Chapter 18 Soundtrack:
1. Tunc Cakir - Blue Room
2. Hans Zimmer - Reduction
3. Outer Wilds - Reprise
4. Iron Man 3- Isolation
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.
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 him with something he hoped could match that earnestness 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 pin 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.
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?"
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."
"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.
"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.