This is actually a follow up idea i had for to Hell and back. its Natsu's side of things. i hope it goes well.
Natsu wasn't sure who exactly the sobbing man with black hair was, But he seemed rather familiar.
Natsu never forgets a scent after all.
And this man smelled like honey, a hint of darkness and death, and spring cherry blossoms.
He smelled very, very familiar.
Natsu didn't know who he was exactly, but he was listening.
Not that the man really helped by giving him.. say an identity? and he wasn't exactly wearing a fucking name tag, so identifying him was rather hard
Natsu remembers vaguely when he was still with igneel waking up in a distressed cold sweat and looking around for the source of that specific scent, honey and cherry blossoms, (something he must admit he still does today.. which must be why he slips into Lucy's bed so often. she's been the only one to remotely smell close after all smelling like vanilla and cherry blossoms, and shadows like Rogue Cheney smells like), so the source can soothe his fears away. Because it was always something that he associated with being safe, this scent, protective.. Like home.. but he knows that it was from a long time ago now because the scent would soothe away his childish fears on a dark and stormy night, when he was but a child, but he was always still looking for that odd mixture.
Natsu was far more intelligent than his peers made him out to be. he was observant and knew things others didn't care to look for. HE just didn't care to share this information, you can get away with so much playing the fool after all. Where others would have passed this off as some childish dream of a haunted past, looking for family no longer there. natsu knew that that wasn't right, because he still had family. A kinship bond lasts forever, no matter who its with and when it was made.
So Natsu always knew he still had family. He always knew.
Because, other than the kinship bond, he remembered. Not much mind you. But just enough to realize that it was there.
Why he never sought out the family he had remaining was simple. he didn't know where to start or who to ask.
Especially since he wasn't sure where he, himself had come from exactly.
Too many years of fighting, being around the prying ears of the guild, and friends left him with very little time to contemplate the small amount of memories he possessed.
But he still had one or two memories of his life before he was found by the great dragon king and raised as the dragons kin.
he remembered someone else, someone rather blurry in his mind,
But crying.. that was probably the most prominent of his memories.
So many tears being shed. The sheer amount making him uncomfortable.
This is why he can't take it when anyone hes close to cries.
It brings back that wretched feeling that he doesn't like. Of feeling as though there is nothing he can do to help.
Which in turn makes him angry, because Dammit, hes Natsu Dragneel and he will make sure everyone is happy, happy tears are alright, but these tears burned in his nostrils and smelled of such thick sorrow he could choke.
Onyx eyes very much like his own filled with tears as he knocked a grown man over,
Then blood.. so much blood.
Natsu's always silently been afraid of blood. the crimson liquid stealing away peoples lives before they get to live them.
And screaming from the blurry figure with the onyx eyes, a voice telling him to hold on.. and he would sassily (because natsu mentally is like the king of sass. no one could out sass him thank you very much) he thinks "Hold onto what?" before everything faded to an unsettling darkness that made his skin itchy to even think about.
Beneath the tenrou tree he honestly had no idea who the man was.
And for some reason he felt guilty at not knowing the man's identity.
Later, he learned that the man he had ran into was in fact Zeref.
The supposed darkest mage in history...
that title never really sat right with him. every time he heard it after the revelation of the mans identity, he was silently queasy. Like he had just stepped onto a train on the move.
He didn't understand why.
Not until much much later.
They started innocent enough..
The whispered words in his dreams and when he was alone.
They didn't really bother besides the natural irritant that constant whispers provided to his sensitive ears.
They never really said anything... coherent...
At first.
Then after battling demons, meeting with Zeref for what he had guessed was the second time, (the mans scent making him want to hug him and talk for ages about EVERYTHING, but he held himself back because he didn't know why the man smelled that way and natsu felt as if this would be weird. Like Lucy.) then, watching his adoptive father fall from the sky as little more than pieces, and the resounding ache in his hollow chest, natsu opted to leave and be alone for while, to train to protect his friends that had become his family, and to reflect on some of the things he had been told by the cryptic black haired man. (who never really gave him much of a solid answer to much of anything, the bastard)
It was during this solitude that the whispers became louder.
He could hear what was being said and it seemed to fall into his stomach like a lead balloon.
Turns out he was Etherious Natsu Dragneel.
And he is Zeref's best creation.
He contemplated that for months, what that meant, and what he should do with the information, before deciding to just.. Bury it in a shallow grave because he wont hurt his friends or family, no matter WHAT he is.
What he didn't know was the fact that the whispers he was hearing...
Was actually conversations Zeref was having with the book of END.
And he didn't know why he was so special to be E.N.D. the demon meant to kill Zeref..
Until after the whole Avatar debacle.
He wanted to cry.
The voices told him that Zeref was his brother,
His elder brother.
And he realized after some time and Quiet (Hear that? Natsu can be Quiet) contemplation he comes to realize with an weird lurching feeling in his stomache, that the voice was in fact his brother trying to rekindle a lost bond that had been missing for four centuries. Natsu had to admit that what Zeref did was rather sweet, in some twisted sense of the phrase, but natsu didn't want to kill him. that.. just wasn't who he was. He.. He wanted to actually be a brother to his elder brother, and not kill him in some twisted sense of cleaning zeref of his sins, Because where does that leave natsu? his brother wants him to commit a sin, to kill him, it.. made his stomach turn at the depression he could almost feel from his brother, and he hated it.
Natsu wanted to run right up to that bastard and punch him for even having the thoughts, and he wanted to let his brother know that fact.
he also wanted to let him know the fact that he was listening.
Somehow he had been for awhile.
No matter what he had done, Natsu still loved his brother, despite not knowing that he was actually his brother for very long, and was determined to help him. No matter what happened in the future.
But for now he would always be listening.