An early update because I messed UUUP
Oxidation.
A chemical reaction in which an element combines with oxygen. All fires are a form of oxidation.
When morning cracked over the sky, bleeding a rainbow of colors throughout Strawberry Street, Lucy was awoken by a surprising visitor. One she was certain she was imagining, because why the hell would anyone visit her as the sun was rising. Lucy had decided to just roll over and go back to sleep, her home remaining stubbornly shut to whomever was hammering on her door.
Erza Scarlet was not one to be deterred by a mere door though.
The woman had invaded her home in a flash and kicked open the door to her bedroom with a booted heel. Lucy had sprung up to her feet with a shout, legs tangling in the blanket as she ripped open the drawer to her nightstand and drew her weapon.
To her credit, all Erza did when facing down the barrel of a police issued handgun, was blink.
Maybe she really did wear Kevlar like Lucy had originally suspected.
"What are you doing here?" She hissed and dropped her piece onto her bed. Lucy picked at the blanket twisted around her legs, stepping out of her tangled sheets once her heart rate slowed.
"I came to talk to you in private, away from the prying eyes at the station," Erza walked towards her, dropping down on the mattress next to Lucy, her single eye fiercely meeting her gaze.
"Okay," Lucy said, not without a small sense of hesitation. Erza had a reputation around the department for being strict and no nonsense, even Gray seemed to respect her on the few times their paths crossed during cases. Now she knew their past together was a little more complicated than what she had originally believed, it made sense, "I'm guessing this is about the fire seven years ago?"
"He told you about that? Good," Erza said, finally looking away at the reminder of that night. Lucy thought she saw a flash of guilt in her eyes. She opened her mouth to say something. To do something or say anything to come up with a way to alleviate the guilt Lucy knew must have been tearing her apart.
He doesn't blame you.
The words lodged in her throat, falling hollow and lifeless, belonging not to her - but Natsu.
"The building wasn't that tall, but for us it must have been a tower," Erza's fingers twitched, a heavy sigh breathing out through her nose, "Jellal and I were so terrified, but Natsu - he charged in the moment he heard the screams from inside."
"It gave us enough encouragement to follow him," Erza turned towards her and her posture was sad, almost meek compared to the ferocity she typically held herself with, "He's different now. Less exuberant - harder."
"Prison will do that to a person," Lucy noted, but nearly bit her tongue off when she saw how Erza flinched. A stricken look flashed over her eye, red bangs falling in her face and hiding it from view.
A surprising laugh pushed from Erza's lips a second later. Her head shook, scarlet locks falling down around her shoulders.
"I suppose it will," Erza's cheeks burned, a nervous huff escaping her, "I've been keeping an eye on Natsu since he's been out, waiting for a chance to meet up with him again. I am ashamed to say I was too afraid to see him again. He has always been … angry with the police."
"But he has been different since meeting you," she continued, "I see something happier taking root in him, pushing past the rock and mortar laid the past seven years."
"And is that a bad thing?" Lucy asked. Erza's words sounded nice, but the worried edge to her voice made her believe the opposite.
"It isn't a coincidence Jackal moved back to our old district just a few months after Natsu was released from jail" Erza finally got to the point, standing up from Lucy's bed and pacing around in the room as if she owned it. Lucy supposed Era was used to such a position, and she wasn't inclined to argue with her even though it was her home.
"You think he did it on purpose?" She followed Erza's pacing, heart jumping uncomfortably in her chest. Because if those suspicions were correct…
It meant Jackal was playing his own game. More than likely it was harmless, trying to see how far down Natsu had fallen. But it also showed a certain amount of deadly threat behind what had once been a simple turf fight between two arsonists fighting over a client base.
"I'm certain of it, although I have no proof." Erza said, her words firm and leaving no doubt in Lucy's mind. She believed everything she said, even if it wasn't. "Same as I believe Jackal did not intend on letting anyone live this time."
No amount of chest pounding to prove their worth was going to cut it this time. Not if what Erza said was true. But that gave Jackal a whole new twisted outlook.
"Does Natsu know?" Lucy asked quietly, her attention flashing towards Erza.
The red head fell silent, her arms crossed over her ribs and stomach. Fingers tapping into the crook of her elbow, she let out a quiet hum.
"Maybe. He's probably put together enough to know Jackal is playing a different kind of game than usual," Erza approached Lucy, coming to a stop directly in front of her. The weight in the air between them was heavy. Intuition flaring, Lucy realized as they watched one another, that Erza was not standing in front of her representing the Firefighter, "Or-..."
No. Right now she was the very picture of a worried older sister.
"Or you think he's not seeing what's right in front of him," Lucy read between the lines, filling in what went unspoken, "Natsu is distracted."
Erza gave a wan smile.
"He understands the nature of fires and structures fine," Her hand pressed into Lucy's shoulder. Strong fingers squeezed, Erza giving her a worried look, "But people and pretty girls are new to him. Be patient with him - and watch his back."
"He'll be too busy watching yours to see the target on his," Erza warned.
Lucy swallowed, her heart doing an odd lurch in her chest. She didn't know if it was from happiness, nerves, or trepidation over the fresh news dropped on her head.
"Now," Erza clapped her hands together. The way she said it brought Lucy's attention back front and center, focusing on the woman before her.
"I believe you said you were going to shop for Natsu's suit today."
Lucy felt an actual tremor of fear shoot down her spine at the wicked smirk splitting the redhead's face nearly in half.
"Allow me to help," she purred.
Lucy swallowed hard, and had a sinking feeling she was going to step into something there was no escape from.
But before she could complain, Erza had snagged a hand around Lucy's wrist and was dragging her out, in her pajamas, to whatever new adventure she planned.
She was going to die by the end of it.
-::-
The knock on Natsu's door came as an unexpected surprise. It was a loud, hard pounding, enough to let Natsu know the person behind the door was not Lucy. Her dainty knocks didn't sound like she was trying to break the door down.
Narrowing his eyes in suspicion, he walked to the window and flicked the ratty, moth filled curtain to the side an inch to see who was standing at his stoop. He wasn't expecting anyone else but her, so he didn't know what business someone could have with him.
Whatever it was, it couldn't be good.
Much to his surprise though, it wasn't Lucy standing at his door, but rather her partner.
Gray.
Scowl deepening, Natsu considered letting him just stand out there until his legs fell off. At least until the door rattled again in impatience and the cop's snarling began to grate on his nerves.
"Open the goddamn door, you pyro. I know you're home," Gray shouted, "Lucy couldn't come by, Erza dragged her off for some weird shopping trip. I gotta talk to you anyway."
As if Natsu was interested in even a word the Ice Queen had to say. Still the bastard wasn't going away anytime soon, so Natsu steeled himself for a conversation he was not going to enjoy and unlocked his sagging door.
Gray wasted no time brushing by Natsu the moment it was open, moving into his dingy house and glaring around his surroundings and Natsu's empty apartment.
"Oh yeah, please come right the hell in," grumbled Natsu, slamming his door shut with a rattling crack that shook the hinges. He didn't bother throwing the single deadbolt. He had a feeling this wasn't going to be a long conversation.
The detective looked starkly out of place in Natsu's home, he thought in distaste. His slick hair, sharp suit, and polished shoes practically gleamed against the dirty and stained carpet he stood on. Although Natsu supposed 'carpet' was too generous of a term for what blanketed his floors.
"Nice place," Gray sneered.
"Hilarious," Natsu shot back at him, heading into the empty living room. He had a grand total of two mismatched stools to sit on that he snagged from some strangers curbside. Both were of differing height, and ones leg was being held on by nothing more than a roll of duct tape.
He ignored the stool though and favored leaning against a wall with his arms crossed. Gray did the same, not even bothering with the shotty seating.
"You still live on the same street as when we were kids," Gray remarked, his eyes squinting around the surroundings, "You never changed."
Natsu felt a rush of heat and acid boil in the back of his throat at the reminder. He glared at Gray, teeth gritting as the urge to sweep into violence rolled into him. Nails bit into his bicep.
Maybe he never changed, but it was better than the phony standing in front of him.
"I'm surprised you remembered where this place was since you got out," He drawled back, picking his finger in his ear to give the task more attention than he favored Gray, "Life was better on the other side of the tracks, wasn't it Gray?"
Silence suffocated the space between them, filled with bad feelings and anger left in their past. It was a wide chasm nothing could bridge. The memories of happier times tinged with the hard stab of betrayal. It only made sense Gray would become a lousy cop.
"Get it over with, Detective Fullbuster, what do you want," Natsu sneered, his fingers gripping around the worn sweatband around his wrist. Satisfied by the spark of white-hot anger in the back of Gray's chilly eyes, Natsu waited for whatever reason he had dragged his sorry ass back to downtown.
Gray reached a hand into his jacket, past his holster. Natsu's body was already whipcord and tight, ready to spring into a fight at a moments notice, so the only sign of mounting aggression came from how sharply his eyes took in the motion.
He withdrew a smart phone and dropped it on Natsu's cracked counter. A crumpled manual followed it a second later.
"That's police issued for your operation, Natsu, try not to break it," Gray's voice was bored and detached, but slid off his suit jacket and loosened his tie without seeming to realize he was doing it.
"The recording is already downloaded into your files so try to acclimate yourself with how to use a phone from this decade before you make a complete ass out of yourself in front of Jackal," Gray muttered.
Natsu stared, suspicion coming off him in a wave and he gave Gray a sharp grin. He knew the dick wasn't there just to drop off a phone. He could have shoved it into an envelope and crammed it in his mail slot without ever having to see Natsu, which he knew was the option they both would have preferred.
Which meant this was about something else.
Or someone.
"Sure thing, I'll just ask Lucy for help if I need it," Natsu's intuition flared when Gray went rigid. The man's dark eyes flashed towards Natsu, angling himself towards the other, his expression hard.
"That's Detective Heartfilia," Gray spat back at him, his harness shrugging off his shoulders and collecting near his jacket. Natsu for his part was grateful for the cop's stripping habit. He didn't have a great relationship with guns.
Natsu advanced a step towards him, smirking wider at him. Unable to resist jabbing a bit at him, he continued, a smug grin sliding over his face, "Lucy doesn't seem to mind me calling her by her name."
"That's because my partner is a good person," Gray spat back at him, "But she's still green. She's a good cop and great detective; however she doesn't know you for the monster you really are."
"Isn't that right 'Salamander'?" He pointed down at Natsu's hand.
Green eyes flickered down to see his lighter clenched tightly in his right fist. Hard enough that the metal from the emblem on its steel surface bit into his palm. He swallowed, anger building like bile. His thumb rolled over the spark wheel, igniting a flare before he flicked it shut and put it away.
Natsu grit his teeth from the reminder.
His fingers brushed against the fabric of his cargo pants, reassuring himself of the weight of his keepsake and his other hand brushed against his neck, rubbing the back of his spine.
"Maybe that's because I'm not a monster," Natsu snapped back at Gray.
He didn't like the sharp gleam that entered the detective's eyes, Gray's focus pinning on him. He stepped into Natsu's space, and grunted with irritation when he realized the dickweed was still taller than him.
"But aren't you?" Gray asked, his eyebrows lifting with a false air of innocence that made Natsu see red, "What kind of person burns a building down with kids and teenagers inside?"
Natsu felt sick.
He hated to admit it, but Gray was right.
A monster did that.
Gray's smirk turned bitter and cold over Natsu's silence, "Whatever you think is between you and Lucy, it's just something that lives in the moment. Like one of your flames."
"It'll snuff out with the next heavy breeze," The flippant way he spoke about Natsu's burgeoning relationship with Lucy sent a trickle of unease down his stomach, adding to his feeling of nausea.
"You aren't the man she thinks you are," Gray closed his eyes, and for a second Natsu thought he might have looked… remorseful?
The thought vanished the next moment he spoke.
"Whatever you think you have with Lucy, it's going to end the same way it always does," Gray spat. Natsu's jaw tightened as Gray held up his hand, "How did things end for Erza, for Jellal?" His eyes went darker.
"For Lisanna?"
Natsu lashed out in a moment, snagging Gray by his collar, his limbs shaking as he dragged him towards his face. Fury throbbed at his temple, and for the moment Natsu didn't care that Gray was a cop and he was an ex-felon.
"You shut up," Natsu hissed at Gray, "You weren't there when Zancrow and his bastards gave her those burns! You could have helped her!"
Gray wrenched Natsu's hand from his shirt, his eyes dark with satisfaction for dragging some of his innate violence to the surface. There was a flicker of shame behind his dark eyes, as if he knew he had taken it a step too far by bringing the girl into their talk. His buttons were being jammed at lightening speed, and Gray knew what all of them were. It was all he could do not to take a swing at his pretty boy face.
"Fair enough," Gray snapped back, "But the point still stands. How about the others you're conveniently forgetting?"
Here it came. The crux to every problem Natsu had with Gray. The one sticking point in their antagonistic relationship that had turned friends to enemies.
"Me," He sneered, "And Ultear."
Natsu's anger drained from him in a second, leaving him feeling hollow. The mistake that followed him his entire life. A fire he hadn't started, the one that ripped his life apart because he was the one left behind, partially crushed under a fallen wooden beam. But it didn't matter if he wasn't the one to strike the match for it.
He was just as responsible for it as Jellal was.
"She was in that fire, suffocating with me and the kids she was watching that night. I was there, half conscious but I remember you," Gray spat at Natsu, cutting him down inch by inch in a way only his guilt could, "You're lucky all Erza lost was her eye when she went to save my sister!"
Natsu swallowed, feeling as if the air were compressing itself from his lungs. He wanted to ask how Ultear was. He knew she survived, but not without a nasty burn to her back that probably left a large scar. His own tightened and ached at the memory, and the grim reminder of his own scars yanked at his heartstrings. It was only right he suffered the same way Ultear had.
He wanted to know how Gray had found out about Erza being there that night, but didn't have to.
While Gray had gone separate ways from him shortly after Igneel's death, the dark haired teenager had tried to keep an eye on him throughout his rowdy firebug days. It was far away from the games they played as children. Cops and Robbers, with both of them wanting to be the cops. Both wanting to be the good guys.
How far apart had they drifted?
The words hung heavy between them, but Natsu didn't speak them out loud.
"You were the one who called the police that day," Natsu said dully, his eyes lifting back up to Gray's face, "I guess I should thank you for not turning in Erza or Jellal."
An expression close to a yawning pit flashed over Gray's face, furious before closing off.
"And why would I do that?" Gray slid his hands in his pockets, "Salamander was the only one who deserved to get locked up."
"Tell me, what would Lucy think if she knew you set the fire that almost killed my sister?" The temperature of the room dropped about seventy degrees.
Natsu's stomach clenched, his chest feeling tight.
"Relax lover boy, I'm not telling her," Gray muttered, his gaze turning inward with introspection as he studied the window, "It would only hurt her to know that, and I'm not stupid enough to think that would make her stay away from you either."
Grey sighed after a long moment, the anger behind his eyes the coldest Natsu had seen in a while, "you know what bothers me the most? I don't get how you got out of jail so soon. You should have rotted in there longer than seven years."
"Good behavior," responded Natsu, his voice sounding very far away in his own ears. He was scrambling to rebuild his walls, to patch the cracks that formed which made him vulnerable since meeting Lucy. He was just glad Gray was changing the subject from that night, "It's right there in my file."
"Bullshit. You don't know the meaning of the word," Gray deadpanned, "I saw your file, you got into fights almost every other week you were in lockdown. That would have been more than enough to keep you in for another five."
Natsu rolled his shoulders, green eyes flashing to the fathomless black that watched him in return, "maybe I had a guardian angel or somethin' lookin' out for me. What of it?"
"...or something," Gray allowed.
Natsu didn't understand what Gray was getting at, but there was something about the weight in his eyes that worried him.
"There's something dark that follows you wherever you go," Gray gave Natsu a firm glare. His hand darted out to collect his belongings again, turning his back to Natsu as he slid on his harness again and jammed his arms into his jacket. He tightened his tie again, straightening it out with a shake of his hands, "You're a monster and you always will be one."
He headed towards the door and set his hand on the rusty knob, "Keep away from Lucy before she gets caught up in your failures."
He opened the door and snapped it shut behind him, leaving Natsu to his tumultuous thoughts and empty apartment.
And next chapter should be called Fallout hahahaha... The title of it is entirely appropriate though- Carbon Monoxide
Thanks to everyone who reviewed! You guys are the best, and you are really the best! Your responses are often pretty hilarious. I'll address some comments we got before I give you all your personal thanks!
Ideal work for Natsu - Not being in Jail.
Natsu at the Laundromat - that is amazing.
Everyone thought the water fight was gonna lead to teh DIRTIES. Oh you all.
Now there was a comment saying they thought Natsu was "whipped" and they wanted him to have a bit more spunk. He is too mannerly and in control. Sorta? Natsu isn't a teenager anymore, and he's spent the last seven years in jail. He's not as hot headed as he used to be in his youth thanks to the circumstances he grew up in - along with the anger management classes he took in prison which was mentioned earlier. (Not to say he was so great at them... )
But yeah, Natsu isn't the hot headed character you'd see in Fairy Tail. If he puts one toe out of line for picking a fight, especially with a cop like Gray, he can get sent back to jail for longer than seven years. He's an adult now, not a kid, and he struggles with an addiction to fall back into terrible crimes. If Natsu seems 'whipped' to you, it's just because he's screwing his head back onto his shoulders and trying to carve out a life for himself in waters he's never navigated before.
Anyway, just stay tuned, because Natsu isn't going to stay passive forever. Especially not after this chapter. Uhm. Sorry if that turned into a rant. I didn't mean for it to.
THANKS TO EVERYONE WHO REVIEWED! Yuyui Hime - lord287 - GajeelWannabe - vaneanime - BlessYourStar21 - Princessatj - BookAlchemist2 - Mo0nyMoon - CrimsonLightKey - Ksqu4rd - sasukeluver02 - semi-absorbed - Snavej - orchadeia - ftx77x