Tags: Established relationship-ish, kind of related to canon, references to canon, weirdness, ambiguous/open ending.
A/N: Wrote this fic to celebrate my 100th fic on AO3 and to celebrate it I followed my friend Yeaka's advice and wrote wack. Well, maybe this turned slightly darker than I first intended but, oh well...
Thanks for hanging in there and reading my nonsense.
As usual, not beta-read. But feedback would be nice. (But as always I can count on not having any, it's always nice to notice how appreciated I am. NOT...)
Burn me, take me to the fire
Heaven's hunting ground
Angels dancing in a wolf's lair
Never let me out
"Burn Me", by Xandria
Burn Me
As the words started flowing out, a wave of warmth seemed to crash upon Gray. He didn't know if the others had felt it but, there he was, gasping.
The warmth soon became too hot, like a fire burning at his extremities, his fingers and toes, the tip of his nose, he even wondered if his hair was burning at the same time that the metal from his necklace was branding the skin of his torso.
Suddenly Gray found himself being pulled. Pulled into the words, ascending with the blurry wave, reaching a world of grey.
Surrounding him there were shadows, dancing, moving and flowing effortlessly, brushing past Gray – who felt slightly like a ghost in that ghostly world – and, at the same time, shackling his limbs with too hot iron manacles.
In the horizon light started fading – even further. Dusk was upon the world.
Gray fell to his knees. The weight pulling at him and becoming way too much for him to bear. Things had been such a roller coaster, him giving his life as forfeit and only to be saved, once more, by that connection. That dumbass fire mage.
Gray scrunched his eyes closed. A weary exhale escaping his lips.
When he opened them again, it was to see a reddish shadow slip by. Unnoticed by all but him. And Gray saw as the shadow walked into the middle of the large area where Gray was, placing a… Gray squinted, trying to see better… but he only saw a shape of a bottle. It opened the bottle and from it red fumes started emerging. Those fumes spread out, mixing with the all-encompassing grey, starting to overpower it. The weird sigils written in the air all around started shinning. First in white but then returning to their initial black colour before being tinged with red. A bright red that seemed to be dripping down the sigils in the same way blood flows down a rock.
Despite the slow darkness of dusk, the red air darkened things further, stealing the barely-there light and making the world feel more closed-off, claustrophobic even.
Gray watched, fascinated, as the shadows that first had been dancing around in their grey colour, had surrounded the red one. They were being tinged with red too, as if a drop of water fell and created ripples, ripples that twisted and broke the grey shadows before they fell on a heap, only to stand again, the whoosh of the red colour rising through them.
By then, all the sigils seemed to have become red. And Gray realized that blood was actually dripping from them.
The shackles burned so much that they became iridescent on Gray's wrists and ankles, the burning pain too intense for Gray to handle. He choked on a howl, the red fumes burning down to his lungs and Gray fell.
He fell.
And fell.
Was only stopped when he collided with a too harsh surface that made what little bit of air still remained in his lungs whoosh out.
That was it.
He was… there.
Alone?
He wondered, looking around. Contemplating the large, metallic structure that rose above a stone altar.
What the-?
With some difficulty, Gray stood. Noticing the lack of shackles – but the burns were still branding his skin.
Gray approached the altar. And noticed that there was someone on the other side.
"Natsu?" he asked, surprised.
But Natsu wasn't in his usual form, he seemed to have scales on his face, his game face was on and Gray berated himself. They shouldn't have listened to him, as usual.
As Gray took another step towards the altar, towards Natsu, the metallic structure lit up with a fire, separating the two mages.
What the-? A pyre?
But at the same time the bloody sigils fell down, into the fire, the ground, into Gray's body.
Grey filled the ice mage's vision.
Gray came to himself with a start. Almost as if he'd been in a nightmare and was only now waking from it. He had the irrational urge to scratch at his arms, where the blood scrawls had entered him.
And then, Natsu was standing before him. Looking normal.
Lucy and Happy were sleeping to Gray's right and the ice mage's brow scrunched up in confusion.
"Natsu." He stated. His sight was still slightly unfocused, he felt like he was in a daze.
"You're back." The other said in his way too relaxed stance. "Did you see it?"
"No! What the hell are you talking about?" Gray snapped back, standing in a flash. "Huh?" he muttered, looking down at his hands. His wrists… the right one was unblemished but the left one had a faded mark of a burn. And Gray could feel how his body was now free. Quite the opposite from the claustrophobic feeling from before.
"It's out." Natsu said with a shrug, his demeanour darkening slightly.
"I'm free to go. That's what you mean?" Gray asked. "Why?"
Natsu smiled crookedly and, from his pocket, extracted an apple.
He started tossing it up and catching it, nonchalantly. Almost as if he didn't notice what he was doing.
"You stole it too, no?" he finally asked, stopping and taking a large bite out of the apple.
"The apple? No. I didn't." Gray denied, shaking his head vehemently.
"Liar." The fire mage snorted. "Look in your pocket."
Gray did so and – how in the world hadn't he noticed it before – he took out a bright red apple. Very delicious looking.
"Hey, I didn't take this." Gray turned the apple in his hands, feeling a flash of pain on his left wrist. A phantom feeling of weight and too-sharp pain.
"You did." Natsu said with a patience that was unexpected. Didn't exactly look like him. Well, if you didn't account for the fact that he was talking with his mouth full… "And now you don't have any other option." Natsu extended his free hand, a bright orange flame bursting in his palm. "Might as well eat it and go ahead. It's not like you have many options."
"No retreat, huh?" Gray muttered as he eyed the apple once more. With a sigh and being taken by a strange force, Gray brought the apple to his mouth. He also took a bite from the apple.
It was sweet.
And through him a feeling of wrongness, of something forbidden, coursed. It wasn't pleasant. And not even the distracting taste of the apple managed to take Gray away from that.
Gray let the apple fall from his hand, listlessly. He was frowning deeply while looking at Natsu. The fire mage had approached, only being a couple of steps away from him.
"And now you're lost with me. We're both lost." Natsu laughed. He extended his hand and grabbed Gray's hand, holding him tight.
Around them the world became a dizzying mess of colours as sharp winds flourished around them, they were in the eye of the storm. Gray looked up and the sky was pitch black, tendrils of darkness flowing downwards, only being cut by the raking lightning bolts. The noise was so thundering that it was almost muted. Gray didn't hear a thing except for his and Natsu's breathing and the occasional exhale the fire mage made – almost as if he were bored.
From beneath their feet flames sprouted and Gray felt dizzy, his icy core not liking in the least the cage of fire he found himself in. But now he understood.
He was being taken to the fire. To the core and the purest form of Natsu. However, should he really do the trade?
"Gray!" he heard in the distance. He was being called.
But he couldn't exactly react to that calling.
And then there was Natsu, he also called for Gray.
The ice mage went with a sigh.
He was bathed in flames, the licking flames touching every part of the fire mage. Covering him. Drowning him.
But Natsu was there. He felt the sigils bursting to life under his skin. They were beckoning.
And so he stepped toward the fire mage.
All I want is you.
The words escaped his lips mutely, his voice having been stolen in the meanwhile.
As the ice melted, a strange string of words he'd heard a long, long time ago, fell from his lips. Words he'd heard Ur utter.
Now it was his turn.
But it didn't matter. Natsu's arms were around him, holding in a way that sated Gray. Natsu wasn't letting go.
And then the world burned with them.