Part 2: Natsu

Chapter 10

And he did.

Natsu told her everything. He just started talking, and the words started coming out automatically. He told her about his childhood life—what little good he could remember, the bad that he both couldn't and wished he couldn't remember, and every bit of the ugly. He told her about his family; everything he could remember about his mom, his dad, and his sister, he laid out on the table. He told her about the countless times he'd tried to escape—in any way possible—but his dad would always catch him and drag him back. Everything that happened in his first horrible ten years of existence, the finer details of all that he had exposed about himself during that town-sponsored event and more, every single significant growing moment from the next seven years—he let it all out.

He relived each moment. Each moment that he'd cried, each moment that he'd screamed, each moment that he'd bled.

Every single moment that he'd wanted to erase his father from the face of the earth.

Lucy was pale and frozen through all this. Multiple times, Lucy tried to stop him. He didn't listen to her. If she wanted to know everything about him, he said to her, she was going to know everything he could tell her.

Even with that aside, the words wouldn't stop coming, so he just kept talking and talking. He talked for so long that his throat eventually grew sore and his voice became hoarse. By the time he had stopped, it was time for dinner—he heard all the kids' clamoring voices down below as they went to the mess hall.

His own stomach was growling, but he was too tired to go and join them now. He'd dredged up everything that had happened in his life up to now over the last five hours, and his body refused to exert itself any more than he'd already forced it to. He collapsed onto his rickety bed and tried to catch his breath. His eyelids felt extremely heavy and kept threatening to close, but he blinked hard to keep from falling asleep.

Natsu couldn't see Lucy's face from his position, but she was extremely quiet. She hadn't said anything after he'd finished. He just turned to face the wall, his forearm resting against his sweaty forehead, and didn't say anything.

An inordinate amount of time passed before Lucy started talking.

"Natsu…"

He turned his head to look at her—her face was streaked with tears.

"Natsu, I…I'm so sorry…!" Then she started to outright sob. "I—I shouldn't have asked—!"

"I was prepared to tell you from the start." He sighed as he moved his arm away from his face. "So what the heck're you feeling sorry for?"

"W-well—it's because—"

"It doesn't matter," he interrupted her, sitting up. "If you're gonna apologize, then at least do it for something you can take back." He was extra-aware of the burn scars beneath his clothes. "You can't take back words once you say them. It…just doesn't work that way." He closed my eyes briefly before opening them again as he leaned back, bracing himself on his hands. "At the least, I won't show you the worst of what I got from my dad. This is enough for one day…for the both of us."

Things went silent again, but this time it was brief. Hardly a minute went by before Lucy put forth the question.

"Natsu," she began, her words a bit steadier now, "do you ever think about…you know, looking for your mom and sister? To go back to live with them, or, um, at least show them that you're all right?"

He heaved a huge sigh of resignation and stared up at the gray ceiling. "…Yeah, I do. A lot." A lump formed in his throat, and he tried to swallow it. "But I never tried to."

Lucy looked uncomfortable at his response. It looked like she had more things to say, but she wasn't speaking up.

"…Why not?" she finally managed to ask.

"Because—" He hesitated. "Because…I was afraid of succeeding."

Lucy blinked in surprise. "You…you were?"

"Yeah…you have no idea." His chest felt tight as he forced out his next words. "I did want to see my mom and Wendy again. I mean, I still do. I want to see them so badly it hurts me every waking minute. But…I just can't bring myself to try and find them." He tried to keep his next words steady, but it didn't work. They came out shaking. "Because…it's just…what're you supposed to say to someone who abandoned you as a kid? How would that conversation go? How—how would I feel once I see her, right in front me—in the flesh?" His fingers tightened into fists against the sheets, wrinkling the fabric. "I was scared of finding out…I didn't know how I was going to react to seeing her again. So I didn't do anything."

Lucy's only reply was a muted, "…Oh." Then she paused. "Umm…what about your sister, then?"

His heart skipped a beat for a split second at the mention of her. "M-my sister?"

"Yeah…you said that I reminded you of her, so I'm curious." She sounded strange as she said this…sad? Afraid? "How would you feel if she came in through your door right now?"

"I…" It suddenly got harder for him to breathe. "I don't know. It's so hard to picture myself with her again, because—the only way I can imagine myself being with her…it's—it's not right."

"Y-yeah; right…" She pulled her legs up onto the chair and sat in a curled-up position, an embarrassed smile spreading across her face. "Of course…people generally see that as a bad thing, don't they…"

He didn't say anything.

"…You know something…" He looked up in surprise at the sound of her voice. "I've had a bit of time to think about what you just said…and…you're stronger than I first gave you credit for."

He raised an eyebrow in confusion. "What're you talking about?"

"Well, I know I gave you a hard time earlier, telling you that you should at least try to stand up for yourself in situations like this, and now I realize…that was a really insensitive thing to say to someone like you." She rested her chin on her knees. "It was rude of me, telling you to be someone who didn't grow up the way you did…because when you were younger…doing that only hurt you, didn't it?"

Without warning, an image of his dad towering over him while holding a glowing knife flashed vividly in his mind for a split second. The memory made him shiver. "Yeah," he murmured. "Not fighting back…the pain would stop quicker than if I had."

"And about your sister…" He froze up again without meaning to. "Admitting your feelings for her to somebody who could easily hate you for it…that…I still don't know if that's wrong or right. But it's amazing to me that you had the courage to say it out loud at all."

Natsu sighed in frustration, a sharp pricking sensation shooting through his chest. "Well, don't feel too amazed," he said tersely. "I really hate that part about myself."

Her eyes grew wide in surprise. "You do?"

"Of course I do. How could I be happy about this?" He drew in a shuddering breath, covering his face with his hands to wipe away the sweat that had collected around his brow and cheeks as he went on fretfully, "I hate feeling this way toward Wendy. It's just so against conventions, completely messed up, and—and just wrong. Sometimes I just look at myself, and—and when I'm reminded of how I feel toward her, the same thought always comes up—that I'm a freak that deserves to die."

Lucy gasped at his words, obviously horrified. "That's—you mean—?!"

He chuckled darkly. "Why're you surprised? It's not like it was my first time having those thoughts. You already know that."

She seemed to be at a loss for words. "B-but I—you never told me you still had those kinds of thoughts!" she spluttered. "I thought you—!"

"Got over it? Not even close." He rose from his bed and strode to his desk, ignoring Lucy as he knelt and slid open the upper drawer, revealing the myriad of multicolored bottles carefully lined inside. "Take a good look at this and try saying that again."

He waited for her inevitable reaction to the sight—and sure enough, the color drained from her face once she fully comprehended what lay before her. "Natsu…what—what is all this?"

"What does it look like to you?" he asked.

"You—you can't be serious," she said frantically, anxiously looking back and forth from him to the contents of the drawer. "I can believe one or two, but—all of these?!"

"I can't function normally without them," he said simply. He shut the drawer quietly and straightened up. "You don't want to see me relapse from lack of dosage. Trust me; it's not pretty." He ran a hand through his hair in dissatisfaction. "It's sad, really…I have to rely on synthetic drugs every day to pass as a normal person."

He stayed silent for a while—but then shot Lucy a firm gaze, and it seemed to hold her in place. "Lucy," he said.

"Y-yeah?" she answered nervously.

"I'm only going to warn you once on this." He stared at her for a bit before he felt his expression soften into a sad smile. "I want you to know what you're getting yourself into. If you're still dead-set on staying with me, you're going to have to deal with all this constantly, and it won't be easy. Are you sure you don't want to back out?"

Almost immediately, her muscles seemed to loosen. "That's not even a question, Natsu," she answered with a smile, standing up herself. "There's no way I'm backing out. Back at the park, after hearing your speech, I promised to myself that I'd never let you feel that kind of pain ever again, no matter what. So whether you like it or not, you're stuck with me."

He blinked in surprise, but it passed quickly. He let out a resigned sigh. "I should've known from the start that you'd say that."

She crossed her arms, looking playfully smug. "Well, what'd you expect? Don't you know me well enough by now?"

"I do." He placed a hand behind her head and pulled her in for a surprise peck on the cheek before pulling back, feeling the playful grin on his face as he did so. "I just underestimated how stubborn you really are. I won't be making that mistake again."

"Thanks. And you do that."

All of a sudden, there was a sharp rapping on the door. He heard Lea from the other side calling frantically, "H-hey, Big Bro! Are you in there?! Something really bad happened!"

Natsu immediately broke away from Lucy and yanked open his door—Lea was standing outside, breathing hard and looking terrified.

"What's going on, Lea?" he asked quickly. "What's the matter?"

Lea fought to catch his breath for a moment. Then he said in a panicked voice: "It's one of your friends, Big Bro—he passed out in the mess hall out of nowhere!"

"…'Passed out'?" He was thoroughly confused. "What're you talking—?"

Right then, Kairi rushed in. Her eyes were red from crying.

"Kairi?" Lucy asked in alarm as Kairi flew into her arms without warning. "What's—?"

She answered before either of them could get the question out. "It's—it's Sora—" Her words were barely comprehensible. "I—I don't know what happened—he just passed out—!"

She didn't have to say anything more. Natsu was already out of the room like a shot.