.
.
If someone were to ask Gray what he thought of Natsu, he probably wouldn't know what to say.
Who is this child, in the world, who wears a fashion disaster of a scarf in any season? The child that smells like something that resembles a mix of cinders and cinnamon and something else indescribable. The child whose sunshine smiles makes him miss what he's never had. Gray doesn't know.
Who is Natsu?
Natsu is his first true friend.
He is his first blush. His first tears cried and the last time he was happy about it.
He is the forest in the countryside, where the night hums and the stars flare like millions of suns in the distance. And lying here beside him, it is not night or darkness or absence of light, it is just simply Natsu.
He is his first shoulder to lean on. His first good morning and heartache.
Natsu is the salt in his tears and the metallic in his blood and the storm in his eyes. And Gray has never known someone like this or feelings like these. They breathe in harmony, until Gray stops from too much, it's too much. His lungs burn with every "Natsu" and drown with each "Gray" that always, always follows.
Natsu's hand is cold now, with Gray's in his, but his heart is warm and his lips breathe fire still. And sometimes, sometimes, it is easy to forget who's protecting whom.
Natsu squeezes his hand but his fingers tremble, and so Gray pretends that he isn't unravelling from the inside out.
And then Gray knows: Natsu is home, he is his place to return to. He is the campfire in the woods, and the sunrise after the night. And even at the bottom of the ocean or the heart of a storm, he is still home.
But one day. Many days. The light starts to fade and Gray is afraid of forgetting. He is afraid of forgetting Natsu's smile or Natsu's laugh, and where there was an ache in Gray's heart there is only emptiness.
Natsu walks on in the clouds, with Indian light feather footsteps, and Gray follows one step behind, always a step behind.
It echoes.
-Since it meant nothing to you.
Nothing?
Natsu is quiet in all senses of the word now. His body is cold now. Nothing? No. Even when he is nothing, he is everything.
Gray runs.
"I'm back," he whispers to the presence before him. Natsu lingers unspoken, dies soon, too soon, caught in his throat like swallowing sand.
Welcome home, no one says.
.
.
hi im back and i lowkey ship gratsu now lmfaooo