I do not own Fairy Tail

This oneshot is based on the idea of a Dragon Mating Season. I've had it typed up for a while, not sure why I didn't post it.

"Natsu's been acting very weirdly, hasn't he?" Lucy Heartfilia was sitting at a table inside of Fairy Tail's guildhall. Sat around her were her friends and teammates, Erza Scarlet, Gray Fullbuster, and Wendy Marvell. They'd been sitting here all afternoon, enjoying each other's company. It had only been in the last few minutes that she'd realised just how different Natsu was acting. All day he'd been pacing around the guild, sniffing at random people and objects. He had collected a large pile of shiny items in one corner of the guild by lunchtime, and anyone who got too close ended up getting punched.

Wendy looked at Lucy and blushed slightly before answering her. "Yes, Lucy, but there's a good reason for that. He's in his s-season." She stammered a little on the last word, embarrassed, as she remembered the 'talk' she'd had from Gajeel and Laxus not that long ago.

Looking confused and annoyed, Lucy flicked her hand as if to brush away the comment. "Pft, whatever, he could at least pretend to be normal. Just cos he's having some season or other doesn't mean he can act this weird." Her voice was unusually cold, which shocked Wendy and caused tears to spring to her eyes.

Immediately Erza was on the case, towering over Lucy with a terrifying look on her face. "You best be careful you don't make her cry again Lucy, or I'll have to punish you." Lucy squeaked out a response and trembled in fear. Seeing that Lucy had learned her lesson, Erza sat back down and turned to Wendy with a smile. She was actually rather interested in learning more about the Dragon Slayers, and so politely asked her a question.

"Could you explain what you mean by his season? I don't fully understand what you meant."

The blue-haired girl blushed bright red. For a moment she was silent, and when she did answer she stammered quite a lot. "W-well you s-see, Dragon S-slayers are l-like D-dragons, th-they only have one m-mate. He's in h-his s-season because h-he's found his mate, and h-he's t-trying to resist c-claiming them."

Erza began to understand and her face flushed with blood. Unfortunately, that was precisely the moment when Gajeel chose to interrupt.

"Yeah, the Salamander has found his mate, and if he doesn't claim him or her within a week he'll go back to normal. You'd best hope he either doesn't try to claim them or that he isn't rejected."

Of course, this prompted Erza's curiousity even more.

"How does one claim their mate?" Wendy fainted. Lucy dived down to catch her and sat holding her upright (she isn't very bright). Gray, who could guess what was coming, unconsciously threw his shirt off, and muttered obscenities under his breath. Even Gajeel reacted, a faint dash of colour on his cheeks as he chuckled somewhat nervously.

"Well, apart from the good ol' roll in the hay, they also bite their mate and transfer a piece of their magic into them. But the sex is the more immediate part, and it's the part that makes me hope that he can control his urges until he's away from the guild."

Now Erza was broken. Her brain was shorting out as she imagined many, many different situations involving Natsu making love to different members of the guild. Gajeel, seeing that his evil work was completed, turned and walked away.

That little revelation kept the four of them well out of it for a good twenty minutes. At that point they finally snapped out of their 'recovery' and noticed something missing. Rather, they noticed someone missing. Natsu had disappeared. They immediately looked around to see if anyone else was missing, but no one was. At least, that they could think of.

Cana Alberona provided a minor distraction as she sauntered over to the table holding a barrel of alcohol. She winked sexily at Gray, who suddenly felt uncomfortable, and sat down next to Lucy and Wendy. "So, who do you think Natsu will get it with? My money's on Lucy." The drunkard received a hard slap to the shoulder from Lucy at her comment.

Erza thought for a moment, always up for a challenge. Right now the challenge was to work out who Natsu would end up with by the end of the week. Memories flashed through her brain as she tried to piece it together. Finally, eyes twinkling in satisfaction, she looked straight into Cana's eyes and told her "Put me down for Mira."

Raising her eyebrow, Cana nodded and held out her hand. Erza placed a thousand jewel on Cana's hand, feeling confident in her decision. Lucy then held out two thousand jewel to Cana, and smirked at Erza. "Put this on Erza."

Cana laughed as the friendly competition began. Erza refused to think that she could be Natsu's mate, and Lucy refused to give up on her little match. The argument quickly escalated thanks to Erza's lack of control, who ended it by sending Cana away with a large bump on her head.

After a few hours, the sky was darkening and almost the whole guild had placed bets on who had won Natsu's heart. The bet's had escalated to ridiculous extremes, some people betting millions on their favourite 'couple'. Only the Dragon Slayers, Wendy, Gajeel and Laxus stayed out of it. It was sacred, not something to be bet on, they said.

Natsu didn't return to the guild that night, so everyone collected anything of theirs that he had taken, and left to go home in high spirits. Almost every man and woman in Fairy Tail had someone betting on them to win, and they all went to sleep wondering what it would be like if they were the one. The only exceptions to this were the other Dragon Slayers, who were either too young like Wendy or already had mates like Gajeel and Laxus.

Natsu, on the other hand, was at home crying. He hated himself more than he ever remembered hating anyone before. Why was he so weak? Why couldn't he just talk to them, for fuck sake? Happy came home very late, having wanted to give Natsu time to get to sleep. When he did, he heard that Natsu was still crying and so instead flew off to Wendy's room in Fairy Hills. Natsu heard and smelt the cat come and go, but ignored him. He was too hurt to care. Nothing mattered to him right now, nothing but the pain.

Every child knows what it feels like to want something that you can't have. Every child knows the pain of not getting what you want. Natsu was living that pain right now, in a way than most people can imagine.

What was torturing him most was that his mate was not even aware of his presence. He knew exactly who his mate was, but he was powerless to win them over or be with them. They may as well have been on another world for all the good it did him. It was a tale that had been told before; the sun falls in love with the moon, but they can never be together.

That was the thought that kept crashing around in his mind. He. Couldn't. Be. With. Them. Five words that were slowly driving him crazy.

Eventually Natsu had cried so much that his tears had dried up. Morning had arrived before he had exhausted himself and finally fallen asleep. As the first rays of sun landed gently across his face, he was dreaming of that person. It was a pleasant dream, a wonderful day just the two of them.

Later that morning, at the guild, the Dragon Slayers met on the top floor to discuss the situation. Natsu was still away, sleeping, although they didn't know that. Laxus stood still, his arms folded across his chest with a stern expression on his face. Gajeel paced impatiently back and forth, cursing and growling. Wendy rocked on the edge of a chair, worry twisting into her beautiful eyes.

Laxus was the first one to break the uncomfortable silence. "We need to do something about the kid. Either we need to make sure he doesn't attempt to claim his mate so he can't be rejected, or we need to encourage him to go after the person. I'm in favour of keeping him in his house. If he did get rejected… you know what the consequences for that are. I don't want him to have to face that, especially after all that he's done for us."

Gajeel shook his head. "No, I think he needs to confront this. He's strong, he can handle the rejection. As much as I might not want to admit it, he's the strongest of all of us emotionally. If anyone can pull through it, he can. Salamander won't stay down from something like that. I vote that we help him claim his mate."

Both of the men turned to Wendy. They looked at her intently, but for once she didn't shy away from the harsh looks. "I… I agree with… with… " She finished talking in such a small voice that even with their enhanced hearing, neither of the two heard what she said.

"I'm sorry, could you repeat that Wendy?" Laxus bent down a little, worrying about her. She looked straight into his eyes and his own widened in shock when he saw the remorse in hers. He correctly assumed that she was already regretting the choice she had made, but wouldn't dare change her mind. Why, he could not say.

"Gajeel. I agree with Gajeel." Her voice was calm and sombre, a stern reminder that she may be the youngest but that she was still mature. Gajeel's face slacked a little, but he nodded and grasped her shoulder gently. Laxus sighed in defeat and turned around, beginning to make his way out of the guild.

The Dragon Slayers, following Laxus, marched their way to Natsu's house. Finding the way by scent, they quickened their pace when they began to smell his tears. The group stopped at his door, slightly out of breath from walking a few miles in thirty minutes, and Wendy knocked timidly on the door. No answer came, and Wendy knocked again. Once again, no response. Laxus, who was extremely subtle and tactful, pulled the door off its hinges causing Wendy to squeak, and barged in. They found a surprisingly clean house, some junk sat in corners but otherwise the place was mostly quite neat. What was definitely not neat was the exhausted body of the Dragon Slayer they had come to see on the floor.

Laxus and Gajeel picked Natsu up by his shoulders and lifted him to the couch. There Wendy cast a simple healing spell to wake him up and remove his evident tiredness. He groaned and wriggled a bit in place, before opening his eyes and taking in the sight of three of his friends standing in his home. Stretching himself out a little, he tried to act casual. He didn't really want company right now, but he wanted concern even less.

"Natsu, please don't be alarmed. We just want to help you find your mate. Can you tell us who they are? We can try our best to get them alone with you, if you want…?"

That was Laxus, ever the tact master. He really didn't know what do, he'd claimed his own mate without thinking, and it had just happened to work out. Natsu visibly tensed, which he supposed was to be expected. Gajeel then stepped forward to say his little piece.

"Don't listen to Sparky here, you don't need to tell us who they are. Just go to them, and we'll be there for moral support. We won't say or do anything I promise." His words seemed to calm Natsu down a bit, but he was still far from his normal self.

Shaking his head, he replied; "It'll never happen. They are too far away and I've never even spoken to them. There's no chance in hell I'll ever be able to claim them, and even if I tried… who's to say I wouldn't be rejected?"

"Us." Wendy smiled kindly at Natsu, trying to be as positive as she could. "We know that your mate won't reject you because it's you Natsu! Who couldn't fall in love with you?" This prompted Laxus to grin and wink at the girl, who had the grace to blush.

The pink haired man sighed. "Yeah, right, ok, you win. Let's just get this over with so I can die already."

Laxus grabbed his forearm tightly and growled at him. "You're not going to die. You won't be rejected, but even if you are, you're strong. You can pull through. Got. It?" His voice was commanding but it held a peculiar undertone of concern. Natsu simply nodded.

Laxus created a storm cloud filled with lightning overhead, and quickly used his Lightning Body to flash all four of them into it. They began travelling in the direction Natsu pointed. After only a few hours, they dropped out of the Lightning Body spell. Laxus was completely exhausted, but he was determined to see this through. Looking around he saw an unfamiliar town. He hadn't been to this part of Fiore and he wondered where Natsu's mate was.

Were they in a guild? Were they a wizard at all? No answers were forthcoming, so he simply followed in the wake of the Fire Dragon Slayer. Wendy and Gajeel kept pace with each other, just ahead of Laxus and just behind Natsu.

Slowly a guildhall came into view. It was nothing like any Laxus had seen, though he did recognise, with a gasp, the symbol above the gate. Wendy and Gajeel recognised it too, he could see. Thinking out loud, he muttered "Mermaid Heel, huh? Damn, this is going to be tougher than I thought." As he finished speaking, Natsu turned and flashed a sad smile at the Lightning mage. Of course he had heard what was said.

They reached the gate and Natsu knocked on the gate itself, rather than try to go in. After a minute-long wait, a cat-girl came running out.

"Hey Millianna. Could you please get Kagura for me? I need to speak with her urgently."

The others stared at Natsu warily, taking careful note of his flat, unemotional tone. They waited to see if the girl he had called Millianna would do as he asked, or tell them to go away. Honestly expecting the latter, Laxus was surprised when she slowly nodded and walked back into the guild.

It was another four minutes before Millianna appeared again. This time she merely stuck her head out of the door for a moment, as she held it open for another girl to step out. This girl was far different. She held herself with an air of pride. Her face, though beautiful, was stony and uncaring. Gajeel flinched just looking at her. Suddenly he wasn't so sure of his idiotic plan.

He wasn't the only one with doubt going through his mind.

Kagura reached the gates and nodded curtly to Natsu's quiet "Hello". She stepped out of the gates and stood face to face with him, not even glancing at the other Dragon Slayers. Natsu did however, his eyes wide and panicked. All three of his companions nodded gently. Turning back to Kagura, Natsu cleared his throat multiple times before attempting to speak.

"Hey Kagura… I needed to talk to you because… well… I'm a Dragon Slayer, right? Well, Dragon Slayers go into season once they find out who their mate is." Kagura's eyes narrowed dangerously but he pushed on. "I came to talk to you because I just recently went into season, and y-you are my m-mate." The girls expression twisted into cold fury. "I wanted to ask, if it isn't too much, if you would c-consent to be my m-mate?"

He felt slightly better for having said it. This feeling quickly evaporated as her expression remained unchanged. If anything, it hardened further. When she spoke, Kagura's voice was cold and dripping with rage.

"You think that you can just waltz up to me and claim me like some piece of merchandise? You're a fucking pig, just like every other man alive." Laxus rolled his eyes and Gajeel grunted, but she ignored them. "Get lost, you pathetic idiot, I don't want to see you ever again."

Turning on her heel, she strode angrily back into her guildhall. Natsu was frozen to the spot. Laxus, Gajeel and Wendy didn't dare to move either, in case they set him off. To be perfectly honest, even with someone as harsh as Kagura, they didn't think he would be rejected. "Shit." Laxus said softly.

Then things got very, very hot indeed.

Natsu screamed as fire engulfed him, blazing into the sky in a gigantic pillar. Then, as suddenly as it appeared, it was gone. He collapsed onto the ground, and the other three Dragon Slayers rushed to him. Stage 1 was already over, and stage 2 would be coming soon.

"We have to get him to Porlyusica, NOW!" screamed Laxus. Gajeel practically threw Natsu at Laxus, who caught him, confused.

"You take him, you'll be faster alone. Go, before it starts!"

The shout pushed Laxus into action as he reached deep into his reserves, digging deeper than he had in a long time as he used his Lightning Body to transport his unconscious passenger to Magnolia.

He arrived in a record five minutes, a feat he would have been proud of it not for the circumstances. Not bothering to knock on the door, he simply pushed his way into Porlyusica's house carrying Natsu. At the sudden intrusion, she began to yell something at 'the Dreyar brat' before she spotted the pink haired boy he was carrying. Immediately she switched into 'help' mode.

"Lay him on the bed." That was the first and last thing she said. Laxus tried to make sense of what she was doing from his own knowledge as he watched from the far side of the room.

In his head, he held a conversation about it.

"Ok, so the first stage of rejection sickness is the loss of magic, Natsu went through that. The second stage is seizures."

"Yeah, the old hag knows Natsu is a Dragon Slayer and she must know a fair bit about Dragon Slayers too. Maybe she's trying to give him some medicine to keep the seizures from happening?"

"Would that even help? I mean, would that combat the sickness directly or would it force it to advance to the final stage? Would it even be able to stop the seizures?"

His thoughts carried on like this for some time. Soon he got snapped out of them by vicious swearing from the elderly woman. His ears twinged as curse words that even he daren't use were thrown around.

After nearly ten minutes of cursing, without pause for breath, Porlyusica calmed down enough to say; "It's too late. He's gone."

Laxus stood in shock, his jaw dropped and his eyes the size of dinner plates. He eventually managed to stammer out a few words, despite his throat clamping up. "He's… he's dead?"

Porlyusica couldn't hold back her tears anymore and simply nodded as water flooded her eyes.

The next morning, Makarov noticed the absence of the Dragon Slayers when he entered the guild. He went upstairs to his office and was greeted by a single-page note on his desk. Upon reading the note, then quickly reading it again in disbelief, he sprinted out of his office and the guild, with a speed that belayed his age.

Everyone watched him go, assuming that he'd merely forgotten some payment or other, which did occasionally happen to the old Guild Master.

In less than twenty minutes he had run the considerable distance to Porlyusica's home. Waiting for him were three Dragon Slayers and the old healer herself, gathered around something on the ground. Only Laxus turned and acknowledged his grandfather. Pulling him into a fierce embrace, Makarov realised with genuine shock that Laxus had been crying. A lot.

He was eventually released from Laxus' death grip, and stepped slowly forward to the body. His disbelief, shock, sadness, and anger grew with every step. It couldn't be… it simply couldn't be true!

And yet, there was his body. Natsu Dragneel was dead. It was smacking him in the face, the child who had saved so many of them from so much pain now lying dead before him. It was beyond his mind to grasp the true depth of the loss he had suffered.

It might have been an hour, a week, or a year before Mira came looking for him, he wasn't to know. He was simply blank. Completely numb at the horror before him. Laxus was once again the one to turn to the newcomer, before she too collapsed at the awful sight.

Natsu's funeral was held six days later in the Kardia Cathedral. Usually at the funeral of someone as important to them all as Natsu, there would have been long eloquent speeches filled with memories. This funeral was silent. Everyone was at an utter loss for words. Most of the guild appeared completely plastered, the death of their guilds heart too much for them to handle. Cana, on the flip side, had immediately put down her alcohol at the news and hadn't touched it since.

As the ceremony, if you can call it that, drew to a close, Kagura Mikazuchi appeared at the Cathedral. Her face was as hate-filled as the day she had rejected Natsu. She walked directly to the coffin and laid a single, tiny flower, then strode out again.

Only the Dragon Slayers knew that she was the one and seeing her here, looking as she did, set their blood to boiling. Out of respect for Natsu, they let her leave, but they would later be heard to vow undying hatred for the swordswoman.

As Natsu's body was lowered into its final resting place, the three Dragon Slayers came forward and each slit their wrist, the blood dripping into the grave, as they made a pact. A blood pact forged in the bonds of Dragon Magic, a pact to remember Natsu and live as he did.

And that was his legacy.