Chapter Text
Mist, silvery grey swirled around him, and Gray had no idea where he was, unable to make out anything more than a couple of steps ahead of him. No idea where he was, or why he was there, and yet he was filled with an overwhelming feeling that something was missing. Something important. It kept him moving, pressing through the drifting haze, trying to make out anything in the world around him and failing. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been walking, but nothing seemed to change, and the feeling of something being missing was increasing with each step, an uneasiness that seeped under his skin and set his teeth on edge.
“Did you really think I would just forget about you?” The sudden voice startled him, but relief flooded him as he whirled towards the sound. Natsu. He would know that voice anywhere, and when he turned, the Dragon-slayer was stood behind him, half-obscured by the mist.
“Natsu?”
“You tried to make me forget…” Natsu continued, and Gray’s heart fell. He remembered this conversation. It had been days after the war had ended, and they’d finally broached the topic of everything that had happened, from their fight to what Gray had attempted to do. It had been a long time since he’d seen Natsu that furious, not that he could really blame him, because he had broken more than one promise trying to use Iced Shell again, and he swallowed as he lifted his head, trying to meet Natsu’s gaze.
“I know,” he whispered, words that he had already said slipping out and he frowned. This was wrong, this had already happened… hadn’t it? “I’m sorry, I just… I wanted you to be safe, and I didn’t want you to blame yourself or spend your life mourning me.” He tried to stop the words, but they flowed out of him, as clumsy and hesitant as they had been the first time and he gritted his teeth. This wasn’t what he wanted to talk about, and he took a step forward, trying to close the distance between them, yet every time he drew closer, Natsu’s image seemed to waver and disappear before reappearing a short distance away. “Natsu!” He growled eventually, and he saw the Dragon-slayer paused and tilt his head, just as he had as a child when he hadn’t understood what they were talking about, and something tugged at the edge of his thoughts.
“…who’s Natsu?”
Gray jerked awake with a shout and found himself tumbling off the couch that he was using as a bed for a moment, the impact with the floor winding him for a moment. He lay there, sucking in heaving breaths and staring up at the ceiling as he tried to calm himself. Finding the old charr mark on one of the beams from where Natsu had got too excited one day and burst into flames, finishing off Gray’s old, falling apart sofa, leaving a blackened ring on the carpet and the scorch mark on the ceiling. Those events felt like a lifetime ago. The carpet under him now whole and undamaged, the couch had been replaced with a much more comfortable one – for which he was eternally grateful for at the moment as it was his current bed- and Natsu a far-cry from the hot-headed idiot who had nearly set fire to the entire flat.
Natsu…
He tilted his head, straining to hear anything for the bedroom, but if Natsu was awake, he wasn’t making a sound. Normally, Gray would have taken that to mean that he had to be asleep, because as he’d once said, Natsu couldn’t be quiet even if he tried, but that was before, and right now he wasn’t sure how much of the Natsu he remembered remained. The urge to go and check on him was strong, but so was the desire to stay right where he was and pretend that everything wasn’t falling apart. That he had just been banished to the couch because of a silly argument rather than because even though Natsu remembered him their relationship was what…on hold? He growled under his breath. No matter how much he wanted to stay where he was and ignore what was happening, he couldn’t, because even if he could stop his thoughts whirling for a moment, he couldn’t forget how lost and confused Natsu had looked.
Maybe I was wrong to bring him back here already, he thought, throwing an arm over his eyes as though that could keep that thought at bay. He’d been on edge ever since he’d brought Natsu back to his flat where they had been staying more and more after the end of the war, wanting to be close to the guild in case anything happened, although Natsu would still spend the odd weekend at his own cottage just hanging out with Happy. Not that he hadn’t been on edge at the guild too, worried about Natsu, doubting that they were going to find anything and fighting the urge to track down Gildarts again, but at least there he’d known that he others were around if anything happened, or anything went wrong.
“Are you sure about this?” Erza asked once he had broached the topic of taking Natsu home after they’d spent another two days in the infirmary, with no signs of the Dragon-slayer’s condition changing, and no progress in the search for a way to fix what had been done. “We don’t know if there are going to be any other side effects, and…”
“I can take care of him,”
“We’re not saying that you can’t,” she told him, but Gray wasn’t mollified in the slightest.
“Then what are you saying?” He demanded. They’d been having this discussion, or various versions of it ever since that morning when he had first raised the question of whether Natsu really had to be in the infirmary. Physically there was nothing wrong with him, Porlyusica had been comprehensive in her checks – which Gray was grateful for, even though he knew that Natsu had been uncomfortable under the attention. Which had been a relief in a way, a peek at the old Natsu, who had always tried to escape the healer’s clutches as soon as possible.
He knew they were worried, he was too, but he couldn’t see how staying in this room that Natsu had spent so little time in was going to help anything, and maybe it was a wild hope, but he hoped that having Natsu home and surrounded by familiar settings might prompt some progress. Or at least settle him, because the Dragon-slayer had been on edge, and who could blame him, when his memories made no sense to him, and they were still working out what gaps existed.
“Gray…”
“I don’t want to stay here,” another voice entered the debate, and attuned to it after the last few days, Gray immediately turned towards the bed where Natsu had been sat watching them with wide eyes. He wasn’t looking at them right now, head bowed as though worried about how his words would be taken, hands fisted in the covers. “I… it doesn’t feel right.” There it was again, the confusion, and Gray wondered if he was trying to make the connection between himself and how he had been, wishing that there was something he could do to bridge the gap and hating that there wasn’t.
“You don’t?” Natsu’s words had taken the wind out of Erza, and her voice was soft as she also looked at Natsu as he shook his head slowly, and Gray tried to bury his triumph as her shoulders sank. He knew he hadn’t been completely successful when she looked at him, and her eyes narrowed, but she didn’t call him on it. “You’re going to stay at yours? Just in case you’re needed here?” She voiced it as a question, but he could tell it wasn’t, and he scowled at her.
“Of course.” As though he would keep Natsu away from the guild if they were anywhere near being able to fix this mess, and he kept his growing doubts about whether that was going to happen to himself. The last time he had ventured from Natsu’s side, he’d gone to see how it was going, and one look at the growing piles of discarded texts and notes had made his heart sink, and he’d stayed away ever since, trusting them to tell him if they found anything.
It wasn’t even as though they’d really been alone in the four days that he’d brought Natsu home. Happy was currently with Natsu, as while the Dragon-slayer had still had some gaps in his memory about the Exceed, he had recognised him with the same relief as he had recognised Gray and had relaxed having him close. Gray was relieved, not sure what they would have done if Natsu had forgotten Happy too, and also a little jealous because there was an easiness there that didn’t exist between them even if Natsu did remember him. Lucy, Erza and Wendy were constant visitors too, on the days that he wasn’t able to coax Natsu to the guild – the Dragon-slayer uneasy in the building that held so many memories that didn’t make sense to him. Which was wrong on so many levels, that it had left Gray feeling equally of out place in the place that was supposed to feel most like home.
. Officially their visits were to keep them in the loop with what was happening at the guild and with the search for answers, and the complete and utter lack of progress, but unofficially to check on them, and as much as Gray hated to admit it, he was glad that he wasn’t alone in this. He also knew that they needed it as much as he did, their team in disarray at the moment, and even though Natsu was somewhat wary around them still, the disconnect present in every interaction, it was something.
A noise in the hallway caught his attention, drawing him out of his thoughts and he pushed himself up on his elbows to find Natsu hovering just outside the living room looking uncertain and guilty as he realised that the Ice Mage was awake. “Are you okay?” Gray asked, the lack of Happy telling him that the Dragon-slayer had snuck out of the bedroom.
“It smells of us,” Natsu whispered, in the same lost tone that resurfaced whenever he was trying to connect the dots between what he remembered and what he knew. It was a tone that Gray never wanted to hear again once this was all over because it hurt to hear Natsu reduced to this.
“Sorry?”
“The bedroom, the bed…this entire place,” Natsu explained, gesturing wildly for a moment, before wrapping his arms around himself as he added uncertainly. “It smells of us, but you’re down here…” There was a note of something else in his voice now, and it took Gray a moment to realise that it was hurt. Hurt that Gray had distanced himself, and his heart was a tangled mess as he pushed himself upright, swinging his legs down to make room and patting the space beside him.
“Natsu, come and sit down,” he asked, and there was a pause before Natsu obeyed and gods it hurt to see him approach so uncertainly, and settle on the edge of the couch, turned towards Gray but not pressed against him. He missed the way the idiot used to just throw himself over the edge of the couch when joining him, once or twice managing to bounce Gray off in the process, but more often than not ending up sprawled and laughing in his lap, and his fingers twitched, itching to reach out and pull Natsu close. Instead, he looked at him, waiting for Natsu to meet his gaze and holding it. “I want to be in there with you, in that place we shared,” he admitted, letting the longing that had hounded him ever since they came home colour the words, fighting his instinctive urge to hide his emotions from the world. Natsu had always been the exception, always able to see what Gray didn’t want anyone to see, but he wasn’t sure if that was the case right now, so he needed to open up and reach out.
“Then why…?”
“It wouldn’t be fair, on either of us,” Gray replied, and Natsu frowned, not understanding. He hesitated for a moment, as both Makarov and Porlyusica had advised him not to do anything that would overwhelm Natsu, to let the Dragon-slayer focus on making those connections if he could without worrying about anything else. But there was a stubborn glint in Natsu’s eyes that told him that his boyfriend wasn’t going to drop the matter, and it was that glimmer of the Dragon-slayer that he knew that had him taking a deep breath. “Things are different, just for the moment.” Gray prayed that wasn’t a lie, that they would find a way to fix this as Natsu flinched at his words. “I don’t want to push to hard or try to pretend that things aren’t different until you can remember anything.”
“But, I remember you,” Natsu pointed out, and there was a reverence to those words, as though remembering Gray was a talisman against everything else that he didn’t remember. Maybe that was how Natsu saw it, but Gray couldn’t and sighed, gathering his courage and reaching out to grasp one of the Dragon-slayer’s hands.
“I know you do,” he murmured. “But do you remember everything about me? About us?” It wasn’t fair to ask, to push, but he knew the answer even before Natsu looked away and the hand that he was holding trembled. Yes, Natsu remembered him, something that Gray was grateful for, but he hadn’t missed the moments of hesitation in their interactions over the last few days. The way Natsu would ask something that he should have known if he remembered Gray in his entirety. The familiarity was there, and Gray was an anchor in Natsu’s memory. Still, their relationship and the memories of it weren’t untouched by whatever Gildarts had done, and his throat felt tight as he forced himself to continue. “That’s why I’m down here, because you need to remember in your own time if you can, or when we find a solution, and until then I don’t want to do anything that could damage what we have.”
Natsu didn’t look convinced, but he also wasn’t pulling away, staring down at their linked hands as though he would find all the answers there. Gray wished that it was that simple. That it was like a fairy tale and he could kiss the Dragon-slayer and make this all better, but it wasn’t, and all he could do was squeeze Natsu’s fingers, a silent promise that he wasn’t going anywhere. “But, what…what if I want you close?” Natsu asked finally, and Gray sighed.
“I’m not going anywhere, Natsu,” he promised. “But…” He didn’t get chance to finish, before he was tackled and it took him a moment to realise that the Dragon-slayer had wrapped him up in a hug, hard enough to topple them both down onto the couch, with Natsu curling close. Not trying to do anything other than embrace him, Gray realised, and against his better judgement, he shifted, wrapping his arms around Natsu and pulling him close, letting the Dragon-slayer’s head come to rest against his head.
“I remember this,” Natsu whispered, turning his head to press his nose against Gray. “I remember your scent, I just… I just…” Frustration coloured his voice now, his grip turning bruising, as though if he held on tight enough things would start to unravel and make sense once more.
“I know,” Gray soothed, hating the part of him that sang at having Natsu curled into him again. He’d craved this contact, this warmth, and yet even as they lay there wrapped together, he couldn’t forget what had happened, and he squeezed his eyes shut as he leaned his head against Natsu’s. “I know.”
I wish you could remember too…