Work Text:
E.N.D…
You don’t know his true identity…
…Etherious Natsu Dragneel. He is the mightiest demon of the book of Zeref…he is your true foe…
*
No, he isn’t…he can’t be…Natsu is Natsu…
This isn’t fair…
That was what Gray wanted to say, what his heart was screaming in his chest, a keening howl that threatened to bring his world crashing down around his ears. No. His world was already crashing down, having started to crumble the moment he had heard his boyfriend’s name on Invel’s lips, seams ripping open at hearing Natsu called his foe – his rival, a pain in the ass, yes, but they had never been enemies. Worse, was the fact that he couldn’t bring himself to deny it, because in a terrible, heart-breaking way it made sense. The interest that Zeref had always had in the Dragon-slayer. From the encounter on Tenroujima, through the events with Tartarus even if he had been blind to them at the time. The fact that even when Natsu had stupidly gone off to face Zeref alone, he hadn’t been killed but allowed to retreat, even though they knew enough about Zeref to know that he could have killed Natsu there and then.
Unless Natsu was already his…
He shook his head, stumbling back on shaking legs, away from Invel. Away from the awful truth sinking its claws into his skin. Was that how Natsu had been able to adapt so easily to Jackal’s curse power? Sure, it had hurt him, but if it had been anyone else it would have been a thousand times worse, and who used curse power…demons. But this is Natsu, he adapts to everything… Why was that truth, one that he had known for a lifetime of knowing Natsu weaker than the creeping certainty of what Natsu was?
Natsu isn’t a demon, he isn’t E.N.D.
He couldn’t be, because if he was then Gray had been friends with the same demon, he had sworn to destroy. The monster he had worked so hard to find, for whom he had mastered and fought the darkness of his Devil-Slayer magic.
No, he had loved him…still loved him. Because it wasn’t a switch that could be turned off, it hadn’t disappeared even as his protests, his pleas melted away, a chilling certainty taking root in his splintering heart. Etherious Natsu Dragneel. A noise rose in his throat then. It might have been a laugh, a chuckle high with hysteria, but it came out as a groan of anguish as his knees gave way beneath him. E.N.D…I love E.N.D. His fingers curled against the ground, desperately trying to find purchase, to ground himself, because it felt as though everything was spinning around him, the world swinging into a different orbit, a different life coming into focus.
I love him, and…
… and what?
Gray had learned the hard way that loving someone didn’t stop them from being taken away. His parents. Ur. His father for a second time. He had loved them, and he had lost them. Would loving Natsu be enough to save him? From Zeref, from the monster inside him – and gods did Natsu even know what he was – or to protect him Gray himself? From the promise that Gray had made to Silver, to everyone that he had lost because of demons, because of Zeref, because of who and what Natsu might be…was…?
But that was before I thought…before I knew it was Natsu…
Natsu. Stubborn, idiotic Natsu who had forced his way past every barrier that Gray had tried to put around himself, searing a path through the ice around his heart and refusing to let it reform. Natsu who had taught him to laugh and live again. Natsu who had somehow become everything without Gray even noticing, until suddenly the thought of losing him had become his greatest fear, the year they had spent apart finding their own strength almost more than he’d been able to bear.
Natsu, who Gray loved more than anything…
Natsu, who Gray had unknowingly promised to destroy, to kill with his own two hands…
“Dad,” he whispered, looking down, seeing the marking flickering against the skin of his arm, his magic reacting to his distress. What am I supposed to do? It had been so clear cut. He’d had a path, a goal, and a future… spoken in whispered words the night before the war had started.
“Hey Natsu,” Gray murmured, nudging the Dragon-slayer who was curled across his front, pinning him to the sofa. Not that he’d had any intention of going anywhere, not tonight, when it felt as though they were snatching precious minutes together away from the closing jaws of fate. For a moment he thought that maybe Natsu had dozed off, and he was torn between being amazed and offended when Natsu hummed to show that he was listening, tilting his head to look up at him, a faraway look in his eyes. “What are you thinking about?” He found himself asking instead, distracted from what he had been about to say.
“Igneel, the last year… the future…” Natsu’s voice dropped at the end, both more serious and more hesitant that Gray had heard it in a long time, as though admitting that he was thinking about the ‘future’ was enough to bring this tentative moment of peace crashing down.
“The future?”
“If…” Natsu shook himself. “When this is over when we’ve won.” That was his Natsu, confident even in the face of overwhelming odds. Gray might have believed the attempt, were it not for the fact that the Dragon-slayer’s hand had sought his, tangling their fingers together with a desperation that Gray recognised because he was feeling it too. He wanted that future. He didn’t want this to be how Fairy Tail ended, how they ended, and he squeezed Natsu’s hand.
“Yes…?” He prompted, and Natsu shook his head, words failing him.
“I think we should get married…” Gray whispered, finding that he didn’t dare say it louder either, as though it could be snatched away. “Once this is over…” He clarified when Natsu didn’t reply, and he was starting to regret voicing it, wondering if it had been too much to hope for, or a step too far with everything that was hanging over them when the Dragon-slayer shifted. Turning awkwardly, until he could meet Gray’s gaze and the Ice Mage didn’t need the words to know that Natsu felt the same, it was written across his face, from pink cheeks to bright eyes, and the wide grin that he had missed so much in the year apart. And it was easy and natural as breathing to lean in and kiss him, lingering, whispering against his lips. “Then it’s a promise.”
A promise for the future they had to fight just to have…
A promise to live, to survive, both of them…
Gray felt as though he was going to throw up. How naïve had they been to think that the only thing that lay between them and that future, was this war? How blind? Now, here he was, shattering and breaking, torn between the promises he had made. Between past and present. Between his father, and the memories of his parents and Ur and Natsu.
Between what they had already lost in this war…and what he stood to lose.
Natsu, why did it have to be you?
Fate. Invel had said that it was all to do with fate. Gray had believed that he was fated to deal with E.N.D., had made it his fate, his path with his own actions and choices. So, was it fate to that Gray would fall in love with Natsu? That he would fall so far, that his present and future were so intimately tied with the Dragon-slayer that he couldn’t imagine either without him?
If so, fate was crueller than any demon.
Fate also had a terrible sense of timing because as he reeled caught by indecision and truth, he heard the one voice he didn’t want to hear right then.
“GRAY!” Gray’s treacherous heart leapt at the sound of Natsu’s voice, the previous worry and fear for the idiot buried and confused with everything else but still there. But at the same time, he wanted to curl up and hide, to let Natsu miss him, not ready to face him or the decision that he could feel hanging over him like a guillotine blade, the choice that was turning his inside to jagged ice.
Natsu, don’t come here…
It was as useless as his protests had been against the truth in Invel’s words. After all, Natsu – whatever else he was – was a Dragon-slayer, and it took him moments, barely enough time for Gray to stagger back to his feet to hone in on the Ice Mage, rushing towards him as though nothing had changed. Does he know? Does it matter? Gray hated that he didn’t have the answers to those questions, knowing that he should know one way or another, for both their sakes. Yet, all he could do was stand there, broken and aching as Natsu rushed towards him.
Natsu looked worse for wear, and there were shadows in his eyes that hadn’t been there before and part of Gray ached to reach for him and wrap him up in a hug. To demand to know what the hell he had been thinking running off on his own? To ask what had happened to put that darkness in his eyes? The bandage was gone from his arm, he realised belatedly, but there was no trace of whatever had lain beneath, just scorched skin and cuts and bruises and his fingers twitched, wanting to reach out and soothe. But he couldn’t move, standing there, arms limp at his side as Natsu came to a halt in front of him. Subjecting him to a similar perusal for a moment, eyes narrowing as he took in the damage from his fight with Invel and whatever expression Gray had on his face at the moment. The Ice Mage didn’t want to imagine what he must look like right then, to numb to know what his expression was in that moment as he stared at Natsu, searching for some hint of the demon within, Invel’s words echoing louder than ever in the back of his mind.
Etherious Natsu Dragneel. He is the mightiest demon of the book of Zeref…he is your true foe…
It was Natsu who broke the moment, closing the gap between them as relief coloured his features, reaching out as though to embrace Gray. As though nothing had changed. Has it? Gray asked himself, knowing that this was still Natsu, the Natsu he loved, but unable to forget those thrice-cursed words or the fact that he couldn’t deny them, that even as he looked at Natsu and saw the man he loved, he also saw darkness and fate. His arms came up without conscious thought, a barrier between them. “Don’t…” He choked out, the word tasting like ash on his tongue, especially when Natsu faltered, hurt and worried.
“Gray, what…?”
“Etherious Natsu Dragneel,” Gray interrupted him, each word inflicting another wound on his heart. His eyes locked on Natsu’s face, searching for confusion, desperately wanting Natsu to not have a clue what he was talking about. It wouldn’t be proof, but it would buy him time.
Natsu flinched and paled, and the shadowed look in his eyes deepened as he swallowed nervously and Gray’s heart shattered like the ice that had once protected it. “No…” He whispered, and it was a sob and a growl wrapped into one, a final weak denial of the inevitable as Natsu bowed his head, unable to hold his eyes.
E.N.D…
Natsu Dragneel…
Etherious Natsu Dragneel…
Gray was laughing now, an awful grating noise that rose in his throat and wouldn’t stop, even as a sob wracked him. Why? Why is it you? Why did it have to be you? He wasn’t sure who he was angriest with right then. Fate for putting this in front of him. Invel for telling him? Silver for giving him the magic that was now stirring, rising in response to the terrible knowing that was expanding in his chest?
Natsu for knowing…?
“You knew.” It wasn’t a question, he couldn’t even pretend to make it such, and yet he still felt his heartbreak a little more when Natsu nodded, just a tiny, jerk of his head. “How long?” That was a question, and one that he wasn’t sure that he wanted the answer to, but he needed to know. “Answer me,” he ordered when Natsu hesitated a little too long, the air around them turning frigid, and he saw Natsu flinch again.
“Since I fought Zeref…” Natsu’s voice was a broken whisper of himself, and some dark, selfish part of Gray was relieved that this was breaking him too, even as another part wanted to stop this, to reach for him and hold him close. I still love him.
“Were…were you going to tell me?”
“I don’t know,” Natsu whispered, and now he did look at him, and Gray wished that he hadn’t because there was pain and fear and darkness in that gaze. An echo of the terrible knowing filling his chest. “I didn’t believe it at first… I’m Natsu. I’m human. I’m a Dragon-slayer… and then even when I started to believe, even when I realised what defeating Zeref would mean, I was going to do it, and I thought…” He looked at Gray, and at that moment, Gray knew exactly what he was thinking, as though nothing at all had changed. I thought that I could spare you this choice, he finished what Natsu wasn’t saying, and this time he was the one to look away, grief and anguish clawing at him. He could have lost Natsu and never understood why. He could have escaped this moment. “But Happy stopped me, he didn’t want me to die…and he didn’t want me to tell you.” Because he knows what you swore to do and what you have to do.
“But you came to find me…” Gray whispered, still not looking at him, hands clenched at his sides now. His magic wanted out, the Devil Slayer magic was vibrating beneath his skin, singing out to be released now that Natsu had confirmed who and what he was, and it was taking everything he had to hold it back. “Why?” Why didn’t you run away? Why didn’t you listen to Happy? Why couldn’t you have spared us both from this moment? That wasn’t fair, and he knew it. Knew that whether Invel had told him what Natsu was or not, he would have still gone after Natsu, and not stopped looking until he found him.
Fate.
Inevitable.
Natsu didn’t reply, and when he looked up, the Dragon-slayer was watching him with an expression that sent shivers down his spine. It was acceptance and defeat, love and forgiveness and grief all rolled into one, and Gray shook his head, even as his feet carried him forwards towards Natsu. “We promised…” He said, voice cracking and breaking, and he could feel the sting of tears in his eyes now. We had a future… Natsu looked as though he was going to weep too, but he didn’t, standing there, arms limp at his side as Gray moved forward. “I don’t want this, Natsu. I don’t want it to be you…” Yet he was still moving, the dark marking spreading up his arm now, whispering beneath his skin. His promise to his father a drumbeat in his shattered heart and still Natsu stood still, open and defenceless and silent, eyes locked on Gray. “Why won’t you say anything?!” Gray demanded, his heart a jagged broken mess in his chest as he realised Natsu had no intention of fighting this, of fighting fate, or him.
Why aren’t you trying to stop me?
“What do you want me to say?” Natsu asked, speaking at last, and Gray wished that he hadn’t because Natsu sounded lost. “Will an apology change any of this?” He gestured at himself, angry and shaking, at Gray and the markings now curling around his shoulder and up the side of his neck. “Will anything I say alter the fact that you made a promise to your father? Will it change what you have to do? Will it make it easier?”
“Natsu, I…”
“I don’t have the right to say anything,” Natsu was the one to interrupt this time. And there was a finality to his words, as though he had already reached the certainty that Gray was trying so desperately to avoid. “Deliora. Tartarus. Zeref…E.N.D…. me,” Natsu faltered for a moment, and Gray’s breath caught at the quiet tying of the two together. Inevitable. Fate. “We took everything from you.” The Ice Mage opened his mouth, ignoring the call of his magic, the promise, the knowing for a moment, wanting to tell Natsu that it hadn’t been him. That no matter what else happened, or what else was true, he didn’t blame Natsu for what had happened. But Natsu was relentless now that he had found his voice, eyes locked on Gray’s, but there was a softening in his expressions. “Besides, I told you that I don’t want you to die. Back then, I had to stop you, now… now I have to let you do what needs to be done. What you need to do.”
No, don’t say that. Don’t talk as though as this is decided. As though I’m… But Natsu was smiling, a terrible, sad smile that was far too knowing, and Gray couldn’t look away and couldn’t hide from the terrible feeling in his chest that had take root amongst the jagged remnants of his heart.
Fate.
Inevitable.