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The Sound of Silence
by AbsentAngel
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His home isn't silent, but it may as well be.
He can hear the drip, drip, drip coming from the bathroom faucet, and the low whistle of wind sneaking past the broken bedroom window. Outside there is the sound of groaning branches as the trees fight against the storm, and Natsu knows it's only a matter of time before the sound of his leaky faucet is drowned out by the hammering of rain on the roof.
Sound is everywhere, a chaotic symphony of notes, but it is just noise. The silence is louder.
There is no sound of Lucy humming under her breath as she fixes dinner. No hint of Happy's purrs from the ratty old wingback chair in the corner of the living room. Sometimes he thinks he hears children laughing in the hallways but it is only an echo of memories and wishful thinking.
The sounds, the music, that he lived by is gone. All he is left with is the hollow drumming of a lonely life.
Everyone he loves has already left.
The guild is full and rowdy as always, but the names and faces of its members are all different. Sometimes he catches glimpses of his friends in the sea of newcomers – a flash of red hair, the scent of frost on old pine – but it is like looking through sandstorm. The resemblance are hazy, and his eyes burn when he looks too long.
His eyes travel to the framed picture on mantle. Its glass is covered with a thick layer of dust, making the photo beneath indistinguishable, but he doesn't bother wiping it clean. He knows what lies beneath the years of grime, just like he knows that gazing at the old faded photo will only tear open old wounds.
He doesn't want to see Lucy's sweet smile and be reminded that it, and her, are gone from this world. He doesn't want to see their infant daughter in her arms or their son (only a toddler at the time) perched on his shoulders, and wonder if they are now grandparents. But, mostly, he doesn't want to see himself. He can't look at the grin he knows is stretched from ear to ear, and remember how damn happy he was.
Back then he had thought he was the luckiest man in the world. Then he started to notice the way Lucy's eyes were beginning to wrinkle in the corners, and how she spent more time in the mirror plucking gray hairs. It wasn't just her either. Everyone was aging – collecting sun spots and losing hairlines.
Everyone but him.
Rain taps on the roof, softly at first, but soon becomes more violent. Between the water hammering against old wooden shingles there is a rumbling growl of thunder and the wind whistling passed the cracked window is beginning to sound more like a scream. Alone, standing in the ruins of a life long since passed, Natsu mourns the silence.
AN: For FT Angstweek Prompt #1: Silence in which I am a day late posting because damn it I forgot, ok?