Important Author's Note
I shouldn't have to type this out but here we go. After several comments and DM's across both and AO3, I guess I need to say this outright.
This is a story. Not a soapbox.
My intent here is not to influence people's perspectives and opinions, I am trying to create a unique and compelling story using plot beats and elements I have seen in both fanon and canon.
This means that my own personal feelings towards whatever (as I've discovered to be unpopular among some) sentiment any one character says about any specific thing are irrelevant. Don't try to figure me out through the story, don't leave a comment asking me why I'm bashing or hating on x, y, or z, and don't DM me telling me I'm clearly not a true fan or that something isn't canon in the AU fanfiction.
I want nothing more than feedback but there isn't much I can learn from 'queentitania43' DM'ing me about how sexist I am for making a girl lose a fight or something about bashing. (This has happened three times now.)
My goal here is to create a story that sticks with you after you read it, whether that means making you sad or happy, or in this chapter's case, uncomfortable.
I'm not 'fixing' Fairy Tail. I'm not co-signing everything a character says.
I'm just trying to write a story that's hopefully good enough to get you to review.
Anyway here's Chapter 24. No music this time, sit in silence and feel uncomfortable.
Please review, it helps more chapters come out faster. I read every single one.
Natsu always got back up.
He wasn't now though.
That was their fault.
All that talking, all those platitudes, all those indignations and exclamations, and they were just like everyone else. Like everyone else that they were so angry with.
It really didn't matter how you treated Natsu, right?
He could take it. He'd get back up. He'd be fine.
It's Natsu after all. Nothing all that bad really happens to him.
Except the panic attack.
The panic attack that should've been a clear signal to Sting that there would be no spar tonight, that boy's night was called off.
But nope.
No, just run him by Rogue, set up an encounter with Yukino, accept Natsu's excitement to fight, and let himself go deep into that place for dragons only and vaporize a portion of a hemisphere.
Natsu taught them what being a dragon slayer could mean something, more than just having a dragon's power.
There was no dragon slayer culture, not until Natsu decided to start gathering up three of his fellow slayers and one ice mage in the middle of nowhere for a full night of training.
They never got all the memories of their fathers back, so Natsu lent them his, taught them about a dragon's pride and discipline and determination.
They lived their lives as humans, but out here, they got to be dragons. All because of Natsu.
He had given them the opportunity to better understand themselves.
Then they turned around and kicked the shit out of him.
Because Natsu had been so excited, he had so much of his smile back.
The battlefield was another home for him, another happy place. One Natsu loved to share with his rivals, his friends, his brothers.
Tonight Natsu didn't love it.
Sting knew because they won.
They dug so goddamn deep because making Natsu try meant so much more than any spar between just him and Rogue.
The indescribable high that came from shattering your own ceiling hadn't even bothered to show up.
The amazement that they were capable of… of that? Nowhere to be seen. Or felt.
They won. But they didn't.
As Sting stared down at Natsu's peaceful, feeble, dormant form, that's what he told himself again and again.
He looked worse than he did back on his guild hall floors, lying there still on the glassed earth.
Rogue was pacing not too far away.
They hadn't even looked at each other since Rogue brought Natsu's unconscious form back.
Sting remained kneeling by Natsu's side, listening to his tired heart just keep beating, the exact opposite to the way it had thrummed during their fight, or during his episode.
"He was rusty." Sting reasoned aloud.
"We felt him getting stronger. He was shaking it off." Rogue replied, staring out into the wasteland they had created.
"It's not even been two months since the war," Sting said, "we both know there has to be more than just rusty. No Dragon Force, n-no-"
"He doesn't count Dragon Force. He never has, ever. Why the hell should we?" Rogue cut him off, "It's not as if we don't have the means to contend with it now anyhow."
Sting rolled his eyes.
It was almost unfair, how Rogue got to be considered the level headed one.
Both him and Rogue had felt what Natsu's Dragon Force had felt like during Tartaros.
That unfathomable explosion of magic.
It was far stronger than their own.
Their dragon lacrimas granted boons in many ways, but could hold them back just as much, conflicting with the magic they had learned from their dragon fathers.
Apart of that was their Dragon Force, easier to use, easier to maintain, easier to not lose yourself to the billions of years of instinct pumping through your blood.
But they lost out on that sheer boost Natsu's Dragon Force had given him.
Sting would admit that they had means of making up the difference, if not surpassing that colossal raw increase in strength.
Elements with perfect synergy creating results far greater than the sum of their parts, lacrimas that gave them access to the smaller yet more stable White and Shadow Drive power ups, and not to mention the dual element mode they had created during the war.
That meant White Shadow Dragon Mode and the combination of White and Shadow Drive each became comparable to their Dragon Force.
So yes, by practically stacking Dragon Force three times over, they could hypothetically match Natsu's own.
One issue. Natsu's base state was simply in a different league compared to their own, even now.
"No the hell we don't. Besides, we're up, what, three or four transformations to his none?" Sting responded.
"One." Rogue corrected, "He pulled something out at the end there, his magic skyrocketed. It took us breaking our ceiling and combining everything we had just to overcome it."
Sting growled. It had been hard to keep track of Natsu's magic when his own had been moments away from popping him like a balloon.
"Exactly, we relied on a gamble, it was a lucky roll that we didn't explode stacking all those amps. Took all that to beat a transformation we both felt was nowhere near his Dragon Force. Not exactly a sound victory of the 'power up game'."
Rogue scoffed at the vast nothing before him, Sting apparently not worth looking at.
"We have been working on form regulation for over a year, Sting, that was not some desperate improvisation, that was us pulling off what we have been training to pull off."
"The fuck are you doing?" Sting blurted with a hiss, "I-i don't get, why are you playing defense on this? Stop pretending that there isn't a massive fuckin' asterisk next to what just happened."
Rogue let the jeer brush past him and get swept into the flow of the breeze that slid from one flattened horizon to the next unimpeded.
"Because you heard it too. You heard it, you felt it, he gave us all he could give tonight. He busted out a form we've never seen before and we still won." Rogue said after a moment.
"That so? The hell makes ya so sure?"
"Do you truly believe he is capable of giving just one hundred percent? Have you really deluded yourself into thinking that Natsu has the ability to not give a fight like that his all?" Rogue halted his pacing to meet the blaze in Sting's gaze with his own.
Rogue tittered condescendingly, "Truly, the bigger question is why are you so goddamn eager to take this away from us?"
"This is what you wanted, is it not? Training us every single day, no matter who it neglects?"
Sting dropped his eyes to the prone Natsu, "He got weaker."
"Far more than that, we got stronger." Rogue shot back.
Rogue dumped his frustration into the breath he puffed through his nostrils as he resumed his pacing.
Sting was silent, ignoring the clacks of Rogue's falling feet against the crystalized ground for the faint beat of Natsu's heart.
Natsu was physically fine, roughed up for sure, but no bleeding, barely any bruising. He'd wake eventually, soreness and aching being the worst he'd have to contend with.
Sting knew he and Rogue had a day, maybe two, before this spar caught up with them and would completely gut their ability to use their magic for a week.
After forcing themselves as hard as they did, that was a light punishment.
"Look," Rogue grunted, softer, "I'm not pretending we could've beaten what he was during or even before the war, but tonight, we did exactly what he told us to do. We blew him out of the water."
"We shouldn't have agreed to this, no matter how much he wanted it." Sting replied.
"That we agree on. It would be in the best interest of our physical well being that Yukino does not find out about this." Rogue's remark, grave and ashamed, shared the air with distant thrums of light and shadow magic.
There was nothing, no mountains, no sea, nothing to stifle Earthland's soft howls of phantom pain.
No land to quake in agony, so the rest of the planet could only weep ashy tears, fizzling embers nearing the finish of their slow descent to the ground from high above.
It was a ghastly sight to Rogue, as it was a level of destruction he could truly wrap his head around.
Even worse, he could still see the streaking glimmer of their unison raid racing deep into space.
None of that was as scary to Rogue as the thought of an angry Yukino.
Yukino. As sweet and delicate as Frosch. As strong and willful as Minerva.
The woman who had grown so much more than he had that it was quite frankly embarrassing, yet still chose him as an older brother she could go to for comfort and protection.
Rogue had a hard time figuring out which aspect was the one that terrified him more.
Yukino being introduced to the concept of rage, or the fact she was quickly closing the gap between her and Minerva.
"Anna would mount our heads on a wall." Sting mumbled.
Rogue gave a derisive snort, "Well, she won't be finding out about anything. You are especially keen on that."
"Fuckin' really? Now?" Sting's head snapped up and over.
Rogue sped up his back and forth stalking.
"She more than anyone has a right to know what's going on, because unlike all of us, she has an excuse not to."
Anna had been whisked away by relief efforts the moment Acnologia fell.
So many hurt people, so many burning cities, she had seen her dragon slayers fall from the sky and took that as a sign that they were alright.
In a war torn Fiore, there were many more people that weren't alright.
She hadn't even learned about the state Natsu was found in until Lucy's book party weeks later.
Anna wasn't very happy with herself to learn that, leaving when one of her students, her children, was in such a condition.
She was even less happy that Natsu wasn't at the party, so much so she hadn't done much socializing outside of her dragon slayers or Lucy.
That was a blessing in disguise in Sting's opinion.
She had wanted to track him down but Lisanna's silver tongue convinced Anna to return to her relief efforts, to go settle down somewhere, and that the moment Natsu showed up she'd know about it by way of a letter from Sting.
Rogue was eager to remind Sting of his failure in keeping in contact with Anna in general.
Sting seemed to have no interest on looking back at the new past they had discovered.
No sharing stories about fathers or siblings or teachers, no cherishing the new family they had gained, just training.
After all, it had been Rogue's idea to go see Levy after they learned about her pregnancy.
Day in and day out, doing the bare minimum necessary to run their guild, all so they could keep training.
It wasn't sustainable, Yukino, Minerva, the rest of the guild would eventually notice the longer and longer the war sunk into the past.
The excuses were running out, not going to see the other dragon slayers, not going to see Anna.
Time wasn't a card Sting, or anyone, could play, it had been almost two months since the war ended.
Location stopped being a reason when most of Sabertooth's main members left the main guild location in Gazania and came to their sister location in Magnolia.
Availability sure as hell wasn't an issue, Anna had finally settled down as a school teacher, Gajeel hadn't left town since Levy announced she was pregnant, and it wasn't like Wendy was hard to track down either.
They knew where Natsu was. Lisanna may have fed everyone some tale about training or going off to help rebuild some town, but she had been a bit more truthful with the other dragon slayers.
Natsu needed rest. Alone time.
Something was wrong with Natsu. She hadn't said that directly. She didn't need to.
Sting took that as permission to do his best to shut everyone else not in his guild off apparently.
So the disdain Rogue responded to Sting with was well justified in his head.
"Yes Sting, now. I've seen those letters you sent her, every time she says she wants to come visit you throw her some excuse, you lie that everyone is busy when they clearly aren't."
"If you have read the letters, you'd know she just settle-"
"Don't you dare feed me that. Your inability to wrap your head around the fact that something's wrong with Natsu shouldn't be an indictment on our ability to see our mother." Rogue bit off the tail end of the excuse, voice cracking.
His pacing fell still, as he stared at Sting with glassy eyes.
Anna would make so much of everything better. The pain about his father, the war… Natsu.
Sting surged to his feet, "And you think I don't? Listen dumbass, I don't know if you realize but the last time she saw Natsu he was a kid."
He jabbed a finger down at the still Natsu and his macabre gallery of scars.
"If you wanna break Mom's heart, that's your prerogative," Sting stated as he shook ash and dust from his shoulders, "but we both agreed; Mom needs rest, and we aren't gonna dump the past on Natsu."
"Excellent long term play Sting, really, let's just never let Mom see him again and blindly hope she never decides to come to Fairy Tail herself to look for him." Rogue jibed.
"She will be here either way the instant Gajeel decides to tell her about Levy's pregnancy." he gave a mordant reminder.
Sting was finding it harder to temper the nip in his voice, "I know. I'm just trying to give Natsu as much time as I can to get himself right before he sees her and gets his ass up n' clotheslined by all those memories."
"And since you seem to be good at doing nothing but thinking, why don't you tell me how you think Anna coming to Magnolia, going to see Fairy Tail, would really go down?"
Rogue narrowed his eyes, "What are you getting at?"
"How long does Anna spend there in that guild before she hears Natsu catch a stray? Then another? And another?" Sting prompted.
"The stories…" Rogue drew off.
They both had known the truth about those stories Natsu himself would tell so fondly.
How Erza and Mirajane 'taught' him. Through fear and harm and punishment, the effects of which stayed with him well into adulthood.
Lisanna had set the record straight about those stories a long time ago, letting them know they weren't alone in their knee jerk response to those stories being horror.
Natsu didn't learn to write, to read, to cook, because of Mirajane and Erza.
He learned to do those things in spite of them.
Erza took him under her wing, so she could instill in him a fear of her that defined their relationship.
She just wanted the best out of him after all, she loved him unconditionally after all, she truly believed in him after all, so it was all okay.
Mirajane let him into his home, for all of two months, where he didn't get to eat dinner at the table with everyone else, not there or at the guild.
The table was for people with manners. Not wild animals who refused to learn them.
He wasn't singling out just Erza and Mirajane, there were plenty more stories.
Anna wouldn't need someone to pull back the curtain, she would see those stories for what they really were.
"I'm not stupid, I know Natsu tried to spin that load of bull back at the guild hall, because he loves them too much and thinks he deserved everything that happened to him." Sting said, "Anna'll know better. She'll see right through it-"
"And lose her mind." Rogue finished quietly.
"Exc-fuckin'-actly." Sting growled.
"He can't understand half of the crap he's got on his plate, why the hell are we in any rush to give him that shit show to defuse? The moment he reunites with her, gets all those memories back, he has to find a way to get Anna to not despise his guild."
Rogue turned and wandered without a word.
What remained of the archipelago tumbled down from the sky as doddering embers, cooling to ash as they rode on the free breeze that drifted around him.
As those embers died out, a fire burst to life inside him. Rage.
Ruthless.
Petty.
Rogue did not think about this often. On purpose. He had been what amounted to ignoring it all night.
Ignoring that for as long as he had known the Fairy Tail guild, all he had heard them say about his brother was that he was a useful annoyance they put up with because that's just the type of saints they were.
They were so just kind and patient and loving, weren't they? So graciously leaving him scraps of affection every so often.
What made Rogue the most angry was that they were kind. They were patient. They were loving.
Not perfect, sure, no family or guild is, but Fairy Tail was a truly spectacular place, with bonds that could help win wars.
They were all of those things, it seemed, to everyone but Natsu.
Sting spoke to Rogue's turned back, "You know how I know you're being pissy for the sake of bein' pissy? Nothing is stopping you from writing letters to Mom yourself, or from going out to see her or bring her back."
Rogue glanced back to Natsu, lying there on the sore earth in exhausted disarray.
His brother. Trying desperately to figure himself out, as battered as he was, all so he could return to his duty of taking care of a guild that sat by and watched as all those scars piled up.
Rogue looked to Sting, who had spent the entire night walking on eggshells he should be stomping on, and snarled a smile. Mean and dry.
"You're right." Rogue snickered, a sulfurous sound, "You. Are. Right. I could've gotten into contact with Mother, but I didn't. I played along."
He slowly shook his head, "Oh how I wish I hadn't. How I wish I called her here, let her walk into Fairy Tail, and just…" Rogue sighed, awed at the idea, "just let her loose."
Sting had detected some lock being snapped, the temper that quaked beneath that gate it held shut, but he didn't say a word.
"Oh! Right, Erza, couldn't forget! Spot on you were Sting, keeping me from getting involved with Natsu's favor." Rogue may have barked with laughter, but each cord in his neck was taut like steel.
Rogue pushed his hair back over his forehead with his hands, eyes dark with twisted humor, "Because if I had seen her face, the words that would've come from my mouth-
"Enough!" Sting was up to his feet.
"Cut that shit out. Now." he warned, done with the sight of craze in his twin's gaze.
"You're miffed and that's fine, but spare me the part where you rant your way into rewriting history about Fairy Tail. At the end of the day, they love him."
Rogue leaned back, a coy hand against his chest, "Oh, apologies Sting, I forgot about that. You're right once more. That solves everything, checks off every box I have, you?"
Sting grit his teeth at the playfully venomous tone, the bitter simper, it's how Rogue always snapped.
He couldn't lose his shit like a normal person.
No, he had a point to prove oh so thoroughly before he got to that.
"Just so I'm understanding this–correct me if I'm wrong–I love Lector, that must make it okay to punt him because he makes a crass joke. Right?"
Sting scoffed, "Yeah, reasonable example there."
Rogue popped his brows, tutting with some sick delight, "That so? I wonder where I got it from."
"Yet despite that sorta shit, when it really matters, his guild has his back." Sting pointed out,
"Despite everything you and I hate about how they treat him, they trust him, they rely on him."
"I saw it myself tonight, and while that excuses jackshit, it does prove that the shit that happened to him when everyone was kids-"
"Oh let me stop you right there," Rogue cut him off, "you don't need to make an excuse for that. I'm not upset at mistreated children continuing the only cycle they know."
"What infuriates me is that the guild that is supposed to be a home, a place of guidance, did nothing to stop that. Because even as everyone came to rely on Natsu, came to trust him, that behavior did not stop."
How long Rogue could go on about all this, he had no idea.
The good outweighed the bad, but not by nearly as much as it should.
He was always the tempered one, the calm to Sting's spirit, there to be a filter of fairness when Sting was too blunt.
But right now he just didn't care.
Why should he care? About being fair and reasonable?
What reason did Rogue have to think about all the ways Natsu's family reminded him that he was what's wrong and then turn around and be fair?
"I'll ignore Makarov doing nothing, I'll ignore Gildarts never being there, I'll grant you that some didn't know any better. I'll grant you that Natsu was the farthest thing from an easy child." he heaved.
"But then some of them became S-class, then they all stopped being children, then they should know better, right?" Rogue prompted.
"You saw tonight that Natsu is the one person Erza would run to crying, congratulations, Lisanna could've told you that." he said, flared nostrils whistling, "They love him. They absolutely do. They rely on him. More than they realize, but…."
"They do not respect him." Rogue hissed.
Sting's face crinkled, but didn't offer a rebuttal.
Rogue's pacing began once more, slower, yet not slow enough to restore the breath to his words.
"The entire point of Fairy Tail taking us down a peg, when we were so much worse than they ever were, was about what it meant to be a guild, right?" Rogue demanded, "About what it means to be a friend? A family?"
"That's what they all never stop talking about, yet it was Natsu who did everything he could day in and day out to back that talk up, it was Natsu who showed us clear as day what all that talk about being a friend truly meant."
Sting stared down at the man he had spent his entire life looking up to, heart lodged in his throat.
He had no argument. He had seen a shining example of what Rogue was cawing about just a few hours ago.
Natsu, hiding Erza from the world in his arms.
Using the fact he was stronger and bigger and wiser to be a better shoulder to lean on.
"'When it truly matters', 'when it truly matters'," Rogue carped, "It always matters. Every moment of every day, it matters."
"Not when it's easy, o-or when it's convenient, you are either always a friend or you are never a friend. You don't get to pick and choose when to treat your guild right." he riffed, "You'll never be perfect, nobody will ever be perfect, but you do not get to use that as an excuse to not try."
"Natsu always tried. If he knew someone wasn't right, if something was wrong, he would not stop until he found a way to be there!" Rogue heaved, the vapors of his magic beginning to quake.
The wind turned on its heel and ran the other way as his volume exploded.
"But guess what Sting?! Now we know!" Rogue snarled, sable scales crawling across his skin.
Dragon Force crept back onto Rogue's form, bristling his hair and swelling his muscles.
A dragon's rumble leapt into his throat as Rogue snapped.
"We know! He is lying right there! And he is sick! And we know!"
Rogue washed the world with oceans of his shadows, its thick ripples reaching out to choke the starlight from the sky, gorging on it until the entire wasteland had been gnarled to black.
Waves of dragon magic shook the deadland until entire mountains of earth crust geysered up.
Jagged distant juts of stone crowned the horizon, taller and angrier than the islands had ever been.
Sting had flattened everything.
Rogue used the fumes in the tank to unflatten it.
Dragon Force waned, the world of ebony rage it had brought seeping back into the scissures and canyons it had gashed into the earth.
The outburst left Rogue panting, and after a minute, Sting with a response.
"And what the hell do we have to show for it?"
Rogue blinked his feral irises until he was sane, "What?"
"We know, we've known since he came back after his Dad died. We've spent all night talking with him, getting him to open up, and then what?" Sting levied the question.
Rogue evened his breath, eyes narrowing.
"We made the same mistake everyone else did, we've been making the same mistake everyone else had.." Sting pointed out, "I watched Natsu fall apart on our guild floor, and still let him come out here."
"At least we can admit that!" Rogue countered, "At least we can look at him right here right now and recognize what part we played!"
Rogue bristled until his skin itched, forcing him to shake that rage from his body like a soaked dog.
Rogue held his arms out at the wasteland around him, spinning in place, "Look around you, where the hell is his guild!?" he boomed.
"Why is this falling to us? Why is Juvia the one picking up everybody's slack?" Rogue keened, "Why are you helping Natsu protect Erza from basic accountability by letting him act as if he's the one who needs to make things up to her?"
Rogue did not know the finer details of what caused the fiasco with Erza and Mirajane challenging Gray.
All he knew, is that to her credit, Erza actually took initiative to go find Natsu.
Whatever happened after Erza found him evidently prodded her need for control so badly that she went out of her way to challenge someone she probably considered weaker.
Erza wanted to reaffirm the status quo of her guild, and Gray had finally had enough of it. Mirajane was in there somewhere for whatever reason.
Rogue did not give a shit how cruel it sounded, that sequence of events pleased him.
Because that meant that the cycle that had chewed Natsu up and spat him was broken.
Well, now Natsu was very intent on patching that cycle up, and Sting was helping him.
"You, whose always complaining about how the world and everybody in it is just so god damn complacent, are suddenly so eager to just stand around and let everybody do nothing." Rogue said.
They had all gone in one big circle since Igneel died.
Something happened to Natsu. No one does anything. He leaves. No one continues to do anything. All that was left was for everyone to get angry at Natsu for leaving.
He ran off again.
Yes, Natsu ran off to that mystical place nobody could find called his house.
Most didn't know where he was, and that thirty minute hike to his house to go check was just too much .
He was being too harsh.
Few cared where Natsu lived outside of the guild as a boy, if he had anywhere at all, it was just too darn unreasonable to expect them to know where he lived now.
How could anyone expect that little wild animal would go live in the forest away from all the normal people?
This time around the cycle though, Rogue would admit, Makarov didn't instantly disband the guild Igneel died protecting the moment Natsu left.
What an improvement.
"Lisanna told us-"
Rogue whirled around, "Over a month and a half ago! And that's just to whoever even noticed he was gone!"
Sting growled at the interruption, "His guild have just been trying to live their lives."
"And his life? I apologize, I must have missed the discussion where we evidently decided that doesn't fucking matter."
"Yet here you are dumbass, with me, standing over Natsu after kickin' the shit outta him."
"I'm not the one absolutely refusing to go to bat for him Sting, I'm not the one picking and choosing to be his brother when it's easy, you are. Did proving we could be as strong as him matter that much?"
Sting didn't respond. Rogue drew closer with wrothful stomps, tightened tendons in his knuckles popping and cracking.
"But guess what? You still don't even think we won, so just what exactly was the point?"
"You see the same scars I do and say all the right things, but when it comes time for things to change like you've always wanted them to…" Rogue drew off, a growl on his breath.
When saw Rogue's feet come to a stop on the other side of Natsu, Sting's wagging head rose to meet him.
He gazed at Rogue, eyes tight with realization.
"It's the same thing with you," Sting scoffed, "you think you're ahead of the curve because y'sit around and 'ponder', you'll think and you'll think and you'll think and then it never amounts to anything because you still don't get it."
"So go ahead and lecture me about complacency and convenience when you've picked a helluva time for this attitude of yours to show its head." he goaded.
"I've been out of patience for a long time." Rogue growled back.
Sting snorted, "Yeah, well where was all this when we went to go see Gajeel and Levy? We had a nice dinner, talking about the family they're gonna build, but I guess what we really should've been ripping into them about Natsu."
"Lisanna, word of god, told us that Natsu needed time alone. Somehow you've thought your way into forgetting that."
"It's been over a month ." Rogue responded, matching the bubbling heat in his twin's tone.
"Oh, right, cool, he's all better now," Sting crowed, waving a hand down at the unconscious Natsu, "hey, hear that bud? You're as good as new! It's been a month!"
Sting dropped the barbed humor as he glanced back up to Rogue.
"You think you have the right to rip away the peace he gave everything to create just because you're pissed. You want this to be black and white so bad because if you don't you know you might not get to storm into Fairy Tail and tear everyone down."
"You tell me we know but you still somehow don't understand that Natsu's war isn't over yet." Sting watched Rogue flinch, like some pain in his chest finally won his attention.
He knew just how sour, how putrid, that sorrow Rogue swallowed down was.
It was hard to compete with the same outrage, shoot back just as decisively as Rogue was.
Not when he had looked Natsu in the eye and told him he wasn't trying to keep him from being the campfire.
Not when he agreed with everything Rogue was saying.
Nobody… nobody even knew when Natsu's birthday was.
Sting again lowered himself to Natsu's side, sniffling, "I-i promised him I'd help him fight it Rogue."
"So yeah, I'm gonna keep the peace, I'm gonna play nice with a woman I could go a few more months not speaking with." Sting announced, his attempts at gruffing up his words only leaving him sounding more scratchy.
"What we can do–what's best for him –is to let him know we're here. Whatever he decides to do next, whatever feels right to him, we're here." he croaked.
Rogue abandoned his unspent vitriol, but couldn't bring himself to stare down at Natsu for long.
"So that's it then? We are going to just abandon basic accountability?" he asked.
Natsu was blinded by love and immaturity and conditioning.
Rogue knew if he and Sting chose inaction, Natsu would most likely not uphold anyone to anything by himself. Not if they weren't his rivals. Not if it wasn't himself.
Sting continued to quietly cling to his point, hands limp on his folded legs.
"I-i… I got nothing." Sting weakly conceded, "Someone needs to hold their nose down in the shit they took."
He really did have no good defense for letting Natsu practically shield his guild from the consequences of their actions.
They both knew that.
That's why Rogue stood as Sting kneeled.
"But Natsu gets to fight whatever war he has left in whatever way he chooses." Sting finished.
Rogue did not disagree. He had come down from his furor long enough to admit that.
"When Natsu eventually wins that war," Rogue intoned, "when he finds a way to get himself right, when he fights through all the battles he has ahead of him and goes back to his guild, ready to be Natsu…"
Rogue paused, summoning enough venom for one last bite.
"How do we know his guild isn't going to just use him up all over again? After the night Igneel died, tell me how can we have faith that they'll finally start treating our brother like a human- fucking -being?"
Rogue was desperate for an answer, no matter how weak. Sting gave him nothing.
Rogue still had so many questions. And he had nothing.
Sting turned his back to Rogue, heels squeaking against the glassed earth as he fell from his squat to sit next to Natsu.
His head bowed between his propped knees, falling into hands caked with island ash.
Rogue took the concession, the weary sigh and the slumped shoulders, with his own ragged grunt.
He stalked away to go pace elsewhere, taking no satisfaction or victory with him.
The winner, if there was one, never did.
Whether it be training, or yelling, it did nothing. Even now.
Their trickling sweat was still cold, the steaming ground was still hot.
Nothing had stopped hurting.
It was the story of their every fight.
The only thing they could savor was the fact they would be able to hide their fights for just one more night.
That was when Natsu woke up.
Natsu opened his eyes and sucked in a breath so deep he may as well have claimed all the oxygen in the area as his.
He sat up with a hoarse grunt, trading a view of a crisp night sky for the blurry blonde shape of Sting crouched to his left.
A steadying hand landed on his shoulders while the faint buzz of Sting's voice failed to become decipherable.
A pair of legs, Rogue's legs, stepped into view on Natsu's right.
Both Sting and Rogue could tell just by looking at him, Natsu probably wanted to vomit.
They had been there before. Ears were ringing. Couldn't see a thing. Everything on your inside wanted to be on your outside.
"T-that was wicked!" Natsu instead blurted with a happy gasp, "Holy c-crap! Guys I got so many freakin' goosebumps! That was hardcore!"
Filling his lungs with proper air was seemingly now an afterthought to Natsu, wild eyes bouncing between the now slightly more defined figures of Sting and Rogue.
"Y-you two rocked! Sting dude, I thought you were gonna like blast me to way, way, way out inta' outer space!" Natsu clamored through a coughing fit, "And Rogue, man, you cleaned my clock!"
Natsu tried to sit up, a tangle of limbs batting away hands and ignoring startled protests.
To Natsu there were like, four Stings right now, so it was really tough.
"Ooh, ooh! N' the c-combining all your transformations together like t-that, 's bout' time-" Natsu stopped his jabbering when his eyes fell down to their surroundings, "Heeey, waitaminut', w-where'd all th' islands go?!"
Natsu rubbed his eyes over and over again, "Uhh, g-guys, the wolves r'gonna be miffed."
"Natsu!"
Natsu's head snapped to Sting as he gently shook his shoulders, "Wha-? What, what!?"
"Are you oka-"
"O-oh, hey, Sting! Did ya see that!?"
Sting's brow couldn't be drawn any tighter as he foiled Natsu's attempts at getting up yet again.
Natsu wiggled his tingling fingers as a deep shudder took a hold of him and refused to let go.
"Yeah, I was there, look bud, how are you-"
"That was sooo much more wild than that time you and me went t-to see the old dude who runs the noodle shop t'help him move out of his mom's place, remember?" Natsu giggled like mad, "He was fightin' those garden gnomes with a spoon, a-and uh, since we had cash he let us watch! 'member?"
Sting blinked at him, "I was gonna ask if you feel like you have any internal bleeding, but yeah, let's get into that."
"He's most likely concussed." Rogue rumbled, crouching down on the other side of Natsu, "Given how often he takes blows to the head when he isn't expecting them, we should check for-"
"Yo Rogue, you were like, in the beam! H-how'd ya do that when it was like, g-going all-" Natsu then proceeded to try and create a brand new sound, with a few zany hand gestures to match.
"Take your time, sound it out." Rogue remarked as listened to the raving thump of Natsu's heart, rampant but nothing dangerous.
"H-his beam, it went 'shaboomsh', a-and then there wasn't anymore anything!" Natsu panted out.
Sting couldn't help it, he snickered. It was impossible not to, not with the pure twinkle of childish delight in Natsu's eyes, or whatever the hell was coming from his mouth.
"'Shaboomsh'?" he repeated.
"I-i think tha's what I said."
Sting held up a hand, all five fingers splayed out, "Aight, 'kay, how many digits am I holdin' up bud?"
"Seven maybe, n-not good at division—now guys, seriously , where'd the islands go?" Natsu repeated before wincing, a hand flying down to his side, "My blood hurts, does anyone else's blood hurt?"
Rogue gave a startled cough, "Your wha-"
Natsu loudly smacked his lips, "My mouth tastes like teeth too." he drawled.
"How hard did you hit him?" Sting hissed, snapping his fingers in front of the doozy's Natsu face to stop him from asking Rogue if he wanted to see the pictures of Asuka he kept in his wallet.
Rogue rubbed his brows, face contorted as he shrugged.
"Natsu, the islands, well… you can kinda guess what happened. I-no, we," Sting gestured slowly to himself and Rogue, "got sloppy. Real sloppy. So it's all gone. Me and Rogue already talked about it, we are never going to lose control like that again."
"Thankfully civilization is far enough away for the planet to absorb most of the aftermath. A few fishing towns getting a nasty storm is the worst that'll happen." Rogue added, "Regardless, we understand we can't afford to be this destructive ever again."
Natsu gave a ditzy nod.
"Did you get any of that?" Sting blanched.
Natsu sneezed wetly. Then wiped his nose on Rogue's sleeve.
Rogue pouted as he ripped his arm away, remarking, "I guess this is the closest we will ever get to getting him drunk."
Natsu blinked a few more times at the vastly different horizon, the fog in his eyes slowly clearing.
"Man, your uhh, Flash Bang thing did all that?" he asked them both with a low whistle.
"Flash Fang." Sting corrected, pulling his head away from the skyline with a sour expression, "Although Flash Bang is way cooler."
"O-oh yeah, yeah, for sure."
"No it isn't." Rogue butt in to contradict.
"Rogue can I talk to you for a second?" Natsu warned, suddenly fully lucid.
"Look, just take a few more minutes Natsu," Sting suggested gently, "no rush-"
"Pfft nah, I'll tell ya what I'm gonna do, I'm gonna get up, " Natsu surged up before the twins could stop him, "yep, this is a good idea."
The moment his feet were flat against the ground, irrespective of Sting and Rogue's efforts, Natsu went still.
"H-hey, here's an idea; why don't all of us, ya know as a group, lay down like, right now?" Natsu croaked, "Won't that be fun?"
The twins gave him an out and agreed, having never stopped propping him up.
Natsu groaned as he let them carefully lower him back down, "Good call guys, t-that was a-a… good… agreed upon… n-next move."
Natsu felt something pop somewhere inside as his spine flattened against the ground, "Ah! Mother… bear!" he brayed, rubbing his ribs.
Sting and Rogue both paused, halfway to the ground. They looked at each other, almost awed.
"You can curse Natsu." Rogue sighed as he laid himself at Natsu's side.
Sting meanwhile fell down to his elbows on the other side of Natsu, "Dude please just say 'fuck' next time, I'm begging you."
Natsu smacked his cheeks as he tried to reign in his soft wheezing, "Whew, sorry, noggin is still spinnin'. Rogue, you and your dad really laid me out."
"What?"
"O-oh, yeah, Skiadrum was there. He's a hundred stories, of hundred ten percent ten speed terror like bam, like fresh out the grease." Natsu slurred.
"Sting we need to take him to go see Porlyusica, he's saying brand new sentences." Rogue suggested to his twin with a solemn frown.
"Wait that was a sentence? I thought he was just inventing new languages again."
"Guys, 'm fine, jus' super tickled is all." Natsu tittered, hands flopping from his face so he could squint at the sky.
"That really was awesome you two, for real," he continued, forcing his head up to grin wide at them both, "Gray and Gajeel have no idea how much they missed out."
Their reactions were delayed, almost strained, and Natsu didn't know why. Eventually though, a pair of genuine smiles replied back.
"I did miss this." Rogue admitted. Sting agreed with a hum.
"Sorry bout' everything leading up to it though," Natsu said softly, "still pretty crummy to be interrupting your moments with your girlfriends."
"Nah, I told ya man, it's all good," Sting repeated, reaching out to bump him with a forearm, "besides, your 'if you hurt her' talk felt phoned in. Underwhelming even."
Natsu stopped rubbing his scarf against his nose, "I-i… huh, r-really?"
Sting gave a hesitant nod.
"Well uh, guess it'd just feel off to threaten ya. I mean, 'm super duper stoked for you and Yukino, really, I know you'll make her happy man." Natsu worked through his thoughts aloud.
He finished with a shrug, "Why would I think ya'd not treat her right? Heck, what right would I have-"
"Natsu, it's Yukino," Sting butt in, "you more than anyone have that right to make damn sure the guy brings her back by ten."
"I agree." Rogue grunted tersely, "You were protecting her before we were."
"I dunno guys, maybe I could've done it before but now my gut just says it'd feel wack." Natsu insisted, "Like didn't I just interrupt cuddling time with you n' Minerva? That was lame of me."
"No, it was lame of me. You're trying to be all considerate and I'm cramping your style." Sting reminded, muttering beneath his breath, "Just glad we decided to wait another ten minutes."
"You let me worry about that Natsu. I know how to make it up to her." Rogue folded his arms beneath his head.
Natsu gave an impish snort as he blurted, "What, gonna like write her a poem?"
Rogue's deafening silence was interrupted by Sting shoving his giggling face into his arms.
Natsu's eyes widened as he shot up, his voice a ghastly whisper.
"Oh Rogue no, dude, I-i was just spit ballin', don't tell me you actually-"
"She likes them." Rogue snipped, creased black brows bristling like ruffled raven feathers.
Natsu blew out a heavy breath with a palm to his forehead, "Sting you can answer me first on this; does that work?"
"I mean…" Sting swallowed the rest of his laughter, head dipping in acknowledgement, "yeah. Yeah. It's-it's got a good track record."
"Hell, he gave Yukino one for her birthday and she adored it."
"That's because women appreciate sincerity!" Rogue barked at them, "Once you understand how they communicate, you understand how imperative that truly is!"
"Ay Sting, is this the part where he tells us that there are things about girls nobody in the world knows but him?" Natsu leaned back to whisper in his direction.
Sting snickered through his fangs as he flopped over and sat up, pushing his bangs down over one eye.
"Natsu, you need to know that whenever a woman tells you something, they actually want you to do the opposite." Sting rumbled in his best Rogue imitation.
Rogue popped up to his feet with a long, slow, patronizing chortle, "Oh ho ho! Mock me to your heart's content, because at the end of the day I've figured out a winning formula."
"So how does that work, do you like write down something that isn't a real sentence but could be?" Natsu piped up, "Cuz' I'm good at that."
"No Natsu, it's an art, okay?" Rogue slapped the back of his hand into his palm for emphasis, "It requires tact. It needs; Artistic. Talent."
"Alright, alright, yeah, I see what ya mean." Natsu's head bobbed as he chirped, "Just jot down sumthin' like the 'moon is a playful friend' and then make up more stuff like that, right?"
As Sting quickly stifled his cries of laughter into the back of Natsu's shoulder, Rogue's world clearly came crashing down around him.
"Is that what I sound like?" he whispered, face slack with horror.
"Hey I uh, think it's… neat?" Natsu attempted to reassure, "I mean, you're right, knocking heads is my tempo so that artsy stuff is lost on me."
Rogue was suddenly out of breath, his hands on his knees.
"No, no, I know… women." Rogue paled, "Oh my god that is what I sound like."
Natsu winced, "I'd ya know, offer to read some of what ya got, but I just don't want to."
Sting sniffled, wiping his teary eyes as he spoke with a giggle still on his voice, "This is good man, this is progress. This is healing. You finally know why we've never talked about girls with you around."
Rogue stumbled away, hands in his hair and nonsense pouring from his lips.
"Just take a lap man, we will be right here." Natsu called out as Rogue staggered into a traveling band of dust clouds.
"He gon' be okay?"
Sting groaned, massaging his laughter-induced belly ache, "Yep, he'll find a way to rationalize everything."
He straightened himself, watching Natsu work his right arm in its socket.
"I know we usually talk shop on the way back, but I gotta ask: whaddya bust out back there?" Sting asked, nudging Natsu's thigh with a foot.
Natsu's fingers tightened around his shoulder, palm covering where his guild mark would be.
"You ain't a big fan of relyin' on transformations or forms, surprised to see ya use one." he remarked.
Supposedly Natsu had used a dual element form once upon a time, something about eating Laxus' lighting on Tenrou island.
Gray had brought it up one night, with Natsu responding that since it wasn't his power, he used it the one time, never touched it again, and had probably forgotten how to since then.
So whatever that form was, Sting guessed it was probably something innate to Natsu, or at least something he worked to achieve.
"Heh, ya know Juvia asked about it too the other night." Natsu croaked, "It's called 'Fire Dragon King Mode'."
Sting's lips and brows curled, "Oh, that's swank. Little on the gratuitous side for you though."
"I didn't coin it, Happy did. Put on that face that makes it real hard to say no to him too."
"Where'd it come from?"
"Uh, long story short," Natsu said, glancing away, "Dad… left me some of his power. It came from me gettin' a handle on his magic and his spells."
Sting's eyes softened, "Guessin' that's what the bandage was for?"
Natsu gave a small nod.
"Dad's magic is gone." Natsu stated blankly, "The form stuck around."
"I knew you had a lotta aces in your sleeve when you came back, but some of Igneel's power? Whew… " Sting's lips puckered in a whistle, "guess that's an exception to that rule of your's."
Natsu's soft smile sent something up to his eyes, not all of it being fondness.
"I mean, I had to train just t'use it."
"Yeah, I can imagine," Sting said.
"Cuz using magic that much stronger than me was pretty overwhelmin'."
"I know."
"First time I tried using it, all that power was too much for my body to handle and locked it up, could hardly mov-"
"Natsu, I know. " Sting didn't mean to sound as terse as he did.
He had accidentally prodded what Natsu wasn't ready to talk about, only fair Natsu did it right back.
Natsu shriveled, "Oh, ah, s-sorry."
Sting didn't know why, but Natsu made it a point to not remove his palm from his shoulder, to keep his guild mark hidden beneath scars he had gotten protecting all that mark stood for.
"It's fine, don't worry about it." Sting waved off.
"Well don't get the wrong idea, the form is still a big ole' jump, and you guys still laid me out." Natsu expressed, a quick glance to Sting showing he wasn't quite so convinced.
"Neither of you thought ya'd win, but you tried anyway. That's what being a dragon slayer is all about." he praised.
Sting heard the little kid he used to whisper something inside, the little boy forever amazed by his big brother Natsu.
The little kid, who wanted his magic to shine as bright and burn as hot as that dragon fire, told the man Sting was now that he had a ways to go before that happened.
Natsu roused him with a shoulder bump before he could rub the rest of his light stubble raw.
"I got fired up too and you two still won, and as it stands now you n' Rogue together could handle Gildarts."
Gildarts was strong .
Gildarts wasn't Natsu.
Gildarts wasn't the person Sting was sure would've never failed his Sabertooth the way he did.
"There's no tellin' how strong you two are gonna get after recovering from this, so take it easy on the training for a little while, huh?" Natsu implored, speaking over his own popping spine as he stretched his back.
"The progress ya've made in so little time is wild, but training ain't important enough to be fibbing to me about double dates, so ease off the gas."
Sting coughed on the frost from the ice he felt slick into his gut.
"W-what?" he squinted hard at Natsu.
"Unless you were plannin' on springing this on everyone, which I know ain't your style, Yukino had no clue about any date." Natsu explained, "Remember back when you said we couldn't go lookin' for skinwalkers because of it?"
Sting stumbled to his feet, "No, I-i mean yeah, we were gonna train, but I wa-"
Rogue suddenly melted from the last few roving walls of smoke a few meters before them, the shadows constructing his form not even having enough time to shape the lips that hissed,
"When will it be enough!?"
Rogue stalked towards his twin, "What else can we put training above!? First our guild, then our girlfriends, is Natsu up next on the chopping block!?"
Sting turned to meet him, voice halting.
"W-what?! No! I wasn't brushing him off, I wanted to make sure I got to talkto him tonig-"
"You are so obsessed with the war that you won't let anyone come between you and proving to yourself that it was a fluke!" Rogue snapped Sting's sentence in half, "Cause the big stupid world is just oh so complacent and you are the only one with reason!"
"Nothing can get in the way of our precious training, not even our brother, and for what? So you can glass a hemisphere and still mope around like we didn't win?"
Sting's fangs chittered angrily in his mouth, Natsu's presence forgotten as he willingly dived back into the argument.
"So we're not done? Okay, fuck it," Sting sneered, "I don't wanna hear jackshit about me being obssessed, not from you, not when I have to drag you to do the most basic things Natsu drilled into our heads!"
"Guess what jackass, a guild master has to take shit seriously! What would've happened during the war if we hadn't trained with Natsu, if not for boy's night? What would've happened to Yukino and Minerva and everyone else!?"
"So the reason for trying to shut everyone out, the other dragon slayers, Anna, our own guild, is because of a 'what would've happened'?!" Rogue demanded back.
"You need to pull your head from what part of your ass you're stuffing it in and join the real world Sting! There is nothing in being a guild master that entails this sort of delusion. Whatever you think could've happened, didn't, and you need to move on!"
The creases of disgust on Rogue's face only deepened, "The world didn't grind to a stop because things didn't go exactly the way you wanted them to, how terrible! Just like the Dragon King Festival, where we protected our friends but that just wasn't enough-"
"We didn't protect shit!" Sting was inches away from cramming his nose into Rogue's, "We didn't protect anyone, we were distractions at best! We were dragon slayers who couldn't slay a single fucking dragon!"
Sting staggered back, breathless in disbelief, "I mean we were jokes Rogue, how can that not possibly be your takeaway? Why are you and the world so okay with being damn near helpless?"
"Is that how we win? By the skin of our teeth? By luck? By coincidence?" Sting threw a hand in Natsu's direction, "By the work of someone else?"
Natsu shuffled, mouth open, ready for words. None came out.
He just sat back. Watched. Listened.
"We are spitting on everything Natsu and our Dad's taught us, we are making the same mistake that lead us to becoming giant pieces of shit in the first fucking place!"
"Only you could let yourself become obsessed with some nonsense you don't even fully understand." Rogue sneered, venom on his drawn fangs.
Sting gibed, "We stopped moving forward dumbass!"
"We stopped respecting what we had!" Rogue barked, "We became complacent because we forgot how much effort it took to get there in the first place. It was never enough, until one day when we lost sight of everything else-"
"Bull-fucking-shit! It was you who were trying so hard to make it seem like we won clean tonig-!"
"Because I know what the fuck all this is Sting!" Rogue jumped back atop the arguement, "It's you trying to put as much distance between yourself and what happened in the war!"
"If you just get strong enough, move on quick enough, then it'll be as if it never happened, am I in the ballpark here?"
Rogue was pacing again, each step leaving a puddle of boiling ink in its wake.
Natsu may as well not have been there.
"Anything to avoid taking it on the chin! Anything to avoid acting like an adult like the rest of us! Anything to avoid feeling things that are hard!" Rogue shouted.
"Anything to avoid being someone I can count on!" Sting snapped back, marching through the feeble distance between them.
The play of what little wasteland light in Sting's eyes let Rogue know Dragon Force was prowling in there.
Rogue would never know if he had a shove coming his way, as Natsu slipped between them, catching a thrashing Sting in his tracks.
Angry heels skrieked against the glass earth as Natsu managed to push Sting back to where an extended arm could keep him at bay.
"I need you Rogue but you shut down whenever the world doesn't wrap up everything up in a neat little fuckin' bow!" Sting's chest continued to bounce off Natsu's palm, the distance between him and his twin aggravating.
Infuriating.
"If something ever happens to me, you need to step up for our guild! But I can't trust you, I can't! Because our Dad's died and you took a knee and you didn't get back up!"
Sting wasn't sure whether he was shouting or wailing, if it was anger or pain that burned in his throat.
He was sure of the hurt that swam in Rogue's watery eyes, the weight of it lurching the breath in his twin's chest.
The moment Rogue tried to ram himself past Natsu's other outstretched arm, to let Sting know he had crossed a line, their big brother Natsu stepped in.
"Both of ya, lock it down, now!"
Sting and Rogue were jolted from their shouts and glares, poisonous words dying on their tongues.
It didn't make much sense why Natsu had a big brother voice. Firm yet not taut.
His tone had never been anything other than tender with the obedient to a fault Wendy.
He never would've been the type to break up fights when they were all children either, given he was an active participant in a lot of them.
Yet he still had a big brother voice. An effective one at that.
"You two've been nippy with each other all night." Natsu stated, that steady gaze he had now on a swivel between them. "I know what your spats look like, so, you choose which one wants to tell me what this is?"
This was a Natsu they hadn't seen since the war.
So in control, so focused, so ready, he was almost serene.
It was a Natsu who had just finished so much growing.
"I ain't someone to step in the moment hashin' something out gets uncomfortable, but…" Natsu slowly shook his head, " please tell me this is going on behind closed doors, please tell me Yukino-"
"N-no, no, Natsu," Rogue croaked softly, "we would never. Not in front of the women or exceeds."
Sting cringed into his hand at the idea of a slip up, of an argument not being properly contained.
Rogue was no fan of the suggestion either, viciously scratching the back of his head as if trying to yank the idea from worming further into his brain.
A fight like this would leave Yukino bawling, Minerva spooked, and the exceeds close to traumatized.
Two pillars of the Sabertooth guild, crumbling into dust in their attempts to tear each other down.
Sweat stung as it trickled slowly enough to make Sting and Rogue shiver.
It would be disastrous enough for their guild, but they had just made Natsu sit through it.
He had given them a free mood reset, let them jest and joke just after an argument that meant there would be no more shared words for the day.
They threw it to the ground, spat on it, then stomped on it.
Again they were drained of anger.
It was hard to believe it was fully gone, not hiding somewhere nearby, not biding its time in the canyons and mountains, ready to leap back out to stretch their aching voices further.
Sting wiped that gelid sweat from his eyes, flicking it to the ground, "N-natsu, we didn't me-"
"Look, Gajeel'll be close to rippin' Gray's head off after today, and they already weren't getting along. Already got one set of rivals at each other's throats, and one is more than enough." Natsu laid it all out.
"It's just shouting man, i-it never comes to… it never becomes anything more." Sting tried to defend.
"Okay, so this is happenin' a lot then," Natsu concluded, letting his arms drop, "on the same page handing me my butt, now a screaming match, what's changed?"
For a long beat, it was a silent uncomfortable wasteland.
Anna would treat fights with disappointment, with a chide stored in her tight frown.
They would both prefer that to Natsu's blunt expectedness.
He wasn't upset. He was waiting for an answer. And he would get an answer.
"War was a lot for everyone, 'cluding you guys, so sorry but I gotta know for sure, 'what happened during the war', what're you talking about?" Natsu asked.
Rogue found his voice first after a few coughs.
"We got cornered. A sizable chunk of Alvarez' forces, including a few Spriggans." he murmured.
Sting spun circles on his feet, face tight, "Almost got overwhelmed. If Gajeel and some of your folks hadn't arrived…"
Sting's eyes were hard on Rogue, and Rogue's were solemn at his own feet.
"If we hadn't gotten stronger," Sting reaffirmed, "if we hadn't taken you up on boy's night Natsu, we would've been overrun and captured."
Natsu sucked in a gasp, trying and failing to prop his fists on hips, "Oh crud, I forgot about that. I-i… guys that sucks, I'm sorry, I-i didn't even think of that… uh…"
"Save it. We don't deserve it." Sting snorted, "I know you're trying to be you, but it's a waste of breath."
"It was me crumbling during the Grand Magic Games all over again, it was pathetic. I was pathetic. All this work, all the things you taught us, and when it really mattered I would've failed." Sting's jaw stuttered as he spat out each word.
"I had to have Yukino slap some sense into me afterwards. She's always been the strongest in our guild but she should never know that, we should never be so weak she knows she's the strongest person in the room."
"And I know for a fucking fact he is just as obssessed over this as I am," Sting jabbed a finger past Natsu at the still silent Rogue, "if I didn't drag his sorry ass out to train and give him somethin' to bitch about, he woul-"
"Sting," Natsu tried to cut in, "I got it, just chil-"
"No! No you don't Natsu, because you don't know like I do that he knows I'm right! He's every bit as strong as me, I can't force him to do shit, I drag him out to train because he lets me!" Sting barked.
"We win the day by some fluke and the world seems just fine with it, well fuck that Natsu, you taught us better!" Sting rolled his shoulders, swallowed, paced, "If we stop moving forward, we spit in your face. We spit on everything our fathers were, on whatever legacy they wanted to leave."
"I'm not leaving our way of life up to chance." Sting asserted.
Rogue nearly breezed right past the buffering Natsu if he hadn't snagged him by the bicep.
"What life?!" Rogue yelled as the placating Natsu tried to tug him back to his spot.
"All we've done is train for a guild we are barely there for! How long until they notice? How long do we keep this up for?" he asked, ripping his arm from Natsu's grip but staying in place.
"It's not that you interrupted Minerva and I, it's that it was the first night since the war ended I had enough time to be intimate with the woman I'm betrothed to! Do I even want to know how badly you've been neglecting Yukino?"
"Really, "neglecting"? Boo hoo, you went a month without getting laid because of a fucking war and some training." Sting sneered, "Tell that to Chelia, the fifteen year old girl who had to give up her ability to use magic to win her battle."
Natsu's eyes narrowed. Far away, a few crevices swelled with magma.
He flourished a hand at Natsu, "Tell that to him! We don't know what the fuck he did against Acnologia but we both know for goddamn he'll spend every day of the rest of his life paying for it! All for us!"
"Yes, that happened, but Natsu did that so we could all go home, so we could have peace, so we could have this," Rogue pointed down at themselves, "and we're missing this."
Rogue let longing spill into his voice, "I mean, Gajeel is going to be a father, Sting, we are going to be uncles. Do you not want to be a part of that? We have all the time in the world to live our lives because of Natsu and-"
"If you guys wanna keep saying I did this and that, you better get what I did right." Natsu suddenly warned.
The twins could feel their throats dry.
"Acnologia was my responsibility, okay? He was my job. I had my job, and you had yours. Protect your guild." Natsu stated, stern eyes on a swivel.
"I did all I could, but so did you. The peace we got right now happened because Fairy Tail had Sabertooth fightin' alongside it." he hissed at them, "If you think you could've fought harder, fine, but that ain't a call you get to make on Yukino, or Minerva, or anyone else."
Sting spluttered, "H-hey, that's not what we meant."
"Dude, I don't care, knock it off." Natsu replied evenly, glancing back to Rogue, "Both'a ya. Acting like I'm the only reason we won, buncha' nonsense."
His voice didn't match the way Natsu visibly shook himself like a dog.
Something got under his skin, coiling and coiling his fingers tight into fists.
Sting and Rogue genuinely didn't know what.
They recognized too late it was his protectiveness that had its hackles raised.
The distant croak and burp of lava oozing, pouring, from mountain sides and canyon cracks.
Natsu let out a breath, worked his fists, his eyes on Sting.
"This probably ain't too fair because I know what you were trying to say, a-and I'm the one who told ya about it but…" Natsu somehow found enough room in his tone to sound apologetic and halting.
He was being unreasonable, and he was sorry. But not too sorry.
"Chelia ain't a point you get to use." Natsu stated.
"So…" he cast a stare over his shoulder to hook Rogue in, "I don't wanna hear her name again unless it's talking about how she got more guts than the three of us put together, aye?"
Sting's eyes softened. "Aye."
"Aye." Rogue agreed.
"Good." Natsu cleared his throat, retreating back to even distance between the twins.
"Now I won't stop either of ya from feeling like you didn't do enough during the war, but don't even think about holding Acnologia over your heads."
"How can we not?" Rogue murmured softly. Sting huffed at him, almost victorious.
Rogue yanked down the front hem of his duster to straighten it, a terse whisper on his lips, "We may differ on how we deal with it, but the reality of Sting's assertion remains; all that training to barely protect our guild. To sit by as you drag us across the finish line."
"You should not have been dragged into this Natsu. We've been having spats for a while, and tonight we just fully lost out tempers. It's unfair for you, with everything you are dealing with, to be asked to understand all this."
Back down to earth, with a sore, ashamed voice, Rogue continued, "I apologize. For both of us."
He shot a glance past Natsu, watching Sting drop what paltry satisfaction his concession brought to rub his face and grunt in agreement.
Natsu blinked. Then tilted his head.
"You think I don't understand?"
The twins winced.
Sting squinted through the gap in the fingers across his face.
Rogue's shoulders plummeted.
The memories of the rest of the night beforehand brought them regret, regret to creep upon the exhaustion that had crept upon their anger.
"You don't think I get it? How that feeling eats n' eats at ya?" Natsu asked with scary understanding, understanding they should've seen coming.
"The day's won, everyone's safe, but you don't feel like you won. Nothing you can do gets rid of that." he said to Rogue.
He turned to Sting, "Everyone else takes the win and moves on, and you have to do the same even though you know deep down you could've, you should've fought harder."
"Your power wasn't what got everyone home. Ya work together as a guild to win, but you know that you didn't give them your best." he told them both softly.
"You weren't enough. Nothin' fixes that, nothin' makes that okay, cause no amount of speeches about guilds or bonds change that you didn't really have anything to do with protecting your friends." Natsu had long since stopped talking to them.
He now spoke for the ache Sting and Rogue had in their chests.
"Do you guys think I didn't feel like a joke on Tenrou? I was never gonna beat Gildarts, and gettin' angry was the only way I could even begin to pull my weight. Hey, Laxus wasn't even there for most of that and he still did more than I could."
"Couldn't do squat against Gramps, less than squat against Acnologia, and then I had to just stand there and take it as he tried t'blow us all up. I uh, wish I knew any stronger words than pathetic, cause…" Natsu stopped to huff softly.
He was devoid of frustration and brimming with understanding as he chuckled, shrugged, then smiled at the ground.
"Ya just can't help but think 'man, Dad would be so disappointed in me right about now'."
Neither twin knew why they were so surprised to hear this, why they sucked in their breath at that, especially after every doubt and insecurity Natsu had admitted to back on the roof.
But he had moved past it. He had charged through it all to focus on what's next.
It would be, it was, fuel to his fire. Not a pit to be consumed by.
The longer they thought about it, the bigger fools they realized themselves to be.
Natsu always pulled through, even if he wasn't satisfied by the how. He always got the job done.
If he got any sliver of true respect from his guild, it'd be in those darkest moments.
But on Tenrou, he got back up for an unwinnable fight against Gildarts only to be forced to duck his head along with his family and accept the fate Acnologia dealt them.
At what cost, neither of them could know for sure, but Natsu did get to make that right. He freed the world from Acnologia's terror.
It did not erase what happened on Tenrou. He hadn't lost.
He failed.
"I couldn't get it out of my head, how I let that happen, n' all I cared about was making sure it never happened again." Natsu said, "I swore up and down I'd never fail like that again."
It would seem Tenrou was Natsu's one failure.
"Then th' Dragon King Festival happened."
Sting and Rogue shivered as their minds took the full trek back, to look past the Grand Magic Games before, and the humiliation and shame that came after.
They looked back so much they didn't question why Natsu considered that a failure.
The Dragon King Festival.
The world was useless as dragons poured through that portal to rampage throughout the city under the lunar light of a crimson moon.
Then the flames.
They were everywhere.
Dragons just kept coming, flying off to that hell hiding past the horizon, never to return.
They eventually stopped when the flames decided to defile the sky, a firestorm blazing over Fiore, golden clouds swallowing a blood moon.
It was the night a star had fallen from place among the constellations to flatten the Eclipse Gate.
All the while what few dragons remained in the city went rigid, tails tucking at the distant roars of hell.
All because of that one fire dragon.
Atlas Flame.
Natsu's 'Uncle'.
Natsu had never talked about the festival itself other than to once explain that his new cool and strong Uncle Atlas had saved the day.
Because of him, Natsu was the only one that could do anything.
That was the story Natsu had told. That was the truth so few knew because most would rather not remember.
Sting and Rogue stared up into the sky, hesitant to take their eyes off Natsu.
That dragon built of the hell fires had left the world a present during his King's festival.
The moon was different than it had been when Sting and Rogue were boys.
New craters and canyons. New dunes of ash.
It was nearly as glossy as the wasteland they stood in.
Atlas Flame made sure the blood moon would be the last thing remembered from the festival.
"I-it was an accident, ya know?" Natsu whispered gently, "I-i swear. H-he… Uncle Atlas told me it was o-okay t'blame it on him. I-i… I didn't do it on purpose."
What?
He did… what?
Natsu was at peace with the pain in his eyes. All across his face. Steadying his smile.
Yet his voice broke, cracked, shattered, for just one moment before the peace patched it up.
"Never told anyone but Lis about this, I figure it's about time to let someone else know," Natsu began, "look… I promise…"
Sting and Rogue had yet to take a breath. The sweat was back, gushing from every paled pour.
Natsu led their appalled gazes back to the far and high moon up in the sky.
All of them remembered when it had been so much more than just crimson.
When it had been burning.
"I didn't mean to."