Faintly, in the back of his mind, Natsu could hear Gray's voice. He thought it sounded worried, and that wasn't good, but his entire being was on fire with the pain, and he couldn't make himself respond.
Natsu? Gray's voice filtered through the pain, and Natsu managed a whimper in response. He couldn't gather the strength for anything else. Natsu, you gotta talk to me, come on.
Natsu just lay as still as he possibly could, breathing until slowly, things began to come back into focus. He was lying on the dirt floor of the basement where he'd been taken, hands cuffed in front of him. His leg was broken. It had to be. Natsu thought Tony had stomped on his shin, but he wasn't entirely sure. Everything had gone fuzzy as soon as the pain had hit, and things weren't much clearer now. He felt dizzy, simultaneously far away from himself and trapped by the pain.
Natsu, please. Gray was begging now. Even through the pain-induced fog, Natsu recognized the hitch in his voice. Gray was trying not to cry, and he was losing the battle.
Natsu wouldn't let Gray cry all alone, when he wasn't there to kiss his tears away and make things better. If Gray needed Natsu to talk to him, then he would.
But when Natsu opened his mouth, all that came out was another gasp of pain. His leg was throbbing in time with his heartbeat. Natsu had broken a lot of bones, but this was the worst one by far. Dimly, Natsu remembered that Gray was feeling the same pain, and now he was angry, too. He closed his eyes, squeezing them tight and riding out another wave of pain.
Natsu, are you there?! Are you okay? You have to talk to me!
"Listen to your boyfriend, kid," Tony said from somewhere above Natsu. "Go on, answer him. Let him know you're still here."
A foot met Natsu's ribs, nudging rather than kicking, but even the fairly gentle touch sent shockwaves of pain throughout his body. Natsu instinctively recoiled, accidentally flipping onto his back and yelping as he impacted with the dusty floor. The pain spiked again, and Natsu's nausea came back in full force.
Natsu knew that after the train ride, his stomach was completely empty. But he still felt a strange rising, wrenching feeling that he knew meant Gray was throwing up. The sensation made him gag. It also made his heart twist in his chest - even though he knew there was nothing he could do to help himself now, he still wanted to rip the tattoo off of his wrist just so Gray wouldn't be feeling his pain. He didn't want Gray to feel like this ever, he was sick with the thought.
"Respond to him," Tony said, out loud this time instead of in Natsu's head. "We can't have him doing anything rash."
I'm here, Gray. Natsu wondered if he sounded breathless in Gray's head. He could barely form thoughts.
Don't hurt him. Gray sounded panicked, his voice somehow raw. Don't hurt him, please don't hurt him, I'll do anything, please….
Natsu wasn't sure he'd ever heard Gray beg like that. He didn't think he'd ever heard Gray sound this scared.
As long as you do what I say, he'll be fine. I'm not planning to do anything else to him. Unless you disobey me.
Natsu didn't know how he could tell, but he sensed that Tony had ended the telepathic link. Natsu could no longer mentally shout to Gray, or hear him yelling, although he could still feel Gray's panic and desperation like a constant thrum under his own.
Tony squatted down next to Natsu. Instinctively, Natsu tried to wriggle away. He made it about an inch before the cuffs and the pain in his leg brought him up short, and he was forced to lie still for a moment, gasping and trying as hard as he could not to pass out. He made an embarrassing whimpering sound that he didn't think he could have helped no matter how hard he tried.
"Don't try to move so much," Tony said. "You'll just hurt yourself worse."
Natsu couldn't respond - his breath was catching in his throat. His vision was starting to white out on the edges.
"You'll just hurt Gray worse."
Natsu didn't want that, he couldn't have that. Slowly, with great effort, he forced himself to still. He was still breathing too fast, but he couldn't tell if that was his fault or Gray's.
"Let me see your leg," Tony said. This seemed to just be an attempt to be polite - there was absolutely nothing Natsu could have done to prevent Tony from looking at his leg. He shook on the ground as Tony pulled it out straight.
"Wh-what are you doing," Natsu whispered breathlessly, feeling his fingernails dig into his palms as he curled his hands into fists as he tried to stay still.
"I'm taking a look at the break," Tony explained, as though it was perfectly obvious. "I can't have you dying on me too early. That would defeat the purpose, wouldn't it?"
Natsu couldn't suppress the involuntary shudder that followed Tony's words, and he gasped as his leg throbbed in response. The pain increased as Tony's fingers brushed against the break, and Natsu bit into his lip to stop himself from screaming.
Reluctantly, Natsu looked towards his broken leg. It hurt so badly that he was almost afraid to see the damage - he didn't want to make Gray throw up again. But it was even worse to think about Tony touching his injured leg while Natsu couldn't see what he was doing.
It was…bad. Natsu couldn't stop himself from whimpering again as he looked down at his swelling, purple shin. Below the already horrific bruising, Natsu could see his ankle sticking out at an angle that seemed ever so slightly wrong, and he had to look away as bile rose in his throat.
"Bleeding," Tony muttered to himself, and Natsu looked back with a sort of horrified fascination. Sure enough, the floor beneath his leg was dotted with blood. Now that he was paying attention to it, he could single out the sharp pain of the torn flesh from the ever present throbbing pain in his shin.
For a horrifying moment, Natsu thought that Tony had broken his leg so badly that he'd sent the bone through his skin. He didn't know much about medicine, but he knew that was really, really bad. Bad enough that he wasn't sure he could last until the trial.
Then, Tony turned his leg slightly, and black spots gathered across Natsu's vision as his breath caught from the pain. When they cleared, he was relieved to see that while the back of his leg was bleeding, there was no bone visible. When Tony had snapped his leg, it must have been driven into the ground hard enough to bleed. It hurt, but at least Natsu's bone wasn't sticking through his calf.
"I don't want you picking up an infection," Tony said, apparently to himself. Natsu tensed as Tony rose to his feet, crossing the room and returning with a first aid kit. He knelt back down beside Natsu, pulling a roll of bandages out of the kit.
"Stay still, kid. I'm going to wrap your leg, okay? Like I said, I'm not in this to really hurt you. It's just business."
Natsu clenched his fist a little tighter, resisting the urge to swing wildly for Tony's face. Business or not, his leg was broken and Gray was feeling every ounce of his pain. Being told that Tony didn't "want" to hurt him didn't make him feel any better about the situation.
It felt like it took forever for Tony to wrap Natsu's leg, but Natsu supposed it couldn't have been more than a few minutes. Either way, by the time he was done Natsu was worn ragged with the effort of trying to conceal his pain. His fingernails had dug white crescents into his palm, and he was almost too exhausted to open his eyes.
"You should get some sleep," Tony said once he was done. "You don't have to do much aside from rest at this point - the role you have to play in this is pretty much done. I just wouldn't try to escape if I were you. You won't be able to get far on that leg, and I don't know if you could survive a night alone outside."
Natsu's own survival had always felt like something that was a little too nebulous to really factor into decisions. He wanted to live, obviously. He had never gone into a fight or taken a job or anything sincerely thinking he might die. Dying of exposure outside the mansion sounded…bad, but not necessarily super realistic.
But Gray's death…that sounded like a much more concrete thing, and too horrible to contemplate. Natsu hated staying put with every fiber of his being, but losing Gray was simply not something he was willing to risk.
Natsu nodded.
"That's good," Tony said. "Get some rest, and in a little while I'll bring you food and water."
Natsu wasn't particularly hungry or thirsty. In fact, the idea of putting anything in his mouth sounded vaguely tortuous. But without food and water, he would start to get weaker, and that meant Gray would start to get weaker too. Natsu couldn't have that.
And Natsu was really tired. Sleeping would help Gray too, right?
Natsu let himself sink into the floor. It wasn't very comfortable, but it would feel so good just to close his eyes….
Natsu slipped into darkness.
Gray had been able to tell when Natsu fell asleep, because while the pain had immediately lessened, Gray had gotten so drowsy it was hard to keep his eyes open. For a few minutes, he'd been scared that Natsu sleeping was going to make him fall asleep too, and he would only be able to operate when Natsu was awake. But eventually, it had just settled into a background feeling of bone-deep exhaustion. It was actually slightly easier to function once the intense edge had been taken off of the pain.
Gray had managed to clean up the kitchen without Lahar and Doranbolt hearing that anything had been wrong. Laboriously, he had made his way to his bedroom, and spent an unknown amount of time just lying on his bed staring at the ceiling, not really thinking much of anything. There wasn't really anything to think about. Gray was trapped in the most horrible situation he could imagine, and there was no way out. Honestly, he'd rather not think about it. Instead, he could always focus on the pain.
Gray had laid there for a while, just trying to breathe around the numbed (but still considerable) agony in his leg, trying to learn to live with it. The next few days were going to be difficult. There wasn't actually anything wrong with his leg, Gray knew that, but it still felt broken. When he'd made his way to his room from the kitchen, he'd been limping.
Limping hadn't helped the pain in his leg, of course, but his mind was telling him that his leg was broken, and that putting weight on it would hurt it more. He was pretty sure that as soon as Lahar and Doranbolt saw him, they were going to notice if he had a massive limp.
Gray sighed and sat up. He would have to learn to walk normally sooner or later, and it would probably be easier to figure it out while Natsu was asleep and Gray wasn't in quite as much pain. He felt a momentary pang of guilt at the prospect of intentionally deceiving the Lahar and Doranbolt, but once again, he didn't have a choice in the matter. For Natsu, Gray would do anything.
Slowly, Gray pushed himself upright. Subconsciously, he braced himself for the expected spike of pain in his leg and was surprised when it didn't come. Of course his own movements wouldn't actually affect how badly his leg was hurting. Which was both good and bad - Gray could walk around as much as he was able without risking his leg getting worse, but anything unexpected Natsu did could still send him to the floor.
"Stupid brain," Gray whispered to himself, and forced his muscles to react. Carefully, he stood normally, and his leg took his weight.
He began to walk, reminding himself with each step that it wasn't his leg that was hurt, it was Natsu's. God, Natsu…. Gray couldn't even imagine how scared the Dragon Slayer must be.
Except he could, because he'd felt it. He was feeling all of it, every shudder of pain and every panicked breath. He just didn't want to imagine it. He didn't want to think about it.
And he was limping again. Gray stopped and cursed under his breath, dropping his head into his hands and scraping his hair out of his face. This was hard, harder than he'd expected, and he couldn't stop thinking about Natsu. About the way he'd screamed when his leg had snapped, or how his voice had sounded afterwards. Ragged, and small. Natsu should never sound like that, Natsu was loud and brash and the biggest handful Gray had ever met, and he'd sounded broken.
And it was all because of him. Gray had been in the wrong place at the wrong time, and he was plenty used to screwing up and other people paying the price, but it hurt even worse when Natsu was the one paying it. And that sucked, because Gray knew without a doubt that he would do whatever he had to in order to get Natsu back.
Part of him, the part that currently sounded a lot like Erza, wanted to believe that he would change his mind at the last minute. He would do "the right thing," and testify anyway, and put Rinel in jail. But Gray knew that simply wasn't true. He wasn't going to change his mind. Wrong or right, he would save Natsu.
If Tony was even bothering to tell the truth. Gray knew that there was no guarantee he would get Natsu back after the trial - Tony could be planning to kill them both as soon as Gray testified.
Gray felt so trapped and helpless that it was making his chest hurt. His throat started to close, and he knew he was close to crying. He told himself that was ridiculous. If anyone should be crying, it should be Natsu. Gray shouldn't be crying, he should just be…figuring out how to get through this.
He'd started limping again. No matter how he walked on his leg, nothing made the pain either better or worse, so he didn't understand why he couldn't just stop limping. He needed to walk normally. Natsu's life could depend on him hiding the fact that his leg was hurt, and there was absolutely no reason at all why he couldn't do it.
It just…god, it hurt. As much as he knew it wasn't real, and there was nothing wrong with his leg, that didn't stop the bone-deep ache from radiating from his shin through his knee all the way up his thigh, making his hip throb and threatening to send his leg collapsing beneath him.
Gray tripped slightly, stumbling forward and biting down hard on a whimper of pain. He caught himself on the wall and managed to keep from crying out. But all of a sudden, the fullness in his throat was more than he could manage, and he could feel a horrible prickling feeling behind his eyes. He steadied himself on the wall, instinctively keeping as much of his weight as possible off his injured leg even though he knew it wouldn't help. He knew he was about to start crying, and there was nothing he could do. Possibly he was even going to make Natsu start crying, and that was somehow worse, and the thought of that made his throat close up even more.
It was just a few embarrassing, helpless tears at first - prompted partially by his horror at the situation, partially by his fear for Natsu, and partially by the pain in his leg. He thought about biting his hand again, to ensure he stayed quiet and didn't attract the attention of Lahar and Doranbolt. But he'd bitten down on his hand right after Natsu's leg had been broken and he'd had to bandage it once he was well enough to think again, and he really thought his body could only take so much more pain.
So he just bit his lip and wiped at his eyes and hoped helplessly that no more tears would be forthcoming. Then, gritting his teeth, he pushed himself off the wall and tried again, ignoring the feeling of tears threatening to overflow and run down his cheeks. He would not cry, he would not, he was going to walk normally because he couldn't do anything else, and he certainly wasn't going to cry.
Gray blinked furiously, feeling tears spill over his eyes and down his face. He sniffed, trying his best to force them back, and started across the room again.
"Come on, idiot, you can do this," he whispered to himself, regretting it as soon as he heard his own voice shaking. The tears were obscuring his vision again, and the pain in his leg was a consistent reminder of Natsu, who hated to see him cry. Gray choked back a whimper and closed his eyes, feeling the lump in his throat work higher as he lost the battle with his emotions. He was crying in earnest now, the tears coming faster and making it next to impossible for him to see. All he wanted was to give up and curl into the bed, imagining that Natsu was there with him stroking his hair and telling him everything would be alright.
No. Gray might be crying, but he wasn't going to stop trying to learn to walk on his stupid throbbing leg, because if he couldn't do that, he might lose Natsu forever. The thought of that just made him cry harder, and Gray clenched his jaw to keep his heavy breathing silent, forcing himself to take another step.
Gray felt his toe catch on something, probably a warped floorboard that he would have been able to see if he hadn't been so busy crying, and then he was falling. Before he could gather his scattered wits enough to catch himself, he hit the floor hard, his shoulder colliding with the wood. It wasn't a bad fall, in the sense that nothing was broken, but it felt like giving up all the same. And for a moment, when his shoulder hit the wood, the sharp pain of the new bruise intertwined with the agony in his leg and made his world go white.
Gray lay on the floor, curled into as tight of a ball as he could manage, and finally gave into the tears. It didn't feel like he had much of a choice in the matter - they were coming whether he wanted them or not. He pulled himself into a tighter ball, wrapping his arms around his legs and pressing his face into his knees as he began to shake with the sobs he'd been holding in ever since he'd felt Natsu's terror. He knew he was being stupid, and weak, and that none of this was helping Natsu, but even breathing felt next to impossible right now. Gray had no idea how he was going to last the next few days, and he wasn't sure that he could. He wasn't sure that he would be able to stop crying. At some point, he thought he'd probably just run out of tears, but maybe he wouldn't. Right now, it felt like he had an endless supply.
Natsu came awake suddenly, and for a moment, he didn't know what was wrong. His leg was still throbbing and aching, but it didn't necessarily feel worse than it had before. He sort of remembered the sensation of falling and a sudden jolt of pain, but he'd still been mostly asleep at that point, so it was hard to be sure.
He was feeling anxious and panicky now, so much so that he was vaguely lightheaded with it. It took him a long few moments to realize that the panic, along with the feeling of falling, must be from Gray.
It was then that he realized somewhere along the way, he had started crying. His face was wet with tears, his throat tight and prickly and his eyes itchy. Obviously this situation was horrible, and the crying felt almost natural, but he knew the only real reason he was crying right now was because Gray must be.
Natsu felt a vague, sick kind of guilt. Gray was already going through the stress of being pulled from his home so he could provide key testimony in a murder case, and now all this stuff was going on with Natsu, and his leg must be killing him…. Intellectually, Natsu knew it wasn't his fault that he'd been kidnapped - there was nothing that he could have done while he was on a train. It certainly hadn't been his fault that his leg had been broken. But knowing that Gray was in enough pain to cry, and that he was all alone….
Natsu reached his bound hands to his uninjured knee. He didn't have much freedom of motion, and this was just about the only part of his own anatomy he could reach. He didn't know exactly how the soul bond worked, and how small the sensations could be to transfer. But he rested his hand there, moving his fingers lightly over the skin, and prayed that Gray could feel it. He just wanted Gray to know he was there.
Natsu felt Gray start crying harder as tears poured down his own face. For a second, Natsu worried that he had done something wrong. Then, he decided that Gray just probably hadn't been able to feel Natsu, and there would be nothing Natsu could do to help him until they were physically together again.
Then, Natsu's crying slowly tapered off, and he realized that maybe he had helped Gray somehow. Gray clearly wasn't crying as much anymore. And that had to count for something.
"I'm sorry," Natsu whispered as his tears slowed to a trickle. He knew Gray wouldn't be able to hear it, since the only way they'd been communicating before was through Tony's telepathy magic. Still, giving voice to his own emotions helped him process them to some small degree, and to figure out what Gray might be feeling through the soul link. Natsu stared at the magical tattoo shimmering above the handcuffs and tried to sort through his emotions, focusing on the one he wanted. He wanted Gray to know that he was sorry, not necessarily for being captured, but sorry that Gray had to go through this alone. And he was scared, of course, but not as much as he probably should be. Gray always figured something out, even when things seemed pretty bad. He was a lot better at figuring things out than Natsu.
Natsu didn't know how much of that got through, if any, but he did feel the tears subside into a slight sniffle. Carefully, Natsu gave his knee a final pat, imagining Gray relaxing at his touch. He withdrew his hand, curling back into himself as he tried to avoid jostling his injured leg. Hopefully, Gray was feeling better, because Natsu didn't know what else he could do.
Shakily, Gray pushed himself into a sitting position on the floor, drawing his knees up to his chin. He might have imagined the faint pressure on his leg, but he didn't think he had. His leg was back to throbbing with its previous levels of agony, which meant Natsu was awake. Gray thought he'd woken up around the time he'd fallen, and Natsu must have felt him crying and had been trying to comfort him.
It had worked, in a way. Gray had finally stopped crying. It had helped just to know that Natsu was there, thinking about him.
But at the same time, it made him feel a whole lot worse. Natsu had managed to get to sleep, even with a broken leg, and Gray had woken him up. And Natsu hadn't even blamed him - he'd actually managed to comfort Gray. Gray didn't want to make Natsu be worrying over him, not when he should be only focused on himself, but apparently even that was too much for Gray. He was making this whole situation worse, and he had ever since he'd unwittingly gotten involved. He'd put Natsu in danger by witnessing the crime, and it wasn't like he would be helping balance the scales by putting the murderer in prison. In fact, his false testimony would be more detrimental to the case than it would have been if he just didn't show up, or had never seen anything at all. He was worse than useless.
Gray hung his head, feeling the tears start to prick the back of his eyelids again, then caught himself. He curled his fingernails into his palm, gritting his teeth and blinking the tears back. He was sure that somewhere, Natsu could feel Gray teetering on the edge of a spiral of shame and despair, and Gray wasn't going to let him go through that.
Gray ground the heel of his palm into one of his eyes, using his other hand to wipe his nose. His face felt hot and swollen and gross. His eyes were vaguely crusty with the after effects of his crying. He wished he could go into the bathroom to splash water on his face, but he didn't want to risk moving just yet.
And then, Gray heard a knock at the door.
Gray had learned the hard way that it was not Lahar and Doranbolt's priority to give him privacy, and they were prone to knocking once and entering whatever space he was in a second later. And anyways, even if they had given him a few moments of warning and they were content to wait outside his bedroom, Gray wasn't really sure what he could do to clean himself up at this point. It was obvious he had been crying, and it was obvious he was in pain. Unless they weren't paying any attention at all, they were going to know something was wrong, whether he let them in now or left them in the hallway for a few minutes. Gray simply wasn't that good of an actor.
"Come in," Gray managed. His voice sounded uncomfortably hoarse, and he was so close to crying that it was still a little wobbly. "I'm just-"
"Are you okay?" Lahar asked immediately. "We thought we heard you fall…."
Gray had fallen…probably at least five or ten minutes ago at this point, and he wondered what had gone on behind the scenes that had caused the delay. Maybe they'd been arguing about whether or not they should check on him, wanting to give him space. Maybe they just weren't all that worried about him.
"Hey, Lahar," Doranbolt said, elbowing the other man lightly in the ribs. "Look, he's crying. Something's wrong with him."
Doranbolt seemed to remember that Gray was able to hear him, and he frowned. "Hey," he said gently. "Is something wrong with you?"
Gray wasn't sure how to respond. This conversation had only been going on about ten seconds, and it was already making him feel more like crying instead of less. Gray swallowed hard and tried to figure out how to respond.
"I'm alright," he managed finally. "I just-"
"I understand," Lahar said.
"What?"
"I mean, I know what's going on," he clarified.
"You…you do?"
"I would miss Doranbolt too, if I had to be away from him for this long."
Gray just blinked.
Lahar frowned. "Not that I mean you were missing Doranbolt, of course. He's right here. I meant that I understand more globally. You're missing your boyfriend, which is completely understandable. I would miss mine, if I were in your position."
On one hand, Gray was relieved to be handed a ready-made excuse, but he was also offended that they thought he would be this useless after being away from Natsu for only a few days. Still, he was about to take the way out they'd unwittingly offered when Doranbolt knelt down on the rug beside him, placing his hand on Gray's shoulder in a largely unwanted gesture.
"It's okay! As soon as you testify and put Rinel behind bars where he belongs, you'll see Natsu again. I'd say that he would be there watching, but I think he's banned from the courthouse. But I'm sure he'll be outside, as soon as it's over."
But Natsu wasn't going to be outside the courthouse, and Gray wasn't going to be putting anyone behind bars. Doranbolt's hand on his shoulder was awkward, but kind, and Gray didn't deserve it. To his horror, Gray's throat closed up again and he felt tears well up in his eyes. He saw Lahar and Doranbolt's eyes both widen in shock, and he knew he would have to come up with some other explanation to distract them from his sudden outburst.
"No, it's not Natsu," Gray said, sniffling and wiping his nose again. "I know I'm gonna see him soon. It's just…the trial…. I can't believe I get to be such an important part of the Fiore Justice system."
He was pretty sure that they would immediately call him out, but he'd apparently underestimated Lahar's enthusiasm for the law of Fiore. The older man's eyes lit up, and he pushed his glasses up his nose with excitement.
"What an excellent attitude! And from a Fairy Tail wizard, no less! Miracles do happen…."
"I just love it so much," Gray managed, looking down at the floor to avoid Lahar's slightly manic gaze.
"I didn't realize! In that case, I have some old files that you're welcome to look over. In fact, I think they'll really help you understand this case, as well as your place in it. I didn't think you would be interested, or I would have shared them earlier."
"I'll help you carry the boxes," Doranbolt offered, giving Gray's shoulder one final pat and following his partner out the door. Gray watched them leave, the small part of his brain that wasn't devoted to worrying about Natsu beginning to panic at the mention of "boxes," plural.
At least they were gone, though, and Gray was alone again. They probably should be suspicious, but it didn't seem that they were, and that was something of a relief.
Gray just had to keep it together a little longer. Just through the case. Granted, Lahar and Doranbolt would probably never talk to him again after he lied on the witness stand. But that wouldn't matter, because once this was over, he would have Natsu back.
Just a few more days.
