The novelty of having a boyfriend who waited on you hand and foot while you were injured wore off fast.
That wasn't to say Gray was already bored with Natsu, or that he didn't mentally do a fist pump whenever Natsu kissed him on the cheek for no reason. It was just that having a boyfriend was only exciting enough to outweigh the humdrum of bed rest for a few days before it turned into something that merely made his condition more bearable. Sex might have helped, but Natsu was adamant about waiting on that, and Gray was kind of curious about what his more experienced boyfriend might be able to do that they couldn't try while he was pregnant. There was also the detail of Porlyusica smacking him on the head and telling him that any extra force down there was absolutely off limits until she gave the go ahead—and hormones or no, his thoughts needed to go more to his health than to lust. But it wasn't like that eliminated oral, and Gray was getting to be so fed up with all his health precautions that he was itching to break some rule she set for him. Sex seemed like the best one.
But none of that. Not when Natsu kept insisting they get to know each other in other ways first. If Gray wanted to be fair, he could admit that Natsu spent most of their fake dates trying to play a part while stepping on eggshells making sure not to get too into the role, so the degree to which Natsu felt like they had gotten to be comfortable in the idea of one another wasn't quite on par with Gray. Gray didn't really want to be fair while pregnant, on bed rest, with months of mounting sexual frustration on top of years of Juvia cock blocking, but he didn't have much of a choice. He couldn't force himself on Natsu if he wanted to, so he settled for the kisses and the soft way Natsu caressed him, and buried his face in Natsu's chest whenever he was carried between his bed and couch.
He liked to breath in Natsu's scent during those moments, jealous of Natsu's sharp nose that didn't need such close proximity in order to pick up its lover.
"What do I smell like?" Gray asked once.
"Like you," Natsu replied, which couldn't have been less helpful.
"That's it? You're not going to say peppermint or forget-me-nots or anything nice?"
"Most people don't smell like those things," Natsu told him.
"Well, I thought you smelled like smoked wood, but you know what? You just smell like your shitty old self."
Natsu grinned at him with that grin that Gray had come to learn meant he had been deemed to be in the midst of a mood swing that required humoring. "Well, I've gotten so used to everyone's smells after all these years. Everyone's scent is theirs now. But I guess I could try to think of comparisons."
It was a little bolder a move than Gray would usually dare take from Juvia's advice, but he still heard himself ask, "What does Lucy smell like?"
"Kind of like Lisanna."
"Lisanna isn't a scent, Natsu," Gray said, putting as much irritation into his voice as he could to hide his relief that Natsu didn't have a more romantic answer to automatically give for Lucy.
"Oh yeah. Um… Lisanna smells sort of… milky? But it's not the same for Lucy. You're more like… cold? You smell cold."
"Cold isn't a scent either."
"I'm trying here."
"I don't believe you. You don't usually suck this hard at things you honestly try at."
It was sort of meant as a compliment, but Natsu threw his hands up in surrender. "Ask Wendy the next time we see her. That's the best I've got." And with that, he retreated to the kitchen.
If they hadn't fought so much growing up, Gray might have been worried about what such a trivial subject turning into an argument might mean for their relationship, but he could tell a silly spat from a real fight. Besides, one of the few advantages to being stuck with a child was that he could blame his behavior on mood swings if Natsu was still sore about it later. Natsu had probably already written it off as such (and Gray wasn't entirely sure he was wrong). As for bed rest because of the child, the only upside was that Natsu let him get away with anything that Porlyusica hadn't explicitly forbidden.
Downsides included, but were not limited to: mind shriveling boredom, a persistent ache in his derriere from spending such an excessive amount of time on it, a bad case of cabin fever, a deep longing to see another face despite his resolve not to make everyone aware of the sudden health scare, and the nagging fear that he may end up with permanent reminder of it all even if he suffered through all those other negatives only to end up with irreparable damage anyway.
Even if Natsu promised he would never let Gray suffer such a serious injury, Gray wasn't a fool. There was nothing either of them could do at that point beyond play it safe and hope for the best. Natsu may have rightfully felt responsible for any damage that resulted from the pregnancy, and Gray appreciated that his boyfriend was determined not to cripple him for life, but it wasn't enough. Determination only powered Natsu through fights. If it worked in all facets of his life, he'd have come up with a better scent for Gray than cold.
But even if Gray ended up injured, he knew Natsu had believed there was no chance of the pregnancy ending with serious damage when he first locked Gray into it. Gray might resent until the end of time that Natsu had all but forced him to have a child—placed an unborn fetus above the feelings of a friend, but he didn't have the will to keep seeing it as a personal attack. Natsu's intentions were misplaced, but he hadn't set out to hurt Gray. Of course, if Natsu felt bad about everything that happened, Gray wasn't about to stop him. It wasn't like he made Natsu feel unduly guilty, and if that guilt earned him some additional special treatment, he wasn't about to turn that down.
-o-
There was no major active time in Gray's day, and not enough space for his stomach for Gray to eat full meals in one sitting. He grazed at all hours and lost all sense of schedule. At times of day where his Lacrima Vision had news to report, he turned it on and listened to whatever was going on in the world beyond his apartment. If he was awake at night when there was only silence from the screen, then he would sketch, or make sculptures, or, if he was especially bored, skim whatever theories Zeref had uploaded to the Archive. The material was all too dense for Gray, but it gave him something to do to pretend for Natsu that he wasn't bored senseless. Sometimes he even did the archiving work he promised he'd handle for Mavis.
"How many more days of this do I have?" Gray asked during one of Porlyusica's daily visits.
"We're exactly one month from your official due date," Natsu told him.
Gray moaned.
"Stop that," Porlyusica ordered. She wasn't looking at either of them, so they assumed it was both of them that she spoke to. "Your magic is already loosening its hold on the child, Gray. If we're lucky, it should be a few more weeks."
Gray looked to Natsu, expecting him to ask if it would be safe for the baby to remove it early. Natsu's attention, he found, was set entirely on the area a few inches below where the baby was.
Most children could survive being born a little early. Gray remembered that from when Meredy went into labor. It wasn't ideal, but it was something that could be managed, and having a child up to two weeks before your due date wasn't considered early at all. Natsu might not have wanted the girl to be a preemie, but the risk to Gray's health if they delayed the birth was a bigger concern.
"Good," Gray said, then had to think of a reason for why he'd said it to spare himself from voicing his thoughts on Natsu. "I'm really tired of resting."
"You'll rest afterward too, you fool," Prolyusica said. "There's always recovery after surgery, and I'll need to see just how serious the damage to your hip bone is."
"Wendy can help with the worst of the recovery," Natsu said. "It shouldn't be as long… right?"
"It depends," Porlyusica said. "No matter how talented Wendy grows to be, there are always limits to that power. Not everyone is that mad brother of yours. Most mages can only work within the limitations of their chosen magic, and if you can only heal so much damage at a certain rate, then that's that. If your brother wanted to be useful and devise more efficient healing spells that people could more easily use, then we wouldn't need to have this conversation."
Gray looked to Natsu, expecting some defense of Zeref. The debate over what he should spend his time researching was a common enough one, and Natsu was often defensive of it. Zeref was a mad genius, but he had to work within the realm of theoretical possibility. Devising new means of healing a person wasn't out of the question, but if something that was both more efficient and more accessible were easy to do, then Zeref would whip out new spells that should have been thought of centuries ago instead of building a giant tower just to make it so existing methods of healing had an easier time working on any one patient.
The guild knew Natsu's curt 'if you think it's so easy to make any spell then why don't you try it?' by heart. Gray almost quoted it for Porlyusica just to spare his boyfriend a smack on the head. But what came out of Natsu's mouth instead was, "Everything now is so we don't have to worry about that once she's born, right? I could… maybe… there might be something Zeref could do…"
"Zeref's already done plenty," Gray said. It was thanks to Zeref that they knew to be on the lookout for the exact problem he was dealing with, which was huge.
It was also thanks to Zeref that Gray was pregnant at all, which was reason enough not to encourage him to start any new projects. The last thing Gray wanted was to end up laying eggs on top of having a baby, and he no longer put such a mishap past Natsu's brother.
"I agree. Plenty more than he should have," Porlyusica said, mind clearly going the same direction as Gray's had. "There doesn't seem any new developments that we should worry about. I'll continue to come by daily in case your magic is ready to let the baby go early. I think we might get lucky with her."
Natsu threw his arms around Gray's shoulders. "It's going to be alright, then?"
"Most likely," Porlyusica said. "But we still need to be on the lookout. He's not in the clear yet."
"But he's close," Natsu said, hugging Gray tighter. "See, Gray? Just a little more playing it safe, and then everything's gonna be okay."
-x-
STA: When the characters predict everything is fine and it's not the last chapter, you know everything is gonna be smooth sailing.
Anyway, I apologize for this chapter. It gave me far too much trouble, and reading back over it, it just feels like it's lacking something.
ichika aono: Nah. I'm the one who wrote that scene in, so you're totally okay to comment on it.
samuel bryant17: If it were just you, I'd have just said it to you, but tbh yeah you are one of the user names that I've fudged because of that period.
sierra steinbrecher: I think a lot of people were happy to see me finally hook them up. And thank you for the feedback. I read it after having to take a massive test and seeing people happy with the story de-zombefied me too.
Kori no Koibito: Hey now. Everyone always has the right to say they don't want sex. Although if it makes you feel any better, "forever a virgin" is already a running joke I did in another story, so whether I right it or not, Gray will eventually get laid in this fic's verse.
StuffyJinx: Yup. Ain't it weird that I made that happen without it being the last chapter?