Prompt: "Do you want me to leave?"
The warm summer sun shone down on a lone figure's back, warming but never burning. Natsu Dragneel hadn't bothered to go into Magnolia that day, instead choosing to stay at home. His guild mates new better than to come here today. They knew better than to bother him on July seventh.
"The day Igneel disappeared." The somber thought tore through the slayer's heart and made him wan to cry.
In all honesty, they didn't bother him that entire week.
The pink haired mage was sitting cross-legged in front of the wall, staring intently at nothing as the memories of his missing father plagued him. They played in his mind like a move, and just like every year, he watched. He re-memorized the detail as he brought them up, silently praying that he'd never forget them.
At some point during the day, he'd moved. An old sketch book sat delicately in his lap, pristine white pages becoming blacker as he smeared the charcoal across them. He didn't know how long he'd sat there, but by the time he'd finished, there were several drawings of Igneel in both dragon and human form with detail that Redus would be jealous of.
Natsu scooped them all up and stacked them neatly. He moved an old floorboard, and slipped them underneath.
"I need to buy a binder for them."
The next year he did the same thing.
And the same again.
Until the year he didn't.
Natsu had always hated this time of year. He hated the anger that came with his father's disappearance. He hated the sadness that ripped through him like a hot knife.
"It's almost been six years now..."
The thought startled the dragon slayer, and for a moment, he wondered if he would ever find Igneel. He pulled up a picture of his father in his mind, panicking when it took much longer than it should have. He immediately reached for one of his hidden sketchbooks and began to draw.
"I won't let myself forget." Natsu became frantic, lines smearing in his haste. "I can't forget. Please don't let me forget."
Black eyes welled up when the charcoal grasped between his fingers repetitively refused to recreate the images from his memories, now blurry from time. The tears smeared the charcoal down the page, turning the beautiful drawing into a nightmarish recreation. He jumped up from his spot on the floor and threw the sketchbook across the room.
Natsu swayed where he stood, the sudden movement dizzying him, and after a moment, he collapsed to the floor atop his beloved drawings, a single thought running through his head.
"When was the last time I ate?"
It was a few hours later that Natsu finally woke up. The dragon slayer nearly jumped into a fighting stance the second he laid eyes on the unfamiliar surroundings, but he stopped when the smell of pine and peppermint assaulted his nose.
"Gray?"
The ice mage was sleeping in an old wooden chair beside the bed Natsu had been placed in. His soft snores echoed throughout the room, breaking what would have otherwise been silence.
After realizing he was in safe hands, Natsu drifted back to sleep.
Sunlight streamed in through the window and landed softly on Natsu's face. He rolled over and grumbled, which seemed to startle Gray.
"Natsu's a morning person. He's always up with the sun, not the crack of noon." Gray had been wondering that for the past couple of days, but pondering never changed tha fact that he didn't wake. "Maybe it has something to do with the date?"
The raven-haired male stared at the sketch book in his hand, flipping through page after page of drawings. Some were familiar people and places, like everyone in the guild hall, while others were people he didn't know and places that seemed to come straight from a fantasy novel. They were all so realistic that they would look like portals if they had color. As if the universe had read his mind, he found pages with color on them. Several dragons were depicted, and even if he hadn't spent years listening to Natsu rambling about Igneel, he'd have picked him out instantly anyways. His best friends father towered over the other dragons by twice their height and had terrifying scars all across his body.
"It definitely has something to do with the date," There were too many drawings of the dragons, too many pictures of the place he called home, and too many pictures of people he had probably called his family. "I didn't know he could draw, let alone this well."
A muffled groan brought his attention back to the pinkette in his bed as it startled him. Natsu was was staring dazedly at Gray, as if trying to shift through what was real and what wasn't. In a single second his eyes refocused, and he tensed rather noticeably. He opened and closed his mouth like a fish for a moment, and Gray waited for him to collect his thoughts. "How did I get here?" The question came out rasp, and the slayer grasped at his throat after forcing it out.
Gray handed him the water bottle on the bedside table, choosing to wait until Natsu was done before speaking. The bottle was handed back to him after Natsu had downed about half of it. "Happy found you passed out in your house." He began quietly. "We don't know how long you've been out, but you been here for two days."
Gray chose that moment to raise the sketchbook, which caught the attention of the shorter male immediately. He tensed even more than he already was, and he snatched the old binder, hiding it beneath his body like it would cease to exist. "I know I probably wasn't supposed to look at these, but they were scattered everywhere. I put them all back in the binder for you. Well, the loose ones anyways." Some of the drawings were still attached to the sketchbook that had been within the binder, after all.
Natsu had slowly relaxed as the ice mage spoke. "I think I just forgot to eat." He mumbled. Natsu's fire magic caused his metabolism to reach insane heights and burn more calories than a normal person could ever intake in a week over the span of a day. When he skipped a couple meals, it was likely that he'd pass out.
Gray was barely able to make out was the fire mage had said, but after a moment of contemplation, he was sure of the words. "Sometimes I forget how ridiculous your metabolism is, Flame-brain."
Gray stood up and left the room to what Natsu assumed was the kitchen, and a thought struck the dragon slayer, "Since when is Gray this nice to me? And why the hell did Happy get him instead of someone else?"
Despite them being light, Gray's footsteps echoed in Natsu's head as he made his way back with what smelt like pancakes. "I made them this morning, so they're still warm." a small laugh escaped the ice mage as he continued, "After all, morning for me is after ten."
Natsu tilted his head at the statement and gingerly took the plate, "After ten A.M or ten cups of coffee?" Gray shoved his shoulder for that, but the fire mage just laughed softly. "How do you even drink that shit? It's disgusting."
"I guess I'm used to it," Gray responded."By the way, the drawings are really good." Natsu nearly chocked on his pancakes, which he'd been eating slowly to avoid making himself sick, and that's when Gray noticed something he hadn't ever seen the dragon slayer do. The pinkette's face had turned a brilliant shade of red that reached all the way to his ears, and he looked like he was trying to drown himself in his scarf. "It's probably way to much to ask, but um..." Gray got really quiet, and his own cheeks darkened slightly, "Could you tell me who they all are?" When Natsu didn't respond, he panicked and tried to correct himself. "You don't have to," he blurted, ¨it was a dumb thing to ask.¨
Natsu mumbled something that sounded an awful lot like ¨Gray,¨ and the ice mage wanted to bury himself alive.
¨I'm so sorry." He really hadn't meant to do anything that could make his friend more upset over Igneel, but when did either of them get anything right? "Do you want me to leave? I can leave. I'll come check on you again later." He nearly bolted out of embarrassment the second he turned, but Natsu grabbed his arm and yanked him back onto the bed.
"You uh-" Natsu paused as if choosing his words carefully, "You don't have to leave." He tentatively reached for the binder and pulled it on to their laps. Natsu's voice had gone quiet again, still sore from not talking for days on end, "Um, ask whatever. I guess." His face was still blaring red, but he wasn't trying to hide in his scarf as much as he was before. Gray took that as a good sign.
After a while, Natsu became much more comfortable telling stories about the dragons that he never shared in the guild. Stories of the other Dragons he's met and why he knew so many. Igneel hadn't just been the king of fire dragons, but the king of all dragons, and he used to drag Natsu around during anything that involved diplomacy. Because of this, Natsu was way more involved than the other slayers, and he didn't like people knowing that.
"But why?" Gray asked carefully. "What's so wrong with people knowing that?"
Natsu smiled, but it was more bittersweet than happy. "I'll tell you eventually, but it's a bit of a mess."
Gray nodded, accepting the answer for the time being.
The two of them stayed there for hours, Natsu just talking about some of the things that he saw and did as a child, and eventually, they fell asleep against each other.
Natsu was never alone on July seventh again
Words: 1,741
Hello, I'm Jinx! I don't now how often I will update this, but the first one hundred chapters will all be from the same prompt list! so there will be at least one hundred chapters all centered around Gratsu. This is my first time writing the pairing, and I am aware that they are a little OOC in this one, but most of this was done early in the morning with a sleep deprived mind.
I update faster on Fanfiction.net if you don't want to wait for when I can get on here.
If you see a typo, please tell me! Also, Reviews make me a happy person! If you like it, tell me! If you hate it, tell me! Feedback is appreciated, but constructive criticism is even more appreciated! Love you guys, and see you in the next chapter!
Love you guys!
-Jinx