They had a plan: get in, pick them off from weakest to strongest, get out. A simple plan used by the best and the worst. They had one shot to get this right, with a 50/50 chance. Unfortunately, luck was not on their side this time.
The plan went through with no delays in the beginning, but when they were in, they quickly realized there was going to be a huge change in plans. The dark guild they were up against somehow received information about the two mages plans and formed a group to wait for them at the entrance. The first group of attackers where much weaker than the two Fairy Tail mages, as well as the next few groups.
But, when the two mages were distracted by the final few opponents, a member of the dark guild snuck up behind Natsu and stabbed his side. Then his stomach. The attacker then aimed for the fire mage's heart but missed when shot with a heap of ice and ended up stabbing the fire mage's arm. Natsu stood in shock and studied his new wounds. He began to sway and slowly fell over.
Gray finished off the rest of the mages he was fighting then turned around to check on his partner, but saw something that would haunt him for the rest of his days. The fire mage was being attacked from behind with a glowing dagger. The ice mage immediately shot at the attacker and rushed over just in time to catch the falling dragon slayer.
"Hey. Hey! Flame brain! Come on you idiot. Say something!" After a few moments of silence, Natsu began coughing and breathing very jagged breaths.
"Something.." A huge wave of relief flooded over the Ice mage and he lightly hit Natsu lightly enough to not hurt him.
"Are you okay? Where did he get you? Actually, don't answer that. Save your energy. I'll find it, you just... Hold still." Natsu hazily watched as Gray carefully inspected his wounds. Gray noticed thin, black lines in Natsu's skin.
"What the-" He was cut off as the lines began to grow. His eyes widened and he looked up to see Natsu's eyes closed.
"Hey! HEY! Natsu, you need to wake up!" Gray exclaimed. Natsu sleepy blinked his eyes open. "You need to stay awake. Whatever he stabbed you with had something in it and it's spreading. I think it spreads faster when you're unconscious." He said the last part more to himself. This made Natsu slightly anxious and he looked down at the wounds.
"Oh.," Natsu said calmly. Opposite to him, Gray frantically tried to a solution.
"HAPPY!" Gray called. Before heading into battle, they instructed him to hide out in the nearby forest in case of emergency. The exceed flew at the highest speed possible towards the pair. After Gray informed the exceed on the current situation, Happy gave Gray the supplies carried in the exceed's bag, left the duo, and sped off in the direction of Fairy Tail to hopefully make it there and back with help in time.
"Alright, Natsu. Happy is getting help, but you must stay awake. It took us almost a day to get here so all we can do is hope it doesn't take them as long." Gray looked at him with determination. "There isn't much for us to do here other than talk, so I'll first clean your wounds, alright?" Natsu slowly nodded, still lost in a daze.
Only minutes into Gray cleaning Natus's wounds, the fire mage began to drift off again. Gray put his hand on the other's shoulder and lightly shook him.
"You can't fall asleep. You absolutely can not." Gray looked around to something, anything, to use as a distraction.
"Remember that day at the ice cream shop?" Natsu said quietly. Gray looked at him with confusion before realizing what his partner was doing.
"How could I forget?" He chuckled. "We got some weird looks that day. I'm surprised no one caught on because of that."
"Well, we were pretty good at hiding it from the guild." Natsu laughed.
"That was one great day.." Gray reminisced.
Natsu and Gray walked into a small ice cream shop on the outskirts of Magnolia. Not many people were there since spring had barely just begun and the weather was just starting to warm up, so the two decided to let loose a little bit. They walked up to the ice cream display at the front.
"Wow! Look how many options there are! I won't be able to just choose one!" Natsu exclaimed like a kid in a candy store. This made Gray chuckle softly. He always found Natsu's childish nature a very adorable characteristic.
"Well go ahead and try some samples so you actually know what you're going to order this time."
"Are you not trying any?" Natsu asked looking back to the ice mage.
"Nah," Gray responded, casually, "I'll just go with my usual." Natsu looked at him with disbelief.
"Your usual? But we came to an ice cream place neither of us has tried and you're getting plain vanilla?" Gray nodded at this. "No! No way! I will not allow this!" Natsu walked up to the counter and began asking for samples.
"Can I get a sample of strawberry, chocolate, raspberry, and.." Natsu thought carefully as the employee started getting his samples for him. Natsu looked back at Gray. "And also a sample of vanilla."
Once Natsu got all of the samples, he headed to where Gray was now sitting.
"Here." Natsu held out the vanilla sample to Gray. The ice mage looked at it, shocked the fire mage actually got him a sample of it. "You going to take it or not?"
"Thanks." Gray happily took it out of Natsu's hand and ate part of the sample. "Oh wow! This is actually really good!"
"Really?" Natsu questioned. "I'll be the judge of that." He then leaned forward and ate the other part let on the sample spoon. Gray gasped and quickly took back the spoon. Though not many people were present in the ice cream shop, the ones who were there had begun looking at the duo.
"What the hell, Natsu?" Gray said quietly. "You can't just do that here! They're all gonna get the wrong idea."
Well," Natsu tried defending, "It isn't the wrong idea, it's just not what we want them to think is right." Natsu started eating his own samples when Gray reached out and grabbed the other's wrist.
"Well at least share since you took so many." Gray went to grab one of the miniature spoons, but Natsu took action first and put the raspberry one in Gray's mouth. Gray's eyes widened while a hint of red crept up his cheeks. Just as he went to grab the spoon, they heard a very dreadful voice.
"COOOOOL!" The two mages looked over to see the one and only Jason from Sorcerer's Weekly. "The two rivals Natsu and Gray together and alone sharing ice cream? Could this mean-?" He cut himself off to fetch his camera from his bag and quickly fetched his camera and took a picture. The two "rivals" looked at each other and immediately moved their positions, but the picture was already taken.
"Jason," Gray tried to reason, "Delete that and we won't have any problems." When Jason made no effort to delete the picture, it was Natsu's turn. The fire mage ran up to the reporter, grabbed the camera, grabbed Gray's arm, and ran.
The two laughed as they tried to finish the story.
"And then," Natsu finally said as their laughter slowly died down, "And then we ended up running all the way to the river just so he couldn't catch us.
"Man," Gray sighed, "We stayed there all night just laying on the grass and looking up at the stars." Gray finally finished dressing the other's wounds as best as he could with the limited supplies he had. Natsu sighed and replied with a lighthearted "yeah". They sat in silence for a couple minutes while Gray put back the unused supplies from the medical kit.
Gray decided to take another look at the suspicious black, vein-like, lines. The had grown since before, but not at a high rate as when Natsu had dozed off.
'This is good,' Gray thought to himself, 'If we keep this up, we'll have enough time for help to arrive.' He decided to reminisce about another memory the shared together.
"Remember when you thought you accidentally hurt me during a sparring match and you didn't stop apologizing for weeks?" This made Natsu look up at him before looking back down because of the blush coming up on his face out of embarrassment.
Gray and Natsu were at their riverbank and doing a sparring match. Many punches and kicks were exchanged between the two, but nothing out of spite. Natsu was next to swing at his opponent. He took his shot and missed but just a centimeter.
"Is that all you got?" Gray mocked. He took Natsu's distracted state as an opportunity and kicked the fire mage. "Hit me with your best-" Gray was cut off by a fist uppercutting him so hard that he flew back into the ground. Natsu looked up at what he had done and began to panic.
"Gray? Gray!" Natsu ran over to the spot Gray had landed and saw no movement. Natsu slid down the small hole he created and saw the Ice mage just laying in the middle. Panic rushed through Natsu. "Please get up. I didn't mean to hurt you. Come on, Gray."
Gray opened one eye and peered at Natsu. "Well, it sure feels like you meant to hurt me." Natsu looked up to see Gray's smirking face.
"Are you serious? I thought I killed you and you're just here making jokes!" He lightly hit his arm. Gray decided to mess with Natsu some more in return of being thrown through the sky.
Gray sucked through his teeth. "Ouch. That hurts.." Natsu immediately flinched back.
"Oh, Sorry!" Natsu sat next to him for a few moments. "Oh! Let me help you up." He quickly stood up and carefully pulled Gray up.
"Gah," Gray started, "I don't know how I'll be able to get over this. It just hurts so much and, oh my, it feels like something is broken." Natsu's eyes widened at this comment.
"Wh- What do I do?" Natsu said feeling very panicked.
"You'll have to carry me to the infirmary," Gray responded, trying to hide the smirk forming on his face.
"Yeah! Let's do that!" Natsu crouched down and had Gray climb on this back then raced to the guild. He pushed open the doors and yelled out for Wendy as he rushed to the infirmary. The guild members began asking questions, but Natsu only cared about getting the mage on his back some help.
Gray, on the other hand, had other plans. Once he was off Natsu's back and laid down in bed, he decided that he needed to mess with Natsu a little more.
"Hey, Natsu. Can you get me some ice water?"
"Of course! I'll be right back." Natsu quickly walked out the room, leaving just Gray and Wendy.
"You can go now," Gray told Wendy. She turned her head to him looking confused. "I'm not really hurt. Just trying to mess with that idiot." He nodded toward the door where Natsu had just left. After explaining the situation, he told her to leave and just tell Natsu that she "already finished the treatment" if they bumped into each other.
Natsu returned a few minutes after Wendy left with a big glass of ice water.
"You didn't say how much you want so I… I just…" He tried to find his words, but couldn't find a way to explain without becoming even more embarrassed. Luckily, he quickly found something else to talk about. "Where's Wendy? Shouldn't she be treating your injury?"
"Relax," he calmly told him, "She already finished up what she could and told me to just rest for now."
"Well, then you should lay down and rest." Natsu lightly pushed his shoulder and Gray followed the direction and laid down, but not without a grunt and "ouch". "Oh, sorry," Natsu said full heartedly.
"It's fine. I'll just have to live with this pain for a few weeks…" He glanced over to see the dragon slayer's reaction. As he hoped, Natsu looked very worried.
"A few w-weeks?! Isn't that a bit long? You said Wendy healed you!"
"Well, she helped with the process, but even with help it's still gonna take a while, no thanks to someone…"
"I said that I was sorry! I wouldn't try to purposely hurt you."
"And why would that be?" By this point, Natsu was sitting on the bed and facing Gray and Gray was propped up on his elbows and facing Natsu.
"Well, that would be because you're my-" Just as Natsu was about to finish his sentence, the infirmary door opens. The two immediately moved out of their positions before whoever was entering could see.
"I still can't believe that you kept up that lie for almost 2 months."
"Well, it's your fault for continuing to believe it for that longs!"
"I did start to have my doubts.." Natsu mumbled.
"Su~re you did." Gray mocked. The chatting dialed down and Gray looked up at the sky. 'It's starting to get dark.' Gray thought. He knew it would take at least double the time it took them to get here. 'Happy does have to fly all the way back to Fairy Tail and then get help all the way back here.' He looked back to Natsu's wounds to see the black lines extended much further then he would have hoped to see. Each wound had lines coming out from the bandages and extending a few inches out in different directions.
Gray must have looked too long because Natsu was now looking down at them. Natsu inspected them closely and his eye widened.
"They're not just moving in random directions." Gray looked at the mage in front of him with a raised eyebrow.
"What do you mean?" He questioned, slightly worried.
"Look closely. The lines are coming from different spots, but-" Gray cut in.
"But they're all moving towards the same area." Natsu nodded.
"My heart." Gray's heart started pounding and his eyes glossed over. Natsu noticed this and immediately thought of a way to comfort him. "But I'll be fine, remember? Help is on the way and I can easily stay awake long enough for that. Let's just keep talking like we have, alright" Gray nodded his head.
"Remember when it snowed?" Gray muttered, loud enough for the other to hear.
Natsu laughed, "Oh yeah! That was definitely one of my favorites times we've spent."
"OKAY, FAIRY TAIL MAGES!" Erza was standing on top of a large ice podium she had Gray make for her. "Now we will begin the guild-wide snowball fight. Earlier we all drew numbers. If you got a one, go to the side to my left. If you drew a two, go to the side to my right. Once we are ready, there will be a countdown from the tree. The game will begin when the buzzer goes off."
Natsu and Gray made their way together to side two.
"It's crazy how we ended up on the same side," Gray said cooly.
"Well, you know what they say," Natsu said while smirking, "Opposites attract." He winked and made his way to an empty spot behind the snow wall. Gray stood in place for a second before making his to Natsu.
"You need to watch what you say when everyone is around. Someone might hear and take it the wrong way." Gray told him. Just as Natsu was going to retaliate, the countdown started.
"THREE!"
"Wanna get out of here and do something?" Gray questioned.
"TWO!"
"What? Why all of a sudden?" Natsu replied.
"ONE!"
"Why not? We never get alone time anymore."
The buzzer went off and snowballs were everywhere.
Natsu grabbed Grays hand and looked into his eyes, "Let's go."
The two quickly snuck past the row of people, dogging arms and snowballs. They almost made it out until an unsuspecting snowball flew past the people up front and hit Natsu.
"Natsu, go to the jail!" Natsu looked helplessly at Gray as he was escorted away by two "guards". Gray decided it was best if he didn't get captured as well, so he ducked down and made his way out of the madness and behind Erza's podium to remain unseen.
Gray finally got to the "cell" Natsu was held in.
"Now what?" Natsu asked, obviously upset.
"I get you out, duh." Gray molded a key in his hand and simply unlocked the door. He then grabbed Natsu's hand and whispered: "run".
The duo ran all the way to their river and laid down when they were out of sight of anyone passing by. Luckily, it was already close to sundown, so they wouldn't be as easy to spot. Gray opened his arms wide and Natsu laid on top of his left one.
"That," Natsu said, still trying to catch his breath, "Was crazy. If Erza caught us, then we'd both be dead." This made Gray laugh.
"Imagine having to come up with an excuse for why I was busting you out of your cell instead of just trying to save myself." The two laughed.
"That would be a trainwreck!"
The two stayed there and stared at the fading sky for several minutes until they noticed something coming from the sky.
"Woah! It's snowing again! They said last night was the last snowfall of the season, but look at this."
Gray also looked at the sky with amazement. "This is so nice. Laying under a starry sky with you while it snows."
Natsu looked over and beamed at him, "Best night ever."
The two began to lean into each other when they heard a loud voice, "NATSU! GRAY!" They looked at one another and both mouthed 'shit'. They looked around and realized the only exit was towards the voice or the river, and since it was below freezing outside and they didn't want to be caught, they pressed against each other and tried to be as small as possible to not stand out. Footsteps grew louder towards them and the hoped to not be seen. Gray realized Natsu's hair would give them away so he quickly put his head on top of Natsu's and cradled the rest of his head to cover as much as he could.
Eventually, the owner of the voice walked away and they were able to move from their position after a few minutes of not hearing footsteps.
"That was one lucky day," Natsu said. "If we got caught, it would've been the end of us."
"Oh, man," Gray started, "That was such a nice day. Perfect even." He smiled at Natsu and received a half smile back. He could tell the fire mage was in pain, so he looked at the damage.
The lines were now only inches away from his heart and it had only been a few hours. He could tell how exhausted Natsu was; dealing with the wounds, poison running through him, and magic energy being low after the fight.
"Gray?" He muttered, his voice slightly shaking.
"Yeah, Natsu?"
"I'm scared," He admitted.
Gray reached out and grabbed Natsu's hand. The fire mage looked up with glassy eyes.
"You'll be fine. I promise you." It now sounded more like Gray was trying to convince himself.
"Cherry blossoms."
"Cherry blossoms," Natsu repeated.
"Woah!" Natsu looked around, astonished by all of the petals flowing around him. "This is awesome! There's even more than last year!"
"Yeah!" Gray said, also looking up at the falling petals, "It's crazy how many there are."
The guild decided to spend a day out together, but the two mages ended up getting lost in the crowd and now wandered around together. After about an hour of walking around going to different stands, the both slowly grew tired.
"So what do you want to do now?" Natsu questioned.
"Not much to do really. We can find an empty space away from all of these people," Gray said.
"Wanna head down to the river? It should be filled with petals by this point." Natsu pointed out.
"Sure, let's do that" The duo made their way down to the river they shared many past memories together, and soon to share many future ones as well.
When they made their way to the riverbank and sat down, there was a very long silence between the two. Nasu made his way to the water and let the mix of water and cherry blossoms flow through his fingertips. The fire mage looked back at Gray and made a face before walking over to him and sat in front of him. Before Gray was given a chance to ask what the other was doing, his felt Natsu fingers fun through his hair. He pulled back to reveal a cherry blossom petal.
"There was one in your hair.. so I…" He muttered the last part before becoming completely lost in the others gaze. They sat like that for a minute before Gray spoke up.
"So are you going to make a move first or will I have to-" And their lips collided.
"I never would have guessed the cold-hearted Gray Fullbuster could warm my heart so much," Natsu stated.
Gray laughed, "I think the tiredness is getting to your head. No sane person would make that cheesy of a joke."
"Well it's true-" Natsu was cut off by a jolt of pain. He looked down and realized how close the lines had gotten.
"Natsu. Natsu!" Gray tried to get his partner's attention, but he couldn't get through. "Natsu, please. Look at me." He grabbed Natsu's shoulders and finally got his attention.
"Gray… I can't do it. I can't fight it."
"No. NO! I won't lose you like this. They could be here any minute. Please just stay awake!" Gray sobbed.
"Gray..," Natsu smiled up at the mage above him, "I want to know that I do love you so much, but please don't be sad. Instead of goodbye-" Gray cut him off.
"Don't talk like that. We'll be fine. You'll be fine." Tears were now rushing down his face.
"Gray, please just listen to me. This isn't a goodbye. Instead, we can say see you later."
"Natsu, please don't. Natsu... I love you so much. Please…"
"I'll see you later, Gray. My love."
Gray held the fire mage in his arms for the couple hours until help finally arrived just a little too late.