Natsu knew it was a horrible idea, but Natsu was Natsu. He knew he shouldn't have gone to school with a terrible cold, and he knew he shouldn't have trusted himself riding a bike home after being dismissed while sneezing, stuffy, and sick to his stomach. It wasn't like transportation was going to help the latter. Still, Natsu was Natsu.
He reflected on this while sampling concrete, face planted on the sidewalk at the foot of a hill, body sprawled out in a position too dramatic for the severity of the fall. Breathing a long sigh, he attempted to get up. But alas, his arm, bloody and weak from the effects of his cold, failed him. He flopped to the ground in temporary defeat. Of course, this failure made Natsu more resolute to get himself up. What followed was a series of grunts that accompanied a rhythm of rising and falling so fast that Natsu could've been doing push-ups. After a short time, he gave up and flopped to the ground once more. As he quieted, he could hear a soft laugh behind him.
"Need a hand?" said a familiar voice behind him, cocky with an underlying tone of concern. Natsu's heartbeat quickened our of fear as he guessed who the voice belonged to.
Please, he said to himself. Don't let it be Gray. Gray Fullbuster had been Natsu's rival since kindergarten. Whatever one could do, the other could do better. Gray beat Natsu in the finals of the first grade spelling bee, on the word "rivalry," no less. Natsu had reigned victorious over Gray in 6th grade cross-country, Gray stumbling on a rock right before the finish line. They always seemed to do the same things, and they were always competing with one another. They'd even applied to the same colleges recently.
Natsu's heart nearly exploded in humiliation when he suddenly felt a cold hand touch his shoulder. Defeated, he allowed the hand to help lift himself up. Head hanging heavy, he faced the black-haired owner of the hand and muttered,
"Thanks." He proceeded to go into a loud coughing fit, startling the man before him. He then went over to his bike, lying on a stranger's lawn, and began to try and prop it back up.
"What're you doing, stupid?" Gray chided. "You're not getting back on that thing."
"What am I supposed to do? Walk the full mile home when don't have the strength to pick myself up?" Gray bit his lip in nervous contemplation for a second before speaking.
"Screw it. I'll carry you home."
"You'll what?"
"Look at the sidewalk!" Gray gestured toward the concrete, stained red in large blots from Natsu's drying blood. "I'm not letting you walk home when you hurt yourself that badly. I may hate your guts, but I'm not inhuman. I'd say you'd do the same for me but I doubt you'd be able to carry me more than two feet."
"Is that a challenge?" Natsu said eagerly, hobbling up to Gray with a devilish grin.
"Not now, you idiot! The last thing you need is to drop me and crush yourself. Now come on!"
Natsu grimaced. He was about to rebut in protest when Gray scooped him up and placed Natsu on his back, fireman's carry-style.
"Gray!" Natsu screamed in protest. "What the hell!? Put me down!"
"Is your dad home?" Gray asked, avoiding Natsu's shrieking.
"No, he's on a business trip, as usual. Now put me down, you bastard!" Natsu sneezed on Gray.
"Ok, you're coming to my house. You're too senseless to leave alone."
"I will not hesitate to blow my snot on you, you freak."
"You're so welcome for my help, Natsu!"
Natsu wanted to put up even more of a fight, but everything hurt. Gray's hands gripped Natsu's arms and legs tightly, causing the now-forming bruises to shoot pain through his nerves. From what Natsu could see, blood was trickling down Gray's (of course, bare, the pervert) chest, tinting lines of red in his skin. His main priority being making the pain stop, Natsu let himself go limp on Gray's back. His eyes closed as he entered a land of woozy limbo, half expecting to start dreaming but still feeling the dull pain against his limbs to the rhythm of Gray's walking.
The next time Natsu opened his eyes, he was being slammed onto the guest bed at Gray's house.
"Don't move," Gray ordered, turning around and moving into the bathroom adjacent to the bedroom. He came back with a bottle of hydrogen peroxide, gauze, tape, and paper towels.
"The hell is that?" Natsu asked with disgust, soon having this question answered with the sting of hydrogen peroxide that Gray was applying around his cuts.
"If you hadn't failed chemistry, you may have remembered," Gray muttered against Natsu's cries of pain. Gray eventually stood up again, half frustrated and half concerned.
"How do you feel?"
"It stings." Gray rolled his eyes.
"Want me to kiss it?" he said mockingly, bending down and puckering his lips over one of Natsu's bigger cuts on his leg. Unable to stop his momentum in time, Gray ended up pressing his lips right into Natsu's pool of blood. Gray immediately straightened himself and they both exchanged horrified glances. They both stood transfixed in terror for a good thirty seconds. Then, without a word, Gray began to press gauze down onto Natsu's cuts, sweating from the awkwardness. After another five silent minutes of pressing gauze and taping it, Natsu finally spoke up:
"Um, you missed a cut underneath my chin."
"Damn, only you could manage to get a cut there," Gray said, exhaling and trying to slip back into the tone the conversation had before the incident. He used his finger to prop up Natsu's chin, pressing and taping the last patch of leaking blood.
"There, are we done?" Gray asked Natsu, finger still tilting Natsu's head to look him straight in the eyes. Natsu hesitated for a second before extending his head forward.
Before either of them knew what was happening, some of Natsu's only nerves not plagued by pain were dazzled by the chill of gentle winter's wind enveloping them, and Gray's the warmth that encompassed his skin liked a freshly dried blanket. Natsu immediately turned away, moaning in self-disgust.
"What did I just do?" he cried out despondently.
"Something I never had the balls to," said the familiar voice behind him once again, this time completely comforting - it almost sounded like it'd been liberated, able to speak without a veneer of spite corrupting its purity.
Natsu turned back in amazement, speechless. Eventually, the both of them allowed their utter shock to morph into content smiles.
"You know, Natsu, my parents are gone for the weekend…"
"...And I definitely don't think I can walk home tonight."
"Right! So, if you need to stay here, I suppose I can allow that."
"And aren't people with suspected concussions supposed to have people stay in bed with them the first night? For safety measures?"
"You got a C in biology for a reason, flame brain. But I can stay with you if it'd make you feel better." Gray's eyes narrowed. "And if I stay in bed with you, you'd better hope you don't have a concussion."
"Trust me, ice princess, you'll have a concussion when I'm through with you."
The doorbell to Natsu's house rang. He immediately began beaming and bolted from the couch, but remembered himself halfway through the trek to the door and began to walk as nonchalantly as he could manage.
"Hey," said the raven-haired figure standing in the door as he opened it. "How're you feeling?"
"Much better," the pinket responded. "The cuts are starting to heal nicely."
"So, why'd you ask me to come over?" Natsu led Gray into the kitchen.
"Well, my dad told me over the phone that I had to do something for you for helping me. So.. ta da!" He exclaimed, bursting the doors open to the dining room to reveal a buffet laid out across the table.
"Thanks for your help," Natsu said in a slightly endearing manner, eyes now narrowing, "Especially with keeping me on bedrest." The both ate and talked small talk, eventually leading to the topic of school.
"Oh, I got a college acceptance letter today!" Gray exclaimed.
"I did too!" Natsu proclaimed equally as eagerly. In their excitement, they both blurted out the names of the colleges they'd gotten into, echoing the same word in perfect harmony.
After all they'd competed with one another throughout their lives, they'd come to live by the rule that there could only be one. And truly that day, they did become one, and from that moment on they would never be separated.