Summary: I felt that the latest manga chapter was a few pages too short and this is how it should have ended.
Pairings: Parental Igneel/Natsu, Natsu/Lucy, Natsu/Gray friendship, Gray/Juvia, Gajeel/Levy, Juvia/Gajeel friendship, and general other friendship and family feels.
YouTube Prompt: A cheesy but heartfelt video tribute to the Dragons and their Dragon Slayers to the song 'He Lives in You' from Disney's Lion King.
"I WILL LIVE ON! I WILL BECOME STRONGER! AND I'M GONNA GRIND ACNOLOGIA'S ASS INTO DRAGON DUST!"
For a moment, Natsu could have sworn that he heard Igneel praise him, but that moment was far too fleeting and all he could hear was his own sobs catching in his throat.
With a howl, he screamed as more tears ran down his cheeks. Fuck! He hasn't cried this much, ever. Not when Igneel first went missing, not when Lisanna died, not when he thought Erza had died, and not even when Lucy died.
Back then he had something to beat up. Something to pound his fists in and be angry at until the hurt went away and he could try to smile again.
This time he had no one to fight, no one to beat to a pulp, no one to be angry at….he had nothing but his tears and sobbing that screamed back at him in an aguish that hurt.
He fell to his knees, unable to find the strength to stand anymore, and let out another strangled scream of despair.
"Natsu."
It was quiet but firm, and was everything to bring him back to earth, alongside with the tiny, warm, hand on his shoulder.
"Natsu."
He turned to look at her, and she looked just a devastated as he felt, her face stained with her own tears, bruises, scratches, cuts, and dirt decorated her skin, and yet she still was the most impossibly beautiful thing he had ever seen.
"It will be all right," Lucy said, her hand tightening on his shoulder, "everything will be all right."
He wanted to shove her hand away and yell at her. How can everything be all right? His Dad was dead. The person that raised him, taught him everything, loved him first, was gone. How could it ever be all right again? How the hell would she know?!
And then he remembered, a little niggle in the back of his mind, that Lucy did know how that felt. Lucy felt it twice, with her mother, and then more recently with her father, and sure finding out that your father died isn't quite the same as actually witnessing it, but that didn't change the fact Lucy could understand him.
Hell, he didn't know what was worse, seeing your father torn to pieces in front of your very own eyes, or coming home to find your father died a month ago waiting for you to come home. They both sucked.
Natsu slowly moved his head to rest it on Lucy's shoulders and her arms spread out, happy to accommodate him into an embrace, when they suddenly heard a crunching noise and jumped apart.
Gray appeared first, and then Juvia not far behind, and Gajeel, Wendy, the Twin Dragon Slayers, Erza, and everyone else seemed to follow.
"Hey," Gray said awkwardly as he stepped closer to Natsu. "Look, I know it's hard. I mean today-"
Natsu raised an eyebrow when Gray swallowed whatever it was he was going to say and instead awkwardly squeezed Natsu's shoulder instead.
It was really weird.
Meanwhile, Gray felt like kicking himself. How could he say I lost my Dad too? It sounded like he was trying to one up on Natsu over parental deaths, could he be even more of an arsehole?
So instead Gray awkwardly squeezed his friend's shoulder and grimaced in sympathy as Wendy's attempts to smother her own sniffles echoed around them.
"Salamander," Gajeel grunted.
Gray winced at how sad Gajeel sounded underneath his usual grumpiness. Gajeel always sounded irritated or smugly amused at someone's expense, it was wrong to hear him so upset, and Levy seemed to pick up on that as she slipped her hand into Gajeel's and gave it a comforting squeeze.
For a moment the Dragon Slayers all shared a pathetically sad look that Gray could relate to and he couldn't help but catch Lucy's eye as she seemed just as miserable and lost as the Slayers were.
"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"
Everyone jumped as Juvia suddenly burst into tears.
"J-J-Juvia!" Gray gasped as he clutched his chest. He almost died of a heart attack there, seriously for a moment he thought some evil demon had risen from the ground and was trying to kill them. "Why are you crying?!"
"Juvia can feel everyone's sadness!" Juvia whimpered between sobs. "Juvia knows that Gray-sama won't cry for his father, or Natsu-san, or Sting-kung and Rogue-kun, or Gajeel-kun, and Wendy-san is being so brave not to cry, so Juvia thought she would cry all their tears for them, so they don't have to be sad anymore." She let out another shrill wail and everyone shifted a little nervously as they realised the water was rising up past their ankles. "Gajeel-kun in particular has lots of tears for Juvia to cry," Juvia added with a little sniffled as she reached for her handkerchief.
Wendy smiled thankfully, Natsu felt confused but a small, reassuring, smile from Lucy made him realise it was just a weird girl thing he should be grateful for, while both Sting and Rogue looked really uncomfortable and seemed to start looking for ways to escape, Gajeel, however…
"What the fuck?!" Gajeel roared. "What the hell are you on about you crazy Rain Woman, I don't have any tears, I'm too manly for tears."
"THERES NOTHING UNMANLY ABOUT TEARS!"
"SHUT UP, ELFMAN!"
"Poor, poor Gray-sama!" Juvia wept as more tears rolled down her cheeks and filled the room. "Losing Silver-sama after only just finding him! And the same for poor Natsu-san! And Gajeel-kun, and Wendy-san, and Sting-kun and Rogue-kun, and Juvia can feel that even Love Rival wants to-"
"Gray," Laxus growled impatiently, "shut your girlfriend up before she drowns us all."
Juvia's tears had reached up to their necks, Wendy had to be held up by Charle in order not to drown, and Levy had been placed on Gajeel's shoulder for safety, while several others were desperately paddling in order to keep their faces above the surface.
"She's not my-"
"Now!" Laxus interrupted. Instantly Juvia silenced herself and the waters began to evaporate quickly as she hiccupped into her handkerchief and rested her head on Gray's naked shoulder….which really didn't help Gray's 'she's not my girlfriend' stance. "Come on you morons," Laxus snapped, "let's get out of here and back home before another demon comes round and tries to kill us all."
"Oh dear," Mirajane said chidingly, "you really mustn't tempt fate like that, Laxus."
Everyone began to move towards the exit of the hellhole they had literally been stuck in in what felt like months, and Natsu felt Lucy take his hand and begin to herd him towards that direction as well, just as Happy suddenly perched himself on Natsu's shoulder, and Erza and Gray shot him half concerned looks, and Juvia carried on to cry silently on his behalf, and everyone else tried to smile or give him a sympathetic look each time he caught their eye….
It still hurt a lot that Igneel was gone.
A part of him might always be screaming inside with the sheer agony of it.
But he wasn't alone, and he was going home now.
Home, with his family.