Author's Note: Mindless fluff without any real plot. I needed a little goodness in my life.
Disclaimer: I do not own Fairy Tail and its characters.
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Wandering Thoughts on a Sleepless Night
As cliché, and cheesy, and, alright, maybe disgusting, as it sounded, Natsu couldn't decide how he liked Gray best. It was odd, really, because after however long they had spent fighting, why exactly had Natsu liked Gray?
It was a mere passing thought, and he dismissed it quickly as Gray turned and draped an arm over Natsu's torso.
Nights like these, it would be a waste to ponder too deeply, when Gray was asleep before him and he was left to his wandering mind. It didn't happen often, but it happened, and Natsu would take this time out to properly appreciate what he had. And he did have it. Gray, he meant. Same thing, his property, his Gray.
As he traced the lightest tip of finger along the vague line between Gray's brows, Natsu remembered the times when they were furrowed. The fights were fun, and he liked Gray like that, lively and fierce and powerful all at once.
Yet looking at him now, features soft and relaxed for once in a while, Natsu couldn't help but admit that he liked this Gray better, bare and unprotected under his layers of ice put up against the world. All the same, though, any Gray was his Gray. Angry Gray, passionate Gray, crying Gray, and smiling Gray calling his name with a twinkle that lit dark eyes the colour of the sky. Natsu knew he had Gray's everything.
'Natsu?' Bleary eyes blinked open, the trace of annoyance at being woken up quickly giving way to weariness. 'What's the matter? Why aren't you asleep?'
At that Natsu merely shook his head, because there was no word to describe how he felt at having those sleepy eyes directed at him in that trusting manner. In this room, beneath the silver moon, there was only them in the distinct absence of the need to put up a farce for the world. And Gray, Gray was glowing in that soft light like a damn god, and, fine, Natsu was a cheesy idiot, but there was no way he'd get a word out when Gray was leaning on his elbow and reaching out to touch Natsu's cheek in that uniquely gentle way of his.
'Why are you crying?' And then there was a thumb swiping ever so tenderly over a lone tear that Natsu hadn't even been aware had escaped.
It was strange, really, because Salamander Natsu wouldn't cry even when he was shoved six feet into the ground, but Natsu Dragneel, the lover Natsu, would, on quiet nights like these, with nothing to threaten or sadden him. There was just something that touched his inside, and all of a sudden he couldn't help but cry because he loved this man so much.
That was why he had smiled, eyes leaking like a child all over again, and leaned over to lay a chaste kiss over pale, pale lips. Maybe it was out of gratitude. Or maybe it was out of something that he couldn't name, only that it was warm and it kept his heart quivering in that endless ocean of tenderness.
'Nothing. It was nothing at all.'
He could taste rather than see the tentative smile on those familiar lips. Gray, per Gray, would not probe. Yet he would smile, because, oh, alright, he knew that Natsu loved smiling Gray the best. And it was with the same knowledge that Gray pulled Natsu close, a hand in his hair and a mouth whispering sweet nothing into his ear. Nights like these, Natsu needed a little closeness, because if he was left to his own devices, his mind would keep wandering in circles and it would be the lost kid Natsu all over again.
Too much passion could do that to a person, he supposed. Yet, as the repeated 'it's alright's and 'let's keep fighting tomorrow's and 'stay with me like this's rumbled between their twin bodies, Natsu could feel his passion calmed into that trickle of warmth that rubbed sleep in his eyes like nothing would. Gray's voice. Gray's hand. Gray's body. All his – and on these sleepless nights there was no one but Gray to find Natsu with his low soothing voice and his caring hand on his head.
It was fine, the thought flitted across his mind before sweetness claimed him, because wherever he drifted to, Natsu stilled liked his Gray most of all.