Aftermath

"Oh my God Serena, are you okay?"

It was the day after the fight and Natsu had just returned to work after Gajeel insisted on taking yesterday's shift. Pulling down his scarf he revealed mottled, plum bruising in the vague shape of hands like a collar around his skinny neck.

"Shit. Gajeel told us all about it. At least you got him back good eh? He came in here last night around ten after your shift ended and he looked a right state. Black eye, busted lip and nasty bruises all over his forearms. Nice job."

Natsu looked at Sting in confusion.

"…That wasn't me."

"Yeah I thought as much. Don't get in a fight with him again Natsu, his brother's leader of a violent group called Deliora, he must have been in plenty of fights worse than you can imagine." Rogue's excellent hearing allowed him to effortlessly join in the conversation as he entered the break room.

"How dyou know that?" Asked Sting frowning at his best friend.

"Wendy's friend has a cousin that's in that group and I've overheard him and his friend's talking about his brother, Lyon Vastia. He's pretty dangerous."

"So you're doing background checks on Wendy's friends now? Really Rogue you go above and beyond when it comes to being overprotective. You really should-"

"Are you saying his brother beat him up after our fight?" Natsu interrupted. He couldn't imagine anyone purposely hurting their own family. That wasn't right. Hell, he wouldn't even really want to hurt Gajeel let alone someone like Zeref of his dad.

Rogue nodded solemnly while holding his hand over Sting's mouth to prevent anymore irrelevant outbursts.

"What happened for him to really hurt you like that? I can't imagine he started off by doing something that drastic."

Guilt washed over Natsu's face as his eyes dropped to a particularly interesting stain on the floor. Silence held the room for a couple of minutes before Natsu muttered his answer.

"I said… I said that if I had a son like him I would have committed suicide."

Rogue's grip on Sting tightened as his eyes widened and nostrils flared.

"Oh." The single syllable barely forced its way through his lips before his composure shattered and he strode out of the room. On the night their parents went missing all Rogue had been left with was a suicide note urging him not to look for his father's body. Renewed waves of guilt tugged at Natsu's conscience while Sting stared at him stony faced.

"You really shouldn't make jokes about that you know." He said flatly before leaving to check on Rogue. Natsu buried his head into his hands slouching against the wall. If anyone had made a comment like that to Rogue during a fight, both himself and Sting would have done the same thing if not worse. Had he triggered Gray in some way?

The next morning Gray's empty bench in the workshop stared at Natsu throughout their tech lesson. A bitter reminder of his stupidity. Why had he chosen technology? He was much better at destroying things than creating especially on a day where he was wracked with guilt. Luckily Miss Olietta noticed he was having an off day and sent him to get extra wood from the art block. Or maybe it was just because he'd crushed five wooden models in the first half an hour alone.

There was no rush. Lazily following his own feet across the school and into the art block he scanned his surroundings. Various pictures and paintings covered the walls which were pretty to look at but nothing really caught Natsu's eye until he turned the corner.

On the opposite wall were three canvasses. Slowly Natsu edged closer until he could see the intricate detail in the work. Firstly, a large square canvas with a brain painted in a pale violet and a chunk missing. Although you could see the almost gruesome detail of the organ, it was also painted in a way to make it look translucent and fragile.

Ice. Yes, it looked like an ice sculpture where part had been shattered, throwing out tiny shards and a thin veil of mist. To the right there was a portrait canvas containing a powder blue damaged heart and, underneath that, a picture of a turquoise fractured fist. All three were made to look like precious creations pain-stakingly carved out of ice only to melt away and disappear. Except this ice was unmeltable.

"Would you like to see more of his work?"

Natsu spun around, startled to be interrupted from the trance the art had put him in. When he didn't reply, the art teacher he recognised as Mr Jonah beckoned him to a computer and began searching through files until he found what he was looking for. There on the screen were photos of the ice sculptures in the paintings. Unbelievably someone of his age had been able to create something so detailed and delicate out of ice before it had a chance to melt.

He continued on through the photos, his usually sporadic attention span completely captured in ice. There were swords with elaborately decorated hilts, axes with intricate grips on the handle and arrows covered in baroque patterns. Once in a while he would recognise a face in the more complicated ice figures shown in the photographs.

After ten minutes they were nearing the end of the folder when he stopped. No, this couldn't be right. On the screen there was a figure slumped over a desk with a serene look on its face underneath spiky hair and the ice was dyed…pink?

Seeing Natsu's bewilderment at the photos, Mr Jonah just laughed.

"You're quite the inspiration it seems. He's never taken so many tries at the same thing, he just really wanted to get the colour of your hair right I guess."

Clicking through the next few pictures, Natsu stared at this peaceful, unaware version of himself in varying shades of pink and slightly different poses. So he really was an art student then.

A/N Sorry if Natsu seems quite OOC this chapter. Not quite sure how many times we've seen a guilty Natsu but one thing I know for sure is although he fights hard, he would never purposely be malicious. I imagine he'd be quite stubborn/sensitive about potentially triggering someone (when we first see Deliora in canon he keeps his fighting attitude with Gray but does back off and listen to Gray's story) I also think he'd feel quite guilty if he had understood what he'd done or had something to relate it too. We already know from very early on he looks out for Romeo when he sees him going through a similar situation to his childhood etc. So he is a compassionate guy.

As for the second half well I doubt Natsu would be one for art to be honest. I tried to mention how it was unusual for his attention to stay focussed like that. My headcanon is that he quietly (very quietly, he'd admit this over his dead body) has some admiration for the precision and creativity of Gray's magic. Mutual respect for his rival. Anyway I shoved some symbolism in there and hopefully showed a different side of Gray as I reveal more of his character to Natsu.

Long explanation but it's not always great when you see characters OOC so I hope if you look at it this way it makes sense and isn't actually that much OOC. Also the next chapter's going to be really short please don't kill me. Thanks for reading!