Author's Note: Just a one-shot of one of my favorite Fairy Tail ships. I also have this story posted on AO3.
Disclaimer: I own nothing from Fairy Tail.
Gray sat down at the bar and sighed. "Is something wrong, Gray?" Mirajane asked glancing over at him. He saw the concern in her big blue eyes.
"No, I've just got a lot on my mind," Gray replied giving her a reassuring smile. She smiled back, sympathy washing over her face as she made him a drink. He went to pay her for it but she declared it was on the house. Gray took a sip and felt the alcohol burn its way down to his stomach. He needed the drink. It had been two weeks since they defeated the Phantom Lord guild, and their own new guildhall was quickly wrapping up. In another week it should be complete. He should feel happy about this, but with all the activity and other troubles that were settling down the weight of fighting his old friend, Lyon, and the re-stirred feelings from the loss of his master, Ur, finally had a chance to sink in.
For over a week now he had been feeling down. The rest of his guild mates, despite being so preoccupied rebuilding Fairy Tail's guildhall, had noticed and given him his space. Erza sent away anyone who got too rowdy around him and Lucy had been kind enough to straighten up his apartment so he wouldn't have to worry about it. This was normal routine for them. When a member of Fairy Tail was feeling down, the rest of the guild would do whatever it took to make that person feel better. For some that meant keeping them occupied with work or things to do. Others, like Gray, preferred to be left alone, so his guild mates supported him in quiet ways.
Even Natsu tread carefully around him. Gray had to admit he found Natsu's behavior towards him strange. The flame-brain had never been so careful around him before. In the past when Gray had had a hard mission or had just been feeling sad, Natsu had just goaded him into a fight. Their rivalry was never put aside for any reason. But lately, Natsu seemed to be tiptoeing around him. He ignored any snide comments he sent at him. The dragon slayer went so far as to lessen the amounts of insults he threw back. Not once had Natsu called him a pervy stripper this week. But these were not even the strangest things Gray had noticed. It seemed lately, that no matter where he looked, Natsu was never too far away. The pink haired idiot had even followed him to the market once. Currently, the flame-brain was sitting at a table behind him. Gray could practically feel those squinty eyes boring holes in his back. Frankly, he didn't know what to make of Natsu's strange behavior.
Gray sighed and tipped back his mug of ale only to realize he'd finished the drink off. He placed the mug back down on the counter and pondered what his plans were for the rest of the day. He could drink the whole day through again, yesterday he had even managed to put Cana to shame, but he knew that would just make Erza lecture him about his drinking habits. He decided it wasn't worth the trouble. He should just go home and be by himself. He was horrible company at the moment so he hopped off his barstool and left for his apartment building. He was about halfway there when he felt that someone was following him. He spun around and saw Natsu barely ten feet behind him. For some reason the sight of the pink haired teen infuriated him.
"What do you want?" Gray snapped.
Natsu blinked in surprise. "What do you mean?" he asked confused.
"Why are you following me?" Gray replied.
"I wasn't following you," Natsu said. "I was on my way home."
"Natsu, your house is in the opposite direction from my apartment," Gray sighed, annoyed with the flame-brain's obvious lie.
"What?" Natsu asked trying to look surprised by his surroundings. "Wow, I must have really not been paying att-"
"Cut the crap, Natsu," Gray demanded. "We both know you were following me. You've been following me around all week and I want to know why."
Natsu sighed. "You've been really down this week. I just wanted to keep an eye on how you're doing," he replied.
"Since, when do you care?" Gray asked. What the hell was up with this flame-brain? Since when did he act so protective of him? Gray inspected Natsu's face for further clues behind the sudden change in behavior. Other than dark shadows and bags under his eyes there was nothing unusual. Gray highly doubted that the teen's lack of sleep was related to this new protective behavior. He found himself growing even more annoyed. This is not what he needed right now. He just wanted to be left alone. He glared hard at the dragon slayer, who looked hurt by his words. "Just stay away from me, alright? I wanna be alone."
He half hoped that his words would finally trigger Natsu to snap back into his normal self and start a fight, but instead the fire idiot just stared sadly at the ground. "If that's what you want," he murmured softly, toeing at the dirt road.
"It is," Gray replied harshly. He spun back around and stormed off to his apartment, leaving Natsu standing dejectedly by himself.
Deliora stood towering over the fire mage. The demon reeked of evil and just oozed of monstrosities. Natsu felt the icy chill of utter terror running through his veins, but it wasn't the sight of the demon that caused it. "Gray, no!" he cried as he raced towards the ice mage. In the back of his mind he already knew he would not make it to his friend in time, that he would not be able to stop him in time.
The ice mage turned his head at the sound of his name being called. Those midnight blue eyes fell on Natsu. "It's okay, Natsu," Gray said trying to assure him as he shifted his stance, preparing to perform the ice shell spell. "I'm going to save all of you."
"But Gray, you'll die!" Natsu protested trying to run faster.
"It's the only way," Gray called back before turning to face Deliora. "Iced Shell!"
"No!" Natsu cried tripping and landing hard on his knees. "Gray!" He watched, helpless, as Gray was absorbed by his own ice. "Nooooo!"
Natsu shot straight up in bed screaming. His heart raced, and he was gasping for breath as he tried to regain some control. His clothes stuck tight to his body, and his sheets were drenched from his sweat. "That dream," he moaned and covered his face with his hands. "That dream again." Suddenly, he felt so overwhelmed by fear. He began to cry as he thought over the dream. Gray standing in that position, ready to sacrifice himself to save everyone else. It was Galuna Island all over again, except in the dream Natsu hadn't been able to stop Gray.
Suddenly, the need to see Gray swept over him, and he found himself struggling to free his legs from the tangled sheets. He quickly pulled on his vest and scarf as he stumbled out the door of his house. He was relieved Happy hadn't woken up. He didn't want to have to explain why he was so upset. The tears would not stop flowing down his face as he ran to Gray's apartment. His need to make sure the ice mage was still alive only increased the closer he got to Gray's place. By the time he'd ran up the steps to Gray's floor he was sobbing. Heeding no attention to the time he began to pound on the ice mage's door.
Gray startled awake to the sound of someone banging their fist loudly on his apartment door. His eyes shifted to the alarm clock on his nightstand. He groaned as he slipped out of bed. Who the hell was knocking on his door at 3:30 in the morning? "This better be an emergency," he grumbled as he turned the knob and opened the door. Before he had a chance to say a word a pair of strong arms were flung around his torso.
"Gray!" the person sobbed, and he immediately recognized the voice, as well as the familiar white scarf.
"Natsu!" Gray exclaimed automatically wrapping his arms in comfort around the sobbing mage while simultaneously closing the door shut. He'd be hearing about this from his neighbors tomorrow, but the only thing that concerned him right now was Natsu. Something bad had to have happened to get the dragon slayer in this state. His only concern was calming the pink haired teen down so he could find out what was wrong. He ran his hands soothingly up and down the fire mage's muscular back.
"Hey, it's alright," he soothed. "Everything's gonna be fine." He expected his words to calm Natsu down, but if anything they only made him cry harder. Gray tightened his hold on the dragon slayer and stroked his fingers through the pink hair. He let the fire mage cry into his neck, as he held him. They stayed that way for a while until finally Natsu's cried died down to a whimper. Gray pushed Natsu back so he could stare into that tear-stained face.
"What happened?" he asked urgently. "Did something happen to someone in the guild?"
Natsu shook his head and sniffled. "No," he hiccoughed. "I-I had a nightmare."
Gray stood frozen. "A nightmare?" he repeated, sure he must have heard wrong, but Natsu only nodded his head in confirmation. Gray didn't know whether to be relieved or strangle the flame-brain for waking him up so early in the morning over something as juvenile as a nightmare. He took a deep breath before wrapping an arm around Natsu's shoulders and leading him to the couch. "Do you want to talk about it?" As annoyed as he was at the flame-brain for waking him up over something so stupid, he recognized that it must have been one hell of a nightmare to make Natsu cry like that.
Natsu's eyes watered as he stared intently at Gray. "You died," he whispered.
"What?" Gray asked shocked.
Tears began to trickle down Natsu's cheeks again. "We were back on Galuna Island and Deliora had just been released. You-you performed Iced Shell on him! I couldn't stop you on time!" Natsu broke down in a fresh wave of tears. "Don't leave me, Gray! Don't use that spell!"
"Hey! Hey!" Gray cried pulling Natsu too him. "I'm not going anywhere, okay? I promised you I wouldn't use that spell, didn't I?" He felt the dragon slayer nod against his shoulder. "Well then you don't have to keep worrying about it then. It's just a nightmare."
"B-but I keep worrying something will happen in the future to make you think you need to use that spell, and that next time I won't be able to stop you on time," Natsu replied, choking on his own tears.
Gray squeezed the fire mage closer to him. "I won't ever use that spell. I promise," he told the pinkette. "Now, stop crying okay. I'm right here and I'm not going anywhere." He continued to rub circles into the dragon slayer's back until finally his crying ceased.
Natsu looked up at him, squinty eyes bloodshot from crying. "Can I stay here for the rest of the night?" he asked softly.
Gray smiled down at him, and shifted them so they could both lie comfortably on the couch. "Of course you can," he replied throwing a blanket over the both of them.
"Thank you, Gray," Natsu murmured. Gray ran his fingers through the flame-brains hair until he felt Natsu's hot breath even out, and he knew the dragon slayer was asleep.
Impulsively he planted a quick kiss to the fire mage's forehead. "Goodnight, Natsu," he whispered. He wrapped an around the dragon slayer's torso as he fell back into sleep.