Natsu smelled Sting in town, but when Lucy asked if they wanted to greet him, Natsu declined. He'd cheered up considerably since moving to her apartment, but wasn't back to his old spirits. Not even the dampened by illness but still somewhat optimistic spirits he'd been in while living with Gray after the bandages around his eyes came off.
"It might be nice to see a friend."
"If he wants to see me, he can come here."
He'd been like that ever since Gray left on his latest job. Lucy accepted some blame for that. She'd tried to be coy, hinting to Natsu that there was an explanation for what happened with Gray and that good things were on the horizon, then arrived to find out that Gray left on the lengthiest mission he could grab. Natsu took it as a sign that Gray didn't want to be around him at all, perhaps out of bitterness over Natsu complaining about him and getting him barred from visiting, and cut Lucy off any time she tried to correct him to yell that he didn't want to hear about Gray anymore.
Last summer, Lucy would have responded to that treatment by kicking him and commanding him to listen to her. Now she didn't dare. She'd instead started working out different plans to let Gray explain everything.
"Natsu, of course Gray wants to see you," Lucy said. She didn't add that if Sting stopped by the guild first, they'd warn him that Natsu was in a bad mood and needed space. She'd told everyone as much behind Natsu's back, to explain why he'd stopped visiting again, and with how touchy he'd been, didn't want to admit to that if she didn't have to.
If Sting didn't show up, Lucy decided she'd confess to Natsu that the guild likely told him not to.
"Can I at least get you something? How about hot chocolate? Are you cold?"
"A little…"
Natsu was wrapped up in a blanket, watching the fireplace. Lucy's apartment lacking any other sort of heating unit, curling up by the fire was the solution for keeping warm, since winter came early. For Lucy, who was used to needing a coat and had spent snowy days in her apartment before, this was normal. For Natsu, who was used to providing his own heat, this setup came as a shock. Even needing a jacket during fall hadn't prepared him for facing freezing temperatures without his magic.
Lucy set a pot of milk on the stove and went to join Natsu by the fire. He was reading one of the many stories she'd written special for him. Truth be told, she'd hardly worked on any of her own stories while working to record her adventures for Natsu. Even though he hadn't read them up until now, it made Lucy feel better to do something to try and continue to include Natsu on the jobs she took.
With his glasses on, curled up in front of a fireplace as he thumbed through page after hand-written page, you could almost mistake Natsu for the studious type. At least if you didn't know that he was Natsu, and that he was only reading about what fun his friends had in his absence.
Thinking about it that way made Lucy feel a little guilty, and she wondered if that was what accounted for the slight frown on Natsu's face. He kept reading, though, so she held her tongue.
When the milk was hot enough, Lucy broke up a chocolate packet and stirred it in, letting the concoction turn into a thick, creamy brown before pouring mugs for herself and Natsu. He accepted his wordlessly, and his first sip left a chocolate mustache.
"Do you need a napkin?" Lucy asked.
"Nah. Why isn't Gray in any of these? Where was he?"
Lucy had to stop and think to remember why, and it seemed silly that he had to think at all once she realized. "Gray was with you. He hardly ever takes jobs with us anymore, because he wanted to stay with you. Remember?"
"Because he had to stay with me."
"I was willing to pitch in, and Erza would have too, if asked. The master almost asked her to be the one who helped you with therapy and walking to the guild when you were first diagnosed. None of us did more than we did because Gray insisted on doing so much himself. Because he wanted to. He liked being with you."
"Sure." Natsu flipped to the next story. "Erza isn't in all of these either."
"Ah, well…"
"I broke up the team."
"Not true! You just… I mean, none of this was your fault, you know. And it's not like the team broke up entirely. Wendy and Erza and I still go on a lot of jobs together, and I'm sure they would start working with Gray if we don't get the situation with you and him all patched up soon. Erza and Wendy splintering off only happened when Gray needed to work and I stayed with you, and he's worked with Erza in that time."
"When I snuck off on that job…"
"Gray already begged off of most missions to stay home with you. He even made you stay with me while he was away back then, remember?"
Natsu grunted an affirmative and took another sip of his hot chocolate.
"It's not your fault," Lucy insisted. "The four of us could have kept on going on missions without you if we wanted, but Gray and I opted out because what we really wanted was to stay here, and Erza and Wendy would have done the same."
"So if I hadn't gotten sick, you wouldn't have had a reason to stay home."
"You can't help being born with a disease."
She was right, but Natsu still felt he was due some blame. He could have told someone when he first felt something was wrong. He could have backed off on that mission where he had his first attack, admitting that he was dead tired instead of pushing to keep up with everyone. He could have admitted to feeling weaker afterward instead of putting up a front to avoid everyone fretting over him. If he'd called everyone's attention to his condition sooner, if he'd taken it seriously, he would have still been able to go on easier job with everyone, and no one would need to stay home with him.
Seeing Natsu only look more and more disappointed as he stared blankly at the papers, Lucy reached forward and gently pulled the stories from his hand.
"Finish up your hot chocolate. I'll make more if you want. Let's get a board game set up for when Sting drops by."
"If Sting drops by."
"Natsu Dragneel, we are playing a board game, and that is final."
Natsu looked around, and saw it was only the two of them. With Natsu trapped inside more by the stairs leading out of Lucy's apartment than he was the snow (although the snow was another deterent), and with Lucy insisting on keeping Natsu company while he sulked, Happy was the one left to run errands. He would have been a better comfort, but he also wouldn't have made hot chocolate, and he was better at catching Natsu when he cheated on board games.
"Okay. Warm up round before Sting shows up."
-o-
When Sting stopped by, Lucy almost wept from relief. Natsu was used to the guild waiting for him to drop by, rather than them coming out to visit him. But Sting was someone who came by whenever he damn well pleased, the same way Gray used to insist upon being around Natsu. Sting opting not to show up would have been a huge blow to Natsu's already fragile self-worth.
"Look at that." Sting beamed down at Natsu as he let himself in. "Guild said he wasn't in the mood for visitors, but his face lit up when he saw me. Shows what they know. Speaking of not knowing things, Lucy, did you realize your lock is broken?"
"It's been that way for a while," Lucy grumbled. "People keep letting themselves in and someone turned the doorknob too hard."
"At least they didn't break it off and trap you inside," Sting said.
"As if people could pick a time when I'm here for them to let themselves in without asking."
"But that's always when I let myself in," Sting pointed out.
Lucy raised a finger, prepared to accuse him of other incidents, but he was right. Technically, she'd always been home when Sting came in without waiting for an invite. Even the time she'd been in the shower, Natsu had still been in the room to see Sting enter. Obnoxious as it was, he was the most courteous person she'd met to date when it came to coming in unannounced
"Okay. Fine. Maybe you could knock before letting yourself in though?"
"I never knock," Natsu pointed out.
Lucy paused, unsure how to answer that one without coming off as mean. Natsu didn't need to knock when Lucy was either the one helping him in or Gray knocked for him. And before he needed help getting to her apartment, he usually came in through the window.
"Well, I guess I could usually tell if you were around or not," Natsu went on, not noticing Lucy's look of panic. "No sense in knocking when no one's home. Are you going to play with us or not?"
Sting glanced down, seeing the board game they'd set up for the first time. "Yeah. Sure. Rogue's handling papers, so I can stay a little while."
When he sat down in front of the board and Natsu, who was still comfortable bundled up by the fire, had yet to say anything about Sting's appearance, Lucy decided to be the one to ask.
"Did you just come back from a mission. It must have been rough, if you took such a beating."
"Oh. Kind of. I finished the job just fine, but I met Gray afterward and we don't exactly get along. He'll probably be back soon, by the way."
"I'm surprised he didn't race to get here before you," Lucy said.
Sting laughed at her anxious tone, even rubbing the tender purple skin around his eyes when he teared up. "Let's just say that Rogue helped Gray show some restraint once he sobered up. Oh, but I think him and Rogue are going to get into a fight next time they see each other, so that's something I'll have to keep in mind the next time Gray comes by my guild to pick Natsu up. You do want to visit me again sometime, right Natsu?"
Natsu, who had been in the middle of dealing chips to set on the board, looked down at his hands. "I'm not living with Gray anymore, but yeah."
"Eh. You two will probably move back in together soon." Sting shrugged, and Lucy and Natsu both were surprised to see him make no effort to pursue what separated Natsu and Gray when he'd previously been opposed to the two of them being kept together. "So do you guys plan on explaining the rules to me, or are you just going to leave me to figure out why all of these chips have a picture of corn on them?"
-o-
Sting lost the first round, and even after Lucy and Natsu took the time to explain not only the rules, but the way different strategies worked, he lost the next two rounds as well. Declaring the game weighted against him in some way, Sting gave up and talked Natsu into instead trying strip poker. Lucy, not wanting to show as much skin as Sting (who had shed his winter coat to reveal a belly shirt), excused herself to go make hot chocolate.
"I promised Natsu he could have some if you stopped by. He smelled you earlier."
"It smells like you guys already made hot chocolate."
How annoying dragon slayer noses were. Lucy kept up a pleasant smile and said, "That must be from yesterday."
"This dirty mug has been sitting there since yesterday?" Sting asked, picking up the mug Lucy had been drinking from earlier, which she'd left on her desk while getting the board game set up. "Hey, there's still hot chocolate in here. It doesn't feel cold either."
"Do you want fresh hot chocolate or not?"
"I get hot chocolate, too? Well, if you haven't had any since yesterday, I'd hate to deprive Natsu of it now."
Taking the mug, still trying to keep up her smile, Lucy said, "How generous of you," through clenched teeth.
Sting packed the game up while Lucy cooked, then dumped the game's contents back onto the floor and repacked it in a way that would allow the lid of the box to fit properly. Lucy came back with mugs for the boys, and they sat by the fire and drank and talked about how busy being a guildmaster kept Sting. Or rather, how much work he shirked off onto Rogue and, lately, Minerva and Rufus.
"She used to help her dad, so she's familiar with the process, and Rufus has a good memory, so we made him read up on all the different laws the council imposes, and go to him whenever we need to find a loophole in one, or make sure that what we're about to do doesn't warrant an arrest."
"Rogue lets you do things that could end with an arrest?" Natsu asked.
"Sometimes. When he's drunk, usually. Or when he yells 'Go ahead! See if I care!' and storms off. But the thing is, every time I do go ahead, it turns out he cares an awful lot. He's so bossy at times, but I guess his heart's in the right place, even if he can be a total nag."
"He sounds like Gray," Natsu said. "I don't remember him putting up much of a fuss while I was there."
"Yeah, well, we must have both been behaving for each other, 'cause I never saw you do anything that warranted nagging either," Sting said. "So you miss Gray then?"
"Why would I miss someone who doesn't miss me?"
"He said he was forbidden from visiting you," Sting said. "Seemed torn over it. Pretty sure it's why he gave me the black eyes. I might have said some things about how he wasn't with you."
Natsu grunted, but didn't dignify the remark with any further response. Instead, he made a point of becoming fascinated with the way the hot chocolate moved in his mug when he swirled it gently. After swirling it a few times, however, he found his arms getting tired, and set the mug down.
Watching this, Lucy shook her head in disbelief. She'd expected Natsu to be happy to hear that Gray didn't willfully abandon him to Laxus, but either there was more to his depression regarding Gray than she'd realized, or he was simply too stubborn to let go of being upset so easily.
"Well, at least you two are still allowed around one another, although you'd think Makarov would repeal his ban on you and Gray being together by this point." Sting shrugged. "If you're free next Monday though, maybe we can go do that shooting star thing Lucy mentioned?"
Natsu cocked his head in confusion, having completely thought that Lucy ever said such a thing. Of course, most of attention since had been on having fun with Sting, being made at Gray, feeling rejected, and sulking at Lucy's while worrying that she might soon grow tired of looking after him too. And even when Lucy first mentioned it, it had been a casual suggestion while Natsu focused less on the activity and more her suggestion that he prepare some meal for Gray while they went to participate in said activity.
Sting, on the other hand, had been completely lost during that conversation, and so everything said that seemed particularly odd to him had stuck out. That Lucy had proposed Natsu and Gray going on a star gazing picnic was something he had no trouble remembering.
"That's Tuesday," Lucy said, "And it's going to take place awfully late at night. Nearly midnight. It's going to be cold, and Natsu has trouble staying up long past dinner."
"We have time to shift his sleep schedule," Sting said. Then his eyes went widened, and he lifted his mouth to his hand in an exaggerated gasp. "Tuesday? Rats! I have to be back at the guild all day for some stupid building inspection. I'm not sure I can make it."
Unlikely as it seemed that a building inspection would go past dinner time, Lucy was certain Sting could make it. But even before Sting took advantage of Natsu turning to set his mug down in order to wink at her, she could tell what he was up to.
"It's only a few days away, and it's not good for Natsu to have too unreliable a sleep schedule," Lucy said, recalling one of Gray's many lectures to her before leaving Natsu at her place. "We'll see how late we can get him staying up though. He's holed himself up too much lately, and I'm sure he'd love to be out there. He has a winter coat, and we can bring blankets. I could even scout out a good spot early and set up a fire pit. Oh! And if there's a fire, then Natsu could make s'mores. He'll crash later, but the sugar would help keep him up for the show."
"Can we make s'mores in this fire?" Natsu asked, pointing eagerly to the fire place.
"Nope. You'll crash once the sugar high wears off," Lucy told him. "We have to keep you up as late as we can tonight. We don't have long to get you used to staying up after dark."
His first attack, Natsu suddenly recalled, had been brought on by two nights of sleep deprivation. Staying up well after dark used to be something he was perfectly adjusted too, and yet…
"What if I have another attack, not sleeping?" Natsu asked.
That gave both Lucy and Sting a pause, the two blonds freezing as if they'd completely forgotten that there was still a chance for Natsu to get worse.
"You said you get some sort of warning when one's coming on, right?" Sting asked.
Right. A sense that something was wrong, even if Natsu couldn't ever say what exactly the source of that wrongness might be. A prickling of the hairs on the back of his neck that grew into a near panic as he drew closer and closer to a potential attack. With as careful as he'd been since the last attack, he almost never felt that anymore. In fact, he half suspected that he was too tired most of the time to push himself to the point of triggering another attack. But surely ignoring that exhaustion to adjust to a later schedule was a risk.
Still, there was a warning, and he nodded knowing what Sting's response would be.
"If you notice that warning sign, then go to bed. Until then, doesn't hurt to try."
That made sense, and Natsu was happy for an excuse to change his routine, so long as it wouldn't blind him, or leave him completely bed bound. Or maybe it would be his hearing that went if he had another attack.
Thinking of that made Natsu's throat knot with worry, but Sting made it sound like a safe enough chance to take, and even if he wasn't wholly convinced by Sting's claim that Gray hadn't willfully ditched him, Natsu was getting a little tired of never seeing anything beyond Lucy's window. It would be nice to get out.
-x-
STA: I'm always proud of myself when something I set up early actually gets used in the end. Tbh I pretty much abandoned plans for the meteor shower once I decided to split the boys up. I was pleased with myself for leaving my buffer as large as it was (although it shrank down to half it's original size recently) because it gave me time to extend the date for the shower. Originally it was supposed to be a few days after Gray was due to pick Natsu up from Sting's.
firesword01: I really liked that part too. Pretty much any Stingue banter, I like.
Ryuu91: It's not so much a sense issue as an explaining the goddamn situation issue, but yeah. Gray needed a little help.
FranGipani6181: Ironically Rogue is usually the one freaking out and causing drama when I write about him and Sting specifically. Having him be the level headed one in this story almost felt weird.