Natsu bypassed the television and the couch entirely on his way to the kitchen. Gray had just sat down, flicking on the channel for the news. Natsu didn't greet him. He and Gray were roommates, but that didn't mean they were... close. It didn't mean they actually talked much. Not anymore. At least, not since the fire.

It was so routine for them not to say a word to one another that, as Natsu grabbed two eggs from the refrigerator for breakfast, he was stunned to hear Gray speak to him. The words he said were troublesome.

"You can't go to work today," he said, standing right there in the entrance to the kitchen, leaning against the side of it, the picture of composure if not for the downturn of his lips and the shift in his right foot.

The eggs cracked in Natsu's grip. He closed his eyes, inhaled, exhaled, walked over to the roll of napkins on the counter, ripped one free and leaned down to clean the splattered eggs off the floor. He wasn't doing this again. He threw the napkin in the trash can under the sink and washed his hands, ignoring Gray entirely. He should've known Gray wouldn't leave well enough alone.

"Natsu, we have to-"

"No," Natsu cut him off, "I can go to work. That's my choice. I am a firefighter, Gray. We fight fires." He was so tired of living in silence and then having the same fight every week. Over and over again. Gray had made his choice. Natsu respected it. He should be granted the same courtesy.

"But the news-," Gray persisted, eyes angry and frustrated.

"I don't care what you saw on the news. I don't care how big the fire is this time. Stop it." Natsu had clenched fists and clenched teeth and Gray had his hair falling over his eyes, hiding his expression. It was quiet in the kitchen. Natsu got out two more eggs, checked the time on the clock on the wall, sighed, and put the eggs back where he got them from. He wouldn't have time for breakfast. He got a bagel out of the bag, closed it again, and shoved past Gray in the entryway, bumping shoulders aggressively. Gray didn't say anything else.

Natsu went out the front door, shoving the bagel into his mouth as he made his way down the stairs and out of the building.

There was a breeze that threatened to blow away his scarf and he tucked the ends of it into his shirt. He ran down the street, heading to the station, and heard sirens in three different directions. The wind was picking up and his shirt rose up from where he'd tucked it slightly into the front of his pants. He used his hands to flatten it down, annoyed as the air around him hit his skin. He stopped at an intersection, baffled as the cars screeched in every direction, panicked expressions as people ran out of the buildings, screaming at each other to "get the fuck out of the way, I have a child!"

He looked in the direction of one of the sirens he heard and saw the smoke rising in the distance. A fire. Near the intersection. Massive. Close. He nearly ran toward it, ready to meet his co-workers when a man crashed into him and knocked him to the ground. He saw the footsteps of panicked screaming people by his head. Instead of running away from the flames, some people were running toward them, others heading underground to the subway entrances. People shouldn't be headed toward the fire. What the hell am I missing? The ends of his scarf blew out of his shirt and he angrily shoved them back in, standing, turning around to face the wind when-

Everything clicked in his head as his eyes widened, jaw falling slack at the view. He couldn't process it. Then the first man was lifted into the air toward the edge of the city and Natsu snapped out of his shock.

A tornado. Headed toward a fire. The wind would feed the flames and the flames would feed it in return and everything, everything in sight would burn. Everyone would burn alive in the vortex or inhale enough smoke to blacken their lungs and drain every cell of oxygen.

People were crowding the entrances to the subway, cars were starting to move of their own accord, playing to the whims of the wind that grew stronger by the second and Natsu was about to head down underground with the others, when a thought stopped him dead in his tracks.

Gray.

Gray was home and alone and he wouldn't make it underground in time. Natsu looked at the tornado, the cars still in the distance that were being sucked up into the thick swirl of dark clouds, being torn apart violently. It was getting closer and Natsu broke into a run back to his place shirt rising up, limbs beaten with the force of the winds slapping against them, and in the haze of garbage flying around, he tried to see clearly. He saw that the large objects lifting into the vortex were rising up from closer and closer by the second and Natsu clutched onto a lamp post to remain grounded, a single thought lighting up every nerve in his brain. Gray. Gray. Gray. He needed to get to Gray. He couldn't lose Gray.

"Natsu!"

Gray's voice. Natsu's head shot to look at the intersection he had yet to cross. There, body half obscured by the manhole in the center of the street leading to the sewers, was Gray holding out the manhole cover, a desperate look on his face.

The tornado was inching closer and if Natsu didn't do this quick, he would be sucked up into the current. He gripped the lamp post. If he didn't take this chance he'd be a dead man. Do it. Let go.

A beat. Two. He let go and ran, making it seven steps before the wind blew up beneath his legs, his abdomen, his chest, his neck, lifting him fast and he reached out his arm desperately, eyes shut and prepared for the worst.

The wind was swirling around him, his body floating, feet pointed in the direction of the storm, but his hand-

A laugh ripped free of his throat.

His hand was clutching the edge of the metal cover, Gray's hand latched on the other end in a death grip, arm shaking with tremors.

Natsu held his grip on the thin metal cylinder tightly. Gray was shouting something he couldn't make out in the wind. Natsu felt his grip slipping. His eyes locked on Gray's, both gazes wide and frantic as Natsu was pulled farther out, Gray's arm on the other end of the metal, strained, veins popping out on the side of his forearm. Natsu looked at Gray, his lips, straining his ears to hear the words he was saying, desperately wanting to hear the last words Gray would speak to him. He saw the movements, his heart thundering away in his ears. Gray's other hand reaching out for him.

Take my hand.

Natsu didn't hesitate, arm swinging forward fast, fingers latching onto Gray the moment the metal cover was ripped from their hands, flying away into the vortex that was sucking the life out of their city. Gray's feet were hooked under the first rung of the ladder heading down, his legs tense and shaking under the pressure, the only thing keeping them alive now. He unhooked one foot, lowering it and hooking it under the second rung, both hands tightly entwined with tan ones. Natsu's abdomen still rigid in the air. Gray continued the process, until they were in deep enough for Natsu to latch onto the rungs himself, and then they were both disappearing down the manhole, headed deep into the sewers for cover.

When they reached the bottom, they could finally make out sounds, rats scurrying along the length of the tunnels, some water trickling along the pipes, the distant sound of the storm raging far above their heads. The deep panting echoing as both of them tried to catch their breaths.

Natsu looked at Gray. His hair was a mess, his eyes were closed, his head between his knees as if he was blocking out the events of the day. His breathing was evening out, and slowly his eyes slid open, taking in their surroundings. Then his eyes zeroed in on Natsu, inspecting him for who-knew-what, possibly potential injuries.

Gray was dramatic with him that way, always telling him to be less of an idiot and actually look after himself. Even so, Natsu knew how much Gray hated fires. He knew how Gray ordered takeout and used the microwave to heat anything Natsu made far too often because he just couldn't stand to see the fire from the stove. If someone had candles in their house, Gray would not step inside. If someone threw out a cigarette without properly putting it out, Gray would go off on them so bad that they would be reduced to tears afterward. They'd lost friends who smoked because of it. He was terrified of the flames, of everything they had come to represent. Gray would have wanted to take cover as soon as he saw the warning on the news and realized the tornado was headed for a fire in the heart of the city. He would've wanted to head to the sewers immediately and yet-

"You followed me," Natsu realized out loud. The sewer entrance had been five blocks away from their apartment. Gray had walked out into the chaos to get him, knowing there were other entrances to the sewers nearby. Natsu hadn't been trying to ask the question. It was just a thought that slipped out. Gray only looked at him, eyes dark and searching for something that Natsu didn't understand. Now that he said it, he needed an answer. Some kind of response. Anything. Gray didn't take unnecessary risks. He wasn't one to put himself in the line of fire for other people. Not anymore. Not since they were kids.

"You idiot!" he shouted, voice reverberating far and wide in the tunnels along the shallow water, "Why would you come after me?" Gray could have died following Natsu, waiting for him to clue in to the danger on the horizon. He would've died surrounded by his greatest fear and Natsu couldn't see anything worth that mental torture.

Gray shut his eyes briefly. He was still shaking. His voice was quiet, but in the sewers with only Natsu to hear him, it might as well have been a scream. He opened his eyes and leveled Natsu with a look that spoke of a thousand emotions, years of frustration, narrowed and defiant.

"I pull you back from the fire," he said. Natsu froze in place, stricken by the weight of those words, the pain behind them and every memory attached to the syllables. The words he'd heard so many times as a kid, so few after the fire. The words that kept them both up at night in separate rooms filled with years of regrets and what ifs and thoughts they couldn't say out loud.

Gray's eyes watered, but he held Natsu's gaze, even with his voice growing a decibel higher.

"I won't," he said, teeth gritted as his voice caught and his throat constricted, "lose you to the fire."

Natsu clenched his fists. The last time Gray said that, Natsu had just lost the last of his family. The last time Gray said those words, they had both lost everything they knew and the world had become a darker lonely place. It wasn't Gray's fault. Natsu knew that now. But the words still cut deep and made it feel like a hand was reaching into a cavity in his chest and clawing jaggedly at his heart, taking no heed of the ribs that stood in its way. Natsu shut his eyes to keep the feeling at bay, to prevent tears from rising out of the depths of his eyes where he'd kept them locked away for so long. Since the fire.

It felt like that every time he made Gray cry.