Please R&R and I shall see you at the bottom of the page.
POV: Narrator
Disclaimer: I do not own Fairy Tail, but read if you so dare...
The sound of loud purring startles Natsu awake who sits up with a jolt and drags cloudy eyes around the strange room which is clearly not his own. It takes a few minutes before the disgruntled teenager realized that he fell asleep inside his parent's room and was awakened by a loudly purring Happy. He hadn't even realized that he had even gotten near his parent's bed before he was suddenly falling and sleeping dreamlessly on the comfortable mattress.
Scratching his unruly pink hair, obsidian eyes land on the nearby hanging clock reading the time to be a little past eleven. He groans because he wants to go to sleep, but the sound of Happy's insistent purring and the grumbling of his now empty stomach cause him to stand up. As he does so he feels something slip down his lap and land on the soft carpet with an inaudible thud. Natsu quickly realizes that it's a picture frame and hurriedly picks it up to put it back where he unknowingly got it from.
Just before he sets the picture down on the nearby vanity, Natsu catches the sight of chocolate hair and warm hazel eyes. The picture in his hand is of his mother walking down the park with her hair blowing around her in the summer breeze. Her left hand is firmly grasped around the small pudgy hand of a three year old Natsu who is too preoccupied with a flower in his hand to bother looking up to where his father is taking the picture.
Christabel's smiling face leaves Natsu feeling once again empty with slight guilt and sadness. Guilt from the thought of not being able to remember his own mother and remorse from the fact that he would never really know the true love of a mother.
From the picture in his hand and the stories he's heard Natsu can completely understand why his father never remarried even after all the insistence from his sister and friends. In a way Natsu is glad his father never found another woman to love and remained faithful to his high school sweetheart.
There were times Igneel went on dates set up by his friends and even his sister, but they never escalated to be anything other than a simple date. If Natsu's memory served him right his father never saw the same girl twice and was always home before ten, just in time to relieve the babysitter and tuck Natsu into bed. Sometimes, however, Natsu thinks that it's his own fault that his father never remarried, but Igneel has never agreed to that notion, "Your mother is the only one for me," he would always say causing the pink haired boy to feel just a bit less guilty.
Sighing, Natsu places down the picture where it belongs before standing up and heading towards the door with Happy at his heels. He holds the door open so that the cat can pass through and takes one last look inside the room before closing the door tightly behind him. Once out in the hall Natsu is more than tempted to skip dinner and head straight for his room, but Natsu Dragneel doesn't skip meals, and Happy is insistently threading himself through Natsu's legs to show his own hunger.
"Alright, I'm going," Natsu grumbles as he climbs down the stairs with Happy quickly racing down the steps to wait for him at the bottom.
Once Natsu finally makes it into the kitchen he fishes through one of the cupboards before pulling out a small can of tuna for his overly insistent cat. He opens the can with a nearby can opener before dumping the smelly gooey food into Happy's bowl. Happy quickly digs into his food as Natsu pulls out some bread and peanut butter to eat for dinner. He's much too tired to make anything else at the moment and a peanut butter sandwich on toasted bread seems like the faster route to go.
As he places the bread into the nearby toaster, Natsu leans on the counter with the back of his head tapping the back of the cupboard gently. All he can hear is the sound of happy eating and the soft drip of the nearby sink he has yet to try and fix. He's been meaning to fix it for a while but keeps on putting it off still determined that his father will fix it when he wakes up, because he is going to wake up.
A creak in the floorboards makes Natsu jump as his dark eyes scan the room to see that Happy hasn't moved from his place beside his bowl. His tiny ears twitch towards the sound, but other than that he continues to lick the bowl clean too preoccupied to even be curious.
Natsu looks around the room as he pushes himself off of the counter and moves towards where the doorway leads to the nearby diner and living room. Another creak stops Natsu short just under the doorway as a chill runs up his spine making his heart pick up speed. He doesn't know why he's so tense, but I guess it has to do with the fact that nobody else should be inside the house but him and Happy. Also there's the fact that the noise came from upstairs.
Turning to go back in the kitchen, Natsu's dark eyes scan the room once again in case something might've changed while he had his back to the room. Crème colored walls and eggshell blue painted cupboards greet him with typical 'Flour', 'Sugar', and 'Coffee' containers littering the counters. A small breakfast table sits in the middle of the room with an empty vase while old-fashioned decorations and pictures cover the wall here and there. An old white and black clock hanging just above a hardly used calendar ticks away the passing seconds as Natsu continues to stare around the room.
It's quiet times like these that Natsu hates the most. Usually by now his father would be bent over the stove cooking up somewhat of a decent meal wearing one of his moms' worn out aprons. He'd have a large smile on his face asking the boy if he was hungry before spooning the food onto clean white plates. His laugh would fill up the whole room as he watches his son eye the new meal with judging eyes before digging in. During those times you never heard the ticking of the old clock.
Sighing, Natsu scratches his stomach wondering what he should make himself to eat. There's a bit of bread up on the fridge and if he looks inside the large white refrigerator he might just find enough ingredients to either make a sandwich or some grilled cheese. Something quick seemed to suit the teenager at the moment, especially since he isn't that great of a cook just like his old man. Christabel seemed to be the mastermind in the kitchen, at least that's what his old man used to say.
A creak behind Natsu has him freezing up in his spot. There had been a few minutes already that he hadn't heard anything and Happy was calmly staring at him, his bowl completely clean.
Don't turn around.
Just as the words ring inside of his head a hand drops down on his shoulder making the pink haired teen jump. Turning around, obsidian eyes meet dark midnight and scarlet eyes.
"Yo flame brain we got pizza," Are the words of Gray Fullbuster who is currently standing with his hand on Natsu's shaking shoulder.
Natsu has to do everything in his power from screaming like a little girl after being surprised to that extent as Gajeel lifts up a few boxes of pizza and a pack of sodas behind the raven haired teen.
"Don't you guys know how to knock?" Natsu asks while swiping Gray's hand off of his shoulder to which the boy only shrugs while heading into the kitchen towards the cupboards.
"We did knock but you never answered the door," Gajeel says as he moves towards the living room placing the boxes of pizza on the coffee table.
"So you decided to break into my house," Natsu asks as he enters the living room feeling exhausted all over again.
"The door was unlocked so why not," Gray simply says as he returns to the living room with three cups full of ice. He places them down on the coffee table next to the pizzas before moving towards the TV and searching the shelf that is full of DVDs that the Dragneels own.
After a few minutes Gray pulls out a horror movie from the shelf before popping it into the DVD player and sitting back on the floor in front of the TV. Gajeel has already claimed one of the boxes of pizza for himself and is already eating away at a slice while staring at the TV with a full mouth.
This is actually a very common thing at Natsu's house. Some of his friends will actually pop up in the middle of the afternoon and eat dinner with the teenager. Some nights Erza and Cana will barge in with either Italian or Chinese while the guys tend to just splurge on pizza and sometimes hamburgers. Lisanna and her two siblings occasionally drop by and keep him company while the oldest Strauss will cook a meal that can surpass his father's average cooking. Natsu will never admit it but he actually enjoys the company and warm meals provided by his friends, but tonight is a different matter.
"What are you guys doing here," Natsu asks as he takes a seat beside Gajeel who quickly hands him a box of pizza without tearing his eyes away from the screen.
"Bros night," Grays mutters as he opens a soda and pours it into one of the cups he brought before taking a sip on the foam still fizzing at the top of his drink.
"Ice princess was worried about the way you've been acting all day, said he wanted to check up on you," Gajeel states before taking a large bite on his third slice of pizza, "But I was also curious so I tagged along."
"There's nothing wrong with me," Natsu grumbles while nibbling on his slice of meat lovers supreme, "It's just been a bad day."
"I'll say, you punched me right in the face," Gray complains while turning to face the two teenagers sitting idly on the tan couch just across the coffee table.
"That's not really news," Gajeel says while chuckling as a zombie gets its head sliced off, "Classic," he mumbles before taking a sit of his own soda, "But Gray's got a point, you've been acting a bit distant recently. Mind telling us what's wrong."
Shaking his head Natsu looks at the TV cringing as one of the characters wanders down a dark hallway with a flashlight in his hand, "I don't want to talk about it."
No one says anything after that and Natsu has to guess that Erza put them both up to coming to visit him. They're guys, they don't about this stuff. Instead they pick fights and punch each other until their steam has been blown off, but Natsu is too tired to pick a fight and he knows that his two friends will accompany him until he feels better.
"Oh by the way were you guys upstairs?" Natsu asks just as the guy in the closet gets surrounded by a hoard of zombies.
Both teen males shake their heads stating that they had just gotten inside when Gray had startled Natsu in the kitchen, "Why," Gray asks without looking away from the TV.
"No reason," Natsu says just as the man's flashlight flickers off in the movie and a bad feeling sets inside of his stomach.
So this is another filler chapter to see just a bit of Natsu's loneliness and have just a closer view on how close his bond is to his father and to his friends. I wanted him to have a small moment where it shows that he doesn't always fight with his friends and having Gray and Gajeel kind of break into his house is inspired by my own friends who tend to just walk in and taking the remote from me to watch TV and steal my food.
On another note, I know that I took almost a month updating but things have been crazy at home. Having ten people live in a four bedroom house does tend to get painful, but life goes on I guess.
Shout Outs
Great thanks to my Fangtastic Favorites...
- shamwoohoo52
- tkitty23
To my Faboolous Followers...
- shamwoohoo52
- Cresentgenisi
- Emastar01
- WishItWasCanon
- tkitty23
- Kazehana23
And to my Spooktacular Reviewers...
- Splendora Faye = Igneel didn't die he is in a coma while Natsu lives at home alone waiting for his aunt to come down to stay with him until his dad gets better. Lucy will appear soon and we had a small glimpse of her in the past chapter running from my mutation creations.
- Shamwoohoo52 = That is the question isn't it? Nah she's alive. I love happy endings also and I made Lucy into a ghost/poltergeist/astral body in my last story so keeping her alive seems to be a better path this time. Also, thank you very much I am so happy to hear that you are enjoying my story and as for chapter wise I tend to just write as I go. I can say it might exceed over twenty chapters, but who knows it might be less. I guess we'll both just have to find out.
- tKitty23 = Hearing that just makes my day a whole lot better! Thank you so much.
Well that's all the shout outs for today.
If you're enjoying my spine-chilling story give me the honor by Following, Favoriting, and Reviewing - remember, reviews are the reminders I need in order to update faster - and if you have any questions or haunting ideas you can also PM me and I'll gladly add it into the story.
Until next time my ghoulies.
