Archive of Our Own

After leaving Edolas, Natsu had not expected to be looking at a mirrored version of himself again. Outside his own mirror, of course. And other objects that reflect, like lakes and whatnot.

He digresses; he had not expected to be looking at a mirrored version of himself, who could also look back at him and have desires of his own. And Fairy Nail-Natsu – Nakku, or whatever – certainly has desires of his own, judging from his interactions with Fairy Nail-Lucy.

It’s funny, Natsu muses as he watches the alternate versions of himself and Lucy kiss and caress each other across the table from him – when you see an alternate version of yourself, it doesn’t really register as… you. Natsu supposes he sees some of his features in Fairy Nail-Natsu, but he wouldn’t necessarily have discerned Fairy Nail-Natsu as an exact mirroring of himself. He realizes that Fairy Nail-Natsu looks a lot like Edolas-Natsu, and he knows that Edolas-Natsu is supposed to resemble himself, and that’s the only reason he noticed the similarity so quickly.

Maybe he doesn’t know himself all that well.

Or maybe it’s that Fairy Nail-Natsu is so different, from the way he dresses – that weird jumpsuit looks like something Sugarboy would wear, and Natsu wouldn’t exactly label him as a style icon – to his general demeanor. He yells a lot, for one. Natsu knows he also yells a lot, but he would argue it’s a less hostile kind of yelling.

Natsu would certainly never yell at Lucy like that, partly because she wouldn’t let him survive it, and partly because he simply doesn’t want to yell at Lucy. He likes her too much for that.

Fairy Nail-Natsu also seems to like Fairy Nail-Lucy, yelling or not. Or at least he likes having his tongue down her throat, because that’s what Natsu’s been exposed to for what seems like forever now, ever since they sat down. You would think they’d had enough of that earlier.

At least this time, Lucy isn’t around to witness it. She’s sitting a few tables away with Erza, talking to Fairy Nail-Wendy about her experience growing up in the spotlight. Erza looks green with envy, but Lucy has finally gone back to her regular color after spending a good hour looking red and flustered. Natsu could have warned her about what Fairy Nail-Natsu and Fairy Nail-Lucy were doing in that backroom – dragonslayer hearing doesn’t just go away, even when hearing everything becomes awkward – but he hadn’t wanted to embarrass her further, so it was better to act oblivious. It’s what he usually does anyway.

Natsu’s not that bothered by it. If anything, he thinks as he watches Fairy Nail-Natsu not-so-subtly sneak his hand up Fairy Nail-Lucy’s blouse, it’s just annoying to watch for so long. Maybe he should take matters into his own hands.

“So how’d you guys meet?”

Natsu has to repeat himself twice before they hear him and pull away from each other. 

Fairy Nail-Natsu looks him up and down, as if considering whether Natsu is worthy of the story (oh yeah, that’s another difference – this alternate version’s an asshole). “Was workin’ a job a couple years ago,” he eventually drawls. “Used to work a lotta odd jobs, partly to establish myself in the industry, and partly ‘cause I was lookin’ for my old man. We got separated in the war, and I’d caught wind he was workin’ as a set designer in the same area. Didn’t end up findin’ him,” he looks back at Fairy Nail-Lucy, “found Lucia instead.”

“I had this terrible boss who was constantly yelling at me,” Fairy Nail-Lucy continues, “So you could say that Nakku saved me.” She sighs dreamily.

Natsu doesn’t see how going from one yelling boss to another constitutes saving, but he doesn’t comment on that. Meanwhile, Fairy Nail-Natsu has grabbed Fairy Nail-Lucy’s hand and begun kissing up her arm.

“That’s kinda like Lucy and me,” Natsu interjects quickly before they get too into it again. “I was also lookin’ for my dad when I met her. Of course, that’s before I knew my dad was livin’ inside me.”

His story seems to work because Fairy Nail-Natsu and Fairy Nail-Lucy are now staring at him instead of trying to eat each other.

“Would’ve been real nice if he or any of the others had just told us about the whole living-inside-us thing and the shootin’-us-four-hundred-years-into-the-future part, ‘cause it would’ve saved us a lot of time. But then I wouldn’t have met Lucy, so.”

“Huh,” Fairy Nail-Natsu says after a lengthy pause. “So you found your dad?”

“Yeah, but he was killed by Acnologia pretty soon after that.”

“That sucks. Who’s Acnelogic?”

“Black dragon. Pretty intense guy.”

Intrigued, Fairy Nail-Lucy leans across the table. “Legend has it that the city of Drameel, a few hours from here, was built upon the remains of a dragon,” she says. “But I had no idea dragons were even real. You’ve seen one in real life?”

“Sure,” Natsu says. “My dad was a dragon, too.” And so is his son, he might say, but he can’t divulge any details about the Quest.

“Really?” Fairy Nail-Lucy leans closer, cocking her head slightly. Her scent is different from Lucy’s. “Your lives sound so different from ours; it’s fascinating.” Her eyes flicker to his lips. She murmurs, “And yet, you seem so similar…”

Fairy Nail-Natsu interrupts by dragging her back into her seat. He shoots Natsu a sour look. “You trynna steal my girl or what?”

Fairy Nail-Lucy lays a hand on his arm. “Relax, I was just curious. Besides, he has that Lucy girl.”

“Lucy and I aren’t like that,” Natsu says. “We’re just friends.”

Fairy Nail-Natsu and Fairy Nail-Lucy share a look that makes Natsu feel like he’s missing out on something. It’s extra annoying coming from his alternate self – shouldn’t Natsu practically be able to peek into his brain?

“What?” He asks.

“Nothin’,” Fairy Nail-Natsu smirks, which makes it sound like he can peek into Natsu’s brain, which is both unfair and unnerving. “Have you told her that?”

Fairy Nail-Natsu directs a knowing glance somewhere behind Natsu, and Natsu turns to follow his gaze. He briefly catches Lucy’s eye before she looks away from him.

Something flutters in Natsu’s stomach. He doesn’t dwell on it. “I’m sure she feels the same way,” he says decisively. It sounds off, even to his own ears.

“If you say so,” Fairy Nail-Natsu hums, because he’s insufferable.

“No, really,” Natsu reiterates. “Me and Lucy—that’d just be stupid.”

Fairy Nail-Lucy’s brows furrow at that, and she leans into Fairy Nail-Natsu when he slings an arm around her shoulder and remarks, “That poor girl.” He looks all too smug for Natsu’s liking. It reminds him of Gray and gives rise to a sudden urge to defend himself.

“Listen,” Natsu says, “I don’t know how it works in your guild, but since Lucy and I are both members of Fairy Tail, that makes us family.”

“So you think of her as a… sister?” Fairy Nail-Natsu surmises.

Yuck. ”No,” says Natsu. “It’s not like I think of her as I do, like, Erza or Wendy. It’s different. But that doesn’t equal dating.”

”Because you don’t like her,” Fairy Nail-Natsu says.

How is he not getting it? Not only is this guy an asshole, but he’s also stupid. “No, no,” Natsu protests, “I love her, but… we’ve known each other for, like, years. And nothing’s happened so far.”

Fairy Nail-Natsu says, slowly, “Nothing’s happened ‘cause you don’t want anything to happen, is what you mean.”

Natsu shrugs. “If it happens, it happens.”

There are so many things to do – for now, the Quest, and in the future, some other adventure to go on, some other bad guy to beat. Parallel to that, forcibly changing their relationship seems unnecessary.

Fairy Nail-Natsu looks at him for a long while. “You really mean that, don’t you?

“It’s not like anything’ll happen if you don’t make it happen,” he goes on. “If I were you, I’d talk to her about it. Except if you’re, like, waitin’ around for fate, but I wouldn’t have pegged you for that kinda guy. I’m certainly not.”

Natsu scowls at him. He isn’t, either.

Is it just him, or is this alternate version more annoying than the Edolas version? Sure, Edolas-Natsu was also hitting on Edolas-Lucy, but at least he didn’t pester Natsu and Lucy about their relationship at all. Natsu’s starting to miss the guy.

Perhaps sensing Natsu’s steadily rising urge to punch her boyfriend in the face, superficial similarities be damned, Fairy Nail-Lucy intervenes. ”You’ll have to excuse us,” she says. “As I said before, you look so much like us, it’s easy to forget your lives are so different. Nakku and I got together just months after we met.”

“Thanks to me,” says Fairy Nail-Natsu, and Fairy Nail-Lucy squeals and giggles as he begins kissing her neck.

Natsu barely fights the urge to groan loudly and thump his head into the tabletop. This whole situation only makes him feel less inclined to consider dating than ever. It seems like such a hassle; it’s a wonder anyone gets anything done. Lucy would probably be evicted almost immediately. It’s hard enough for her to make rent as is.

His thoughts feel like the ebb and flow of the tide, and he’s not certain of what to do. What’s the point? Why change something that doesn’t need changing?

“Anyway,” Fairy Nail-Natsu says, “if you ever do figure it out, let us know if you’d be up for a foursome or somethin’. Doing it with someone identical is, like, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Pretty freaky.”

Natsu gets up and socks him in the jaw.

Natsu might have jinxed it when he thought about missing the Edolas version of himself. You never know how nice it is not to see someone until you see them, or whatever the saying is.

He’s just kidding, of course! It’s nice seeing their Edolas versions again. Kind of. Natsu just thinks he would have appreciated it more had it not been for the recent run-in with their Fairy Nail selves. Looking at mirrored versions of himself apparently gets old quick.

Speaking of getting old, that’s another difference between him and Edolas-Natsu, in addition to everything about their personalities. So is the child, sitting on Edolas-Lucy’s hip as she and Edolas-Natsu talk to Lucy about life in post-magic-apocalypse-Edolas.

Seven extra years – on top of three actual years, which would be… he’s not about to do math – seven and three years brought Edolas-Natsu a marriage and a daughter and a slight deepening of the crow’s feet at the corner of his eyes. Which is nice, but if that’s a mirror, Natsu’s not so sure he recognizes himself in it.

It’s getting a little awkward, this constant reminder that alternate versions of themselves are getting it on. If Natsu believed in fate, he’d say that there seems to be an agenda.

He’d follow Fairy Nail-Natsu’s suggestion to talk to her about it – not because he wants to listen to that jerk, but because he’d ordinarily talk to Lucy about anything, but her eyes keep flickering from Edolas-Lucy to Edolas-Natsu to Natsu and back, and Natsu’s afraid that if he tried to verbalize the subject, she’d blow a gasket.

Talking to Lucy is tricky when she gets like this. He thinks he’d probably just say something wrong.

On the train to Drameel, after leaving Fairy Nail, Lucy had half-joked that I can never look at you in the same way, and his first thought had been, good. And what is he supposed to do with that? Since he cannot put words to it, he acts oblivious.

“What’re you thinkin’ about?”

Natsu turns his head to find that Edolas-Natsu has left the Lucys in favor of talking to him.

“I don’t think,” Natsu replies easily, which isn’t entirely true, although he often succeeds in convincing people it is.

Edolas-Natsu doesn’t seem convinced. “It’s fine if you don’t wanna tell,” he says. “Sometimes that’s easier.”

He follows Natsu’s line of sight, which Natsu belatedly realizes still leads to Lucy. He directs his gaze at one of those weird purple plant-things outside one of the windows instead.

Evidently, that doesn’t work. Edolas-Natsu still asks, “how’s it goin’ with you two?”

“You just said it’s fine if I don’t tell,” Natsu mumbles. What is with his alternate selves being this nosy? Natsu swears he’s never this much up in anyone’s business. Except for Lucy’s, of course, but apparently that’s his issue.

“Why’d you get together with Lucy?” Natsu asks. “Your Lucy, I mean.”

“Because I love her,” Edolas-Natsu says simply, which is no help at all.

“And?”

Edolas-Natsu looks perplexed. “And?”

“Don’t you also love your other friends?” Natsu elaborates.

“Well, yeah,” Edolas-Natsu says. “But it’s not like I think of her as I do, like, Mira or Wendy. It’s different.”

Huh.

“I always knew Lucy was different from the others, even when I didn’t know how to define it,” Edolas-Natsu continues. “It’s almost magnetic. I want to be as close to her as possible. Everything I do and think and feel, I want to share with her. Everything she does and thinks and feels, I want to know about.”

“That’s also friendship, though,” Natsu says.

“Yeah.”

“Staying friends wasn’t enough?”

Edolas-Natsu pauses for a moment, as if mulling it over. “I wouldn’t phrase it like that,” he says eventually. “It’s not as though it’s either or. We’ve never stopped being best friends. If anything, I think our friendship is stronger now than it was before because there are fewer boundaries.

“Being with her… Most of all, it felt like a natural progression,” he concludes. “You ask why, but it’s more like, why not?”

Natsu supposes he might understand that part. It’s closer to his own way of thinking. He’s not necessarily fond of why, either. Thinking too much of why and all it encompasses might destroy you.

Some things are better not to dwell on. But that’s also his issue, apparently.

He looks back at Lucy, who looks slightly uncomfortable in what looks like one of Edolas-Lucy’s old outfits.

“I don’t know, it just seems so… complicated. I don’t think it’d feel natural,” Natsu confesses.

Edolas-Natsu hums. “New things rarely do. Doesn’t mean they aren’t.”

Natsu sighs, rubbing at his forehead. He’s not sure if he’s starting to develop a headache or if it’s his imagination.

Edolas-Natsu pats him reassuringly on the back. “I’m not saying it wasn’t scary, taking that first step. I was terrified. I’d thought about it for so long – how, if it went wrong, I’d risk losing our friendship, how Lucy might react badly…”

Natsu inadvertently remembers Edolas-Lucy’s Forty-Eight Torture Techniques and silently agrees.

“I could’ve gone on considering the consequences forever. But once I’d made the decision, it was… very simple,” Edolas-Natsu continues, a soft smile spreading across his face as he looks at his wife and child—the latter of whom is now clinging to Lucy’s leg.

“For bein’ the scared version of me, you’re pretty brave,” Natsu says.

“Aw, thank you!” Edolas-Natsu beams. “But being alone in the car with her definitely also helped me gain the courage to lean over and—”

“Courage for what, Papa?” A high voice interjects from somewhere low.

Natsu looks down to find that Edolas-Natsu’s daughter has left the Lucys behind and is now standing at his feet, staring up at him with big, familiar, brown eyes. If seeing alternate versions of himself is strange, seeing an alternate version of his and Lucy’s conceptual child is downright trippy. He recognizes every part of her face that belongs to Lucy; the rest, he supposes, is his own.

“Er—it’s nothing!” Edolas-Natsu says, sounding slightly shrill, as he picks her up. “Nasha, have you met Earthland-Papa yet?”

Natsu doesn’t quite know how to feel about that title. “Hey,” he says anyway.

Nasha regards him thoughtfully. “He looks almost the same,” she observes. “But different. He has something here.” She points to her cheek.

“That’s called a scar,” Edolas-Natsu explains. “And that comes from, uh…”

“Fightin’ your older brother,” Natsu says. “So. Don’t do that. I mean, except if he tells you he’d reincarnated you as a demon four hundred years ago, attacks your guild, and tries killin’ all your friends. In which case you might need to.”

Edolas-Natsu looks increasingly alarmed, but Nasha just blinks owlishly at him. “I don’t have an older brother,” she says.

“Then you’re fine.”

“’Kay.” She turns to look at Edolas-Natsu. “Mama told me to tell you to ask Earthland-papa if he and his friends are staying for dinner.”

“Thanks, that’d be nice,” Natsu says. “We never know when our next meal’s gonna be when we’re crossin’ realms and stuff.”

“Wow,” Edolas-Natsu sighs, once Nasha has run off again. “Because we look so alike, it’s easy to forget your lives are so different from ours. Having a brother who wants to kill your friends… that must’ve been tough.”

Natsu shrugs. “Eh, it’s fine. Happened again just recently.”

“I guess,” Edolas-Natsu muses, “that in many ways, losing our magic was a blessing.”

Edolas-Lucy’s cackle carries across the room. She’s teasing Lucy about something; Lucy’s face, predictably, is bright red, but she doesn’t look all that uncomfortable anymore.

His headache has subsided a little, and Natsu feels an unwitting smile forming on his face.

“You didn’t lose the magic that really matters,” he hears himself say.

Lucy smells like vanilla and some kind of herb. The scent is always in the air around her, lingering for a while even after she’s gone. It might just be a perfume, but it doesn’t make Natsu’s nose itch like some perfumes do. It’s sweet, but pleasantly so. It makes him feel at ease. Sometimes, he catches himself drifting closer to her, drawn by how it wafts from her skin and her hair. Speaking of,

“What kinda product d’ya use for your hair?” Natsu asks her.

“Hm?” Lucy answers distractedly. She’s listening to Erza laying out their game plan; Natsu should probably be listening too, but his attention waned after the first, like, thirty seconds. It’s not that he doesn’t respect Erza’s ability to plan – or her ability to punch him into the next week if she finds out he’s neglecting to listen – it’s just that Natsu’s part is always the same: blow up the room, burn people to a crisp. It’s what he usually winds up doing, plan or no, so it’s easier just to include it.

They need a plan because they are looking for Ignia, who is not only the last dragon god but also the most elusive. Natsu finds that rude – Ignia was the one who squared up to him, so if he wants to fight so bad, how come he doesn’t just show his face? One thing is needing to beat Ignia to complete the Quest; another is needing to beat Ignia for saying all that crap about Igneel. It’s not like Igneel’s around to fight for his honor, so it’s up to Natsu to settle the score.

“Your hair,” Natsu repeats in a whisper, because Erza has now begun laying out phase-whatever of the plan in pantomime. She’s waving around her clipboard, which one would assume is for notes, but Natsu keeps catching glimpses of crude stick figures on it, so apparently not. “What do you put in it?”

Lucy gives him a skeptical look, hesitating. “It’s—a hair oil. With mint and rosemary.”

Mint and rosemary – those are the herbs! Natsu reaches out to rake his hand through a couple of strands. They’re impossibly soft between his fingers. “It smells really nice.”

Lucy instantly turns a deep pink, self-consciously twirling a lock around her finger. “Oh, uh. Thanks!”

Natsu’s about to say that although everyone has their own scent, Lucy’s is definitely his favorite, but he’s interrupted by Erza’s sharp voice.

“I was going to summarize the mission’s objective and distribute the roles,” Erza says, “but apparently someone thinks they’re above listening to that.” She crosses her arms and levels them with a withering look, which also makes Gray and Wendy turn around to stare at them.

“Sorry, Erza!” Lucy chirps. Under her breath, she adds, “Why does she always phrase it like a teacher chewing you out in class…?”

“Erza was the teacher chewing me out in class,” Natsu replies.

Although she tries to look grave, Lucy’s lips quirk as she shushes him, motioning at Erza to keep talking.

“Anyway,” Erza sniffs. “Back to the matter at hand. One of the higher-standing members of Fire and Flame is a regular at the bar below the inn we’re staying at; our goal is to make him reveal the location of his guild. If we find the guild, we’ll find Ignia.”

“What kind of dumbass names their guild Fire and Flame anyway?” Natsu grumbles. “That’s gotta be the most unoriginal name I’ve ever heard.”

“Technically, the official name of our team is still Team Natsu,” Gray says.

“And?”

“Boys.” If the look Erza had leveled at him before was withering, this one is borderline disintegrating. Natsu hears his teeth clack with how quickly he snaps his mouth shut.

“If you’re quite done,” Erza says, the vein at her temple increasingly prevalent, “the phases of the plan are as follows: first, we must try to trick the guy into telling us the location. Of course, that means we’ll have Lucy be our bait.”

The others all nod in unison. However, Natsu immediately hears warning bells go off in his brain, and he has to say something. “Hey—”

“What now?”

Erza’s hand is alarmingly close to the hilt of her sword. Natsu quickly spits out the question, hoping it won’t be his last. “What do you mean, bait?”

Erza cocks her head. “It’s just the usual bait routine,” she says. “Lucy waltzes over to the guy in one of her little outfits, gets as close as possible, and tells him how much of a big, strong man he is—”

“Absolutely not.” The words have already passed his lips by the time Natsu realizes he accidentally cut Erza off. He gulps.

She takes a foreboding step closer to him, eerily calm. “Are you questioning my plan?”

“More like, why are you questioning her plan?” Gray butts in.

Natsu is just about to say that he’s not about to just sit and watch some guy be all over Lucy, duh, but then it dawns on him that’s not usually something he cares about.

“It’s—she—” He stutters, feeling strangely frazzled as he tries to find another explanation, and nothing occurs to him. “Because—uh…”

Erza’s eyebrows are slowly nearing her hairline, Gray looks infuriatingly smug, and Lucy just looks mildly concerned.

“Huh,” Erza says. “Don’t know when I last saw you at a loss for words. Anyway, so—”

“It’s dangerous!” Natsu snaps his fingers. “It could be really dangerous, actually! If this guy’s a high-standing member, who knows what he’s capable of! We should team up and jump him, just to be safe.”

“I think Lucy can take care of herself,” says Gray complacently.

“I know that,” Natsu growls, getting fed up with Gray’s repeated meddling and the infuriating look on his face – he looks like he’s just cracked some kind of code, which he hasn’t, because there’s no code to crack.

“Natsu,” Lucy says softly, and breathing immediately becomes easier. “I’m doing this to make it less dangerous, so we might avoid starting a big-scale fight in the middle of town. If he ends up not telling me anything, then…”

“… We’ll fight him,” Natsu concludes slowly. He supposes that makes sense. He still doesn’t like it, but at least it gives him a chance to beat the guy’s ass afterwards.

“That was phase two of the plan, if you’d been listening,” Erza says exasperatedly. “While Lucy approaches him, we’ll be hiding out and observing. If he becomes aggressive, we can all step in. Except,” she adds, “you seem weirdly close to this case, so I don’t think you should participate in that second part.”

Natsu opens his mouth to protest how wildly unfair it is for her to rob him of this catharsis he suddenly needs, but Erza’s eyes tell him that if he doesn’t step down, she won’t just be cutting off his head.

Who would’ve thought that one of the great sorrows of Natsu’s life (other than his birth parents dying, and his other father dying, and his older brother being evil and dying, and his other older brother also being evil) would be Lucy’s bait routine actually working out for her. When did that start happening anyway? It was much easier and funnier when the bad guys kept turning her down. The good ol’ days.

“Alright,” he complies.

A few hours later, Natsu is cursing that compliance to the ends of Earthland. He’s standing shadowed in a doorway, scowling at the idiot sitting beside Lucy at the bar. Lucy’s laughing at some joke the guy just made that is so incredibly lame, Natsu won’t even bother recounting it.

“You know,” says Gray as he slides up next to him, “you can’t go around acting all possessive if you’re not planning on actually doing anything about it.”

“Don’t know what you’re talkin’ about,” Natsu lies. He shoots the guy at the bar a glare that he can’t see, but Natsu hopes he feels it anyway.

“It’s not fair to her, either,” Gray goes on, unfazed.

“I’m not mad at her or anythin’,” Natsu says. “It’s what she’s gotta do. I know that.”

Gray cocks an eyebrow at him. “Of… course you can’t be mad at her. You don’t own her.”

“I know that,” Natsu scoffs.

“I’m serious,” Gray says. “For a while now, you’ve been acting like… I don’t know, like you have dibs on her or something. Which would make at least a little sense if you planned on actually making a move. So, are you?”

“Am I what?”

“Making a move on her.”

Natsu looks back at the bar. Lucy’s leaning closer to the guy, running a manicured hand up his arm. It is a practiced, subtle gesture. It makes Natsu’s own arm tingle.

“I don’t know,” he says. “I might just be fine with things as they are.”

“Why wouldn’t you be? You have the freedom to give her all the mixed signals you want. She’s not free to do anything but wait. And whenever the topic comes up, you avoid it.”

“Look who’s talkin’.”

Gray glances knowingly at him.

Natsu sighs, acquiescing. “Because I’m actin’ like I have dibs on her, is that it?”

“Look,” Gray says, “I’m not trying to blame you or anything. Well, maybe a little bit,” he adds at Natsu’s unconvinced expression. “But, as you just said, I’ve been there, too. It’s scary, running that risk when you don’t have to. It’s easier to deem it unnecessary.”

“It is unnecessary, though.”

“I don’t think it’s about it being unnecessary or not. Necessity implies need, and I don’t think it’s about need at all. It’s more about… want.”

“It’s not about why; it’s about why not,” Natsu mumbles.

Gray shrugs. “That’s the way I see it.”

“And if I don’t know what I want?”

“Then you’re lying to yourself. Or else you wouldn’t be acting like that.”

“Watch it,” Natsu mumbles. “It’s not that simple. Once that line’s crossed, there’s no undoing it.”

Gray falls silent for a moment, and although it’s nice for a change, it’s also strange enough to make Natsu wrestle his gaze away from Lucy to look at him. He finds Gray staring at him, lost in thought.

“What?” Natsu challenges.

“It’s—maybe you have grown up,” Gray says, sounding so amazed it’s insulting.

“Duh,” Natsu says, “I’ve had four hundred years to do it.”

“Ugh, don’t just casually remind me you’re a walking fossil,” Gray frowns. “That’s so creepy.”

They go back to observing Lucy. The guy at the bar is bragging about his magic – it’s just eating fire, which Natsu can do in his sleep (sometimes he literally does, if he goes to bed hungry). There’s no way Lucy is impressed by that, but she’s still nodding along, cheek resting on her hand, lips slightly upturned. There’s something in her eyes that the guy won’t recognize as calculating. He’s practically telling her how to beat him.

Natsu feels a smile forming on his own face, pride swelling in his chest. She’s the smartest person he knows.

“Either way,” Gray resumes, “regardless of your reasons to stall, Lucy’s decided what she wants. And not being in control of the final decision after making your choice seriously sucks. It’s like waiting around for fate.”

“I don’t believe in fate.”

“Could’ve fooled me,” Gray says. He pauses, looking from Natsu to Lucy to Natsu again. “You know she’s totally out of your league, right?”

“Yup,” Natsu agrees.

“Hm. Keep that in mind.”

They look back at Lucy and the guy. As they watch, he leans further into her space, lips puckered; she tries subtly scooting her stool backwards, but at this point, she’d have to scoot her chair out into the street to avoid the collision. She turns her head in their general direction, looking mildly panicked, and mouths something that looks like help.

Gray pushes himself off the doorframe. “Guess that’s my cue.”

Although he’s itching to walk in there and fold the guy’s clothes while he’s still wearing them, Natsu decides to stick to Erza’s plan for once. He turns on his heel and walks out of the bar, the sounds of a brawl starting behind him.

Guiltina is like Ishgar in most respects. The landscapes are just as varied, the cultures just as diverse, and the people just as welcoming and wacky. Natsu might’ve fooled himself into believing Fiore is just a few hours away had it not been for his nose.

Everything in Guiltina smells different. He can’t quite put his finger on what it is, but it is a palpable and constant reminder that they are a very, very long way from home.

Natsu loves adventure, of course. But even if he didn’t have motion sickness, he thinks constantly moving around would still get exhausting. He would have never thought it a couple of years ago, but these days, he thinks that being stagnant can be... nice.

He never would have thought it a couple of years ago, either, but he thinks perhaps Gray is right –he might have grown up a little. After the Quest is over, maybe he’ll settle down for a while. He thinks Lucy would like that, too.

A stream runs past the inn, all the way through town. Natsu follows it until he reaches a bridge, where he perches on the edge of the stone railing.

He looks down at his reflection in the water rushing below his feet. The process of getting to know yourself is complicated and conflicting. He’s always known who he is, and yet he’s never been entirely certain. That uncertainty only makes him more uncertain – don’t people always say these things should be simple?

From here, he can glimpse the harbor where they saw off Jellal just earlier the same day. Gray and Lucy had dragged him off, insisting that Erza and Jellal needed to be alone, like Natsu wouldn’t know anything about that. Again, it’s not like he ever corrects anyone on that assumption, but he thinks it’s a little hypocritical for them to act like he’s any more clueless than they are – any more clueless than Erza and Jellal, matter of fact, who have been dancing around their own feelings for years.

Their team might be excellent at beating bad guys and then converting them to the Good Side, but they all suck at romance. He thinks maybe that’s supposed to tell him something.

The ocean gradually swallows up the last rays of sun. Down one of the conjoined alleys, a street performer starts playing a lyre. The music is softer, deeper, and slower than the upbeat tunes back home. It makes him feel strangely sentimental.

A gentle breeze carries a leaf, drifting into the stream. The breeze also carries the scent of mint and rosemary. He hears the click-clack of kitten heels coming up behind him.

“You’re not takin’ part in the festivities?” He asks.

Lucy scoffs. “He practically handed himself over when he started bragging about his magic. It’s actually similar to yours.”

Natsu turns to look at her over his shoulder. She winks. “Only weaker, of course! Erza’s probably interrogating him right now. I felt like I’d done my part.”

“Sorry for actin’ so stupid before,” Natsu says. “I know you can take care of yourself.”

“I know,” she says, her voice mild.

And that might just be it: she knows, as she always does. It is nice, if not a little unnerving, to be known so well, to have her know him better than he knows himself.

“Mind if I join you?”

Of course not. He reaches over to steady her as she climbs onto the railing.

“That music is nice,” Lucy sighs, briefly closing her eyes. “Sentimental, somehow.”

Natsu feels his lips quirk.

They sit silently, swinging their legs over the water and looking at the slowly emerging stars. Things can get tangled up so quickly, by himself or with other people – but as soon as she’s around, his worries fade, like dew to the morning sun. It’s nice. Being with her is always nice.

“When I was a little girl,” Lucy says, “and my mom would teach me about constellations, I thought the stars and celestial spirits were one and the same. I thought, when opening a gate, you summoned a star from the night sky.”

Natsu watches her as she speaks, a wistful expression on her face.

“That was before we went to the celestial spirit realm, of course, but it was actually a popular theory within the celestial wizard community for a while. And the idea of my spirits watching over me every night was comforting.”

“They still are,” Natsu says with certainty. “Even if it’s not from the sky.”

Lucy smiles sadly. “I hope so.”

His memories of Tartarus are painful for obvious reasons: Zeref, and the book, and then Igneel. Afterwards, staying didn’t feel like an option. Igneel’s sacrifice had to mean something – he had to make it matter.

If only he had known that Lucy had made a sacrifice, too. Once that line’s crossed, there’s no undoing it. He wishes he could. But Lucy has sacrificed everything more than once, and thinking too much of undoing and all it encompasses might destroy you. Some things are better not to dwell on.

Instead, Natsu looks back up at the sky. “The stars could be the alternate versions of your spirits,” he observes.

“What, like their mirror selves?”

“Yeah. Earthland’s version.”

Lucy quietens for a moment. “I’d like that,” she says at last. She leans into him a little, their shoulders grazing, as she points to a cluster of stars and traces four lines with her finger. “That would be Aquarius.”

Natsu squints at the dots in the darkness, but he can’t make out an angry mermaid anywhere. “Uh. Really?”

Lucy giggles and grabs his arm, guiding his finger to point in the right direction. When she touches his skin, it feels a little like doing an iron fist – all tingly. Natsu wonders if her touch has always felt like fire.

It makes him feel giddy. “Tell me more,” he says, because her voice is lovely.

So she does. “The constellation is interpreted differently depending on who you ask,” she says, helping him trace out a shape that looks more akin to a stick insect than a sea creature. “Either as a mermaid with a cup or the cup itself. That line would either be the tail, and then that would be the body, and that would be the cup – or that would be the handle, and that would be water.

“Do you see it now?”

“Sure,” he says, and he thinks he finally might. He studies her face as she continues talking: her big, brown eyes; the vague dusting of freckles across her nose; her heart-shaped cupid’s bow. Her lips, slightly red, glossy, and strawberry-scented.

Once upon a time, he didn’t know what losing felt like. He didn’t know how to fear it.

And then, he learned – several times over. Learning from past mistakes without getting stuck on them is a balancing act, and one he might fail most of the time. However, it is essential, and especially now, on the cusp of another big fight, where everything feels eerily familiar. Every choice means sacrificing something for something else.

Except when it is not a matter of choice as much as development. A matter of natural progression – not why, but why not.

So he stares at her lips and only belatedly realizes they have stopped moving.

“Huh?” He asks eloquently.

She furrows her eyebrows. “Is there something on my face?”

“Ah, no,” he manages. “You’re pretty.”

“What?”

“Your face—is. Pretty good. Looks fine to me! Yup.” He purses his lips. This is kind of awkward. Isn’t it awkward? It’s not like he’s ever had problems talking normally before.

Lucy draws back a little, studying him. It makes him feel strange, and despite his best attempts, he feels his face heating up. Oh no, is this what she feels like all the time?

“You’re acting weird,” Lucy decides.

She noticed. Of course, she noticed; being perceptive is her thing.

But then, being oblivious is his. “What do you mean by different?”

“Just… you’re not saying much.”

He shrugs. “I’ve been thinking.”

“That too,” she jokes, but her smile fades quickly. “Is everything okay with you?”

Okay? He feels amazing. He loves the smell of Lucy’s hair, and the sound of her laugh, and the way her lips move around words, and he wants to be with her forever. And his whole body’s tingling like it’s on fire, and his entire face feels warm, and his stomach feels like when he’s on a vehicle revving up, and he might throw up soon. So apparently, he also feels awful.

“I don’t know,” he sighs.

“That’s unusual for you,” Lucy says softly. “Being uncertain.”

He hums in reply.

Distinguishing between wants and needs proves to be surprisingly confusing. Then, there’s the additional matter of timing; if not why, then when?

Now, maybe. They’ve managed to meet in the middle. To cross that bridge, he’d just have to lean in a little further.

But behind them comes the heavy footfall of boots, the metallic clink of armor. Lucy is still studying him, on the brink of finding what she might find, but he can no longer let her.

“We’ve found Ignia’s base,” says Erza briskly.

“It’s not too far out of town,” Gray adds. He looks and sounds very apologetic, but it doesn’t stop Natsu from feeling a bitter sort of disappointment settle within him. Not from being interrupted, but from the interruption bringing reluctance with it.

Like Fairy Nail-Lucy and Edolas-Natsu both said, their lives are different. It’s easier to determine want when the world is not constantly in need.

Need, want. Why, when. His thoughts feel like the ebb and flow of the tide, and he’s never been less sure of what to do. Lucy’s right – for him, it’s all the more unsettling.

However, there’s no time to think of that right now.

He deliberately doesn’t look at Lucy as he says, “Then what are we waitin’ for? We have a fight to win.”

The flames rising up in front of him are like a wall, if that wall were the height of the guildhall three times over. Additionally, it burns so hot that even he can feel his hair singeing. It almost makes him not dare touch it.

From the sea of flames, a dragon rises. Natsu has never seen anything like it, not even from Igneel himself – but then, Igneel never claimed himself a god.

Anyway, they found Ignia.

Correction: they found Ignia, and then he made all the dragon gods go crazy, so they had to fight them again. Afterwards, Ignia found them.

At this point, they have given this fight their all, like, several times over. Unfortunately, it looks like Ignia has not only grown accustomed to their attacks but has also gained the ability to absorb them, because the flames are growing ever taller, and the roar of the dancing inferno is near deafening.

It’s getting annoying, actually. Using other people’s magic used to be Natsu’s shtick, but apparently everyone can do that now – everyone but Natsu himself, because as aforementioned, he can barely touch Ignia’s fire, much less eat it.

Ironically, Natsu’s never felt more out of his element. He looks around, trying to gauge the location of his friends. Last he saw Erza, she was clad in fire-empress armor, grappling with a rogue spit of fire, but against fire this hot, steel is no good. Now, she’s nowhere to be seen, and he hasn’t seen Wendy in a while, either.

“His magic power’s unreal!” Gray yells somewhere to his left. Gray has activated his demon slayer form to keep the heat at bay, but his ice still evaporates against the flames. Natsu hasn’t said anything, but he secretly worries whose magic will bring Gray down first: Ignia’s or his own. He barely finishes his thought before Gray is blasted back with a shout.

It’s not like they couldn’t foresee that sealing away Ignia would be hard. Despite being one of the younger dragon gods, Ignia is substantially angrier than the others, and Natsu knows intimately what anger does to fire magic.

Or what anger is supposed to do. Natsu feels his rage plain enough, but their options are running out at the same breakneck speed as their magic power, and Natsu still can’t eat Ignia’s flames.

“Natsu!” Lucy calls from behind him.

He turns to find her stumbling up to him, covered head-to-toe in soot, still looking breathtaking, although it really isn’t the time to be thinking about that.

“I think I have—” Lucy breaks off into a coughing fit, doubling over. The surrounding smoke is nearly impregnable and apparently taking its toll.

“I have a plan,” she says, voice weak. “I think. I have an idea, at least. When you eat fire, it becomes your own, correct?”

“I guess,” he says. “I mean, I eat fire, I gain magic power. I can use the fire in its original form, or convert it to somethin’ else, or combine it with my own—”

“Right, you gain control of it. But the last time you ate Ignia’s fire, you couldn’t gain control—instead, it controlled you.”

“Because it’s so unfamiliar,” Natsu argues. “His fire is so different from mine, it might as well not be fire at all. I lost myself in it.”

“You were lost, but then I brought you back,” Lucy surmises, her eyes briefly growing distant, as if deep in thought. “So if you were to be tethered by an element of familiarity…”

Of course, she brought him back. He can never be anyone but himself whenever he’s with her. But, “I can’t put you through that again,” he says decisively.

Lucy shakes her head, and he startles when she clasps both his hands in hers. Her skin feels like silk against his own: soft and warm and very, very fragile.

However, the look in her eyes is anything but. “I’ll give you the rest of my magic power,” she says. “If you draw from that and Ignia’s fire simultaneously, it might succeed in making his fire familiar to you.”

“That’s… not a bad plan,” he says. In fact, considering the effect Lucy usually has on him, it’s ingenious. “But it’s too risky. What if I lose control anyway? Or what if you deplete too much of your power? That’s dangerous.”

“I know,” Lucy says. There’s a weight to it. Once that line’s crossed, there’s no undoing it.

“I don’t want to hurt you again,” he reiterates.

“You couldn’t,” she says. That he knows to be a lie – he would know, even if her arms and legs weren’t already marred by burns. “We’ll get through this, and then go home together. Because I promised myself I would finally do something when we get back.”

And who is he to doubt her? He might not always trust himself, but she trusts him, and he trusts her enough to believe she’s making the right decision.

“You’re the only one who can beat him,” she says. It’s simple. A matter of fact.

So he makes his choice.

He’s obviously never tasted his own fire, but he’s been told it tastes like Igneel’s. It makes sense; nearly everything Natsu knows about fire, he has learned from his father.

Fire sustains life, and it is alive. Fire is versatile. It causes destruction, but it is also a vital part of most forms of creation. It feeds, in both meanings of the word – a balancing act that calls for the utmost respect.

Ignia’s fire upsets that balance. It is ravenous – it doesn’t give; it only takes. Natsu knows that terrible, gnawing hunger and the destruction that follows. That kind of fire will consume everything in its way, steel or earth, flesh or bone. Ignia himself. Natsu, too, probably.

If he believed in fate – and he’s admittedly tempted – he would say that Ignia’s existence is like a cruel joke being played on him. Ignia’s fire is like some distorted version of Igneel’s and, by extension, Natsu’s own – too perfectly opposite for them not to be related. Ignia’s flames are scorching where Igneel’s were toasty. They sear down his throat, and even with Lucy’s magic running through his veins, they feel uncomfortable and unfamiliar: a perfect mirror of the flame he’s used to wielding.

Beside him, Lucy collapses to the ground.

He feels himself slipping.

It’s pure chaos.

Everything burns. He might burn, too, but he’s not certain of anything. Only this: a soothing presence in the back of his mind, a safe harbor in all the confusion. Something sweet and herby, keeping the fear at bay.

He’ll find her in every universe. He’ll know her at the end of everything. He’ll remember her, even if his mind is splitting apart.

Fire turns to embers. The smokescreen dissipates, and from the ash, a new world emerges.

When Natsu opens his eyes, there is a brief moment in which he can’t recognize his surroundings. His ears are ringing. His sense of smell is dulled; he soon realizes it’s because everything is buried in layers of soot and ash.

In front of him lies Ignia, defeated.

Behind him lies—

No, he thinks. Maybe he says it out loud, no, no, no, like a mantra or a spell, as if repeating it enough times will reverse what has been done.

Behind him lies Lucy, motionless, covered in a sheet of ash like everything else. He brushes it from her hair and face; her skin, compared to the scorching heat of everything before, is shockingly cold.

“Don’t do this to me,” he pleads. “You promised you wouldn’t, Lucy, please…”

If he thought his mind was splitting apart before, it’s nothing compared to now. He has a brief recollection of the last time this happened, longing to turn off his consciousness, to have a moment of relief as he did back then – but that will never happen again. She rewrote the book herself.

He tries calling for help, for Wendy, but it feels like ages since he has seen any of his other friends. Instead, he wraps his scarf around her and gathers her as close as possible, as if trying to force heat back into her body. She usually runs cold, pressing close to him when they sleep, cheeks bright red when she wakes up in the morning. When she wakes up.

He presses his forehead to hers; the cold burns him, and terribly so.

“I love you,” he whispers. There is no reply. Once that line’s crossed, there’s no undoing it.

There is a price to pay for a world in need. Few are willing to pay it; Lucy has paid multiple times over. Like Fairy Nail-Lucy and Edolas-Natsu both said, their lives are different. It’s easier to make decisions when the world is not constantly in need of saving.

But if this cold, barren world, consisting only of his breathing and lonely heartbeat, is what’s left without her, it is no decision at all.

Someone touches his shoulder. He instinctively hunches over, shielding Lucy’s body. “She’s cold,” he mumbles, by way of explanation.

When his hands are pried open, forcibly slackening his grip, Natsu strikes out. His fist connects; someone shouts, and he is overwhelmed by nausea as something blunt and hard hits his temple.

“Don’t,” he murmurs as she is wrenched away from him, words slurring together, “I need to… She’s so cold…”

The last thing he sees is flashes of reds and blues crowding over her body before his vision is blurred by black spots, and he blessedly can’t think any further.

“Lucy!”

Natsu shoots up in bed at the outburst, which takes a moment to register as his own.

Wait—bed?

He looks down at the sheets clenched between his fingers, slightly damp. Indeed, he is in a bed. Someone has changed his clothes, and it feels a little like they changed his very skin, too – everything in his body feels like it has been pulled too taut for too long. A blunt pressure around his head suggests he’s wearing a bandage.

He must have been out for a while, but he doesn’t feel rested. He recognizes the surrounding smell and whitewashed walls as the guild’s infirmary. Fairy Tail is a long way from Fire and Flame – did they teleport back? Or was he just unconscious for the whole journey home?

How long has it been?

The rest of the beds in the infirmary are empty. He hears chatter through the walls, but his mind is still too muddled for him to properly distinguish separate conversations or comprehend individual voices. He can’t tell if the atmosphere out there is heavy and subdued or if it’s just his imagination, pulling from painful memories.

He wants to lie down and fall back asleep, but his feet have already carried him halfway to the door.

He has to know.

The smell of wood and stale beer is usually comforting and familiar, but now it only intensifies his nausea. He can’t focus on anything – his surroundings are still blurry, the sounds still muffled. His eyes flit from the bar to a table to another, not lingering long enough to make out the figures, because it won’t matter if—

There she is.

The relief hits him so acutely that it almost brings him to his knees. For the first time in what feels like very long, his world explodes in sound and color. He can finally breathe again.

Lucy’s sitting with the others, back turned. The effect she has on him is something magnetic, and his feet almost stumble as they carry him closer without his permission. He scans over her: her complexion is a little paler, her hands a little thinner than before. But the way she shuffles her feet beneath the table as she turns to look at him, her lips widening into a smile…

“Took you long enough!” She beams.

… Mint and rosemary, wafting from her hair as she tucks a few strands behind her ear; the sound of her heartbeat, quickening slightly the longer he looks.

“You’re okay,” he breathes. She’s more than okay – she’s luminous, so very alive, and he greedily drinks in every detail.

“I am! Everyone stepped in to help me recover as quickly as possible. Wendy did emergency healing, and both Chelia and Porlyusica helped once we came back to Ishgar.” She nods to a mug in one of her hands. “Mira even made me a special strengthening tonic! So I’m all set.”

“Really, you were much worse off,” Gray remarks drily. “One would think you were the one on the brink of magical deficiency syndrome. Talk about being dramatic.”

Natsu painstakingly wrestles his eyes away from Lucy to scowl at him.

“Ah, I might have been a little heavy-handed when I knocked you out,” Erza says apologetically, gesturing to the bandage on his head. “Forgive me.”

“Bastard deserved it for punching me,” Gray grumbles. There is a fading bruise on his cheek, which Natsu does not remember causing. “Also, it’s not like you had a choice. He wouldn’t let anyone get close enough to heal Lucy.”

“You can’t blame me for that,” Natsu complains. “I thought—”

I thought she was dead. That’s a sobering thought. Thinking too much of almost and all it encompasses might destroy you – some things are better not to dwell on.

Lucy made her decision, and he had no control over the outcome. It was what needed to be done. Consequently, he experienced a world without her in it. It wasn’t worth it.

“That reminds me,” Lucy interjects to dissipate the suddenly heavy atmosphere, “I have to give this back to you.” She rises from her chair to stand in front of him, procuring a bundle of fabric, which Natsu realizes is his scarf. Amidst the confusion, he hadn’t even noticed it was missing. “Thank you for letting me borrow it.”

Natsu regards the scarf as she hands it over. Like Fairy Nail-Lucy and Edolas-Natsu both said, their lives are different. None of his counterparts have been left heirlooms made from dragon hide, woven with celestial magic by ancient wizards. None of them have been thrown hundreds of years into the future for the sole purpose of saving the world.

It all has to mean something – he has to make it matter.

“You should be celebrating,” Lucy smiles. “You gained control of Ignia’s fire. You beat him!”

No, you beat Ignia, Natsu thinks. It was Lucy’s plan that allowed him to fight Ignia properly; Lucy’s magic that powered his attacks; Lucy’s presence that kept him sane throughout all of it.

“The fire I used wasn’t mine,” he tells her. “It was yours.”

As if on cue, her cheeks redden slightly, like they always do whenever he says something a little too direct.

Natsu’s legacy has followed him for his entire life. Even with Ignia gone, he can’t be certain it’s really over. There will always be something more to do, some other adventure to go on, some other bad guy to beat. Parallel to that, changing their relationship seems unnecessary.

He looks over at Gray, who raises an eyebrow. Necessity implies need, and I don’t think it’s about need at all; it’s more about want.

The world will always be in need. If that is a constant, why keep himself – why keep her – wanting?

It’s not change, but progression. He loops his scarf around her neck and pulls her in. Her yelp of surprise is swallowed up when their lips meet.

Once I’d made the decision, it was… very simple. And he understands – it’s much nicer to just do stuff than it is to overthink it, and it only blows up in his face, like, half of the time. He’s not used to being uncertain.

As he thought, Lucy’s lips taste like strawberry-scented lip balm. They’re soft, the sounds they make are soft, and they make him feel like lava’s stirring in his stomach, pleasantly warm and bubbly. It fills him with a senseless joy that also makes him feel so light he might float right off the floor, like a balloon, and he grabs tighter onto Lucy to tether himself. The skin of her waist is supple where the hem of her top gives way to his fingertips. It makes him want to run his hands further up, or down; to know what the rest of her body feels like; to map out what he has, and hasn’t, seen before.

Lucy pulls away first, her mouth agape and entire face now beet-red.

Natsu feels his own cheeks grow hot, and they almost hurt with how much he’s grinning as he intertwines their fingers.

The guildhall erupts into a confused clamor. At the bar, Mira is frantically trying to keep her balance while also sweeping up a broken glass. From the other tables, there are a few whoops and cheers. Someone wolf-whistles. Wendy is recovering from nearly choking on her juice. Gray’s face is stuck somewhere between self-satisfied and disgusted.

Erza looks exceedingly perplexed. “What in the world,” she mumbles. “I had no idea you two have been having that kind of relationship.”

“We haven’t,” Natsu says. Or, well. “Not really.”

“Not really is right,” Gray adds. “Erza, you didn’t notice they were into each other?”

“Why would you do that here, in front of everyone, of all places,” Lucy, who has broken out of her stupor, wails.

She doesn’t actually sound too upset about it, so Natsu shrugs. “It’s not why; it’s why not.”

Lucy sputters, hiding her face in her hands.

“Hey, you said you wanted to do somethin’ when we got back,” he suddenly remembers. “What’d you wanna do?”

She peeks out from between her fingers, face still glowing with embarrassment.

“… This,” she says in a small voice.

Natsu swears he’s never loved anyone more as he pulls her in again.

“Watching Natsu and Lucy be all lovey-dovey is… strange, to say the least,” Erza remarks to Gray, who nods in agreement.

“I’ve almost gotten used to it lately,” Natsu says.

He supposes he can’t blame Fairy Nail-Natsu for all the PDA after all. He might owe the guy an apology – Edolas-Natsu, too. They all might have more in common than he initially thought. Whisking Lucy away, be it to the backrooms or an arbitrary vehicle, is looking increasingly tempting.

Or maybe he’ll just show up at her apartment later. Many things progress, but Natsu won’t mind if some end up staying the same.