Natsu had been prepared for Gray to fight being picked up, or at the very least to moan unhappily. Gray didn't always like being carried like this, even when Natsu felt that Gray needed it, or sometimes that he, Natsu, needed it. Instead, almost worse than fighting, Gray immediately turned into Natsu's chest and hid his face against Natsu's jacket. As Natsu left the building, he could feel Gray squirming around in his arms, trying to get his demon half as hidden as he could.

"I'm sorry, snowflake," Natsu whispered. "I'm so, so, so sorry."

He didn't really think Gray could hear him, and when he looked down at the ice wizard, his eyes were closed. Natsu craned his neck down as far as he could reach, managing to plant a gentle kiss on Gray's temple. Gray's eyelids fluttered, and the corner of his lip twitched in what Natsu thought might have been something like a smile.

Natsu chose a direction and walked for about ten minutes, mostly fueled by rage, before he realized that he didn't really have a plan. He didn't want to stop, because Gray still looked like a demon, although now a very sad, injured demon. If the doctor was anything like the rest of this stupid place, then it probably wouldn't be great if anyone else saw Gray for very long. He needed someplace to go, but Gray was a little taller than him, and even with his Dragon Slayer strength, it was a bit awkward to carry him for long periods of time. So, he needed someplace to go to put Gray down, and then figure out a different, better place to go.

Natsu groaned with frustration. Thinking all this stuff through alone was hard, and he wasn't very good at it.

Gray groaned too, squirming slightly. Natsu looked down at him, and saw that Gray looked tense and uncomfortable.

"Oh man, Gray, are you gonna throw up again?"

Gray groaned.

"Is that a yes or a no? 'Cause it's okay if it's a yes, but I would really, really like to put you down first-"

Gray moaned again. He attempted to hide his face once more in Natsu's jacket, but winced and pulled away.

Right. Natsu naturally ran about one million billion degrees hotter than Gray. And if Gray was already nauseous and sick-feeling and in pain, being tucked against Natsu's boiling hot chest couldn't feel very good at all. Not that Natsu was going to put him down - he still didn't feel that they were far enough away from the stupid doctor, and he doubted Gray could walk very well at all. But….

"Gray, your head hurts?" Natsu confirmed.

"Uhhhh…yeah."

That was bad, but much better than being thrown up on. Natsu could work with that.

"Can you still make ice?"

"Uhhhh…I dunno, Natsu. Why I gotta make ice?"

"You're probably too hot. You need to cool down some. If you make ice, you can put it on your head."

"On my head?"

"Yes. It'll make it hurt less."

Gray still looked both doubtful and confused, but he managed to conjure up a chunk of ice about the size of his hand. He eyed it suspiciously.

"This?"

Natsu was still walking aimlessly, and he was half-paying attention to the ice wizard in his arms, and half to where they were going. "Yeah, Gray, good job. Like that. Now put that on your head like an ice pack. It'll keep it from hurting so bad."

Gray looked disgusted, which made Natsu pretty sure that he had no idea what Natsu was saying.

"Come on, Gray. You love ice."

Gray brightened, giving Natsu a somewhat dazed smile. "Ice? I love ice."

"And you love bein' cold, right?"

Gray concentrated for a minute, staring at the ice block in his hand. "Yeah," he finally decided. "Cold."

"So put it on your head," Natsu said patiently.

"Oooookay," Gray mumbled. "Uhh, where?"

"Your head, Gray. Put it where your head hurts."

"Head hurts," Gray echoed, then put the ice on his forehead. Natsu had meant for him to ice wherever he'd hit his head, but that was apparently beyond Gray at the moment. Still, this was better than nothing.

"Is that helping?" Natsu asked, looking down at his boyfriend. Gray didn't respond, but Natsu could feel the ice wizard relax into his arms as the ice began to melt.

"Good job, Popsicle," Natsu told him softly, then looked up and began to devote his energy to finding where to sit down for a moment. It looked like there was a park up the road a little ways, so Natsu headed for that. It might not be the most private place in the world, but it was certainly better than sitting down in the street, or going into yet another unfriendly business.

The park turned out to be almost empty, and Natsu made a beeline for the first bench he found. He set Gray down with some amount of relief - he had been starting to get heavy. Immediately, Gray rolled over, mimicking the way he'd curled up in Natsu's arms. From the back, his demon side was almost completely hidden.

Natsu stood there and seethed silently for a minute, struggling with the unfairness of it all. When Gray had first gotten the Devil Slayer Magic, Natsu had honestly thought that the demon markings were kind of scary, too. But it hadn't taken him long to realize that it was just the same old Gray, and that had helped a lot. It had still been kind of weird, since his boyfriend looked completely different half the time, but just weird. Not bad, or scary, and certainly not the kind of thing that would make him treat Gray any different. He wished other people could see that. He wished he could make them see that.

But Natsu had never been much good at just standing around wishing. After a second or two, the anger passed, and he sat down next to Gray and pulled his boyfriend's head into his lap.

"Nassu," Gray mumbled, and it sounded like a protest but he didn't follow it up with anything. Natsu chose to ignore this, and stayed where he was.

He needed somewhere to take Gray. At this point, it was pretty clear that Gray wasn't going to magically get better in a matter of hours, and Natsu couldn't just sit with him on this park bench until it happened. He'd tried and failed to get Gray medical care, so that was out. The next best step would be to get him back to Magnolia, but they'd taken a train in for the job. In the state he was in right now, Natsu knew there was no way he could count on Gray to get them off the train at the right stop. And a doctor was out - small towns like this didn't usually have more than one. Any other doctor Natsu might have been able to take Gray to would have only been accessible by train, which brought Natsu right back to square one.

Natsu probably needed to call and get someone from Fairy Tail to pick them up. But the sky was turning purplish at the edges, which meant that it wouldn't be long before the trains stopped running. Someone could be there for them tomorrow, but not tonight. Which meant that they needed somewhere to stay. Even at the best of times, spending a night on a park bench wasn't an option. And when Gray was like this…Natsu didn't even want to think about it.

"Alright, Gray," Natsu said. "We're going to a hotel."

"Bleah," Gray said. "Why?"

"Because we need to call someone to come get us, and they won't be able to get here tonight. And because you need rest."

Gray uncurled a little bit, and peered at Natsu. His brow was furrowed. "Get us?" he whispered.

"Yeah. Like come pick us up. Erza or someone. We can't make it back on a train by ourselves."

Gray grimaced. "Yeah. Pro'ly not."

Natsu didn't know for sure that Gray was actually understanding, but he liked to imagine that he was.

"But they won't be able to make it until tomorrow. So we need to find somewhere for you to sleep. Man, you still can't put that devil stuff away, can you?"

"I don't think so," Gray said sadly. "I keep tryin' but…I think it's stuck."

"That's okay. Let's…gosh, I guess we're gonna have to put you in a cloak or something. Are you alright with that? I don't want the same thing that happened when we tried to take you to the doctor to happen when we try to rent a room."

"I like cloaks," Gray said.

Natsu knew that Gray liked cloaks, but that didn't really seem to matter, because it simply wasn't fair that Gray had to wear one. This town was stupid for being mean to Gray. He clearly wasn't a demon, and the pattern was only even still out because it had gotten stuck when he'd hit his head.

"This town is mean," Natsu said.

"Yeah."

Natsu rummaged around in his backpack until he found the cloak that Gray used when it was raining - it would cover his arms, chest, and most of his face. "Let's get you into this."

"Okay," Gray whispered, but didn't make any move to get up. As gently as he could, Natsu tugged on Gray's arm, eventually managing to pull him upright. Gray sat up on the bench, swaying gently, his head hanging low.

"Just stay there a minute, okay?" Natsu asked, and managed to wrap the cloak around Gray. Gray didn't really try to help and eventually, Natsu fastened the cloak underneath Gray's chin. It felt kind of weird to be doing this, instead of letting Gray do it himself, but the ice wizard was clearly in no shape to be helping. Natsu doubted he would even be able to get his fingers to hold onto the clasp.

Natsu pulled the hood up, over Gray's head, and examined him. Most of Gray's skin really was covered, and the part of his face that could be seen under the cloak could easily be mistaken for shadows. If someone saw Gray like this, Natsu didn't think they would be suspicious.

Of course, that was assuming that Gray could keep the cloak on. And with Gray, that was kind of a big assumption.

"Hey," Natsu said, kneeling down until he could see Gray's eyes underneath the hood. "Can you hear me, Gray?"

"Yeah," Gray said softly.

"I need you to keep the cloak on, okay? Even if you get hot, or if it's uncomfortable. I just need ya to wear it until we get in the room, because it's hiding your markings."

"Alright," Gray whispered, dipping his head low enough that Natsu couldn't find his eyes. "Gotta…keep the cloak on."

Gray understood what Natsu had told him. There was no question of that, because he sounded too damn sad not to have got it. His head was still hanging, his shoulders bunched up beneath the cloak.

"It's not your fault, okay?" Natsu told him desperately. "You didn't do nothin' wrong. It's all these people. They're stupid, and they're mean, and they…they don't know you at all. Okay?"

"Okay, Natsu." Gray still sounded sad, and sick, and tired. "Sure."

Natsu rubbed his hand along Gray's shoulders, squeezing the right one. "I'm sorry, baby, but can you walk?"

Natsu would rather scoop Gray back into his arms and carry him into the hotel like a princess, but he knew that would draw way too much attention. For one, if this town hated demons so much, Natsu still wasn't convinced that they didn't hate gay people, too. The last thing they needed was to add on another reason to be turned away.

"Yeah, I can walk," Gray said. He sounded a little angry, which wasn't that unusual. He often got a little angry when he was in pain. "You just didn' let me try before."

"Okay, well I need you to try now."

Natsu stood, and watched as Gray heaved himself to his feet. The process clearly took an amount of effort. The concussion seemed to have shot his sense of balance, and he was swaying like a drunk. Natsu watched as Gray shot out a hand, blindly searching for anything to steady himself. Natsu resisted the urge to grab him. He wasn't actually going to let Gray fall, but he did want to know if Gray could stand under his own power, or if that was too much to ask of him.

Gray managed to catch his balance. He gave Natsu a stiff nod, and immediately looked like he regretted it.

"Alright, Snowflake," Natsu said. "The center of town is back this way. We weren't planning on staying overnight, so I don't exactly have a hotel picked out. But I'm sure there will be at least one or two. Hopefully they'll have rooms left. If they don't…."

Natsu trailed off. He wasn't exactly sure what was going to happen if they couldn't get a room. After that, Natsu would be pretty much out of backup plans.

Best not to think about it.

It was no more than a ten minute walk to reach the town center that Natsu had seen earlier, and from there it took about another five minutes to locate a small inn. Small, but not too small - hopefully even at short notice, there would be rooms available.

Natsu ushered Gray in through the front doors, and then immediately started looking for a place to sit him down. He had been flagging during the last half of the walk, stumbling farther and farther behind until Natsu had thought there was a decent chance he wouldn't be able to stay upright on his own anymore. But he had made it - barely - and Natsu really wanted to get him seated.

There was a little bench a little ways back from the front desk - perfect. Natsu led Gray over to it.

"You can rest here," Natsu said quietly. "Just…sit up straight. And keep that cloak on, remember? And don't say anything."

"Yep," Gray whispered, so quietly no one but Natsu could hear.

Natsu resisted the urge to give Gray a kiss on the cheek, instead settling for patting his shoulder and heading for the front desk. He tried not to look back at Gray too many times either. If he made it too obvious that he was worried about Gray, people would probably wonder why he hadn't taken Gray to the doctor. And since Natsu didn't exactly have an answer to that question, he didn't want it asked at all.

Mercifully, getting the room itself was easy enough. The front desk clerk had told him that because it was so last minute, the room was pretty small (Natsu didn't care), there was only one bed (better that way), and the room itself didn't have a bathroom, but shared one with other neighbors in the hall (not ideal, but fine). Mostly, Natsu was just relieved to have access to a private place where Gray could relax, and not worry about anyone looking at him weird.

Natsu tried not to look too desperate as he took the key and headed back towards Gray. Gray saw him coming and wobbled to his feet, and for a horrible moment Natsu thought he would fall. Somehow, Gray righted himself, and after he stopped swaying, he started to walk towards Natsu.

"Room's this way," Natsu told him, trying to sound casual, the way you would talk to a guildmate. Not the way you would talk to your concussed demon boyfriend, who might get stressed and take off his clothes at any second if he forgot what was going on.

Gray didn't answer, which was actually kind of a relief. Maybe he'd remembered Natsu's instructions to stay quiet and unobtrusive. Or maybe, his concussion had scrambled his brains worse than Natsu thought, and this was the final head injury he'd needed to end up with really severe brain damage.

Natsu decided he didn't really want to think about that. Instead, he set off down the hallway towards their room. It was on the first floor, which was a relief, because he couldn't even imagine trying to climb stairs with Gray in his current state.

The room was about halfway down the hallway, with the bathroom at the far end. That probably wouldn't matter, since Natsu had a first aid kit in their gear, and they only planned to be here until the morning anyway. Gray leaned awkwardly against the wall as Natsu opened the door, and then stumbled inside after Natsu.

As soon as Gray was inside, Natsu shut the door and locked it. Gray was already sprawled across the bed, cloak discarded as he tried to burrow headfirst under the blankets.

"Hey, wait a second, Gray," Natsu said. "I know ya don't like the light right now, but I gotta try to fix you up some."

"No," Gray said.

"No to what?"

"No. Just…no."

"You don't want to feel better?"

Gray tilted his head toward Natsu and frowned. "Is that what I said?"

"Basically, yeah."

"Oh."

"So you do want to feel better, right?" Neither Natsu nor Gray were excellent conversationalists at the best of times, and talking to Gray when he was like this had the tendency to have Natsu spinning around in circles.

"Yeah," Gray said slowly.

"So…you gotta sit up."

"Even though there's light?"

"Yeah, Gray. Sorry."

With some effort, Gray pulled himself into a sitting position, half-slumped against the head of the bed. Natsu got the first aid kit out of his luggage. "I was hoping the doctor could do this stuff," Natsu said. "But I guess I can do some of it. Gray, do you know where your head got hit?"

Gray groaned.

"Where does it hurt?" Natsu prompted again. Digging through the mass of hair to find the wound would be possible, but Gray's hair was so thick that it didn't sound very easy. "Where did you hit your head?"

"Here," Gray said with a sigh. He lifted a tired-looking hand and pointed at a spot at the back of his head. Natsu reached back and carefully adjusted Gray's head so he was looking at his knees, and started feeling around. Sure enough, there was a pretty nasty bump back there, crusted with dried blood. Gray flinched when Natsu touched it.

"I'm sorry, I didn't realize there was a cut back here. I'm gonna wash it out, okay?"

Natsu wet a corner of a pillowcase with water from his water bottle, and started dabbing at Gray's wound. Gray hissed occasionally, but aside from that, he sat still and let Natsu work. Natsu cleaned it out as best he could, thought about bandaging it, and then decided against it. The wound hadn't started bleeding again when he'd cleaned it out, and the first aid kit was pretty small. He didn't have any rolls of gauze, just the sticky kind. If Gray ended up having to get a haircut because Natsu had stuck a load of bandaids in his hair, he would never forgive him.

Natsu smeared some disinfectant on it and decided to leave it alone. It probably wasn't what a doctor would do, but Natsu hadn't been able to get one to look at Gray. They were stuck with Natsu's fairly limited medical knowledge, which at this point had pretty much run dry.

The only other thing Natsu was sure on was pain medication. Their first aid kit was plenty well stocked with that, since Natsu usually took a higher dose to combat his Dragon Slayer tolerance. He shook a few pills out of the bottle and handed them to Gray, who blinked at them sleepily.

"They're for the pain," Natsu said. "Does your head still hurt?"

"Yepppp," Gray confirmed, then tipped his head back. Natsu caught his wrist as Gray went to dry swallow the pills, pulling it back to center.

"Natsu," Gray mumbled, frowning at him.

"That's gonna make you feel sicker," Natsu told him. He was well acquainted with the dangers of taking pain medication on an empty stomach, especially when that stomach was already queasy. "You gotta take it with something."

Natsu held out the water bottle he'd used for wetting the pillowcase. It was still pretty full, which was good. From the clumsy way Gray was holding the pills, he might end up spilling a lot of it. "Drink some water."

"Nghh," Gray said, wrinkling up his nose. "Gross."

Natsu looked down at the water, which was…just water. "Gray…what?"

"Gross," Gray muttered. "Don' wanna."

Natsu sighed and uncapped the water bottle. "Gray, you drink water all the time. You gotta take some for the meds, or you're gonna choke."

"Bleah," Gray said, but he took the water bottle from Natsu and managed to drink a little. He swallowed the pills, too, gagging a little as they went down. "C'n…c'n I sleep now?"

"Soon," Natsu promised. "I want you to drink a little more water first, okay?"

Gray looked at him with betrayal in his eyes, then down at the water bottle. "Natsu…."

"Wait 'til we get to the beef jerky I'm gonna make you eat."

Inexplicably, Gray brightened at that. "I like jerky.""

"Well…good," Natsu said. He frankly wasn't sure how else to respond.

He forced a few pieces of jerky into Gray, who looked a lot less enthused about the whole thing once they were actually in his mouth. He pulled Gray's hair back from his face with a scrap of fabric, since Gray didn't like the way he looked with hair half-covering his eyes and dark streaks on his face. He was careful to avoid the wound as he did it, but Gray winced anyway.

Once all that was done, Gray asked if they could go back to Fairy Tail before he went to sleep. Natsu once more went over the situation, but he wasn't sure how much really stuck. Gray was blinking heavily, slumped sideways with exhaustion, and it was clear that any lucidity that he had still possessed was pretty much gone.

"Sleep," Natsu said. "Just sleep."

Gray yawned. "Yeah," he mumbled, eyes slipping closed. Natsu eased him down onto the bed, slipped a pillow under his head in a way he hoped was comfortable, and covered Gray up with a thin blanket. By the time all that was done, Gray already seemed to be fast asleep.

It was a little after the time Natsu would normally eat dinner, so he didn't feel the need to fall asleep quite yet. Also, he still hadn't actually gotten in touch with anyone from Fairy Tail. He went out into the dingy hallway of the hotel, so he wouldn't disturb Gray. He thought briefly about who to call for help, and settled on Erza, because she was the best driver.

Erza was understandably concerned when she received the call from Natsu. She asked him repeatedly if he needed her to somehow commandeer a car and make it out that night, but he told her he didn't. At this point, Gray was already fast asleep, and he thought a full night of rest would be better for him in the long term than seeing a doctor six hours sooner. And anyways, Natsu really wasn't sure how much a doctor could do at this point - Gray either had brain damage or he didn't. Natsu mostly just wanted to be home.

Erza promised that she would be there the next day, as early as she could make it. Natsu thanked her, and then made small talk for a little bit, since it was still early and he really didn't want to go to sleep. But Erza probably had stuff she wanted to be doing that wasn't talking with Natsu, so eventually, he let her go.

Natsu wandered back into the hotel room after that. He had hoped that the black markings on Gray's arms, chest, and face would fade as he fell deeper asleep. But that hadn't happened yet. At this point, Natsu doubted that it would. Natsu had no idea how long Gray would be stuck with the markings. Natsu had seen them trigger due to stress sometimes, so maybe they would vanish when Gray stopped being stressed. Or maybe he had hit his head so hard that now he would have them out forever.

Natsu…wasn't sure how he felt about that. He didn't really mind the markings. Sometimes, usually when Gray was doing really intense magic, he even thought they were pretty cool. But he saw the way they made people look at Gray, and this town alone was a great example of Fiore's general prejudice against anything remotely demon-related. For Gray's sake (and more selfishly, for his own), he didn't want him to have to deal with that everywhere he went. He would pull away, probably from Fairy Tail, maybe even from Natsu.

Instinctively, Natsu crawled into bed next to Gray and grabbed him tight, pulling him close. He buried his face in Gray's hair, breathing his boyfriend's smell in and telling himself that everything would be okay. Erza would come with the car, Gray's markings would vanish, and they'd never have to see this stupid town again. Gray didn't have brain damage, he was just kind of concussed, but he'd be better in a few days. Natsu just had to wait a little bit. And in the meantime, they could both use some rest.