Disclaimer: I don't own Fairy Tail.
Title: Between Lines
Summary: There is a beginning and middle, but the end is empty space.
Warnings: yaoi, potential OOC
Xxx
It shouldn't be surprising, but it is.
Long ago, the universe declared that opposites attract.
Fire and ice; they are the biggest cliché, but somehow, they're okay with that.
Xxx
Gray's flesh is chilly beneath Natsu's hands. Not ice-cold or frigid, but chilly—a pleasant compliment to his own heat that never seems to fade. Gray's flesh is surprisingly soft, too. Natsu hazily remembers Lucy saying something about cold making the skin tighter, but Gray's feels smooth and soft beneath Natsu's fingertips. It's an almost girly thing to say, but lying is an almost foreign concept to Natsu. Trickery, yes; jokes and pranks, absolutely, but never bold-faced lying.
Gray sighs as Natsu runs his hands up his back and kisses Natsu's neck. His lips feel like a pleasant fall chill, not too cold but still warm enough to enjoy.
Gray says, "You feel like an ember in my hands." His breath is tinted with alcohol and cigarette smoke.
Natsu thinks he should be insulted. He's always thought of himself a roaring flame rather than a smoldering ember, but the world is warm and the air is sweet like the everything has been dipped in honey, Gray is stroking him and kissing him like he's some precious thing that needs to be loved, and Natsu feels he's okay with being called an ember (for now).
"I'm so hard." Natsu's tickles Gray's neck with his breath.
"What do you want me to do about it?" Gray's smirk looks like the curve of a sickle moon.
"I want you to fuck me."
Gray laughs, and it's the laugh of a smoker who only smokes maybe once or twice a day—slightly hoarse yet smooth at the same time, the effects of the tobacco and nicotine not yet grabbing hold of his lungs.
"Don't make too much noise; we wouldn't the others to hear."
Xxx
Natsu wakes up the next morning and he is alone.
Xxx
They promised themselves nothing would change.
Rivals, friends, comrades—fighting at each other's sides as good companions, besting the other when the situation called for it.
They promised themselves nothing would change, and yet, somehow, something did.
Xxx
It shouldn't be surprising, but somehow it is.
The universe is a bitch, and she likes to slap people when they're falling down to try and get them to fall faster.
The jolt of the epiphany happens suddenly. The sweat and dried semen on Natsu's body is cooling, but somehow his flesh is still warm. He talks in his sleep, and Gray can't piece the words together to form coherent sentences. He says Igneel's name that is coupled with a whimper, and he grips the sheets tighter like he's clutching at the dragon and never wanting to let him go.
They both have lost parents—Natsu, Igneel and Gray, Ur. That hurt is a pain no poet can turn into words—no matter how pretty or melancholy.
Gray strokes Natsu's spine with a light hand, his fingers barely touching the sun-darkened flesh of his companion. Natsu's body temperature varies like the seasons: when he's drunk, he feels like a smoldering ember still clinging to heat; when he's fully conscious, uninhibited by any drink or food, his body is like a hazy summer day, thick with heat and humidity; when he's hurt, his body temperature plummets, and he feels like a candle flame that is trying to ward off the chill of winter; when he's completely relaxed, wrapped in the dark embrace of sleep, he feels like a spring day pregnant with rain.
Natsu looks like a child when he sleeps, and it's an endearing sight.
Gray knows how fierce Natsu can be when he's protecting his friends; when he's fighting an enemy with incredible strength; when his anger rolls up from his belly and spreads through his limbs like a fire streaking across a barren field, he is truly a dragon.
Natsu subconsciously arches into the touch, and Gray's palm fills with warm, sticky flesh. Natsu rolls his head so that he's facing Gray, and a small smile tugs at the corner of his lips.
When Gray kisses Natsu, he pulls back with the realization that he's fallen in love.
Xxx
Gray's words are slurred as he speaks around a cigarette:
"We promised nothing would change."
Natsu's face is unreadable, and it's a terrifying expression. He speaks with a slight growl:
"We can still be who we were."
Gray smiles and says as gently as he can:
"No, I don't think we can."
"Then what do you want to do?"
"Honestly? I don't know."
Natsu chokes and calls Gray selfish.
Gray's heart throbs in his chest, and the fire behind Natsu's anger causes his skin to glow. He wants to embrace him again, just as he had done so many nights ago, but he knows if he were to touch him now, he would be burned.