hand clenching—nervously?—at his side.

…Gray had a good point.

What was Natsu doing here? He’d never been to Gray’s place before. Not since he had moved out of Fairy Tail’s boy’s dorm a year or so ago.

He thought of Gray’s shoulders hitching on the boat from Galuna Island. Of the way his eyes had been borderline feral when he had been so close to throwing his life away. Twice. Natsu’s chest constricted at the memory.

He’d never had a reason to come before.

He realized he was still staring into Gray’s eyes, and he shook the ache in his heart away. He blamed his concussion. Natsu cleared his throat to try and speak past the sudden tightness there.

“I’m goin’ to Lucy’s. Erza’s headed there, too. Wanna come with?” He asked.

Gray blinked, and his shoulders relaxed a little. “Oh...” He ran his fingers through his hair. “Uh, yeah. Sure.”

“Cool, let’s go,” Natsu said quickly, and headed straight for the window.

“Wait, just use the door—”

Natsu grinned with a foot already hanging out of Gray’s apartment. “Where’s the fun in that?” He asked cheekily before dropping to the cobblestone street below.

“Idiot!” Gray called, and Natsu laughed.

He looked up at the sky; it was clear and beautiful. That’s weird.

He thought he had smelled rain.

Man, he really hated concussions.

When they would arrive at Lucy’s apartment, Natsu would clamber through the window there while Gray shimmied down the fireplace, just to prove how ridiculous Natsu looked. They would enter at the same time to find Erza already there with a cup of tea, and she would chastise them about not using a door, but Lucy would be nowhere in sight.

Then they would find her unsent letters to her mom, and then the note.

“I’m going home,” it would say, and Natsu’s heart would plummet into his stomach.

Back home? To her father who sent a whole guild to attack theirs? Who let her get kidnapped and beaten?

Erza and Gray tensed next to him when they read it, and they all shared the same sentiment.

Over their dead bodies.

And so, they would figure out where the Heartfilia house was and arrive in the beautiful countryside town in time to see Lucy standing in front of an ornate statue—ah, no, it was a grave—at sunset. They’d usher her home—to her real home—and she would assure them that she was always going to come back.

Erza would comment on how beautiful the town Lucy grew up in was, and Lucy would helpfully explain that this was their gardens.

That the Heartfilia estate stretched all the way to the mountains in the distance.

Natsu would pause for a second, assuming his foggy head must have misinterpreted that, but a look to Gray revealed his equally dumbfounded expression.

…

“Holy crap, she’s rich!” Gray would blurt.

“And she acts like it’s nothin’!” Natsu would add. He would bow dramatically to Lucy, and for the first time in days, Gray would laugh. Natsu would pause in his theatrics when the sound made something in his chest thrum, and he would grin ear to ear as Lucy tearfully laughed with him.

And then they would all go back home to Magnolia, and Natsu would blame his concussion for the lightness buzzing in his head at the sight of Gray’s smile.

Chapter Text

“She’s gone.”

“What do you mean ‘She’s gone?’” Natsu demanded. The world was cold. Closing in. An awful panic was rising in him like a tide he couldn't escape. A horrible feeling like the floor was falling out from under him made his stomach shoot into his chest.

‘You should have been there.’

Mirajane and Elfman sobbed and sobbed, inconsolable, unable to scrape themselves together long enough to even say what happened to—

“Where’s Lisanna?!”

Natsu woke up with tears on his cheeks. His heart ached like a phantom pain, a familiar grief dredging back up in him that was still much too raw, even after years of nursing it.

Dreams about Lisanna were rarer, now. It was conflicting. It was as if the memory of her was fading like a photo bleaching in the sun. She didn’t deserve that. She deserved to live on with them, even if it was just in their hearts.

“Happy,” Natsu said without breaking eye contact with the ceiling.

“Mmh…” Happy lifted his head up from Natsu’s chest, blinking the sleep out of his eyes. “Yeah?”

“Let’s go visit Mom today.”

Deep in the woods next to the Fairy Tail guild—not too far from Porlyusica’s den, there was a hutch weaved out of weeds next to an herb garden. In front of it was a gravestone, facing the rising sun so that it could watch each new day arrive.

“Hey, Lis.”

Natsu crouched down before the hand-shaped slab of stone with the Fairy Tail emblem chiseled onto it. It was somewhat weathered, bits of dirt on it that Natsu always took time to wipe off with a thumb. Happy lugged over the bundle of wildflowers they had picked and placed it down.

They stared at Lisanna’s grave for a while. Natsu’s eyes trailed past it, to the hutch they had built together when they were small—impressively so, as it was still standing. Their little ‘house’ had been a refuge many a time, a place to go when Natsu was tired of trying to decipher strange language at the guildhall, and when Lisanna was pushed around by the older kids. Lisanna would tutor him in Fiore’s language, something just different enough than what Igneel had taught him, and Natsu would show Lisanna how to defend herself. Or he’d just get mad and go beat up whoever had made her cry. She had preferred the former, though.

Then Happy had come along, and Lisanna had called them a family, living in their little home, filling it up with warmth and laughter.

Now it was empty.

Natsu crossed his legs and leaned back on his hands in the dewy grass. The morning sun warmed his back like a gentle hug, and he sighed through his nose.

“Let’s see…” Natsu looked up to the clouds through the trees and Happy settled on his lap. “Oh, we got a new recruit. Her name’s Lucy. You’d love her—she’s really weird, too. We took on an S-Class mission and totally kicked butt, even though…”

He trailed off, thinking of Gray, then, and hating the way his heart still ached about it.

He told her about the guildhall getting destroyed, how they fought for Lucy, how they were rebuilding the guild and how it was looking a lot different than the one he and Lisanna had grown up in.

“’S like everyone’s wantin’ to change everything that made the guildhall awesome,” Natsu said. “It ain’t the same, ‘specially not since you’re…”

When Happy glanced up at him sadly, Natsu cleared his throat.

“Anyways, sorry it’s been so long. It’s been nuts.”

“Yep,” Happy giggled quietly, “Ever since Lucy joined, she’s been getting us into all sorts of trouble!”

“Yeah.” Natsu chuckled. “Erza’s still Erza, always runnin’ us ragged and keepin’ us in line. Elfman’s gettin’ a lot stronger, Lis. Still won’t go full beast-mode, but I heard he kicked some serious butt when Phantom Lord was attackin’ us. Mira’s…”

He paused.

“Mira’s doin’ better, I think. Her and Lucy really hit it off. She’s not been so quiet anymore. Romeo’s gettin’ so big; think he’s gonna do fire magic like his pa. That means plenty more snacks for me, heh.”

Natsu scratched Happy behind the ears as he talked.

“Who else…?” He tilted his head. “Oh, Loke hauls ass every time Lucy comes around. It’s kinda funny. No one can figure out why.”

“He looked a little sick to me the other day,” Happy said. “Maybe he doesn’t want Lucy to catch his cold!”

“Maybe…” Natsu shrugged. “Gramps is still harpin’ on us to quit makin’ such a mess of things. I got in trouble for wreckin’ Hargeon again. It’s not my fault Lucy tsunami’d the town! Compared to that, the houses I burnt down on accident were nothing.”

“You would love Lucy’s fishy lady!” Happy was practically drooling. “She looks so tasty.”

“She’s got a crab one, too!” Natsu’s stomach started to rumble. “And a cow. We could have a whole surf n’ turf feast!”

Happy laughed in earnest, and Natsu smiled. Who else would Lis want to hear about?

His smile dimmed. “Gray’s… workin’ through some stuff, I think. Our S-Class mission was a little dicey at the end… someone Gray knew as a kid showed up, and… somethin’ about how his parents died. Messed with his head. He almost—”

‘He almost left us, like you did. He almost died.’

Natsu met Happy’s concerned eyes and backpedaled. “He took it hard. Been keepin’ an eye on him, since I know you’d be all ‘Go ask him what’s bothering him!’ and stuff.”

“Is that why you broke into his place the other day?”

Natsu shrugged.

Natsu filled the silence with little stories from their missions and the goings-on with the guild. They breathed in the summer air, listening to the leaves rustle on the trees and the cicadas buzz in the grass. Surrounded by nature, just as Lisanna and he had loved to be; she would study the animals and try to copy their traits with her magic. He would spring through the trees, sharpen his teeth on sticks or bones, and catch them something to roast for dinner.

His heart grew warm and then frigid in the same breath.

When they stood to leave, Natsu placed a hand on the gravestone.

“Miss you, Lis,” he whispered. “Guild ain’t the same without you.”

Just like it wouldn’t be the same without Gray.

Relief and grief fought for dominance within him, and he swallowed down the lump in his throat. He couldn’t imagine going through all of it again.

Grief was hard, but time marching on indifferently was harder. He couldn’t watch it all happen again.

He wouldn’t be able to stand how it became a little easier to leave the grave each time he came. How names faded from conversation but reminders lingered in siblings, favorite meals that they weren’t here to enjoy, and holidays where their spot in the guild was kept empty.

And now, the guild was rebuilding from scratch. A new era without Lisanna in it.

And almost without Gray.

“Happy,” Natsu said as he stretched. “Wanna make one more pit stop before our job?”

It was strange, constantly urging yourself to get up and yet not doing anything about it.

Gray was still in bed well after the sun rose in the sky. He watched light from the bedroom window travel across the floor for a while, seeing gargantuan demons and his master’s skin freezing and shattering before his eyes—

He took a deep breath to quell the nausea in his stomach.

She was free now. She had fulfilled her duty.

It didn’t do anything to fill the pit of loss within him.

He was no stranger to nightmares, but, ever since Galuna Island, he had become well-acquainted with them again like they were an abusive ex-lover. In the quiet of his bedroom, there was a deceptively comfortable heaviness pressing down on him like a weighted blanket.

“Go ahead and cast your spell, but I’m not movin’.”

Shame creeped up hotly on the back of his neck. How pathetic Gray was. And now, Natsu knew.

His stomach pinched, but not enough to motivate him to drag his ass out of the warmth of his covers. Little things like making food, or bathing, or speaking to anyone seemed as monumental as moving a mountain. He didn’t even have the energy to get up.

So, he didn’t bother.

He just watched the sun move across his carpet and sat with the ache in his heart.

He deserved it. He was weak. Useless.

Eventually, he heard a rattle from his living room. There was a small click and a creaaaak that had Gray stiffening in alarm.

A burglar?

“—won’t take long, Happy, then we’ll meet up with Luce.”

Gray groaned into his pillow.

No. Not a burglar. Just maybe the last person Gray wanted to see… or the one he wanted to see the most?

He didn’t know. He didn’t have the mental bandwidth to deal with it right now.

His annoyance finally pulled him out of bed, his greasy hair mussed and a scowl twisting his lip. He slinked into the living room.

“What are you doing here now?”

Natsu paused in shutting the window carefully behind him. He cocked an eyebrow at Gray and smirked.

“Hello to you, too,” Natsu said.

“How have you not been arrested, yet?” Gray grumbled.

“Says the streaker.”

“I’m not a streaker!”

Natsu smiled so smugly and pointed at Gray’s legs. “Next you’re gonna say your pants are just invisible.”

Gray looked down, and for the first time registered that he was only in his underwear and silver pendant.

‘Dammit!’ He bolted into his room and snatched his black cargo pants up from the floor.

“Do you break into everyone’s house, or just me and Lucy’s?” He snapped as he shoved his foot into a pant leg.

Natsu leaned on the doorway with his arms crossed. Satisfaction glittered in his stupid eyes. “Just you guys, I think.”

“Why?”

“Why not?”

Gray glared when it didn’t look like he’d get a better answer as he zipped himself up. “Well, stop. I don’t wanna have to worry about a pyro busting out my window while I’m tryna enjoy some peace and quiet. I deal with ya enough in the outside world.”

He stalked past Natsu again back into the living room.

Natsu rolled his eyes and turned to follow. “Unclench, ice-prick. Lucy wanted me to tell ya she changed our train to the one at four o’clock. Somethin’ about wantin’ time to go sight-seein’.”

Gray blinked. “The train…?”

“Yeah, for the job?”

Shit. He had forgotten about that. He pressed his palms to his eyes, that heaviness in his chest making him feel like he weighed two tons. He had rent money for the month. Even some extra. He didn’t need to go.

He didn’t have the energy.

“I’m not going,” Gray muttered.

Natsu scowled. “What? We’re a team. We can’t go without you.”

Gray scowled right back, stomping down the flutters trying to come up. “You go with Lucy on your own all the time.”

Natsu’s eyes narrowed. “That’s different.”

“How?”

Natsu huffed in irritation, his lip curling to bare a fang. “’Cause Lucy doesn’t piss me off by skippin’ out on jobs for no reason,” Natsu snapped, though he began to walk dismissively towards the window. “Get ready and c’mon.”

But Gray didn’t have the patience for this. Didn’t have the patience for a job, or being polite, or worrying about the strange knot in his stomach at Natsu’s presence lately.

“Screw you,” Gray said with more harshness than was probably called for, incensed at being ordered around—by Natsu of all people. “You guys are more than enough to handle a couple bandits. Hell, Erza could do it on her own. Ain’t like it’ll make a difference if I’m there or not.”

Natsu’s footsteps paused, and Gray half-expected to be on the receiving end of a fight-igniting punch by the way he tensed up. Gray stiffened, too, clenching his fists and wondering if pummeling the source of his conflicting emotions would help anything. Probably. Maybe.

But Natsu just stood there, taught shouldered and quiet, for once.

There was a small fwip of a paper being shuffled, and then the window opened.

“Train leaves in an hour,” Natsu said, his voice strangely low. Then he braced against the window, preparing to jump out. He turned his head to peer out of the corner of his eye, but he was looking at the floor.

“So be there, okay? ‘Cause I’ll notice if you ain’t. That’s the difference.”

And then Gray was left dumbfounded and alone in his apartment, sitting with a twang in his stomach at those words.

There was a train ticket left on his windowsill. Gray turned it over with his fingers a few times. He tilted his head back with a huff of frustration when guilt coiled up inside of him.

He showered, got dressed, and packed essentials in his backpack.

When Natsu clapped eyes on him at the train station, he lit up, and Gray felt a little lighter.

The job had been way easier than Lucy had talked it up to be. They had incapacitated the two bozos without even breaking a sweat. Natsu wouldn’t stop complaining that he hadn’t even gotten warmed up.

As they walked the tourist city, Gray still couldn’t shake that strange sense that someone was following him. It hadn’t gone away since the battle with Phantom Lord. He decided he must be paranoid after Galuna and worked to relax. It was easier, with Natsu and Happy doing antics, Lucy and Erza chatting and giggling, and taking in the lanterns, oriental statues, and night life on the streets.

They had some money to burn and time to spare, so as a treat, Lucy suggested they go to a spa.

A spa.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Lucy chastised when Gray and Natsu looked very unimpressed. “It’ll be fun!”

“I think it’s a wonderful idea,” Erza smiled. When Lucy beamed and turned around, she gave the boys a look like a reaper warning two souls of their incoming doom. “Behave.”

“Yes, Ma’am,” they both squeaked.

And so, they went to the spa.

They soaked in the hot springs there and Gray made a point to avert his eyes when Natsu abruptly stood up buck naked in the water to wave him over. When Happy asked why his face had gone red, he snapped that the water was too hot for his liking, to which Natsu scoffed.

Back in the common area, Lucy appeared with a green face mask that had Natsu and Happy shrieking that she had been possessed. Erza found some scented lotion she added to her monumental stack of luggage. Happy discovered a sushi bar he convinced Natsu to shell out way too many Jewel at. Gray dragged his feet to his futon, relaxed and clumsy with drowsiness, to take advantage of the others being away and leaving their rooms quiet.

Then the pillow fight started.

That damn pillow fight.

“Oh, come on, I’m tryna sleep here,” Gray grumbled from his futon on the floor. “Why don’t you take your party outside?”

But Natsu just grinned excitedly with pillows tucked under his arms. His scarf was draped loosely on his shoulders over the blue robe the resort had provided them all. “It’s a sleepover! You know what that means, right? Ya gotta bust out your pillow-fu! Or are you too scared?”

“Of you? Yeah, right,” Gray sat up and rolled his eyes.

Then the door dividing their room from the girls’ slid open, and Erza and Lucy appeared in their own robes.

Erza smirked at the challenge with pillows of her own. “My arsenal is equipped with only the most powerful pillows.” She strode into the room to stand between Gray and Natsu.

“’Most powerful’…?” Lucy muttered with a smile.

“Whatever, Erza, you’re goin’ down!” Natsu wound up his arm with a smile like a shark.

Gray huffed in exasperation. Natsu pitched the pillow. Erza sprang out of the way.

“Grow up, you guys—"

Wham!

The pillow clapped Gray’s face like a pan had smacked him. Ignited with fury, he jumped up from his futon, his robe sliding off his shoulder somewhat.

“You’re in for it, now!” He barked. Movement caught his eye to his right, and suddenly he had a plethora of ammo. “Oh! Would ya look at all these pillows?”

Where had they come from? Didn’t matter. Gray cackled and snatched one up from the mountain of puffy pulverizes, ignoring the wet spot on it and taking aim. He fired it right at Natsu’s unprepared face, sending him off his feet with a yelp that made Gray proud. Happy fell over laughing.

“You’re next, Erza!” Gray declared, and shot one at her, too.

She caught it easily with one hand. “Not too shabby.”

Lucy laughed at their antics and rolled up her robe sleeves. “Okay! I guess I’ll join in, too!”

All three of them launched their ammunition at the new challenger, somewhat forgetting their strength—somewhat forgetting hers—and she was sent barreling into a tea table, through the screen doors, and landing on her back outside.

But Natsu, Erza and Gray were already absorbed back in their hurricane of a brawl, and they didn’t notice when she stole away with Happy. The room became obliterated as they turned tea tables on their sides for cover, duck and rolled, army crawled or sprang to do an arial attack.

Natsu and Gray kept up with each other blow for blow, but Erza had yet to be hit, returning their strikes with her own that were aimed painfully true each time.

When another one of Erza’s pillows slammed the air out of Gray’s lungs (seriously, were they stuffed with iron?!), he doubled over. He was wide open.

Unfortunately, a dragon had already locked its sights on him, and Natsu pelted him over and over on the head, sending him rolling.

“Alright, alright!” Gray hollered and scrambled to get behind one of the upturned tea tables. Three pillows were miraculously waiting for him, albeit a little damp. “It’s serious, now!”

The brawl continued on until there was a knock on their door, and Erza instituted a time-out, much to Gray’s disappointment, who was about to wallop a distracted Natsu with a pillow. A very nervous-looking employee of the resort shakily asked if they could try keeping it down, to which Erza vehemently apologized for.

“Ah, no need to apologize,” he said politely, though he kept his forced smile at the state of the room. “Please, let me know if I can be of any service—”

“Actually,” Erza smiled and turned to Gray and Natsu. “How does a drink sound?”

Gray huffed when Natsu beamed excitedly. So much for turning in early.

While Erza ordered sake, Gray urgently grabbed Natsu’s shoulder and turned them both around to have a huddle.

“Listen, man, you know how she gets when she drinks. You really wanna deal with all that?”

Natsu’s eyes glazed over like he was remembering his time in a war, and he shuddered. “Maybe it won’t be so bad this time.”

They each nursed their own bottle of sake, Erza getting a special strawberry variety while Natsu and Gray stuck with whatever was cheapest. Gray preferred vodka, and knew Natsu favored fire whiskey, but it kept in theme with the spa, so they drank sake and talked about all the new features the guildhall would have.

Somehow, they ended up arm wrestling, and somehow that led to Natsu and Gray on their knees while Erza stood with a foot on each of their backs.

“Onwards, noble steeds!” Erza declared with her bottle in one hand and a sword she had summoned in the other. She laughed as it swung much too closely to trimming Gray’s hair. He glared at Natsu, who was pouting, too.

“C’mon, Erza, it’s been way longer than five minutes,” Natsu whined, “You’re heavier than you look.”

Gray’s face turned to horror a second before Natsu’s did in realization.

“Why would you say that?!” Gray hissed.

Natsu didn’t get to respond since Erza stomped his head into the floor, and he twitched there as she hopped down from her steeds. Gray inched away and swiped his bottle up from where he’d left it, innocently sipping from it as Erza ripped Natsu a new one.

She dragged him over by the collar of his robe, his arms crossed as he scooted across the floor with a scowl. They sat in a small circle on some of the pillows and went back to drinking.

When Erza started singing very off-key, Natsu barked a laugh and joined right in, equally off and making up most of the words.

So much for being quiet.

“C’mon, Gray!” Natsu chuckled and nudged his arm with an elbow. “You know this one! Give me a place to neigh, throw all my hay away—!”

“That’s not the words,” Gray laughed. His limbs were light and playful. His head was fuzzy and his body was warm in a way that didn’t make him uncomfortable, for once.

And Natsu’s grin was making his stomach do flips.

With a blush, Gray broke and joined in singing—the correct words—mostly in key. Out of the three, he could carry a tune the easiest, and they followed his lead when he switched songs.

“Hey!” Natsu said after a while, much too loudly and much too happily. His bottle of sake was swinging around a little easier—it was light. Gray glanced down to his own; he had some catching up to do. “We sound good t’gether! We gotta… should start’a band!”

Erza slapped the ground like it was the best idea she’d ever heard. Her bottle was on the floor next to her, tipped over and empty, whispering apologies to Gray as he facepalmed. “Yes, Natsu! What… What shall be our name?”

“’The Two Dunces and Me,’” Gray muttered into his bottle.

“Gray!” Erza gasped. “Tha’s… very wrong! Don’t call yourself a dunce!”

“I wasn’t—”

“Hey, why am I automatically a dunce?” Natsu pouted.

They both stared at Natsu for a moment before their mouths twisted to ineffectually hide their snickers. Their laughs jumpstarted his own, and he sputtered out a “What?”

His head bopped onto Gray’s shoulder when he leaned over to laugh, and he steadied himself there with a hand. Natsu snickered out an apology, his face so close to Gray’s that he could smell the liquor and something like campfire smoke on his breath. Their eyes met, Gray’s face went hot, and he playfully shoved Natsu back off of him with a nervous chuckle.

“Pull it together, flame brain,” he said lightly, but Natsu just leaned over on his other hand as his titters died down.

“This was such a great idea,” Erza giggled, “I’m only sad Lucy left so early. I hope she’s alright.”

Natsu looked around like it was the first time he had realized she was missing. He scratched his head. “Oh… Happy’s with her, I bet. Bet she’s fine.”

His robe slipped from his shoulder to reveal his bicep, his abs, and Gray didn’t realize his eyes were lingering until Natsu looked down and then tilted his head at him curiously.

“What?”

Heat crept up Gray’s neck for some reason. A cord plucked in his stomach at the way Natsu’s olive eyes were staring at him, his lips turned into a small lopsided smile and his cheeks a little flushed from his drink. His robe was slack on his other shoulder like it could slip all the way off at any moment—

“Y-your chest—!” Gray blurted much too loudly, and his eyes widened, “Ah—I mean—the spill. On your chest. The… Your chest.”

He turned away with his mouth agape at himself in horror. ‘What the hell was that? Get it together!’

Natsu looked down to his very clean and chiseled chest and swiped at it clumsily. He slurred, “D’I get it—?”

“Yep!” Gray said without looking and took a big swig of his sake.

Erza was busy looking into her bottle as if it would yield a secret compartment with more strawberry liquor. “Curious. All mine has disappeared.”

“Yeah, a real tragedy,” Gray deadpanned. His back still ached from her foot.

“Damn,” Natsu clicked his tongue like it happens to the best of them. “Sorry, Erza.” He tilted his own bottle all the way back and finished it. Then he peered through it like a telescope. “Hey, look! Mine, too!”

Natsu swung the bottle towards Gray, still pressing an eye to the mouth of it. “Look, Cap’n! Somethin’ sinister be comin’ our way!”

Gray rolled his eyes with an exasperated smirk.

“It’s locked its sights on us!” Natsu bellowed with a grin. “Hoist the sails! Batten down the matches!”

“It’s ‘hatches,’” Gray chuckled.

Natsu swiveled to look at Erza through the bottle. “Oh, no! A volcano! ‘s Mt. Erza! She’s gonna blow, maties—Hey.”

Natsu lowered the bottle with utmost seriousness. “D’y’think if I wanted to, I could eat lava?”

Erza and Gray stared.

“That’s…” Erza paused and tilted her head, “I don’t know. I suppose it is like liquid fire.”

“Next volcano I find, I’m gonna jump in an’ see.”

Gray put a hand on Natsu’s shoulder consolingly. “This’s why you’re the dunce.”

Erza snorted with a laugh.

“You’ll see!” Natsu declared, and batted Gray away. “Whadda you know, freezer burn? You can’t even stand a summer day wi-… without actin’ like you’re gonna melt. You don’t get an opinion on anything fire.”

Gray and Erza collapsed into each other in laughter, drunk and giddy. Natsu’s pouting lip twisted into another smile, and he laughed right along with them, scrunching his nose in a way that made Gray’s heart skip a beat.

Gray pointed at Natsu with a drunk smile.

“Just ‘cause you’re the hot one,” Gray laughed, “Doesn’t mean nosediving into a volcano is a good idea.”

Natsu laughed once, then his smile dimmed a little in confusion. He squinted and tilted his head with a lopsided smirk.

Gray froze.

‘What the hell did you just say?’ screamed in his mind as his face turned into a branding iron on his neck.

Natsu snapped back into a drunken snicker. “Oh, so ’m hot, now, huh?”

Gray shook his head wildly and waved his arms, his bottle sloshing out sake. “That’s not what I—"

Was Gray imagining the blush dusting his cheeks? His stomach flipped.

While Gray was digesting that—What did that mean? What was Natsu thinking?—Erza was very quickly in between them, hooking her arms around their necks and bringing them all together.

“Yes, Gray,” Erza nodded clumsily, “Between your ice and fire, you’re both going to make amazing bodyguards for my singing career. Our band shall be—hic—legendary!”

Natsu and Gray’s eyes met, smushed against Erza’s shoulders. They were both still blushing. They didn’t see the way Erza’s eyes were absolutely sparkling as she bit her lip to hide her smile.

“Well!” Erza pushed them off her unceremoniously, and they tumbled away. “I think we’ve all had a sufficient break.”

She stood unsteadily and snatched up a pillow.

“Wait—!” Natsu searched panickily for ammunition while Gray scrambled to find cover.

“Time in!” Erza announced, and a pillow slammed mercilessly into Natsu, making him roll right into Gray. “I shall conquer you both! No one can stop me!”

“Okay, she’s officially lost it,” Gray huffed. He realized he was lying across Natsu’s stomach, and he locked eyes with him just long enough to see his dumbfounded expression. He quickly jerked off of him, electricity crackling where their skin had touched.

As Erza hurriedly built herself a new fort of defenses, Natsu sat up with another laugh.

“Hey,” he said, rubbing a heavy eye and giving him a crooked, fanged smile. “’M glad you came, Gray. Wouldn’t’na been the same without ya.”

Gray swallowed, his stomach knotting up in wonderfully wrong ways. He rubbed the back of his neck. “Uh, yeah...”

“Now…” Natsu sighed and grabbed a pillow. “I hate to say it, but… we need to put what’s between us aside.”

Gray’s heart hammered in his chest like it had rung a bell of alarm. What? What was between them…?

“We need to join forces to bring Erza down.” Natsu held a hand out with a cocky smirk and a raised brow. “Truce?”

Gray scoffed with a laugh, winded by this drunken roller coaster ride and not knowing if he loved or hated the adrenaline.

What was going on?

Suddenly Gray didn’t really care. He just wanted to enjoy it. How could he not, when Natsu was looking at him like that?

He took Natsu’s hand; it was calloused, and warm, and made fairy feet tickle his heart. He shook it once firmly.

“Truce.” Gray nodded.

“Careful I don’t burn ya,” Natsu gripped his hand a little harder—pulled it a little closer and leaned in with a shit-eating grin. “Since I’m the hot one.”

Gray yanked his hand away and was sure his face was scarlet. “Shut up, pyro! I didn’t mean it like that!”

Natsu grinned a grin that lit up the whole room with a hearty laugh. Then, he clapped Gray on the shoulder before launching himself at Erza. Gray took a deep breath to steady his stuttering heart. He looked at his hand; it was empty and a little too cold, now.

He chased after the trail of warmth Natsu had left behind, and their suite descended back into chaos.

Later, they would hear from Lucy about her encounter with two bozos and then Loke, but she would be in an awful mood for a while after that. Then, they would learn who Loke really was—that Lucy had a new celestial spirit and that Gray’s good friend was actually very different than who he said he was.

They would catch up over a drink and Loke would apologize for hiding who he was. Gray would assure him he understood, that nothing changed their friendship, and they would clap a hand in the other’s before having a quick ‘bro hug.’

Then Loke would offer them tickets to Akane Resort, and Gray didn’t even think of staying behind, this time.

After all, he didn’t want to disappoint Natsu.

Chapter Text

Gray was surprised to find that Akane Resort really was all that it was cracked up to be. The beach had been a blast (even though Gray wasn’t too fond of the heat), and he had even let Natsu and Lucy bury him in sand, which had cooled him off… even with the… additions they had made to his figure. After he had sat up and destroyed his mermaid tail and voluptuous chest, he had shaken all the sand off and chased Natsu across the beach after he stole his trunks.

They had all dressed up for the casino—except for Natsu, who owned maybe three different outfits—and Gray was in a nice red button-up shirt with a navy tie. He played a game at a table with a duchess of some sort; he was just about to get his star to the top of the climbing towers. His cards were good, and he was feeling lucky.

His ears twitched when Natsu’s indignant roar echoed through the casino, and he began berating the giant lottery machine for “acting like it would give him his number.”

“Geez, what sore losers,” he scoffed. He was looking over his shoulder to watch Natsu and Happy’s crocodile tears and didn’t see the fair woman in the sleek blue dress shuffling shyly over.

“Um… Gray, darling…”

His head swiveled around, and he pulled his cards closer to his chest as he took in a woman with pale skin, blue hair and bluer eyes. A golden Fairy Tail pendant the size of his fist hanging around her neck practically blinded him with its shine.

“I’m Juvia…” Her sapphire eyes were glittering. Her hair curled at the ends like the impact at the bottom of a waterfall. “… Do you remember me?”

His eyes widened. He remembered alright. He remembered rain and a hard fight and his friends getting so hurt.

“Yeah!” He tensed and glared. “You’re that chick from Phantom.”

They both glanced over when Natsu started banging on the lottery machine desperately. “Come back, seventeen! I’ll do anything!”

“Ah… Yes…” Juvia cleared her throat nervously. “I mean no ill will, I just… Would you… care for a drink?”

That caught him off guard. She didn’t seem malicious. Just anxious? Gray looked between the crowd gathering around Natsu in curiosity and decided he did not want to be associated with the idiot trying to reason with the machine when a blocky guardsman swaggered up to him.

“Sure,” he shrugged.

They went to the bar further into the casino, ordered drinks, and settled into a tense chit chat.

Gray swallowed down the seething anger at the memory of his guild being attacked—at Lucy being kidnapped—at Natsu getting hurt—and tried to be civil. The rain woman hadn’t been so bad, after all. Even if she packed quite the punch.

“I heard Phantom was disbanded,” he said with a forced sympathy, spinning his wine glass by its neck with a forefinger and thumb. “Had to be tough on you.”

“Yes,” Juvia nodded eagerly, “But now I’m a free wizard, and can join any guild that I want!”

A free wizard. He paused at that and raised a brow at her. The golden Fairy Tail charm around her neck flashed in the casino lights. He couldn’t help but smirk.

“I see,” he said, “And I take it you’re wanting to be a member of Fairy Tail, huh?”

“Oh, yes!” She said with a blush, “Very much so!”

“Ahh… I dunno, after everything that just went down.” When her face fell, he quickly added, “I mean, I personally don’t mind, but who knows what the master’ll say.”

“I promise I’ll do whatever it takes!”

Her enthusiasm made him chuckle. He took a sip of wine as heavy footsteps neared them from behind. “If I were you, I’d be careful about making promises like that.”

“Gray Fullbuster?”

That was the last good memory he would have at Akane Resort, because the moment he turned to see a man with an eyepatch and a metal jaw, everything exploded into chaos.

Literally.

The impact destroyed the bar Gray and Juvia had been at, and as Gray dragged himself from the rubble, he saw her wincing in pain amongst the debris.

“Juvia!” He whirled to the attacker. People were rushing out of the room. Shouts of panic were ringing out. He couldn’t see any of his comrades. He sized up the man who had created an explosion with a look. He was a whole head taller than Gray; broad-shouldered and stout. “What do you think you’re doin’, asshole?” he seethed.

“Where is Erza?”

He blinked. “…Erza?”

“Where is she?” There was an undercurrent of a threat in his voice.

Protectiveness steeled Gray’s nerves. “You think I’d tell you? Huh?” He growled and shifted into a fighting stance.

But tendrils of water suddenly morphed and spun in front of him, and Juvia stood defiantly with her arms out to the sides.

“I won’t allow you to so much as lay a finger on my beloved,” she said with the calmness of an ocean before a storm. “You’ll have to go through me, first.”

Her beloved? He knew she wanted to join the guild, but she didn’t have to lay it on so thick—didn’t have to put herself in harm’s way for him.

“Juvia—” he began.

“Erza needs your help right now,” she said evenly, “I believe she is in grave danger.”

Gray clenched his fists. That knot in his stomach was pulling at him, screaming the same thing Juvia had said. She could look after herself, after all. “You’re right.”

The man with the metal jaw stiffened, then, and put two fingers up to his head the same way Warren did when he used his telepathy. “Ah, so you’ve located her. I see.” His eye shifted back to Gray and Juvia. “I’ll just clean up here, then.”

Then the lights went out, Gray called on his magic, water flooded up his nose, and he was slammed into the ground.

When Lucy found them, Juvia reformed herself just enough to uncover Gray. It was strange, sitting in a casing of water that was actually a person. Like a cloak of invisibility, Juvia had camouflaged them.

“I remember you! You’re one of the Element Four!” Lucy exclaimed, still in her pink cocktail dress, and her hand flew to her keys.

“Lucy, wait! She’s not our enemy anymore… I think.”

“Yes, that’s right. I pulled my precious Gray inside of me to ensure his safety.”

Lucy opened her mouth in confusion, closed it, and then made a face like she was questioning reality. “That’s… weird?”

Juvia was up in an instant with a smug look that Gray couldn’t understand. “Are you jealous that he was inside of me and not you?”

 “Uh… not really,” Lucy said, and then leaned over to cock an eyebrow at Gray.

He just shrugged.

He explained that he had made an ice decoy, that Juvia had protected him, and that the attackers were after Erza.

“I brought my darling Gray into my Water Lock to keep him safe.”

“Yeah, and I couldn’t do anything from in there,” Gray said as he slipped off his button-up. His skin was itchy at having been confined without warning. He undid his tie with a grimace and felt he could breathe easier. “Thanks to you, the creep got away.”

Juvia looked mortified, but Gray just turned to Lucy. “Now what? Do you know where everyone else is?”

“No, I don’t. It’s bad. They took Erza and Happy.”

Gray’s heart fell. “What about—?”

A familiar roar cut him off, and the knot of tension in him loosened just a bit. Fire exploded down the way from the destroyed raffle machine, and Natsu popped up like a dragon bursting from a grave of lottery balls.

“It’s Natsu!” Lucy exclaimed.

Natsu’s fiery roar died off in a breathless cough, and his hands hovered around his smoking mouth. “The ner’e o’ tha’ guy!” He wheezed.

Gray and Lucy ran over. “Natsu!” They called.

“Ah—?” He spun on his heel towards them, olive eyes slits and body tight as a wire. His jaw was slack, and… swollen?

“What happened to you?” Gray asked and immediately stepped closer.

But Natsu was all rage, and a wave of heat kept Gray from getting too close. He spoke oddly, working to be belligerent but also not moving his jaw too much.

“Wha kin’a jer’ shoo’s people in’a mou’f?”

He winced and doubled over with his hands cradling his jaw as he worked it gingerly. “I mea’, someone could ge’ really hurt.”

Lucy deadpanned. “I think that’d kill anyone who wasn’t a weirdo like you.”

“I would have to agree,” Juvia said with a quirked eyebrow.

But Gray’s eyes widened. Someone had shot Natsu? Who? Who would want to—?

Fire tore off of Natsu’s shoulders again and suddenly his jaw seemed fine when he bellowed, “I’ll show that blockhead!”

He ran through them, his head jerking to the right before his feet hurried to catch him. He hauled ass out of the room, fire sparking on his heels. “He’s not gettin’ away with this!”

Gray took off after him. “Follow him!”

“Uh, wait, does he even know where he’s going?!” Lucy called as she and Juvia gave chase.

Gray spared her a smirk. “Trust me. Natsu has a nose for prey that’d put wild animals to shame.”

They alerted the Rune Knights of the possible assailants at the Casino when they came to investigate. They took a small rowboat out and Natsu’s nose led them in the direction Erza had gone between bouts of getting sick.

They made it to what Lucy called the Tower of Heaven and Juvia found an underwater passageway inside.

“Seriously?” Gray said with a raise of his brows. “Way to go.”

“You hear that, Lucy?!” Juvia cackled. “I was just praised by Gray, not you!”

Lucy rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah.”

Natsu tilted his head in curiosity but then knelt down by the edge of the water.

“We can swim there in ten minutes,” Juvia said.

Natsu splashed a hand into the ocean. “We can hold our breath that long, right?”

Gray shrugged. “Prob’ly.”

“Wha—?” Lucy suddenly looked like she was realizing she was the only sane one present. “That’s not humanly possible, you dopes!”

Juvia pulled a sphere of water from the ocean, her expression blank and serious once more. “In that case, I suggest wearing these. It’s a water shell containing oxygen. This way, you can breathe while underwater.”

“Wow, you’re awesome!” Natsu exclaimed. He tilted his head again with a sniff. “…And who’re you, again?”

Juvia looked defeated then with a small exclamation, and Gray just patted Natsu on the shoulder as he readied to jump in the water. “I’ll explain later. She’s an ally.”

To the rest of the team, he said. “Let’s go.”

They swam to the underwater entrance. They fought off goons and eyeless monsters that acted as guard dogs. They came to a room stocked with food and had their fill. Gray dried his pants with the heat radiating off of Natsu while Lucy changed into some dry clothes from Virgo. He nudged Natsu on the arm when he noticed he was clenching his fist so hard his knuckles were white.

“We’re gonna find ‘em,” Gray said lowly.

Natsu nodded, and fire huffed from his nose. “I know. And I’m gonna beat that blockhead into the ground for kidnappin’ Happy.”

Out of nowhere, Erza tore into the room slaying more of the soldiers guarding this strange place.

“Erza!” they shouted.

She stiffened, her face turning to horror at the sight of them. A sense of wrongness twisted in Gray’s stomach.

“It’s you!” She exclaimed. “What are you doing inside the tower?!”

“Looking for you,” Lucy said.

Juvia straightened and put a hand on her chest. “We haven’t met! My name is Juvia and I—”

“Go home.” Erza demanded, and Juvia withered. “This place is far too dangerous.”

Natsu lifted a lip to reveal a fang. He hit a fist into his palm, and flames shot out from the impact. “You’re not gonna scare me into leavin’. I ain’t goin’ anywhere ‘till that blockhead gets a taste of my fist. I’m gonna make him pay for shootin’ me in the mouth.”

“You have to go,” Erza insisted.

“But why?” Lucy asked.

Natsu huffed in frustration. “You’re friends kidnapped Happy! I can’t leave here without him.”

“They got him, too…?” Erza said in confusion. She shook her head. “It must have been Millianna.”

Natsu tensed at the new name. “This means war,” he growled.

Gray crossed his arms. “Just who are you declaring war against? The whole damn tower?”

Natsu took off like a freight train, his nose twitching and leading him in the direction of his partner. “I’m comin’, Happy!”

“Natsu!” Erza called, but he was already gone.

“Of course he’d go chargin’ in like a moron,” Gray scoffed, but worry knotted right back up in his gut. Erza didn’t do ‘afraid.’ It was unnerving.

“Poor Natsu,” Juvia said.

“Let’s go help him!” Lucy exclaimed.

Erza whirled towards them once more and held a sword up in warning, and they all jumped. “No!”

She assured them that Happy would be fine. She told them to leave.

“Don’t be ridiculous! We can help you,” Lucy insisted.

“I don’t want your help. This is my problem; it doesn’t involve you.”

Anger welled up in Gray when Erza began to walk away dismissively. “How can you say that? You saw Natsu; I’d say we’re plenty involved.”

“Erza…” Lucy said, “What’s up with this tower? Who is this ‘Jellal’ guy?”

When she didn’t answer, Lucy lowered her head and spoke to Erza’s back. “I can understand if you don’t want to tell us… You said the creeps who kidnapped you used to be your friends, right…? Well, we’re your friends now, and we’re here to help you.”

She clenched her fists in determination. Gave Erza a confident smile. “And no matter what happens, we’re always gonna have your back!”

Gray found himself smirking in pride when Juvia looked in awe as if she were realizing the depths of the bonds around her.

“She’s right,” Gray added.

“… Leave,” Erza said, but her voice was wavering, and her fists were gripping her swords so hard Gray wondered if the hilts would snap.

“You’re freakin’ me out, ‘cause this isn’t like you at all,” Gray said lowly. “What happened to the woman who’d tell us to shut up and come along whether we wanted to or not? We want to stay here and help you out. Master taught us that even the strongest warriors need backup sometimes.”

Erza finally turned, and there were tears in one of her eyes.

Gray’s hand flew to his chest like he could catch his plummeting heart.

“I’m sorry… but you can’t help me. Win or lose this battle, I’m staring death in the face.”

Then Erza told the story of her horrific childhood. Moments from when they were kids finally clicked into place. Why Erza was always on her own. Why it had taken her so long to come out of her shell.

This was bad. The tower was bad.

And Natsu had just charged right into it on his own.

Things went from bad to worse. Sho had appeared, gotten Erza to lower her guard, and somehow trapped her in a damn card. Lucy and Juvia got separated from him, and now Gray was tearing through the tower in hopes to find anyone to rally up with.

All he could think about was Erza, and how thin she’d been when she got to the guild. Missing an eye. Flinching at the smallest movements towards her.

Cana had done a card reading and told him that morning it had been his lucky day—he wouldn’t understand why until years later.

He came to a room full of… gargantuan bird cages, saw Simon and Happy and… a bird… man? He had a huge body, the head of an owl, and… a jet pack…? And… sneakers…?

Gray dropped down a few cages to land near Simon. At least Happy was with them, now.

“What the hell is that thing…?” He asked. His eyes widened when he saw two familiar legs writhing from the bird-man’s beak. “And what the hell is it doing to Natsu?!”

GULP.

“He swallowed him whole?!” Happy exclaimed in terror.

“How fortunate that this tasty prey is also spicy!” The bird man chortled.

Happy took to the air with tears in his eyes. “Give him back to me, now!”

The owl man’s eyes glinted like a demon’s in the dungeon light. His chest puffed out in an inhale Gray had seen many a time. His eyes widened. Gray lunged.

A torrent of fire decimated one of the rusty cages, and Gray grabbed what was left of its giant chain with a toasty Happy in his other arm.

“Yep…” He winced. “That’s Natsu’s fire, alright.”

Happy lifted his scorched head. “G-gray…”

Anger bubbled up in Gray. He whipped his head to Simon, who was still standing uselessly. “Hey, you! I thought you were gonna catch that ‘Sho’ guy and rescue Erza!”

“That’s where I was headed before this thing showed up!”

“We don’t have time to mess with this freak. We gotta find her!” He jumped down to the platform of another cage, landing with loud tang of metal under his shoes with Happy cradled in his arms.

“Because if we don’t…” He placed Happy down gently and ran a hand over his little ear. “… she could end up as a sacrifice for Jellal. We can’t let that happen.”

Happy’s teary eyes—one was swelling shut—looked up pitifully at Gray. His head wobbled on his neck. Gray’s heart twisted. How could he have let Happy take such a hit?

“So go after your psycho friend and get her back,” Gray seethed to Simon.

“Gray…” Happy whimpered. He looked down in concern. “Please… save him… Natsu needs you…”

Gray grit his teeth and stood up. Simon couldn’t go if this bird freak was in the way. And they couldn’t leave Natsu. “When are you gonna learn to stay out of trouble…?”

That worry knotting up in his stomach turned to a flame Natsu would have been proud of. “You hear me, Natsu?!” He whirled towards the bird-man, and his stomach jerked like Natsu was throwing a fit inside.

“I’m gonna kick this guy’s ass, and then we’re gonna go find Erza!” He bellowed and readied his ice magic. Tears pricked in his eyes.

“How come you’re alone all the time?” Gray had asked when they were kids.

Her armor had glinted in the setting sun’s light. “I just prefer to be alone… I get nervous around other people.”

“Oh, yeah?” Gray had said, his face scarlet but his resolve firm. “Well… you’re alone now, so why’re you cryin’?”

And then… she hadn’t been so alone after that. They had become close. And then Natsu had come, and the three of them forged a bond nothing could break.

They had just been together, drinking and roughhousing in a spa of all places. Had that been the last time they would have together? The last time they’d laugh together? Feel each other’s warmth and love?

No. It couldn’t be. It wouldn’t be.

Gray called on his magic and launched himself forward with blades made of ice. A well-placed kick from the bird made something in his arm crack. Torrents of fire singed his pants and his hair, and burns began to wind up hotly on his torso and arms.

But he beat the owl man.

He shredded him with swords of ice and a final blow knocked Natsu clear out of his gullet. He caught Natsu with a broken arm and lowered him down. He was unconscious. He pressed an ear to his chest as Happy came up in tears and heard that stubborn heartbeat.

He sighed in relief.

“She kept her heart shielded in armor, because that was the only way she thought she could keep it from breaking again. But it didn’t stop the pain.”

He stood and locked eyes with Simon.

“I hope she knows that we’re better than any armor. With us around… she’ll never cry again.”

But then his knees went weak, and everything went black after that.

“Turn this boat around right now,” Gray grunted out. The Tower of Heaven inched away from them as the boat rowed away. Sho, Millianna, Wally, Lucy, Juvia and Happy were with him, all running away while Natsu, Simon and Erza were still in the wretched place.

“Erza said we need to get as far from the tower as possible,” the cat girl, Millianna said.

“But now she and Natsu have no way to leave!” Lucy argued. “They’re stuck.”

“They’ll be fine,” Sho said dismissively.

“He can’t do it alone. Natsu needs me there to back him up,” Gray said, and moved to stand, but his ribs—his arms—his whole body protested.

“Forgetta’bout it,” Wally said, “Simon’s with him so I’m sure it’ll work out just dandy.”

“It’s not gonna be ‘dandy’ if they wind up dead,” Lucy snapped.

“You don’t have to yell like that,” Millianna whimpered.

“We shouldn’t be fighting, you guys,” Sho said.

But Gray couldn’t stand the thought of them on their own, wondering why they’d been abandoned, wondering where help was.

Natsu had been there for him on Galuna Island. And now, where was Gray?

Running away.

Gray snarled. “Shut your trap and take me back to the shore right now! I’m going back for them!”

“I’m with him,” Lucy said, “Turn the boat around right now!”

“I told ya that ain’t happenin’!” Wally snapped back.

“Shut up!” Happy jumped up and shouted. They all jerked their eyes to him in shock. “Quit yellin’ at each other and get along!”

He sniffled, but he kept going. “I wanna go back for them, too, but we can’t—” He pointed up to the geometric patterns in the sky—taking aim right at the tower. “—because the Etherion’s gonna blast that place any minute now!”

There were tears in his eyes as he clenched his tiny paws at his side. “Natsu’s gonna save Erza and they’re gonna make it out of there alive!”

They all stared in stunned silence. Gray looked down in shame. His eyes trailed back to the tower as it receded away from them.

‘I’m trusting you,’ he thought, ‘Don’t you dare die.’

They would make it a long way from the tower. Night would fall, and a bright light in the sky would illuminate everything.

The Etherion Cannon would fire, and they would all scream for Erza and Natsu.

A giant Lacrima tower would be revealed. They would all watch, holding their breath for any sign of their friends.

A fiery explosion would eventually light up the top of the tower, and Gray’s knees would grow weak with relief.

Still alive. They were still alive.

For now.

“You made Erza cry!”

Natsu grabbed Jellal by the jaw and slammed him through a Lacrima floor as hard as diamond. Power thrummed in his veins, something bigger than himself trying to get out. His skin rippled and armored himself in half-formed scales. His eyes were alight with neon blue, the very same color dribbling from his lip and before catching fire.

Magic ripped him apart and put him pack together in the same breath, atoms colliding and ricocheting in ways it was always never meant to. It fueled his anger, turning it into strength, turning him into something monstrous. The tower seemed to roar and tremble right along with him as his body pulsed with its essence.

Ashes and magic were on his tongue. He breathed in air and breathed out neon blue hellfire.

For the first time, he felt hate.

“Hurt her again and I’ll kill you!”

Natsu forced his eyes open when a horrible sense of wrongness flooded him at the sound of Erza’s pained cry.

His hazy brain couldn’t make sense of all the blue around him until jagged edges dug into his skin beneath him. He blinked to clear up his swimmy vision, his body pulsing in time with the rumblings all around him.

It all came flooding back. The Tower of Heaven. Eating ethernano. Feeling it ignite his insides and then mix with something previously dormant in him.

The fight with Jellal. Collapsing into the arms of—

Erza.

He could smell her. He heard her quiet, pained grunts.

He dragged his eyes over and his mind tripped on the sight of her arm being sucked into gelatinous ethernano.

‘Wait… What?’

His arms burned with the effort to push himself up; his head spun as he got to his knees unsteadily.

“E-Erza?” He croaked, his throat raw along with everything else. His body felt burnt from the inside, ripped apart and soldered back together. His muscles trembled like they would unravel at a moment’s notice. Something in his mind whispered that he had felt like this in a dream before, but it didn’t matter, because—

Erza jumped at the sound of his voice, and her horrified expression revealed itself when she whipped her head to look at him with wide eyes.

“Natsu—!”

“H-hey…” Natsu managed, his heart sinking as the sense of wrongness in the air grew. “I don’… don’t get it… What’re you doing…?”

Erza’s arm sunk deeper into the ethernano, but it looked like she…

His voice was much too close to a whimper when he asked, “Are you… try’na to go back inside that thing?”

After he had already pulled her out? After he had beaten Jellal? After they had won?

“I don’t have a choice—it’s the only way I’ll be able to stop it.” The panic in her eyes was mounting his own.

“What are you talkin’ about? Stop what?”

The shaky tower of crystallized ethernano shuddered, and chunks of it rained down around them. Something foreign yet familiar in Natsu’s veins simmered as light pulsed in all of the gemstones—a warning.

A countdown.

It was going to blow.

“Now you see,” Erza said as Natsu craned his head to watch cracks spiderwebbing all around them. “It’s the ethernano. If it continues to gain power, the Lacrima won’t be able to contain it, and the whole place will explode.”

She winced before adding, “Nnngh—But if I fuse my body with the magic energy, I think I can prevent that from happening.”

Natsu stared dumbly for a second as his exhausted brain digested what she was saying.

Fuse her body with…?

Panic sunk its teeth into Natsu, relentless and visceral. “I’m not gonna let you do that! There’s gotta be another way to stop it!”

But the tower began to pull Erza in, and she cried out in pain even as she allowed it to do so.

“Erza!” Natsu scrambled forward on limbs numb with exhaustion, but his feet wouldn’t work, and he couldn’t stand up. He could only stumble towards her and collapsed just in front of the giant stone taking Erza.

“I-I… I promise I’ll stop it,” she grunted out, “There’s no need to worry. I’m determined to save all of you!”

“No!” Natsu shouted desperately.

Gray’s enraged eyes flashed in Natsu’s mind; his ragged voice, his trembling hands. Pushed into a corner he couldn’t see a way out of. “I’m ready to die if that’s what I gotta do!”

Except there had been a way out. Because Natsu had been there.

“Don’t do it,” Natsu pleaded, and dragged himself closer. Black was edging into his vision. His muscles spasmed but wouldn’t lift him. He couldn’t move.

Erza’s eyes crinkled with hurt, and there was an awful resignation that didn’t belong in her eyes.

“I have to,” she whispered, and Natsu’s heart broke.

Her free hand came to cradle Natsu’s cheek even as he stared, slack-jawed and devastated and useless.

“I can’t even imagine what my life would’ve been like without Fairy Tail,” Erza said with the tenderness of a big sister. “If it weren’t for you and the others, I probably wouldn't be here today.”

Her voice became choked, then. “I hope you know… how important you all are to me. I care for you so much.”

“…Erza…”

She let him go. Her hand gently came away from Natsu’s face, and his cheek was cold.

His breath hitched minutely as she pulled away, disbelief stealing the air from his lungs at her absence.

“That’s why I’m willing to make the ultimate sacrifice. If it means my loved ones will be spared, I’ll gladly give my life—” Her face sunk into the Lacrima, sealing her from the outside world—from Natsu. “—so that you may live!”

This was happening.

His sister was going to—

Just like Gray had almost—

Just like Lisanna had—

Panic and adrenaline finally got his body working again. Natsu’s fists struck the Lacrima like two pebbles trying to break apart a mountain.

“No! No way! Come out of there right now!”

He hit it again and again and again, breaking bones, sending blood spraying from his knuckles, but he didn’t care.

He had saved her. They were supposed to go home together.

“You can’t leave us! NO! Plea—” His own desperate sob interrupted him, and spittle flew from his mouth. “Please!”

She drifted further into the Lacrima as if she were simply sinking into the sea, submerged by the blue around her and taken captive by the Tower that had once kept her a slave. Natsu was weeping, unable to see anymore and unable to regain his composure.

His sister—his sister—

That familiar foreign simmering in Natsu’s veins turned to a boil. His body coiled and his muscles thrummed with the last dregs of power the ethernano had given him. The tower, packed full of the same magic churning in Natsu, lit up at the same time his heart ignited in pain like a chemical fire was enveloping it.

White burned everything away as Natsu roared in grief. In defiance.

In demand.

“Erzaaaa!”

His fists slammed into the Lacrima.

The Tower of Heaven cracked.

Waves rushing quietly over sand reached Natsu’s ears. His feet numbly took him closer towards the shore, and he had the distinct feeling of waking up when Erza stirred in his arms. He couldn’t remember anything past reaching into molten ethernano and grasping Erza’s arm like a lifeline.

That was fine. They were out of the tower. That’s all that mattered.

Not that the tower was even there anymore.

“…Where am I?” Erza breathed, her eyes blinking away fatigue. She reeked of etheranano—they both did—and Natsu’s stomach began to turn as he was reminded of its presence squirming in his blood. Thrumming like a separate heartbeat inside of him. Melding and unmelding; belonging and not. Rejecting him and yet keeping him intact.

Natsu’s ears heard his friends as if they were in a distant cave. He could just make out blurry shapes of color running towards them in the water, illuminated by moonlight.

Erza spotted them, too, her head lolling dizzily. “But… this doesn’t make any sense… I’m still alive…?”

She jolted in his arms as she came back into her own, registering at once who was holding her. “Natsu…!”

The simple breath carrying his name buckled his knees, and he collapsed onto them in the shallow waves.

“I feel the same way you do…” he heard himself say lowly, avoiding her eyes for if he met them he may have lost his nerve. “And I know everyone else does, too.”

“I wouldn’t be here without you all,” he whispered, but his mouth was numb. “I can’t imagine a life without… without—”

Without Erza. Without Gray.

He shook his head and flung tears into the ocean.

Without Lisanna.

The wound that was his best friend’s passing threatened to rip him right down the middle; he had stopped it from growing twice, now.

Because this time, he had been there.

 He opened his mouth, closed it, and then spoke with the voice of someone who had almost broken over losing one person too many. “Promise me you won’t do something like that again.”

“… I won’t—”

“Promise!” He sobbed, lurching forward and catching himself on his knees. Tears were streaming down his face from his screwed-shut eyes. He grit his teeth as hard as he could, his shoulders shaking, his adrenaline giving way to the relief and the grief of what hadn’t happened—what almost had.

Again.

Erza’s hand came to his cheek and wiped some of his tears away with a thumb. She pressed her forehead to his.

Alive. She was alive.

“I promise,” she said, and for the first time, tears pooled into her artificial eye. “Thank you, Natsu.”

Natsu hiccupped around another sob, and as Erza stood to reunite with her friends—her family—he had to turn away.

Chapter Text

When the Tower of Heaven exploded, Gray fell to his knees in Juvia’s sphere of water as Lucy shrieked in horror next to him. Instead of the vaporizing explosion they all had braced themselves to meet their makers in, a gigantic pyre of energy had careened into the sky, lighting up the night like it was day and leaving white spots in Gray’s vision.

Their boat was long gone; without Juvia, they would have all drowned. The waves rocked them, slamming them into each other in Juvia’s spherical water lock while she worked to keep it steady. Gray cried out when Sho accidentally fell into him and jarred his injured arm, but when Lucy clung to him, panicked and crying, he latched onto her to keep them both from jolting around.

Gray’s mind screamed that no one could have survived the tower’s implosion even as he worked to stamp it down. Natsu and Erza couldn’t be—

They couldn’t—

“Go, Juvia!” Gray yelled. She nodded and suddenly their ball of water was surging over the waves, sending Gray’s stomach into his chest as they rode the ocean’s turbulence towards the rumbling, glowing debris of the tower.

Magic radiated in hot, stinging waves, invisible to the eye but crackling across Gray’s skin. Raw ethernano hung in the air like ashes, glittering and sizzling as it met Juvia’s water lock.

“We can’t get too close,” Juvia yelled over the tumultuous waves. “We don’t know what the exposure would do to—”

“I don’t care!” Gray snarled, whipping his head to her for only a moment before his eyes went back to the missing tower, to the rubble and water his closest friends could be trapped under. “Get me over there! We have to help them!”

Her eyes widened at his ferocity, but she nodded and pushed them onward. Millianna and Sho were crying against each other as Wally tried to calm them. Lucy held an inconsolable Happy in her arms. Gray pressed himself against the barrier of water, trying to peek over waves, searching for red or pink hair, fire or the glint of a sword—anything, any sign.

“C’mon…” His voice wavered under his breath. He clenched his fists and refused to acknowledge the iceberg sinking into his gut. “Please… please…”

Something twinkled out of the corner of his eye, and he jerked his head to the side.

Neon blue sparkled in the distance—far into the distance—back towards Akane.

Gray would never know how, but he knew. He knew like he knew the sky was blue, like he knew fire was hot and ice was cold, like he knew that—

“That’s them!” He jabbed a finger in the direction of the shore. “Go!”

Lucy squinted. “Are—are you sure?”

Gray nodded, his knees shaking, his breath coming in halting pants. He slapped the sphere of water as if he could jumpstart it into turning. “That’s them! Go, Juvia, go!”

Juvia veered the sphere so that it was cutting through the waves, her arms trembling as they rocketed towards the shore. Gray breathed but his lungs were full of all the things he didn’t want to think about—like how intact they were, like if he was wrong, like if they didn’t make it in time.

As they grew closer, Gray saw red and pink, and he huffed out a choked cry of relief.

“It’s them!” Happy sobbed. “They’re alive!”

Soon the ocean became shallow, and Juvia’s water lock folded back into her body as she panted out an exhausted apology. Fatigued and sore, all of them began sprinting in the small waves, dragging their feet through sand and swinging their arms to throw themselves forward as fast as they could.

“Natsu!” Gray hollered, his throat raw and his voice rickety, “Erza!”

Erza was in Natsu’s arms, and her head lolled in their direction. Natsu fell to his knees. Gray pumped his screaming legs, waterlogged and heavy but tearing through this final obstacle to his friends. Gray heard Natsu cry out from the water, and he pushed himself harder. How hurt were they?

Erza pressed her forehead to Natsu as they came closer and then stood on shaky legs to greet them.

She was crying.

She was alive.

They all fell into her, Gray clenching his jaw and blinking tears from his eyes.

“Erza,” he managed, and she huffed out a relieved, tearful laugh.

“You’re okay,” Lucy cried. Gray looked over Erza’s shoulder as he let her go into the arms of Sho, Millianna and Wally.

He didn’t miss the way Natsu stood shakily and turned away, splashing water quietly as he unsuccessfully hid his tears. Gray looked between them, at Erza’s tired and ashamed face, at Natsu’s devasted one. Worry pooled all over again within him.

What had happened in the tower?

Gray sloshed through the shallow water, churning sand under his feet to stand next to Natsu.

“Talk about cutting it close, huh?” Gray said with a mostly even voice.

Natsu’s head jerked away, and he quickly used the back of his arm to wipe his eyes. His hands were obliterated; his knuckles were bloody and swollen, purple already staining them in awful splotches. Gray raised a hand to place it on Natsu’s trembling shoulder, but he hesitated and lowered it again.

“Hey…” he said instead, “You okay?”

Natsu sniffled and wiped at his face again. He swallowed thickly and shook his head.

“M’fine,” he said, but his voice seemed like it was barely hanging on to sound. Gray knew Natsu wasn’t a liar, but he also knew that wasn’t the truth. “Erza’s… she’s alive. Tha’s all that matters… Sh-… She’s—”

Natsu pitched forward, and Gray was there to catch him—he looped an arm under Natsu’s and used his injured one to support his chest. The overwhelming smell of ozone and burnt blood made him cringe. Natsu’s head wobbled on his neck, almost lolling into Gray’s shoulder before righting himself. His knees fought to hold himself up in the shallow waves, trembling like two twigs about to snap. His eyes were fluttering, his olive irises flecked with shards of neon blue that did not belong there.

“What the hell happened?” Gray asked. Happy hovered next to them with wide, alarmed eyes.

“The ethernano,” Erza wheezed as Lucy and Milliana helped her stand in the water. “He ate it. It should have been poison to him. He… he used it to defeat Jellal. I don’t know how he’s even still…”

Gray’s head whipped back to Natsu in alarm. He was pale. Now that he was looking for it, there were chips of blue on his draconic teeth like bits of radioactive candy. His veins were dull blue lightning bolts under his skin.

“Dammit,” Gray hissed. Concern knotted itself right back up in his stomach. “Leave it to you to eat concentrated magic like a dumbass.”

“Worked, didn’t it…?” Natsu panted with a smirk, even as he fought to keep his glassy eyes open.

“You didn’t know it would.”

His head bobbed again before he forced it back up. “…was dead either way,” Natsu slurred.

Gray’s heart plummeted at that, and he glanced back at Erza. She was hiding behind her hand, wiping away tears and trying not to lose her composure as Sho cried into her shoulder.

“Come,” Juvia said gently, and placed a hand on Gray’s shoulder. “We should get them back to the resort. They can get medical treatment there.”

“Right.” Gray grunted as he hauled a waterlogged Natsu up onto his back.

He muttered an apology when Natsu gasped in pain at being jolted around. Lucy hissed through her teeth at the sight of his hands as blood dripped from his fingers. Small, fleshy craters of red and purple were where his knuckles should have been, and Gray tried not to wonder if what he saw in his shredded skin was bone or not. Lucy used a scrap of fabric to gingerly wind around his knuckles as they trudged towards the shore.

“Your hands are broken, Natsu,” Lucy whispered to him, but he just hummed noncommittally against Gray’s shoulder. His skin was twitching against Gray’s bare back, his muscles spasming minutely in his arms and legs as if little shocks were running through them.

“S’okay…” he said, and Gray imagined he was just conscious by the way his breathy voice lilted. “Got’er out… She’s… Erza’s… okay…”

Erza tried to hide her devastated expression behind her hand, but Gray knew her too well to miss it. When Wally finally demanded he carry her to shore, she was unable to protest. Soon they both went quiet, and the team moved in silence, focusing all their efforts into simply putting one leaden foot in front of the other.

Natsu had blearily teleported through an infirmary as nurses wrapped up his hands, his ribs, his head, his everything else. Lucy and Gray stayed with him, trying to answer questions since the effort of moving his tongue was suddenly monumental. They insisted he stay for observation, but Natsu just wanted sleep. Wanted a bed. Wanted quiet for once.

He made it all the way to he, Gray and Happy’s room at the Akane Resort, allowed Gray to help him change out of seawater and blood-soaked clothes, and collapsed into bed before his stomach decided that, actually, no, he would not be sleeping tonight.

He scrambled to the bathroom with limbs that screamed in protest and was sick, his back straining as his body forced unearthly blue out.

Gray’s distant “Are you okay?” went unheard as his vision swam and sparked with bright pops of light—ethernano still danced through his veins, digging its claws in and scraping his strength out with it.

Happy had offered him a cup of water, but his stomach had rejected that, too. When the veins under Natsu’s skin lit up stark blue like a current of electricity had coursed through him, Happy called for Gray.

Gray came and planted a freezing hand right on the back of his sweat-slick neck, the shock of it making him gasp as steam rose from it.

His stomach kept retching and retching, somehow unable to run out of blue—staining his tongue, his lips. His head wobbled on his neck. Exhaustion sank its hooks into him, bobbing him in and out of lucidity as he tried to aim at the toilet. His vision swam and swirled wrongly. His bones were vibrating. His body was heavy and his blood felt sour in his own veins.

“Hrrk—Make it stop…” he heard himself say.

“You gotta get it all out, man,” Gray sighed. “Try not to fight it.”

“Don’ really have much of a choice,” he groaned. He rested his forehead right on the lip of the toilet seat, panting.

He could feel leftovers of ethernano churning in his stomach like a circus of radioactive carbonation. His insides impossibly drew it there like a filter, letting it pool up before it rippled and twisted him up—

He retched again, his shoulders trembling, his head shivering on his neck as he tried to catch his breath.

His hands clutched the toilet the best they could—they wouldn’t quite work correctly. They ached and burned from forcing his way through solidified ethernano as hard as diamond.

And then there was that awful slice in his heart Erza had made when she had tried to—

“She’s alive,” Natsu reminded himself under his shuddering breath. “She’s alive.”

“Erza’s fine—" Natsu’s shoulders jerked at Gray’s voice. “—She’s sleepin’ a few rooms down. Lucy’s with her.”

His icy hand hesitated a moment before carefully touching the spot between Natsu’s shoulder blades. The coolness helped Natsu ground himself somewhat; distracted him from the hot bile swimming in his stomach.

“Right.” Natsu nodded. He swallowed down another gag only for it to sour in his belly again.

Why were his friends hellbent on offing themselves?

The thought came unbidden, making his heart sink under a weight he hadn’t realized his closest friends were carrying.

Had they hidden it that well? Or was he so dense that he missed it? Before the last two weeks, he would have never thought they would try and do such a thing.

What happened to pulling through together? What happened to being a family?

Didn’t they remember how hard everyone took it—how hard he took it—when Lisanna…?

When she…?

His chest was stabbed with a shard of grief that had yet to leave him be, dulled from years of scraping against that wound on his heart, but using Erza and Gray as a whetting stone.

Was their self-worth so low? Why hadn’t they told him? Had he not shown them how much they meant to him?

… Had he failed as a friend…?

He didn’t know. But what he did know was that he had prevented the previously unthinkable. They were alive.

Because he had been there, this time.

He’d eat an entire tower of ethernano if it meant his friends stayed by his side.

The thought made his stomach revolt violently, and his vision went black from how hard he heaved his insides out. Tears stung his eyes, and he told himself it was from being sick.

“Whoa,” Gray said, and steadied his shoulders. He patted his back unsurely. “Easy. Um…  It’s alright. I’m… I’m right here with you.”

Natsu gasped for breath, gripping the toilet seat with broken hands like it could anchor him in the tilting world around him as he waited for the next inevitable round of nausea. His head bobbed, and then Gray’s chilly hand was on his forehead, holding it up so that he didn’t give himself a swirly.

“Ugh… Th-the next time… one of you guys tries to—” Natsu swallowed down something awful trying to come up, “—I’m gonna kick your asses.”

Gray’s “What are you talking about?” was drowned out by another painful gag, and Natsu wasn’t able to speak for a while after that.

Natsu was mostly numb to Gray’s awkward, reassuring touches, but he noticed them all the same. He noticed the small hesitation before touching his back to rub soothing circles. He noticed Gray’s hand twitching away uncertainly before swiping Natsu’s mouth with a wet rag. He noticed him crouching on the floor next to him with Happy, wincing right along with him as his body purged that which was life poison to it.

Eventually, the ethernano being stripped from his body stopped throwing his stomach into a panic, and he slumped over the toilet with rattling breaths.

“O-… Okay…” Natsu groaned and began to weakly push himself to stand. He didn’t make it far. It was more of a small jerk than anything. His throat burned like he had taken a shot of lava. His eyes, watery from fever, dragged over to Gray. His face was fuzzy. “I’m… t’sleep, now…”

Gray nodded, his eyebrows drawn in worry. He sat down the washcloth and came behind Natsu. Natsu noticed the coldness of his hands hovering just over his shoulders before they carefully hooked his underarms. Natsu’s skin was pallid and slick with sweat. He must have looked disgusting and been just as awful to handle. But Gray began to haul him to his feet, and Natsu failed to stifle his groan as the world titled around him.

“I gotcha,” Gray said, and with a gentleness he wasn’t used to from the ice mage, guided him over to the hotel bed like he was an elderly man. His arms trembled. His legs shook like a baby deer’s.

Natsu wasn’t sure if he thanked Gray or not; he collapsed right on top of the covers.

“… Do you need anything?” Gray asked, but he sounded so, so far away.

He felt Happy curl up beside him, saying something too quiet for Natsu’s ethernano-soaked brain to make out. There was a shuffling and a crinkling sound.

He hadn’t realized he had fallen asleep until he was waking up and already being sick off the side of the bed, right into a small bin that hadn’t been there before. Gray rolled over in his bed a few paces away and dragged himself to his feet.

“M’fine…” Natsu garbled and spat out something that was glowing blue in the dark hotel room. “I’m…”

“You’re not fine,” Gray said, “You just threw up magic, idiot. I gotta make sure you’re not gonna… choke on it, or something.”

Natsu swallowed, and managed to spit out “Y’r gonna choke on my fist—” before he leaned back over and was sick again.

His vision went dark, and he blinked back awake to a wet cloth wiping his mouth again.

“Huh…?” he grunted, but his eyes wouldn’t quite open, and his body was hot and sick, and he hurt all over.

Happy’s mewl reached his ears from somewhere much further than the foot of Natsu’s bed. “—he gonna be okay, Gray?”

Cool hands guided Natsu’s cheek back onto a pillow, chasing away some of the acrid heat curdling his insides. Natsu leaned into the chill and sighed. Frosty fingers hesitated before they brushed against his forehead and swiped some of his sweat-slicked bangs away.

“I think so. Just needs some rest, prob’ly. We’ll keep an eye on him, okay?”

The bed dipped; the scent of pine and fresh snow crept past the sourness in Natsu’s nose, and his stomach settled somewhat.

Natsu wouldn’t remember, but Gray sat with him for a while, looking over his injuries and wincing when he noticed the wrappings on his knuckles bleeding through. His hands became ice packs that gingerly covered Natsu’s, and the unrelenting throbbing there eased up a bit.

Eventually, he went back to his own bed, and with feverish, fitful tossing and turning, Natsu slept for three days.

Like the clouds parting to let some sun through, the only time he roused was when Gray’s voice wormed through his thick veil of unconsciousness.

“Well… that’s what he gets for eatin’ all that ethernano. Hopefully it won’t have any lasting—"

He shot up in bed, his bleary eyes not even finding Gray but still seething out, “Say that again and I’ll smack ya!”

“You’re awake!” Happy exclaimed, but Natsu was already plummeting back to sleep.

“That punk woke up just to pick a fight with me?”

The last thing he heard was Lucy and Erza’s laughter, and he slept much more soundly after that.

After they had deemed Natsu and Erza fit for travel, Gray’s team left Akane resort and came back to Magnolia. Gray had let the comfort of his own bed sink him into a deep, exhausted sleep. He lazed around for a couple days in his fatigue, only getting up to eat something so his stomach would quit nagging him.

Except, one morning, he woke up to a much warmer bed—because someone else was in it.

Gray yelled in surprise and kicked blindly at the pervert in his sheets. He scrambled to his feet and readied his ice-make magic with a frigid blast of cold air swirling in the room.

“Ow!” A familiar voice whined, “What gives?

Gray stared for just a moment in disbelief. Then, his anger woke up.

“Why the hell are you in my bed?!” He bellowed, and Natsu had the gall to look annoyed.

“Ugh,” Natsu groaned and rolled over so that his back was to Gray, and the covers fell off of his shoulders. “Pipe down, would ya? ’s too early.”

“It—You—!” Gray spluttered. He turned around and ran his hands through his hair, a complex range of emotions swirling within him like a hurricane. His face grew hot with what he told himself was anger.

Natsu was in his bed.

On the other hand… Natsu was in his bed.

They hadn’t had time to talk about everything that had happened. Hell, they had just gotten back. Gray’s body still ached from the spats at the Tower of Heaven. It had distracted him from the knots in his stomach when Natsu was around, and had kept him from running through the night at the spa or the quiet adoration Gray had felt for him at the Akane hotel after he learned from Erza what he had done.

But of course, nothing ever went according to plan when it came to Fairy Tail, and so here was Natsu.

In his bed.

Another figure moved under the covers, and Gray stiffened. He slowly turned back around, and, to his horror, Happy poked his head out from under the blanket.

“Mornin’ Gray,” he yawned sleepily.

Welp. There went everything Gray had been trying to calm himself down with.

The whole guild was going to know about this by lunch.

Natsu. In his bed.

“Get. Out,” Gray said without parting his teeth.

“Go be grumpy somewhere else,” Natsu grunted, and Gray considered summoning an ice mallet to punt him out the window.

Happy laughed nervously and rubbed the back of his head. “Uh… sorry, Gray,” he said, “We didn’t want to wake you last night, or we would’ve asked.”

Gray stared. “…No, you wouldn’t’ve.”

Happy’s head dropped in shame. “No, we wouldn’t’ve.” He looked back at Natsu, and his ears drooped a little. “Natsu hasn’t been sleeping well. He figured it would be fun to prank you. We got a fish and everything!”

Happy beamed but then looked away again sheepishly. “But… I ate it. Only ‘cause you ended up being asleep, though! It would have been hilarious!”

Gray rolled his eyes, but then Natsu leaned over somewhat to look at him out of the corner of his eye. Then Gray saw the dark circles there. The faint blue veins on his cheeks winding up into his hairline. His skin was gray, sickly and tinted bluish in spots.

Gray made a face. “You look like shit.”

Natsu stared tiredly for a moment, and his usual teasing tone was missing when he said, “So do you.”

Gray looked away. He had his own dark circles under his eyes. His hair was greasy. He needed to shave—needed to bathe.

He needed a cigarette.

Happy looked in between them like he was missing something but seemed to dismiss it. “Natsu’s still sick from all that ethernano. He needs plenty of rest, Porlyusica said.”

“If I gotta hear that old hag lecture me on eatin’ stuff one more time, I’m gonna burn her stupid treehouse down.”

“I mean, what did you expect?” Gray scoffed, “Especially after what happened when you ate Laxus’ lightning. You were sick for, like, two weeks.”

“That was forever ago,” Natsu grumbled.

“Really? Cause I remember it clear as day,” Gray smirked, “’Gramps! I’m dyin’! I’m dyin’!’”

Natsu groaned in annoyance and Gray chuckled. They were quiet as Natsu’s eyes closed again, and Gray watched him breathe for a moment. The pitiful sight of Natsu being sick in Akane still made his gut twist in sympathy. He had been a shivering, sweaty mess.

Remembering Natsu—albeit delirious and whimpering—nuzzle into his hand made flutters stir up in his stomach. It had warmed him like the sun on a winter day, and he had found it hard to retreat to his own bed until Natsu finally sunk into a deeper sleep.

He cleared his throat. “Do you… need anything?” He ventured, gesturing unsurely with his hands that had comforted Natsu in the dark of the night.

“Hm?” Natsu cracked an eye open.

“Like medicine,” Gray elaborated quickly, “Somethin’ for a headache, or nausea, or…?”

“… M’fine.” Natsu shrugged, and didn’t bother opening his eyes again. “Hammock’s killin’ my back. Jus’… gonna lay here a minute, ‘kay…?”

“You have a couch,” Gray deadpanned. “Unless you finally burned it down? I wouldn’t know. Your house is a hazard to humanity.”

Natsu hummed noncommittally. Within seconds, he was snoring softly.

Gray smirked fondly and pulled up the blanket so that it covered his exposed shoulder. He reminded himself to make a point to get the full story of what happened in the tower and compare it to Erza’s version.

Gray’s eyes trailed to Natsu’s hand hanging off the side of the bed. Bandages still covered his knuckles, and, though Porlyusica had healed them somewhat, bruises were still dappling the skin around them. Already, Gray could imagine where it was going to scar like tiny starbursts on the top of his hand.

“He defeated Jellal with everything he had… and then he pushed himself further to save me…” Erza had said quietly.

“Save you from what?” Gray had asked.

Erza had looked at Natsu sadly as he slept, and something like shame had come into her eyes. “Myself.”

And that had struck much too close to home for Gray, and he hadn’t wanted to press any further when Erza looked like she was trying not to cry again.

For now, though, he’d let Natsu snooze. His hand twitched to brush Natsu's bangs out of his eyes before he stopped himself with a huff. What was he doing? He tried to ignore the strange ache in his hand and ran it through his hair instead.

Natsu. In his bed.

What the hell was going on?

When he turned to leave the room and the warring emotions it brought, he almost jumped out of his skin to see Happy with his jaw dropping to the floor.

He had forgotten he was there.

Then Happy grinned, and his tail practically wagged.

“Ohhhh,” he crooned, “Now I get it!”

Gray’s face grew hot, and he began to wave his hands. “No, Happy, it’s not what you—”

“You let Natsu stay because you’re gonna prank him!” Happy accused, pointing and hopping excitedly. “Can I help?”

Gray stared for a moment, his hammering heart climbing back down from his throat. He swallowed and forced out a nervous laugh.

“Uh—yeah,” He cleared his throat when his voice cracked, “Yeah, ya caught me. Let’s... uh... Let's find a marker.”

“Yes!” Happy cheered and flew out of the bedroom.

Gray looked back to an undisturbed Natsu, red-faced and trying to decide if the swell of nerves in his chest was panic or excitement.

Happy had almost figured out—

…

… What?

That…

That he…?

Oh.

Oh no.

Oh Gods no.

Gray slapped a hand over his mouth.

“I’m so fucked.”

Chapter Text

“Over my dead. Body,” Natsu snarled.

“Agreed,” Gray bit.

“Master,” Erza said with a fist clenched. “I understand Juvia… but him…?”

Lucy was tense behind Gray and Natsu. It only made them block her from sight even more, not that who they were trying to glare daggers through was looking.

“Now, now,” Makarov chided, his nervousness hidden well behind a smile, “It is my responsibility as guild master to lead anyone who’s gone astray down a path of light. Give him a chance! You may find that you like him!”

Gajeel scoffed from the guildhall table he had dumped himself at. “Piss off. I don’t give a crap about any of you. Times are tough so I’m just here to take whatever jobs you lowlifes can give me.”

“What did you say?!” Natsu roared and came to stand over the other dragonslayer. His hair was bristling on his neck, his fists ready to melt iron scales all over again.

Gray remembered Natsu’s concussion and wasn’t sure if he could handle another brawl with Gajeel since the Tower of Heaven incident lingered so closely behind them. He could still find bluish veins faintly under Natsu’s skin, changing a little every day, even if they were fading more and more. He still tried to hide the sweat on his brow when he came to the guildhall; still made excuses for turning a little green in the middle of a meal and shoving his plate aside. It had been a week, but Natsu’s eyes were still weary in a way that made Gray’s chest hurt.

…And it had been a few days since Natsu had curled up in Gray’s bed and made his heart almost burst out of his chest with a realization he was trying very hard to convince himself was just a misfire in his logic centers; since he had scribbled nonsense on his face with Happy and pretended that Natsu’s eyes didn’t make his stomach do flips; that his voice didn’t make his tongue suddenly feel too big in his mouth.

So, he packed it away to deal with later—to deal with never—because it was stupid, and illogical and all the things Natsu was.

But even so, as Gajeel’s crimson eyes sized Natsu up this time, Gray didn’t even have to think before he was there to back him up.

“You think after what you did to our guildhall, you can just sit here in the brand new one and prop your feet up?” Gray seethed. Frost eked onto his fingertips. “Get the hell out!”

Roars of agreement rippled across the guild, and Makarov lowered his head with an exasperated sigh that betrayed his age.

Juvia was in between Gray and Gajeel in an instant. “Please!” she said, “It’s just—Gajeel wasn’t finding any work, and I couldn’t just leave him with nowhere to go. He’s my friend. Please give him a chance.”

Gray and Natsu shared a glance.

“Uh, y-yeah!” Levy was crouching down behind a table and peeking around the corner of it. “I-I mean, I’m sure everyone deserves a second chance, right?”

She still had bruises from when Gajeel crucified her and her team.

Gray sighed. Levy was too kind.

Natsu seemed to share the sentiment, and they both found themselves huffing in frustration in the wake of Levy’s big pleading eyes. It was rare when she pulled them, but this guild sister knew when to play the card.

“You try anything,” Natsu snarled with a finger in Gajeel’s face, “I’ll rip those studs right out of your nose.”

“You can try,” Gajeel growled. His lip curled to reveal canines that rivaled Natsu’s. Gray’s eyebrows rose. He really was a dragonslayer.

Natsu bared his teeth right back, but he began to stalk away, leading Lucy with him and going to a guildhall table just close enough to keep an eye on their new recruits. Gray glared at Gajeel and made to turn away.

“Ah! One moment.” Juvia raised her hand and shuffled closer to him. She was blushing something fierce.

“Oh. Hey,” Gray spared her a tense nod, “Thanks again for everything at Akane. We really appreciate your help.”

“O-of course!” Juvia said with a grin. “Erza said much of the same. Glad to be of service. You can call on me anytime! Ah, I mean, I’m at your beck and call—I-I mean—!”

Gray tilted his head with an amused look at her scarlet cheeks. “Ah, no worries, I understand. I felt the same as you do.”

Her eyes sparkled. “You… what?”

Gray shrugged easily. “Yeah… Joining a new guild can be overwhelming. It took me forever just to learn everyone’s names.”

Juvia laughed once nervously, waving her hand. “Ah! O-of course! Yes. Overwhelming. Well, perhaps you could introduce me to—”

“Gray!” Natsu hollered from his table. Mira was standing next to them with a honeyed smile. “We’re orderin’ some grub! Want anything?”

Ah, so his appetite was finally coming back. Good.

“One sec!” Gray said. He held his hand out to the rain woman. “Welcome to the guild, Juvia. Glad to have ya.”

Juvia squealed and clasped his hand with both of hers, shaking it vigorously. “Yes! You, too—um, I mean—thank you!”

Gray chuckled and bid her goodbye. She was kind of strange. No stranger than any of the other Fairy Tail girls, though, he supposed.

He didn’t see Gajeel roll his eyes when Juvia sat next to him, red-faced and hearts for eyes. He didn’t hear the iron dragonslayer mutter “Smooth,” which earned him a glare.

All he saw was Natsu grinning at him as he came over, looking livelier than he had in days, and could only hear his heart in his ears at the sight of him.

And when thunder rumbled outside, no one thought anything of it, ignorant to the storm headed their way.

Magnolia’s Harvest Festival had come crashing down along with the lightning the Thunder Legion had unleashed upon Fairy Tail.

But hours later, after guildmate was pitted against guildmate, Fairy Tail had salvaged the celebration, and the parade, and the joy that the festival had been created for. They had saluted Laxus off, brandishing a new gesture with a forefinger in the air and a thumb out to the side.

They were bruised but not beaten. Fairy Tail had prevailed, after all; Erza, Mira and Lucy had put Evergreen, Freed, and Bickslow in their places. Natsu and Gajeel had taken out the lightning dragon.

And Gray…

Gray had been completely and utterly useless.

Sure, he had wrenched Warren up onto a roof and rallied everyone with his telepathy magic … but in the fight for Magnolia, for Fairy Tail’s pride, he was nothing more than an embarrassing footnote on the page of the battle.

So, after the parade, after Gray had smiled through an ego as bruised as his ribs and made icy artworks with Juvia; after receiving smiles and pats on the back he didn’t deserve, Gray lingered in the dark around all the parade’s abandoned floats he had helped put together over the last couple days. He was content to listen to the city-wide party and ignore the growl in his belly from the smell of vendors nearby.

Gray took a long, last drag of his cigarette and sighed out smoke, wincing minutely at the pain in his ribs. He looked up to the moon and thought of Lyon; his heart ached, and he ground his cigarette under his shoe to put it out more harshly than was perhaps needed.

He ran a hand down his face, his body’s aches making themselves known and tugging at him for respite. Still, he lingered among the litter of confetti and glitter. Eventually, the crowd just out of sight would thin, and he wouldn’t have to bear any pity-filled looks or unfit praises.

But luck was never on his side, was it?

“Oh! Gray, there you are, darling!”

His head snapped up to see Juvia with a wide grin, waving excitedly. Her oceanic eyes glittered in the light from colorful lanterns just around the corner. She was still bandaged up, her hair still a bit out of place, her clothes a little scorched, but none of it seemed to put a damper on her cheerfulness at all.

“Uh, Juvia,” Gray feigned politeness and managed a half-hearted smiled through his twinge of annoyance. So much for slipping away unnoticed. “Hey.”

“I wanted to thank you again properly for risking your life to save mine,” Juvia said earnestly. She grabbed his shoulders and Gray’s eyes went wide when tears welled up in hers. “It meant so much to me!”

“Oh,” Gray stuttered, and shrugged off her touches. Something ugly clawed at his insides. Something frigid and sharp. “Really, I didn’t do much—Hell, I heard that you were tougher than most of us, out there. Anyways, I couldn’t just stand around while you and the other girls were—”

“Yes, yes,” Juvia waved what she must have thought was modesty away. She clasped her hands together excitedly. “Won’t you join me? This is my first time seeing the Magnolia Harvest Festival! I don’t even know where to start!”

Gray couldn’t hide his grimace. He wanted nothing more than to go home, crawl in his bed… never get back up…

“I dunno… I’m pretty beat,” Gray muttered, rubbing the back of his neck.

Juvia’s enthusiasm was as steady as a stream, though. “Oh! Of course, I understand. Why don’t I escort you home? We could… We could grab some dinner on the way there! That is, if Natsu hasn’t eaten all of the boar legs… Oh! I saw a stall selling shaved ice, if you—”

Gray’s miff at the insinuation that he was too weak to get himself home was overshadowed by the mention of the man who was mummified in bandages.

“That idiot is out partying? He wasn’t even supposed to be in the parade.” Gray threw his hands up in exasperation and began to march towards the festival lanterns.

Juvia blinked in confusion but grinned and fell into step beside him. Shame crept hotly on the back of his neck at the sight of his other scuffed-up guildmates mingling in the thinning night scene of the festival. Many street vendors had closed up shop, but some seemed keen to stay open now that Fairy Tail was here with appetites rivaling that of a black hole.

The lingering storm cloud that was the Thunder Legion’s betrayal certainly stole some of the jovial atmosphere, but Fairy Tail was nothing if not a guild who knew how to have a celebration.

Then his eyes landed on a pink head of hair. He was laughing much too loudly for someone who had been struck by lightning a couple hours ago, who was nursing a newly broken right arm, who was limited to one eye since the other was patched up. Lucy sat next to him with Happy on her lap, and all three of them took up a bench on the sidewalk next to the aforementioned boar leg vendor, wide-eyed at the sheer size of the “Family-Sized Meaty Delight” Natsu was scarfing down.

“—and, oh, look, Gray, they have crepes! Perhaps we could share one? Do you prefer sweet or spicy?” Juvia’s voice rushed back into his ears, and Gray realized he had accidentally tuned her out completely. She waited expectantly, a sugarcoated smile still gracing her face.

His eyes flitted back to Natsu, who was looking over at them, now, and waving a bone with meat hanging off of it the size of Gray’s arm. He couldn’t help but snort when grease flecked into Lucy’s hair, and she chastised Natsu loudly.

“Uh, spicy. One sec,” Gray said distractedly, and slipped away from her, ignorant of her little ‘oh,’ and the way her smile shriveled to a glare directed at Lucy.

“Check it out, Gray!” Natsu beamed up at him from the park bench and held out the meat bone obstructing part of his body from sight. “Was on the house for savin’ the town!”

“Yeah,” Lucy muttered dryly, “because the guy thought you were going to share it…”

Natsu’s right arm was still slung in a cast, so his left one was trembling at the strain to hold up such a giant leg of pork, sore and bruised beneath the bandages. He seemed determined to clutch it, though, until most of its weight went from his hand to his belly.

Gray quirked an eyebrow. “Of course the first thing you’d do is pig out. Weren’t you supposed to go straight back to the guild after the parade? Porlyusica is gonna kill you… Erza is gonna kill you.”

Natsu scoffed. “Gajeel’s out here,” he said petulantly, and gestured with his chin to the iron dragonslayer down the road. He was crutching along with a leg wrapped in a cast and equally as mummified as Natsu, his face softened somewhat as Levy pointed animatedly to show him around.

‘Huh,’ Gray mused, ‘They warmed up fast.’

But Gray also found that his own bitterness towards the iron dragonslayer was softened, somewhat. After all, he had heard that Gajeel had taken a direct shot from Laxus in Natsu’s stead; had even let the piss get beat out of him a day prior in Levy’s defense.

He must have felt his gaze, because then Gajeel’s eyes met his, and Gray gave him a curt nod. Gajeel twisted his lip and rolled his eyes before turning back to what Levy was gushing about.

“Whatever,” Gray shrugged at Natsu. “It’s your funeral.”

Natsu paused in tearing another chunk from his boar leg. He looked Gray up and down before a smug smile pulled at his mouth.

“Oh. I know why you’re so cranky,” Natsu snickered.

“Is it because Juvia is ordering a crepe shaped like a heart over there?” Lucy asked under her breath.

“She’s—what?” Gray turned to see that, indeed, Juvia was making a fuss to the exasperated vendor about how that crepe was much too sloppy to be a heart, and that, yes, it does have to be a heart to show her love!

“Jeez,” Gray said with a shake of his head. “I know she’s excited to be in Fairy Tail, but she’s just so… passionate.”

Lucy stared at him incredulously. “Are you serious? She’s not in love with Fairy Tail, she’s in love with—”

“You’re cranky ‘cause Lucy kicked Bickslow’s ass before you could have a rematch,” Natsu interrupted. “Looks like ya have some things to learn from ol’ Heartfilia, here,” he said with a proud smile at Lucy.

And for some reason, all those packed up feelings Gray had felt the other day suddenly felt cold inside of him. He glared a glare that had Happy and Lucy shivering under its frigidness.

“O-oh! That’s not fair,” Lucy said quickly with a wave of her hands. “Gray didn’t have his magic, there was no way he could have—Uh! I mean, obviously there was probably a way he could have beaten Bickslow without it, but—anyways, Gray helped just like everyone else.”

Natsu cocked his head in confusion and opened his fat mouth to spew some other nonsense. “I know tha—WHUP!”

Natsu’s boar leg thunked to the sidewalk between his feet, suddenly encased in a thick shell of ice and freezing his hand to the bone.

“Hey!” Natsu bellowed, his one eye glaring with a reptilian slit. “I was still eating that! Asshole!”

But Gray was already stalking away with his hands in his pockets. He marched past Juvia just before she turned with a spicy, heart-shaped crepe in her hands chock full of something that made Gray’s mouth water, and didn’t see the way her face fell at the sight of his back leaving. He marched past his guildmates—past the people he had let down and seethed at himself all the way home.

The sounds of Gray’s window being broken into was surprisingly unalarming. Soon after, his bedroom door creaked open, and he knew without knowing who it was.

“Go ‘way,” Gray muttered into his pillow.

“So, you are alive,” Natsu chuckled, and opened the door fully, letting in light that made Gray groan. “Didn’t think Bickslow walloped ya that bad. Or ya just slackin’ off for no reason?”

Gray turned further away into the pillow stubbornly. “What part of ‘go away,’ did you think meant ‘come in?’”

Natsu went quiet and his footsteps retreated. Thank the gods. Gray didn’t want a conversation right now, much less with a pyro who snuck in whenever he saw fit.

“Got'ny grub?” Natsu called from the kitchen, and Gray grunted in annoyance.

Of course it wouldn’t be that easy.

“Not for you,” Gray said shortly. “When are you going to stop breaking in?”

Natsu didn’t answer. The sounds of Gray’s pantry being pilfered lit his stomach up in annoyance, but he didn’t have the energy to move. Didn’t have the energy to do anything since the Battle of Fairy Tail a few days ago.

A heaviness was pressing on him like a weighted blanket, pawing at him to just stay in bed, to just not think about—

Burning villages and dying masters and his best friend stopping him from sacrificing himself twice. Running away from the imploding Tower of Heaven while Erza and Natsu were still inside. Getting his ass handed to him by Bickslow and letting his family down when they needed him. Natsu knowing how weak he really was.

—that.

Natsu padded back into Gray’s room with something crinkling, and Gray finally lifted his head with a scolding already on his tongue for whatever he’d stolen—but it tripped over his slack jaw and wide eyes. Natsu’s bandages were mostly gone.

Gray had never seen Natsu with burns before.

‘From the lightning,’ Gray realized.

They flowered over his skin, almost like frost on a window blooming and leaving red, angry roots. They were almost pretty in their intricacy, winding up on both arms like vines, up the right side of his neck, wrapping around his ear and holding his bruised eye hostage—the one that had been bandaged the last time Gray had seen him. His right arm wasn’t in a cast anymore, replaced by a more flexible brace that he recognized from Porlyusica’s supplies.

But there were no more blue veins under his skin; no more alien flecks of sapphire in his green eyes. It seemed Laxus had shocked the last of the ethernano out of Natsu’s system.

Then Gray’s eyes landed on the source of the crinkling sound, and he blinked in confusion at a bag of jerky he didn’t even know he had had.

“…Where did you find that?”

“Under the couch.”

Gray deadpanned. “’Course ya did.”

He held out a stiff piece of jerky that smelled awful. “Want some?”

“What I want is some peace and quiet.”

Natsu clicked his tongue and popped a piece of jerky into his mouth. “Fresh outta that. Want anything else?”

Gray cocked an eyebrow. “…What?”

He rolled his eyes. “To eat,” Natsu elaborated around a mouthful of dried meat probably left from the previous tenants of Gray’s apartment. “Have ya had anything today?”

Gray stared, and the frozen flutters within him began to thaw.

‘He doesn’t mean anything by it,’ Gray told himself sourly. ‘Why would he?’

Gray’s warring emotions created a glare on his face. “Why do you suddenly care about my diet, fire breath?”

Natsu chewed with an unimpressed look. “Answer the question first.”

“…No, I haven’t.”

“That’s why,” Natsu said, and then went back to eating his jerky. “You got a lotta weird food in there. Bet I could make somethin’ with it.”

Gray was starting to feel like he was having an aneurysm, so he finally sat all the way up. He tried to ignore how dizzy it made him. “I—what? You want to cook…? You?”

Natsu glared in offense. “Why not?”

“Because the last time Lis—” He caught himself at the last moment. “The last time someone tried to teach you to cook, you almost burned the whole guild down.”

“That’s because you came in there and picked a fight with me!”

“I was trying to put out the fire you caused!”

“Yeah, right! You were just jealous of my skills!”

Gray scoffed. “Skills? You would burn water.”

“Oh, yeah?!” Natsu barked, and jabbed a finger in his face, “You just watch, Ice Prick! I’m gonna make the best damn slop, and you’re gonna eat it!”

He marched out of Gray’s room with the jerky. Then, he poked his head back in.

“And joke’s on you, dumbass, ‘cause you can’t set water on fire!”

“Let me guess, you’ve tr—”

“’Cause I’ve tried!”

Pots and pans banged around, and Gray flopped back onto the bed with a huff, listening to what was surely his kitchen’s final moments as Natsu grumbled to himself about all of his weird food.

… Since when were vegetables ‘weird food?’

The smell of burning things made Gray throw a blanket over his face so he could pretend that it wasn’t his problem. When Natsu cursed loud enough for him to hear under it, he just sighed in annoyance.

“If you burn my kitchen down, you’re paying for repairs,” Gray hollered.

“Yeah, yeah!”

What Natsu brought back after a while was…

Well, it was food.

“What the hell is this?” Gray asked flatly when Natsu held it out to him with his good hand.

“I dunno,” Natsu shrugged shortly, “Beef n’ stuff. Eat it.”

‘Beef and stuff’ was actually a bowl of broth with: one whole unpeeled carrot, charred on one side; a chunk of beef (that was cooked fairly decently, to his credit); a handful of rice long turned to mush; half of an onion Gray had to assume was just boiled in the broth; and, last and least:

“Is that… is this just an ice cube?” Gray poked the poor, half-melted thing with a spoon.

“Yeah.”

“Okay. Why?”

Natsu made a face like he had asked the dumbest question in the world. “Because…” He gestured to Gray’s entire being as if it were obvious.

Gray looked back down to the bowl and weighed the risk of food poisoning against dealing with an overbearing dragon. Then his stomach rumbled as if it were rattling its cage, and he realized that he hadn’t eaten since before the battle a few days ago…

He had hesitant a bite of just the broth and some rice. He didn’t immediately die, so he took that as a win.

“Did you put any flavor in it at all?” Gray asked, tilting his head.

“Yeah,” Natsu smiled and crossed his arms proudly, minding his injured one. “That’s what the carrot’s for.”

“…I meant salt, or… salt?” Gray couldn’t help the smile tugging at his lips.

“Oh,” Natsu blinked. He shrugged again.

As Gray fished around the bowl for another bite that was least likely to turn his stomach inside out, he eyed the scarlet vines winding up Natsu’s right side.

“Those gonna stick around, you think?” he asked.

Natsu leaned his guild-marked shoulder forward to get a better look at the burns, his left hand grazing the inflamed skin running like a map of rivers up his neck. His knuckles were bruised and still wrapped in bandages; the skin likely split all over again since it had still been trying to heal from punching through solidified ethernano. Gray couldn’t help but grimace.

“Old Hag says it’ll fade. Man, what I wouldn’t give for a healer that won’t whack me with a staff every time I see her,” Natsu huffed. “Gajeel’s got some, too, right here.” He patted his forearm, just below his elbow. “Took a nasty hit for me… Guess the nail cruncher’s okay.”

Gray poked experimentally at the carrot with his spoon and found it was still hard in the middle. “Yeah. Heard about your fight… At least one of us made a difference out there.”

Natsu scrunched his nose. “Is that what’s up your ass? Jeez, I knew you were dense, but not this dense. So you lost your round, big deal. You’ll just get stronger, and then next time, you’ll—”

“Shove it,” Gray snapped, and stirred idly in his soup like it would muddle the awful shame inside of him. Maybe it was his empty stomach, or the insomnia, or the poisonous humiliation welling up in him, but his next words shot out like venom. “I don’t need your damn pity.”

A tense silence fell in the room like a veil dropping, and the blasé air Natsu had come with fell with it. But Natsu didn’t take the bait, and, for once, Gray didn’t have the energy to meet his intense stare.

Because, like it always seemed to go lately, Gray’s mind was right back to Galuna Island.

“Cast your spell. But I’m not movin’.”

Gray would never unhear the resignation in Natsu’s voice. The square-shouldered promise that if Gray died, Natsu would, too, even if he didn’t. That some part of him would die with Gray.

‘Maybe it should,’ hissed in the darkest corners of Gray’s mind, and his heart dropped into his stomach like a glacier.

He cleared his throat and hopefully the lump there. Like an ice shelf cracking under the sun, Natsu’s eyes bored into him and made his chest tight, and for a moment he was irrationally afraid he had heard his morbid musings.

"I just mean that you don't have to do this," Gray finally muttered over the quiet choking him.

"What?"

"This." Gray gestured with the bowl. "The… sneaking in and the… the babyin’. I'm not some... defenseless, needy wreck that you gotta keep an eye on."

Natsu blinked, irritation bleeding into his voice. "I know that."

Gray’s head snapped up with a glare. "So why are you—?”

He caught his tongue and turned away stubbornly.

But Natsu was quirking a brow and looking at him with that concern in his eyes that he couldn’t seem shake since Galuna Island. "What?"

Just like those stinging flutters Gray couldn’t seem to lose whenever he was around.

“You've been super weird lately, man,” Gray asked. "Why’re you... so different?”

In more ways than one, Gray realized when he remembered the rush of panic and then relief and then panic again at Happy’s teasing for him being in his bed.

Natsu was quiet for a moment as everything that had happened over the last few weeks sat between them. It made Gray’s insides twist up. Natsu wasn’t quiet for no reason.

His draconic eyes flitted to the bowl in Gray’s hands.

"You ain't eatin'," he eventually said.

"I’m not hungry—"

But Natsu wasn’t done.

“You smell like shit. You ain't been to the guild since the Fest. You tried to get out of Lucy's job before Akane. You're moping. I knew you were a loner, but since when are you a hermit? Someone’s gotta pull you outta your own ass.”

Gray's face twisted in offense. "I didn't ask you to—"

"You didn't have to," Natsu snapped, "I ain't just gonna watch you throw a pity party—"

"Is that why you're doin' all this? You just love rubbin’ it in my face?" Gray sat the soup on the bedside table, pushing himself to stand and hoping he looked steadier than he felt.

A part of Gray knew that wasn’t true, and Natsu looked hurt before he looked angry, but Gray was angry. He was weak and pathetic and why was Natsu even here?!

"No!" Natsu insisted.

"Then tell me why—"

"Because I want to!" Natsu bellowed, beating his hands against his chest once.

Gray’s mouth snapped closed.

Natsu's reddened face dropped, and he grunted in frustration, wincing when he accidently clenched his injured hand. "You think I just—You think I been doin' all this 'cause I pity you?"

He shook his head in disgust and left the bedroom. Gray followed him on shaky feet, watching as he swung the window in his living room open.

“I thought you knew me better than that."

There was no fight. No brawl to get a few good licks in and their pent-up frustration out. Natsu just… left, and Gray stood in his growing stew of chaotic emotions.

And then his kitchen caught his eye, and he spent the next hour angry-scrubbing every single one of his pots and pans and wondering how someone could get rice to stick to the ceiling.

He dragged his feet back to bed, and contemplated pouring the soup Natsu had made out when he came to the bedside table.

Against his better judgement, he took another bite of it. It was ice cold, but that was fine. It was warmer than he felt on the inside at the moment.

He took more and more bites; his appetite finally woke up and he realized how long it had been asleep.

Beef n’ stuff. It wasn’t half bad, actually.

Gray smirked, but then it fell.

He couldn’t help but wish Natsu was still there.

"Don't you dare make me fall in love with you.
Don't you dare enchant me with those eyes.

If I fell through your skies,
There's no way you would catch me.
There's a tear in my heart,
But your patch wouldn't match me.
Being near you still adds to the size of my sighs.
There's still seismic events at hellos and goodbyes,
And I still need reminders of why it's unwise
To stare.
... So don't you dare..."

-Kaden Mackay

Chapter Text

When the guildhall doors swung open, the summer breeze outside carried the scent of snowy pines to Natsu’s nose, and relief unwound a tightness in his chest, even as annoyance prickled his insides.

He looked up from draping over Lucy from behind to tease her about Plue, who was doing a cute little dance on the table in between their empty plates of food. It was a nice distraction from the quiet buzzing in the back of his skull.

“’Bout time,” Natsu muttered under his breath, and Lucy followed his gaze quizzically. He slid off of her, sighing when his muscles ached in protest, and rolled his shoulder against the weightiness that had seemed to settle there. He shook himself and blinked away the dryness in his eyes.

Gray looked better than the disgusting heap he was in the other day. He was showered, and he had actually shaved and brushed his hair. His under eyes were still dark; his face was a little more gaunt than it ought to be, but he was up and Natsu counted it as a win.

Even though his stupid face—his stupid scowl—was irking him.

Natsu kept his expression carefully neutral as Gray slinked along the edges of the guildhall. When his eyes found Natsu’s, he paused in his step, ducked his head, and went straight to the bar. Lucy glanced up at him with questions in her eyes, but Natsu just slid off of her and crossed his arms—one of them was still in a brace.

The burns on his skin—he hadn’t had burns since he was a pup learning fire magic—stung all the way up his arms, snaking further up his right shoulder and pinching the skin on his neck and cheek. Laxus’s lightning had been a lot madder than he remembered it being, and he had been just as shocked as everyone else at the intricate pink and red patterns branded into his skin.

As cool as they looked, though, they hurt. Natsu tried not to let it show when his cheek stretched to accommodate a forced smirk as he came up behind Gray at the bar.

“Look who’s joined the living again,” Natsu teased.

Gray scoffed, his eyes meeting Natsu’s for a moment before flickering back to the floor. A silence drew out where Natsu just waited expectantly.

“… Just say what you’re gonna say,” Gray muttered, and turned back around to lean on the bar.

Natsu opened his mouth to say something along the lines of how he’s shocked he even knew where the guildhall was anymore, but stopped himself.

“You've been super weird lately, man,” Gray had said to him. "Why’re you... so different?”

He’d been chewing on that one ever since he’d stormed out of Gray’s apartment with a strange melting pot of emotions that had made that conversation so damn frustrating.

Was he different? He hadn’t thought so.

Sure, he’d been all over Magnolia trying to work off a restlessness that couldn’t seem to leave him, but…

He’d gone to Gray’s after he’d realized he hadn’t seen him in a while, and he’d be lying if he said he hadn’t been a little worried. He hadn’t been exactly welcome, but, then again, he never really was when he broke into anywhere through the window; even though it was fun.

“Was just gonna say how you don’t look as crappy today as the lump I found yesterday,” Natsu teased, but his heart wasn’t really in it; his voice sounded like it had been grazed by sandpaper.

Nonetheless, Gray scoffed and some of the tension bled from his shoulders. “Well, guess that’s what a shitty bowl of soup’ll do for ya.”

“It was not shitty!” Natsu defended, and Gray grumbled at his volume.

Natsu’s ears twitched when he heard nervous mutterings, and he glanced to see Juvia hiding behind a pillar across the room. She was holding a small bottle of something maroon and glittery. She was glaring daggers at Lucy, who was coming over to he and Gray at the bar; when she caught Natsu staring, she ‘eep’ed and hid behind the pillar.

Huh. Natsu didn’t realize how bashful she was. It irked him a little. Why didn’t she just come over and say hello? She didn’t have to be so weird about it.

Soon Gray was picking at a burger and fries Mira had whipped up for him, and they all talked easily about what jobs to do in the near future back at the guildhall table Natsu and Lucy had started at.

“Maybe we can go out on one in the mornin’,” Natsu said, flexing his sprained arm experimentally. It was fine to go on a job, surely? If it got Gray out of his stuffy apartment it would be worth it.

“Really? With that bum arm?” Lucy chuckled, “Porlyusica would kill you if you made it worse.”

“Eh, she would’a already if she really wanted to,” Natsu’s lips twitched to smirk, but his face tightened in the tiniest of winces. With his arm still held out, it began to tremble and shiver, muscles spasming minutely like it was short-circuiting; he could feel it, the static reluctant to stop jumping through his upper torso.

Lucy’s laugh sobered up. Gray paused in popping a fry into his mouth and his eyes hardened in concern. Natsu put his arm down, but the damage had been done.

‘Dammit.’

“How long has that been happening?” Gray asked. His hand jerked to reach across the table, but he paused halfway and settled for another fry instead. “I mean, does Porlyusica know?”

Natsu tilted his head back with a dramatic groan, “I’m not going back to that old hag’s house. I still got a bump from last time.” Then he smiled mischievously. “Plus, check this out.”

He rubbed his fingers together on one hand. His hair started to raise and prickle on his skin. Small sparks popped in his eyes, and he poked Lucy on the arm.

Zap!

“Ah! Hey!” Lucy snapped and rubbed her afflicted arm. Her eyes went wide. “You just shocked me!”

“Heh-heh, yeah,” Natsu snickered. “Cool, right?”

But there was a droning behind his eyes that made him dizzy, and the burns on his right side were stinging all over again.

Gray didn’t look very impressed.

“That’s not normal, Natsu,” Happy said.

“Since when is anything about that weirdo normal?” Gray muttered and went back to eating. From across the room, Juvia seemed to finally gather her courage and was marching over with the pink drink in her hands.

But Gray’s flint and steel was just what Natsu’s kindling needed.

“Oh, yeah?” Natsu cackled and began to rub both hands together like a madman. His hair stood straight up like a bristling cat’s, and Lucy and Happy began to scoot away from him urgently. Juvia opened her mouth to greet them from behind Gray and uncorked her bottle.

“Don’t you dare,” Gray ground out flatly.

Natsu lunged right over the table, but Gray was already beginning to stand.

He barreled into Gray, who fell back into Juvia, who spilled her drink on both of them.

When they landed in a heap on the floor, there were different pops of color in Natsu’s eyes—something pink and poisonous. There was something sickly sweet on his tongue and then it was bitter, and then he was hacking right along with Gray as Juvia squealed in panic above them.

They locked eyes with each other.

Something… changed in Natsu’s chest at the sight of Gray with pink droplets running off his chin and dampening his hair; rolling down his exposed neck and down to the dip of his collarbone.

“Gray…” Natsu panted raggedly. His face was hot… Something molten was stirring in his belly.

Gray was glassy eyed. Was he trembling? “Natsu…”

Juvia and Lucy were saying something to them, but then the rest of the guild’s sound faded out, and Natsu’s heart was in his ears, and he leaned forward—and then—and then—

Gray and Natsu clocked each other right across the jaw.

Natsu didn’t know why, but he—He was just so heated and he—

He wanted to rip Gray apart.

Natsu snarled and sunk his teeth into Gray’s hand when it came to pin his face to the ground. Gray yanked a fistful of Natsu’s hair back, and soon they were rolling around on the floor, pummeling each other, punching and hissing and spitting.

Erza was the one to finally pull them apart, but Natsu still clawed for him, still couldn’t help the feral snarl thundering out of him.

“Explain yourselves at once—” Erza was bellowing, but Natsu shoved her face away, knocking her off balance in shock and tackling Gray to the ground again.

There wasn’t anything but the concern in his gut fueling a hazy, suffocating anger like an oil spill into a fire. Adrenaline hammered through his leaden body. There was a pent up animal inside of him that wanted to bite, and claw, and punch—

Gray’s face was twisted in rage, spittle leaving his mouth as he yelled, his eyes bloodshot, his cheeks beet red. He hit and kicked as good as Natsu gave him. A strangled yell left Natsu’s throat when he overthrew a punch and cracked a wooden slat on the floor.

“Natsu, your arm—!” Lucy shouted.

“Stop this immediately!” Erza ordered.

Through the haze of a red-hot anger, Natsu vaguely noticed that they had made it outside when Gray flung him right into a tree line. He scrambled on the ground and rammed his shoulder into Gray’s gut, and then a guttural growl ripped from deep in his chest, and his teeth were bared, and then they were both shouting intelligibly as they twisted and turned over each other.

Gray’s skin was like needles against his own; his face made him want to scream.

And he did. Loudly. Gray matched his volume, though, and just as Natsu was about to break his face—

They were pulled apart again, noses, teeth and knuckles bloody, trembling and locking onto each other like two predators fighting over territory. Somehow, Natsu had lost his vest. Gray’s shirt was gone, and dirt was caked into their hair.

“What is wrong with you two?!” Lucy said in his ear, and her voice finally reached him like a star shooting though the dark of night. She was hugging him from behind, clutching his trembling form like she could root him among a storm of fury.

Erza held Gray back, but still, they didn’t unlock eyes.

Gray’s face twisted into a snarl rivaling Natsu’s. “Stop looking at me like that,” he spat, his eyes cloudy and his voice ragged; it grated on Natsu’s ears.

“Only when you stop acting like a dumbass,” Natsu snapped back. The words ran from his tongue on their own, spilling, spilling, spilling oil into fire. “I’m sick of seein’ you draggin’ your feet all over the place!” He pulled against Lucy half-heartedly; mindful of her arms wrapped around him. “Get a freaking grip!”

“Piss off,” Gray yelled, and wrenched in Erza’s grasp like a dog fighting its leash. His voice was starting to grow hysterical. “I know why you’re really hoverin’ over me all the damn time! Pityin’ me. You think you’re—you’re so much better, don’t you?! You think I’m weak! Asshole!”

There were tears in Gray’s eyes.

“Gray,” Erza said in disbelief.

Gray’s words started to spill out, too, like a frozen dam had broken.

“I didn’t ask you to step in between Deliora and me,” Gray’s voice was strangled. He shook his head too fervently. His eyes were too wide. “That was my fight! I was supposed to—for Ur and Lyon—You weren’t—You shouldn’t’ve—"

“You damn idiot. Don’t you get it?!” Natsu spat, his own eyes stinging, now. He was shaking. It was getting hard to see. A pain was radiating up his bad arm, now. His burns were sizzling like embers in his skin. “You didn’t have to ask. I did it twice, and I’d do it a hundred more. For you, for Erza—for all of you! I’d do it over and over.”

That made Gray clam up; made Erza stiffen in an awful realization.

Lucy’s arms were loosening around him, now, like reins on a beast that could have always gone wherever it liked.

Natsu’s breath hitched against his will. His hand grabbed at his own chest like he could stop the hurt buried there. His words continued to leak out between the cracks of his heart. “You ain’t weak. I’m the one that won’t be able to… i-if you—if either of you had—”

Like Lisanna had.

He dropped his head in shame. That weight bore down on him again. Gray looked like he had been dunked into ice water.

“Natsu…” Lucy whispered, “What are you talking about?”

But Erza looked devastated all of a sudden, looking sharply to Gray and piecing together something behind her intense eyes.

“I…” Gray swallowed thickly, and some of the fervor began to drain from his face. “I don’t know where that came from, I—,” he choked out, and began to look like the trees had just suddenly appeared around them.

Natsu shook his head and squeezed his eyes shut when something painful lodged in his throat. The inexplicable anger finally unclenched his stomach, and he was left breathless, coming up for air like he had woken from a fever dream.

“I dunno what just happened, I just…” Natsu said, and brought a hand to his buzzing head.

Or, he would’ve, but his arm twanged awfully, and he realized he had incensed it all over again. Dammit.

“Are you okay?” Lucy asked when he accidentally leaned more of his weight on her. Plue wasn’t here for an excuse, this time.

He immediately righted himself unsteadily. “Uh, yeah—Yes. Sorry,” he muttered, and held his injured arm with his good hand.

“What just came over you two?” Erza asked, inspecting Gray’s face intently. He was avoiding her eyes, staring at Natsu like he had just polluted the ocean that was their friendship.

Natsu met his stare, a little bleary eyed but seeing the concern on his face.

“I don’t think you’re weak,” Natsu said. “Never have. I—”

“I know that,” Gray blurted and chanced a step forward. Then another and another. His lip was fat and bloodied. “I didn’t mean any of—”

“Yeah, ya did,” Natsu said tiredly. He winced when pain crackled up his arms from the burns—the sprain—the bloodied knuckles that still ached from when he had punched through ethernano. Still, though, he looked between Erza and Gray. “And so did I. I’d do it a hundred times. For both of ya. I’m sorry if…”

His voice went strange, and he looked away. “…’M sorry if you didn’t know that before.”

He jumped when Erza wrapped him into a hug, his shoulders jolting when her hand pressed against the back of his head. It was strange, like there was a film in between them—even though they were touching—even though Erza leaned her cheek onto his ear.

“Natsu… Of course we know you’d do anything to protect us,” Erza said, tightening her hold on him as much as she could whilst still being mindful of his burns. Her hug was… different, somehow, and it was then that he realized she wasn’t wearing armor. “Back in the Tower… I was desperate. I never should have given up. I never should have put you in that position.”

He looked over her shoulder and saw Gray standing behind her, clenching his fists unsurely. He lowered his head in shame. Lucy gasped quietly as the realization of what they were talking about hit her, and she adjusted to press her forehead against his back comfortingly.

“I’m sorry,” Erza whispered against his ear. “I didn’t even stop to think how that must have… have devastated you, especially after Lis—”

That film between he and the world crumbled away with that one syllable.

Frigid claws pierced that wound in his heart, and an awful, choked noise forced its way out of Natsu’s throat. He shook his head in a silent plea, and Erza pressed it against the side of hers with a hushed apology.

All those late-night conversations after Lisanna’s death came dredging right back up. They had all left Natsu feeling the same way, no matter what comforting words Erza, Gray, Makarov—anyone had to say.

Because he knew. He knew in his heart that—

“I’m sorry, Natsu,” Erza whispered again, and he clenched his teeth to keep from crying. “It wasn’t your fault.”

But it was. Because if he had been there, if he had been strong enough—fast enough—smart enough—maybe she would still be here.

If he had shown them how much they meant to him sooner, Gray and Erza would have never even tried to… to…

“Natsu, I’m—” Gray began, looking tired and too-thin and sad, and Natsu couldn’t help but feel like a failure.

More of that heaviness settled on his shoulders and suddenly he had never been more exhausted.

“Don’t. It’s—You guys don’t gotta—It’s fine,” Natsu managed. He gently shrugged out of the girls’ embrace numbly. He cleared his throat.

“No, it’s not,” Gray said, his tone hardening into something more familiar as he came closer. “Is that why you’ve been doin’ all this? You think you ain’t done enough?”

Natsu looked away.

“And why you’ve been pushing yourself too hard…?” Lucy added quietly, her fingers ghosting over his injured arm, over the lightning burns there. Her wounded, beaten face flashed in his mind, and he wondered if he would ever really be able to be amicable with Gajeel when fire stoked in his belly all over again.

Because he hadn’t protected her from him.

“And why you’re not sleeping?” Happy asked, and he was reminded of tossing and turning from nightmares of mourning Lisanna—of mourning Gray, and Erza, and Lucy, and Happy, and Igneel—

“Guys—” Natsu shuffled back a step with his hands up; they were shaky. He forced a smile that felt wrong, and, if anything, it made them look more worried. “It’s—This is dumb. I’m fine—I’m—"

“You’re exhausted,” Gray realized out loud. “When’s the last time you had a real break? You’ve been over at my place nonstop since Galuna—”

“And mine, too,” Lucy said, furrowing her eyebrows.

“Now that you mention it, I have had to kick him out of Fairy Hills more than once since returning from Akane…” Erza said with a fist to her chin.

“What?” Happy asked. “He went without me? When?”

They started doing math together, counting days he had snuck into their places. When it began adding up that he “couldn’t have been sleeping then, because—” he began to inch backwards until a twig snapped under his sandal. Their glares were like daggers on his inflamed skin.

Dammit.

“Natsu,” Lucy declared, and jabbed a finger into his face. “You’re going straight home and straight to bed.”

Natsu opened his mouth to protest—

“Come on.” Gray grabbed his wrist with his icy fingers. The coolness soothed some of his burns. “We’re gettin’ you home. We’ll tie ya to your damn hammock if that’s what it takes.”

And then all four of them were shuffling him away, nudging (shoving) him towards his house.

“Hey! Wait a second,” Natsu said, and batted their touches away. “I don’t need all this—”

“Babying?” Gray asked with a cocked eyebrow and knowing, bloodied smirk. “Is that what you were doin’ with us?”

“What? No!” Natsu insisted. “I—”

“Then that ain’t what we’re doin’ either,” Gray leveled him with his dark eyes, but there was something warm there that Natsu had never noticed before. “Now shut it and come on.”

And then Natsu just… did. All the fight left him, and Gray’s cool hands stayed gingerly on his wrist and shoulder as Erza nudged him from behind and Lucy held his other hand. He smelled Gray’s magic in the air and soothing waves of frost swept across his skin, melting and creating little icy water droplets.

Weird. He had never enjoyed the cold before.

His nose twitched. Sticky blotches were on their clothes beneath the new blood stains. There was something else clinging to Gray’s scent—and Natsu’s. Sickly sweet yet bitter.

Magic. And the distant smell of rain.

A fire began to burn in his belly.

But when Gray’s thumb stroked his wrist minutely, Natsu was content to follow the ice mage wherever he wanted to lead him.

When they came to his house, Happy made a big show of opening the door and ushering them in, to which Natsu rolled his eyes.

“Dear god,” Lucy covered her mouth in horror. “How do you live like this?”

“What?” Natsu asked as he picked his way over his dumbbell… and a pile of clothes… and some trash.

“Is that…” Erza asked, tilting her head up at a very familiar looking punching bag. “Is this supposed to be me?”

“Uh…”

“Anyways—” Lucy said a little too loudly, and Gray bit down a laugh, “Straight to bed. Go.”

Natsu’s face twisted into a pout. “I’m not even tired—”

All four of them glared and said “Now.” He huffed and marched over to his hammock. They just stood with their arms crossed as he got into it.

“You guys just gonna watch me sleep, or…?”

“If that’s what it takes,” Erza nodded earnestly. “We shall watch over you as you have us these last few weeks.”

“Yeah. We’re not going anywhere,” Lucy said. Then, she shook off something green that had stuck to her shoe. “Er… at least, maybe we won’t spend too long here.”

Natsu rolled his eyes and draped his arm off of the hammock lazily. Already, its gentle rocking was making him drowsy; it always did, since it was similar enough to riding on Igneel’s back as a kid… swaying back and forth…

He opened his eyes more fully when he realized his friends were still staring, and chuckled. “Never slept with an audience before.”

“…When is the last time you got some real rest?” Gray asked. “I mean, without bein’ knocked out, or somethin’, first?”

His smile dimmed. He kicked gently off the wall to get his hammock rocking again as he thought. That buzzing in his head had been around for a while. His hands had been twitchy for days. Happy had pointed out the circles under his eyes just this morning.

“Uh… the other day, I guess…” He said. Not that he really knew.

“Uh-huh…” Gray said, unimpressed. He turned to Happy, and Natsu scowled. “Happy, do you know? You’re always with him.”

“Well…” Happy said unsurely. “Lately he’s awake when I go to bed and when I get up… But… he sleeps at least a little bit, since…”

Natsu gave Happy a look, and the cat’s ears drooped.

They all glanced between them in confusion.

“Since what?” Lucy asked.

“Nothin’,” Natsu muttered. “I just wake him up on accident, sometimes. S’all.”

Gray glared suspiciously. “How?”

Then Erza’s face fell. She sighed. “You’re not sleeping. You’re having nightmares again, aren’t you?”

A stone dropped into Natsu’s stomach. Of course Erza would clock him.

She’d caught him wandering aimlessly in the night many times after Lisanna died with tears on his cheeks, with incoherent, sleep-deprived ramblings running from his mouth; something usually along the lines of ‘not wanting to wake up Happy again. He just cries and cries and I don’t know what to do. I was supposed to be there, I could have saved her, I could have—’

Because this wasn’t the first time someone had had to force him to rest.

“Nightmares?” Lucy asked. She gave him this awful look filled with sympathy he didn’t want. Then, she lit up. “Oh, wait! I know!”

She whipped out a silver key, and Natsu groaned.

Gray was the biggest ass this side of Fiore.

He had been so blinded by his own damn self, that he hadn’t even noticed Natsu running himself ragged. Now that he was thinking back, there had been circles under Natsu’s eyes at his apartment. There had been a subtle, tired rasp to his voice. A stiffness in his body even as he offered to make him food, to help him get out of his funk.

And then Gray had tried to beat the shit out of him for whateverdamnreason.

Some of his shame and embarrassment shifted to guilt when he realized Natsu hadn’t just been doting on him, but Lucy and Erza.

He was so stupid. Of course Natsu wasn’t giving him special treatment.

He tried to shove it aside, for now—the confusing, all-consuming anger that had flooded through him the moment Natsu had barreled into him. He had deserved every punch Natsu had given him, after all.

He had missed it. They all had.

Lucy had been kidnapped and beaten. Gray and Erza had tried to sacrifice themselves.

And Natsu blamed himself for it.

‘What an idiot,’ Gray thought with a twist of his stomach.

Lucy swung her silver key in a cross formation, and a golden glow lit up the room. “Open! Gate of the Harp Constellation! Lyra!”

“Lucyyy!” Lyra’s voice was as angelic as the last time they had seen her—in a cave on Galuna Island. Her song had wrenched tears right out of Gray’s eyes when it reminded him of his time with Ur. Gray’s heart ached, and Natsu didn’t miss the way he turned away. Lyra bounced whilst keeping one hand on her magnificent turquoise and golden harp. “It’s so good to see you again! And so soon!”

“You too, Lyra,” Lucy smiled. “We need a nice, soothing lullaby for Natsu—”

“I don’t need a lullaby,” Natsu grumbled with his arms crossed. He pushed off the wall lightly with his foot again to restart the rocking of his hammock. Gray noticed his eyes blinking heavily, and guilt pulled at him. He was tired.

“A lullaby?” Lyra beamed with stars in her eyes. “It’s been so long since I sang you to sleep, Lucy. I have just the one for you and your friends!”

Lyra’s practiced hands swept over her harp, delicate and small.

“I said I don’t—”

The song lilted and danced like a somber fairy, sweet on Gray’s ears and plucky in its steps to tell an unspoken story. Natsu grumbled and settled further into his hammock, turning his face towards the wall to hide the yawn he was trying to stifle.

Erza and Lucy settled on Natsu’s couch and closed their eyes to listen to the soft melody. Happy’s tail swished with the music and he met Gray’s eyes before they both looked back to Natsu.

His eyes were already closed. His arm wound with lightning burns was untightening as it hung off of his stilling hammock. Gray nudged it with his hand, and it rocked quietly. Natsu hummed. His hair swished, although it was matted and sticky in some places. The tail of his scarf was bunched under his chin like a security blanket.

Gray couldn’t help but think that Natsu—the guy who was all fangs and fire and fight— looked soft, for once, and those familiar flutters in his stomach started up all over again. He sat down right on the floor next to the head of the hammock, just close enough to see Natsu’s hair sway and watch his hand swing back and forth gently.

When it slowed, Gray prodded the hammock into rocking again for him.

 Nightmares. Gray was no stranger to those, but he hadn’t realized Natsu was losing battle after battle with them in the night. He remembered how sleep deprived Natsu had been for months after Lisanna’s passing—how aimless and distracted and angry he had been—and suddenly it all slammed into him like a ton of bricks.

It finally clicked.

No wonder Natsu was being so weird.

Gray had almost died. Erza had almost died.

Just like Lisanna had.

“So be there, okay? ‘Cause I’ll notice if you ain’t. That’s the difference.”

Without thinking, Gray reached and grazed Natsu’s hand. He brushed dried blood off of his re-split knuckles and lightly traced the starburst-like scars there. His skin was hot under Gray’s touch in a way that reminded him of fever rather than the sunbaked stone he usually mimicked.

Gray channeled his magic with a cool breeze of air around him and used his hands like ice packs on the burns. Natsu hummed again, not all the way on Earthland anymore, and Gray’s eyes turned fond.

When Natsu finally started snoring softly, Lyra’s song petered out, and she looked with pride over at the snoozing slayer. She beamed and turned to Lucy, but she and Erza had fallen asleep on each other’s shoulders with Happy stretched across their laps, and she giggled to herself quietly instead.

She waved to Gray, and he nodded with a small smirk.

Then she whisked away in a starry light, and Gray sat in the quiet of Natsu’s house for a while, turning over all of Natsu’s visits in his mind and wondering if they had really been for Gray’s benefit.

When Gray carefully roused his teammates, they left Happy with Natsu and started back towards the guildhall.

“How neglectful we are as friends to not notice Natsu’s distress,” Erza said lowly as they walked. She shook her head. “I should have suspected something earlier. He knows how seriously I take the ‘no boys allowed’ rule at Fairy Hills. Now I feel guilty for having kicked him out so forcefully.”

“Yeah,” Lucy sighed, “He’s been showing up at my apartment a lot lately. Sometimes without Happy. Even found him in my tub the other day, just taking a bath like he owned the place!” She threw her hands up in exasperation. “I thought some pervert had broken in!”

“Doesn’t surprise me,” Gray chuckled. “I’m just glad he made me soup, and didn’t try an’ force-feed me a bottle, or somethin’.”

Lucy quirked a brow. “Soup?”

“Yeah,” Gray scoffed, “If you could even call it that. What’d he make you guys? And how burnt was it?”

Erza and Lucy shared a glance.

“Natsu can’t cook,” Erza stated flatly.

“You’re tellin’ me,” Gray snickered.

“No, Gray,” Erza said, and stopped walking. “Natsu does not cook. I’ve forbidden it after the… incident. He’s only allowed to cook outside or in his own home.”

“Incident?” Lucy asked with wide eyes. “What incident?”

Gray rolled his eyes. “Let’s just say we had to put out a lot of fires that day.” Then he furrowed his brows. “So, he didn’t try ‘n make you, uh… a sandwich, or anything?”

“No!” Lucy giggled, “You couldn’t’ve paid me to eat that!”

“I would bind his hands before I let him prepare food for another person,” Erza muttered.

“Huh…” Gray shoved his hands into his pockets as they walked, and tried not to read into any other reasons Natsu could have put the entire town at risk by picking up a frying pan again.

But when he got back to his apartment to shower off the blood and the weird stickiness from whatever Juvia had spilled on him, he couldn’t help but smile when he saw the empty bowl of Natsu’s soup still sitting on his bedside table.

“Hey, Juvia.”

The rain woman whirled around from where she had just been about to enter Fairy Hills, the girls’ dormitory provided by Fairy Tail. Natsu jumped down from the tree he had been sitting in with a small grunt and stared at her blankly. He had a puffy bottom lip. His knuckles were wrapped in bandages and his arm was still in a brace.

“Oh! N-Natsu,” Juvia said a little breathlessly with a hand over her heart. “You startled me.”

Then her eyes darted to the empty flask in Natsu’s hand, and her pale skin went a little paler.

“I know you’re new, and all,” Natsu said evenly, inspecting the bottle closely. He tossed it once in the air so that it did a small flip. “And playin’ with potions is fun, but Gramps always taught me not to feed magic to others without them knowin’.”

Juvia’s mouth opened and closed a couple times, and Natsu caught the scent of nervous sweat like a raincloud hesitant to pour or not. He could hear her heartbeat speed up like it was underwater.

“I-I—”

“Don’t worry, I’m not here to tattle on ya, or anything. I like a good prank every once in a while, too.” He lobbed the bottle to Juvia, who scrambled to catch it.

“But if you play with Gray’s head like that ever again, I’ll kick your ass so hard there’ll only be a puddle left. ‘kay?” Natsu smiled, and his canines gleamed in the sunlight.

Juvia nodded jerkily, clutching the bottle to her chest like it would protect her from the way Natsu’s eyes looked eerily dark.

Almost black.

So Natsu just turned away, linked his hands behind his head, and whistled as he left.

He wondered if Gray was home and figured it wouldn’t hurt to go check. It was wonders what a good night’s sleep could do. He didn’t even mind when rain nervously sprinkled on the sidewalk just behind his every step, or the way his lip still stung from Gray clocking him across the jaw.

Chapter Text

Lyon’s plan had worked perfectly.

He had given Gray a perfect perch. Gray had sniped Racer with a frozen arrow from hundreds of yards away. His aim had been true. Icy wind blew back all the way to Gray from the impact, and he rushed to give Lyon and Sherry backup. His shirt was long gone in the skirmish, and he was covered in bruises from Racer’s speed-packed hits.

They had pinned him against a cliff. He was defeated. Natsu could get Wendy to Erza with no problem, now.

Then the crazy bastard opened his racing jacket, and a bomb Lacrima lit up like Magnolia’s Harvest Festival. Sherry shot up with Lyon’s arm slung over her shoulder in alarm.

Racer’s glasses, shattered and framing his manic eyes like deadly shards, glinted in the sunlight. He was barely standing, shaking as spittle flew from his mouth.

“In the name of the mighty Oracion Seis, this ends here and now!” Racer bellowed.

Gray readied his hands and frost eked onto his fingertips. “No way! I’ll—” But his vision began to swim in black. His knees shook and threatened to give out, and he stumbled to the ground.

Dammit. He had put everything he’d had into that shot earlier. Now, he was empty.

Racer shambled towards them with a deranged smile, and Gray tried to force himself back to his feet. What could he do? How big was the explosion going to be? Maybe if he ran to cover Sherry and Lyon—

Wham!

Lyon charged straight into Racer, they both went flying over the edge of the cliff, and Gray’s heart plummeted with them.

“No!” Gray sprinted after them, but skidded just before he could fall, and watched in horror as they descended.

There was a bright flash of light, but Gray forced himself to try and watch. The explosion rocked the earth. Sherry was crying. Gray stood, stunned.

They were gone.

Natsu slowed to a stop, panting hard when the ground rumbled off in the direction he had left Gray and the racecar-wannabe. He shifted his cargo—Wendy, Happy and Carla—and listened hard for any danger approaching.

A woman screamed. And then, a voice Natsu would recognize anywhere bounced through the trees:

“Lyoooooon!”

Natsu’s eyes widened, and his feet jerked back in that direction.

“Just go!” Gray had shouted back at his ice barrier, panting, slicked with sweat. His arms were trembling at the effort to hold it together. It cut through the forest like a small ice mountain. “I said—hah—that I can handle this guy by myself.”

“Are you sure?” Natsu had hollered back, shifting his friends in his arms. His eyes had flicked to Racer, who was picking himself up from the ground with a grimace. “You look like you’ve burned through your magic—”

“Just go!” Gray had snapped over his shoulder, his dark eyes determined and angry. “Erza’s life depends on it. I’m not lettin’ this asshole pass me! Go!”

Natsu had hesitated, torn in two directions like he was now, and finally growled in aggravation as he bolted, “Fine! But after Erza’s safe, I’m comin’ back for you!”

“Heh,” Gray had smirked, “I know you will.”

Natsu gritted his teeth.

Erza was dying. Gray could take care of himself.

As long as he didn’t do anything stupid.

“You better keep your promise, Gray,” Natsu muttered, and growled to himself as he took off away from the worry trying to pull him where his heart wanted to go.

Natsu charged through the woods, three friends lighter and his skin practically blistering in anger.

He had met back up with Hibiki and Lucy. Erza was going to be okay. Sweet Wendy, the dragon pup that she was, had healed her, but she had also healed… him earlier.

All priorities had shifted. The needle was in the red. Bad to worse. Worse to worser.

Jellal was back.

Back to destroy the world or enslave it or something. Back to taunt Natsu in the dark of the night for his weakness. Back to prey on Erza because of Natsu’s weakness.

And so, after he was sure Erza was going to be alright, he had bolted off from the group before his rage could ignite the air around his friends.

He was going to take care of all this before Erza could even wake up to worry about getting hurt again.

Because of Jellal, she had almost died. Again.

And Natsu had let it happen. Again.

Fire licked Natsu’s heels as he ran to the tower of light shooting into the sky. It was surrounded by tendrils of darkness like oil-slicked snakes, and a sense of wrongness was flooding the forest around him.

Hibiki and Lucy had called it… something important. Something about it changing good and evil or some crap. Natsu didn’t care.

He just wanted to beat the piss out of Jellal.

He would take him down right this time, and he would make his peace with the consequences later. Jellal wasn’t going to draw another breath.

He was never supposed to in the first place.

How a man came back from the dead was beyond Natsu. He refused to acknowledge the way it made his blood curdle; made a cold chill snake up his spine; made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.

It wasn’t natural. It wasn’t right.

Death was death. It was serious, and permanent, and should be respected as what it was: the End.

And so, he convinced himself the fires in his belly were stoked by anger.

Yes—Anger at Jellal. Anger for Erza. Anger at the ungodly way Jellal’s eyes had opened and his lungs had breathed life again—

“Wait a minute,” Natsu skidded to a stop, and he swallowed down the bile in his throat. “I know that smell.”

He lifted his nose. Snow and fresh pine. His heart soared, his head jerked to his left, and he overlooked down a small drop-off that gave way to a creek.

His heart fell.

“Gray!”

Natsu jumped straight down into the water and waded to the slumped-over ice mage. His nose was just barely above the surface for air. Natsu grabbed him up by his orange jacket and his head lolled limply to the side.

“Gray, wake up,” Natsu said, and squatted in the water with him in his arms. He could hear his heartbeat and his breathing, but it was off somehow. He didn’t really look that beat up aside from being unconscious. Natsu glanced around for any sign of an enemy and lifted his nose, but that wrongness in the forest was confusing and muddying scents.

“What happened to that speedy dude? Did’ja beat him? Did that explosion knock ya way over here?” Natsu muttered. His eyes darted back to the sickly light beaming up into the sky. Jellal was waiting at the base of it, he knew.

He shook the ice mage a little more desperately. “Dammit. C’mon, man, do me a favor and wake up. I’m in a hurry. Are you okay? Gray? Gray!”

Gray’s eyes snapped open, but it was only to headbutt Natsu right in his very sensitive nose. Natsu cursed and let Gray go, and the ice mage pulled a rope out of nowhere, and then something was swaying and lifting under Natsu’s feet in the creek bed.

“What the hell?! You were hiding a whole freakin’ raft down there?” Natsu exclaimed, his mind tripping and then stalling when his stomach churned. He doubled over, blinking through his watery eyes from his stinging nose. His hand slapped over his mouth, and he groaned.

Then Gray had an awful smirk Natsu had never seen before, and he leaned in close.

“Poor Natsu. Your motion-sickness makes you so pathetic.”

“Wh-what the—?” Natsu tried to look up in confusion, but Gray grabbed his head and slammed his face into his knee. Stars exploded in his eyes, and then he was face-down on the raft.

“Wh—… What the hell, Gray…?” Natsu moaned. His left cheek was pounding with the warnings of a black eye. The raft swayed and bounced in the current.

Oh gods… he was going to be sick.

“Wow… He really thinks the world of you?” Gray snickered. Natsu jolted uselessly when he planted his shoe in the back of his head and crushed his nose into the crude raft. “Fire and ice don’t mix. It’s, like… common sense. Oh, well. Maybe this’ll help him move on.”

Then there was an icy spear in Gray’s hand, and Natsu’s eyes widened.

“Wait—!” Natsu said weakly with a hand up. His ears were ringing. His arms were leaden and uncooperative in the wake of his nausea. “What’re you talkin’ about? What’s wrong—?”

“You’re what’s wrong.” Gray tilted Natsu’s chin up with the tip of his spear; an icy razorblade threatening the pulse in his neck. Gray bowed, nose to nose with him with an ugly, wicked smile. His eyes were almost black. “You want the truth? Here it is. You’re right to blame yourself.”

Natsu’s eyes went wide. The spear was in Gray’s hand but it may as well have been aimed at that hastily patched wound on his heart. His eyebrows furrowed. What was happening?

The confusion (and maybe the hurt) on Natsu’s face only widened Gray’s grin. “You’re weak. Only a pathetic man like you would honestly believe that you are the difference between your friends living or dying,” Gray spat.

Natsu flinched, mouth agape. “I—"

“Talk about arrogance. You can’t save anyone; not really… Oh, I see… You couldn’t even save your friend Lisann—”

Natsu snapped the spear so fast in his hand that shards of ice nicked his cheeks and cut his palm. His eyes were serpentine and dangerous as the realization of what this wrongness was finally hit him.

His voice was a primal growl, a dragon’s warning before it burned down a forest.

“You’re not Gray.”

Not-Gray tensed. It was all Natsu needed. His lip curled and a snarl thundered out of him.

But, gods, he was sick. The world was tilting and swaying, and he was about to throw up what was left of his breakfast. Natsu grabbed the imposter’s ankle weakly, trying to summon something more, but the fires stoked from his anger got lost in his sea of nausea.

Not-Gray summoned a scythe with Gray’s magic and stared down disgust.

Natsu’s nose didn’t lie, but this thing did. He had copied everything right down to the scar on his forehead from Galuna Island. While Gray’s eyes were cold like an arctic plunge, this thing’s eyes were dark and desolate like the nothingness of space.

“Wh-Where is he?” Natsu managed.

“You won’t live to find out.”

Not-Gray raised the scythe. It glittered in the sunlight. Natsu tried push himself up, to move—

Shing!

The scythe shattered, and they both whipped their heads to see Lucy and her archer horse spirit who had just loosed an arrow. Happy flew up beside her in shock.

“Wanna tell me what the heck you think you’re doing, Gray?!” Lucy demanded. Carla and Hibiki appeared behind her with an unconscious Wendy in his arms. When had that happened?

“Nice… shot, Lucy,” Natsu choked out. Then his cheeks puffed when his stomach revolted, and he hunched over with a painful gag.

“Ugh, hey! I know you’re motion sick, but don’t almost puke after saying my name!” Lucy barked.

“Sorry…” Natsu groaned. He forced his head back up. “Lucy, it’s not—"

Not-Gray kicked him right in the mouth. “Shut it! After I deal with you, the blonde’s next. Ah… her name’s Lucy. A good friend. Better one than you, huh? At least she has the decency to know when to accept she’s at her limit!”

Not-Gray stomped his head back into the raft, effectively cramming Natsu’s mouth shut against the logs. He tasted blood. His stomach was roiling.

“Stop it!” Happy shouted. “I’m comin’ for ya, buddy!”

Then there was a blast of cold air, and a thud on the grass.

Lucy shouted Happy’s name, and Natsu scraped his face against the wood enough to reveal an eye. Happy was frozen in a ball of ice, completely encapsulated.

“How could you do that?!” Lucy shouted. Her hands were on the ice ball, trying to turn it this way and that, but it looked solid. “Is he… Is this Nirvana…?”

“Happy may be able to fly, but he can only carry one person. He’s weak, though, and can’t fight.” Not-Gray scoffed and sneered down at Natsu. “Guess that makes sense, since you’re the one who raised him.”

Natsu was trembling beneath his foot, fury and nausea fighting for dominance over his motor functions. His serpentine eye was locked onto Happy. Lucy was trying to free him by beating on the ice ball. Sagittarius was readying a blunt arrow to shoot at it.

“You’re not making any sense at all,” Lucy said. “What’s gotten into you, Gray?! Help me!”

Natsu needed to get up. He needed his stomach to shut up for a second. He needed his arms to work. He needed to let them know, this wasn’t Gray—

“He’s got plenty info on Lucy…” Not-Gray said, tilting his head robotically. “She’s a newcomer to Fairy Tail. Easy on the eyes. Not really his type, though.”

“What?” Lucy paused in trying to free Happy. Then, she looked enraged. “’Not your type?!’ What’s that supposed to mean?!”

“Ah… well, she’s got the hothead part down. She has a pure heart. Ah, not too strong yet, but… Oh! She’s a celestial wizard?!”

Without warning, Not-Gray launched a large ice attack at Lucy, but Hibiki blocked it with his weird techno-wizard screen magic.

“That’s not Gray,” he seethed in realization. “I can tell you’re an imposter! Drop the act.”

‘Finally,’ Natsu huffed and pressed his forehead to the raft. He tried to gather himself as Not-Gray made a bizarre “piri-piri” noise above him. He had to get Happy. He just needed a second for his stomach to calm down, for the kick to his teeth to quit throbbing, for his head to quit hammering.

Their voices floated in and out, and Natsu squeezed his eyes shut.

He just needed a second…

Just…

‘Natsu would have never let this happen.’

Memories of Lyon and Ur flashed through Gray’s mind as he picked his way hastily down the smoky cliffside. Training in the snow. Huddling together for warmth during breaks. Sharing meals that warmed their stomachs on the coldest nights.

Natsu would have stopped the bomb somehow. He would have thrown it or eaten it or—

Jumped in like Lyon had.

Gray grit his teeth and blinked tears out of his eyes as he searched through the haze for any sign of his adoptive brother. He hung precariously from a thick root twisting out of the rocks, overlooking the smoke billowing from the forest below.

He called up to Sherry, who looked stunned at the top of the cliff. “I’m going down there! You comin’? You okay?”

Sherry lowered her head so that Gray couldn’t see her expression, and his heart twisted with guilt. Maybe if he had been stronger, maybe if his ice arrow had actually defeated Racer, Lyon wouldn’t be—

‘He’s not,’ Gray told himself. ‘He’s alive. He has to be.’

He had just cleaned up his act. Joined an honest guild. Was pushing himself to be good.

It couldn’t be for nothing.

If it was, then what was this all for? What had Ur taught them for? Sacrificed herself for?

He shook his head and wiped his eyes roughly, blinking away afterimages of snowfall on a burning village, the horror and anger on Lyon’s face after Ur had sacrificed himself—the way Natsu would have looked the same if he had done it, too—

“Focus,” Gray said roughly.

He jumped down into the smoke, a thumb rubbing the small crucifix pendant around his neck. He imagined that Ur was with him as he searched.

When Natsu came to again, it was to Lucy stirring nearby and Virgo looking very proud of herself. The world was bathed in blood red light of a setting sun.

“—and I took the liberty of changing his clothes, too, Princess. I think you’ll find these garments from the spirit world very fitting,” she said.

“Uh… Not necessary, but thank you, Virgo,” Lucy said. Her hair was tied up in small pigtails held with stars. A backless blue dress threaded with golden starlight glittered in the red around them. It wasn’t Natsu’s first choice for a fight, but, hey, whatever lit her fire, he supposed.

“Ugh… Wha’s goin’ on…?” Natsu rubbed his head and sat up straighter in his new star-smelling blue and gold outfit. Oh, right. Jellal. Bigger badder things happening. “I’m wastin’ time. Where’s that weird light thingy? We’ve gotta—Oh.”

The pyre of light was bigger and badder and brighter, giant wisps of magic dancing off of it like pure ghouls jetting into the sky. Natsu clenched his fists. How long had time ticked by while he was sitting around being useless?

And where was fake Gray? And why was Lucy here and not guarding Erza? And he needed to get to Jellal. And where was Happy? And—

“Raaaah!” Natsu growled and whipped his head towards Lucy. When she jumped, he paused and took a breath. Lowered his snarling lip. She looked exhausted. Scared.

Flashes of Lucy’s fight with… herself(?) and another celestial wizard flitted by his mind. Something about “gems in eyes.” And then there were the rapids… Lucy holding him close… a drop from a waterfall.

He stomped down the frigid sense of uselessness that surged into his chest. He gave her a proud smirk instead. “Thanks for savin’ my butt back there, Lucy.”

Her face flushed red. “Oh, uh, yeah… Don’t mention it.”

Virgo said, as straight-faced as ever in her monotonous voice, “She loooves you.”

“Don’t you start copying that cat!”

“Speakin’ of Happy, where is he?”

“I haven’t seen him,” Virgo said.

“Now that I think about it…” Natsu put his hands on his hips while his shoulders held all the tension he was keeping out of his voice. “Wasn’t a certain blonde supposed to stay with Erza?”

Lucy hung her head like a scolded puppy. “I was, but we got split up.”

He gave her an exasperated smile, and she looked a little relieved. “Then why the heck are we standin’ around instead of runnin’ towards that light?”

Virgo bowed and excused herself, and so Lucy and Natsu began to go straight there before a shambling figure headed towards them from the woods.

Lucy flinched behind Natsu, and a woman with pink hair stumbled out of a bush like a sleepwalker. He had barely caught her scent in time; everything was muddy and messing with his nose. That knee to the face probably didn’t help.

“Sherry!” Lucy exclaimed in relief, “I’m glad you’re alright, but you didn’t have to scare me like that, hah!”

Natsu tapped his chin and squinted his eyes. “Hey, I know you. Weren’t you on Galuna? Whatever happened to that dog and the dude with the eyebrows?”

Lucy deadpanned. “You’ve… seen her since then, Natsu… Talked to her, even.”

“It’s all your fault,” Sherry muttered. “You Fairy Tail members are to blame. Heh… Heheh…”

“Excuse me?” Lucy asked.

Sherry’s crooked laugh built into a cackle, and she looked like a broken doll as she threw her arms out to the sides. The ground rumbled, and giant hands erupted from the tree line behind her made of mud and roots. Natsu threw an arm over Lucy.

Jagged spikes shot up from the ground and tore right through the hands like nails—spikes made of ice.

Gray pounced from the shadows and put Sherry into a headlock. Finally. “I’ve had enough of you!” He took her to the ground, and she landed with a hard oof. “Attackin’ me for no damn reason!”

“Is she okay?!” Lucy asked.

“I think she might be possessed,” Gray said, his eyes flickering unsurely to Natsu and back to Lucy. Why did he look like that? And… where the heck did he get those clothes?

Sherry thrashed beneath him. “Get off of me! You’ll pay for what you did to—”

“Whoa!” Gray’s back hit the dirt, and he jolted when calloused hands pinned his bare shoulders down.

“Natsu!” Lucy gasped.

Indeed, Natsu was above him, blank-faced and eyes reptilian slits that were reflecting the red light around them like a predator’s. His nose was sniffing like a beast’s, uncaring of Gray’s captive who was free now, and dangerous.

“Hey! What the hell—?!” Gray’s mouth snapped closed when Natsu leaned in nose-to-nose with him. Was that a black eye? A busted lip? A bruised nose? That wasn’t there when they split up.

He just stared, his eyes flicking back and forth between Gray’s. As well-timed as always, those flutters danced in his stomach, and he swallowed thickly.

“…Natsu?” Gray managed.

“You okay?” Natsu asked, so low that Gray’s ears burned with the uncertainty if he’d really heard it or not.

“I, uh—" Gray shook his head minutely before squeezing his eyes shut so he could focus despite Natsu staring into his soul. “Yes—Yeah. I’m good, man…”

Gray took in his tense jaw. His too-wide eyes. “…Are you?”

Who the hell got lucky enough to hit Natsu in the nose? And how dead were they?

Natsu blinked. He huffed through his nose, then, and a tired smirk was on his lips that were so close to Gray’s.

“Guys!” Lucy hollered, and they both looked to see Sherry raising her arms up again like a possessed figurine. The ground began to rumble and distort.

“You’ll pay! I swear on my life I’ll avenge him!” Sherry screamed.

“Avenge who, exactly?”

They all whipped their heads the way Gray and Sherry had come, and lo and behold—

“Lyon!” Gray smiled and sat up with Natsu.

“I would have thought you’d had more faith in me than that,” Lyon said with a cocked, silver eyebrow. He was dragging Racer behind him, and Gray’s shoulders uncoiled in relief.

“It’s really you…” Sherry wept.

Gray grinned in pride and jabbed a thumb in Lyon’s direction. “Of course. He’s a lot tougher than he looks.”

As Lyon explained how he had kept the blast from the bomb at bay whilst keeping them both alive behind an ice wall, Sherry finally gave up her fight. She slumped to the ground with tears streaming from her eyes.

“Sounds like you had as rough a time as we did,” Lucy sighed.

Lyon began to nod, but then his eyes found Natsu, and he bit down a smirk. “Wow, Natsu. Where’d you get that getup?”

Natsu shot to his feet, shoving Gray to the side in the process, and puffed his chest out. “Why? Ya jealous?” He growled.

Lucy rolled her eyes, but Gray couldn’t help but chuckle. Actually… he found he liked Natsu in that loud and proud, blue and gold look. It suited him, somehow.

“Oh… my love… my love…” Sherry whimpered. They all watched, disturbed, as black miasma began to shroud her form before floating away into the light that was Nirvana.

“Like she was possessed. I thought so,” Gray muttered, and rubbed the back of his neck. “This Nirvana stuff is getting creepy.”

“No kidding…” Lucy said. “We’re running out of time.”

They looked back to the eerie pyre of light surrounded by the blood red sky. Gray couldn’t help but wonder how the hell they were going to stop something like that.

But when he looked at Natsu in his weird Celestial getup, he couldn’t help but think it was all going to be okay.

The forest shook and split itself open like old wounds reopening the earth. Giant stone tendrils as thick as the Guildhall itself rose from a slumber, supporting a great platform in the sky like a gargantuan spider. It was three cities wide, at least.

Gray, Lucy and Natsu clung to a leg of it once the commotion stilled, many, many guildhalls high in the air.

Natsu gave them each a glance before charging straight up the curve with a war horn of a roar. It echoed across the land, through the forest, reaching comrade and enemy alike, rallying allies and daring foes.

“Once I get to the top, I’ll smash this thing into a million pieces!” Natsu boomed, his scarf snapping behind him like a battle flag.

Gray glanced behind him, and Lucy’s face was set and determined. Nervous. He hollered over his shoulder, “So what’s the deal with you guys’ matching outfits? And where can I get one?”

“Now is not the time!” Lucy exclaimed, but she rolled her eyes with a small laugh as she ran.

Gray smirked, and then he yelled with Natsu as they charged, joined by Lucy as they headed straight into whatever was waiting for them at the top of the mechanical wonder.

They were Fairy Tail. They were unstoppable. They were—

RUMBLE.

—moving.

They jumped forward to find purchase on the reverberating behemoth of a leg; it was more like hanging onto a cliffside.

Gray had somehow gotten ahead of Natsu. He looked back at him. His face was paling. “Oh, no. You’ve gotta be kiddin’ me!”

Right on cue, Natsu’s cheeks puffed, and his body jerked with barely-held-back nausea.

“Natsu!” Lucy said. “You can’t start getting sick right now!”

“I-I’m sorry,” Natsu hiccupped, and pressed his forehead into the stone beneath him. “I can’t help it.”

“Just try!”

“This thing’s moving… from one place to anoth—eugh.” He gagged, and Gray’s eyes widened.

“It’s moving, but it’s not like a vehicle!” Gray said quickly, “Don’t think of it that way!”

Natsu shook his head like a dog, trilling his lips as he did so. “You’re right!” He impossibly popped up on his feet despite the almost-forty-five-degree angle and began marching straight past Gray’s head.

“Hup-hup-hup… hup… hurgh…” He slowed and clutched his stomach. He looked back to Gray and Lucy with the most pitiful eyes. “My tummy hurts…”

“Get it together!” Gray said, trying to claw closer. Maybe if he could hold onto Natsu, they could drag him up to safer ground. “You can do this!”

Natsu patted his cheeks a couple times. “You’re right! I can… I just gotta… put my mind at ease.”

RUMBLE.

The spider-leg was taking another earth-shaking step, making Gray’s stomach fly into his chest, and he clutched the stone grooves harder.

…And Natsu, who was still on his feet, stumbled, and tripped right off the side of the leg.

He scrambled in the air in a panic, limbs flailing—

Falling. He was falling.

“Natsu!” Gray screamed and dared to scramble forwards to see—to not look—to make himself watch. Again.

Lucy was wailing in horror. Natsu’s eyes met his, and for the first time since Galuna Island when he had stood in front of Gray’s Iced Shell, he looked terrified. Natsu started screaming, but Gray couldn’t hear him over his own voice.

“Noooo!” Gray tensed to jump—to not be stupid—to do something.

A shriek like a firework tore through the sky, and then Gray recognized angelic wings headed straight for Natsu.

They connected, and Happy yanked Natsu back up into the air.

“Oh—!” Gray put a trembling hand to his hammering chest and let his forehead rest on the stone beneath him. “That stupid hothead nearly gave me a heart attack.”

“You’re telling me,” Lucy laughed through her tears, and it was only when she shakily wiped them from her cheeks did Gray realize he was blinking some out of his own eyes.

He cleared his throat as Happy shot up past them, and Gray caught an adrenaline-wired Natsu rambling, “Wow, Happy, that was totally awesome! You’re my hero, buddy! Now don’t put me back on that thing, ‘kay? I can’t believe ya caught me; I mean, of course you caught me! You’re the best—!”

Both of them were laughing like Natsu’s team hadn’t almost been traumatized beyond repair. Gray took a deep breath.

Well… There was still time for that.

Chapter Text

The Oracion Seis had been defeated. Nirvana had been stopped.

Fairy Tail, Lamia Scale, and Blue Pegasus may have been different guilds, but they were all united in collapsing into their own beds to recover from the monumental task of saving Fiore from Nirvana.

Well… except for him.

“You gotta be kiddin’ me.” Gray muttered around a mouthful of dragon-scarf. He thought it could be late morning but was not sure. Exhaustion outweighed any alarm the pink hair obscuring his vision could have brought. His annoyance didn’t quite drag itself out of bed, and so he just huffed.

“Natsu—hey,” Gray found his hand from where it was pinned under Natsu’s chest and pulled on it against the fabric of his coat. The smell of smoke and magic was in his nose like spices thrown into a campfire. Snowflakes stirred traitorously in his belly at the closeness—at Natsu’s quiet snores ever so gently ghosting over Gray’s hair—the heat from his calf against Gray’s—the arm slung over Gray’s bare chest.

It was surprising, but not entirely so. Natsu had been in a state after Zero’s defeat. According to Happy, his fight with Cobra had been just as hard.

The poison dragonslayer. He had almost taken out Erza and Natsu.

And what had Gray done? Shoot a shoddy bazooka at a Lacrima while Natsu had a close fight—while poison was pumping through him.

“Idiot,” Gray muttered.

Gray’s thumb ran absentmindedly along Natsu’s arm while his eyes were still obscured by pink. Veiny lines in his skin told him of the lightning scars from Laxus. Jagged patches reminded Gray of the crystalized tower of ethernano. And now, there were bumps under his skin, like little pebbles were hiding underneath.

Weird.

But, ugh, it was too hot. His bangs were slick with sweat. His cheeks were red. There was heat pooling somewhere down, down, down…

He shook Natsu’s shoulder more urgently while simultaneously moving as little as possible. “Natsu, wake the hell up before I kick you off.”

Natsu made a half-growl in his sleep. “Mmn… Igneel... Where’d all the fish go…? Happy needs’m…”

Gray rolled his eyes. “Igneel ain’t here, flame-brain. Just me, being crushed. C’mon, man.”

“Hm…?” Natsu inhaled sharply in that way people did when they woke, as if his system was rebooting. He yawned right in Gray’s face as he shifted in bed.

“Gross,” Gray cringed and jerked his head away when he stared down the sour maw of a dragon. “Point that thing somewhere else.”

“Mrrnn,” Natsu mumbled. He dragged a hand over to rub at his eye and rolled off him, seemingly unaware entirely of the way he had been covering Gray like a blanket.

“Morning to you, too,” Gray said flatly. He made a face at the beads of sweat left between their skin, and then his eyes widened. He jerked a blanket over his middle, despite the heat. His brain chose that moment to remember the way Natsu had tackled him back in the woods, searching his eyes and pressing their chests together.

His face started to grow hot.

‘Get it together!’

“What’re you doin’, here, man?” Gray forced himself to ask, his voice suddenly like sandpaper. He cleared his throat. “Happy finally kick you out, or somethin’?”

Natsu smirked through a mighty stretch across the bed. The light coming through the curtains softened his edges. When he finally, properly looked at Gray, he was disheartened to see the rings under his eyes. His smile was tired.

“Figured you’d be awake when I came over,” Natsu yawned again. “Then, well…” He sat up and bounced a few times on the mattress, “…your bed’s so cozy.”

Gray scoffed. “It also ain’t for two people. Get up.”

Natsu’s smile faltered ever so slightly, like a trick of the light when the sun’s rays wiggled. He got up and adjusted his scarf so it wasn’t so loose around his shoulders. His hands shook as he did so, and Gray’s eyes narrowed.

“Yeah, should probably get goin’. I was gonna check on Wendy; see how she’s settlin’ in. Y’know, I can’t imagine losin’ a whole guild like that. Losin’…” His eyes met Gray’s, who had sat up now, and then he looked away quickly. “Anyways, I’ll—"

“Wait,” Gray held his hand out. “You… sure you’re feelin’ okay?”

“Yeah, m’fine.” Natsu waved the question off like it was unimportant. Gray’s face soured. “Face is still kinda numb, but guess that means I’ll be able to take more hits that way, heh.”

Gray would have laughed if not for the hollowness in his voice. Yet again, Natsu looked exhausted. He stared for a moment, watching Natsu shift in the uncomfortable air trying to take shape around them.

“…Spit it out,” Gray finally said. At Natsu’s look, he sighed. “Something’s botherin’ you. Just…” He motioned for him to go on.

“Lucy got a new spirit,” he blurted immediately, as if Gray had popped the lid on him off. “Gem… um… Oh, Gemini.”

“Yeah, I remember her mentioning them,” Gray nodded, brow furrowing in confusion. “They can turn into people, right? What about ‘em?”

“Yeah. Well, I ran into one of their copies back in…” He gestured with a thumb to indicate where they had fought Nirvana. “And my nose is good—great. Never had a problem before, but…”

Gray’s eyes widened in understanding. “It tricked you.”

Natsu shrugged begrudgingly.

“That’s… actually impressive, if it fooled you.”

Natsu’s words were clipped and bitter when he hissed, “It shouldn’t’ve.” He was having trouble meeting Gray’s eyes. Then he seemed to remember himself and cleared his throat. He gestured vaguely. “So that’s why I… thought I’d stop by.”

When Gray just stared, uncomprehending, Natsu huffed.

“To…” Natsu scuffed a foot on the carpet. “Make sure it doesn’t happen again…”

Then it clicked.

“Because the copy was of me,” Gray realized aloud.

Natsu’s lip curled to reveal a canine. “Yeah. A shitty one, too.”

Interest piqued, and his shorts thankfully discreet once more, Gray finally stood up. “What did it do? Or, say, I guess? It really sounded like me?”

“No—Well, yeah, but—I mean—” Natsu shook his head, “It was you, but it was definitely not you. For one, it didn’t know how to shut the hell up.”

Gray scoffed at that with a smirk.

“I ain’t fallin’ for that ever again. It had your magic. Even had that stupid look you get with your damn droopy eyes—Yeah, that’s the one.” Natsu pointed at Gray’s annoyed face.

“So how did you know it wasn’t me, then?”

Natsu looked away again. He clenched and unclenched a fist. “…’Cause even you ain’t that big of an asshole.”

“…Oh.”

A ‘shitty’ copy of him. Not a sub-par reproduction—a cruel one.

Natsu’s face had been bruised when he had found him in the woods. Frigid anger shot through Gray’s belly. He took a step closer to him, but Wendy had erased almost all the damage.

The only thing left was a small pink scar across the bridge of his nose. A new swipe of paint to watch slowly fade.

“It hurt you,” Gray said.

“It got a couple lucky hits in,” Natsu corrected.

“…And you thought it was me.”

Natsu tried to shrug something tense out of his shoulders. “Ain’t like it’s the first time ya clocked me.”

But it was enough to bring Natsu back to his apartment. To, what, make sure he wasn’t another copy? Gray looked back to the bed, where Natsu had practically smushed him, and a small thrill tried to spark in his gut again. His face had been… awfully closer than usual. It was almost like he had fallen asleep in the perfect position to breathe him in all night—

“You… Were you… double-checking what I smelled like?”

Natsu’s cheeks went pink, and he turned on his heel as if to leave. Hummingbird wings tickled Gray’s heart, and he couldn’t help but smile.

“You were!”

“I was not! I was just—” Natsu turned around again, but his face was getting pinker—redder. “I dunno what I was doing, I… I guess, after everything with Lyon, I just wanted to, y’know… make sure you weren’t plannin’ on doin’ anything stupid.”

Gray’s smile fell as fast as it had come. Those flutters froze and shattered like glass within him.

Right. Galuna was still a shadow that followed Gray around, after all. Natsu must have been scared the weak link in his team was going to try breaking, again.

“I’m fine,” Gray said. His shoulder brushed Natsu’s as he left the bedroom. Shame stung the back of his neck. “Made you a promise, didn’t I?”

“Yeah, but—”

“So, you don’t have to babysit me,” Gray snapped. “Lyon’s doin’ better, and I’m happy for him.”

Natsu was right on his heels. “But Lucy said that the pink girl said he almost died—”

Gray whirled, something hot and disgraceful scorching his insides and crackling across his words. “Yeah, and I just stood there like a damn idiot! Is that what you want to hear?”

Natsu’s brows rose at the outburst, and he opened his mouth to reply, but Gray didn’t give him a chance.

“But, oh! Here’s Natsu, the hero! He took out Zero and Cobra by himself! He had to come check on poor Gray, who needed help taking out one of the Oracion Seis!” Gray threw up his hands as he paced his apartment.

Natsu glared and clenched his fists. “That’s not what I—“

“No, you wanted to make sure I wasn’t doing anything ‘stupid’,” Gray seethed with air quotes.

How humiliating. Frosty air ruffled their hair as it whipped once through Gray’s living room.

“What do you want me to say? That seeing Lyon fly over a cliff with a bomb strapped to him was terrifying? That it would’a been my fault because I wasn’t strong enough to do anything? That I would have spent day after day blamin’ myself—and I would’a deserved to—because I didn’t do what I should… have…?”

Gray’s words lost their momentum as he heard what he was saying and who he was saying it to. But Natsu just stood stoically, leveling him with an uncharacteristically blank stare.

“Natsu—” Gray began, shaking his head.

“Y’know, when Gemini was you,” Natsu said, his voice suddenly rough, “They sounded like they could read your mind a little, or somethin’. Knew things you never said out loud, before.”

Then Natsu pointed with a wobbly smile, and it gut Gray like a knife. “And that… that was one of ‘em. Guess I was just hopin’ they were lyin’.”

“Natsu, I did not mean it like tha—”

“No, I get it.” Natsu nodded jerkily. “Lisanna died ‘cause I wasn’t there.”

Ice locked up his joints, and Gray froze.

“And, see, everyone looks like that when I bring it up.” Natsu laughed without mirth, and it was awful and wrong. His eyes were glistening with unshed tears. “I was supposed to be there, y’know? But Lis was worried about Elfman; he was still so shy about usin’ his magic around people. I…”

Gray was stunned silent. He couldn’t draw breath. His feet began to grow numb in the wake of a proud dragon lowering its head; rolling over and showing the scars on its belly.

Natsu grabbed the cuff of his scarf. “…I was supposed to be there.”

He cleared his throat. Rolled his shoulders. Then he smiled at Gray through his teary eyes.

“I’m just glad Lyon’s okay, y’know? I would’a hated for you to lose him like that.”

Natsu abruptly made for the window, and Gray’s body finally kicked back into gear.

“Wait.” Gray grabbed his wrist; it was radiating heat underneath the skin. “Natsu, I’m sorry. That’s not what I was sayin’. Look at me.”

Natsu didn’t move, but he didn’t pull away, so Gray moved to catch his eye. “Look at me, man. Whatever that fake me said—it probably twisted whatever it knew to… to hurt you. Lisanna—”

Natsu flinched, and Gray swallowed hard.

“That wasn’t your fault. Nobody—nobody—blames you for that. And you shouldn’t, either.”

Without meeting his eyes, Natsu muttered, “So then tell me you wouldn’t’ve blamed yourself for Lyon, and I’ll believe you.”

The breath he had forced himself to draw left his lungs all over again.

Because Gray couldn’t, but he also couldn’t lie. So, he just stood there, his mouth trying to find words that would either be a horrible truth or an insulting falsehood.

Natsu shook his wrist out of Gray’s hand and opened the window. “S’alright, man. I accepted it a long time ago.”

“Natsu…”

He braced himself on either side of the windowsill. “And… I didn’t think you were gonna do ‘something stupid.’ I just… thought you could use the company after a scare like that. I know I needed it back when… After the Tower, and Galuna… But you guys were there for me, so I figured you’d want that, too.”

Natsu drummed his fingers once on the wall. He sighed. “I’ll leave ya alone.”

“Natsu, wait—" Gray said, but then he fell from the window, and he was gone.

Gray threw on clothes and went to the guildhall in hopes of finding Natsu. His heart sunk when he didn’t see the pink shock of hair anywhere, but he did find Lucy showing Wendy around the guildhall with Erza.

He marched up to her, and she smiled at him. “Hey, Gray! I was just telling Wendy how the job board works—”

“I need to talk to Gemini.”

Lucy made a small noise of confusion and blinked a few times. “Gemini? Uh, Sure… Why?”

Gray motioned with his head for Lucy to follow, and they went to the back of the guildhall.

“Natsu stopped by my place. Said they made a copy of me that fooled him. Freaked him out, I think.”

Gray opened the back door of the guild for Lucy, and she stepped outside to their training area. Loose dirt blew around lazily in the summer breeze. “Oh, yeah! I saw it, too. It can be kinda creepy, huh?”

“Yeah…” Gray crossed his arms and couldn’t help the scowl on his face. “I need to know what they said to him.”

“My friends—they’re all counting on me. It’s the only reason I’m still standin’.”

Natsu had surprised himself during the fights against the Oracion Seis. He had learned an important lesson; doubting himself was never the answer. He couldn’t afford to. Not with the people he cared about on the line.

Twice, he had barely scraped by. Happy had helped him against Cobra, and, as much as he hated to admit it… Without Jellal, he wouldn’t have stood a chance against Zero.

The shadow realm he had been sucked into was a lot like how he imagined the space between the moon and the earth to be. Cold. Silent. Almost peaceful, if not for the haunted shadows swimming around.

He had wondered if that was what death was like and was struck with a perplexing sense of nostalgia.

Then he had seen Igneel in there. He had felt him rumble in his chest like a firestorm gaining new life. He didn’t know what that meant for Igneel himself. Was he in a plane only departed souls could reach? Or had Natsu’s hope that he was still out there created some sort of illusion?

He really missed him.

Natsu stretched out on the roof of the guildhall, soaking up the sunrays that beamed down. Just the scents and sounds of his family below brought him a peace that was settling in his heavy bones. He could catnap here until the sting in his heart from his conversation with Gray had ebbed.

It had only confirmed what he already knew about Lisanna’s passing.

…So why did it hurt so much all over again?

He hadn’t realized he had dozed off until an angry “What?!” made him jerk awake. Blinking the sudden harshness of the sun out of his eyes, he groggily sat up. He groaned. He had been napping so well.

Lucy’s voice made his ears twitch. “That’s terrible!”

Then there was Gray’s. “We were instructed to use information on our targets in ways that would most quickly incapacitate them, piri-piri.”

Natsu shot to his feet when he recognized that phrase. He was about to launch himself off the roof when Gray replied to himself.

“I don’t think that, though,” Gray seethed. “You did twist it!”

“Gray, they were just following orders—” Lucy tried to say.

“Screw their orders! Gods, I’m such an idiot. I can’t watch him get in that… that funk again. I just wanna shake him and make him realize, I—When I was talkin’ about Lyon, I didn’t mean—I—dammit!”

A chilled breeze hit Natsu all the way on the roof. Natsu’s breath caught in his throat.

Gray’s voice replied robotically, “We apologize for stating otherwise. We were enemies. That is not how Ms. Lucy fights, and for it we are glad, piri.”

“Was it… really that bad, Gray? When she…?” Lucy asked, so low he almost didn’t hear.

Shame creeped up Natsu’s neck. He shouldn’t be listening to this. He should go.

Instead, he didn’t move.

“He…” Gray sighed. “When Natsu first got to the guildhall, when we were kids, she was his first real friend. She was so good with animals—wanted to be one, I think—and Natsu was so… I dunno… weird, that they hit it off. Then it was the three of them: Lisanna, Natsu and Happy. You couldn’t find one without the others. It was annoyin’, sometimes.”

“But when she died, he…  wouldn’t eat. Couldn’t sleep. It went on for months. He would go off on jobs on his own for the first time since gettin’ his guild mark. Hell, I couldn’t even look at him funny without him tryna burn my face off. Erza and I caught him wandering through the streets sometimes, just… so tired it hurt, and… He just couldn’t handle it.”

Natsu lowered his head. All those emotions were flooding back. The loneliness. The anger.

The guilt.

“I mean, there’s a reason we hadn’t really teamed up before you came along, Lucy,” Gray said, “I… Maybe I could’a done more. He really needed a best friend, again. I think you helped him, y’know, put it all away, or somethin’. But, man… He—we all—miss Lisanna. Natsu would’ve done anything for her. Kinda like he would for you.”

Lucy was quiet, and he imagined she was wiping tears away. The softie.

“And you,” Lucy finally said.

Natsu perked up a little.

“Huh?”

“Oh, please,” Lucy said through a sniffle, “Happy’s told me how often he’s snuck into your place—that he knows about. He cares about you a lot, Gray. Like me, like Erza—like the whole guild. It was all of us, I think. Maybe he was just ready to start healing.”

“…Maybe. For now, though, I gotta find the flame brain, and—ugh… apologize, I guess.”

Then Natsu’s feet started moving on their own. He figured he’d save him the trouble after that mushy emotional marathon. He stepped to the edge of the roof and was finally able to see Lucy and the two Grays. One was dressed in a white t-shirt with a black jacket, and the other had on an open white button-up. He whistled, and all three of their heads snapped up.

“Natsu!” Lucy gasped. “How long have you been—?”

His sandals hit the dirt. He looked between the two Grays. He breathed deeply through his nose.

Snow and fresh pine. Identical.

Almost.

He fixed the white-button-up Gray with a stare. “You lookin’ for me?”

Gray blinked in bewilderment a few times. His face went red. “Were you eavesdropping?”

“Ain’t my fault you guys were yappin’ where I was nappin’.” He jerked his chin at the roof behind him.

Gray rolled his eyes. “Right. Fine. I’m… sorry about earlier. Really, man. I… You came to check on me, and I just got rubbed the wrong way. Shouldn’t’na took it out on you. I really… All that stuff about blamin’ myself about Lyon almost—… I know better than that. I’ll… work on it.”

Natsu thought for a moment. Then, he nodded. “How about you just quit bein’ so damn hard on yourself, and think about what you’re doin’ right, for once? And I’ll try and—”

A lump jumped in his throat without warning, and he looked away. Lisanna’s smile flashed in his mind like a fading Polaroid, and his heart hurt. “And I’ll try and stay outta that ‘funk.’ Deal?”

Gray held out a hand with a relieved huff. “Deal.” They shook on it, and Natsu managed a small smile.

“Yay!” Lucy high-fived Gemini-Gray with a smile.

“Gray is genuine in that he would like to work on his own self-worth, piri,” they informed, tilting their head mechanically. “It very much bothered Gray that you were upset with him, Natsu.”

“Uh! No—that’s enough, Gemini, you can go now,” Gray said hurriedly, breaking from the handshake.

“Oh really, Gemini?” Lucy crooned with a sly smile, “What else?”

“He finds it such a shame that Natsu left so abruptly, after such a nice morning he had with him in b—"

Gray’s hands slapped over his copy’s mouth.

“Lucy, close their gate now, or I’m telling Erza what really happened to the slice of strawberry cake she was saving!"

Gemini winked away immediately, and Gray fell through the golden sparkles they left behind.

“You promised you wouldn’t tell!” She whined, gestured to the dumbfounded dragonslayer. “You know Natsu can’t keep a secret!”

“Yes, I can!” He said, “I haven’t told anyone about that kissy-kissy book you’re writing with everyone’s names all spelled wrong—OW!”

“How did you find that?! Stop breaking into my apartment!”

Natsu picked himself up from the ground with a new bump on his head. “You’re so weird…”

Gray laughed and held his hand out to Natsu. He pulled him up and then paused.

“Hey,” Gray said, “How’d you know I was the real thing? Did you see Gemini turn into me?”

Natsu tapped his nose proudly. “Told ya I wouldn’t fall for it twice.”

“Hm. Or was it a lucky guess?” Gray teased.

“No.” Natsu shrugged. “You just still kinda smell like me. S’what happens when I get on top of ya in bed.”

Then he walked away with his hands linked behind his head and wondered if Happy had found his way to Carla again. He needed to check on him and maybe see if Wendy wanted to be shown around Magnolia. He would sniff out Erza, too, and make sure all that poison was really out of her veins. His own face was still numb-ish from it. Then his stomach rumbled, and he realized he hadn’t stopped by to say ‘hi’ to Mira, yet, to check in on her since getting back from their mission.

As he mulled over all his plans for the day, he was blissfully unaware of the way Gray and Lucy’s faces were identically red with their jaws trying to hit the ground.

A few days later, Gray sat down at a guildhall table with Natsu, Lucy and Happy. They all looked up from their lunch.

“Natsu, do you remember when we were kids—you made a promise to a village of invisible people to break their curse?” Gray asked.

Natsu paused in chewing. “Uh… no?”

“Right, well,” Gray said, “I followed you out there when you were hunting down a lead on Igneel—it’s not important. The chick that cursed the village is back, and she’s tryna build a giant fake dragon—she needs a dragonslayer to do it, but I figured we could ambush her and take her out before things get serious.”

“Oh,” Natsu blinked, digesting Gray’s slew of words. “Wait… she’s buildin’ a dragon? You can’t build a dragon!”

“Wanna go take her out?”

“Hell yeah!”

“Oh, one last thing,” Gray added, “She thinks I’m on her side, so let’s pretend you’re captive and double-cross her.”

Natsu beamed. “Like spies!”

“Sure.”

“Well, if you hadn’t told Natsu,” Lucy said, amused, “Then he could have just reacted to you ‘betraying’ him.”

Gray burst out laughing. “Can you imagine? ‘I’m turning against the guild! I’ve never liked any of you!’”

Natsu chuckled. “Right? Like I would ever believe that! It’s completely out of character for you! Good thing you were just honest up front.”

“Right. What kind of moron wouldn’t just say something to begin with? Let’s go kick some dragon nerd’s ass.”

Chapter Text

“Natsu… if I ever went missing like that, you wouldn’t let me stay gone, right? I mean, you would try and find me, wouldn’t you?”

“What kinda question is that, Lis? I’d never stop lookin’!”

When Igneel disappeared, Natsu’s world had turned gray.

Overnight, the woods he had grown up in had become unfamiliar. The stream he always bathed in was gone; and so was Igneel’s mountain; and the valleys where they would hunt. For weeks, Natsu searched with dirt caked into his hair and his magic as his only company.

Lost. He had been lost for the first time in his life.

After collapsing from exhaustion, he could vaguely remember through a haze of confusion a young man dressed in black holding him close, shushing him as he looked up to the light coming through the trees and whined for Igneel. He had been starving. His throat had been raw from screaming for his father; a dragon call that had never gone unanswered before.

At some point, he had passed out, and woken up to an older man shaking him awake. He had huffed in relief and hauled a boney Natsu right into his arms even though he was the same size as the short guild master.

Somehow, he had ended up in the woods by Magnolia. Makarov had introduced him to the guild, but everyone talked wrong and it had made his head hurt. No one knew how to play right. No one knew how to chitter, or which growls meant ‘play’ and which meant ‘stay away.’

Gray had been an asshole out of the gate. Erza would glare if he tried to urge her out of her brooding corner. Mira and Cana just laughed at him, and Elfman was just plain shy and boring (and maybe scared he would bite his hand off).

So when the guild had gotten too loud for his sensitive ears; when the confused stares became too much; when he missed Igneel the hardest, he would go outside to sit by Magnolia’s great lake.

He would wonder why Igneel hadn’t found him yet. He would worry himself sick. He would hold his scarf close and cry into it on the privacy of the beach.

Then one day, when he was out there in the rain, a little girl his age had come with an umbrella the color of summer cherries. It was first color he had truly seen in a long time, because it was so stark against the gray clouds.

“Your name is Natsu, right? I heard you were raised by a dragon! That’s amazing!”

And suddenly, the world hadn't seemed so dreary, anymore.

“I just wish I could keep my promise, Happy. I… I don’t think I’ll be able to find her this time.”

“...and Gramps says we saved the whole country,” Natsu said. He leaned back in the dewy grass. “And Jellal… well, you don’t really know him, but… let’s just say I got Erza’s back on that one. Guess I won’t try n’ kill him again, heh.”

A summer breeze ruffled Natsu’s hair like a soft breath of laughter from the great beyond. His eyes traced every curve tenderly carved into Lisanna’s gravestone, from the Fairy Tail symbol to the name chiseled into it. They had piled up wildflowers around it, pops of pink, yellows, and purples they knew she would have loved. Happy had fallen asleep next to him in the sunlight, and a layer of quiet was draped respectfully over the trees to hush all of the wildlife around them.

“And I think…” Natsu rubbed a blade of grass between his fingers and tilted his head. “I think I heard Igneel for the first time in… in years.”

He took a deep breath. “Kinda hard to explain. I was in a weird place; somewhere with ghosts and stuff. Anyways,” he shrugged, “I heard him loud n’ clear. Tellin’ me to pick myself up, y’know? And I did, Lis! I kicked ass. But I…”

Natsu swallowed and shook his head. His eyes stung without warning. He cleared his throat, but his vision grew blurry with tears. He mustered up his courage. “Are you both… in the same place? Could I have heard you in there…?”

He reached up and his fingers brushed the top of the gravestone. His voice was barely a sound. “Is Igneel gone, too…?”

There was a warmth in his chest, then; a blooming of heat like the first sip of hot cider on a frigid day. His other hand went to his scarf, and he sucked in sharply through his teeth to stifle a small sob.

No. He couldn’t think like that. His dad couldn’t be—

Natsu wiped his eyes roughly with a fist.

“Miss ya, Lis,” he said instead. “And we got another new recruit: Wendy. She’s a dragonslayer, like me and Gajeel. You would’a—”

He grit his teeth and pressed his forehead to the gravestone, creating a quiet space just for him and her memory. “…You would’a loved her.”

But grief worked in waves, and Natsu hadn’t known the tide was creeping up on him until it had reached his heart.

“And—” He cried in earnest now, in that way he only could for her. “And you would’a loved Lucy and Juvia, and you would’a been so proud of Elfman, and—”

A tiny paw touched his trembling shoulder. Happy leaned into his arm and pressed his cheek to his bicep with tears in his own eyes.

And he just let Natsu cry.

“—and I’m so sorry you ain’t here to—to have it all, Lis. I’m sorry you—”

He shook his head against the gravestone, rubbing his bangs in odd directions.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there. I should’a… I should’ve been there for you.”

He watched his own tears drip from his nose to make tiny craters of grief in the dirt.

“But I—” he hicced, and wiped his eyes futilely again. “I get it, now. What everyone keeps sayin’. Gray—he—Somethin’ happened with Lyon and—he almost watched him die, but he didn’t, and—”

He took a shuddering breath and slowed his frantic tongue. “Gray was blamin’ himself. Would’ve blamed himself, like—”

He remembered Happy, then, and his next words stopped just short of his teeth. He put a heavy hand on the cat’s head. Happy leaned into his touch.

“So, we… I made a promise I’d try not doin’ that, so much. And so, I… I gotta try not gettin’ so hung up on the past. We got a lot of good things comin’, Lis, and I know that. I just wish… I wish you were here to see it all with us. Can’t believe it’s been two years already. I’d give just about anything to see you again.”

His thumb stroked lovingly on the gravestone.

“And if… if you are where Igneel is, you…” He swallowed hard. “I know he’ll keep ya good company.”

He stood up mechanically. He dried his tears. He felt lighter, somehow.

“Bye, Lis. I’ll be back soon, ‘kay?”

He turned to head back to the guildhall and wondered if it would ever get any easier to leave her behind.

Gray definitely did not go to the guildhall on the likely possibility of seeing Natsu there.

...And he definitely did not get disappointed when his pink head of hair was nowhere to be found.

He greeted Mira, but she lacked her usual honeyed smile. He ordered lunch, grabbed a drink, and settled into an empty table.

Then Juvia planted herself right next to Gray with a blinding grin and a tray of cookies with his face on them, and he could only stare.

“Is that…?”

“Yes, my darling Gray!” Juvia sang. “I made them myself! Ah, and no magic was involved at all!”

“Uh… Right… And why would there be magic in—?”

“Heretryone!” She jovially crammed a cookie into his open mouth, and he choked on his own face.

He forced it down, beating on his chest and gasping for air. “The hell?” He coughed.

Juvia clasped her hands with stars in her eyes. “Do you like them?”

He leaned away from her much-too-close face. “I guess…”

She made a high-pitched sound that would make dogs cringe, and bounced in her seat. “Nothing but the best for my darling Gray!”

She linked her arm into his, and his eyes went wide. “Wait, what’re you—?”

“I mean, I was so nervous to give them to you! But of course you love them, they’re made of my love for—“

“Damn, Gray. Didn’t think you could get any uglier.”

Gray couldn’t help the smirk that made itself home on his face anytime Natsu was around, lately. But Natsu wasn’t smiling, and he plucked up a cookie to give it a good sniff. Oddly enough, Juvia had frozen next to Gray, shrinking against him as Natsu cracked the treat in half with his teeth. He didn’t break eye-contact with Juvia as he chewed.

Natsu’s eyes were draconic slits. Gray’s smile dimmed as he glanced between them in confusion, and shook Juvia’s arm out of his own.

Was Natsu… upset with Juvia’s cookies…? With her… closeness?

No way.

Unless…?

Flutters danced in his belly all over again, and heat began to creep into Gray’s cheeks.

“O-Oh! Natsu!” Juvia laughed a laugh that was very forced. “I made these cookies for Gray. They’re very normal.”

Natsu gestured with the half-cookie left in his hand. “Guess they are. ‘sides the weird icing on ‘em.”

“Yes, well, they’re meant to look like Gray since they were for him—“

Natsu popped the rest of the cookie into his mouth with a loud crunch, and Juvia flinched. He slid easily into the other side of the booth and draped his arms over the back of the seat.

“What’s the occasion? We havin’ a Gray party, or somethin’?” He asked with a forced nonchalance that had Gray’s eyebrows furrowing.

Were Natsu’s eyes puffy? A little too red? Or was Gray looking too hard?

He remembered Mira, then—realized what the date was, and his heart ached.

Had it been two years already?

Gray caught his eye with silent concern on his face, but Natsu just offered him a look that was softened on the edges; a silent reassurance. Fairies resumed their pirouettes in his belly, and he cleared his throat.

How Natsu managed to pull on Gray’s insides without even touching him, Gray would never know.

“Yes, well,” Juvia straightened with a little more courage and grabbed Gray’s hand. He could only stare at their interlocked fingers dumbly. Her skin was clammy. “Gray and I were just having an intimate moment before you interrupted us. And I would appreciate some space for when the time comes to celebrate our relationship properly.“

Natsu and Gray’s eyes practically popped out of their heads, and at the same time they barked, “’Relationship’?!”

The guild’s sound paused, and the ever-hungry gossipers present made no efforts to hide their interest; their heads shot up like meerkats. Levy and Lucy perked up from the book they were chatting over; Cana, Erza and Mira looked over from the bar; even Makarov pursed his lips in amusement. Gajeel rolled his eyes and went back to hunching over his drink.

And suddenly, it all clicked into place. Juvia’s immediate warming up to him. Her behavior after the festival. The way her face went red if he so much as waved at her.

He had thought she was shy.

Gray yanked his hand from Juvia’s like he was pulling it out of a shark tank. “We are not in a relationship!” He blurted, and stood up from the booth.

His cheeks were scarlet. The whole guild was staring. The respectful, somber air that had settled was faltering.

How humiliating. Of all days.

Juvia gasped like she had been shot. “I-I—No! Not officially—Not yet, I suppose, but—But I just thought—“

“That’s what these are?” Gray asked, pointing to the tray of tiny faces. “Boyfriend cookies?”

Natsu blinked hard like a lightbulb had gone off in his head. He looked down to the cookies with new eyes, nodding like he was confirming the last piece of a puzzle. “Ohhh.”

From another table, Lucy facepalmed.

Juvia waved her hands with tears in her eyes. “No—I mean, yes, but—I… This isn’t how I wanted this to go!”

Crunch.

Natsu was chewing on another one of Gray’s faces.

“Stop eating ‘em!” Gray snapped.

“You.” Juvia’s face went dark like a storm cloud. “You ruined everything!”

Natsu pointed at himself. “Me?” he said around a mouthful.

“And I thought the blonde bimbo was my rival!” Juvia yelled. The cookie tray rumbled like thunder when she planted her hands on the table. “Gray is mine—!“

Like a switch had been flipped, Natsu stood and towered over Juvia in the blink of an eye. His eyes were smoldering. His shoulders were squared in a way Gray only saw when he was about to lay someone’s ass out.

Of all days to piss him off...

But Gray could only stare as his heart hammered in his ears.

Her ‘rival’…? Natsu?

There was a deafening quiet as a dragon stared into an incoming hurricane, and the guild seemed to hold their breath as one.

“Okay!” Lucy appeared to push them apart. Natsu immediately relented at her touch, and he huffed steam out of his nose. “I know water and fire don’t mix, but I didn’t think you two would get into it like this.”

“She’s just so weird,” Natsu grumbled and crossed his arms.

Lucy patted his shoulder extra gently, as if he were made of glass. Ah, so she knew what the date was, too. Gray wondered who had told her.

But Juvia was crying, now, and rain began to beat on the roof of the guildhall. “I didn’t mean any harm. I just—I just wanted to show Gray that I—I—“ She covered her eyes with a small sob.

Some of Natsu’s heat drained out of him at that.

Ah, right. That was his weakness. He couldn’t stand it when people cried.

Unfortunately, Gray’s was that look on Natsu’s face like someone had kicked him.

Gray sighed. “Uh… Juvia?”

Juvia lifted her despaired face. “Yes?”

“Listen, ah…” He scratched the back of his head awkwardly and shifted closer to Natsu. “I didn’t know you, uh, felt that way. And I can get not knowin’ how to act around someone you…”

He forced himself not to glance to his right and cleared his throat. “Anyways, I’m sorry, but I ain’t really interested in that kinda thing with… you…?”

Juvia’s tears bubbled up even more and rolled down her cheeks, and she let out a wail.

“But,” he said quickly, “We could be friends, right? I don’t even know ya that well yet. You’re new to the guild, but I think you’re pretty cool—in a friend way.”

Juvia just cried harder.

“Smooth,” Natsu muttered, and Gray elbowed him.

“I’ve got this,” Lucy said with a hand up. She patted Juvia’s shoulder and covered her mouth to whisper in her ear. “Juvia…—has nothing to do with you—… He’s—“

Then Natsu sneezed, and Gray narrowly dodged the fireball launched in his direction.

“You idiot!” Gray snapped.

But Natsu just laughed. “Sorry! It was you or the cookies.” He grabbed another one and put the whole thing in his mouth.

“Stop eating them!” Gray bellowed, and grabbed his face to pry his jaw open.

Natsu shook him off and scrambled away with the tray. “But you’re so delicious!”

Gray gave chase, and soon they were rolling on the floor as Natsu reached for cookies scattered around while Gray tried to pin his arms down. The guild chuckled at their antics. Mira actually smiled at them with a small giggle.

“Oh,” he heard Juvia say softly with her fingers delicately over her lips. Her tears were drying. The rain was letting up, but it didn’t quite leave. “I suppose… I understand, now.”

Lucy gave her a sympathetic smile. Juvia looked between Natsu and Lucy, then.

Gray didn’t notice the way Lucy was staring with a quiet resignation at the dragonslayer. He didn’t notice the way Juvia lit up with a new understanding and squeezed Lucy’s arm. He only noticed them again when Juvia marched back to Gray, who was using Natsu’s face to polish the floor.

“I owe you an apology, Gray Fullbuster,” Juvia said.

Gray blinked up at her. He untangled himself from Natsu and stood up. The dragonslayer took the opportunity to cram cookies into his mouth like the animal he was.

“I don’t wish to be known as an… obsessive, daft woman. Someone who loves you truly would have your best interests in mind, and… While I am disappointed, I…” She held her hand out in a peace offering. “I am sorry, Gray. I admire you so much. I hope some day we can love each other as true friends… Ah, only if you would like that.”

Gray shook his head. “Oh. Don’t get me wrong, Juvia, I’m flattered, I just…” He gestured emptily. “The love thing… ain’t really my thing.”

Juvia’s eyes flickered to the fat, feral dragon behind him, and she huffed good naturally. “If you say so, Gray. Friends?”

Gray smirked and shook her hand. “Friends.”

“Thank you,” Juvia sighed in relief. “Between this and the potion, I was afraid you would never speak to me again, hah!”

Gray laughed. “Haha, yeah, no it’s all good… Wait, what potion—?”

“Anyway,” Natsu popped up and hooked an arm around Gray’s shoulder. He licked his lips. “Make those creepy cookies anytime, Juvia! They were awesome. Could be spicier, though.”

Juvia’s split-second panic melted into a relieved sigh, and she nodded gratefully.

“O-of course. Um… Thank you, Natsu,” she said pointedly, clasping her hands. “And… I’m sorry to you, as well.”

Then Natsu winked at her, and Gray couldn’t help but feel he had missed something. Oh well. Natsu seemed like he was cheered up, and so Gray found himself smiling.

Then Natsu popped another cookie with his face on it into his mouth, and Gray tackled him to the ground.

One minute Natsu was asleep under a guildhall table with a belly full of sweets—the next, everything and everyone was gone.

All except for Wendy, Carla, and Happy.

There was nothing but a void of nothingness left of Magnolia. A whirlpool in the sky swirled like a second sun swallowing everything up.

Then Carla dropped a bombshell, and Happy was awfully quiet in the wake of Carla’s explanation of their ‘purpose’ to betray the dragon slayers. Happy and Carla flew them through the whirlpool in the sky to a whole new world: Edolas. There were floating rivers, new bizarre creatures, mushrooms the size of houses, and absolutely no magic.

There was no Gray. No Lucy, no Erza, no Fairy Tail.

At least, that’s what Natsu thought before he, Wendy, Carla and Happy stumbled upon a giant plant that was twisted into a building.

There was a banner on it with the Fairy Tail symbol, and Natsu’s heart soared.

They were okay.

They burst into the guildhall in disguises they had scrounged up, but—

Something was different.

Nab was actually completing jobs like nobody’s business—how had he already found work in this strange world, anyways?

Cana was dressed like Lucy had described the stuck-up rich girls she knew did, and was pretending she never drank.

Elfman was crying about being teased by Jet and Droy. Juvia was off in the corner in a less-than-conservative outfit she usually preferred.

Then Natsu was tackled by a black and blonde blur.

“Who the hell do you think you are, bargin’ in here like—“ She jabbed her knee into his neck, and yanked back on his bangs to reveal his face from under his hood. “Natsu! It’s you!”

When his airway was relinquished again, Natsu coughed and was allowed to sit up. He blinked up at Lucy. She was wearing dark leather and a skull pin. Weird. Lucy hated that stuff.

And… was there a scar on her lip? Since when? She was oddly toned. She looked older, somehow. Jaded. Tired.

What had happened since they were all seperated? Had it really been that long?

His heart dropped, and he reached up to her.

“Luce—?“

Lucy wrapped him up in a hug. “What took you so long? I was so worried about you.”

Natsu sighed in relief and patted her back. “I—“

He yelped when she grabbed his arm, pinned him on his stomach, and pulled his leg to try and fold him like a pretzel.

“You dummy! Don’t ever take that long to come back again! I thought something happened!”

“Ack!” Natsu cried. “I’m sorry! Jeez!”

“Not good enough!” Lucy barked. She jabbed her sharp elbow into his back.

“Ow! What’s your problem, Lucy?! Get your big butt off me!”

She glared a glare that would make Erza proud. “What did you just say?”

Natsu withered. “Ah, nothing! I—“

She pulled on his arms and planted a foot on his back to try ripping them off. “That’s what I thought! You just wait ‘till I’m done with you!”

“Easy, Lucy, you’re gonna break him.”

They both looked up, and the tension in Natsu’s chest unknotted. “Gray.”

He was dressed in an oversized hoodie, jeans, and combat boots. There was a red scarf around his neck and racing goggles pushed up into his hairline. It was the most bundled up Natsu had ever seen him.

Lucy dropped him (not before giving him one last yank on the ear), and allowed him to sit up. “He’s all yours, man. Levy! You got that damn thing workin’ yet?”

“Up yours, airhead!”

“What was that, half-pint?!” Lucy stomped away, and Natsu stared, dumbfounded. Since when did they insult each other like that?

Gray squatted down to Natsu’s level, his eyes roving over him curisouly.

“What’s with the weird getup?” He asked. “The Dogs give you trouble on your way over? You okay?”

“Uh… Dogs?” Natsu blinked.

Gray only looked more worried at that. “The Royal Guards? Y’know, the ones who’ve been huntin’ us for years? Those Dogs?” His hand reached right up to tilt Natsu’s jaw to the side. “You hit your head or somethin’? Don’t tell me ya crashed again.”

Something about the way Gray’s icy fingers brushed against his skin made Natsu’s mouth go dry. It was unusually tender.

“I-I—“ Natsu worked to say something, but everything was so different and overwhelming and—

“Natsu’s back? Where? You guys better not be bullying him or my brother again!”

Natsu froze. He had only heard that voice in his dreams for years. He leaned to look past Gray’s shoulder. Happy squeaked behind him in disbelief. His jaw dropped.

It couldn’t be.

But it was.

White hair. Sapphire eyes.

“Welcome back, sis!” A much wimpier-looking Elfman smiled from across the guild.

“Glad you’re back safe,” Mira said fondly.

Natsu got up on legs that trembled beneath him. Gray stood with him like he was prepared to catch him if he fell.

“Natsu! You’re back!” She said, and smiled with the warmth of all the sunrises he thought she would never see again. She was in a purple tank-top, cargo pants, and boots. There was a scar reaching up her chest like a monster had tried to claw her heart out. Her smile dimmed at his expression. She shared a glance with Gray.

“Are you okay? You look like you saw a ghost. Wh—You’re crying!”

It seemed he was. His lip trembled, and his face collapsed. He embraced her, cradling the back of her head and burying her face right into the crook of his shoulder. He took a deep breath, and her smell flooded his nose; sweet and familiar and alive. Happy jumped up to hold onto her too, and her eyes went wide at the sight of him.

“Lisanna,” Natsu breathed, as if speaking too loud would shatter this vivid dream he was surely in. “I found you.”

Chapter Text

“Lisanna… I found you.”

She was alive. She was breathing. She was in Natsu’s arms.

“Lisanna!” Happy cried, ripping off his helmet and nuzzling her like the lost mother she was to him. “Lisanna, you’re alive!”

“N-Natsu—“ Lisanna whispered, and her voice was the sweetest thing to ever grace his ears. “It’s y—“

“Whoa!” Gray barked, and snatched Happy up roughly by the scruff. “What’s this thing doin’ here?! Natsu, you let a damn Exceed in?!”

“Let me go, Gray!” Happy cried, reaching with his little paws.“It’s Lisanna! It’s really her!”

Wendy and Carla came out from under the table they had been hiding under. All eyes were on them, now.

“Who the heck are they?!”

“Two Exceeds?! How’d they find us?”

Lucy wrenched Natsu’s shoulder and he was ripped away from the light and warmth that was Lisanna. His eyes couldn’t leave her. His tears wouldn’t stop. He was trembling; his hand reached from her own gravitational pull on him. She was in combat wear, and there was that scar on her chest, but...

She was as beautiful as the day he lost her.

“Natsu! Don’t worry about me! I’ll be back before you know it!”

Natsu watched her go after her siblings with a dimming smile. Happy pouted next to him, but it was nothing an afternoon of fishing wouldn’t fix.

He missed her already.

Lucy grabbed him by the scarf and got right in his face, her scarred lip curled in anger. “Quit cryin’! You’ve got five seconds to tell me why you brought a brat and the Exceeds straight to our hideout. Does that mean the Dogs are coming, too?”

The guildhall became silent when the doors shut behind Natsu. Mira and Elfman were sobbing in front of Makarov. When Mira saw him, she only cried harder.

His feet carried him right up to her. Without meaning to, he towered over them, his body tight as a wire.

“Where is she…?” He breathed, but his heart was already growing ice cold. Mira just shook her head. Elfman had to turn away. His world started to fall apart.

“Where’s Lisanna?!”

“Lucy, stop it, you’re gonna make him have another episode,” Gray snapped, and batted her hand off of him. “Give him a chance to explain.” He inspected Happy, who was pinning his ears and tucking his tail underneath himself as tears plipped to the floor. “These ones don’t even have wings. Maybe they’re just cats.”

“If I may,” Carla spoke with her normal poise and held up a paw. “Natsu, Wendy, Happy. These are not the guild-mates we know.”

She pointed across the guildhall. “And she is the evidence.”

All of them turned to look at a familiar woman with blue hair. Wait… she looked like…

“Wendy?” Happy sniffled.

“What?!” Their Wendy squeaked. “That’s me! Older me!”

Carla nodded. “This is Edolas’s version of Fairy Tail. They don’t know us.”

Lucy looked more confused, and then she looked angry. She cocked her fist, but Natsu didn’t flinch as the gears in his brain short-circuited. She shook him by the collar of his shirt. “What’s the cat talkin’ about?”

“So… So, wait,” Natsu croaked, trying to blink through tears. “Y-You’re not my Lucy from Earthland?”

Lucy scrunched up her face impatiently. “Earth-what?”

His eyes flickered back to Lisanna, who was backing away, and his heart fell as the realization of what Carla was saying sank in. A familiar, awful numbness crept into him, blanketing over the grief that was threatening to drown him all over again.

He hung his head and grit his teeth.

… But he had finally found her.

“Wait a sec,” Gray said, and adjusted his hold on Happy to something gentler. He got in between Natsu and Lucy. He tilted Natsu’s chin back up, and leaned to catch his blank eyes through his bangs. “You sayin’ you’re not my…?”

Gray’s fingers threaded right into Natsu’s hair, parting it to get a look around his temple. Natsu used the opportunity to breathe deeply through his nose. It was definitely a Gray, but… there were no chips of ice magic in his veins; no frost on his skin.

“No scar,” Not-Gray said in awe. He leaned in close.“And… whoa, weird eyes, too. Gnarly teeth.”

Natsu blinked. He ducked out of his touches.

“Hey!” Natsu scowled and bared his fangs. He had to ignore the cracks splitting his heart back apart. He needed to focus. Wendy looked terrified. He needed to find his Gray. His Lucy. His Lis— “My teeth are fine! And the Gray I know would be half-naked by now.”

That made their eyebrows shoot up.

“You got some bark and bite to ya, huh? You really aren’t Natsu,” Edo-Gray scoffed.

“Yes I am!”

“He’s not the Natsu you know,” Carla said, an eyebrow twitching. “How many times must I say it? We’re from another world entirely.”

Edo-Gray put Happy down with an apologetic pat on the head, but Natsu picked him right back up.

Happy hicced into his shoulder and grabbed at his scarf. “Natsu, I-I thought—“

“I know, bud,” Natsu said lowly. He patted his back. “Me, too. It’s okay. You’re okay.”

Edo-Gray blinked and cast a look to Lisanna, who was still backing away and clutching her chest, stunned. “Oh…” he breathed.

Natsu tried not to look at her again. There was a yawning trench just behind him. He had spent a long time clawing out of it.

He wasn’t ready to go back in.

“So, what does that mean for our friends, Carla?” Wendy asked. Natsu blinked her back into focus. Her eyes scanned the sea of familiar-but-not faces “Where could they be?”

Carla put a paw to her chin. “They’re likely in the Royal City, where the Anima was created in the first place. We can’t stay here. We should—“

The doors to the guildhall slammed back open, and Natsu almost jumped out of his skin. Edo-Nab stood in horror. “The Fairy Hunter!” He screamed. “She’s here!”

A distant roar shook the walls of the living guildhall. Everything happened fast after that. A giant blue monster with a nightmare for a mouth screeched as it circled them with mighty flaps of its wings.

Edo-Lucy screamed for Edo-Levy to activate some sort of machine.

Gravity clocked out for a break, and then the floor rushed away from Natsu.

The world flattened, twisted, warped—

“I’m gonna be sick!” Natsu slapped a hand over his mouth. His eyes rolled, the guild spun like a tornado, and then everything went black.

“That’s… one helluva story.” Edo-Gray raised his eyebrows.

“You’re sayin’ copies of all’a us are here?” Edo-Lucy said in awe. Then she sneered in a way Natsu had never seen her do before. “They’re gonna get ate up and spit out.”

Natsu glared. His stomach was still queasy from the guild’s hasty teleportation A.K.A. travel A.K.A. using something to go one place to the other. “We’re gonna go rescue them, and with you guys helpin’ us, we’ll—“

Edo-Levy scoffed. “What? We just barely escaped the Fairy Hunter, and now you want us waltzin’ into the Royal City for some chumps we don’t even know?”

“You…” Natsu blinked. Surely he had heard that wrong? “You’re not… gonna help us? But we’re from the same guild!”

“Don’t get us wrong,” Edo-Juvia said cooly. “We sympathize. But… we do not know you. We’ve lost so many already…”

Ka-thunk.

The guildhall doors shut, and Natsu felt her absence as immediately as he always did. Lisanna had left. Edo-Mira looked after her and sighed from the bar.

Not his Lisanna, he reminded himself.

She was gone.

Gone like his guild mates were about to be.

The ice in his heart ignited into something useful.

“Well I’m not losin’ anybody else!” Natsu seethed, making some of them jump. He stood up on the table he had been sitting on. He glared down at these imposters wearing the faces of his family. “You may call yourselves Fairy Tail, but the guild I know doesn’t know how to back down from a fight. You wanna stop this dumbass king of yours? Quit cryin’ and do somethin’ about it!”

He hopped down and marched through the gathered guild, their eyes alien and familiar and wrong.

He missed his family.

He missed Gray. Lucy. Erza.

And as always, he missed Lisanna.

At least most of them, he could fight to win back.

Natsu wanted to cheer Happy and Wendy up.

Carla was boring and stuck-up and rude. Happy had a lot on his mind from this supposed “mission” he was on. Wendy had worry keeping her shoulders much too tense.

And Natsu needed a distraction from that old wound aching within him.

So when he decided they needed a small break from walking, he spotted a strange lizard and chased after it on all fours like a dragon pup.

“You ingrate!” Carla snapped. “We have more important things to do than—“

Then Natsu slipped and rolled a few times clumsily, and the lizard ended up on his head. Wendy and Happy laughed, and he grinned. He snatched up the lizard and inspected its red and pink patterns.

“Nice catch!” Happy giggled.

Carla huffed and crossed her arms. Her tail lashed in irritation.

“Never seen one like this before,” Natsu said, pursing his lips. Then he opened wide. “I wonder how it tastes!”

“Ah! Haha, no, Natsu!” Wendy squeaked, and reached up to rescue the poor, panicking thing.

“Heh, what, you want the first bite?”

“Squee!”

They both jumped when the thing shrieked. They looked at each other before bursting out laughing.

“It must’ve understood you,” Wendy giggled.

“Guess so,” Natsu sniffed it experimentally. It squealed again, and he winced when the sound pierced his sensitive ears. “Prob’ly ain’t good for eatin’. I’ll let it go—“

Natsu stiffened. The hair on the back of his neck stood up.

The ground rumbled. The sandy dirt around them swelled and spit out a giant version of the lizard creature they had caught.

“It called for its mama!” Happy exclaimed.

“Its mama’s the size of a house?!” Natsu locked eyes with the horrific parent, and then looked down to the baby lizard in his hands wagging its damn tail. He sat the thing gently on the dirt, ducking his head respectfully and crooning in a way he’d heard a dragon do to Igneel once after it had wandered too close to Natsu.

The baby ducked down into the sand and was gone in an instant. The mama sniffed the ground, satisfied that it was safe, and then—

“Wooooaaaaaaa!”

“Momster’s pissed!” Natsu hollered, snatched up the Exceeds, and hauled ass away from it. Wendy scrambled after him. “I wasn’t actually gonna eat it, lady!”

Its giant, clawed feet slammed into the ground behind them, and they stumbled. Natsu’s eyes scanned the horizon, but there was nothing but openness, and he didn’t have his magic. He had to protect them all somehow. He had to—

Shing!

The Momster roared, and Natsu risked a glance back to see green blood spurt from one of its legs. It yelped and jumped, sailing clear over all of their heads and careening into the ground like a freight train. The sand swallowed it up, and then it was gone. Once Edolas stopped quaking, Natsu stared at the cause of the Momster’s slashed legs.

“Gray?” Natsu panted.

Oversized hoodie. Combat boots. A scarf and goggles up on his head.

Nothing like his Gray wore.

Edo-Gray sighed and sheathed a glass-looking longsword on his back. There was a machete strapped to his hip, and the bump of a dagger hiding under his pant-leg on his ankle. “I hate it when I’m right. You guys weren’t gonna last a day out here by yourselves.”

There was a small chuckle, and Edo-Lucy sauntered up in all black leather and her nasty attitude. “Guess I owe ya ten Lacmea.”

“Just buy me lunch and we’ll call it even.”

“Deal.”

“Thank goodness for you guys!” Wendy said, running up to them only to stop short and bow at her waist.

They stared.

Edo-Lucy looked to Natsu. “What’s she doin’?”

“Thankin’ us, I think,” Edo-Gray muttered.

“What’re you doin’ here?” Natsu asked. He couldn’t keep the bitterness out of his voice when he added, “Thought we weren’t worth the trouble.”

“Hey! Be grateful we showed up at all, or else you’d be Sandmander chow!” Edo-Lucy blurted with a fist up.

Edo-Gray put a hand on her shoulder to interrupt. “Don’t get us wrong. You guys got a death wish we ain’t interested in. But… we figured the least we could do was get ya to the city.”

Natsu blinked, looking back and forth between these people who looked like friends—who smelled like them.

Maybe they were, after all.

Natsu nodded. “Thanks.”

They came to a city called Sikka made of mud and rocks like strange insects had spit and stuck it all together. Edo-Lucy took them to a black magic shop for weapons. She also held up her end of buying Edo-Gray (and everyone else, since they didn’t have the local currency) lunch.

“I’m writing a novel?” Edo-Lucy guffawed and slammed a hand down on the table. Edo-Gray snickered to the side. “How lame is she?”

Happy laughed. “You’re obnoxious just like her, too!”

“Watch it, cat.”

“I’ll bite. What about me?” Edo-Gray asked. He swirled his glass with something blue in it before taking a sip. “Am I some nerd, or somethin’, too?”

“You use ice magic,” Wendy said cheerfully.

“Oh, that’s pretty cool. I have an ice sword I use.” Edo-Gray gestured to the hidden weapon under a coat he had snatched from a chair on the way there. And… where did he get those fingerless gloves?

“Well…” Wendy added hesitantly. Her cheeks grew red. “You’re also known to… um…”

Natsu tilted his head before he perked in realization. “Oh, that he’s a streaker?”

Edo-Gray spit out his drink. Edo-Lucy fell out of her chair from laughing so hard.

“A what?” Edo-Gray pulled up on the collar of his hoodie like he could cover himself up more. “I am not a—“

“Streaker!” Edo-Lucy cackled, and her hand darted up to slap the table again. “I’ve never even seen you without a shirt on, prude!”

Carla rolled her eyes. Edo-Gray’s face went scarlet.

Natsu couldn’t help but chuckle when something pure and warm bubbled up in his chest.

Finding Lucy had been as much of a blessing as it had been a shock. After wasting the pitiful excuse for magic Edo-Lucy had supplied them with, Natsu had never been happier to see her fighting off royal guards.

But when she whipped out a key and summoned Aries, that joy shriveled up into something sour.

“So…” Natsu glared at her. “How come you can use your magic but I can’t?”

“What? You can’t?” Lucy gasped as the soldiers backed away to gather themselves. “Then… that means…”

She put a fist in the air. “...That I’m Fairy Tail’s strongest wizard!”

Natsu and Happy stared.

Natsu hung his head. “We’re doomed.”

After Lucy had taken care of the wave of soldiers, Edo-Lucy and Edo-Gray had yanked them into a small safe house hidden within the city. It was simple; a living room, a bathroom, a couch, and cushions. They took turns peering out the window, instructing everyone to be silent.

“Okay…” Edo-Lucy finally sighed. “Looks like the Dogs are done in this sector for the night.”

“I’m so glad you’re safe,” Lucy said, and hugged them all for the third time in turn. She grabbed Natsu’s hands. “Horologium saved me from getting sucked in with you guys. Mystogan found me, and, well, I think that’s why I can use my magic. I was so worried about you guys.”

Natsu scoffed. “Who, us? Nah, we’re doin’ great.”

“They almost died immediately,” Edo-Lucy muttered.

“No one asked you!” Natsu snapped.

Lucy blinked at her counterpart. They spent some time comparing, even going to far as to summon Gemini to add a third Lucy into the mix. Edo-Lucy cut her hair so that they would be easily told apart, and Lucy was apalled.

“Are you sure you wanted to do that?!” Lucy asked. “It will take forever to grow back out! And it was so pretty…”

“It’s just hair,” Edo-Lucy said, twisting her scarred lip. “In case you ain’t noticed, we don’t have room for ‘pretty,’ or ‘handsome,’ or holdin’ hands and singin’ songs together. We have the breath in our lungs, and each other. I know what’s important; that’s what I’m sure of.”

Lucy’s mouth snapped closed, and she looked away in shame. “Sorry, I just… Didn’t mean for you to have to do that.”

Edo-Lucy’s face softened, then. She sighed, and sat on the couch next to her with an arm over the back and a leg out to the side. It was a sharp contrast to Lucy’s drawn-together knees with her hands on either side of her.

“Tell me more about your prissy world. Let me guess, you got magic for somethin’ as easy as changin’ clothes?”

“Well, actually… in our world, your so-called ‘Fairy Hunter’ is one of my closest friends. And she…”

As they swapped stories, Natsu settled for a cushion on the floor against the wall.

“That’s some crazy magic she’s got there,” Edo-Gray said, and sat next to him with his own cushion. “Is all Earthland magic that strong?”

“Oh, Lucy’s tough, but she’s got a lot of learnin’ to do. Fighting’s new to her.” Natsu nodded towards her proudly. “Seems like every time I look at her she’s growin’.”

“I see. So you two are…?” Edo-Gray pointed in between them.

“Friends? Yeah!” Natsu beamed. “Lucy joined Fairy Tail cause’a me!”

Edo-Gray rolled his eyes from some reason. “You really ain’t my Natsu.”

“What’s that mean?”

“Tell me more about your Gray,” he said instead, leaning to cross his arms over his knees. He looked cozy swaddled in all his layers. “He do anything else besides streakin’?”

“Barely.” Natsu snorted. “He goes on jobs with us a lot. Spends a lot of time alone. I’ve known him since I joined the guild as a pup. We usually fight a lot, but… lately… I dunno. I just keep endin’ up at his place.”

Edo-Gray blinked and looked hopeful, then. “Okay. So are you guys…? Y’know?”

“Yeah! Ever since we were kids.”

“Kids? You’ve known for that long?”

“What, that we’re friends?” Natsu asked, and Edo-Gray’s shoulders slumped. “’Course. We’re guild mates! Are you… not friends with everyone in your guild?”

He seemed very perplexed at that notion. How sad for him. “Uh… Not everyone.”

“Hm. Maybe you should fight more. S’what Gray and I do. Just the other day we fought because I made him soup,” Natsu chuckled. “We gave each other shiners, but he got some stuff off his chest that way. Me too, I guess.”

Edo-Gray stared, a little disturbed, searching Natsu’s fond face before he looked up in thought. “Does… Does your Gray have problems openin’ up?”

“Like, talkin’ about feelings and junk?”

Edo-Gray deadpanned. “Yes. ‘Feelings and junk.’ He have trouble saying what’s botherin’ him?”

“Oh, yeah. He’s gettin’ better at it, though, I think. I just wish he…” Natsu fiddled with the tail of his scarf.

Edo-Gray tilted his head patiently. It was odd. This Gray didn’t have any circles under his eyes. “What?”

It was so strange to talk to Gray-who-wasn’t-Gray. It was… easy, somehow, but… off. Natsu sighed. He wasn’t sure why, but this Gray seemed open where his Gray was closed up, like something was jamming the door.

Edo-Gray’s eyes were icy but unapologetically kind. Unguarded.

Thawed.

“I just wish he wouldn’t be by himself so much. I get needin’ alone time, but…” Natsu shrugged. For some reason, heat went to his cheeks. “But I… want him around more, I guess.”

“Oh.” Edo-Gray laughed lightly in something like relief. Then, he bit his lip, which Natsu had never seen his Gray do. “Guess we’re opposites in that, too.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I hate bein’ alone. Even now, with Him off in…” Edo-Gray ran a hand through his hair. He cleared his throat. “Just got somebody I ain’t seen in a while, and I’m worried.”

“Yeah…” Natsu nodded, and leaned back on the wall. “But, see, that’s the thing.”

“Hm?”

“I think my Gray hates bein’ alone, too.”

The next morning, Edo-Lucy was gone.

“She just packed up and left?!” Lucy screeched. “What a jerk!”

“Easy,” Edo-Gray said, “She’s got her reasons. I was surprised she made it this long in the first place. It’s hard for her to leave the guild behind.”

“Guess I can understand that,” Natsu huffed. He gestured with his chin to Edo-Gray. “So why didn’t you go with her, then?”

“You guys ain’t my only reason for bein’ out here,” Edo-Gray scoffed. “C’mon. If we go while it’s still early, we may not get spotted again.”

They filed out of the safe house, skirting in the early morning shadows and giving the soldiers on duty a wide berth. A pack of them passed by a building they were hiding around the corner of. Natsu and Wendy’s ears perked.

“They’re draining the lacrima in two days,” Natsu whispered.

Edo-Gray cursed under his breath. “It’ll take three just to get to the Royal City. I’m… I’m sorry. I don’t think there’s any other—“

A sound like a train blowing too much air out of engine made Natsu jump, and he peered around the corner to see some kind of… flying magic mobile landing on the ground.

“What is that?” Wendy asked in awe.

“It’s an airship,” Edo-Gray said, already backing away. “They’re bringing reinforcements. You guys can come back to the guild with us. It’s not much but it’s better than—“

“What do you mean?” Lucy said. She pointed at the airship. “That thing looks fast. What if we—?”

“No,” Edo-Gray’s eyes went dark, then. “Don’t even think about it. Trust me.”

Lucy gestured with a key already out. “But with my magic, I could—“

“It’s not worth it,” Edo-Gray held his hands out, gesturing for them to follow. His eyes locked with Natsu’s. “I’m… I’m so sorry about your friends, but… this is it. We have to go now. Please, Natsu.”

Please.

Hearing Gray’s voice say that did something awful to his insides. Natsu looked to the airship—the ticket to his friends.

“I’m sorry,” Natsu said, shaking his head. “This’s somethin’ we gotta do.”

“You’ll die.”

Natsu gave him the most reassuring smile he could. “At least we’ll die tryin’. I wouldn’t have it any other way for my Gray. Would your Natsu?”

Lucy’s eyebrows rose at that.

Edo-Gray stared in disbelief before turning around and pulling at his own hair in frustration. “Dammit!”

“Guys!” Wendy said, pointing. “It’s now or never! It’s about to take off again!”

Edo-Gray unsheathed his machete; it was almost translucent, glittering and cold like ice. He pointed it right up to Natsu’s chin. “If this goes sideways, it’s on you.”

Natsu just grinned, adrenaline already thrumming through him.

They charged out, led by Lucy to meet the soldiers head on as she summoned Loke—

Except, Loke didn’t come, and Lucy’s face turned to horror as she scrambled to pick another key. The soldiers were closing in, and Edo-Gray swung his machete to slice at their magic spears.

“What’s the holdup?!” Edo-Gray hollered.

“Gate of the Golden Bull!” Lucy’s voice rang out with a golden flash. Taurus came out swinging, but soldiers were swarming towards them. “Loke was supposed to come and wipe them all out.”

“He’s unavailable Luuuucy!” Taurus mooed apologetically, his eyes shifting nervously. “I’ll have to doooo!”

Wendy screamed when a soldier pinned her down.

“Get off of her!” Natsu barreled into the soldier, and covered Wendy in time to receive some kind of shock from the spears. When he yelled in pain, Edo-Gray whipped around.

“Natsu!” He charged for him, but a spear clipped his arm, and blood went spraying—a torrent of energy jolted him and sent him to the ground.

“Guys! Hold on!” Lucy shouted desperately. “Taurus—“

Taurus was pelted from all sides. His gate shut, and Lucy went pale.

A roar cut through the air. Soldiers in the back of the crowd went flying with yells of pain. A sound like a mechanical dragon rumbled into Natsu’s staticky bones, and the royal forces shouted for more reinforcements.

A magic mobile like Natsu had never seen drifted and screeched to a stop just in front of his team. The tires were on fire. The frame was painted crimson, and giant exhaust pipes jutted up from the sides of the hood.

The driver used the momentum to throw the passenger door open. Then Edo-Gray was there, hauling Natsu into the car and the rest of his friends piled in.

“Hold on to your lug-nuts!”

The driver threw the car into gear, stomped on the gas, and Natsu’s entire world lurched with it.

“Oh, no,” Natsu gagged and covered his mouth when nausea swirled in his belly.

“You asshole,” Edo-Gray chastised. “We thought you were dead!”

“Me? Never!” The driver laughed. “You know I—mmph.”

Lucy and Wendy gasped quietly next to him.

“Missed you, too,” the driver chuckled lowly.

Wait a second… Natsu knew that voice!

Because it was his!

Natsu forced his head up in time for Edo-Gray to lean away from Edo-Natsu, and he locked eyes with a pair of goggles in a rearview mirror. “You’re—“

“Holy smokes.” His brows rose over the goggles. A scar peeked out from his right temple, jagged and parting his hair oddly there. His friends’ jaws dropped. “I found myself a whole damn doppelganger. Gray, you know that ain’t me, right? What’s with the weird outfit, Lucy? You’re so… colorful.”

“Where have you been, Natsu?” Edo-Gray asked. He inspected him the best he could seated next to him.

It was him. Pink hair, tan skin, the same voice. He wore a red jacket with flames on it. He had a cocky smirk and normal, human teeth.

“Well, you guys moved, for one, and didn’t bother tellin’ me,” Edo-Natsu scoffed. “I’ve just been makin’ my rounds.”

“Rounds don’t take that long,” Edo-Gray said. “It’s been weeks. What happened? Did you have another…? Y’know…?”

Edo-Natsu was quiet for a moment. He glanced up in the mirror, and then back to the stretch of desert. “Nothin’ I couldn’t handle. Where we headin’, anyway? Who’s the poser about to upchuck on my leather seats?”

“The Royal City,” Edo-Gray said. “And, Natsu… meet Natsu. There’s… a lot to fill you in on.”