Even The Dragon King Has Feelings

by Don Cheadle

Natsu gave his everything to defeat Zeref and Acnologia, pushing himself even when he had nothing left, drawing from tomorrow's strength even when every last reserve had been tapped dry. In the peace that follows, the new 'Dragon King' is left truly exhausted. Now the members of Fairy Tail find out that they don't know their strongest mage as well as they thought. (AU)

18. Eighteen

Alright, here's what should be the last of the mega chapters for a little bit, I promise after this chapter the pace picks up a bit and the chapter after the next one will be a pure Edolas piece that I think you guys will love. I have some chapter re-writes on the far horizon, 1 and 5 being what I have planned for now, maybe 11 as well. But finishing this night and getting back to Edolas stuff will take first priority.

Next chapter will be smaller and more tight, so it should come out quicker, and the chapter after that will be as I said a purely Edolas focused one before we come back for this story-line's final. We've been on a bit of a slow burn story wise, and this should be the last of the 'sit around and talk plus flashback' chapters for a while.

Also new thing, on some chapters, I will provide a soundtrack to listen to if you want, I think it adds a lot to the experience. Sometimes there is one song, sometimes I got a playlist, either way Spotalike came in clutch for providing fitting music from properties I've never heard of.

Here's the playlist in order, since I can't link one on this site, you have to create it yourself:

1. Tunc Cakir - Blue Room

2. Outer Wilds - The River River's End

3. Hans Zimmer - Reduction

4. Outer Wilds - Reprise

5. Iron Man 3- Isolation

Any who, sorry for the long author's note, hope you enjoy and feel free to review! Please I'm fucking begging you review for the love of god.

You know the drill, 10 reviews, next chapter comes out, we are currently at 1.

---

Campfire.

Whenever Sting thought of Natsu and everything he was, that was the first thing that came to mind.

Larcade had droned on and on about how Natsu was supposed to be the 'end of all stories'.

Campfire had a better ring to it.

Standing by and watching Natsu as he lamely sat atop the angles of Sabertooth's shingled rooftops gave Sting a minute to think about… well, everything.

He had guided Natsu up here, sat him down on the rusty brown slopes and told him that he was going to get something and he'd be back in a few minutes.

With his speed Sting was back in a few seconds, but he lingered out of view, to see what Natsu did when he thought he was alone.

On any other day, Natsu would have sensed him, and it's not like hiding behind a two meter tall brick chimney not too far away was a valid hiding spot to begin with.

But tonight, Natsu didn't. His nostrils didn't flare, his ears didn't twitch, his eyes didn't dart. No sigh got caught behind his teeth.

Natsu just… sat there.

No wistful gaze out past into the modest Magnolia skyline before him, no quiet moment where he closed his eyes and inhaled the scent of forest skies that drifted along the air high above the patchwork of rooftops.

Natsu sat there, shoulders slumped, hands limp in his lap, and just stared.

At what, Sting wasn't sure. Not at the courtyard below, nor at the gallery of cosmic jewels above.

There was no purpose to his absent look, not like before on the streets, no troubled scrunch of his features, no crinkling of his scars with guilt.

Yet, Sting didn't rethink calling all that a campfire.

Most probably saw the wild pink hair first, some would linger on one specific quality about his hot blooded personality, and others would just focus on his endless energy and the infamous reputation it brought.

But Sting had gotten to see more of Natsu than most people, including his own guild. And campfire is what Sting settled on.

Always there, always burning, always smiling.

A beacon of hope and optimism that helped bring out the most in the remarkable individuals who sought shelter besides it.

There was no shame in crouching next to that steady campfire when the world got too dour, too bleak, as Sting had seen so many people, stoic, guarded people, do it so many times.

No reason to be cautious, no need for walls, it was just the campfire. Most thought the campfire had the attention span of a goldfish, so in their minds it wasn't like the campfire would tell anyone anything.

Some of the most amazing people in the world had all chosen the campfire's radiant smile as a battery to draw energy from, a vault to entrust their hopes and dreams and futures and worries to.

And if someone was willing to stick around and actually listen to the campfire's spry song, Sting knew they'd find wisdom and encouragement within the sputter of the flames.

They'd find that the campfire believed in them more than they could possibly believe in themselves.

Put in enough work, get into enough trouble, have enough fun, and the campfire would tell you that nothing was beyond your reach.

Some complained it was too hot, that the campfire didn't know where to properly direct the flow of its thick smoke, that the campfire was too focused on being able to burn the hottest, or that the campfire didn't understand when its blaze wasn't needed.

But that never stopped anyone from popping a squat next to it for a few minutes, or getting lost in the bonfire's swirls of autumn color while they got their thoughts in order.

Sting understood some of those complaints, he had grown up with the campfire too, he knew the campfire wasn't perfect.

The campfire had gotten warmer though. Not many noticed, but it had.

Day by day, sometimes by a little, most of the time by a lot, the campfire gradually learned how to temper its burn, how to properly direct its smoke, when to rage unabated and when to sit back and merely sizzle.

The cold winds of the world had blown as hard they could to put the campfire out, it had sent everything it had to try and stomp it to pathetic cinders.

The campfire responded by finding more logs for the pyre so that it could burn even harder.

The campfire didn't lead in the traditional sense, the campfire didn't have the answers or solutions to every problem, a lot of the time the campfire couldn't keep out all the cold or shy away all the world's evils.

But the campfire never stopped trying to keep everyone warm.

When war came for modest Fiore, that campfire burned brighter than it ever had before, so that the extraordinary Fairy Tail could do extraordinary things.

Now, the future was ensured for the time being. War torn country sides and besieged cities began to heal, and the world returned to its usual random whimsy.

The people who had once huddled around the campfire were free to go off and build their futures, pursue their dreams, go on even more wacky adventures, and enjoy the fun and trouble their chaotic lives brought.

Sting was happy, truly, about that, seeing all these wonderful people enjoy their hard earned peace. They had done it. They had won the war. They had defended their way of life.

The people of Fiore would rebuild, and they had fought hard for their right to do so.

Sting took comfort in that, most of the wounds and sacrifices would mend and heal.

It was a universal constant, people would come together to pick up the shattered pieces of peace no matter how numerous they were.

Then Sting looked at the other constant.

The campfire.

He didn't find much left of it.

Few worried for the campfire, even fewer worried for very long. The campfire would be the first to tell you, not to worry, not to fuss, it had only begun to get fired up.

There was no need for tears when someone trampled the campfire, and if the tears did fall, the campfire would just flare its warmth to dry them.

It glowed so warm it fooled even the most compassionate hearts.

That was the campfire's biggest flaw, in Sting's opinion. Bigger than the impulsiveness, bigger than the stubbornness.

It had successfully taught those that borrowed its warmth that no matter what, it would be fine.

After all, it would always be burning.

No matter what.

Now people did worry, they worried a lot, and they worried hard. The campfire was good, but it wasn't that good.

But in the end, they never worried for very long.

Because if there was one thing the campfire was better at keeping people from worrying, was getting them to stop.

It was hard for Sting to be angry at anyone who believed its boisterous crackling.

Because when things were at their worst, Sting found himself believing the farce those flames crackled just like everyone else.

He believed it.

It.

It?

It.

That was why. That was why people were fooled.

The campfire was an 'it', it was 'the' personified power of a guild's bonds, it was 'a' breathing representation of a family's endless loyalty.

An amalgamation of the Fairy Tail guild's will, its rowdy sense of adventure brought to life, its trust and bonds turned to flesh and blood.

It would take the muscular shape of a loyal fire dragon slayer with cherry blossom bangs atop his head, a scaled shawl around his neck, and a goofy smile that warned of mischief and adventure.

It'd forge a mythical Salamander, knuckles hissing with fire and onyx eyes glowing with impossible tenacity, whose raucous dragon roar melted everyone's bones and sent clouds running for the horizon.

If Fairy Tail was a person, it'd probably be one Natsu Dragneel.

A few important things in Sting's head clicked at that, and while he knew he wasn't close to solving much of the puzzle Natsu was left with, he did know where to find a few pieces.

Sting understood he was Sabertooth now, he needed to be, not in a sense of importance, but in the aspect of representation.

Sting was the guild master, he was the snarling saber-toothed tiger, blonde fur bristling, curved fangs glistening, and hungry belly roaring.

If Makarov was the source of the things Natsu protected, Fairy Tail's wisdom and compassion, then Sting understood he needed to be Sabertooth's hunger and drive to earn those qualities.

That was a weight, a pressure, an indescribable force that now called Sting's shoulders home that tried to drag him down into the dirt.

To do more. To give more.

To make sure that no one would ever have to wonder if the same pressure would have pulled them under.

It was a responsibility to Sting, and an urge to Natsu. But a burden for both nonetheless.

A guild master for a guild looking to shake a cruel past, and an eternal campfire burning forever to ensure a family's warmth.

The differences between him and Natsu though is that Natsu never failed to be the campfire, and Sting knew that he could share this specific burden with someone every bit as strong as he was.

The last part of that difference was when Sting's understanding deepened, and his train of thought smoothly quickened its pace. Well it wasn't really his train, it was Natsu's.

His troubled stares, his fussy inquiries, the sudden giving of gifts, his sharp as a blade outbursts, they were all for them. For Fairy Tail.

Even now, even after everything, Natsu was still trying to be the campfire.

Trying to tell everyone not to worry, not to feel bad, trying to squash out the pity and guilt before it had a chance to fully sprout.

But Natsu couldn't play that 'I'm fine' card. His episode downstairs meant that there was no milking the denial phase for all it was worth.

Which meant Sting had no more excuses either.

If it took just a few minutes of basic empathy for the confusing mess of signals coming from Natsu to start making a lick of sense, then Sting didn't get to hide anymore.

He couldn't hide behind the excuses of an upcoming war, nor the needed time of peace afterwards.

Natsu wasn't alright.

Avoiding that reality meant not thinking about Anna, about Weisslogia, about the war, about the fact he and the other dragon slayers were actually from 400 years in the past.

Sting avoided all that, and so much more, because doing otherwise meant acknowledging his indomitable larger than life older brother could be worn down just like everyone else.

Natsu's strong warm voice could waver, his bright eyes could die out, and the person he spent his entire life looking up to could end up a shivering ball on his guildhall floor.

Even someone as tough as Natsu could be in pain.

That hurt. A lot. Maybe as much as losing Dad.

Sting had inadvertently caused his brother to have a panic attack, and now he was standing there like a dumbass, unsure what to do other than sit there and think.

He needed to do something.

He wasn't Lisanna, hell he wasn't even Yukino, but it was time to start acting like Natsu's brother.

Natsu shuffled in his spot, making the ceramic roof shingles he sat on clank against each other as he brought up his shoulders and straightened his back.

That look he had been wearing was the same one from downstairs, Sting noticed.

A look of an occupied mind.

However, this time, Sting could claim to at least know something that was going on in Natsu's head.

Shouldering his weight against the chimney, Sting remained peeking out from behind it, watching as Natsu rubbed his face before reaching for his back pocket.

That wallet Sting had milked so much conversation from came back out, Natsu's still shaky fingers digging through the folds to pull out the pictures from before.

Natsu was so lost in them he didn't hear the creeping footfalls from the approaching Sting, who leaned over his shoulder in hopes of snatching a few glances.

The array of photos of Asuka had come back out, and as Natsu slowly sorted through them all, life returned to puff his posture and curl his lips.

That was all it took, for Natsu to come back, come back from that place he had gone to downstairs.

Sting had been wondering how Natsu would do it this time, how he would somehow drag himself back together to keep going.

A few photos of his niece seemed to get the job done just fine.

Sting didn't realize he was smiling too, and as he wore that quiet grin, an idea struck him.

Commotion behind him plucked Natsu from his brief felicity, and he glanced above his shoulder to see Sting standing over him, wearing that same bright smile from downstairs.

Demure ivory moonlight rained down quiet color onto the two, mixing with the faint amber twinkles of neighboring cities that dotted the horizon all around them.

Something long and glistening was in Sting's hand, and it took a moment for Natsu to realize what it was despite it being held right in front of his nose.

A bottle.

Natsu's brows creased.

A beer.

So that's what he had went to go get.

He sent Sting an almost hazy look, to which Sting all but wiggled his eyebrows at, shaking the beer he had in his other hand almost invitingly.

Natsu eventually took it, stuffing his pictures of his niece back into his wallet as Sting made himself comfortable atop the ceramic roof ridge he sat on.

Sting knew Natsu wasn't the drinking type, not only could he not get drunk, but there were probably a lot of sour experiences with it that kept him away.

But, two guys on a roof with a couple of beers? Tried and tested.

If rubbing alcohol fixed outside boo-boos, than drinking alcohol fixed inside boo-boos.

The caps came off, and Sting raised his bottle slightly, letting Natsu clink his own against it.

They both downed a few swigs, and Sting was content to let Natsu keep resting under the gentle silence, disturbed every so often by distant barking and the rushing of water seeping through Magnolia's ports.

Somehow, it was quieter up here.

Quieter than the deathly still and slumbering guild hall down below.

As the tangy liquid slid down Sting's throat, his eyes traced the rooftops, the smoke bubbling from the chimneys atop them floating up to sometimes block the amber glow of a street light here and there.

To think that when the sun crawled back up over the curved horizon, the world would go back to its chaotic whimsy.

Well, boy's night meant that for him, for Rogue and Gray and Natsu and Gajeel, the moon taking its place in the sky didn't mean shenanigans ended.

Wonderful memories rode in on a sweet moist breeze, twinged with the taste of valley fields.

It had been so eerie seeing lively towns and cities devoid of their pulse when they had first started training so late at night.

Now, the sight before him wasn't Magnolia, tucked under the blankets of darkness for a full night's sleep, but an empty playground for trouble for him and his brothers to get into after they were done training.

Sting greatly preferred planning the next adventure than reminiscing on the old ones, but right now he genuinely hoped Natsu was going back to the same memories he was.

The way Natsu was blankly staring at his beer bottle as he turned it between his palms told Sting he wasn't.

Sting balanced his beer on his raised knee and sighed, once more scrabbling his thoughts together.

What he was about to say was more important than any one bit of advice he had given all night.

"I know that you have something to be." Sting stated softly, letting his voice and the knowledge it shared speak up over the snoring streets of Magnolia.

The cords of Natsu's neck stiffened as he forced down a gulp of beer, his eyes practically limping over to him.

Sting rotated his shoulder, as if adjusting the weight of the guild mark on it, "It doesn't matter that it's heavy, it matters that we carry it. I know that. You showed me that."

"I need you to understand Natsu, that I ain't trying to take that away, o-or keep you from being what ya worked so hard to be."

Natsu remained wordless, what little spurts of abrasive incensed energy that had thrown him into those rants downstairs surely gone.

He just turned to show Sting his ear, still slumped with posture he'd never caught dead having by his guild.

"Something I work on everyday, something Rogue taught me, is remembering that everybody is fightin' something," Sting caught his tipping beer before it could slide off his knee cap, tapping the base of the bottle against the ceramic shingles they sat on.

"Everyone has a battle going on that only they can fight, n' understanding that is what makes someone worth bein' around."

Sting coughed into the crook of his elbow over the distant whispering of chimney perched crows.

"It breaks my heart ya know? Hearing bout' all the stuff your guild has been through, Erza being forced into slavery, Gray losing his parents then his teacher, Lucy growing up with a bad dad and no mother, and Wendy being raised by a guild that didn't even really exist."

That didn't even scratch half of it when it came to Fairy Tail, and that realization would never fail to lance Sting with a soft ache in his belly.

Yukino called those 'tummy aches for soft hearts only'.

Then came the pasts of his own guild, of his silver rose Yukino, of his friends Rufus and Orga and Dobongal.

Apparently Dobongal hadn't been hugged since his mother died when he was a little boy, and now he only let Yukino and the exceeds touch him.

Orga didn't find himself worthy enough to have the title 'god slayer' anymore after his loss at the Grand Magic Games, and hadn't used the title since.

Rufus had lost his two little sisters to a disease that had been running in his family for generations, a disease that he may be genetically prone to getting as well later in his life.

It would take a long time for Minvera to shake off her father's rotten conditioning about power and control, and without Lisanna's friendship Sting doubted Yukino would have ever gotten her confidence back.

Him and Rogue were in a bit of a rough patch, but losing the father's they thought they had killed, never being able to get those erased altered memories back, they both thought about that more than they would care to admit.

"I'm still learning about new battles, like what Gray's out there doing," Sting's voice wavered on the cusp of a shudder as he slowly shook his head at the sky, "T-that's still… that's still a bombshell."

It may have been slipped into the plodding flow of casual small talk, coming before and after his and Natsu's usual nonsensical banter, but it took an active effort not to think back to that.

Even after everything that had followed.

Sting knew he had blood on his hands, plenty, he would even go as far to say he could end a life with more ease than even someone like Minerva.

But to go out into the world, to go out and…

Sting rubbed hard at the bridge of his nose to refocus, it didn't matter.

He didn't want to know, nor did he need to.

"What I'm tryna say is that, I know a lot of people's pain, I make an effort to," Sting looked back to Natsu to lance him with something he hoped could match that earnest care that could inhabit Natsu's face at a moments notice, "but…. but I don't know yours."

Sting had no one but himself to blame for that.

He should know, he had been there that night Igneel fell, he had fought in the same war, he should know. It should be obvious, especially given his guild's battle against Larcade, but it wasn't.

Sting had let himself be fooled just like everyone else when he more than most, more than a lot of Natsu's own guild, should know better.

"You're playing damage control." Sting stated, having finally untangled some of Natsu's troubled stares and odd questions.

If Sting had to guess, that was why Natsu asked for his thoughts to begin with.

Natsu stopped fiddling with the tassels that ended his pant legs, broken from his torpor, and sighed.

He didn't send Sting a fierce eyed stare to lance him with a warning, nor did he look away with a grumble and pout. Nothing but exhaustion guttered behind his expression.

"I'm not gonna try and stop you," that caused Natsu to perk, tucking one leg under the other and straightening his spine.

"If you wanna go off, keep convincing everybody that you're fine whatever all that entails, I won't say a word." Sting reaffirmed, shrugging, then sipping his beer.

Yeah, Sting didn't think he was much of a beer guy either. Cream sodas would have been the better pick.

"But," the pause for effect was effective enough to keep Natsu's gaze on him, "I want somethin' in return."

Natsu waited for the penny to drop, unsure what to make of the taste of alcohol in his mouth if his slight grimace was anything to go by.

Sting pushed a few forehead bangs back with a forearm before turning to face him, all but pleading, "I want ya to talk to me."

The first words Natsu spoke since they got up here were painfully hoarse, drier than the sound of their heels grinding against the hard rooftop every time either of them shuffled.

"I already have been talkin' to you."

Sting's lips flattened, "No man," he denied gently, "We've been talking, yeah, but about other people n' how you are fussin' over them. The most we talked about you specifically was when I found out you don't even have a freaking birthday."

Sting was sure there had been parts of the story he was told downstairs that Natsu had left out.

What or who did he get into a spat with Erza over?

Why did that make Erza, and Mirajane, feel the need to challenge Gray?

Hell, why did Natsu even find himself on a job with Juvia anyhow?

All answers omitted because even now, even when Natsu was doing the closest thing possible to asking for help, he still felt the need to try to make things seem better than they appeared.

"Ya got Erza a gnarly new sword, you even said it yourself you'll do something for Mirajane, and like, we both know you went out and cooked somethin' up for Juvia." Sting tried to refocus, listing off the people Natsu would try or had succeeded in fooling.

"Hey, if you need help doing something for Gray, I'll even help again-"

"Wait, wait, how did you- what makes you think I did something for Juvia?" Natsu had all but abandoned his beverage, setting it down next to his hip as he sent Sting a furrow-browed stare.

A nearly pluckish grin rose on Sting's cheeks as chuffed, "C'mon dude, I know you, you're a feral gift giver."

"Besides, think of today's timeline; you and Juvia come back to see the fight, all that goes down, you talk to Erza and Mirajane, cool down by taking Asuka to the zoo I'm assuming before you came to me to ask in a favor." he laid out his reasoning, as well as commandeering Natsu's barely touched beer.

"So between that, and giving Erza the sword, there's a good six or like seven hour window I'd say. Ain't no way you didn't do something with that time."

Natsu huffed, back to picking at the scar tapering around his nostril with another pout.

Being read like a book by someone other than Lisanna was probably new to him.

Sting appeased him with a quick back rub, "I may have some thoughts on what you are trying to accomplish by doing it, but the gesture itself is-"

"I wasn't trying to make her stop worryin', I'd prefer if she did, but," Natsu cut him off, softly, rubbing his lower bicep, "She helped. I wasn't fibbin' on that. A-and… and I wanted to do something to let her know how much I appreciated it."

Sure, the sword to Erza may have been there to convince her that all was right in their relationship, as Sting had put together, but at the end of the day that gift at its core was simply Natsu showing affection to someone he loved oh so dearly.

"Right, right, sorry, shoulda' given you the benefit of the doubt," Sting receded with just as much softness as his hand slipped up Natsu's back to ruffle his salmon mess of bangs.

As both he and Natsu idly watched a few spindly stray cats hop up onto the marble saber tooth tiger statues in the courtyard below, Sting couldn't help but ask.

"So, what'd ya get her?"

---

One week later…

---

"Gajeel… this is a lot of money."

"Uh-huh, I was able ta' sniff that out."

"Like, my word, how did he get this much? A-and, and, he just gave it to you?"

"Keep yer voice down, but yeah, he was all 'Salamander' bout' it too."

Juvia had to blink hard several times to ensure the number she was reading on the check Gajeel held was indeed real.

That many zeros had her jaw dropping against the arm of Gajeel's shoulder her head was nestled against.

When she had plopped down next to Gajeel as he lounged under the guild hall's back porch, she hadn't expected to get a check for 14 million jewel all but thrust in her face.

It wasn't a lottery amount, but Gajeel and Levy would not have to worry about money for a long time.

Only Natsu would just hand this sort of thing out so casually then up and leave.

Her attention was drawn to the sloshing and splashing of water as Romeo chased a squealing Asuka around in the guild pool, which reminded Juvia of the discretion Gajeel probably wanted this handled with.

As the rest of the guild enjoyed a surprisingly warm late-fall day at and around the pool, winding down from the general clamor Gray's fight with Erza and Mirajane had caused, Juvia pressed her cheek into Gajeel's hard shoulder, her arms curled around one of his.

"Would I be correct to guess you do not wish Levy to find out about this?" she whispered as looked back down at the check still in Gajeel's free hand, admiring Natsu's almost decent handwriting.

Right beside her, Gajeel shuffled in his porch chair, still not entirely sure why after all these years Juvia felt the need to drape herself all over him.

The exact second she joined him at one of the glass patio tables, Juvia had more or less taken away one of his arms and made it so he couldn't turn to his right without tucking her head under his chin.

He was thankful Mirajane was busy chatting with Laki across the pool yard. That woman could be so tortuous when she wanted to be.

It seemed like that she-devil barmaid got over her public defeat to Gray so quickly for the sole purpose of cooing as loud as she could every time she saw something like this.

He didn't get women and their constant need to hang themselves all over each other, squawking and grabbing and squeezing their way through small talk like feral seagulls.

If Gajeel liked a guy, he'd let them know by going a little easy on them during a brawl, maybe avoid the face and kidneys if he really fancied them.

But, Gajeel was stuck with it, Levy and Wendy and Juvia, all teaming up to be clinging to him every second of the day.

No amount of grumbling and crowing stopped them, even worse they all had the gall to gush when they caught one another curled up to him.

They had worn him down so much now Gajeel was pretty sure he actually liked it.

God, he was turning into Salamander.

Something in his chest, something deep inside, places not well explored, places not covered in iron, they ached at the thought of Natsu.

Gajeel was quick to bury it so that it never showed on his face.

"Yeah, not a word, got it?" Gajeel replied as he quickly made himself aware of Levy's location, comfortably sunbathing with Droy by the only dry part of the poolside that remained.

"I ain't decided yet if I wanna tell Ryos, so I'm tellin' you and Lily, n' that's it, speakin' of... " Gajeel let out a shrill whistle that had Pantherlily rising from his spot perched atop the unused diving board, floating over to them with a kiwi smoothie clutched in his paws.

He was almost swallowed by a sudden wave of water that had been sent into the air from Romeo tossing a yelping Asuka across the pool, by her request of course.

Juvia raised a hand only to flick it down just as quick, forcing the pool water to plop down harmlessly from where it came, saving Patherlily from a unpleastently soaked fate.

"Lily, peep this, and keep it to yerself."

Pantherlily perked his little brows at Gajeel as he glid over the table to curl up in Juvia's lap, nuzzling the back of his head into her belly appreciatively.

Detaching his lips from the straw to his smoothie reluctantly, Pantherlily read the check for himself, "What's going on ove-"

Pantherlily's tail went stiff as a board as his brain registered how much money lay before him, left to dumbly draw out the rest of his question endlessly.

Juvia untangled one of her arms from Gajeel's and gently scratched the raven fur between Pantherlily's round ears, snapping him from his stupor.

"H-how did he even learn how to write a check?" Pantherlily whispered as he slowly resumed slurping his smoothie.

"Yeah, yeah, now ya both are in the loop," Gajeel said as he brought a leg up to rest his ankle on his knee, "shrimp, or squirt for that matter, never hear a word of this, capiche?"

Gajeel's head dipped as he sighed and anxiously bounced his heel against the pavement, "In fact, this don't leave the table."

Still running pale fingers through his fur, Juvia shared a disconcerted look with Pantherlily before they both nodded in acknowledgement.

Gajeel had been more high strung in these past months than he had been in his entire life combined.

Beyond everything regarding Levy's pregnancy, Gajeel was either gradually going from Wendy's big brother to her father or picking rather nasty fights with Gray.

Gajeel and Gray had been at each other's throats non-stop since the guild reunited, and Gray name-dropping Wendy during his shouting match with Natsu certainly didn't help.

Juvia still didn't know the original reason why, Gajeel was still somewhat standoffish, sure, but not even his never see eye to eye relationship with Erza got as bad as it currently was with Gray.

If everything with Natsu and the fallout had left her emotionally exhausted for the following days, Juvia couldn't imagine where Gajeel's head was at.

Not only was he becoming a Dad, not only was he looking after a downtrodden Wendy who he was now closer with than ever, but Natsu and Gajeel, they were brothers too.

When questioned why she had been clingier to Gajeel than usual in the following days after the war, Wendy had explained to the guild the truth of her and the rest of the dragon slayer's origins.

From 400 years in the past, Gajeel, Natsu, Wendy, and the twins from Sabertooth, had all known each other as children. Yet another bombshell dropped on a shell shocked Fairy Tail.

She had always wondered why exactly Gajeel had instantly taken to Wendy, and that more than explained it, as well as why he and Natsu went from enemies to quarreling brothers at seemingly the drop of a hat.

Much like Gray, Gajeel hadn't spoken a word about Natsu.

The dragon slayers hadn't uttered a peep about their fight with Acnologia, and everyone was content not to ask questions.

"Hey, ameonna," Gajeel's voice, with its iron sharp rasp and deep rumble, could be soft when it needed to be, "Look, I ain't happy about this, but it'd be stupid not to do something with it."

Juvia had to blink away glittered sun rays that the pool bounced right into her eyes, "Hm? Oh, well of course, while I don't believe it wise to hide this from Levy, I'm glad you're not letting your pride let this gift go to waste."

"Are we not going to question where the money came from?" Pantherlily piped up, finishing the last of his smoothie and wiping his whiskers clean.

"I know, I know, and I'll figure out a way ta' tell shrimp, but I'll worry about that after she pops out my brat." Gajeel brushed aside her concerns.

"Guess we are." Pantherlily's mumble was dull as his tail wrapped around Juvia's thin wrist to guide her fingers lower down the side of his head.

"Gajeel, don't use that phrasing around… anyone," Juvia chided with a grimace before tilting her head, letting sweeping azure curls bunch up on one of her shoulders.

"I appreciate the trust, but why tell me at all? You should be aware I would not be particularly happy to help you keep things from the mother of your child."

Surprisingly enough, that left Gajeel searching for a response, the same crimson she'd see on late afternoon skies visible on the tips of his ears, "I-i, uh…-"

"Hey Juvia!" a voice came to his rescue, and Gajeel quickly stuffed the check in his breast pocket.

Nab approached, sunblock turning his nose white, "Master wants to see you in his office, it's not urgent or anything but he says it's important." he informed as he draped a damp towel over his shoulders.

Juvia smiled in understanding, "Okay, thank you Nab."

As Nab waddled off, Gajeel couldn't help the frown that formed when Juvia once again untangled herself from his arm and moved to get up, Pantherlily leaping from her lap to the glass patio table.

Now his arm felt cold, so did his chest.

"So is the trouble you and Natsu got into during your jobs coming back to bite you?" Pantherlily said, uncharacteristically wry.

Before Juvia could shoot back, Gajeel blocked her from rising any further with a forearm across her midsection, "Whatever the geezer wants, it can wait."

"Nab said it's important, and it's not respectful to keep Master Makarov waiting." Juvia pouted at him.

"Yeah, but so is this," Gajeel didn't relent, childishly insisting, "I finally got you without ice queen, and Lev is distracted-"

Juvia tried harder to stand, but she more or less bounced off Gajeel's arm, "Gajeel, what has gotten into you? You would never keep Master waiting."

It didn't make sense, to her at least. If Gajeel wanted to keep this as quiet as possible, why not just keep it to himself?

Phantom Lord had been ages ago to them, Gajeel had far outgrown his distrust of her being around guild masters by herself.

Once again she spotted color on his ears, and his forest of onyx hair bristled as something Juvia could only akin to bashfulness expressed itself on Gajeel's hard features.

"I'm not saying whatever Master wants to walk to me about is more important than thi-"

Gajeel cut her off with a growl, the sound grainy with embarrassment, "It ain't that, kay'!?"

Both Pantherlily and Juvia's crinkled confused stares had him sitting up in his seat.

"Ameonna, i-it ain't just that, about this, the money," Gajeel mumbled softly as he finally retracted his arms and rested them across his own thighs, "I've been busy with shit, n' so have you, and the moment I get ya alone something comes up."

Gajeel stared hard at his boots, as if they'd reveal some guidance that'd let him talk honestly without sounding like a dopey idiot.

It'd be smart to not tell anyone about this money, but he just wanted to include her.

Let her know he trusted her.

Maybe eventually muster up the courage to tell her thanks for looking after his brother, maybe ask her for help picking out an engagement ring, maybe apologize he hadn't been able to convince Levy to let her be the baby's god-mother.

Ever since she had gotten back from her jobs with Natsu, she had been as stoic as can be. No tears, no frowns, no clouds.

Bunny girl wasn't around for her to talk to, and he seriously doubted Juvia would consider troubling with Levy with... anything at the current moment.

Juvia had told him that Mirajane's younger sister, that girl Salamander was super close with, was a good source of wisdom. But she wasn't here either.

Earnest talk came easier with Levy and Wendy, but the sappy stuff? With Juvia?

It felt too little, too late.

She was his first, his oldest friend, and he had spent all that time he had known her not being a very good one. A real shit one in fact.

It took him almost dying during the war, the whole life flashing before his eyes routine, for Gajeel to realize that.

"W-we got other stuff to talk about, ya know? That kid, Romeo, I'm training him, and Wendy would be running herself to the ground if it wasn't for me, and…" Gajeel avoided eye contact with her like it was poison, because he'd look at her soft gaze and get the urge to punch that ice prick's teeth in for daring to leave her.

"Salamander too, wanted to know how he's doin', all that stuff." he sighed, and let the iron crumble as he admitted, "I guess I just wanted to, I don't fuckin' know, talk?"

Slender fingers gently flicked his nose, "Hey, watch your language dummy, Asuka's nearby."

Juvia's tone was lilted with unflinching warmth, warmth he didn't deserve. Once more, her arms moved as vines, wrapping around the tree trunk that was his bicep.

The weight of Juvia's head atop the ridge of his shoulder felt… right.

Like Wendy curled in his lap and burrowed in his chest, or Levy pressing herself into him as he spooned her from behind.

"I'll tell you what, I will inform Master to make it quick, so that when I get back we can spend the rest of the day talking." Juvia announced, fighting a battle not meant to be won against a giddy smile, smushing her cheek into the steel muscle of his shoulder.

Yeah, Gajeel was still a bit stiff, unable to bend in ways others could, but Juvia just didn't care. He had still grown so much.

She knew how Gajeel's head worked better than anyone.

Juvia didn't have to sit through his stumbling long to figure out the entire reason he had told her this was because he simply wanted to include her.

An excuse to have something special between them.

And well, Pantherlily would probably find out on his own anyway.

She felt her eyes throb and heart prickle, but she smiled at him all the same, "Is that acceptable, or do you wish to come with and hold my hand?"

"Aight, aight, get off!" Gajeel groused as he shook his arm lightly in a half-hearted attempt to flick her off.

She had dropped a great deal of her old habits since becoming a Fairy Tail mage, a lot of them thanks to Gajeel, but she'd never shake this one, clinging to his arm.

Wendy often held Natsu's hand or sat curled up in his lap, Gray and Lucy often walked with their shoulders brushing, and it was a rare sight to not see Mirajane hiding under Elfman's massive arm as she enjoyed her own lunch break.

Everyone had their own forms of affection with their friends and family, and she had hers.

Juvia had been doing this with Gajeel since he had taken all the brunt of Fairy Tail's lingering distrust and animosity when they had first joined. And she had no plans on stopping.

Juvia merely responded to his wriggling with a devilishly quick peck to his cheek before rising and hurrying off to avoid the aftermath, "I'll be right back!"

Gajeel rubbed his palm against that same cheek, silently preparing himself for how good it will feel to deck that ice prick when he saw him next.

Gajeel was silent as he watched her pad off, the sight of sunlight and not clouds over Juvia as she exchanged sweet passing pleasantries with Freedus telling him that joining Fairy Tail with the secret reason of looking after her had been a correct one.

It was a secret that would accompany him to the grave-probably- but it was true nonetheless.

Sighing, Gajeel's eyes skimmed the guild yard. Thankfully Levy was still occupied.

If Levy saw that the teasing would never stop. Not like he could tell her to stuff it, she was carrying his kid, and soon enough he'd put a ring on her finger.

"That was just precious."

Ice slinked into Gajeel's gaze as it snapped to Pantherlily, who still stood atop the table with a cheeky grin bristling his whiskers, "Do you wanna get shaved?"

Pantherlily couldn't retort when the pattering of small feet approached, "Uncle Gajeel!"

That squeak had Gajeel tensing as he looked down and to his left to see a soaked Asuka bouncing on her heels before him.

Lips peeling into a wince, Gajeel quickly avoided eye contact, or else be bludgeoned with an onslaught of doe eyed stares.

He knew what was coming.

"Can I play with Lily please?" Asuka huffed out as she adjusted the Happy themed floaties around her arms, "Happy and Carla aren't around to play, n' big brother Romeo got tired from throwing me!"

Both Pantherlily and Gajeel flickered a cursory look up to see the older boy floating and bobbing face down like a corpse in the pool.

…

He'd be okay. His heart was still beating.

"Ain't happening, Pantherlily is a warrior, not a doll for you to play with." Gajeel began the first step of this song and dance.

Asuka followed this routine to a T, anxiously pulling at the ribbons adorning her onesie swimsuit while speckles of pool water skimmed down her face to curl over her button nose.

"Pretty please?" her cheeks puffed in a pout.

Gajeel folded his arms over the squeezing in his chest, she was laying it on thick today.

"Yeah, no. Go ahead, get Titania involved, ain't gonna make a difference."

Pantherlily butted in with his usual placating gestures, reasoning, "Gajeel, must we do this every time? I really don't mind at all."

Gajeel leaned back in his chair, hands laced behind his quilt of onyx hair, "It ain't happening Lily."

It would be happening.

This brat always found something, some gap in his armor, some breach between his scales, with that puppy dog stare he was 40% sure she got from Wendy.

It didn't help that those newly found sweet memories of his squirt as a little girl flashed before him in times like these, as if his mind, instincts, whatever, were reminding him to play nice.

Asuka's little voice quivered and sweetened, and Gajeel just about buckled there and then as she paddled over to hug his shin, resting her chin on his knee, "I'll take super duper good care of him, I promise!"

Those soft beady little eyes were black holes, sucking his will and resistance in to tear it apart in ways Gajeel could never defend.

"Look scamp, where am I on your favorite uncle list?" Gajeel's pierced brows eased, flattening his forehead and wiping his features clear of firmness.

Asuka was quiet for a brief, brief moment, "6th."

She had just made that up but it gave Gajeel an out.

This time Asuka wouldn't get to resort to teary eyes and puppy whimpers to get what she wanted.

"Bump me up a spot, and you get Lily for ten minutes." Gajeel disguised his raising of the white flag with a deal.

"Deal!" Asuka instantly chirped as she unlatched herself from his now damp leg and turned to the glass table, holding her arms out for Pantherlily to jump into.

Catching him and nuzzling him, she was quick to scamper off, squealing, "Thank you Uncle Gajeel!"

Gajeel grunted to himself as he settled back into his chair, forcing himself to come to terms with the fact he had just sentenced his badass exceed to ten minutes of tea parties.

Romeo was still face down in the pool, doing a phenomenal impression of a piece of driftwood. This was most still Romeo had been since that training session with him.

"Hey kid, you good?"

A few bubbles spluttered up to the water's surface next to Romeo's head.

"Aight, just checkin'."

---

Juvia didn't even have time to express her delight at the fact Master Makarov was up and out of his wheel-chair when she had yet another piece of paper thrust at her.

This time, it was a rather official looking piece of parchment.

"Go on child, take it." Makarov encouraged as he stood atop the guild stage before her so he could speak with her eye to eye.

Laxus and Gildarts stood towering to her left and right, and Juvia was left secretly wishing she did bring Gajeel along for this. The all but empty main hall behind her wasn't comforting either.

The slight nervousness never arrived on the serene curves of her delicate features, but Gildarts next to her picked up on the hesitation irrespective of her stoicism.

"C'mon, you ain't in trouble." Gildarts rumbled reassuringly, and Makarov wagged the rolled parchment in his hand, the bush on his face shifting as he gave a slight smile.

Juvia took it, careful with the faded edges and stiff material, "What is this, if you don't mind me asking?"

She had no idea what thoughts swam behind Makarov's time chiseled face, the crows feet framing his kind eyes giving her nothing to go off of.

As she ran a ginger thumb over the seal that kept the parchment wrapped up, Makarov answered with a rasp, "It was supposed to be a right to my wrongs."

The cryptic answer drew Juvia's eyes away from what was in her hands, the tone her master, her parent, took like he was forcing bitter chalk down his old throat.

"On Tenrou, I made a mistake. A mistake I repeated yet again before the Grand Magic Games." Makarov began, his voice glossed with a type of solemn Juvia had rarely heard from her guildmaster.

Guilt stirred beneath his words and the mood of the conversation it commanded.

"That," he nodded down at her hands, daintily clearing his throat to murmur, "was an attempt to rectify it."

"Open it." Laxus gruffed, to which Juvia obliged, peeling off the seal and unraveling the crinkling parchment.

Juvia barely got past the top sentence before she choked on her own spit.

"An immediate promotion. No trial required." Laxus palmed down the blonde hair around his scalp as he explained, "Gramps had to call in a favor with the council to jump through that many hoops."

Juvia didn't bother reading the rest of it, bewilderment nestled in her questioning stare, "I-i don't understand."

"This was for Natsu." Makarov stated, his toil worn hands tight at his sides.

Natsu?

She had forgotten, once upon a time one of Natsu's biggest goals was becoming one of these.

Saying it now, with the new gentle and sweet image she had of Natsu in her head, it sounded strange.

That image used to be tiger orange fire blaring around his knuckles, now it was the faded amber scars on his skin and warmth in his hollow voice.

But this?

Natsu was chained to self-given whims far more colossal than this, Juvia suspected.

"But this gesture was fruitless from the start, it didn't make up for my misdeed on Tenrou, and it did not account for the simple fact he has long since grown beyond the rank."

"He didn't accept it," Gildarts bluntly summarized Makarov's point, "I probably should have told Makarov that Natsu was done with all that junk before we got back from Tenrou, saved him the trouble."

"If he was done with it, then why would he challenge Mast-"

"He's Natsu." Gildarts clipped Juvia's question short with a simple answer as he shared a dry laugh with himself.

Juvia felt that tautness wedged beneath her gut get all the more painful as she bounced her eyes from Makarov to Gildarts.

She hadn't even thought about it, how were they dealing with everything regarding Natsu?

Everything was just so muddy, even after she had spent all that time with him.

Juvia's first instinctive thought was that they had no idea, or rather fooled themselves into thinking so.

Those bitter words she had tossed towards Gray came back, but were dulled by the rationale of just how much everyone had been through since Fairy Tail disbanded.

A few days worth of mulling after her jobs with Natsu had Juvia understanding just how on the money Gray had been.

Fairy Tail needed Natsu, needed him to be… him. Everything was just so much easier that way.

Righteous fury wasn't hers to have, she had no right to the indignation she felt on Natsu's behalf.

She wasn't Lisanna, she wasn't Wendy, she hadn't even really noticed Natsu's absence until that day she convinced him to take a few quests with her.

Someone should be angry. Accountability should be upheld.

But Juvia knew she shouldn't be the one to do it.

Juvia lingered on Gildarts, he and Natsu got on each other's nerves so often, in ways only comparable to him and Gray at times. Yet Natsu still chose to look up to him.

She guessed that was how she knew their relationship was strong.

If they didn't care, they wouldn't be so passionate about each other while their dynamic switched nearly every second they were together.

She didn't know much, which was exactly why she didn't get to cling to that exasperation.

Juiva could only make that lingering anger that had seeped from the break in her heart throw up its hands in defeat and drift meaninglessly.

So much had happened, and the aftermath of Gray's fight with Erza and Mirajane was only now just fading.

"So, this has been sitting around then?" Juvia sought clarification, watching Gildarts shrug in response, his metal fingers clinking as he targeted a scratch on his stubble heavy chin.

Even after Gray proved this rank wasn't the end all be all, it was still coveted by a good majority of the guild.

Being one meant you were always on Sorcerer's Weekly, you were the first to be served come lunch rush, you were allowed on the second floor with better paying jobs and couches to lounge on.

That and so much more.

"Basically." Laxus confirmed as he sunk into a chair behind him and propped his feet up on the stage edge, the wood thudding and creaking beneath his weight.

"That was until the fight," Makarov resumed, staring dull daggers at Laxus and Gildarts when they both sucked in breaths and let out awed whistles as they revisited what the guild had yet to let go a week later.

Gray winning had been a surprise to nearly everyone.

Juvia felt she had no room to snarl at that sentiment for her darling's honor either, Fairy Tail was a competitive place with established dynamics that had lasted years.

That hadn't been on Juvia's mind at the time, more keeping Natsu from ruining her darling Gray's handsome face.

"None of you expected Gray to win." she blurted, unable to hold the frown in her tone.

All three men had the decency to flinch as the power in the room flipped in Juvia's favor.

"No offense." Laxus grumbled, head dipping when Juvia's neck torqued his way. Gildarts on the other side of her squirmed with similar timor.

Even Makarov rubbed his bald head shyly under her stiff stare.

"So what changed? Why am I receiving this and not my darling?" Juvia abandoned the unpleasant road that avenue of conversation could take and softened her voice.

"Because Gray isn't the one Natsu demanded I promote." Makarov replied.

Juvia had nothing. Her open mouth told Makarov that.

Natsu had done this?

That twinge of regret that had been teased by the guild master's demeanor from before flared to the point Juvia could feel it waft from him.

"That paper, the promotion, it could never fix what I did," Makarov slowly lowered himself until he sat cross-legged before her, his crooked fingers digging into his knees, "nor does it make up for my obliviousness to him."

"For all his flaws, he chose to love and protect this guild, this family. Giving me all he had on Tenrou was his decision. Smashing him against the cliff was mine."

Juvia quickly found how right she was to abandon the idea of being angry on Natsu's behalf.

Seeing her guild master like this, more shriveled with guilt than age could ever make him, had her understand just why Natsu had wanted to hide.

Seems that everybody who had any clue about Natsu had some reflecting to do.

"Nevertheless, long after all the commotion of that day, Natsu came to my office and demanded I use the promotion meant for him, on you."

That confirmed it.

Juvia rubbed her bloodless face with a hand, a quick breath jutting from her lungs as the reality of it sunk in.

"I-i don't deser-"

"Too late. That thing is effective immediately now that Gramps signed it." Laxus stopped her coming rant at the roots. "Besides, ain't like we don't agree with Natsu on this."

The sight of both Makarov and Gildarts' heads bobbing in agreement had her stumbling back to lean against a table.

Natsu wasn't supposed to be the one giving anymore. It was Fairy Tail's turn.

She must have looked half mad as she ripped her cap from her head and blinked her way down the rest of the parchment's lines upon lines of text.

"I-i'm not strong enough."

The reluctance Juvia cast out were feeble, fragments of her time with Natsu spinning before her eyes, making reading the document near impossible.

To learn of his pain, to learn the best thing she could do to help was nothing, it made a full night's sleep a pipe dream.

Day in and day out, continuing on with her usual stoicism without a single tear droplet in sight, it had been one of the most difficult things she had ever had to do.

The only reason the tears and storms hadn't returned, hadn't come dribbling down her cheeks and barreling over the horizon was constant reassurance from her beloved.

'You helped him. I promise you', Gray would murmur.

After that, when her eyelids would flutter shut, she'd find at least some rest among the wreckage of thoughts in her head.

"The quests you two took were double S tier jobs, and you did them in around a week. Natsu says you did more than your fair share of the work, I think the strength part of this is covered." Laxus reasoned to her, eyeing her with a look gentler than most would ever see on him.

"Gray told us you and him trained together before the war, and that your more than strong enough for this." Gildarts added.

The jobs never mattered. Juvia never thought about them.

Even hearing the reality of it now, she could only give a small sniffle and shrug.

"T-there are so many other people who deserve it more Master, I-i don't think I'm the one that can be considered worthy of…of this." Juvia tried again, all but digging that wet aching from her eyes as she neared the bottom of the parchment.

This was the real deal. Natsu had really done this.

"My beloved, a-and Gajeel, they are so much stronger than I am."

"That was never what this was supposed to be about, child." Makarov chided as his sunken eyes now gleamed with affection, studying her as if breaking down every reason he had for going along with Natsu's demand.

"It shouldn't be about all the glory and privileges and fear, what it was supposed to be at it's core was the responsibility to set an example for you fellow guild mates," Gildarts said, "and well…"

"This one's a deadbeat," Makarov looked to Gildarts, then to Laxus, "that one's a brat who is largely responsible for the rank falling the way it has."

The puff of breath that was squeezed from Makarov's nostrils frayed the wire ends of his alabaster beard, his eyes downcast, "Erza, oh that child, I have been too lax with her, letting her believe I have given her the authority to do the things she does."

"And Mirajane stopped making that chicken spaghetti casserole I like." everyone's head snapped to Gildarts after his chime in.

"Don't pretend like that stuff ain't the best goddamn casserole you've had in your life." he defended.

"Mirajane has found a far more important path being our guild's mother hen, I will not take her off that path just to fix something she no longer has any interest in." Makarov clarified.

"Juvia child, it isn't the guild unworthy of the rank, it is the rank unworthy of the guild. Those who are the most worthy already see that." Makarov steered the discussion back on course. "And for all his faults, Natsu saw this before anyone else."

"Look, I'll get to the point, we kinda need you, help make this thing more than just about ordering people around." Laxus' feet slipped off the stage as he sat up in his chair, resting his forearms on his knees, "You got a good head on your shoulders, better than any of ours even with the 'flooding Magnolia because you saw a lost puppy' shtick."

Laxus narrowly ducked a thrown booze mug from Gildarts.

"Don't talk that way about a lady brat, did Blue Pegasus teach ya nuthin'?"

Laxus flipped him the bird.

Juvia felt that giddiness from early came sprinting back. Praise? From Laxus?

Heck, both Gildarts and Makarov, two of the wisest people she had ever come across, believed she was worthy of this gift.

This time, when tears bundled and glistened in the corners of her aching eyes, they did so happily.

"In every way one can be considered, you are strong Juvia." Makarov rumbled as he beckoned the hiccuping Juvia closer, "You've grown into a shining example of everything I wish a Fairy Tail mage to be."

The parchment crinkled underneath Juvia's curling shaking fingers, having to all but shy away from Makarov's beaming face.

Having a guild master that loved her? Juvia would never get over how wonderful that felt.

Crying as much as she had done since she had joined Fairy Tail would have left Juvia a battered mess back with Phantom Lord.

It was the same thing she steadied herself with back when confronting Natsu.

The tears and the rain wouldn't make Fairy Tail, her family, go away.

"Natsu knew we needed someone to help make this title more than just about power, and I say this with every fiber of my being," Makarov's hand was steadiest it had been since before the war as it came to squeeze hers, "Natsu chose wisely."

Juvia didn't bother with words, they had scampered out her open mouth to scatter to the furthest corners of the guildhall.

Through her quiet blubbering, Juvia finally got around to finishing the document, wiping the curtains of moist bliss from her lashes.

The official lettering ended, and below that, familiar handwriting had created a bunched paragraph nestled between the one atop it and the flaky edge of the parchment.

It was the same handwriting from the check.

Natsu's.

'This doesn't mean much to me anymore, I don't think it means much to you either. I think you could make it mean something again though. Cuz I think you're that great, and ice pants will never know how lucky he is to have someone that great.'

Juvia had to hurry, because no amount of wiping would stop the wailing oceans of tears that were barreling their way out her eyes now.

Soon she knew she wouldn't be able to see, either that or she turned the parchment into soggy mush.

'I ain't what anyone wanted me to be I don't think. But you, you'll be, heck you are, everything a Fairy Tail mage should be. I know you wanna worry, you got the tummy ache that people with good hearts get that Yukino told me about once. But I want you to be happy, cuz knowing your happy makes me feel better.'

Juvia thrust the damp parchment into Makarov's hands before she ruined it with the dribble that poured off her chin, "F-finish it Master, I-i can't read, I c-cannot see."

Eyes soft, Makarov took it from the approachingly hysterical Juvia and nodded, reading what remained of Natsu's note, "Everything I did during the war was to get us all home, to make sure everybody got their fair crack at making their own future."

His voice grew as brittle as lichen, Makarov's words wavering just as Juvia's legs did while days of smothered emotions buckled in her knees.

A kick from Laxus had a chair skidding over to her, which Juvia all but collapsed onto, shoulders spasming as jerky mewls accompanied her glistening cheeks.

She understood.

What this gift was supposed to do.

Natsu had predicted the feeling of helplessness, so he had given her something to do.

Something to make better.

"So please, quit fussing over me, and go build yours. Since because of you, I think I'll be okay... Love, Natsu." Makarov dragged himself to finish.

She was sobbing now.

Juvia didn't care how ugly or loud it was, she knew it would all come back, and she welcomed it.

How long had it been since she truly cried, truly let sobs bounce around her shoulders and rack her frame for all it was worth?

The way she felt lighter and lighter with each hoarse sob let Juvia know it had been too long.

Natsu and his unknowable pain, and the weight of knowing that, they fattened the tears that fell with the force of bowling balls off the dainty curve of her chin and onto the floor below.

He was always doing this. Natsu just had that gift, that gift of giving hope.

He was gonna be okay. Everything would be okay.

This was Natsu she was talking about after all.

Makarov let out a weary breath, setting the document aside to share a look with the puffy eyed Gildarts.

The guild master bucked his head towards Juvia, and Gildarts seemed to get the idea.

A cool metal hand squeezed her quaking shoulder, and Juvia stopped staring at the holes her tears were drilling in the wooden floors to see Gildarts grinning down at her.

"Well Juvia, welcome back to S-class!" he announced.

Juvia cried out a happy laugh, her tears now having a mountain to climb if they wanted to fall down her smiling face.

The crash of shattering wood rang in the air as the double doors to the guild yard were kicked open, revealing an all but feral Gajeel, emerald and violet magic flickering around his frame.

Those dragon slayer senses had finally alerted him to Juvia's cries, and flipped a switch inside him that had Black Steel Gajeel coming out for a romp.

His pupil-less glare darted from Juvia's tears to the men surrounding her before rumbling the guild hall with a ferocious dragon's growl, "Why the fuck is ameonna crying!?"

Gildarts and Makarov looked from the enraged Gajeel, to the still sniffling Juvia, then to each other. They shared a small nod.

The two pointed to Laxus, "He did it."

Thick swathes of shrapnel speckled shadows paced impatiently around the now silver scaled Gajeel, whose glare snapped to Laxus.

"Salamander and Ice Queen respected you S-class a-holes so much they went n' created a lil' pact not to knock you around when they eventually got stronger." Gajeel hissed, flexing magic practically identical to what Gray had displayed a week ago.

Gajeel slowly shook his head with a sinister grin, "That, tingle-fingers, is a courtesy I don't share."

Laxus stared at all that with a blank face, not bothering to move from his seat. No point really, he was already under the bus.

Instead, Laxus looked to those who had betrayed him, eyeing Makarov and Gildarts coldly.

"I can't wait to dump you two in nursing home-"

He was promptly cut off by an iron pole to the face.

---

Sting had slipped away briefly to go get juice boxes.

By the time Natsu summed up what he did for Juvia, he confessed he didn't fancy alcohol too much, he couldn't get drunk despite Cana's best efforts.

Sting was back before Natsu knew it, reclaiming his spot as the blob of squirming shadows he reduced himself to hardened into flesh and bone.

Sting was getting really good at that whole turning into a shadow thing, it sucked that Yukino had banned him and Rogue from using it inside the guild. Rogue had accidentally startled her with it once and got his nose caved in by her quite frankly sexy right hook.

The wind had picked up into a timid zephyr, its breath now salted after sweeping across the lakefronts around Magnolia's seaside outskirts.

Far off, dark windows on buildings here and there would flicker on with yellow light once in a while, only to return to the pitch blackness just as quick.

Natsu toiled with his juice box, having only gotten as far as removing the thin straw from the wrapper, silently glowering at it as he struggled to find where to stick it in.

"Look, Natsu," Sting took the juice box from Natsu's hands and replaced it with his own, the straw already in, "I'm serious here. You can talk to me."

"You have something to be to your guild, but guess what?" Sting patted his shoulder and the guild mark that lay beneath his jacket, "I ain't your guild, I'm your brother."

"If you ain't ready to go back to the war, then okay, that's okay, you can talk to me about whatever. Wanna keep shooting the breeze? Let's do it. Wanna tell me about something random that happened forever ago? I'll go get another round of juice boxes."

Once more, he offered his beverage up for another cheers. Yeah, it was a lot lamer with a juice box but the sentiment stubbornly remained.

"Look, I don't got Lisanna's pretty face, but c'mon, it's me."

Natsu remained silent, and Sting remained patient.

It was just like downstairs, the small act of offering his hand after Natsu's episode, he had seen the reluctance flashing upon his paled face.

The wind cooed as Magnolia grumbled in its sleep, distant noises crawling from the murky street corners to tell of a few fishermen burning the midnight oil and travelers rolling into town, weary after a long night's journey.

Sting understood that this hesitance wasn't out of any belief that talking about emotions was in any way weak, Natsu would be one of the first people to tell you that it wasn't.

It was probably because he just didn't understand any of it either.

Because all the time Natsu would spend figuring that out was time spent not on his guild.

Eventually, Natsu rose to bump his juice box against Sting's and spoke in reply to his last comment.

"Eh, eight outta ten."

"Okay fuck you." Sting said instantly.

Natsu's laugh burst into the air like the crack of a whip, sending the still lingering stray cats in the courtyard below scattering and yowling.

"Really, an eight? Dude you think a girl like Yukino is gonna settle for an eight?"

Natsu's flash of life, while welcome, meant it took a moment from him to come back down from his wheezing.

"I-it's the earring I think, Gray says it makes you look like ya teach surfing classes." Natsu hiccuped as he held a palm against his chest, juice burning in his esophagus.

"His middle name is Maurice, I do not give a shit what he thinks." Sting waved it off, self consciously adjusting the one earring piercing his earlobe, "Like, 'teach surfing classes', comin' from the dude who knows how to tap dance for no explicable reason."

"Hey look, the eight is like… I dunno, in comparison," Natsu burped into his fist before explaining himself.

"The eight is relative?"

Natsu nodded, "Yeah, yeah, like you're an eight, relative to Lisanna, Yukino too."

Sting jut his jaw, lips crinkling in thought before he mumbled after a second, "Fair. I withdraw my fuck you."

When Natsu opened his mouth to speak, Sting was quicker on the draw and clarified, "No Natsu, I don't use those words around Yukino, I ain't Gajeel. Time n' a place, I get it, no naughty words around ladies and kids and exceeds."

Natsu beamed dimly in approval, slurping loudly on his juice box, acting as if he hadn't been known to drop a good 'dammit' from time to time once. Even when they reunited at the Grand Magic Games, Natsu hadn't exactly been known for being squeaky clean.

Apparently 'Luce didn't like icky words, and they weren't right for Wendy's lil' ears', so now Sting had to deal with the fact his brother would use the verbiage 'dadgummit' every so often.

Who had supplied him with that combination of words? Lisanna, if Sting had to guess.

Natsu determinedly sucked down the rest of his juice box until it crinkled and gasped, leaving him to force breaths out around the lump in his throat.

It was the weirdest way Sting had seen anyone psyche themselves up.

"I stopped trainin' after I thought Lis died." Natsu blurted out.

Sting scratched his temple and remained silent with understanding, shimmying in his spot to face Natsu somewhat.

That was clumsy. Exactly what Sting expected of Natsu.

He wasn't Lisanna, this was new territory for him, and this was probably the one thing Natsu wasn't eager to try and explore.

But, Natsu was finally trying to talk to him, about him.

No expectation of advice, no problem to solve on someone else's behalf, just the sole purpose of it all was to just get it out. Maybe advice would come, but it was about weight coming off more than anything.

Technically, it was shooting the breeze more than their small talk downstairs.

It had nothing to do with the war, so irrelevant, yet so important.

Natsu was truly letting him into his head, if just a little.

It was a step forward, no matter how clunky.

"Why do you think that is?" Sting asked softly, pulling his knees up to construct a bridge between them with his forearms.

Natsu watched the trees in the far off park dance and wiggle to the dalliance of the breeze, "I didn't ever really think she was gone, just lost, like the time with the vulcan in the forest."

"Yeah, she's told us that story before," Sting rested his chin on his arms, murmuring, "apparently she isn't too great with directions."

Natsu's slim smile was a brief event on his face.

"I just thought Lis got lost somewhere I wasn't strong enough to find her. So, I started looking for Dad super duper hard, like harder than I ever had before."

Sting ignored his itching chest where phantom pain still needled, "Cause…?"

"Because I promised Lis when we were kids I'd always find her whenever she got lost. I didn't think I could find her, wasn't strong enough, not to go on that job, not to be S-class, but Dad…"

Natsu shrugged, "He's Dad. He was the strongest there ever was. He could find her."

"Even when me and Hap got her back, I still coasted, least that's what it feels like." Natsu leaned the side of his head against his closed palm, fooling around with a duster button.

"It was like I had forgotten everything my Dad ever taught me."

Sting's lips peeled in a wince drowning with empathy, "I know how that feels. I always wonder how me n' Rogue woulda' turned out if our memories of our Dads didn't get gronked."

"Everything changed with Tenrou though."

"I can imagine."

"Gildarts, then Hades and his stupid guild, then Acnologia, then we get back and suddenly seven whole years have greased by, and if coasting didn't work back on the island, it sure as heck wouldn't fly now."

As if trapped in a maze, unsatisfied and unsure with the routes to take before him, Natsu stumbled away from the sentence and grimaced, irritated at himself more than anything.

"Before, crap happened, n' then it was done, and ya moved on. But I think… Tenrou… Tenrou was the first time I didn't know how I felt, I guess." Natsu shared.

"Went to Lis like I always do when I'm too stupid to solve somethin', and she taught me about reflecting, looking back on things to see why you feel the way you do."

"That's more up Rogue's alley, but yeah, it's a good tool to have," Sting chuckled, "pretty sure me and him wouldn't have been assholes if we used that a little bit more."

Nowadays, it felt like Rogue was overcompensating on that front if anything.

Natsu's brows huddled together so tight Sting feared they'd tear open the thin craggy skin of the gangly scars coating his face.

That grimace lost its spine when Natsu chuffed, "I-i did that, I looked back n'..." he slowly shook his head, "Sting, dude, I uh, I don't really think I was a huge fan of who I was."

The way lace white clouds curled around the scarred moon in the sky no longer seemed interesting as Sting's eyes snapped down and over.

"Huh, really? You slacked on training that bad?"

"No, I-i mean yeah, but I ain't talking about training and all the junk right now."

"You're talking 'bout how you were as a person?"

Natsu gave a shaky nod, not keen on meeting anyone's gaze at the moment, "I was… crummy."

It took a long moment of scratching and picking at his hands before his lips moved again.

"I was always wreckin' stuff, forcing my friends to clean up my messes. I torched half of Hargeon and just walked away, wrecked so many folk's homes and bounced without so much as a 'sorry'."

Sting expected Natsu to shrivel and sag, becoming indistinguishable from a dead flower with self loathing.

But thankfully, there was no hate in his low murmurs, shame, yes, but no hate.

That was the only reason Sting would be able to sit through this song and dance for the thousandth time. If he wanted to hear about all of Natsu's misdeeds all he needed to do was go to Fairy Tail and linger for longer than five minutes.

Guilt, childish and pure and earnest, was written across Natsu's face.

It was something Sting didn't expect to be seeing from Natsu anymore anytime soon, innocence.

Innocent disappointment.

Natsu toed a loose shingle and babbled, "T-that don't even scratch the surface man, I was supposed to be fightin' for my guild, but all I did was cause em' trouble. Brawlin' and breaking rules and not caring if someone got caught in the crossfire."

"I already wasn't doin' right by my guild by coasting, but I don't know how Luce put up with me." Natsu's laugh was lifeless, a cruel mockery of the joyous guffaws he was capable of.

"Dragging her into danger, messing up her apartment, makin' her uncomfortable, making her almost miss her rent cuz' I destroyed something on a quest-"

"Natsu I get it." Sting was miraculously able to keep himself from hissing.

This wasn't Natsu beating himself up, Sting knew, but after how many times he's heard this, even honest humility seemed like stomping the horse's corpse to paste.

Sting pinned his tongue with a fang and uttered no more however, because in the end Natsu's wild reputation hadn't fallen from the sky.

"Right, right, sorry, but ya know, the list goes on. Luce deserved the world, and she got stuck with a cruddy ole' me." Natsu's voice, so meek and indefensible that Sting almost couldn't hear him as an impish breeze cleared the roof gutters of clods of dead leaves.

Natsu continued to the tip tapping of his heel bouncing against ceramic, tone smoldering with something more 'Natsu'.

Acceptance, with eagerness riding on its shoulders.

"So, I started listenin' to my guild finally and decided to do something about all of it, cuz' there ain't no use in sitting around feeling bad 'bout myself. Wouldn't do them much good either."

The curve of his shoulders went from a bow to a spear as Natsu laughed aloud, "Funny thing is, I had like no idea to do that! I wanted to give Wendy a big brother she deserved, wanted to give Luce a partner who she could rely on, but this wasn't training, I couldn't just go do push ups until it was done."

"You make it look easy, ya know that?" Natsu commented with his signature back of the head rub.

Sting had unstuck his tongue from the tip of his canine at Natsu's chuckle, and he squinted at him, "Make what look easy?"

"Becomin' a better person."

Sting told himself the aching in his eyes was just the brisk mist crawling up his guild hall's walls from rampant lake tides across the city. Not tears.

Coughing his name through a hoarse breath, it was Sting's turn to take time to rally before answering.

"I-i think that's because we had you as an example bud."

Natsu's smile was so soft he may as well have been looking at his wallet pictures of Asuka again.

"Ah, I dunno about all that." he waved him off, because of course he did.

"We had growing pains, no lie dude, all of us but Yukino had tons of work to do before we weren't pieces of shit." Sting sniffled and rose his head from his arms, looking around at his waist side to find where he had put his juice box.

The slurping that came from Natsu informed it of where it had gone.

"Well to me, it looked like a complete one eighty in no time flat." Natsu mumbled around the straw of his juice box.

"First off, give that back you turd, secondly, I ain't joking," Sting swiped what was rightfully his back, "Rogue and Yukino were two peas in a pod, despite Rogue bein'... Rogue."

"He was the first person that wasn't you to really look after her. But with me? It was like she would explode if she was around me alone for longer than a minute."

Natsu blinked, "That's… changed."

Sting shook his now empty juice box and sent Natsu a flat look, "Well duh, what you barged in on us doin' should tell ya all you need to know."

"Ew."

"She's my girlfriend these days, so the roles are reversed I'd say." Sting crushed his juice box and tossed it at Natsu half heartedly, who ducked, "She outranks me now."

"But you're her guildmaster."

"She outranks me now."

Sting wiped his eyes and hummed his next question, "So what'd ya do about all that? You got the introspection stuff outta the way, what was next?"

Natsu's fingers were in his scarf before his brain could even fire off the command.

"Well, I remembered something Dad told me when I was a squirt," he said, "it wasn't a lesson on magic or hand to hand, so I probably didn't care enough to not forget."

"I was a stupid kid ya know?" a chuckle peeled from Natsu's lips as he whipped to Sting in hopes of sharing his mirth.

Sting's blank stare loudly declared he wasn't interested in the offer. He was good on 'Natsu was a wild animal' stories.

"N' when I did stupid stuff, Dad'd smack me with that big ole' tail of his, almost like Erza and Gramps does." Natsu's fingers ruffled his own pink spikes, "difference being, with Dad, it didn't really hurt. It would sting for a lil' sec, but after that, no bump left on the gnoggin'."

"Can ya imagine that? He could prolly crush the planet beneath his knuckles, but the only bruises I ever got from Dad were from his training. He'd walk his fat butt through the forest all the time, never toppled any trees, not unless he wanted to."

"Dad said a ton of smart soundin' things, but that in particular made me think of something he'd always say when I talked his ear off about gettin' strong like him." Natsu shuffled as he crossed his legs tight.

Putting on a gruff tone, Natsu rumbled an imitation of his father, "Brat, the most powerful thing you can be, is gentle."

What little indignation that had been creeping up on Sting dissolved at the impression, a snicker collapsing his terse expression.

It was sound advice, shaky impression aside.

That wasn't Natsu's fault, not everyone could have a voice that made the whole planet whimper under its ancient baritone.

"Bet Igneel was a gold mine of advice." Sting worked the stiffness from the mounds of his shoulders.

"Oh yeah, but that one specifically, it made me think of somethin' Gildarts said back on Tenrou. Underneath all the crap, he was onto something, about being a kinder, gentler person n' all." Natsu recalled, a twinkle something ruminative meandering behind his eyes.

"Bein' carefree is fun, don't get me wrong, but man did I have so much to care about."

Everytime light came back there, sizzling away the ashen exhaustion to reveal that onyx that still lay underneath, Sting felt hope lance his heart.

The campfire wasn't unrecognizable.

That hadn't been fair of Sting to say. It hadn't gone anywhere.

Not after all this coughing concerned embers for those it wanted to keep warm, or the earnest little candle wisps that flared now that it was talking about how it came to be warmer.

Because all this was telling Sting what he already knew just from being around it- no, him.

The campfire would protect you, yes, but he'd warm you too.

He'd listen to you, he'd make you laugh, he may not be a healer like this baby sister, but he could keep you cozy while Wendy mended your wounds.

Natsu coughed into his elbow and cleared the rasp from his throat, "I knew sorta what I should be, but had like no clue on how to really get there. Wanna take a guess what I did next?"

"Lisanna?" Sting replied.

"Lisanna."

The repetition wasn't lost on Natsu, evident by the way he fiddled with the flamingo locks of hair crowning the back of his neck, the tufts Sting had been told Lisanna used to braid whenever she wanted to embarrass him.

"I-i wish I knew how to like, put this, but I went to her and told her I wanted to learn how to… how t-to… how to leave the dragon at the door every time I stepped into the guild. N' like, after that… " Natsu drew off with another helpless shrug, as if the story had just slipped through his fingers.

Sting looked back up to the moon, quietly comparing its faded scars and craters to Natsu's as the story slowly constructed new perspectives.

"Yeah, all that sounds about right." he said, cutting off the need for Natsu to get into specifics, knowing he probably didn't know how to communicate any of them.

Besides, those specifics were a whole other night's worth of talk.

All Sting needed to know was just how much that explained what Natsu had said to his and the other dragon slayer's dragons before they left for good.

That immediately drew Natsu's eye, "W-wait, h-huh?"

Sting gave a shrug of his own, giving the large ivory dinner plate in the sky an ear to ear smile, "I mean, that explains all the changes since the Grand Magic Games."

There was a notch in Natsu's breath he had to splutter out as he perked with that almost naive childish earnestness that Sting wanted to make sure would never ever go anywhere.

Natsu once had a whole forestry of it, and now it was just a single sapling with only Sting around to water it.

"Ya-you noticed!?"

Sting lowered his head to simper playfully at him, snorting as he slugged Natsu's shoulder, "Well course I did, you grew a whole bunch man, way more than just as a fighter."

"I mean this Natsu, me n' Rogue and Yukino too, we all noticed. I don't think you were always the type of dude to carry baby shampoo in his wallet."

If Natsu had a tail, Sting was sure it would be hammering into the rooftop with puppy wags. Laughing his way into a smile of disbelief, Natsu stuttered something that might have been an actual sentence in another world.

God, it felt so good to see that 'Natsu' spark flicker in his eyes.

Creeping up on the point of bassy cackling, Natsu, eyes moist and hands all over the place, stuttered, "I-i mean I still was- still am a-a big knucklehead, I decided all that and still pushed Gajeel down that mine shift like right after getting onto your guild for treating each other like crap!"

"Progress is the aim bud, not perfection." Sting had worked up a small snicker fit of his own watching Natsu grin like an idiot to himself, "Look, it was impossible not to notice, not with how much Lisanna talked about you."

Just like that, Natsu's jittering delectation was sucked away, along with all the color in his face.

"Oh no." he whispered, his neck stuttering in its rotation as he turned it towards Sting.

"Yeah, she'd come over here a lot to talk with Yukino, like every other day. I love it, everyone's on their best behavior when Lisanna comes to visit." Sting too tucked away all his warmth to try and seem nonplussed, telling Natsu a casual tale he already knew, "And man oh man did she brag about you!"

Natsu shriveled into himself, palms smothering his own face to hide the sudden return of color to it.

"Dangit Lis…" Natsu said with a reedy groan into his hands. If Sting tilted his head and squinted just right, he could spot Natsu's cheeks blazon to match his hair.

Natsu was down for anything at any time, it was downright impossible to get a guy like that truly flustered.

Sting would see Gajeel and Erza get bashful a hundred times over before he would see Natsu sprout a blush.

Once, once, Sting had been lucky enough to see it, when Lisanna revealed to him and Yukino that Natsu had asked her to teach him to slow dance so he could impress Lucy

"We would eat it up, it was great, her telling us that you made a good decision today, or that you didn't break anything on a job with your team, all that jazz." Sting remarked, shaking the still demurely cocooned Natsu with a few elbow nudges.

Sting was getting close to his fill of reminiscing for one day, but he'd hold tight the memories of Lisanna coming to his guild every other day, her own wallet thicker than Natsu's with kitten pictures of Happy and mouth ready to dance with boasting and praise for her childhood friend.

Natsu slowly drifted down from tasseled groaning, rubbing his face with his scarf as if it could scrub the pink from his face.

Sting showed mercy and quelled the teasing. For now.

"She'd always say how privileged she felt, because she got to watch you grow just a bit more each day, and she got to do that better than anyone." Sting could never do the warmth Lisanna used to say that justice, but he gave it a fair try.

Natsu's flattered laugh was peaceful, muffled by the lower half of his face shoved into the folds of his scarf, sure, but peaceful. As if the sentence had warmed him.

Hues of rose were still clinging to Natsu's cheeks, using his erose scars as handles to hang onto. But he didn't hide it, tucking the scaled fabric of his scarf beneath his chin as he sighed.

"Natsu, I gotta ask," Sting began, hesitant to pry but even more reluctant to stop after Natsu had just gotten so much off his chest.

"Lisanna… why not go to her? With all this…? I-i mean, ain't she the one person th-that you are comfortable talking to about… things?"

Natsu's small moment of reprise was taken, the fond smile vanished, and Natsu fell back into his blank silence.

"She's with Happy." Natsu answered.

"Okay…?"

"I go to her, and Happy's gonna be all over me. Then he's gonna ask me if I'm okay. When that happens, I gotta be able to look him in his eyes and tell that I am."

Sting couldn't help but rub his brows with a harried grumble. They were back to this.

It wasn't like he didn't understand, but for just a precious minute or two he had Natsu somewhere where he didn't feel the need to be the campfire.

Natsu licked his lips like a nervous dog tonguing its own jowls, "Lis h-has her own things to deal with, okay?"

Sting promptly retracted his grumble and exchanged it for a mental palm to his forehead. The distress in Natsu's voice was more than convincing as to the sincerity of his decision.

"Nobody thinks to look in her direction, I know, but we all took black eye from Tartaros, and we all fought in that war." not even the return of Natsu's trademark conviction could fully ease the guilt needling Sting's chest.

"There's a talk with her I shoulda' had a long time ago, a-and the next time I see her, I intend on havin' it."

Sting made a note to mention this to Yukino the next chance he got.

"But how can you do that if you're stayin' away cuz' you don't wanna worry Happy?"

"I dunno."

"And how will you ever be able to convince Happy everything's a-okay if you are also keeping away from the one person who can help you do that?"

"I don't know."

The long winded questions had Natsu's gaze pinging back and forth, his ire visible in his slowly crumpling brows.

Sting continued to prod, "It's like, there's no way to approach that according to you. Natsu dude, you're not letting yourself get a win here. What part of the game plan seems sound to you?"

"I said I don't know!" frustration must have swelled to the point Natsu's knees could no longer bend, because up did Natsu spring with a raspy huff.

Staggering before steadying, Natsu stood over Sting, using the life Sting had injected back into him to grouse, "I don't know where my own head is at half the time, let alone what to think about literally anything else! Dad, the war, you name it, I got no clue Sting!"

"I-i don't know what I'm doin' Sting, or what I'm thinking, or how I'm feelin'." Natsu finally admitted, standing in a way that he blotted out the argent light that came from a moon almost as damaged as he was.

Sting regarded him gently, patiently, watching Natsu helplessly rub his face and ruffle his own hair, sending loose strands of faded pink to come rest at his shambling feet.

"I already told you, I know what you're doing," Sting spoke loud but spoke softly as he repeated, "I know that you have something to be."

The way Natsu searched him, searched his gaze and his expression, was like he was desperate to get a hold of the thing that could make steady, of that understanding he clearly didn't have.

"W-what?" Natsu's arms slumped down to his sides with a forlorn sigh.

Sting straightened his back as he looked up at him, "I told you I know you have something to be, and I asked you to talk to me, and you did, you talked to me about how n' why you came to be that something."

In Sting's opinion, Natsu had always been a campfire.

He had always had that wide smile that drew you in, had it since he was a boy, had it as a man.

Hopefully he still had it now.

"Things aren't right with you, and you are trying to sweep it all under the rug so that it'll end up being nothing more than a flash in the pan to your guild."

Sting should've figured this out when Natsu reassured Erza with effortless earnestness that he was going to be just fine in no time.

"Because you are the type of guy to burn himself just to keep everyone warm, because you found a purpose, to carry a certain weight so well that it doesn't look heavy to anybody watching."

Sting should've figured this out when Natsu failed to see the issue with acting the way he did after Acnologia, a slugfest beyond spacetime be damned, his family needed reassuring.

"But it's hard, ain't it? Keeping away from the people you love so much even if it's cause you're scared you'll hurt them, or scared you'll worry them, or terrified that they'll see ya differently? Even when you miss them, even when you know you aren't some lone wolf?"

Sting should've figured this out when despite the troubled stares and the uncharacteristic quiet, he and Natsu spent all that time shooting the breeze like no time had passed at all.

Natsu had left after the war because something was wrong.

Overwhelmed, exhausted, and he left the world to heal while he himself most likely scarred beyond repair.

Time passed.

Then along came Erza, whatever they argued about didn't matter because Natsu was reminded of just how much he loved her, loved his guild, so back he came.

Right into Juvia.

The solace Natsu spoke of with her was genuine, but returning to find your rival fighting-manhandling really- your big sisters meant that solace was short lived.

As surreal as it was that Natsu actually asked for his thoughts on that debacle, Sting thought they had all that solved.

Maybe telling someone who had dedicated themselves to being there for his family to suddenly stop because he needed 'to have faith' didn't wrap everything up as neatly as Sting thought.

Natsu was a simple person. People weren't simple though, neither was the world they lived in, neither was whatever was going on in his head, and neither was the baggage the war had left.

So when Natsu told he just didn't know… anything really, Sting could see why.

Natsu looked bitter, as if envious just how cleanly Sting had laid his own thoughts down for him.

"See? Even you know all this better than I do." he said, upper lip curling with dismay, "I ain't even begun to try and figure out Dad a-and the war, and I'm already over how much it hurts my head."

"I blacked out too many times during the war as it is, but did ya know me and my team went on a whole entire freaking job before it all went down, and I don't remember any of it?"

Sting's brows scrunched, "What?"

"Yeah, a whole gig, Luce said we went to some kingdom called Stella, sumthin' about stealing a magical staff, apparently it was dragon related." Natsu muttered in reply.

"And you don't remember a thing? Like nothing?" Sting frowned, going on so many quests you lose track is one thing, forgetting about an entire mission entirely was unprecedented.

Especially if it was dragon related. Another mental note was made,to ask Yukino to talk to Lucy about this job.

Natsu actually had good memory, beyond in a conversational or combat setting.

It wasn't easy remembering exactly where under a lake you kept your father's tooth, it was even harder to lug it back into said lake to return it to its exact spot.

Natsu growled at nothing really, looking to a nearby chimney to hiss at it, as if dumping himself of irritation before diving back into his own head.

He squinted, "I've tried hard to remember, n' all I've got was a few smells, like one person, and maybe uh… maybe one…"

Sting snapped his fingers at Natsu to catch his gaze, "One what?"

"One thing, the clearest thing, I remember is me and Wendy were trying to escape some guards or soldiers or whatever, one of them grazed her with an arrow, I… I lost my temper.

"Okay, well that sounds like you." Sting reassured, watching his attempts at regaining Natsu's eyes fail, his gaze sweeping right past him.

"And a name, a person. I remember that too" Natsu's nostrils flared, calling on his brain to recall the scent that kept the memory there.

"Sonya." Natsu suddenly declared after a moment, "I remember a girl, Sonya, she was with the kingdom or something, she was good people."

As if saying the name had just uncovered something deeper, Natsu's eyes widened for a second, "I think we left a mess of the place, and I think I offered her to come to Fairy Tail."

Natsu kept digging, snapping his eyelids shut, "She ain't here so she obviously must have declined, but…"

Sting found himself leaning in towards the standing, taut with anticipation.

"I promised her I'd come back to check up on her." Natsu stated, his mental burrowing finally producing something concrete.

Sting snorted softly, "That also sounds like you."

Meeting a stranger and just as quickly offering them a place in his family, whether it be intuition of the quality of their character or Natsu just thought they needed someone looking after them, meant Natsu on that job had still been 'Natsu'.

"I ain't so sure Luce can make heads or tails of it either because she told me she thought saw two dragons fighting each other at the end of everything."

Just like that, they were back to being unprecedented.

It was a big world, sure, but even before the war, the only dragon left should've been Acnologia.

"Dragons?"

Natsu nodded shakily, "She said one of em' looked kinda like Igneel." he murmured, far past the point in the night to be able to hide the pain in his voice.

Sting rushed to make reason of that, gently nudging Natsu's ankle with a foot, "Bud, with the crap we've seen, our heads are gonna have a hard time wrapping around everything. It happens with people all the time."

If it had truly been Igneel, the entire planet would have been alerted.

"Lucy is pretty well adjusted in comparison to the rest of your guild, even now I doubt she's fully used to seeing all the wild shit we go through. If next to nobody still doesn't know half of what happened with Acnologia, then I think maybe you guys just took a rough job that Lucy found a peculiar way to cope with."

Natsu said nothing. He merely gave another small nod, blocking lunar light from landing on the rooftop before him as he stood still before Sting.

"Look, I don't get it, all of it, but I'm not sure I wanna get it." Natsu mumbled, "and a small part of me wishes I didn't come back to the guild that day, or at least never have left at all."

"So that nobody ever knew anything was wrong, yeah, yeah, I kno-"

"No, it's not- it ain't just that," Natsu interrupted, lips curved downwards, "none of this, the way I've been actin', it's not right, it's not the way I should be."

Sting pushed himself up further along the roof's scrubby incline, wincing with weary disapproval at the sentiment, "You're allowed to have off days, you know that,"

"Snapping at Erza, losing my cool with Juvia, treating Gray the way I did, that don't fall under havin' an 'off day'." Natsu said, "I was supposed to be on a new adventure with my friends by now, not making messes again."

"By now? Not two months after all that bedlam?"

Natsu nodded as if it was a given, "I told my team after the war, after we won, we would go on this big 100 year quest thing that Gildarts couldn't crack. That's what I should be doing right now, not… not broodin'."

"Natsu, that's stupid as fuck," Sting's wince turned into a gnarled grimace, yet he let blue language fly unapologetically, "nothing you've done tonight comes anywhere close to brooding."

"Oh come on Sting, you can't tell me that you ever thought that'n a gazillion years that you n' me would ever be having this sorta talk!?" Natsu shot back with equal exasperation, the volume with which he heaved shapeless and raspy.

The already mousy breeze grew all the more shy, no longer having the endurance to sluice down past the far off glades from which they came.

Now the lowest and bravest clouds were left to amble in the same way Natsu lumbered through his next words, "What h-happened downstairs, did you ever expect t-that, from me? "

Sting slouched in his silence, gaze falling.

"Do you honestly think something would ever be… be wrong with me?" Natsu's words were so delicate they had to have been carved from the petite cloud that meandered overhead with a scalpel.

At first it had been surreal. Scary. Painful.

To think the campfire could one day stop burning. That its flame could flicker and eventually fade.

That was a reality that no one wanted to ponder, no matter how signs pointed to that reality's existence.

Because the world was a cold, cold place without Natsu around.

"I saw you standing n' thinking Sting," Natsu mumbled, "I-i keep makin' my friends do that, question everything, make em' feel guilty cuz they didn't live their lives perfectly."

"Wait, wait, wait," Sting suddenly whipped his head from side to side, "the guy who handed me my ass in front of ten thousand people for being a shitty friend suddenly doesn't want his friends to do the bare fucking minimum of what required of being a good one?"

Natsu's lips opened, but the words came from Sting, "Yeah, you're right, at first it was surreal, but that's because I had my head up my ass, and from the sounds of it so did you some of your friends."

"We were raised by dragons, got sent 400 years into the future, your dad ate stars, my dad bathed in them, our best friends are actual flying talking cats, and we can both raze continents if we wanted. But it's you not being a robot that's too much to swallow?"

Natsu could take years of unending bullshit on the chin so well that people, some of whom were the one who gave it, forgot it was bullshit.

But the one blow he couldn't take wasn't even a blow at all.

Sting gave a languid shrug, "Natsu bud, you picked a weird fucking place to draw the line."

"If it took me a few minutes of basic empathy to understand a bit of where you're coming from, no one has any excuse to think this is coming outta left field." Sting rubbed down the itch that clung to the bridge of his nose, "If anyone went through a fraction as much shit, you'd be giving them all the grace in the goddamn world."

Something in Natsu's head clicked, Sting could see it in the way his teeth snapped shut as he turned away.

A small mischief of rats scurried along the gutters lining the roof's edge, and Natsu seemed to find them more worthy of his gaze than Sting was.

"It's not fair, but all this Natsu is another mountain that needs climbin'," Sting put it in a way Natsu would most certainly understand, "just like being a better mage, or a better person, getting… getting better is something that has to be worked at."

"Me and Rogue, Gray and Gajeel, you, we all got so strong because we put ourselves in the best position to work at it. Same with you going to Lisanna."

Natsu's retort was so weak it couldn't even his head swivel back, "I-it's… it's all different now, things have changed."

It was Sting's turn for his knees to ache and ache until he abided by their demand to straighten, Sting popping up to grip Natsu's shoulder and pull, forcing a face to face.

"Natsu, you changed!"

Natsu squirmed like spindly branches under a bullying gust before he sighed raspily in defeat.

That infamous Dragneel stubbornness had been left on the floor of the Sabertooth guild hall where Sting had drawn him from his sweat and panic.

All Natsu could do now was just stand there and listen.

From firm to gentle, Sting's grasp loosened as he murmured, "Natsu bud, you just told me all about how hard you worked to change."

"The Natsu Lucy met, and the Natsu that I fought, they weren't the same. Hell, the Natsu I fought, and the one who won us the war, they weren't the same either."

The Natsu who had waded off deep into the realm of fractured reason beyond space time to do things against Acnologia nobody could understand, and the Natsu that stood before him now…

They were also different.

"You will never be able to do any of the things you talked about doing if every time you stray beyond the whole 'fire, friends, and fighting' routine you shut yourself down," Sting's voice was bloated with soft earnest as he gave Natsu a small shake, "you've become so much more, ya've worked so hard to change, why waste it?"

Natsu's mouth hung a little ways open as absently brushing Sting's hand off, "I-i…"

At this point in the night, digging deep in his head to express things he had been content to never utter a word about must have been painful. Natsu's wiry expression told Sting so.

"'Some parts of him are still there. But most of him isn't.'" Sting wasn't sure who Natsu was quoting, but it didn't take the shake in his voice to let him know who the statement applied to.

Natsu swallowed, "Juvia said that today, a-about me, when she thought I-i wasn't listenin'. I know she don't mean nothing nasty by it, b-but…"

"Ya know what? She uh, she's prolly right, i-it's just the way she looked at me the day I came back to the guild. Same look Erza and Levy had. It was like I was'a whole different dude."

Natsu made some noise, what specifically Sting didn't know, but it was cloven, half frustrated and half bleary.

His eyes, bedrock dry, shimmered for a moment. Shimmered more than they had downstairs.

"I-i'm still h-here Sting."

Sting was glad the breeze was gone, or else it might have taken away the crumbling Natsu before he got a chance to respond.

Natsu had rotten luck.

The moment he decided to listen to something other than the brassy beat of his own drum, he got an earful from a very fickle guild.

Sting had pieced it together by now, what Fairy Tail thought of Natsu was whatever was convenient.

Even now, Natsu wasn't a particularly sensitive person. Before, and hell during the war, that carefree spirit was still there, honest and soothing.

Natsu would protect Fairy Tail no matter what they thought of him. Appreciation, recognition, he didn't care for those things.

Trust did matter though.

People did trust Natsu, whether with their lives or their feelings.

But what if people stopped seeing Natsu as Natsu?

A lot of them still hadn't cared enough to acknowledge his growth, so what grounds did Natsu have to believe that the trust he had scratched and clawed for would still be there if he wasn't running around playing damage control?

All that work. The purpose it gave him. Flushed down the toilet.

Whether Sting agreed with that line of thinking or not, he understood.

Because Natsu was 'the' campfire.

And 'it' was always burning.

It wasn't supposed to do anything else.

It didn't know how to do anything else.

Even after the death of a long chased after father.

Even after the terror of a war on home and family.

Even after a battle with a brother not thought to exist.

Even after a challenge for the crown beyond space time.

"I-it don't seem like it, I-i know, but I ain't some rando w-who just stole the scarf. I'm still here, I-i promise S-sting, I promise." Natsu babbled, the wind whimpering with him as he weakly scrounged up some of that reassurance he used to exude from every pour of his body.

Natsu made a valiant effort to wear his smile, that smile, the 'everything's gonna work out' smile.

Even as it wobbled precariously on his desperate lips, Natsu still wore it as if it still fit.

Sting moved to hold Natsu, hold that smile, before it could trip and fall.

It was still an odd sensation, to embrace Natsu and actually be the one doing the hugging.

Sting pulled Natsu against him, offering a shoulder for his shuttering face to slump upon, and providing a frame for his still slack body to lean against.

Natsu's scent, still like ash that fell from overcooked meat, had tangled with whatever forests and valleys that the breeze had carried and left to stir.

Sting had gotten used to it.

No longer did he cringe at it, after all, that scent belonged to someone who was still his brother.

Natsu huffed with frank exhaustion, exhaustion he had long ways to go before being able to admit to.

"The Natsu who comes out of this, who found peace in whatever way, he won't be the same Natsu that's standin' right here," Sting murmured, "he's still Natsu though."

Sting was sure Natsu had been thrown this platitude a few times, he was sure if asked Natsu would reply that this was a given, but it needed to be said.

Aloud. With meaning and love.

Not a band-aid to sloppily apply after casual abuse. Not a throwaway remark to keep in line with a guild's song in dance.

Sting's hands found Natsu's shoulders to pull him away so he could look right into his eyes.

He was done sitting around watching coughs and gasps of fire and life be the only thing to bring light to them.

If they needed light then Sting would just give Natsu some of his.

"He's still my brother. I still love him. That hasn't changed. That won't change. If someone or something thinks they can make it change, well too fucking bad, cuz they don't love him like I do." Sting said with love and a smile to exhibit it, which was bright enough to make Natsu's eyes squint and glisten.

"You're my brother bud, and whatever's wrong, whatever's not right, I'll fight all of it with ya if you need me too."

Just like that, Natsu was back into his arms, still limp, until he shakily returned the embrace, and still silent, until he gave one frail faint sniffle.

Sting stood there and just held him. Let the sounds of the slumbering world that was still there because of him howl out its peaceful snores, proof that it and the people in it were safe.

All because of him.

Natsu didn't have that same warmth to his body anymore, at least not right now. That was okay too though, he could have some of his.

He had earned it, carrying those things, those burdens, with sunny smiles and silent dignity.

Sting hadn't forgotten about the panic attack. He never would.

His words may have found their mark, his advice may have eased some pressure, but Natsu remained haunted.

Natsu would have faith that his friends would be okay, and Natsu would understand that feeling new things didn't make him not him, but Natsu still broke into strangled hysterics because of one prodded nerve.

"Natsu?"

Natsu cleared his throat, "Hmm?"

"Look, the right thing to do by you would be to not let you spar with me n' Rogue, not after downstairs. Not telling your guild you ain't steady is one thing… this is another." Sting expressed carefully, expecting Natsu to have much to crow in response.

Natsu would never be a fan of being told he couldn't do something.

But before sparks could buzz from his tired defiance, Sting provided middle ground, "I'll let you spar, but ya have to do me a solid. When we go get Rogue, he's gonna wanna talk to you, and I need you to talk back. Not like you and me, just for a little bit."

Rogue would be so much better at all this then he had been.

And Yukino would be even better than Rogue.

So he wouldn't tell Natsu he'd be going to have to get past her too.

Yukino would eventually notice that he wasn't in bed, or that Frosch was missing, so she'd be up wandering the halls.

It was a dirty trick, Natsu melted around Yukino, but Sting had no other option if Natsu wasn't willing to go to Lisanna.

"Sounds fair?" Sting offered softly.

Natsu gave a small nod to something that probably wasn't.

When they stepped apart, Natsu rasped, "You were right. I-i've been wasting time, not giving myself any way to get better."

Sting snorted, "You haven't been wasting time, you've got plenty. What's the rush?"

Natsu turned away to look back out at Magnolia, at his guild that stood proud across the city.

His response was weak. Delayed.

"I won't rush, I won't, but I-i'd like to get back to being there for my guild. I know they'll be alright, but still… you know how it is…"

Sting sighed and shook his head, a soft chuckle cutting off the buzz of crickets, "Still impatient, huh? Fair enough I guess, you've kinda earned it at this point."

Natsu shrugged as he stared hard at the figure of his guild hall on the horizon.

The roof creaked as Sting crept up to stand beside him, "How ya feeling?" he asked, bumping his shoulder playfully.

"A lot better, like with Juvia," Natsu replied truthfully, "what sucks is that 'thank you' feels too weak right now, and I dunno any stronger words."

Once more, Sting finger gunned him, "Ahh, don't mention it. You've done this for me tons of times, it's bout' time I had your back."

They shared a smile, even if Natsu's was a bit more sheepish. He needed to borrow a little hope, but that was okay, everyone needed to from time to time.

"What you can do is watch me finally write my name on the moon, spruce it up a little." Sting's knuckles popped and cracked as he sent a wicked grin up to the night sky, eyeing the moon's craters, new and ancient, with devious intent.

Natsu finally tore his eyes away from his guild hall, "I mean what are you gonna do when Yukino finds out? It ain't like the moon is hiding from everyone, besides, the moon's kinda messed up as it is."

"Pssh, I'll have ya burn that bridge when we get to it." Sting rose a hand above his head, one pointed finger hissing with lily-white light, "for now, stand back and witness true art."

A thin beam of magic pierced the raven night.

It missed the moon and clipped a crow, obliterating it in a flash of feathers and smoke.

A grisly splat rang out from the courtyard below as a tiny smoldering corpse came crashing down to be brutally acquainted with the concrete.

Said corpse was quickly swarmed upon by the street cats Natsu's laughter had scared off earlier.

Both Natsu and Sting stared at the sight wincing.

"If Yukino asks, that was a skinwalker." Sting whispered meekly, face scrunched.

Natsu had other concerns.

"How did ya miss?"

Sting rounded on him with a flat scowl, "Don't you even start."

"No, like seriously, how, it's like right there dude, how can you miss?"

"Do you have the slightest idea how far aware that thing is?" Sting retorted in defense.

Natsu went quiet.

"Uh, maybe 10 miles. Or kilometers. Or whatever we use, I don't know."

Sting rubbed his face, "That's on me, I put the bar too low." he broke out into a laugh before he nudged Natsu with a palm to the forearm, gesturing behind them with a nod, "Aight, let's go get Rogue, hopefully he's past his horndog arc."

Sting's footsteps rapped against the rooftops, then stopped.

Turning around, he found that Natsu hadn't moved, once more casting a gaze he couldn't see out into Magnolia.

"Hey, you need some more time?"

Natsu waved off the gentle concern, even if he didn't turn to face Sting, "What? Nah. It's just you weren't lying, you guys really do got the best view."

"Oh hell yeah, makes borrowing this place at nine and half with no fixed rate worth it," Sting's snicker didn't last long, following up with a meek, "don't tell Yukino that either."

Sting's footsteps resumed fading. "I'll go check if Rogue and Minerva are… done, I'll be right back."

Soon, Sting's footsteps faded into the mesh of Magonila's distinct stertor.

---

Natsu's eyes caressed the edges of his guild hall over and over, admiring it for the simple reason that it was still there.

The building itself didn't really matter obviously, but he had missed looking at it, no matter how many times it changed.

Soon enough, his stare wondered, navigating through the maze of streets as if following something.

It was probably the way the moon rays skidded off the lake, light mixing and twisting into bundles as it tumbled through Magnolia's pavement arteries.

It was probably that photo, his little family in the grass hut, still fresh in his mind.

But right now Natsu watched as him and Lisanna, young and beaming, sprinted through those streets as if a single pebble of their cobblestone hadn't changed, little boy and little girl giggles echoing off into the night as if Magnolia was mumbling during its sleep.

She squealed as he chased her down in hopes of turning her face pink with tickles.

He grumbled as she won yet another game of hopscotch, a game he still wasn't all that good at.

This was before he had stumbled across that baby dragon egg. Before they had a son.

When it was just them.

A feral dragon child, and the one little girl stupid and sweet enough to be friends with him.

Natsu watched them cycle through leap frog and tag and piggy back rides as those memories that had leapt from his head and out into a world far different slowly made their way towards a particular river canal.

The school on one side, a grassy knoll on the other, a bridge connecting them both.

The two children that he and Lisanna no longer were scampered under the bridge, and Natsu couldn't help the small smile that came to visit.

He still remembered the exact time a teacher took her class to that grassy knoll for group reading. He had to, or else he never would've been able to swipe one of the student's books.

When Erza had come to the conclusion he was a lost cause, the announcement and the laughter it had brought from everyone had him storming out of the guild, and huddling under that bridge.

A book he couldn't make heads or tails of in his hands, stubborn tears tickling his eyes, and the sound of the teacher and students reading together in his ears as he desperately tried to follow along.

Lisanna found him. She always did. Made hide and seek back then no fun.

With all his senses he could hardly ever find her, but Lisanna just always knew where and what he was hiding.

She had found him, trying to teach himself to read so he could prove to everyone that he wasn't stupid.

He never would've gotten far in that without her.

Soon, it was his head in her lap, her hand in his hair, and her voice in his ears as she read slowly and softly to him.

Before there was the grass hut, there was the bridge.

To this day nobody else knew about the bridge, it belonged to him and Lisanna and nobody else.

If he went there now, he might still be able to find the ABC's he had scribbled into the bridge's stone belly as practice.

After reading, writing obviously followed, then math, then picking up where Mirajane left off with cooking, then cleaning, then manners.

He'd come back to her years later for reflection. And maybe a bit more math lessons.

Natsu squeezed out a few blinks from his leaden eyelids, clambering back to the present. The past clung onto him though.

He could still smell his boiling blood and sizzling flesh peaking out from beneath that bridge like the monsters under the bed that Lisanna used to swear up and down she dealt with every night.

He could still hear the wretched sound of his own breathing, the tender patter of the river flow, and Lisanna's voice, softer than any harp as it murmured out into a world freed from Acnologia.

'I-if you're ready… if you're… if you're tired Natsu, a-and you don't want to keep hanging on…'

This time, Natsu merely breathed deep, in and out, as memories with claws fresh and raw came to attack him.

'If you feel... l-like you've had enough hurting…'

Lisanna's voice wobbled in his ears, but Natsu stood straight just fine.

'Then you can go Natsu… y-you can rest, o-okay? You can rest.'

Natsu snipped the memory short, letting the searing pain it brought dull.

Natsu left it for another day.

He pivoted on a heel and padded off the rooftop to catch up with Sting.

Sting had been right. He needed to be fair to himself, to have faith while he let himself get better. And he needed to get better.

Because he needed to get everyone ready.

Ready to keep smiling once he was gone.