Natsu's head ached when he woke up, and it was hard to focus his thoughts. He was in a room, which was strange, although it took him a moment to realize why. They had been camping. He had no business being in a room when they were more than a day's hike from the nearest hotel.

The room looked familiar, but it was the scent that allowed him to finally ID his location. It smelled like the guild hall. He was back home. In the guild infirmary? Other than the headache, he didn't feel that bad.

He sat up and surveyed his surroundings. Rain was striking the window hard and fast, distorting the view outside as water ran down the glass. The pounding of rain on the roof was oddly relieving, even though noise didn't typically sooth headaches. The crash of thunder nearby made his temples throb, though. He heard nothing from beyond the infirmary door, but could smell Gray and Gajeel.

Recalling the vertigo he'd felt the last time he was conscious, Natsu got out of bed slowly, and took a few cautious steps before determining that whatever had so disoriented him was past, and that his current headache was due exclusively to being struck in the head.

With that settled, he strode out of the infirmary. Having failed so miserably, he could already hear Gray's gloating, and he wanted to get it over with. The sooner Gray shut up about how he screwed up, the sooner he could focus on doing something that would blow Gray out of the water.

Aside from the two he'd smelled, no one else was there, likely on account of the thunderstorm. Gray and Gajeel sat near the bar, discussing something quietly enough that Natsu had trouble making it out over the patter of rain. He attempted to creep closer and hear what it was. After all, the only reason anyone might hold a conversation bellow a dragon slayer's hearing threshold was because they didn't want a dragon slayer to overhear. But before he was close enough Gajeel heard a wood board creak under Natsu's foot, and looked up at him.

"Hey. Salamander. Back among the living?"

Natsu froze like a deer in the headlights, searching for an appropriate response that was neither too humble to recover from nor too cocky to get away with after losing a fight.

Before he could come up with something, Gray looked up at him, and his shoulders sagged in relief. "We were starting to worry you wouldn't wake up."

"I wasn't unconscious that long," Natsu protested. Not that he had any idea how long he'd been out. Long enough to get him back to the guild hall, at least. A day's walk from where they'd set up camp to the nearest town, and several hours for the train ride. Then long enough for everyone to either go home despite the rain, or an extra night, with everyone holding off on coming the next day because of the rain.

At least two days.

"Three days is a long time to be unconscious," Gajeel said.

"Three days?"

Gray nodded. "Gramps said we were gonna take you to the hospital if you didn't wake up today."

"It was just a bump on the head."

"Your fighting sucked before that thing hit you."

"Did not."

"That blow to the head must have jumbled your memories," Gray said.

"Maybe you gave yourself brain freeze, because I think you're the one misremembering."

Gajeel grabbed Gray's arm and spun him back to face the bar before he could come up with a retort for that.

"Lunch," Gajeel said. "You haven't eaten in a few days now. There's a lunch for you in the kitchen."

"Oh? Great. I'm starving." Natsu spun towards the kitchen.

"I'll get it," Gray insisted, getting to his feet. "You sit. You were unconscious for three days. If I have to tell Erza that we let you run around and knock yourself out again so soon, I'll make sure you don't wake up next time."

Natsu snorted. "Don't threaten people if you're worried about them."

"Who said I'm worried about you? I don't want to deal with Erza. That's all."

"Sure. Sure." Natsu moved to duck out of the playful swat he anticipated as Gray passed by, but the ice mage made no moves at him.

"Sit, Natsu."

Stunned to see Gray treat him delicately, more or less, Natsu obeyed, dropping to the nearest bench.

When Gray returned with a bento box that smelled like Lucy, Natsu asked, "Where's Happy?"

"Wendy's dorm." Gray returned to his own seat. "He wasn't happy to hear we were planning to take you to the hospital. Pantherlily suggested that spending the night with Carla might help cheer the little guy up."

"Where's Pantherlily?"

"Home," Gajeel answered. "The only reason we came in this weather is because we were assigned to keep an eye on you, and carry you to the hospital if we needed to."

Again with the hospital stuff. "I wasn't hit that hard."

"You were unconscious. For three days. That's a bad sign."

"I feel fine."

Gray raised an eyebrow. "You do?"

"My head hurts," Natsu admitted. "But it's not as bad as before, and the room isn't spinning, so I'm pretty much back to normal."

Gray looked too interested all of a sudden, and he'd already looked more interested in Natsu than the roset liked. "You were dizzy when you woke up?"

"No. I just had a headache."

"You were dizzy before you were knocked out, then."

"Yeah. But it's over now."

"How dizzy?"

"It's not a big deal."

"How dizzy, Natsu?"

"Answer, Salamander," Gajeel put in. "We still have to drag you to that hospital kicking and screaming if it looks like you might pass out again."

"It was nothing," Natsu insisted. All their questions we keeping him from eating the lunch Lucy made, and he could smell all the hot sauce and cayenne pepper she'd added to make it deliciously spicy for him. "I took Lucy's watch on top of mine the night before. Then I fought all day. I was tired."

Though when he thought of it, it wasn't nothing. He had felt something off. And even before the pain in his head and the vertigo, he hadn't been able to put as much force into his actions as normal.

"You're sure it was nothing?"

Being tired could make it harder to attack at full force. And hospitals smelled awful with their sick people and chemical cleaners and weird, suspicious drugs. "I didn't get enough sleep. That's all."

-o-

Porlyusica had claimed, apparently, that he likely had a concussion from the blow he'd taken to the head. Since Gray and Gajeel were both instructed to treat him like someone with a serious concussion whether or not he acted like he did indeed have one, Gajeel walked Natsu home. Gray, in the meantime, went to the girl's dorm to fetch Happy.

Before they split ways, Gray shed his raincoat and passed it to Natsu.

"You'll probably do a better job than me of keeping it on."

Natsu grinned. "I can see that."

"And it wouldn't do for you to soak yourself and catch a cold."

"I don't get sick."

"Three days," Gray reminded him. "We're playing it safe with you until Gajeel and I aren't responsible for your wellbeing."

He wasn't joking. The two of them insisted on handling Natsu with kiddie gloves. When Natsu finished his lunch, Gray had taken the container back to the kitchen for him. One of them stood by his side when he stood, and when he walked, they had both positioned themselves so they could catch him if he suddenly collapsed. Gajeel even ignored all of Natsu's jibes on the walk home.

This was going to get old fast.

Thankfully, once Natsu was inside his own home, Gajeel seemed to think it was no longer his job to keep an eye on the fire slayer. "Don't fall climbing into your hammock," he ordered before shutting the door and leaving Natsu on his own.

Finally free of his guild mate's overbearing behavior, Natsu went directly to a set of weights he had sitting in the corner of his room. His head hurt was all, and a few curls would work his arms, not his head. After such a weak punch fighting that monster, he felt like he needed to do something.

Counting while working out wasn't a habit Natsu was into. He could go long enough that he didn't bother with keeping track. Trying after his injury, he lifted the dumbbell around twenty times, and only knew the rough number because it was so alarmingly low. But after that, his arm felt like jello, and he couldn't bring himself to lift the dumbbell again.

He switched arms, and achieved roughly the same results on his left. Moving the dumbbell back to his right, he could only lift it twice more before he lost his grip. The heavy metal crashed to the ground, barely missing his toes.

Naturally, this was when Gray knocked on the door. "Natsu? You didn't fall, did you?"

"Don't be stupid! Of course I didn't!"

"I'm back with Happy."

"Door's unlocked."

Gray stepped in, followed by Happy, who rushed past him and into Natsu's arms.

"Natsu, don't scare me like that again!" Happy cried.

"Hey, it's okay. I'm fine, see."

Natsu's shoved all thoughts of weights aside and gave Happy the biggest smile he could.

"You still have a giant bandage around your head."

"I do?" He hadn't noticed anything wrapped around his head. What with the headache and all, there weren't many sensations up there other than that constant, moderately distracting throb.

"You're not okay," Gray decided.

"No. No, I'm fine." Natsu reached up and felt the bandage. "I must be accustomed to it, if it's been there for as long as I was asleep. Has it been there that long?"

Gray shrugged. He was pretty sure someone had changed out the bandage once or twice, but something had been there for the past three days.

Truth be told, they hadn't rushed Natsu back immediately. When Natsu had been knocked out, they left him to sleep while they fought off their attackers. When he didn't wake up after, Erza decided he must have been tired. Since Lucy then confessed that Natsu had taken her watch the night before, they decided it wouldn't be the end of the world if he took the night off. It wasn't until mourning, when they still couldn't rouse him, that they began to worry. Even then, they didn't decide they needed to get him home until breakfast wasn't able to get him awake. He'd been without bandages for a fair portion of the time he was unconscious.

"You aren't going to stay, are you?" Natsu asked. "I'm fine. And if anything goes wrong, Happy's with me."

"Well…" Gray looked around at the pig sty that Natsu lived in. The home had no shortage of hazards for a person who had just been unconscious three days with a head injury. But Happy was responsible enough. And Natsu was a stubborn son of a bitch when he felt like it. He might do himself more damage throwing a fit over how people worried about him than he would if left to take care of himself.

"Alright. Happy, you keep an eye on him. The second something's amiss, you either drag him to the hospital, or come tell me so I can drag him there."

Happy saluted. "Aye, sir!"

Nodding in satisfaction, Gray grabbed the doorknob, and was on his way out when Natsu called out, "Wait!"

"Hm?"

Natsu glanced around, amazed with himself for having lost something so fast in the clutter of his home. After a moment he spotted it, and pulled Gray's rain coat out from under a chair that had fallen on its side.

"Here. Even if you lose it on the way home, it should keep you dry for a while."

Gray laughed. "I'm already drenched!"

Grinning, Natsu lit up in flames and stepped over to Gray. "Hold still then. I'll dry you off."

"That's unusually generous of you."

"You brought Happy home. This is just a thank you."

"Natsu, I'm wet too," Happy pointed out.

"So come over here. I got enough heat for both of ya."

Happy considered it a moment, and decided he would rather dry off naturally than get too close to the human torch. Especially when said torch had just woken up from a head injury and didn't notice their bandages, and might not be reliable as someone who could maintain focused control of their magic.

Once Gray was dried, he pulled on his rain coat and left. Natsu waved, then told Happy he was going to go wash off.

"I smell like I haven't bathed in three days."

"It's been four. We camped one night before you were injured."

"Ha ha. Right. See if we have anything to make for dinner. Here's hoping we don't have to run out for groceries in the rain."

"Aye!"

Natsu kept his smile up until he made it into the bathroom. Safely in private, he sighed and slumped against the door, letting himself slide slowly to the floor.

"I'm fine," he told himself. "It was a little head injury, is all. Once I finish recovering from that, I'll be fine."

The only magic he'd done was to make a little fire to dry Gray's clothes off. There was no reason for him to feel so worn down all of a sudden. But despite that, he hardly felt like he had the strength to crawl into his tub.

Still, he was fine. A little time to rest and recover, and he would be good as new.

-x-

STA: I don't know if I've ever explicitly mentioned this before, but I kind of made the word "roset" up to describe a pink haired male. "Rosette" being a pink haired female. It doesn't work as well as bluenette does, but I wasn't really sure what other word to use.

Realistically, I can't justify the bandages. If whatever blunt trauma wound he received didn't warrant bandaging initially, then I don't see why one would be added later. But I like the idea of his team brushing the injury off completely at first, and of Natsu not being alert and oriented enough later to notice he's bandaged, so let's ignore that.