Chapter 19 Soundtrack:
1. Nothing because you all suck and didn't listen to anything I gave you last time
2. Modulogeek - Walking
The old her would've loathed this, all of this.
Minerva was sure of it.
Trying to be good, do good, trying to wash away the need for control and the cruelty it inspired.
That lust for control once defined her entire being. That was all that mattered.
Life was a chessboard, and the people in it were pieces. The strategy one used to manipulate those pieces was what made one strong.
That was what Jiemma had carved into her, her face a canvas to leave swollen paintings of black and blue.
The world was to be formed to her darkness, not the other way around.
Erza and Sting and Yukino and Rogue had pulled her from that darkness, and she had no doubt the old her would've despised them all for it.
Falling for Rogue, thoughtful and sincere and gentle Rogue, the old her would've hated.
Finding a man who made her knees wobble and stomach thrum with butterflies, it was nothing more than childish weakness.
A relationship with Rogue in of itself wasn't what she would've sneered at.
He was thoughtful, smart, quiet, handsome, and even when he had surpassed her back before the Grand Magic Games, control had never left her hands.
The old her would've twisted this, these feelings, and used him as nothing more than a means of thrill, just another piece for her to use.
She would've tried to have had the exalted shadow dragon on a suffocating leash, all that primal intoxicating power every last legend warned of at her beck and call.
The old her would've been engrossed in those legends and the picture they painted, in the way dragons had ruled with supreme undefiable power, taking what they want, when they want.
Minerva just knew that the old her would've been furious to find that the dragons had been whatever humanity had wanted them to be.
Creatures of unstoppable calamity. Forces of abstract incomprehensible nature. Complex and organized beings with a rich yet savage history of conflict.
So many tales that humanity had crafted to use for fairy tales and bedtime stories and grand epics.
The thick books soaked with dust she found here and there in Sabertooth's vast library, crusty pages stuffed with faded letters and endless flowery prose, they all told of a brutal enchanting culture that would've been the perfect chessboard for her to play on.
Minerva had found out that chessboard was hilariously close to imaginary when Sting had caught her reading the latest encyclopedia on dragons produced by Fiore's finest scholars after the Dragon King Festival and called it all 'made up horseshit'.
It had only taken 400 years for humanity to forget what and who the dragons really were.
In the end, even if they were everything every legend preached them to be, it didn't matter.
Because Rogue Cheney wasn't a dragon.
Their might Rogue wielded, but his heart beat as a human. Inside him lay a seed that would never sprout, that would soon shrivel up and dissolve, ensuring a dragon he would never be.
Sting was human. Gajeel was human. Wendy was human. Laxus and Cobra, the chance of being anything other than human was never there as they never learned their magic from a dragon to begin with.
The old her would've snarled in disappointment at all that, she would've left him the moment a drowsy talk with him during naptime snuggling revealed the truth of it all.
But these days, Minerva really didn't care to find the truth about what more they really were.
The tiny marks Rogue would leave upon her neck and shoulders with his fangs weren't breeding marks or brands that claimed her as his, they were just typical nibbles and hickeys.
Rogue didn't go into 'heat', he didn't have 'mating cycles', he was merely a young man in the prime of his life with a healthy, and much appreciated, sex drive.
Whether those countless animalistic customs and traditions existed or not didn't matter, because she had fallen in love with Rogue, the human.
Maybe with Dragon Force, not the final most powerful state a dragon slayer could attain, but a bridge between man and dragon, maybe with that Rogue would be what the old her would've wanted.
She would be lying if that part of Rogue still didn't interest her, if the primal strength of a shadow dragon that slept within him didn't in some ways… entice her.
Rogue was already stronger than her from his incessant training with Sting, adding Dragon Force was a hat on a hat.
Okay, Minvera would admit it, Dragon Force Rogue was the sexiest thing she could imagine but that wasn't the point.
Because romantic intimacy with Rogue was the first time she ever felt comfortable outside her own darkness.
Beyond it there was no control, no power, no dynamics.
Beyond her darkness lay peace.
The first time, their first time, just her and her Rogue, awkwardly yet earnestly bumbling and groping and kissing like clumsy teens, sharing in each other's hunger and passion, the chessboard and her pieces forever forgotten.
They were far less clumsy now, although just as ravenous.
It was simple, genuine, earnest, nothing in those feelings to twist and defile and bend.
It was… normal.
The old her would've hated that, would've hated how that all spread, how Minerva began to explore the world free of that lust for control.
She found peace in others beyond just Rogue.
In the guild that still adored her in spite of her past cruelty, in everyone that never gave up, that never let go, that never let the darkness take her.
She had a sister now. Yukino.
She used to look down on her, on her warmth and sweetness, so unbecoming of a roaring sabertooth tiger.
Now Minerva knew just how much strength lay beneath that doe-eyed appearance, and not just in the terrifying hand to hand fighter Yukino happened to be, capable of demolishing her in an exchange of skill on equal physical footing and probably capable of giving Sting and Rogue a run for their money.
Yukino had the strength to cut through all her rough edges and prickles, and decided to call that stunted distant person she found a friend.
Yukino might have brought more normalcy to Minerva life than Rogue did, with gossip and shopping and humoring her questions about how to approach Rogue with her feelings again and again.
Sometimes, Minerva didn't know how to do good, be good, and every time that happened Yukino was there to be a guiding compass. Not just to her, but to all of Sabertooth.
She had a guild master. Sting.
A bumbling arrogant idiot, even after he and Rogue had grown, grown past her and her father, to the point they had been the only mages in Sabertooth to be able to somewhat back up their boasting. Natsu still kicked their asses.
That had turned Sting into a leader. With no experience, with no warning, Sting was expected to run an entire guild, one just recently left shriveled and ashamed.
Yet he led with earnest and patience, knowing exactly when he was your good friend Sting, and when to be the roaring master of the Sabertooth guild and all its hungry tigers.
Pulling herself from the darkness, even with help, took time on her end, and a lot of grace on Sting's.
Some cruel habits remained, and each time they resurfaced Sting let her know that they were unwelcome in his guild, and that she was no longer anyone's 'mistress'.
Sting made her feel smaller than her father ever did, ever could, with nothing more than a firm eyed stern voiced talking to.
She hadn't felt small since, nor did she ever even entertain the notion that Sting was unworthy of his authority again. He was her guild master, and she trusted him to take care of her.
She had more work to do before she felt deserving of this peace, this normal, but Minerva would never stop cherishing it, her old self be damned.
Her old self would never be able to appreciate this, what she had right now.
Rogue's larger rougher frame draped over her protectively from behind, holding her close as they both cuddled into each other under his sheets and wordlessly gazed out into his room's open window.
Brisk fall breezes had floated in to air out Rogue's room, filling it with cricket crackles and wind whimpers whilst they slipped into the shower, slipped into their underthings, slipped into his bed, and slipped back into each other's arms.
The war had left the night sky different, but Minerva didn't stop admiring the flicker of distant cities and stars as she and Rogue indulged in the silent snuggly afterglow of months of pent up stress.
They hadn't been able to do this since before the war, and tonight had been a boiling point.
Minerva shivered when Rogue nosed his way past the drapes of her dewy raven hair to carefully press his lips against the collection of marks those fangs of his had left on the tendons of her neck.
A gentle apology for more or less jumping her bones.
Her hum of forgiveness floated through the dimness of Rogue's room, and she rolled over to face him, olive cheeks still ruddy as Minerva hid herself beneath his chin.
His… initiative was much appreciated. A welcome change of pace if anything.
Their fervors were usually rather pitched, mutual, Rogue ensured that she never felt like she had no control. That thoughtfulness was what made her weak in the knees at his flawlessly dark gaze to begin with.
His powerful hands, once demanding and feverish, surfed down the curve of her back and got lost getting tangled in her hair.
Rogue concealed her slender frame under his rugged broadness, and Minerva couldn't help her dulcet giggle at the possessive pressure his embrace applied.
Rogue had gotten much more protective, if that was even possible, since the war. Sting too.
Neither of them spoke of the war anymore. To her knowledge no dragon slayer did.
She knew it had haunted the twins, coming to rob them of whatever scraps of gentle quiet they had found after their father's passed on.
There was more weight they were carrying, more scars they were concealing, Minerva was sure of it, and that at times frustrating masculine pride meant they had yet to open up to her or Yukino about any of it.
Yukino had told her the best thing she could do to support them as their partners wasn't to dig for answers.
Their mere presence, the fact that they and the exceeds and the guild were safe and happy, that helped Sting and Rogue more than she could possibly imagine.
So she and Yukino had accepted their answers that answered nothing, about Acnologia, about Larcade, about the truth of their past and what it meant for their relationship with Fairy Tail's first generation dragon slayers.
There were things going on inside Rogue's head she may never be privy to, but that wouldn't stop Minerva from trying to help him towards his own peace by reminding him of her own.
So Minerva was content to lay here with him, to simply share the night with her Rogue.
Peaceful and normal.
The door to Rogue's room burst open.
They both jumped beneath the sheets, but Rogue was already on his feet with a snarl, standing guard before the bed as two messy shapes poured into his quarters.
In the time it took Minerva's eyes to adjust to the light, Rogue had already recognized the intruders, his defensive stance falling slack.
"Sting!? Natsu!?" Rogue hissed, still trying to keep his voice at an appropriate night time volume.
It was Natsu and Sting.
Natsu wore his scarf woven around his head as if mimicking Dobongal's ninja cowl.
Sting wore a sock over his head. With holes cut out for his eyes and mouth.
"His ass ain't cuddlin', get em'!" Sting announced with whisper-yell as he pointed at his twin.
Rogue spluttered his confusion as Natsu and Rogue swiftly descended upon him, Sting pouncing with a full nelson while Natsu grappled with squirming legs.
"What are you doing?! Let go of me!" Rogue thrashing was half-hearted as his fellow slayers forcibly whisked him from his room, their snickers and giggling mixing with Rogue's weak barks of protest.
They had nearly gotten through the door when Rogue, still trying to not wake the entire guild, exclaimed, "I'm not even wearing any clothes!"
That gave both Natsu and Sting pause, their masked stares meeting.
"Oh yeah, uhh, Natsu quick! Get his shoes!"
The moment Natsu dropped Rogue's legs to dart over to his closet, Sting and Rogue fell backwards into the hallway and devolved into a mess of wrestling writhing limbs as Rogue let his anger at the intrusion be known.
While they tumbled around carpet floors and thumped against beige walls, Natsu ducked inside the closet and quickly began a hasty search.
Some of Frosch's onesies, that sword Rogue never used, and all variety of clothing rummaged through later, Natsu eventually snagged a pair of boots and giggled in delight."Ha! N' they said I couldn' be discreet!" he said, the contents of the closet messily piled around him.
A mattress groan had Natsu standing and turning to find Minerva, now left the sole occupant of Rogue's bed, staring at him wide-eyed with bunched sheets coiled tight around her body.
Minerva wasn't sure what the old her would've thought of Natsu.
Fear? Of the man who stormed into her guild and stomped nearly half of its members, her and her father included?
She may have lost to Erza during the Grand Magic Games, but at least it had been a fight.
When Minerva stepped in to keep him from decimating her father, she didn't fight Natsu.
She got dismantled. Brutally. Effortlessly.
Bare-fisted, he had laid her out through the skill gap alone. If she hadn't taken his exceed as a hostage, then the rest of Sabertooth would've probably met the same fate.
Why she thought it had been a good idea to torture his partner in front of him after that, Minerva would never know.
Or maybe the old her would have been fascinated.
By him, by the wild in his onyx eyes, by the snarl of dragon fire that drenched his fists.
Everything she thought the dragons to be, living and breathing within him. He was proof the line between man and dragon could blur. There could be a whole other world the dragon slayers lived in.
He would have been the perfect piece for her chessboard.
Sting and Rogue had always said that he was more in touch with his 'instincts' than any other dragon slayer, and that if she wanted to know what the dragons were like, she should look to Natsu.
After the Dragon King Festival, after Acnologia, after...
Igneel...
Minerva was dragon'd out.
She preferred the stars and the sky remain how they were.
With fascination gone, after all she had seen and learned from her time with Tartaros and fighting in the war, what should remain is fear.
He was the unimaginable creation Larcade had raved about.
He was what that blasted book and horrible legends had been created to hide.
He was the destroyer of all, of Black Wizards and Dragons of the Apocalypse.
Before her stood the king of all dragons, the end of all stories, and she was in nothing but her underwear.
Minerva should be scared, intimidated.
Just like she was when Natsu had come back from his training trip, unknowingly suffocating the air with wild draconian power everywhere he went.
She wasn't. Not anymore.
Of all of Sting and Rogue's brief yet senseless answers for how the war was won, one answer seemed genuine.
Everyone got to wake up every morning for a new day all because of Natsu.
Because Acnologia wanted a fight, and Natsu gave him all the fight he could handle.
Natsu was very dear to Sting and Rogue obviously, Yukino as well. His abrupt absence, for the second time, was yet another burden for the twins to carry, and yet another tear in Yukino's bleeding heart.
Rogue had shared with her many tender stories of him and the other dragon slayers as children, stories that told Minerva Natsu was his brother. Sting's too.
Now he was back, and as Natsu tugged his scarf down past his nose to show his face, one thing became clear to Minerva.
The war wasn't over for him yet.
His eyes told her so.
She knew what it looked like when someone had peace, and when someone didn't. Staring into a mirror for years had taught her.
Natsu didn't seem to have much of anything.
That was until Natsu gave her a smile, not too wide, not too teethy, but gentle and genuine all the same.
Then he waved.
Like a little boy flapping his hand at his favorite classmate from across the sprawling playground, Natsu waved.
Something odd, something warm, wormed past the decayed remains of fear and fascination inside her, reaching out past the chasm of silence between them.
Minerva smiled and waved back.
He wasn't human. Not like her Rogue. Not like Sting, not like any of the other dragon slayers.
He had every reason to hold a grudge against her. For torturing his partner. For kidnapping his exceed.
Yet he was the reason her peace remained, why she had a loving guild to pull her from her darkness.
So whatever he was, Minerva didn't think it mattered much.
"Heyo, sorry for bargin'! We're snagging ya boyfriend for a quick sparring sesh'," Natsu chirped, displaying he did in fact have some semblance of an inside voice, "don't worry, I'm gonna have'm back in an hour."
Minerva sighed and swallowed something that sounded like disappointment.
The twins were already training for hours every day, a middle of the night sparring session seemed unnecessary.
Although once Rogue stopped choking the life from Sting before the doorway to his room, he'd probably be relieved to see Natsu again.
"Very well. I just ask that you refrain from attacks to his face," Minerva paused for a second, "or anything below the waist."
"Yes ma'am!"
"Good man. Now, it's not uncouth for any man other than Rogue to see me like this..." she trailed off, hoping he'd get the message.
Natsu flashed a dorky salute, "Aye sir!" he agreed before he pulled his 'ninja mask' back up and tried cartwheeling from the room.
He collided with a dresser on his way out and onto the floor.
"I'm good!" Natsu popped back up, unfazed, and opted to travel the remaining distance with several barrel rolls, chanting 'ninja flip' to himself with each motion.
The end of all stories was also the king of all goobers.
When the door to Rogue's room was finally pulled shut, Minerva was left to herself, wondering how they hadn't woken the entire guild.
She laid down and curled up, waiting for Rogue's return, but as she did, she made a silent prayer on behalf of a stranger.
Minerva had found peace.
She prayed that one day Natsu would too.
"Will you idiots put me the hell down!?"
"No can do man, impromptu boy's night! Ya can do the naughty with Minerva when we get back!"
"I-i was not-"
"Nah, don't try denying it, Natsu's right, you were totally noshing hot lunch with her soul!"
"Yep, I could tell like right away, the wow goblin gave you away."
Sting came to a halt to stare at Natsu, befuddled, Rogue still squirming and seething between them.
"The wut?"
As he fought with Rogue's ever kicking legs, Natsu explained, "The wow goblin, dude shows up every time sumthin' outta pocket or lewd happens."
Rogue ceased his struggling for but a second, "Huh?"
Rogue looked up at Sting, "Is this like that time you hired a gnome to follow me around and giggle at my misfortune?"
"Nah man, his contract expired ages ago, if he's still doing that then it's pro bono work."
"Okay, like when we barged in on them Sting, the air got all pink n' kinda sparkly, someone started playin' like a saxophone, and the wow goblin went 'wooow!'." Natsu said, adding a falsetto pitch at the end in imitation.
Sting's eyes bulged from behind his sock mask, "H-holy crap, y-you-you heard that too?"
"Uh-huh, those suckers'r everywhere," Natsu nodded, "Gray thinks they network."
"Heck, the one we just heard could still be here right now," he suggested, locking each of Rogue's ankles under his arms.
Sting turned a suspicious gaze to the hallway darkness around them, breath quivering in panic as he glared at the walls.
"T-they're in the walls…. they're in the goddamn walls!" he hissed.
Rogue had enough. His body turned to dripping shadows to sink through Sting and Natsu's arms, plopping to the floor before he jolted right back up in physical form.
Said physical form, wearing nothing but Frosch themed boxers, whirled around to give Sting a rough shove, "The hell was that!?"
"Working us to the bone with sparring is one thing, but interrupting what little time I get with Minerva is absolutely unacceptable!"
Sting ripped his sock mask off and put forth a weak defense, "Cool it would ya? It's been more than a year since we last had boy's night."
"Don't you give me that shit," Rogue strangled his volume back down, he may be pissed but he and Sting both had done everything they could to keep the guild oblivious to their spats, "we are barely available to run our guild, let alone be proper partners-"
"Woah, woah, woah," Natsu slid between them, his scarf bunched up around his forehead, "look, it's my fault, I was being stupid again. You're right to be miffed, but be miffed at the right guy."
Sting tried to shoulder him out of the way, "No ya weren't, you were the one who wanted to wait another hour, I was the one who got impatient."
Rogue's eyes ping ponged between them.
"Oh, so it's boy's night with two whole boys missing, fantastic, the-" Rogue's barbed words shriveled instantly as he did a double take back to Natsu.
His shadow shuddered as the sight of Natsu sifted the anger from him and licked the edges of his vision with moisture.
He was back.
Natsu was back
His brother was back.
Rogue put the heavy pit of shade he had been carrying around since the war to good use, raven tendrils streaking up to grab Natsu, winding around him before yanking him right into his arms.
Natsu coughed out a withered grunt in surprise, and his body creaked like windshaken branches as he was squeezed tight in Rogue's embrace.
Rogue puffed his pain from his flaring nostrils, but chuffs of shaken breath were the closest he came to words.
Words weren't needed.
Natsu laughed and squeezed him back just as hard, "Man, you better have taken a shower."
Going from the plush and squish of Minerva's delicate feminine frame, to the rocky edges of a body as solid as his own if not more was jarring.
He didn't care, Natsu could be covered in poisoned thorns for all he cared, it wouldn't stop him from hugging his brother.
"Sorry bout' flubbin' the moment between you two Rogue, I can't seem t'stop doing that."
Rogue jostled the both of them with his head shake, reluctantly parting, "Nonsense. This wasn't your folly."
He looked Natsu up and down.
New foul scars. New unsettling scent. Thinner too. Not by much, but he could tell.
"Well, it kinda was," Natsu fessed up, "it's uh… been a while since we had a good spar. I was prolly too eager to see how strong you two have gotten."
"Again, he wanted to give you guys more time to candoodle, I'm the one who got impatient," Sting cut in, "but yeah, as I said, impromptu boy's night."
So gone for a month and a half, and back for a sudden check in training session? Sounded like Natsu.
Rogue's first concern was whether Natsu was in good enough health for that. His second concern was that if Natsu had recovered, he and Sting were getting trounced.
They had far eclipsed what they were during the war, Rogue almost hated to say, but…
No. It would not be enough to compete with what Natsu had become.
"I called in favor from Sting today, cashed it in tonight, and since we're together, I figured it's as good a time as any." Natsu explained with a shrug.
Natsu had come to the guild today?
Natsu hardly had any recognizable scent left, and with how hard he suppressed his magic in his day to day life, loud and zany Natsu had become a ghost to his senses.
He had been here, talked to Sting, and Rogue had never heard a word about it, about the fact his brother was back after everything he battled.
Rogue immediately sent a glare to Sting that he genuinely wished would skewer him to a wall.
"Favor?" Rogue's voice was wafer thin, sharp gravel in the dark of the hallway, "What was it?"
"Just something with Erza."
Rogue dropped his death glare and glanced back at Natsu, who was still grinning with sheepish giddy.
"I heard about her and Mirajane's scuffle with Gray. The results were not surprising, but I didn't expect him to agree to a fight like that." Rogue replied, softer, "Me and Sting were out training at the time, we missed it."
"Yeah, we gave her a sword made out of Dad's tooth!"
This was a new record. Almost thirty seconds where Natsu didn't say a never said before sentence.
"What? How? Why? What about her behavior possibly makes her worthy of- w-wait, wait, wait," Rogue backpedaled, "A tooth? I-igneel's tooth?"
"Yuh-uh, I keep it at the bottom of the lake I built my cabin next to for safe keepsies." Natsu flapped his head up and down, "N' like after that, we came here to get you, but… you were… busy."
"We waited." was all Sting decided to add.
"Me and Sting talked a bit, he kept eating bags of shredded cheese, then we looked at the view on the roof, then we did handstands, played with some rollie-pollies we found out back, then Sting drank some hose water." Natsu summarized in a way only he could.
Rogue blinked at him. "Okay."
Sting, who stared at the floor with his arms crossed, jerked his face up, "Wait, Natsu, dude, your Dad's tooth."
"What about it?"
"Did you put it back?" A rhetorical question if there ever was one.
Natsu paled, then gasped as his hands flew up to his head, "Oh fudge."
"WaitrighthereguysI'llberightbackIgottagomakesuretheskinwalkersdon'ttakeit!"
Natsu had already bounded down the hallway by the time he finished spewing his mess of a sentence.
The moment he turned a distant corner, leaving the twins of Sabertooth alone, one twin turned upon the other with a quiet snarl that left the hallway's shadows shaking.
"What. The. Hell?"
Sting assessed him for a second before impatience constructed a scowl for him to send back Rogue's way.
"You know damn well why I didn't tell you he was here, it was Erza related and you're insane if you think I trust you to behave right now." Sting sharpened himself up a stern expression of his own, "You didn't see what I saw tonight, so I don't wanna hear it."
Rogue scoffed, "So when asshole, when? I don't care who else was involved, it is baffling that you think it's acceptable to keep this from me."
"For one second, one, I want you to stop trying to be pissed on his behalf."
"If not me, then who, Sting? Nobody else seems to be interested in fighting for him, you especially," Rogue flicked hair from his rutted brows and jutted his jaw in disgust, "I don't care what side of Erza you saw tonight, you cannot be naive enough to think that makes up fo-"
"Okay, we ain't too happy with each other, I get it!" Sting snapped over to get into his twin's face, weathering the faint growls of his broiling shadows that took more of the hallway with every snarled word.
"We can be angry with each other tomorrow, but right now, I'm gonna talk, tell you everything that happened while me and him were waiting," he announced, stabbing a finger at Rogue's still bare chest, "n' you, are gonna shut up and fucking listen."
Rogue's sable eyes narrowed.
"He's…" Sting stretched one hand to rub at his temples, reciting softly, "he's hurting, but I don't think he really understands why."
Rogue's shadows came crawling back home as he responded evenly,
"Tell me everything."
Natsu came bounding back a few minutes later, and brought a fair share of the lake with him, soaked to the bone and wearing several thick strands of moss.
He came to a stop before Sting and Rogue, who broke off a hushed exchange to take him in.
"Aight, I'm back!" Natsu exhaled as he wiped his face dry.
Sting tilted his head, "So, did they get it?"
"Nah, it's safe and sound." Natsu said.
"And the 'we're back' department?" he pressed.
Natsu waved him off, shaking some moss from his ankle, "Already filed a claim."
Sting fist pumped in approval.
Rogue meanwhile watched as a downpour of lake water dribbled off Natsu's frame and drenched the carpet below.
It was his week to vacuum the hallways.
Rogue sighed, "Natsu," he prompted softly, "You're dripping."
Natsu surveyed himself for a moment, "Thanks!"
"Dripping wet." Rogue corrected.
"Oh."
The wave of warmth that sprung free of Natsu to dry himself off was a welcome sensation to Rogue.
Solemn tension just melted away at his presence.
After everything he had been told, to feel for himself that Natsu was still Natsu was… 'reassuring' simply was not a powerful enough word.
When weight on his duster tail had Natsu twirling around to reveal a snapping turtle had latched itself onto him, Rogue was glad to laugh.
"Oh, it's you again," Natsu yanked the turtle off him, pouting when it took a mouthful of his duster with it, "hey, c'mon man, Lis'll have to fix that."
"So, about this spar…" Rogue began carefully.
Natsu wrestled his torn duster piece from the snapping turtle's hissing maw before setting it down, letting it scamper past Sting and Rogue and off into darkness.
Sting debated on whether he should go after it, but the alternative of leaving it was way funnier.
"Yeah, I'm good to go Rogue! It'll be a perfect way to shake the rust off." Natsu's preemptive reassurance was expected, and compelling.
Still, Rogue opted to voice caution, "Let's keep it a simple spar, nothing as intense as boy's night, okay?"
"Sure!"
His automatic response usually meant that whatever had been said to him went through one ear and out the other, but Rogue gave him the benefit of the doubt.
"Alright, Natsu, form up and we will ninja our way out of here!" Sting donned his-in Rogue's opinion-idiotic sock mask yet again and threw out a random assortment of hand signals down the way Natsu just came.
"Remember, we gotta be quiet-"
"Why don't we just walk out the way Natsu came?" Rogue didn't see the point in secrecy.
Natsu, who had already tucked his face behind his scarf mask, was appalled, "Sting, Rogue's using common sense!"
"Dude what the hell, that's not in our budget!" Sting quickly berated.
Rogue went silent and gestured for them to continue.
Sting pulled them both into a huddle, "I'll take point, Natsu you take the flank, Rogue you're in between us."
"Wait, I got a fool proof plan that not only gets us out of here, but does it so quiet we won't wake no one up." Natsu interjected.
"Uh, okay, whaddya got?" Sting said.
"Actually all I have is the phrase 'I got a fool proof plan', beyond that I'm wide open." Natsu confessed.
"Sounds 'bout right, back to my plan!"
Rogue spoke up, "What do I do in the middle-"
"Break!"
Sting collapsed into shadows and was slithering along hallway's baseboards, leading the way.
Natsu was the caboose, trying his hand at another cartwheel. He almost got it.
Rogue was between them with an uncertain stride, still in his underwear.
As Sting led them in circles through the labyrinth of dormitory hallways in search of an exit, he quickly pulled ahead, leaving him and Natsu within conversation distance.
Oh.
Rogue hated to admit, that was clever.
He slowed his gait to let Natsu catch up, watching as Natsu came to the slow realization that maybe cartwheels just weren't his thing and scrambled to his feet.
Everything Sting had told him about his and Natsu's time goofing off hurt.
How else was Rogue supposed to react to learning Natsu of all people had a panic attack on his guild hall floor?
It hurt, it all hurt. Discovering where Natsu's head was at.
But it was not surprising. Not baffling. Not confusing.
Rogue would not be caught off guard.
Unlike everyone else that had been made aware of Natsu, Rogue would be prepared.
If Sting wanted to look to tomorrow so hard he wrapped back around to shoving his head in his ass, waste the time of peace that they had earned, then that was his prerogative.
But Rogue had taken that time to do what was right by Natsu and think. Think about the why. About why he had left again. Why he had stayed gone for so long.
Sting used to be able to do that too.
'The war changed everything' Sting said all the time, and to an extent, Rogue agreed.
So many wonderful memories had been restored, memories that wouldn't fill the hole the permanent departure of his father had left, but at least make the hole far smaller.
Memories of games and lessons and nap times with his siblings in a log cabin in the middle of nowhere woodlands, a dragon slayer daycare led by a golden gentle woman.
Seeing Anna again…
Rogue wasn't sure he had ever cried so hard in his life.
Everyone had gotten together maybe two weeks after the war, to celebrate Lucy releasing her novel, to celebrate their victory over Zeref and Acnologia and the Alvarez Empire. Anna, his teacher, his mother, had been there.
There to bring back a history he and Sting didn't know they had at the mere sight of her.
They had both hiccuped and blubbered into her chest, just as they had done as little boys, crying out gibberish after a petty squabble, all the while she soothed them with soft hands and softer murmurs.
They had both welcomed Gajeel and Wendy into the conjoined mess of embracing arms, hugging the siblings that had the world been practically hiding under their noses this whole time.
He got stuck with Gajeel's tight head locks meanwhile Sting got to scoop Wendy up against his chest and nuzzle her until her tears turned to giggles.
Natsu hadn't been there for that. He was the reason that got to happen.
With as much as Natsu had going on right now, Rogue, and Yukino, agreed with Sting when he said that revelation could wait when they saw him again after they had reunited with Anna.
They knew he didn't know about their childhoods, he never reunited with Anna, and if he found out some other way, then Natsu never would've left to begin with.
Keeping him from Anna was a sin, but for his relationship with the rest of the dragon slayers, it wasn't as if the truth would change much.
Memories of a childhood together or not, Natsu loved them. The only 'change' was the knowledge that Natsu had always loved them.
So until Natsu said something that suggested otherwise, they would both assume he was oblivious to truth about Anna, about their childhoods, about being sent to the future, about his brother, and about who he really was.
Those things didn't matter right now. It was himself Natsu needed to focus on.
Since then Sting decided none of that, all that, was worth thinking about. All Rogue had done was think.
So that right now, he could look at his brother without a beat of hesitation and say, "I've missed you."
"I've missed ya too Rogue!" Natsu giggled as leaned over to bump shoulders, "It's been a while since our last spar so I'm kinda spazzed to see just how much you two have leveled up."
When Rogue's stare remained hooked on his scarf mask, Natsu caught the hint and took it off once more, snickering an apology.
"How have you been?" Rogue cut straight to it with a loaded question so heavy its weight stifled what little bounce Natsu had in his step.
Natsu silently glanced ahead in Sting's general direction, fidgeted, then shrugged, "Uhh, I've just been at home, thinkin', I guess."
"You've more than earned time to get away from all this, there's nothing wrong with stepping back because nothing feels right or makes sense." Rogue replied.
Natsu gave immediately nodded, almost tersely, "I know, look I just-"
"Natsu," Rogue interrupted, brushing crumbs and slivers of soggy lake moss that had rode back on Natsu's arms and shoulders, "you don't have to explain yourself to me. I told you, I understand."
Natsu didn't say anything as he all but propped himself up with Rogue's steady voice, an almost skittish gaze watching as fingers picked lake bed debris from the folds of his scarf.
"Even if I didn't understand, that would not make me any less happy to see you. So I don't want you to feel like you have to discuss things you're not ready to."
Natsu nodded soundly with distant eyes.
Rogue continued with rehearsed precision, "But if there is anything, anything at all, me and Sting and Yukino are here to talk. We won't think of you any differently."
Natsu knew that better than anyone.
For all the ways people treated Natsu, for all the things they said about him, they ended up trusting him with the most delicate parts of themselves.
Natsu always handled what was given to him tenderly. No shame in venting to him. It was just Natsu after all, and he could give a mean heart to heart.
But receiving one? Natsu was rather green.
There were many reasons the list of people Natsu let into his head was a short one.
One of them being that pain traveled.
It traveled well.
Rogue had not been proud of his behavior after the departure of father.
Sting grieved for his dad by burying himself in guild work and training, a familiar pattern of behavior for him, whereas Rogue did nothing.
A father he thought he slayed had been hiding deep down in the same place Rogue stored all the guilt and love for Skiadrum Natsu had beaten back into him.
Memories had been taken from him for the sake of a plan to kill Acnologia. Well Acnologia escaped, barely, with his life that day, and Rogue didn't get any of the memories he was sure existed of his father back.
How many training sessions? How many life lessons? How many nights splayed out atop Skiadrum's mane of cozy shadows staring up at the stars would he never get to remember?
For days, weeks, he was a corpse on a messy bed.
That would've broken Frosch if not for Yukino, who did everything she could to be there.
There to reassure Frosch that his papa would be okay, there to keep his little mind busy with games and errands.
There to be right outside Rogue's door every single morning with a breakfast tray in hand and a sweet smile accompanying it.
For hours Yukino would lay down with him.
Sometimes she came alone, sometimes she brought the exceeds along, reading them stories as she patiently waited for him to eat something, anything.
Every. Single. Day. Yukino had been there.
Then one morning, Sting had stormed into his room wearing his Dragon Force with tranquil fury.
He had ripped him from his bed and dragged him to the main hall, and Rogue hadn't been able to do a thing, weakened by weeks of inactivity.
Yukino had been up before anyone, making him the breakfast she brought each morning, the breakfast he never finished.
She had been sobbing the entire time. She had been sobbing every day.
Softly, to herself, that's how Yukino always cried. She had to, because it didn't matter what had caused her tears, the mere sight of them got Lector and Frosch just as upset.
So Sting had held him down and forced him to silently watch and listen as Yukino wept.
No matter how much Rogue had thrashed, Sting kept him pinned.
No, he would watch. He would listen.
Listen to the faint feminine sobs of Sabertooth's bleeding heart, listen to Yukino cry so much harder, so much quieter, than when she had been humiliated and banished from the guild by Jiemma.
Watch as she cut herself on the ceramic shards of a boiling mug of coffee she had dropped on herself, falling to her knees to clean it up with scarlet hands and soaked cheeks, sniffling in every type of pain imaginable.
Sting hadn't let him do anything to aid her, hauling him back to his room and chucking him back inside.
He had watched, he had listened, now Sting would have him wait and think.
'It hurts. I know. But when she gets here, your head will be out of your ass or so fuckin' help me I will be back to kick it.'
Pain traveled. For all his reflecting, most times on both his and Sting's account, Rogue had forgotten that.
But in Natsu's case, with all that being said, Rogue was of the opinion that if pain wanted to spread…
Then good.
Regardless, he didn't need Sting's hasty jumbled findings on why Natsu was doing the things he did for Erza. Rogue already knew, he already understood, and as much as he disagreed with it, he would respect it.
"How are you feeling? After all that thinking?" Rogue carefully resumed the conversation.
"Oh, uhh, kinda got the urge t'like, fix up my cabin outta the blue," Natsu replied, "always tried to keep it neat after Wendy stayed with me, but I'm talking like complete overhaul."
"I mean, crappy brickwork, flimsy shingles, n' don't get me started on th' sorry excuse I have for insulation." he listed off on his fingers with the passion of an expert landscaper.
Rogue chuckled, "Where did you learn all of this?"
"No clue. Just wanted to suddenly build a porch one day." Natsu shrugged, hopping out of whatever leftover moss that had tangled itself around his ankles.
That gentle yet boyish earnest that had come to define Natsu, in Rogue's eyes at least, softened his scarred face to the verge of sheepishness.
"It was…" Natsu rubbed his hands together, then messed with a duster button, "nice, o-or neat, or just… I actually liked it, ya know?"
This type of honesty was so much more fragile than the usual bluntness Natsu worked with.
Rogue had notes, many notes, on how Sting had handled Natsu tonight, but he'd give credit where it was due.
He had convinced Natsu to expand that list of those with access to his head, and he had convinced Natsu to express himself in a way he had probably never done to anyone outside Lisanna.
Natsu, as emotional and sentimental as he was, was not a particularly 'deep' individual. Gut feelings and instincts were how he operated by and large.
"After doing nuthin' but wrecking crud for years, building something for once, it felt good."
Natsu caught a quick peak of Rogue's glance and laughed, "I know that sounds weird coming from me, blowin' up stuff is kinda my-"
"Not at all," Rogue cut off the thought at its knees, "given what you've become, it's not any more odd than Frosch thinking he's a frog."
"He isn't?"
"I think that you've done your fair share of building, and you know it." Rogue said.
"Sting said somethin' kinda like that, bout' things being odd," Natsu drew off, squinting ahead in an attempt to focus on the ill-defined shape of Sting further down the hallway.
Natsu pouted seeing Sting effortlessly do cartwheels.
"When we first reun-" Rouge clamped down on his words, then waited a beat, "when we first met, while I don't think you were as wild as people said you are, you're reputation also did not exactly fall out of the sky."
Natsu turned back to him, "Huh?"
"At first, I would not place you and the word 'gentle' in the same sentence. Then I saw how you were with Wendy, with Yukino, and now, well I struggle to think of a word that describes you better, reputation be damned."
"So no Natsu, given what you've become, you taking up landscaping is not in the realm of impossibility." Rogue finished, succinct enough to make Natsu yield the point.
"Uhh, okay, sure."
"In fact, I think you have built a lot more than you realize." Rogue pressed further.
Natsu's head lurched to the side, "'Given what you've become'?" he repeated, hopeful for a moment before grimacing.
His inability to take praise with no strings attached, and that small undying part of the little boy who just wanted to make someone proud of him went to bloody war. Rogue quickly chose a side to reinforce.
"Precisely. You've grown. As a mage and a man. So much so it's staggering. After all, who built that cabin in the first place?" Rogue would admit that these words should have come from him sooner. Far sooner.
Sting expressed the same thing when he recited Natsu finally opening up to him.
They had been so focused on their own growth that they never thought to throw any praise back his way, irrespective of Lisanna's stories and bragging.
Natsu was silent as he too chose a side, eventually shrugging, "I mean, I dunno, I stopped thinking about it after a while."
Rogue did not doubt that. The story Natsu had told Sting was one of a bundle of instinctive thoughts not fully understood.
Giving each and every day two hundred percent had become the norm for Natsu.
The drive Igneel had instilled in him, into those lessons Natsu had passed onto them during boy's night, meant that effort like that was the bare minimum.
The feedback Natsu quickly got, from the world, from his guild, was that two hundred percent just wasn't enough.
So quietly, Natsu decided that it was time to give three hundred percent.
"Just wanted to protect n' love on em', the guild, that's what a good friend is supposed t'do." Natsu reasoned.
"True," Rogue agreed softly, "but that doesn't make it any less extraordinary. I'm certain you would not have this same attitude if I asked you what you think of Sting and I's progress."
"Well duh, that's like a whole 'nother story, you guys grew way, waaaay, more. Made it look so gosh darn easy too." Natsu retorted.
"Growth is growth. I remind myself of that, of the man I used to be, every single day. That way I don't lose respect for that growth." Rogue watched as Natsu's arms tumbled down to smack against his sides, recognition mining deeper into the crevices of his grimace.
"Your father would be proud of you, Natsu." Rogue told him.
Natsu was padding right beside him. Then he wasn't.
Now he was staring at the extravagant embroidered lines of the carpet. Distant.
Rogue backpedaled to his side, and retrieved him from wherever his mind had just wandered with a gentle prodding hand.
Natsu's eyes snapped to the fingers that gently shook his bicep before riding along the length of the arm they belonged to, all the way up to Rogue's calm expression. Natsu looked weary from that journey, so Rogue held on.
If Natsu started dipping his toes in his ocean of memories, Rogue would be right here to assess whether he needed to be pulled back out.
Rogue used his voice reserved for Yukino and the exceeds, "I mean that. You know I don't do platitudes. You know I do not spout empty nothings. So listen when I say that every day, you made, you make, Igneel proud."
Natsu's eyelids quivered for only a moment.
"More than that," Rogue stepped fully before him, his dark gaze beaming with light Natsu couldn't seem to produce anymore, "if I put the child you once were before you now, let that little boy see what's in store, he'd be starstruck."
That little boy had been overstuffed with life and a love to live it.
That little boy couldn't wait to get stronger and master his magic and have all sorts of fun.
That little boy never wanted to stop playing games with his siblings.
That little boy had wanted nothing more than to be a dragon just like his father.
That little boy Rogue was afraid had gone off to fight in that war and hadn't come back.
"Natsu, that little boy would be over the moon at the fact that one day, he would get to be..." Rogue gently pressed a finger to Natsu's sternum, "you."
Natsu made some noise, a chuff, a croak, a peculiar sound that was quickly silenced.
"Now, you may hate that little boy, but I do not. I think that being who he would want to be is something to be admired." Rogue watched as Natsu's face scrunched and he blinked, shaking his head weakly.
"I-i don't hate him."
Rogue took a deep breath for himself and narrowed his eyes, "Is that so?"
"Y-yeah."
"Then you never call him a wild animal again." Rogue hissed.
Natsu flinched and shuffled on his heels as he looked at him with surprise. Confusion.
A few seconds let the gears in his head work, and Natsu flit a glance down in Sting's general direction. Understanding was there to meet him.
"I cannot begin to imagine what is haunting you Natsu," Rogue once more snapped into Natsu's field of view, brows softening, "but you have become too strong to let the compassion you worked hard for suddenly be a no-show just because you're standing in front of a mirror."
"I never want to hear those words again in my life. Do you understand?" Rogue asked.
Natsu straightened himself then nodded. He looked Rogue right in the eye as he did it.
"Juvia got onto me about that before you guys did," Natsu laughed to himself, his room quaking chuckle only spreading some dozen feet before it surrendered to the dim silence of the hallway, "guess that means ya'll are onto something if everyone is sayin' it."
Rogue didn't share in his mirth, not letting himself be hooked and pulled away from his point just yet. Just a moment more of searching Natsu to scratch the uncertainty that itched.
He eventually relaxed. His point had been understood.
That was the first thing he had concocted in his head the moment Sting got done dumping several conversations worth of information onto him.
Rogue started walking again, and an arm tug had Natsu following. Sting was no longer a vague shape ahead of them, having most likely turned the left corner he and Natsu were approaching.
Rogue flipped through his concise mental checklist, and found one last box to mark.
"Natsu, this is sudden, but it needs to be said," Rogue began.
Natsu sighed, reluctantly accepting the mood for what it was.
Rogue was the one rival, the one brother, that didn't speak for the sake of speaking. So Natsu didn't protest nor complain about the lack of banter and small talk he and Sting loved so much.
So far their walk down the hallway had been almost as quiet as the shadows painting it.
"I mean, yea, 'kay, shoot." Natsu said as if he was sure there was nothing Rogue could say that would reach deeper into him than it already had.
"I'm sorry about your father, and your first master."
Natsu was immediately proven wrong.
Rogue's hand came to rest upon the back of Natsu's neck, a soft squeeze piercing through his scarf.
That kept Natsu walking as Rogue built his next words meticulously.
He bet good jewel no one had yet to express to Natsu such a simple sentiment, even after all this time. Natsu probably hadn't even gotten one of his guild's signature platitudes.
Natsu may have been the strongest person that night, but at least Rogue and the other dragon slayers had gotten to say goodbye.
"Nothing ever fills that hole. I know." Rogue murmured, "Nothing makes it all okay. Nothing brings them back."
Natsu may have been the strongest person that night, but at least Rogue and the other dragon slayers had gotten to say goodbye.
It would be easier to put the stars back in their place.
"Just as you have done, your father allowed us to have a future. I want you to know that every day I thank him for giving his life for us."
Rogue was so busy telling himself that those words did little to make up for their sins of inactivity he missed the tendons of Natsu's neck straightening to steel.
Fairy Tail had been told to honor Igneel, to let nothing disgrace the Dragon King's majesty, to not let the protection his reign had brought go unappreciated.
They had done nothing.
"This does not, in any way, make up for… for anything. But I just wanted you to know that everyone at Sabertooth feels blessed by his sacrifice." Rogue said, "As for your first master, I'd like to extend my condolences, for what little that is worth."
Fairy Tail had grieved for their first master quietly. Natsu had told them to. To keep smiling for her.
He dragged himself back together after Acnologia to stand tall as the rally point he always was.
Even though Natsu's words had hit home, they always did, sharing this same sentiment to Gajeel and Levy that night he and Sting went to congratulate them left the two noiseless and misty eyed.
That type of sorrow was soft. Excruciating. Rogue knew it well.
"Obviously I never got the pleasure to meet her, but from the way you spoke of her…" a low laugh chuffed its way past Rogue's lip against his wishes.
To the rest of Fairy Tail, she had been the revered First Master that you weren't even worthy enough to lay your eyes on.
To Natsu, she was just as precious, but she was just 'Mavis'.
Taller than Wendy, shorter than Levy, rather ticklish for a ghost, rather child-like for being over four hundred years old, and rather naive for being so darn smart.
Apparently he would constantly get into hot water with his guild for how he treated her. She was his First Master, not another little sister for him to play with and dote on.
"I know that you loved her dearly." Rogue turned to Natsu with a sympathetic smile winding his lips into a delicate curve, "You seem to have a knack for taking any young girls, or at least young girl adjacent people, under your wing-"
That sentence died a quick and brutal death as he took in Natsu's expression.
Natsu was 'still there', walking alongside him, meeting Rogue eye to eye
None of that was cause for the alarm that scorned Rogue's skin.
It was the two thin trails of tears that had managed the difficult journey down Natsu's face.
They glistened meekly and quickly clotted up in his scars, leaving nothing left to plummet from his face.
Rogue thought he had been prepared for anything.
The most Sting had gotten from Natsu after a panic attack and a prolonged heart to heart was some damp eyes.
When Natsu blinked expectantly, it became clear that Natsu didn't even know the tears were there. They had not been up to him.
Natsu suddenly smiled. It was not as shaky as Rogue thought it would be.
"Yeah, c-couldn't help it," Natsu rasped, a bounce now winding every step, "she was a fish outta water, n' lonely too. Everyone else thought she didn't show up till' the games, but I caught her spyin' on me training some time before. I kinda kept her a secret."
Natsu's grin widened, "I think she wanted a friend. Big new world, she wanted t'see all of it, but didn't know how, ya know? Without all th' being first master stuff…"
"Wendy had just gotten enough money to move back to Fairy Hills, didn't have none for rent after Tenrou, so I let Mavis stay with me n' Hap'," Natsu all but gushed as he giggled, "company was super nice, and it forced me to keep my place clean. I wanted to start bein' good at that."
Rogue was happy to hear a tender story without the 'wild animal' crap.
"She really liked the zoo, loved the zoo. Asuka likes the dolphins, Wendy switches between the elephants and the big cats, Chelia's a fan of those seals,"
"Chelia has fine taste." Rogue added, earning a giggle he so desperately wanted to hear from Natsu.
Anything to distract him from the tears on his face.
"Ha, yeah, she does! But Mavis, heh, man, she loooved the penguins." Natsu regaled, voice caressed with his usual enthusiasm.
They both turned a corner, presented with another long hallway absent of Sting's far off shape gliding from one wall to the next.
"Only you would see a ghost and think 'new little sister'." Rogue poked playfully. The longer that smile stayed, the quicker the tears would dry, get lost in the canyons of scars.
He chose to keep the conversation going. Rogue did not need nor want any thanks, his words had been taken to heart, so now it was time for banter with his brother to make sure Natsu never knew the tears were even there.
Natsu puffed his lips and cheeks as a childish expression bubbled to the surface, "I ain't sorry bout' it."
"Wouldn't expect you to be, although it makes your inability to interact with adult women all the more interesting." Rogue said.
"Hey, now that don't make no sense but it felt cutting!"
"Natsu, if women are soup," Rouge slapped a hand atop Natsu's shoulder, "you are chopsticks."
A crevice of shadows, crackling with lilac, winded out before two to force them to a stop. Sting sprung free from it, coated in sawdust as he announced his arrival with a raspy 'ninja!'.
"What the hell you yappin' about!? Natsu's great with girls!" Sting hissed as he yanked off his sock mask, spluttering dust and cobwebs from his lips.
Rogue rolled his eyes, "Where have you been?"
"Checking the walls for goblins, don't change the subject," Sting said, "Natsu gets along great with girls, literally like all of his favorite people are girls."
Sting did a double take at Natsu's face, and quickly, quietly, looked to Rogue for answers. Rogue shook his head.
It would be best to let the tears come and go silently.
To his credit Sting understood that, and acted accordingly.
"Platonically yes, he's excellent. I was talking romantically." Rogue clarified.
Sting's expression went flat, "Oh yeah, fair, he has no idea the hell he's doing."
"Thanks guys, really needed to hear this." Natsu interjected petulantly.
"Okay Natsu, prove us wrong, tell us what you know about women." Rouge challenged with expectant hands propped against his hips.
Natsu took on his blank stare instantly. "Uhhhh…"
Sting's snicker weasled it's way through his teeth as Natsu swung his hands together a few times and popped his lips, searching his mind for things he clearly didn't have.
"Uhm, I didn't study for this, do I tell you or do I uh, just like do a worksheet or sumthin'?"
Rogue and Sting looked at each other to share a face, "Worksheet?" they both repeated.
Natsu flopped his head up and down, "Uh-huh, ya know those paper thingies? Lisanna had me do a'bunch of em' so I could learn my multiplication tables."
"Wait really?" Sting leaned in, awed.
"Yep! She even said I ain't bad, although she is super duper biased."
Sting's question was lighting fast, "What's six times seven!?"
Natsu counted on his mangled fingers for a second, "Fourty-two."
Both Sting and Rogue flinched in astonishment. Sting stumbled and glued a hand to Rogue's arm as if to prop himself up, "Oh shit."
Natsu preened at their reaction, making it so they enhanced senses weren't even needed to slice through the dark hallway to see his smile.
"I can even do that whole division thing fast too!" Natsu stopped trading ferocious high fives with Sting to chirp.
Rogue took him up on that with an amazed whisper, "Two hundred divided by eight."
"Five."
Rogue's expression sunk, "That's not correct."
"But it was fast!"
"O-okay, back on topic," Rogue had to drag him and Sting through their snorting or else they'd never get around to sparring, "Natsu, that was incredible, I'm very proud, but what do you know about women?"
Natsu stroked his chin, thinking long enough for Sting and Rogue to regain their composure.
"I uh, don't like it when they cry." Natsu finally concluded.
Rogue blanched, "That's it?" he scoffed as if slighted.
"Natsu dude, we could've told ya that." Sting chuckled, evidently not surprised by the feeble answer.
Natsu cocked his head like a dog, loose salmon bangs shifting like floppy ears, "Really?"
"We're guys Natsu, we all have a sensitivity to that, it came free with your male instincts."
Rogue had his own fingers dotting his bowed head, nursing an appalled headache, "Although he is more sensitive to it than most."
"Yeah," Sting agreed, "you stills a dude chief, got that testosterone pumping through you Natsu. You can try to fight male instinct, but male instinct has hands."
"Teste-what?" Natsu may as well have been down the hall, not understanding a word said.
Rogue's brows knotted "Testosterone." he huffed, putting it in a way palatable to Natsu, "It's the thing in your blood that made you want to build a porch."
"Oh," Natsu held up his hands and flipped them back to front, as if trying to inspect the veins within them, "right on."
"I knew he was clueless, but to have so much experiencing interacting with them, and to know so little…" Rogue droned on to himself.
Sting slapped an elbow across his twin's arm, "Oh would ya quit it? You accidentally groped Yukino's boob once n' have been overcorrecting ever since."
"Like yeah, give me a break Rogue, girls are confusing! You gotta be gentle with em' but you can't baby them while also respecting th-" Natsu's eyes darkened, "wait, you did what?"
"See? He's got the rough gist," Sting said, "thought I was gonna have to be his love guru, but he's got the basics."
Rogue made a face that told them his spittle had just turned sour in his mouth.
"It is a man's duty to be properly informed of the fairer sex, and to my surprise, you Sting seem just as uninformed as Natsu is." Rogue snipped, jaw rigid as he shook his head.
"Okay you say that but I've been losing to Lisanna at hopscotch for almost a decade and there ain't no way I'm gettin' dunked on clean every time." Natsu replied.
"That's not what I meant by 'fairer', I mea-!" Rogue took two steps back and breathed in deep.
"Okay… okay, okay, Natsu, we somehow have never talked about women in our countless hours of what I sincerely doubt counts as intelligible conversation." he began with jagged patience.
"Women are the most beautiful, precious, perplexing, and magical creatures our world has to offer, and as clueless as you are, your instincts are keen as ever and have picked up on how sacred they truly are."
Rogue began to list off examples with his fingers, "Wendy, Yukino, Minerva, Lisanna, Anna-"
"Hey Rogue," Sting interrupted the raving, a hand now framing the curve of Rogue's bare shoulder.
"What?"
"When you touch grass it wilts."
Rogue floundered, recoiling as if struck by the best of Sting's dragon slayer spells.
"It just kept going and it didn't need to." Natsu added, not exactly disagreeing.
"I called them precious creatures!" Rogue's voice teetered as he defended himself.
"You're a creature." Natsu snapped back, earning him a dusky eyed glare.
"Rogue, dude, girls aren't some higher dimensional angels that come down to grace us lowly men with their mere presence." Sting objected.
Rogue's sable stare just as quickly darted over to pierce Sting, "You think of Yukino and then look me in my eyes and tell me either of us deserve her in our lives."
"Shit," Sting wove a curse under his breath, conceding, "fair, but still, tone it down. You just had sex, how are you talking like you've never felt the touch of a woman?"
Rogue decided this, of all things, was worth his time and effort pressing, "I was not being salacious."
"Oh, I know, it ain't the sentiment, it's the presentation."
"Then how is what I said functionally any different then what Natsu said?" Rogue demanded as he chopped a hand in Natsu's direction, whose gaze had found the ceiling the most fascinating thing at the moment.
"Cuz it's Natsu dude!" Sting guffawed, turning to rap his knuckles against the chest of the man in question, "Hey, Natsu, since you tuned out what have you been thinkin' about?"
Natsu looked down, "If I put cornbread under a bed does that make it a cornbed?"
Sting snapped back to Rogue, his point proven, "My point exactly. To him girls are just the people that are fun to cuddle with."
"Girls are squishee." Natsu giggled his agreements.
Rogue was bristling, "How is that mindset ever going to help him get with Lucy then? He may not know how to 'girl', but he is still in love with her!"
A good point at the worst possible time ripped the jovial mood from their argument.
For the first time, the shadow slicken hallways felt truly quiet.
Disapproval swelled Sting's face up into a grimace, but Rogue was too focused on Natsu to be drawn and quartered on the sour end of his twin's stare.
Natsu's almost sodden eyes darted around in the uncomfortable dark and silence before he rattled off a sheepish laugh.
"Was it… is it… it's that obvious, huh?" Natsu couldn't channel enough energy to his arm for the usual neck rub.
"Well, your mind may feel like an unknowable place," Rogue's gentle tone was a delicate declaration of apology, "but I've seen the way you look at her Natsu."
A section of that statement was no longer true. Rogue had not been able to decipher anything the ash and onyx of Natsu's eyes had to say.
Sting was eager to right the ship, even if it came at Natsu's expense, "As long as we're just goin' around making him uncomfortable, Natsu asked me if I use Dragon Force during 'special time' with Yukino."
Natsu's expression never had a chance to dip towards something more morose as he jolted and growled, "Dude!"
"I mean, he actually asked me if he could ask that question! Wild, right?" Sting snickered, "Now, obviously I told him no, but maybe Rogue you could throw your hat into the ring."
Seconds later Sting's face was turning purple under the vice of Natsu's head lock.
Scrabbling hands found the tasseled tail of Natsu's scarf, and Sting pulled as hard as he could until he was free. Tugging harder had Natsu spinning like a top as his scarf was unwoven from his neck.
Sting hastily balled the shawl up while Natsu stumbled, chucking it far down the hallway to let the dark come up to swallow it whole.
"Ha ha, ya bitch!" Sting cackled. He promptly squealed when Natsu lowered himself and shoulder checked the back of his knee.
Sting crumbled like a puppet that just had its string's cut, "Ah, my cankle!"
Natsu wet willied him while he was down, blew a raspberry at him, before scampering down the hallway after his scarf.
Rubbing the moisture from his ear with one hand, massaging his throbbing calf with the other, Sting groaned and moved to get up.
He barely got to his knees before he found Rogue towering over him.
"You told me you and Yukino were waiting for marriage." Rogue's voice was a taut line that quivered under the strain of composure.
Sting growled back at him, "Really? Fuckin' really? You brought up one of the few things I said were off limits, and you think you got the right to clutch pearls?"
"We are waiting, not that it's any of your business. Why do you think I told him no?" Sting staggered to his feet.
"That is not the implication your phrasing gave." Rogue said coldly.
"That question wasn't really about sex dumbass, he basically asked me if I use Dragon Force when I'm f'ing cuddling."
"I know that."
"Yeah, you should, better than anyone you should know what the question meant, and yet here you are, on my ass." Sting seethed.
Rogue's eyes fell, but that concession, nor the falling of his shoulders, was enough for Sting.
"Yeah Rogue, you're right, he's scared of himself from the filth his guild filled his head with, so I should totally throw the abstinence curve-ball at him."
"I get it." Rogue mumbled.
"Should I explain to him how you and Minerva got betrothed just to have an excuse to pork?"
"I said I get it! It was a slip up, I was trying to keep the mood-"
"Yeah, yeah, let that happy memory of his first master be the end of your talk." Sting finished for him, coming out the other side of his flare of anger weary.
"It's fine, just don't bring that up again. Let's go find him. We agreed to be chippy with each other later." he turned to follow the direction Natsu had gone.
Rogue followed, quietly listening to Sting rant.
"It feels like we got one chance at this. At actually helping him." Sting said, "After this, who knows what he'll decide to do, what he'll get himself into."
Rogue scoffed, "He has a knack for trouble, yes, but…"
"But what?"
"You make it sound like he is going to go out and get sucked away to another dimension."
Another dimension A.K.A Edolas
"ACHOO!"
"Bless you." Edo Natsu said as that sneeze shuddered the floor.
"Thanks." Earth Natsu rumbled from across the bathroom, grinding his nose into his sleeve, "how long have ya been peeing man? Felt like it's been two years."
"Hey, heart to hearts like that can get the bladder going," Edo Natsu defended as he stood swaying before a urinal near where they had just been sitting, "besides, best to go now and get it out of the way."
Earth Natsu seemingly agreed with the logic as he sighed and trudged his way over to the urinal one down from Edo Natsu.
Edo Natsu couldn't help but notice the tears in his earthland counterpart's duster. It was already a tighter fit than usual he'd have to guess, unless Earth Natsu was just naturally that big without the whole Dragon Force deal.
Screw what Levy thought, Edo Natsu thought the whole thing was badass.
"Man, you really were in the thick of it before you got here from the looks of it, those guys you were tusslin' with must have been strong."
Earth Natsu didn't look up as he shrugged broadened shoulders, fiddling with his belt buckle, "Meh, only two of them were worth my time before I got stuck like this."
"What did you say their names were again?" Edo Natsu asked.
Now struggling with the button of his pants, Earth Natsu gave a craggy chuff, "Hmm? Oh, uh, the Spriggan Twelve."
"Hey, whaddya know? Elfman loves that band-"
Edo Natsu was cut off when the sound of unzipping pants was followed by Earth Natsu's gravely yelp. He flinched, but Earth Natsu practically jumped.
"Holy crap! Holy crap, holy crap! Dude!" Earth Natsu wheezed, golden oval eyes alight with alarm.
Edo Natsu immediately finished his business and zipped himself back up, "Woah, woah, w-what? What is it? What's wrong!?"
Earth Natsu was hyperventilating as he turned to look at him.
"There's scales on my weiner!"
"Ok, I take back that last part cuz' it was kinda dark, but my point on pretzel bread still stands."
"Natsu I get what you're saying, but next time, ex-nay on the supporting visuals. I don't need to see how you would go about stranglin' a goose."
"But it was okay when you did them talking about how bad at darts you are? Sting, you ain't callin' this down the middle."
"You call it bad at darts, I call it freestyle acupuncture. Besides, this was your scenario on fighting off a hundred geese with household items; I'm just ordering from the menu."
"Why in the world are we still in the guild?" Rogue's grousing brought Natsu and Sting ahead of him to a stop.
Sting turned around, "Dude don't be your jury summons that I accidentally threw in the trash the other day, I know exactly where we are going. It's our guild, remember?"
"Yet you have displayed the navigational skills of a wounded bumblebee." Rogue replied.
"Hold on, I thought ya said you were borrowing this joint at 'nine and a half with no fixed ra'-" Natsu gave a soft yelp when Sting just decided to lean over and bite his arm to cut him off.
After catching up with where Natsu had run off to in search of his scarf, Sting had been leading them all in circles through the hallways.
Now they had somehow found their way to the loft overlooking the library, despite the fact getting here meant passing several exits.
If this kept up they were going to wake someone up and get caught. It was a miracle they hadn't done so already, but Sting was intent on pushing their luck.
He was elated, truly, to hear Natsu's playground snickers and giggles again. Gray and Gajeel may not be here, but getting together with his brothers for late night trouble was something Rogue really did miss.
As Natsu and Sting broke down into a petty argument of overlapping whispers and childish arm slapping, telling each other to suck it over and over again, Rogue knew that on any other occasion he would be watching this in amusement.
However, if they woke up-
"Ahem!"
Shit.
That frore jolt of panic that raced up his spine only cruised up Sting's, a distinct lack of alarm on his face.
Coming together shoulder to shoulder, Rogue and Sting quickly blocked Natsu from sight as they reluctantly faced the direction the noise came from.
They both squinted and winced as low lamplight blossomed across the library loft, keen dragon slayer eyes taking a moment to adjust to the change in lighting.
"If what I think is happening…"
A voice, tender and soft, had bloated worms of sweat inching down Sting and Rogue's faces.
It was not some crimson eyed monster seething furious magic that had their timbers shivering.
There was no anger emanating from the slender figure that sat legs and arms crossed on one of the loft's plush couches.
"Is happening…"
No edge in that gentle song of a voice. No ill intent swirling in those serene chocolate eyes. No impatience on those delicate porcelain features.
Sting and Rogue's 'monster' wore loose silk pajamas and fuzzy bunny slippers, for once lacking that signature blue rose hair clip tucked into short satin silver hair.
Their 'monster' was not even a monster at all.
It was Yukino.
"It better not be."