STA: Tbh I'd rather wait until whatever glitch is going on with reviews displaying resolves before posting, just because I hate posting during a glitch, but it's been a while and this fic is due for an update.
"Absolutely not."
"Who gave you the final say?"
Gray took a deep breath, trying to keep himself from shaking with anger. Natsu's vision wasn't half as good as it used to be, but so long as he kept those glasses on, he could still see fine. No need to let him see exactly how upsetting the idea was. Particularly when Gray had no good reason to be upset.
"You can't stay with Sting. If he can't even manage his own apartment, how can you expect him to be responsible enough to help you?"
"Because I'm a living creature," Natsu suggested. "And if he did forget to help me with something, I can still scream just fine. Besides, he's practically a blond you when it comes to this stuff. Except even more tactless."
"How am I tactless?"
Doing his best mocking impression of Gray's voice, Natsu said, "Natsu, you're too weak to sleep in a hammock."
"First off, I never said that." Not that exact phrasing, at least. "Second, I have to help you into your hammock. You fell out of it this morning."
"Yeah. Well good thing you put a freaking mattress under it," Natsu grumbled.
Gray rolled his eyes. That was a good thing. Natsu couldn't break his own fall, so anything that softened it helped. And Natsu still got to sleep in his hammock, so why was it such a big deal that there was something soft a few feet below it?
No. A real big deal was that that little blond creep had the nerve to try and take Natsu. From everything Gray heard of the twin slayers' second visit, it sounded like it was only because Natsu suggested it that visiting Sting would be a thing reserved for while Gray was gone. Sting himself seemed eager to take Natsu whenever he could.
Pissed with the thought, Gray turned back to making breakfast, and stabbed his would-be omelet hard enough with the spatula to make half-cooked egg splatter everywhere.
"You need help," Natsu said.
"Don't strain yourself. I can clean this up just fine on my own."
"Wrong kind of help. Who said I was cleaning your kitchen for you anyway?" Huffing indignantly, Natsu rose to his feet. "Nevermind. I'm going to bed."
"No you aren't! I just got you out of bed!"
Purely for the sake of being difficult, Natsu stayed on his feet and made Gray physically sit him back down. In all honestly, he didn't want to go back to bed anyway.
After pushing Natsu back into his chair, Gray turned back to continue cooking the omelet, remembered that the omelet was no more, and grabbed eggs to begin work on a new omelet.
Natsu waited patiently until Gray was at the perfect point in the cooking process for another omelet explosion before asking, "Ignoring that you're not the boss of me, why is it okay if I stay with Lucy, but not Sting? They've both gotten on your case about the way you look after me. Besides, Sting's stronger. For as heavy as Lucy is, you'd think she could carry more weight, but we had a hard time getting to the guild because according to her I'm heavy. Sting didn't have any issues carrying me."
"You aren't heavy," Gray agreed, hoping that this might be taken as agreement of everything Natsu said when, in fact, it was that one detail alone that Gray conceded. If anything, Natsu had only gotten lighter since he fell ill. A significant portion of his weight had been in muscle, and while there was an unspoken rule across the entire guild not to comment on it, Natsu was losing muscle.
"Lucy doesn't think so."
"Happy, is Natsu heavy?" Gray asked.
Happy, who had been sitting at the opposite end of the kitchen table and trying to appear small, shook his head.
"Happy stays with you when I have to take a job," Gray said. "If Lucy can't carry a little weight as far as the guild, then Happy's got you covered."
Gray expected Natsu to grudgingly concede this point and, hopefully, forget that they were arguing over Sting rather than his weight.
No luck.
"Happy would have me covered no matter who I stayed with. And it would be fun to see more people outside of the guild again. Besides, if I went and saw Sting every now and then, that would be more times you could had a day or two off without imposing on Lucy. Don't you ever want a break from me?"
This time, it was not the omelet that burst. Gray was careful not to slam the spatula down on the food again, and instead squeezed the spatula handle so tight that the plastic cracked.
"Gray?"
"Nevermind." Gray grabbed the frying pan, egg still sizzling, and dumped it in the sink. "I just got paid, so we can buy breakfast at the guild."
"Um… okay?"
Natsu tried to smile for him, but Gray couldn't make himself return it. A break from Natsu? He knew that Natsu had bristled under his concerns in the past, but since the latest attack, Natsu had given in to the idea that he couldn't do things and needed help. A month before, Gray wouldn't have been shocked to hear that Natsu wanted them to spend time apart, but he thought they were past that now.
Here Natsu was suggesting that Gray leave him at someone else's house more often, not just when he absolutely had to take a job. Suggesting Gray even leave him with that little white slaying rat. Why? It made Gray's chest tighten painfully, trying not to think of what Natsu said. What had he done wrong that Natsu wanted a break from him?
-o-
There were a number of reasons that Natsu could tell the day would end with him and Gray fighting over something, although what exactly the fight would be, Natsu couldn't tell. He got that, for whatever reason, Gray and Sting didn't get along anymore, but he had no idea why it mattered so much if Natsu didn't share that dislike.
Sting was nice. He'd been about as considerate as he was capable of in discussing Natsu's condition, worried about his wellbeing, and got peeved when he thought people were making it hard on Natsu when they ought to help him. In that sense, Gray ought to love the guy. For as much as Gray stressed over leaving Natsu with Lucy, Sting should have been a great alternative.
Yet Gray swore up and down that he wasn't bothered by Sting's offer (while searing up and down that they weren't taking him up on it) on the walk to Fairy Tail, and finally told Natsu that the subject was off limits entirely.
The weirdest part was that, for as testy as Gray had been discussing Sting, what really set him off was Natsu suggesting that he might want to take some time off. Surely it was stressful to always have to look after a sick person. Natsu knew Gray had done nothing but keep him company while his eyes were bandaged, and once the bandages came off and the glasses went on, he could see how lean Gray had been living. A little investigating let him know that Erza still gave Gray his cut for the job that Natsu snuck along on and ruined, and that he had only take one job since. Add to that the existing knowledge that Gray had barely worked since Natsu first fell ill, and it wasn't hard for Natsu to imagine Gray always trying to make every last Jewel count.
When he thought about that beach trip too, which Gray had needed to take a long job to get the money for on short notice, and which Natsu had then guilted Gray into making last twice as long as he'd originally planned, Natsu only felt worse. Gray tried so hard to help him, and all at his own expense. He knew that. He'd known that when he begged Gray to let him move in, despite having been determined that morning to be less of a burden.
Gray had to want a break from always babysitting him. So why was he so pissed when Natsu suggested it?
For one brief moment, Natsu allowed himself the fantasy that Gray didn't look at taking care of him as a chore you resigned yourself to for a friend's sake, but instead liked doing whatever he could to help. That maybe, just maybe, the reason Gray rarely took jobs anymore and left anyone else to look after Natsu was because he wanted to stay. The fact that Gray was fine with Natsu spending time with Lucy was a detail Natsu couldn't explain away, but he pretended all the same that even Gray's disdain over Sting was due to a jealous streak similar to the one Juvia gave all recipients of Gray's attention.
Incidentally, Natsu was greeted by Juvia glaring daggers at him as Gray carried him through the guild door.
Gray, not in the mood to interact positively with anyone, dropped Natsu off by the front door, excused himself to the bathroom, and left to quite possibly climb out the bathroom window. At least twice in the past, Natsu had lost track of Gray and learned that he snuck out then back in through another entrance in order to have a break from Juvia.
This left Natsu to face Juvia alone, but he had an easier time of it than Gray did.
"Juvia wishes Natsu wouldn't take up so much of Gray's time."
"Natsu wishes that too," Natsu told her. It wasn't hard to sound sincere, not when he truly meant it. For as much as he appreciated the attention, he would vastly prefer to still be able to do everything for himself. "Do you want to know the secret to getting Gray's attention?"
Juvia's eyes lit up, annoyance melting away from her expression, and she leaned forward.
"Lose your ability to stand for more than two minutes at a time. Mind helping me to one of the tables?"
Having been successfully guilted into both giving aid and abandoning complaints about Gray, Juvia took Natsu's arm in hers and walked him to the nearest table.
It was an otherwise empty table, but within a minute of Natsu being seated at it, Lucy, Erza, and Wendy were all sitting with him. Now if only Gray hadn't run off, it would be easy to pretend they were all still a team.
"How are you feeling, Natsu?" Erza asked. "I wanted to be there for you after what happened with the demon suppression job, but I had to leave on a mission before you woke up." She paused, searching for something else to add, and settled on, "The glasses are cute."
Mortified, Natsu pulled the glasses off, blinked, gave up on trying to make out the details of Erza's face, and grudgingly put them back on. Seeng Erza looked as horrified by embarrassing him as he felt to have the stupid glasses called cute, Natsu mumbled a half-hearted thanks.
"Natsu's been doing… okay," Lucy said. "He needs a little more help now, but he's managing, right Natsu?"
"Yeah. Gray let me move in with him, and he helps with all the things that are hard."
From the look of alarm on Erza's face, Natsu suspected she'd have taken it easier if she'd heard he would never walk again. Her eyes widened and her jaw dropped, and it took her several seconds to remember herself before she could reply.
"That's… good of him. I'm glad to hear you two aren't fighting anymore about the aide he lends. I had wondered if your rivalry… Well, I'm glad to hear things have smoothed out."
If their rivalry…
Natsu kept up a smile, and didn't let himself think about what Erza likely meant. Last spring, he would have recoiled at the idea that Gray did anything better than him, much less that there were things he was so incapable of that he needed Gray to do them for him. Admitting that he'd accepted this notion so easily meant admitting that he'd accepted his illness so completely, and the large part of him that wanted to pretend things could still go back to how they'd been last spring didn't want to do that.
"But what's this about moving in with Gray?" Erza asked. "How much help… What sort of help does he give you?"
"I can manage at home fine," Natsu said. "Sort of. As long as I don't have to stand for too long. I can't walk to the guild on my own anymore is the main thing."
"Well, from the start Gray wouldn't let you go on your own," Erza pointed out.
Wendy spared Natsu from having to admit it himself, and told Erza, "He can't walk that far anymore. Gray carries him if they're going more than a few blocks."
"I see. But Gray already came to pick Natsu up each morning. There's no reason Natsu should need to leave his home… right?"
She sounded so worried when she asked, Natsu smiled for her and said, "I didn't need to move in with him. It's easier is all. Right, Lucy?"
Since Erza wasn't looking her way, Lucy shook her head. Natsu had fallen multiple times walking around her house, and only been able to pick himself back up on his own once or twice. Between him and Happy he might have managed staying in his old home, but she was relieved to know that there was someone else living with Natsu—and preventing him from living in a sty—who could help him as soon as a need arose. Still, she'd heard Erza's trepidation too.
"From what I saw when he spent the night with me, I'd say he could manage still. If he kept a cleaner house. He had to have his eyes covered for a few weeks, remember? Gray was mostly helping because of that. Now I think Natsu's been spoiled on the idea of having someone to wait on him all the time."
"I should buy a bell to summon him with," Natsu mused. "I'd love to see the look on his face if I tried that."
"Don't antagonize him too much, okay," Lucy suggested. "Gray wouldn't like that."
Natsu hoped no one else made anything of the stress she put on that word. That he blushed when he heard it probably didn't help.
"Let him have a little fun," Erza said. "Really, Natsu, I'm glad to see you're managing well. If you ever need my help, just let me know."
Erza lived in a girls only dorm, and Natsu imagined that her entire apartment was one big armory. Even though those two factors would already pose a problem, Erza was probably also someone who Gray would prefer he stay with to Sting. Despite being unsure as to whether or not he would mention to Gray that this offer had been made, Natsu smiled and nodded.
"Have you had a chance to speak with the master yet?" Erza asked, changing the subject. "There's something he wanted to show you."
-o-
In the private of Makarov's office, Natsu sat and examined a small bottle of bright blue pills. Gray, having been spotted from the office window and coaxed inside, stood behind him.
"The drug is experimental," Makarov told them, "but so far it's had a positive effect on test subjects. It seems to work better on children, but one of the men taking it was in his fifties, and his from the report Gajeel's team brought back, his condition had advanced about as far as Natsu's."
Natsu looked up at Gray and made a face. Aside from himself, everyone living with Suraci's had developed the condition before the age of three. That man, in a minimum of forty-seven years, had managed to do only as much damage to himself as Natsu had in only a few months. Of course, Natsu had grown up thinking he could do everything while the standard Suraci's patient was raised on the idea that they had to take it easy, but knowing no other Suacri's patients, this wasn't something that crossed Natsu's mind.
"There's been no testing on infants yet, which I don't think is anything you're worried about at the moment. Long term side-effects are unknown, but if you think it's worth the risk, the medicine might help you reclaim some of your independence."
Natsu uncapped the lid and tipped the bottle over, dropping one of the capsules onto his hand.
"At least wait until you have something to drink that with," Gray said.
"Okay. Get Juvia in here."
"We will get you your water from the sink once Gramps is done talking. Besides—here, let me see that bottle—don't you want to make sure you're taking it the right way first?"
"How do you swallow a pill the wrong way?"
"Could be a suppository."
"The heck does that even mean?"
"You're supposed to take one by mouth in the evening," Makarov said. "With food."
Crossing his arms, Natsu fell back in his chair and muttered, "That's stupid."
"What did they think were the odds of some horrible side effect?"
"There are a few minor ones. Disrupted focus. Nausea. Moodiness. It exacerbates motion sickness," Makarov paused there and studied Natsu closely.
"So does this stupid disease. If the pills fix that then I'll be at the same place I am now with trains."
Pausing from reading the label, which listed quite a few side effects the master hadn't, Gray said, "You're probably even worse with trains now than you were last time you rode one."
Raising his voice to speak over Natsu's groan, Makarov went on. "Apparently, it was Alverez's emperor who ordered they develop the drug, although no one who went to see if Natsu could be approved for it could find any information on why. There's fewer than a hundred people known to have the disease in that country, and none of them have any obvious relation to the emperor. To put so much funding into such a project… Well, I'm not complaining, but it's an odd choice. In any case, it's to our benefit that someone with that level of influence ordered the research be done.
"By Gajeel's account, the drug has only been public about its testing in the past few years, but it sounds like the emperor had them start development around the time you two would have been born. If the current test subjects don't display any dangerous side effects in the next few years, it's going to be released to the general public."
"And they let some guy from another continent try it out before then?" Gray asked.
"So it would seem. Gajeel was the one in charge of tracking down the lab studying the drug. You would need to ask him how they managed." Makarov cleared his throat. "Erza was one of the members I asked to go along to see if the lab developing this drug might be willing to give us access to it. Her methods of persuasion are… convincing."
Natsu laughed. Persuasive indeed. Even at his prime, if Erza wanted something, she got it. If he dared cross her now, it was only because he thought he could play up the sick person angle and get off the hook easy.
"The effects are gradual," Makarov said, stressing the word as hard as he could. "The medicine won't prevent attacks, so you still shouldn't push yourself. I hate to tell you this, but don't expect to go back to working as a wizard either. Even with this, no one testing the pill has yet to make a full recovery."
So he'd never be back to prime either. But still, something as little as being able to walk all the way to the guild on his own again, or even to be able to get around town without help… A year ago Natsu would have recoiled that the thought of only being able to do that much, but now the chance that he could do so again was heart-lifting. He might even be able to toss the stupid glasses
Less dependence on Gray. No ground for Gray to stand on if he tried to forbid Natsu from seeing anyone else. Less burdening Gray, for that matter. Even going back to how things had been a month ago would be so much better than his current situation.
"Natsu?" Gray asked. "Why are you grinning like that? You heard Gramps, right? No pushing yourself."
"Got it. Got it. But we can start this thing today, right?"
None of the known side effects seemed worse than what the pills were meant to cure, and Natsu hadn't looked so eager for anything since he thought he might still make a full recovery and see everything go back to normal. On some level, Gray suspected, Natsu now thought that again. Still, to say no to a face like that…
"We don't know how much good they'll do," Gray cautioned. "It's not a miracle cure-all. It won't make you good as new."
"It could make me better than I am now," Natsu countered. "Even if I never get to use magic again, any improvement is a good thing."
-x-
STA: I don't like Juvia. I really don't like Juvia. Every running gag that had something to do with her obsession over Gray has long worn out it's welcome for me, and stopped being funny a while ago. A lot of her behavior, even if it's meant to be cute her silly, is still terrible when you put it in the context of a real person acting that way. She's jealous and clingy and even controlling at times, and lately everything she does has to come back to Gray, to the point that if she does end up interacting with someone else, she complains about how she doesn't get to be with Gray instead. That being said, my opinion of her isn't slow low that I think she'd really beat on Natsu or put herself first with his illness.
Anyway, can you tell I didn't want to be quite as cruel to Natsu as the last couple chapters implied? Also, if you remember any previous author's notes about how this whole disease thing had been worked into a certain villain's backstory...
...Actually, I wasn't paying super close attention to when this pill thing happened, and mentioned it in a review/comment someone left on a previous chapter. I guess I must have just finished proofreading the chapter and accidentally thought it was the one they were commenting on? When they mentioned I gave them spoilers, I assumed they mistook my remark as me saying Zeref would have a larger role in the story than he does. Now I just feel stupid OTL
FranGipani6181: I'm neutral on whether the character already love or are in the process of falling for one another. What matters more to me is how that plays out. A lot of fics have focus couples hook up or click too perfectly, and I like a little more drama than that.
Supernova888: Guess I can't end the story with it ambiguous if they hook up or not, after dragging you along so far for the payoff :P
Girl again: Roger that. Staying the course.