Chapter One - The Countdown

"Guess I better get warmed up, huh?"

Natsu leapt up from the small incline of dirt he was sitting on, cracking the muscles in his back as he got used to being in an upright position. He, along with his bandmates, had been leaning against a steep hill for nearly half an hour as they watched the bonfire roar and illuminate the darkness of the November sky. After admiring the flickering red flames for so long in exactly the same position, he had gotten a little bit stiff.

He drew his eyes away from the hypnotic fire to look at his bandmates, all of whom had made a sound of approval without seeming to care about what he'd said. Laxus, the electric guitarist, was texting his boyfriend; Loke, the pianist, was sketching some girl he found attractive so he could use the drawing as a conversation starter; and Gray, their singer, was just looking at the fire and sipping a cup of beer.

"See you in there then." Natsu chuckled. "Don't get too close to the fire Gray. A cold bastard like you, you might melt."

With a cackle, Natsu began to jog away. He narrowly avoided the plastic cup half full of beer that had been thrown at him. He was half tempted to make a comment about how dangerous it was to throw alcohol with a big-ass bonfire around, but he was in a hurry.

Natsu's band had been hired to play at the towns Bonfire Night celebrations at the local rugby club. After the fireworks display had ended, they were to supply music in the clubhouse which, in situations like this, doubled up as a bar. It was a way for the rugby club to entice people to stay after the fireworks and buy more drinks. But Natsu wasn't going to complain, the money wasn't too bad and any publicity was appreciated.

Sadly, Natsu was the drummer. Meaning he would have to warm up before he played, a full gig was basically a workout. This was sad because Natsu had always loved fireworks and the warmup, if he didn't stat it soon, would make it so he couldn't watch any of the display at all.

He jogged up the stairs and into the bar, opening the door and walking towards the corner where the band's instruments had been set up. He crouched down in front of a black bag and pulled out a pair of metal drumsticks, sitting himself on the cushioned stool in front of his drum set. He played a little five second track that allowed him to hit every drum of the set; he always did this to make sure they were all the correct distance from his stool. The snare was a bit close…

"Come on, you asshole." He mumbled under his breath as he moved it.

After setting the drums in a way that pleased him, Natsu cracked his knuckles. He glanced around and checked the bar was empty, then grinned and threw the drumsticks in the air, catching them with a smirk. He knew it was stupid, but he enjoyed doing it.

Without wasting any more time, Natsu began to slam the sticks against the drums. He was playing a little indie song with a fast tempo and a killer drum solo at the end. It was always the song he played first when warming up, it hyped him more than any other song he knew. He had committed it to muscle memory and could play it with his eyes closed, which he was currently doing.

Fully involved with the music, Natsu was at peace. At that moment, he was made up of two sensations: the sliding of the drumsticks through his fingers and the powerful sounds his actions were causing. The world was his drums and the music that they were making. The sound was an extension to who he was, a sensation that he had yet to tire of. He doubted he ever would, playing his instrument was completely exhilarating.

Slowly, he came to a stop. The song ended with a gentle fade out on the snare, during which he opened his eyes and looked towards the roof while panting. It had been a couple of days since he last played, so he may have gone all out in excitement.

When the slight ringing in his ears died down and his panting had calmed to an inaudible level, the drummer's sensitive ears picking up a small tinny sound coming from the room. He grabbed for his small towel to wipe away the layer of sweat that had formed across his face. After that, he looked around to see where the tinny music was coming from.

His eyes settled in the corner. A man was sitting at one of the tables, wearing earplugs that were blasting music directly into his ears at a very high volume. He was looking at Natsu, however shot his gaze to the table the moment Natsu looked back at him.

The drummer frowned and stood up from the stool, placing the towel back in his black bag. He cautiously walked over to the man, who was still staring intently at the table he was sitting at. As Natsu got closer, he could make out more of the music that should be deafening the man. It was some loud, summer anthem which Natsu couldn't name. He knew it had been popular, though. He placed his hand on the man's shoulder with a wide grin.

"Hey, you okay?" He spoke loudly.

When the man looked up, he was smiling what looked like a guilty smile. He slowly removed his headphones and paused the song on his phone. But Natsu didn't notice that. He noticed how damn handsome the man was.

His face was chiselled, showing no sign of any fat. His soft and silky looking brown hair was parted at the centre, a style very few people could pull off. His brown eyes were all chocolatey and warm, very friendly. But his most attractive feature was definitely the sea of freckles that covered his cheeks, which were shamelessly hot and cute at the same time. Natsu felt his stomach flutter ever so slightly.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to stare." The guy began. "You just looked so into it and... sorry."

"I don't care about that." Natsu grinned widely. When the man's face relaxed, he looked even more handsome. "I was just wondering why you're here and not outside, we don't go on for a while. Name's Natsu, by the way."

"I'm Marco." The brunette smiled. "And I heard you playing, so I came in to get a table before they fill up. You can never be too careful, right?" Marco chuckled. He realised how bad his lie was so spoke before Natsu could start. "You were really good, by the way."

That certainly wasn't a lie. The drumming was what enticed Marco into the room and he definitely had enjoyed watching Natsu play. He seemed like he belonged behind a drum kit. The relaxed and content face was very attractive. Not to mention his cheek bones, and smile, and his weirdly cute hair.

And he's talking.

"Glad you liked it." Natsu chuckled. "But are you really gonna be sitting in here while the fireworks are goin' on. Kinda defeats the point of coming, doesn't it, if you're sitting listening to music?"

Marco rubbed the back of his neck slightly, averting his gaze as Natsu pulled out a chair and sat down. Natsu didn't push his question, but Marco glanced up to see that he was still looking at him with confusion.

"I'm, erm, not the biggest firework fan." He smiled awkwardly, noticing Natsu's confused frown. "I don't like the noise and you can never predict when the next one's going to go off. It stresses me out." He sighed, feeling silly and childish for admitting that to the drummer. "I was hoping to stay in here and block out the noise. Do you mind?"

"Nah, you're fine." Natsu grinned, not shaken by Marco's admission about not liking fireworks. It was understandable, Natsu's sensitive ears weren't overly fond of them when he was a kid. But the drumming had gotten him used to loud sounds. "Your music was pretty loud, though. Ain't that bad for your ears?"

"Probably." Marco smiled guiltily. "But, it's just for half an hour, right? Can't be that bad, can it?" With the questions, it was obvious Marco wasn't sure of his words.

Natsu thought for a moment before clicking his fingers. He scrambled off the chair and towards the black bag he kept behind his drum kit. After rummaging through it for a few moments, he fished out a pair of silver noise cancelling headphones. They were slightly tattered but still worked as well as they had when Natsu first brought them.

He jogged back towards Marco and, perhaps without thinking, he placed the headphones over Marco's ears and tapped him on the top of his head. He sat back down and grinned at the brunette, who chuckled at him and slid the headphones around his shoulders.

"These are…"

"Noise cancelling headphones. They, well, cancel noise. But don't deafen ya with Sia or whoever you were listening to." Natsu grinned.

"It was Taylor Swift." Marco grinned slightly.

"Normie."

"Hipster." Marco retorted immediately, laughing slightly at Natsu's exaggerated hurt expression. "Are you sure I can borrow these? Why do you even have them?"

"Sensitive ears." Natsu grinned. "My ear doctor says I have to wear them when I'm playing during practice so I don't go deaf when I'm old. But I don't have to wear 'em when I'm doing a gig 'cause it looks kinda stupid. So, you can use 'em all you want."

Marco smiled at the gesture and slid them over his ears again, they were comfortable enough and they did seem to block out the sound coming from outside in a less ear destroying way than his headphones would. Content, he slid them off and smiled widely at Natsu; he had expected to spend most of the night alone, so it was nice to spend time with the kind stranger. Even if Natsu went back and played his drums for the rest of the night, Marco would be okay with it.

Truth be told, he had been dreading this night. Being forced to spend an entire night around things that actively scared him wasn't desirable, but he couldn't get out of it no matter how much he tried. And he most certainly had tried.

"So, you hate fireworks, right?" Natsu questioned. "So, you're here because?"

"Well, I play here. When it's used for rugby, I mean." Marco smiled. "Last season I managed to scrape into being the star player. So, I'm kinda the guest of honour. Which I feel like I'm not doing a great job at."

Natsu looked Marco up and down. Stature wise, he could easily see him as a rugby player. He was quite strong in a muscular aspect but not overly buff, so he could probably run down a field pretty quick. What Natsu couldn't imagine, however was Marco covered in dried blood and mud, in the middle of a scrum or aggressively tacking a larger man to get the egg-ball-thing. He seemed far too nice for that. But, Marco had no reason to lie about this so he wasn't going to question it.

"Couldn't tackle your way out of it then? No teammates to pass the ball to?" Natsu was grinning ear to ear, Marco laughing with a shake of the head. "One more. One more. You sure you gave every tactic a try?"

"They were all forced and abysmal." Marco's statement didn't stop Natsu's grin. If anything, it got wider. "And no, sadly I couldn't. The free drinks and burgers are pretty nice, though."

"Lucky." Natsu whined. He'd been drooling over those damn burgers all night.

"You're not missing out on much. They're not that good." Marco lied. Natsu obviously didn't believe him. "I'll see if I can get you one when you've finished playing, as a thanks for the headphones."

"You don't have to do that." Natsu chuckled. "Well, you do now, but you didn't have to before you said that." The drummer checked the wall mounted clock, glancing back to Marco with a smile. "It's just turned nine, so you might wanna put your headphones on."

Marco also checked the clock and almost immediately slid the headphones on, smiling softly at Natsu in thanks. Natsu stood up and pointed to himself, jerking his head towards the drum kit and making a small drumming gesture. Marco seemed to understand what he was saying and widened his smile, Natsu seeing this as permission to get back to his drumming.

From the corner of his eye, Natsu could see a pink firework fly upwards into the sky. He absentmindedly looked as it reached its maximum height and exploded into the air in a spectacular display of colours. His eyes flittered over to Marco, whose body language was closed off and he had a small grimace on his face.

Deciding he could put back his drumming for a few more moments, he turned back to face Marco fully. He mouthed 'you okay?' while pointing to Marco and giving a thumb-up with a questioning expression. Marco replied with a wary expression and a 'so-so' shake of the hand. Natsu frowned; he sometimes forgot that the headphones weren't the highest quality. Whenever he wore them, he had the sound of his drumming to block out the rest of the world, so he'd gotten used to the idea that they worked perfectly. Marco obviously had other ideas.

With a friendly smile, Natsu motioned for Marco to follow him and go towards the drum kit. When Marco didn't seem to understand what he was saying, Natsu chuckled and rolled his eyes as he approached the freckled rugby player. He grabbed him by the upper arm, quite a strong upper arm, and slowly dragged Marco towards the drum kit himself. He patted the man's strong bicep as he flinched at another firework.

"You really hate them, don't ya." He said quietly, chuckling slightly. He motioned for Marco to remove the headphones. He made sure to smile gently, hoping it would encourage Marco to do what he wanted. Slowly, the rugby player removed them. "I thought I could help drown out the fireworks by playing a song you know, that way you'll know what's gonna happen and it won't shock ya."

"That could work." Marco said slowly. "Erm, do you know Run Boy Run? Kinda obsessed with it right now."

"And I'm the hipster?" Natsu chuckled. "And no, I don't. Sorry."

"No, it's okay. Do you know-" Marco stopped suddenly when another firework exploded. His expression was another grimace, this time his eyes significantly wider.

"Okay, hold on. Look at this, the bands repertoire." Natsu leant down and took out a small list of songs that he knew how to play. He also handed Marco a pencil. "Tick off all the songs you know and I'll play 'em until the displays over."

"Are you sure? Its half an hour!"

"Don't underestimate me, freckles?" Natsu playfully flexed his arm and twizzled the drumsticks around his fingers. He thought about tossing them into the air and catching them again, but didn't. "C'mon, which of 'em d'you know."

Natsu sat back down on the stool and continued to twizzle the metal drumsticks around his fingers as Marco read through the songs he could play and ticked off the ones he knew. After a moment, Marco handed him back the repertoire and leant on the wall behind the drum kit. Natsu noticed that Marco had slid on his headphones again; his slightly messy hair was kinda cute. But that wasn't a priority, because a whirling was coming from outside and an explosion was soon to follow.

After glancing down the list of ticked songs, Natsu's hands began to swiftly move and slam against the drums again in the tune of 'Pompeii' by Bastille. It started out a little slow and repetitive, but soon the song got into its stride and Natsu found himself in the moment again.

The time, unlike before, the music wasn't his whole existence. Now, the freckled sportsman leaning on the wall behind him was just as important as the music he was playing. It was always the same when he had an audience. He didn't play for himself, he played for the audience and wanted to give them a good show. And when the audience consisted of people like Marco, he made sure to give them a hell of a good show!

As the song continued, Natsu got more and more into the beat. He subconsciously got louder and louder, banging his head to the song. The band played this a lot, it was a pretty big crowd pleaser, and Natsu had really grown to appreciate it.

Marco was slowly nodding his head to the beat alongside Natsu, eyes closed as he tried to lose himself in the music. He could still hear the sound of the explosions if he lost focus, but as he kept his attention focused on the song they explosions faded into nothingness. Cautiously, he opened his eyes and looked down to Natsu. He nearly laughed with what he saw.

Shamelessly, Natsu was shouting out the lyrics in time to the song. He wasn't loud enough for Marco to hear with the headphones on, but that only added to Marco's want to laugh. He couldn't help it, the sight of him singing with so much effort but no sound coming out was hilarious!

This continued for about another minute until curiosity got the better of him. The chorus was coming up soon and the urge to hear Natsu's singing voice was getting higher and higher. Slowly, with a wince at the sudden shift in volume, Marco removed the headphones just in time for the chorus to start.

"And if ya close your eyes, does it almost feel like nothing's changed at all!"

His singing was actually quite good. It wasn't well trained but he could carry a note well and knew how to keep control of his pitch. Now focusing on both the loud drumming and the singing coming from Natsu's lips, Marco allowed the headphones hand loosely around his neck. He was enamoured by the music and the speed in which Natsu could play the instrument.

Marco couldn't keep his eyes off Natsu until the song ended. Natsu panted slightly as he glanced over to the clipboard containing the list filled with the song's that they both knew. As he picked out the next song, he caught a glimpse of Marco in the window's reflection. He immediately noticed that the man had removed the headphones, meaning he almost definitely had heard Natsu's singing. The drummer flushed slightly at the thought, but he turned around and grinned at the freckled man widely, mischief in his eyes.

"We're duetting this time, asshole." He grinned good naturedly.

Before Marco had any space to argue, Natsu began to play 'Titanium' by David Guetta. He began to belt out the lyrics, noticing that Marco hadn't joined in with him. He turned his head and looked directly at Marco, who was incredibly impressed that he could play a song and sing it while not even looking at the drum kit.

Eventually, Marco broke down under the gaze and began to sing with Natsu. It was quiet and shy at first, but the further the song went on, the more Marco felt himself drawn in by Natsu's enthusiasm and found himself getting louder and louder.

This continued for the rest of the fireworks display. They slowly made their way down the list of songs that they both knew, singing loudly and without restraint. Marco seemed to have completely forgotten about the fireworks occurring outside. He was consistently amazed by the skills Natsu showed with the drums, acting as though he didn't even need to think about what he was doing. It was amazing.

"I think." Natsu panted after they finished the seventh song he had played, his face now drenched in sweat. "That the show might be over. That was pretty fun, right?"

"Yeah, it really was." Marco was also breathless, though less so than Natsu. "Thanks for saving my night."

"No worries. What I'm here for." He grinned. "But I better be getting that burger after the show. Or I'll hunt you down and shove a drumstick somewhere a drumstick doesn't belong."

"Don't worry, I'll get you one." Marco chuckled. "You sure that's all you want, 'cause you really did make this a lot more enjoyable than I thought tonight could be. I was really dreading coming here, so thanks for that."

"Honestly, I loved it. So, you don't need to thank me." Natsu grinned. "Could you pass me my towel please."

Natsu sent a thankful smile towards Marco when he took the towel from the taller man. He wiped his face clean of the sweat that had formed and relaxed, setting the drumsticks down and breathing out an exhausted sigh. He was starting to understand why some rock drummers performed without their shirts…

"So, I know this is a long shot, but d'you wanna maybe do this again?" Natsu smiled hopefully at Marco. "Maybe at a karaoke bar or something. As a kinda date, if that's okay." Natsu continued to speak, not giving Marco a second. "You don't have to. You're probably not into guys but my dad says there's no point sitting around if you like someone. So Yeah..."

"Erm." Marco thought for a moment, before smiling widely. "Yeah, I'd like that. A lot. But maybe leave karaoke for a later time, the third date or something."

"Third date. Pretty confident in yourself, aren't ya?" Natsu cackled, the butterflies in his stomach fluttering around madly. "Out of interest, would what we just did count as a date? And would sharing a burger in an hour count as a date as well. Because then we'd be doing karaoke sooner than you think."

"Don't push your luck." Marco chuckled, freckles hidden by a blush he didn't realise had formed.

"Fine, but if you're making me wait then when we do it, I want you to go all out. I mean screaming loudly, dance moves and making total asses of ourselves." Natsu grinned, smile widening when Marco nodded with a laugh. "Ha, you'll regret agreeing to that."

"Oh, I'm sure." Marco chuckled. "Should we exchange phone numbers?"

"Yeah, that'll be great. Oh! Or or or. You could wait until the gig is over and ask me for an autograph. If you ask nicely, I might give you my number with my signature."

"Seriously?" Marco laughed, taken in with the puppy eyes Natsu was plastering on his face. "Fine, if you're gonna be cute about it."

Natsu fought the urge to punch the air. He had a hot date (or three hot dates) with a lovely rugby player who he'd sang with. And the afore mentioned rugby player was gonna ask for his autograph. Natsu knew it was a stupid thing to be happy about, but the drummer never gave out his autograph. So, it was nice, even if Marco was just humouring him.

"And hey, if you play your cards right who knows what could happen." Natsu teased. "You could be my first groupie."

"Maybe. But if that happens, you need to be my first cheerleader."

"I'm good with that. I could pull off a skirt." Natsu grinned.

The two continued to flirt with each other for a few more minutes, never once breaking eye contact or wearing anything less than a genuine, beaming smile. Unbeknown to them, the bar was slowly filling with people who were wanting drinks, music and, most likely, a place to get warm while the bonfire was put out.

Both men were snapped out of their little world when they heard the sound of Laxus' guitar began to sound when he tuned it. They both blushed and finally broke eye contact, laughing slightly when they realised they were far from alone anymore.

"I should sit down." Marco smiled, still blushing. "Don't wanna get in your way."

"Yeah. You better be back when we're done. Cause that drumstick threat is still out there." Natsu grinned, slightly shyly.

"Oh, well I don't want to risk it. Guess I need to stay."

"Guess you do."

The two continued to smile at each other for a couple more moments, neither wanting to break eye contact for a second time. Eventually, Marco gave Natsu a tiny wave and walked away, unable to stop himself glancing over his shoulder and beaming at the drummer. Natsu felt his heart lurch slightly when Marco took a seat at one of the tables in the front row, both glancing at each other when they had the time.

"You made a friend then," Laxus mumbled as he played with the little lever thing on his guitar. Natsu had no idea what it did, but it seemed important. "So, who is he?"

Natsu rubbed the back of his neck. He knew he and Marco hadn't been subtle and that his bandmates would definitely have some comments about it, but he hardly expected it would be Laxus to bring it up. He thought it would be Gray making teasing comments or Loke supporting him with statements like 'If you don't act fast I will.' But no, blunt Laxus was the initiator apparently.

"Well." He spoke quietly, but was still beaming. "If I'm lucky, he might be the future Mr Dragneel."