Thanks, mdelpin and SilverWhiteDragon, for reviews.
I hope everyone enjoys this chapter, even though, to me, it feels like something is wrong (no matter how many times I reread it, I just couldn't find what it was).
Chapter 11: The Walk Back
Natsu was still thinking about what Nydrai said. Will their friendship really continue after he tells Gray how he feels? Could he still be friends with someone if that person (Lucy, for example) said she was in love with him? His first thought was that yes, they could still be friends, but when he thought about it some more, he wasn't so sure. He would always think whether a touch, a look, a smile had some other meaning for her. Was Lucy smiling because his joke was funny, or because she liked him? Was she standing there by accident, or did she position herself there purposefully so that he would bump into her? Was her rent really due, or did she want to spend some time alone with him on a job? Was she just thinking and looking at him, or was she staring at him longingly?
Did she really lose her clothes accidentally around him, or was it on purpose? Natsu shook his head. Thinking like that, it made him convinced that Lucy was in love with him. As he shook his head, a right connection was made somewhere, and he felt like a blind man that got his sight. He was too focused on how the ice-make wizard would react to everything he said, to the fact that the demon power was still in him, that Zeref was his brother, that he was responsible for the death of every person Zeref or his demons killed that he didn't even look for anything other than hatred and fear on the raven-haired boy's face.
He never thought that a person could be this oblivious. Just this morning he woke up before Gray and watched him sleep, but how many times did he wake up and felt Gray's eyes on him? He wanted to feel Gray's arms around him, but why did Gray, who rarely even touched him before, held him while he slept yesterday. Then there was the party. The ice-make wizard left with Juvia, and Natsu just thought that they were out there, doing something. But if he rejected her, why didn't he come back? The fire mage knew why, now. He thought he felt Gray's eyes on him for a moment, just when Lucy was, not so subtly, trying to get 'their' secret. The flirtatious way Lucy was acting, and the innocence he was displaying could easily have been mistaken for something romantic between them. Then there was that blush he thought he saw on the raven-haired boy when he asked him if he could lie on his lap, and the way Gray was hiding his face this morning when he asked Natsu if he loved him. There was the morning after Natsu blacked out, finding Gray sleeping unusually close to him.
But beyond everything else, there were two things that convinced him more than anything else, that Gray reciprocated his feelings. First, there was the dragon. The way Nydrai acted like it didn't know what he was feeling, when it was clear they had access to all of their memories. It was like the dragon was guiding him to reveal his feelings to the boy he loved, hinting, along the way, that everything will be fine. Secondly, there was the thought that finally connected it all. He thought that maybe Lucy lost her clothes around him on purpose. For the last few weeks, he's been around the ice-make wizard, and while the wizard regularly lost clothes around him (although it was still not as often as he lost them before), he couldn't remember seeing him lose his clothes when other people saw them. It may sound stupidly unbelievable to others, but that was a habit that even the raven-haired boy said he tried to get rid of. As much as Natsu tried, he couldn't come up with anything else that would make Gray strip only in front of him.
They were walking through the cave, toward the exit, and the dragon slayer was going through every day in the last two weeks, from the day the S-class wizard promotion trial started. Just as he finished going through every day, they reached the exit, where the pink-haired boy stopped. He couldn't move. His brain wouldn't send signals to his legs, too occupied with a single thought: How could two people be this oblivious?
Gray took a few more steps, before he noticed that his friend wasn't next to him anymore. The ice-make wizard turned around and looked at the fire mage. "Natsu, you okay?", he asked.
Natsu was about to open his mouth, and his heart, letting his feelings be known, even if his conclusion was wrong, but he didn't know what to say. He planned on telling the raven-haired boy how he felt, but he never thought what words he would use. What words existed that could convey everything the boy in front of him meant to him? He believed nobody ever felt so strongly about another person, so the words that could describe it weren't needed. But he needed them now!
If the words didn't exist, he would find another way to communicate what he wanted. He let his instincts take over. He could always count on them to do what he wanted. His body started to move. His legs took a step, two, three forward and he was standing in front of Gray no more than a few centimeters between them. His hands went up to the cheeks of the boy in front of him. His eyes closed, hands pulled the face they were holding into his face that was moving forward. Hot lips connected with cold ones, and Natsu hoped he could convey everything he felt this way.
The dragon slayer's kiss continued, the boy in front of him not reacting. He felt the ice-make wizard's huge eyes on him, surprised face beneath his hands. As he was about to separate, thinking he came to a wrong conclusion, Gray reciprocated the kiss. How could he stop the kiss now? There were about a million new things he had to share with the person in front of him, and now he knew that this person had some things to share too.
The kiss continued until they were both out of breath, and had to break it off. Natsu put his hands around the boy's chest, getting everything the ice-make wizard said through the kiss loud and clear. Gray hugged him back, telling him that there was no need for words, his actions showing him everything. They would talk later, speak of everything they would want to speak of, but this moment, Natsu holding Gray in his arms, and Gray holding Natsu in his was perfect, and words could only ruin it.
Natsu didn't know how long they stayed like that. He didn't care. His mind was empty, his senses only detecting the ice-make wizard next to him. For all he knew, the world could have ended, and he would have died happy. His three weeks of misery, a month and a half of sadness, fear and self-hatred didn't mean anything anymore. He wanted to remember this moment forever, writing every detail of it into his mind, until he felt like this hug lasted for a thousand years.
Finally, they separated. The dragon slayer didn't know what to say, and he saw that the raven-haired boy in front of him was in the same position.
"Do you see now, why I could never be terrified of you?", Gray asked quietly after a few minutes of silent staring.
The pink-haired boy couldn't process what was said, in the context of yesterday's conversation. "Will you go out with me?", he asked timidly, still not yet sure if he misunderstood something.
"Do you really need to ask after that?", the ice-make wizard asked, a huge smile appearing on his face.
"Well…", the fire mage said, a little fearful. Then his eyes set in determination, and his voice hardened. "I just don't want to wait another month for something to happen."
"Then yes.", the raven-haired boy said. "Yes, I'll go out with you."
"Does that mean-", Natsu began saying before cold lips on his hot ones stopped him.
After their short kiss, Gray looked at him and asked, "Does that answer your question?", to which Salamander could only nod a grin appearing on his face. "Now, come on! We have a guild to return to.", the boy said, heading out of the cave and pulling the dragon slayer with him, the expression on his face showing happiness, contentment, excitement, and a hundred more emotions all mixed in one. "I wonder what people in the guild will think about us, together?", he said thoughtfully
The fire mage pulled free from the raven-haired boy's grip, stopping. As the ice-make wizard looked back questioningly, he said. "I don't think we should tell them."
"Are you-", Gray started to ask, but was interrupted.
"No, I'm not ashamed!", the pink-haired boy said loudly, knowing what the question was going to be. He continued in a voice a little quieter than normal. "They just learned everything about me, and we don't know how they'll react. If they didn't take it well, I don't want you to be caught in it."
"Hey!", the ice-make wizard said, griping Natsu's shoulders. "I already told you I'm not leaving you. I don't care what they do or think. As long as I'm with you, I don't care about anything else. But if you don't want to tell them, that's fine. We'll wait to see how they took the truth about you, and you can decide then."
"Thank you.", the fire mage said.
"Can we go now?", the raven-haired boy asked. "It'll be a long walk back to the guild."
"A-a walk?", the dragon slayer asked surprised.
"You wanted to give everyone a few days. Since it's only been a day, and it should take us about two days to walk back, we don't have to take the train."
"Really? We don't have to take the train? You don't mind walking?", the pink-haired boy asked a little dubious. He knew that Gray preferred sleeping on a bed, and that he'd rather use a vehicle to get to where he wanted to, not wasting time if he didn't have to.
"Well, maybe I'd rather use the train.", the raven-haired boy said, confirming the fire mage's thoughts. "But, this will give me two days alone with you, and I'd take that any day.", the boy finished with a smile.
Natsu couldn't figure out why he was so afraid before. If he hadn't been, he could have had this a month and a half ago, and not a month and a half of misery.
"Come on, flame-brain!", Gray said offering his hand.
Natsu gladly took it, answering, "Lead the way, ice-princess.", as they headed back home.
The boys headed home, hand in hand, Gray thinking about what just happened. How didn't he notice that Natsu had the same feelings for him, as he had for the pink-haired boy. The way Natsu ran into the bathroom the day before, when he learned that Gray was holding him as he slept, the way the usually strong Salamander cried in front of him, the way he revealed everything about himself, opening everything to the raven-haired boy. He knew Natsu was faking innocence on the party as he talked to Lucy, yet he just thought the fire mage was that oblivious when he accidentally asked him if he loved him. The ice-make wizard remembered Ulrug sounding like it was hinting something when it said "You figured your friendship would end, whatever his answer may be." The meaning of those words was exactly the same as what Natsu said the day before.
He couldn't help but feel stupid because of how oblivious he was. They spent two weeks together, alone, on their last job, and neither of them figured out how the other felt. "How did you know?", the raven-haired boy suddenly asked.
"Know what?", the dragon slayer asked, with his usual childlike innocence, which Gray now knew was fake.
The ice-make wizard rolled his eyes, as he answered the question. "How did you know I feel towards you what you feel towards me?" The pink-haired boy looked like he liked hearing that their feelings for each other were the same. Gray couldn't blame him. He needed to constantly remind himself that he didn't dream that, that it really happened. "I think you wouldn't just kiss me out of the sudden, if you didn't think that your feelings were reciprocated."
"Something just clicked.", the fire mage said, looking into the distance thoughtfully. The raven-haired boy had to pull him out of his thoughts and out of the way of the tree as he almost collided with it, not looking where they were going. "Thanks. I thought about what Nydrai said, about how you would still be my friend, even if you didn't feel the same. It led me to question if I could be friends with Lucy if she said she was in love with me. I was thinking how I couldn't know if the things she would be doing were accidental or if she would do them on purpose. 'Did she smile because my joke was funny, or because of her feelings for me?', things like that. The last question like that that I had was: 'Did she really lose her clothes accidentally around me, or was it on purpose?', when I noticed that you no longer strip when anyone else is around. It was an eye-opening realization. I saw everything I noticed for the past month, since the trial, in a new light. It was enough to make me want to bash my head into the wall at how oblivious I was. I wanted to tell you everything in that moment, but I just couldn't find words that would tell you everything, so I just decided to show you."
The dragon slayer laughed lightly, before he continued. "You know, I thought I misunderstood something when I just felt your huge eyes on me, and a surprised face under my hands."
"What did you expect!?", the ice-make wizard exclaimed. "Nothing clicked in my mind. I still thought you would reject me, and that kiss just fried every part of my brain." They both laughed because of what Gray said, but more than that, they laughed because they couldn't contain the happiness they felt. It was just flowing out of them.
Time went on, as they walked in silence. They would say a few words here and there, but most of the hours that went by were spent in silence. Both of them had a lot to think about, and it wasn't until they stopped for lunch that the raven-haired boy was finally convinced that this wasn't a joke, a dream or a fantasy. This was really happening.
They were eating some of the food they brought with them, when the ice-make wizard noticed it. There was an inferno in the eyes of the son of The Fire Dragon King. He was overwhelmed once he realized just why that inferno raged. Gray hoped to be the one to turn that spark he notice two weeks ago into an inferno, but he didn't even imagine that it would turn out like this. It raged for him, just like the blizzard inside him was blowing for the only person he loved, a person sitting next to him.
"What's wrong?", Natsu asked concerned. Only then did the ice-make wizard noticed tears flowing down his face.
"Nothing. I just can't believe this is happening.", he said, tears still flowing, but a huge smile on his face.
The fire mage used his hands to wipe the tears away. With his hands on the raven-haired boy's face, he spoke quietly, words only meant for the boy in front of him. "I know what you mean. We were both too afraid of losing what we already had to take a chance at having something more. Maybe we'll forever regret the time we could have spent together, but at least we'll spend the future together.", the dragon slayer finished, pulling Gray into a hug.
The ice-make wizard wrapped his arms around the hot body of his guildmate, his rival, his teammate, his friend. His boyfriend. "I'm not leaving you flame-breath.", he said, his face buried in the hot chest.
"And, I'm not leaving you ice-cream boy.", the pink-haired boy said into his ear. "We're never leaving each other."
"You're right.", Gray said, pulling apart so he could look the boy in his beautiful onyx eyes. "No matter what comes our way, we'll face it together. We've spent more than enough time figuring what we felt for each other, and this is it.", he said, as he pulled the fire mage into their third kiss.
None of their kisses were lustful. They were just trying to get how deep their feelings for each other were across to the other person. Besides that, the fact that neither boy would admit out loud was that neither of them had ever before been in a relationship, not a romantic one, so they would need to go slow, discover everything as time went by, even if it meant things would get awkward sometimes, or one of them would act inappropriately in a situation.
Natsu and Gray continued home. It was the first time, in a long while, that neither of them felt like he had to watch how he behaved, and what he said. They walked side by side, most of the time hand in hand. When they stopped to eat, they sat close to each other, feeling each other's touch. Before they went to sleep, they sat with one of them wrapping his arms around the other. They slept close enough to each other to feel each other's breath.
They talked about everything. Natsu told the Gray what the dragons were really testing people for, to which the ice-make wizard just stared. He explained the situation with Lucy at the party, to which the boy laughed, and told the fire mage what exactly he told Juvia to make her so mad.
The two day walk back was nowhere near enough time to say all the things they wanted to say to each other, but it was enough for them to get across to each other that the depth of their feelings was the same. They may have believed that no other person felt this deeply for another, but they knew that at least the boy they had these deep feelings for felt the same. It made both of them feel happier, more excited, more contended, more alive than they ever felt as they entered Magnolia.
Lucy losing clothes happens a few times in manga. For example, there was that time during the Grand Magic Games ark when used his magic to strip Lucy and sent her flying into Natsu.