So furious had Gray been with his guild deciding to take Natsu out despite his many reservations, it completely slipped his mind to warn them about the motion sickness issue. He had informed Porlyusica, of course. As the one overseeing Natsu's care, she needed to know about any issues they encountered. The rest of his team had the pleasure of learning how long a train ride would leave Natsu reeling after from firsthand experience.

Had Wendy chosen a job closer to home, this might have been enough on its own to keep Natsu from coming along for the actual job. They only had to catch two rogue mages, neither of whom had sounded that strong. They could have had the whole thing done and over with while Natsu sat on the bench outside the station, gasping for cool autumn air and struggling not to hurl. Wendy, however, had chosen a job halfway across the country. They arrived in the evening, with Erza having already determined that they would get a hotel room and set out for work in the morning. Instead of someone keeping an eye on Natsu while everything was taken care of fast and easy, Gray carried the boy on his back while they picked out a room, and he and Lucy agreed to watch over him while Erza found some manner of take out to bring back for dinner.

"I didn't realize it would be so bad," Lucy said while they waited, brushing a few strawberry strands of hair out of Natsu's face. "Was he like this the time you two went on your secret trip, too?"

"Yeah. It took him at least an hour before he was up for anything."

"Don't talk about me like I'm not here."

Lucy patted Natsu's shoulder in response, then asked Gray, "Do we have any medicine for him? Maybe his tea would help."

"That's for energy, not nausea. And it's too late in the day," Gray told her.

"Oh." Lucy, who had trusted Natsu to manage all of the details of his care by himself, blinked in surprise. She could vaguely recall hearing that there were specific times for the tea, but a reason as to why that mattered escaped her. Between Natsu's moodiness around the subject of his illness and Gray's self-appointment as Natsu's obsessive overseer, there were a great many details that the guild at large missed out on.

They fell into silence, Gray staring out the window, Natsu staring up at the ceiling, and Lucy brushing his hair aside bit by bit, as if this would help him to look less green.

Gray glanced back at her once, then huffed and looked away. He didn't trust Natsu for one minute to take all of the proper considerations for his health. Not after seeing him take off running for no reason. Not after seeing how poorly he paced himself without some looming reminder. Not after seeing him skip out on everything he was supposed to do when no one around him told him to. He wasn't completely confident in Lucy either, but maybe that wasn't fair of him. Between him and Mira, everything involving Natsu's health was handled, and handled in such a way as to make Natsu feel as capable as they dared let him be. To the rest of the guild, who noticed a few obvious signs that Natsu was weaker than he used to be, but didn't see all the behind the scenes work that went into looking after him, it might have seemed like things were better than they were.

If Lucy had been the one asked to help with Natsu that first day after he was diagnosed, if she'd been as firm about everything as he had, Gray wasn't sure he would look at the situation and feel as uneasy letting Natsu do more. He might even be the one getting mad at Lucy, if she dared suggest that Natsu shouldn't come with them.

A moan from Natsu, followed by a muttered, "Gray, leave the room," snapped Gray from his thoughts.

"What?"

"I wanna talk to Lucy before Erza gets back."

It took Gray a moment to make sense of this. His being there didn't stop Natsu and Lucy from talking. Then he remembered that the two were awfully close. He'd been told that Natsu mostly slept the week he spent at Lucy's, but who knew if there had been other occurrences that the two had neglected to mention. Gray had assumed that with Happy around, Natsu had no private life, but it was possible for Happy not to be around.

With that in mind, he grabbed Happy before saying a hurried, "I'll give you two some privacy," and left the room.

Happy, take by surprise, was too stunned to protest being snatched up until Gray had already shut the hotel door. Once it hit him that he had been robbed of a chance to listen in on what was likely to be a juicy conversation, he squirmed out of Gray's grasp and tried the door.

"It's locked," Gray told him. "Don't worry. I put a key in my pocket. We can go back in there in a little bit."

Happy glanced down, saying nothing, and Gray followed his gaze to see that he had no pants on. Odd. Usually he lost his shirt first, but that was still right where it should be.

"We can come back in a little bit and knock, and Lucy can let us in," Gray amended. "It will give them a warning so they can wrap things up before we get inside."

"You say that like it's a good thing," Happy muttered.

Chuckling, Gray nudged him down the hall and said, "C'mon. You'll find something else to tease Lucy with before the trip is over."

-o-

Natsu waited until he could no longer hear Gray's footsteps in the hall before pushing himself up. He instantly regretted the motion, and slapped a hand over his mouth to keep from vomiting all over the carpet. Lucy waited patiently while Natsu made sure his stomach wasn't about to rebel completely, holding off until Natsu put his hand down before saying, "What did you need to talk to me about?"

Natsu glanced at her, then looked away. "It's nothing. I probably shoulda asked Cana about it, but she would have laughed when I did, and if Happy overheard he might tell everyone. You're not gonna know this, probably, but you wouldn't go around blabbing about it."

"Okay. And 'this' would be…?"

Taking a deep breath, Natsu said, "Let's say that there's this friend of yours. You've known them for a long time, but all of a sudden things are weird." Seeing Lucy's eyes widen in alarm, he hastily added "Weird, not wrong. When the disease is flaring up, it feels like something is wrong. This is just things feeling weird."

He paused to let Lucy show she followed, and she gave a comprehending nod.

"Okay. So things get weird all of a sudden. Like, you start noticing details about how they look that you didn't before. Or you start thinking too hard about what everything they do means. Or it bugs you when someone else tries to get too close to them even when you know they aren't interested. Like, they yell that they aren't interested in that other person, and it makes you feel good even though you should feel bad for their admirer, but you can't tell them that because it's just weird.

"And you don't know why this happened all of a sudden. It just did. You've known them for years and it's never been a big deal before, but you suddenly start worrying about what they think of every little thing you say, or how you might look to them."

"You have a crush," Lucy said.

Natsu recoiled as if she had physically smacked him. On some level, he was aware that this was the case, but that level wasn't conscious, willful acknowledgement.

"You do. No wonder you couldn't tell Cana. In fact, I can only imagine what Mira would do if she overheard. Of course she would. Cana's always at the bar." Lucy shook her head. "What I don't get is why Gray had to leave. Happy might tell everyone, but Gray would keep it a secret. He might give you a little grief, but he'd drop it fast. He practically bends over backwards for you now."

Natsu was of the opinion that Gray was more forcing him to bend into shape, but that was neither here nor there. "Well, I still don't know why it changed all of a sudden."

"So you want help figuring out why you suddenly have this crush, not what it is?" Lucy verified. "Well, I'm not too surprised to hear it, truth be told. You and Erza are often on the same wave length, you know? It's like the two of you see the world in the same way. Maybe because she used to be more reserved with everyone in the guild, you never noticed before."

"Erza?"

Lucy paused. "We aren't… We aren't talking about Erza?"

Natsu shook his head.

"Oh… I just assumed… Since you wanted to say this before she came back."

"I just wanted to get it over with."

"And Gray and Happy had to leave because…?"

"I never said Happy had to leave. Gray grabbed him on his own."

"But why did you want Gray to…"

Because they'd already established the emotion being discussed, it took Natsu some effort to answer. His throat felt strange, and he couldn't tell if it was the words trying not to come out, or his lunch trying not to stay in.

Steeling himself, he blurted out, "We're talking about Gray!"

Lucy raised an eyebrow. "Gray?"

"Gray."

"Gray Fullbuster? The man who pulled his pants off on his way out of the room?"

"Yes. That Gray."

"That Gray?"

"Yes!"

Lucy needed a moment to process that. There were too many things she could say to it, and it was hard to tell which on was the right one to say first.

"Well," she said slowly, "I suppose there are a great many details of his that he regularly gives you a chance to notice."

Feeling his cheeks heat up, Natsu pulled his scarf up over his nose.

"Is something wrong?"

"Just got kinda cold."

Lucy giggled, which only made Natsu all the more embarrassed, and said, "Don't worry. Your secret's safe with me. Although I wouldn't know why you might suddenly take such an interest in him. You two seem to fight even more often now, even if it isn't with your fists."

That wasn't completely true. Sure, Natsu fought against Gray when told he couldn't do something he desperately wanted to, or treated like he was helpless, but there was plenty Gray did that wasn't suffocating. Plenty of accommodations made to keep him happy. And even if Natsu hated how much Gray fretted over him, he realized that it was because Gray cared.

Of course, that only made the whole situation all the more frustrating. Gray cared, but certainly only as a friend. And knowing that all the coddling he received was out of kindness made Natsu feel guilty for hating being coddled.

Groaning in frustration, Natsu flopped back over on the bed and pulled a pillow over his head, only to shoot back up a moment later and bolt for the bathroom. He really shouldn't have moved so fast.

"Are you okay?" Lucy called from the bed.

Natsu, retching into the toilet, was unable to answer.

"I'm going to get Gray," she told him, unsure what else to say. "And maybe look for some stomach medicine. You take it easy."

"Ah…Aye…"

-o-

His stomach still hurt at dinner, and Natsu considered turning down the meal. Gray, seeing him hesitate, ordered for him and threatened to force feed him if necessary. When Natsu grudgingly ate on his own, discovered that putting something in his stomach while the motion sickness was finally fading helped settle it, and then ate so enthusiastically that Gray offered to buy him desert.

It was like the jerk was as mixed up on how he wanted Natsu to think of him as Natsu was with how he ought to feel.

He slept easy. He always slept easy now. No matter how careful he was throughout the day, he felt drained by the time night fell. If anything, keeping his eyes open once his head hit the pillow was the hard part. He woke up not feeling completely energized for the day, but then that was also part of the new normal.

Their room lacked any sort of kitchen feature this time, so Gray used a coffee maker to heat water up for tea while Erza went over the mission.

Natsu was attentive throughout, at first sitting up straight and listening closely to Erza, then nodding along while he sipped on his tea. It had been two months since he last had the chance to go on a job, and even if all he was allowed to do was watch, he was determined not to let things go wrong. The tiniest step out of place here, and Gray might just try to lock him up in his house where he was nice and safe and bored. Or worse than Gray thinking he wasn't cut out for this, Makarov might decide it was too dangerous.

In the interest of not being deemed too reckless and denied the right to come along on work again, hell, out of fear that Gray might declare that he had to stay in the hotel for this outing, Natsu even went along with every precaution Gray thought up. Every single one, no matter how much it made him cringe.

"Happy has to stay with you," Gray said for the twentieth time as they dressed to head out. "If either of these goons come at you, he's going to fly you away."

"Right."

"Don't fight. Just get away. And don't run any more than you have to."

Natsu's arms trembled slightly from the effort not to clench his fists. Don't run any more than you have to because you can't go more than a few hundred feet. "Right."

Then, after taking a moment to think about it, Gray said the most horrifying thing off all. "I'll carry you there."

"What?"

"It will help you conserve energy, in case something goes wrong and you're on your own for a moment."

Natsu clenched both teeth and fists, biting back the urge to snap that he had more than a moment's worth of energy. Snapping and resisting precautions while Gray was worried about putting him in harm's way wouldn't get him what he wanted.

"Fine."

Lucy and Erza made a face when he said the word. It seemed everyone was sick of hearing it from him.

Well, they shouldn't have made him say it so often then. Huffing, Natsu held his arms out, and Gray picked him up piggy-back.

Seeing Natsu pout, Lucy gave him a sympathetic smile and said, "If anyone asks, we'll say you sprained your ankle."

"Why?" Natsu asked. "Didn't the guild announce that I couldn't fight?"

They hadn't. People had asked Makarov about it multiple times, and he always said he would, if only to give the council less to stress over. Despite that, it never happened. No matter what they saw, none of them wanted to admit that Natsu might not be able to do everything he used to. Putting out an official statement of permanent leave from active duty was too final for Makarov to bring himself to do. Everyone heard rumors while traveling with work. A few people had even been asked about why there hadn't been any stories of Natsu wrecking a town in the news lately. People noticed that something was off, but outside of Magnolia, Natsu's illness wasn't that common of knowledge. Even in Magnolia, most people didn't know the exact nature of his condition, nor its permanence.

"If we find someone who doesn't know, we can tell them that," Lucy said.

Satisfied with the answer, Natsu rested his chin on Gray's shoulder and resigned himself to the trip.

They made their way quickly from the hotel to a rundown section of town where the rogue mages were often spotted. This was Gray's first time carrying Natsu while traveling in a group, and he was doing a terrible job of it. Maybe he was unsure about how to pace himself? He swung between moving fast enough to keep up while jostling Natsu, and taking slower, steadier steps while falling behind.

"I don't care if it's bumpy." Natsu told him finally. "You could even run if you wanted."

"Don't lean on me then, or you'll bite your tongue."

"You'll run? Really?"

Gray looked back at him, offering a smile. "Do you want me to?"

"It's not like I could go that fast on my own. Unless you're worried about wearing yourself out."

To Gray's credit, he didn't flinch at the accusatory tone. "Promise me you'll play it as safe as you can when we find these goons, and I'll run for you."

"Deal."

"Alright." He leaned forward. "Hold on tight."

As if Gray would ever let him drop. Natsu half suspected Gray wouldn't trust him to hold on tight enough anyway—a thought that made his cheeks flush. To prove Gray and his unstated and unimplied suspicion wrong, Natsu hugged Gray's chest as tight as he could.

Then Gray took off.

He was faster than Natsu had managed to go in the past few months, but that didn't matter. Natsu's own inability to run fast or far didn't matter. The wind whipped across in face and through his hair, and his scarf trailed behind them, and he started to laugh. He'd forgotten how good it felt, to move like this, to see everything rush past you, and to not feel a growing ache and weariness with each stride forward.

Behind them, Erza called for Gray to wait up and Lucy sputtered indignant complaints of how Gray was ridiculous for being so stern with her only to run like he was. Neither of them had anything to say about Natsu's part in it, but that they didn't hold him responsible for the run didn't matter either.

Laughing, Natsu let go and straightened, holding his arms out and feeling the wind against them. Gray hadn't expected this, and jerked back a step before picking up speed again. Inertia made Natsu, still laughing, fall back onto Gray, and he wrapped his arms around the ice mage's chest again.

It was glorious. It almost felt like everything was normal again. The old normal. The normal Natsu so terribly missed. Then it was over.

Natsu heard the voices before anyone else sensed something amiss. Two voices, one raspy, the other deep, cursed about guild mages coming to ruin their fun. Then he felt the hum of magic on his skin. Here Gray caught on to the incoming attack, and released one of Natsu's legs to free up a hand, quickly forming an ice shield.

The spell struck Gray's ice, shattering it, but lost its momentum on impact and burned out before reaching the two. Taking just enough time to throw up another shield, Gray turned and bolted back towards the team.

Before Natsu could protest, Gray dropped him off behind Wendy and bolted back towards the enemy with Lucy and Erza in pursuit.

"I would've liked to be a little closer," Natsu grumbled.

Wendy, who had been tasked with guarding him in case the rogues slipped by everyone else, gave him a sympathetic smile and said, "Sorry, Natsu."

"Ah… No. It's fine." If he tried to get any closer, they might tell him he wasn't allowed to tag along anymore.

Natsu folded his legs and watched his friends fight. Half the thrill was gone when he couldn't join them, but knowing it was more than a friendly tussle like what happened at least twice a week in the guild hall made it more exciting. His heart ached watching them. It was completely one sided, with Erza making easy work of one and Gray toying with another—and Lucy standing back with Sagittarius, complaining that they didn't even need her. They didn't need him either, not when they picked a job so far below their own level, but that didn't stop him from wanting to be in the fray with them.

Which he never would again.

Sighing, Natsu forced back any thought about what he couldn't do. Focusing on what he couldn't do only made him feel worse. There was no sense in making himself think of it when someone wasn't standing over him and reminding him about his newfound inadequacies.

Instead, he focused on Gray. Gray's smug grin. Gray losing his jacket for no apparent reason. Gray, who forgot to put his shirt on before they left the hotel. Gray looking alive enough for both of them

At this rate, he needed to be careful not to turn into a pink Juvia.

The fight was over fast, lacking most of the excitement and adventure of their old jobs, but Natsu wasn't going to complain. They let him come, and it was nice to be with everyone, even if he could only follow so far. If he complied enough, they might even trust him to go on fun jobs. They might let him travel a long way and camp out in the wilderness again. If his health couldn't improve anymore, then maybe he could at least improve his situation with the guild. He wouldn't let it get him down yet that the fight was easy and over fast.

Besides, when it was done Gray picked him back up, and because the fight had taken so little energy, they could run more.

-o-

Gray was the one who bolted away from the fight scene, but the girls made it back to the hotel first. Eager to get Natsu laughing again, Gray carried him all around town.

By the end, Gray had the sneaking suspicion that Natsu thought he was a horse. That, or that he'd made too much of an effort to entertain him. He had stopped and started on command, and run when told. At some point, Natsu went from shouting that he wanted to run to giving the back of Gray's leg a light kick, and directing Gray to turn one way or the other by pressing a hand against his cheek.

It had Natsu laughing again, and smiling wider than he had all month, so it had been worth it.

He'd seen how unsatisfied Natsu was with their job. Hell, he'd seen Natsu unsatisfied with the state of affairs since he was diagnosed. He didn't want to see Natsu like that, and not just because a happy Natsu was a compliant one. A happy Natsu, most importantly, was happy.

They even stopped to buy lunch, sitting on a bench less than a block from the vendor who sold them crepes and talking about how Erza couldn't even go easy enough on her opponent to not hospitalize him.

"Well, the mayor's going to pay for his treatment while they try that guy," Gray said between bites. "It shouldn't come out of our pay."

"He could take my cut," Natsu suggested.

Gray laughed at that. "What cut? You get your normal salary for being here."

"Which means the guild isn't even concerned with what work I do when they pay me," Natsu said.

Gray cast him a glance, concerned by how he might take that information, but it had hardly effected Natsu's mood. Of course, they'd never been particularly subtle about the fact that his continued employment was largely a charity. The worst that exchange had done was confirm a suspicion that was already a near sure thing.

"Do you make enough?" Gray dared ask.

"Yeah. And someone lets himself into my house all the time with food, so I can even save a bit."

"Now you know how Lucy must feel."

Natsu grinned. "I almost feel guilty thinking of it."

Then his grin faltered, and he looked away, cheeks turning red.

Gray made a mental note to suggest to Lucy that she do more with Natsu. He couldn't seek her out himself anymore without help, and it was clear as day to Gray that Natsu liked her.

Since Natsu hadn't shared his feelings with Gray, and since he seemed irritated whenever Happy suggested he felt anything for their friend, Gray didn't call this out to Natsu. Their relationship was still strained by the Suraci's precautions, and Gray didn't dare upset the roset on any other subject. Rather than ask Natsu if there was any particular reason he went to see Lucy so often, Gray said, "Is everything okay?"

"Y-yeah."

"Your cheeks are flushed," Gray said before he stopped himself, and then he was too deep in to turn back. Searching for a way to spare Natsu any relationship straining embarrassment, he quickly added, "You aren't coming down with something, are you?"

Natsu pulled his scarf up to hide his blush. "No."

"Careful not to get any cream on your scarf."

"Why?" Natsu dropped the scarf back to his neck. "Do I have some on my cheek too?"

Too?

Gray reached up and brushed a finger along his cheek, then inspected his hand. There was fluffy pink cream on the tip of his finger.

"Good thing Juvia wasn't there for that, or she might have asked to lick it off." Gray laughed nervously. "She begged to come along on this job, you know. You always seem agitated when she hangs around too long. I hope you don't mind, but I used you as an excuse to get her to stay home."

"That's fine."

"She'll probably think you're her new love rival," Gray warned, half in jest.

Natsu, in response, crammed a large bite of crepe into his mouth, said something incomprehensible, and became extremely fascinated with a bird on a nearby roof. But then when had Natsu ever had an attention span? In all likelihood, Gray's lady troubles were the dullest subject in the world for him.

"Well, once we're finished here, we should head back. We can make your tea and grab a train. The earlier we go, the greater your odds of recovering from the trip in time to eat lunch."

Natsu made a face at that, but still had too much crepe in his mouth to protest the train ride.

He hadn't protested a lot of things, and that hadn't escaped Gray's notice. He might not have been perfectly happy with how the whole job played out, but he didn't do anything to bring any extra risk to himself. The whole thing had gone off without a hitch, and Natsu perfectly unharmed and even energized enough to walk back to the hotel without aid. As they walked back, Gray almost didn't feel stressed imagining Natsu going on more such jobs.

Unfortunately, he wasn't the only one who felt emboldened by the how the day had gone. Had Natsu not felt the morning's results were proof that everyone was overly cautious, the years to come would have turned out far better than they did.

-x-

STA: I think I mentioned this before, but this premise was originally going to be used on a Stingue story. I found a picture of Sting crying and wanted to write about something shitty happening to him, and came up with a degenerative disease. The version I had for him was a little different than what I did with Natsu, though. Sting's condition would still have him getting weaker, but it was never going to receive a proper diagnosis. He would be in and out of the hospital while they tried to monitor his condition, which would be in a steady, consistent state of decline. He would start off noticing things were harder than they ought to be, then start depending on Lector and Rogue more and more. At the point that I came up with the idea, Sting wasn't a guild master yet, so Rogue was going to try and work enough to support both of them-including paying Sting's hospital bills-until the stress became too much, and Sting would have an emergency hospital admit one night, and when they discharged him, be brought back to Rogue's house because Rogue gave up on trying to pay rent for two places. I even toyed with the idea of Rogue developing some manner of eating disorder as a way of trying to cope with all the stress. (I knew a girl who developed bulimia and did irreversible damage to several organs not because of any body image issues, but because the pressure to do good in school and then support herself when she started college was too much for her, and denying herself food was a way she could feel like she still had a handle on things.) Eventually, Sting was going to get so weak that his heart gave out. Then someone mentioned to me under a completely separate context that a good tragedy is one that was completely preventable, and I thought I should rework the disease concept to be one where the characters have some control over the situation. Instead of the patient getting sicker and sicker just cuzz, it would be thanks to them doing something they knew they shouldn't have.

Incidentally, spoiler warning, I'm not planning to kill Natsu off in this one. Or to make Gray start secretly throwing up because caring for Natsu is too much for him. Really, the story I ended up settling on his a million times lighter than the one I started off with. Whatever I started off with, I'm not exactly shooting for tragedy with this fic so much as hurt/comfort.