He felt awake, but his eyelids felt heavy when he tried to open them. Did he get that drunk? Ugh. Cana. It was always Cana, bringing him booze knowing he was nauseous enough on the rocking boat as it was and he was technically breaking the law by drinking it anyway. Eighteen year olds weren't supposed to drink so much that their heads pounded in the morning and their eyelids felt like they were weighed down by lead. Not in the U.S.

He felt groggy, exhausted, a little like he wanted to throw up but that was the usual on the boat. Eight years and he still wasn't used to the rocking motions that he always woke up to-

Wait. He didn't feel any rocking motions. And his arms and legs were strapped down by-

His eyes shot open. His vision blurred, like he was looking at everything through a fog. A blurry figure stood beside him, looming over him. The fog was thinning slowly. A blurry smile.

"You're awake. Finally." The voice sounded impatient, a little irritated, but there was a note of excitement underneath that had him tremble with fury. Excitement. It was always excitement in their voices.

He focused on the man's face. "So they sent you to get me? Finally found me again? Took you people long enough." It had taken him ten years to finally feel like he was safe, to finally think about getting an actual job. He'd been alone and afraid, and stealing to survive for the first couple years before Cana caught him and offered to help. She'd stolen the key to her father's boat, the one he never used anymore, and Natsu had gotten off the streets. He owed her his life and when she'd insisted he take his drawings to the tattoo shop and apply, he'd given in after the first couple tries. He should've known it would lead them straight to him. He should've known to keep his face out of any and all surveillance cameras, the way he made sure to at the docks. He should have realized that living a normal life was never going to be a possibility for him. They had run him out of towns before and now they'd finally caught up to him. They always did.

The man's eyes narrowed, his jaw tight. Natsu mistook the look for one of anger and goaded him more.

"I mean, you couldn't keep me locked up when I was eight, what makes you think," he chuckled roughly, "that you won't lose me now?" He grinned sloppily.

He waited for the needle to go into his skin, the inevitable appearance of a syringe, for the piercing stab of a scalpel. He was so ready for any of the familiar sensations that the fast punch to his face and the blood dripping to the side from his nose took a second to register.

Then he was coughing up the blood that seeped from his nostrils down to his mouth and trying to breathe, the pain of the back of his head slamming against the metal surface he laid on ringing in his ears.

He coughed one more time, panted through his mouth, spitting red liquid in the man's general direction. "What," pant, "the fuck."

The man sighed, far too loudly in Natsu's opinion, and stepped a little closer. It wasn't like Natsu could move. Suddenly his hand shot out and yanked Natsu's hair toward him so their faces were about six inches apart, Natsu's neck straining with the movement, his chest strapped down to the table, a yelp caught in his throat. They weren't this physical. They didn't touch their patients. They liked to watch the agony from behind clear glass panels.

"I don't think you understand the situation you're in," the man told him quietly. "You see," he began, speaking softly and precisely, bringing up his other hand, a hand that held a medium-sized blade with a black handle, silver carvings, "Whoever had you before, whoever made you afraid…" he smiled, full and wide and gleeful, "They're lovely people compared to me."

He took the knife and slammed it down into Natsu's torso, snapping a rib, the horrible sound of a split bone echoing against the pale grey walls.

Natsu had realized this man was not with them. He realized he was just unlucky enough to catch the attention of just another type of monster.

He'd thought he'd get a few days of torture. He'd assumed the man would get a rush out of electrocuting him or something, maybe carving him up like those men had carved up that woman in his hometown, or maybe burn his skin, make his flesh look like the scars on Igneel's arms, the one's Natsu had seen as a kid. He'd thought he could bear the pain, hold out, and wait for a chance to escape, since the man had to leave at some point, had to eat or sleep or pretend to be a normal person in society. He'd foolishly thought he could make it.

Now, with his mouth wide open and gasping, the sensation of feeling his chest shatter under the skin, the needles stabbing the inside of his lungs with each breath, the tears seeping out against his will, a scream caught on his tongue that wouldn't form, pain so red and burning on the inside so furiously that he couldn't say a word, blood still leaking from his nose, he realized that he probably didn't have that long.

He was going to die here, a knife stuck in his ribs, a smirking stranger watching, enthralled by the sight.

Natsu's wide eyes locked on his, breathing erratic and loud in the cold sterilized room. The last face he would see, he thought. Strange. Now that his vision was fading, he thought the man was quite beautiful, the lights from the ceiling highlighting perfect alabaster skin, dark spiked hair, and dark blue eyes, midnight, that looked… so familiar, somehow.

A smiling young face flashed in Natsu's mind. A ghost of a memory. A glimmer of recognition long lost and forgotten in the terror of daily life.

Natsu's eyes were drifting shut, the fog returning full-force, the man before him fading into the blur he'd woken up to, one word slipping out of blood-stained pink lips.

"Gray…."