Chapter Text
Erza liked control. She enjoyed routine. Thrived in familiarity.
She liked knowing everything was okay, that everyone was alright.
Her rowdy family of Fairy Tail weren't particularly big fans of that however.
So she'd take what she could get from the brawls and adventures and endless trouble.
Erza still wanted the safety of knowing and the ability it gave her to breathe easy.
She wanted to know who started what brawl, who was taking what job, who was breaking what rule, who needed to be put back in line.
She had to know her beloved comrades were safe. That more than anything.
The Alvarez War was over.
The Empire, Zeref, Acnologia, gone.
In a month Erza's world snapped back to normal, or shockingly close to it.
That pleased her. Everyone would put it behind them. She would too.
There were plenty of relief efforts Erza and her guild could busy themselves with so that Fiore could hopefully do the same.
Time moved as it always did for her, creeping by in the moment, blazed away when she looked back.
Everything and everyone was beginning to settle.
Things felt right.
Almost.
Erza had her peace, she had her quiet, she had her strawberry cake.
Whatever was missing was so safe, so familiar, she never ever thought twice about leaning on it.
It was Natsu.
She hadn't seen him since the war ended.
He hadn't been at Lucy's book party. He hadn't been around the guild.
She could hardly remember what the talk about his whereabouts had been.
Lisanna said he was sleeping like a brick, or fell asleep eating, something to that effect.
Or was he off training again? Busy with relief work somewhere around the country maybe?
As unpredictable as Natsu was, he was the most familiar person to Erza.
Always challenging her to a fight, causing a brawl, bickering with Gray, doing some nonsense that made her put him in his place.
So it was rather irritating when Erza found out she had no idea where he was, and anyone who could tell her was gone.
Lisanna was with Happy somewhere, probably relief work.
Wendy and Lucy? For sure relief work.
Gray? One of his usual boring ambassador jobs a few countries north of Fiore.
Gajeel was the only one still at the guild, currently preparing for Levy's coming pregnancy.
Gajeel had never been scared of her, and no glowering would get her anything other than a vague response.
"Salamander's tired. Let him rest."
What did that even mean?
Tired? Natsu?
No. That was stupid.
If Gajeel had been referring to the war, that did not make any sense either.
Everyone had already settled back into some semblance of normalcy, but Natsu hadn't?
Natsu?
That was also stupid, so she had to go looking for herself.
Lucy's apartment was empty. Where else could he be?
Wait. He had a cabin in the forest.
Magnolia was surrounded by vast woodlands, and the ever wild Natsu had of course found a home in the wilderness.
It was an admittedly pleasant hike, with a cool little breeze that wound the narrow dirt trails along with her.
It was so nice out here, so peaceful with an afternoon sky framed with gentle rolling clouds, Erza wondered if Natsu could truly live somewhere so serene.
Erza eventually came across a cabin. She just wasn't sure it was Natsu's.
She had been to his house before, Erza was sure of it, she just couldn't remember what it looked like.
Regardless, this one was way too neat, too cozy and maintained, to possibly be his.
This was a storybook cabin, pale stone and timber built around a gnarled tree and a sturdy mismatched chimney that rose from a hearth within.
The steep angles of the red roof were neatly tiled and freshly painted, hanging over the arched front door and circular window peering from the attic like a watchful eye.
The grass was trimmed. The wood fences were straight. There was a bird house hanging from a tree branch in the corner of the front yard.
Smooth oak stairs arched along the incline the cottage sat on with a round wooden sign staked into the grass at the top of them.
Red letters scribbled out 'Natsu & Happy' .
Erza blinked, then paused to wonder what burglar broke into Natsu's house and cleaned up.
She padded up the steps and along the gravel trail up to the front door as she shouted his name.
"Natsu!"
No response.
"Hello!? Natsu!? Are you home?"
She rapped bare knuckles against the front door with enough force to make the wood creak.
"Natsu! It's Erza!"
Yet again, no response.
Shuffling around the right side of the cabin, Erza nearly stumbled over the small garden nestled against the side of the building, hidden by the girth of the chimney.
A dirt patch was hemmed by river stones and lined with rows of leafy greens and the stubborn beginnings of strawberries.
Another small sign was planted at one of its corners.
The etched letters were delicate and looping, 'Natsu and Wendy's garden.'
Crammed beneath that were far less graceful scribbles.
'Cofounder - Happy.'
A memory panged in Erza's mind.
After Tenrou, most of the women barely had enough savings to pay for seven years of rent, Wendy unfortunately had no such privilege.
Natsu took her in without hesitation.
A decision unpopular with many, Erza herself included.
But Wendy never had anything other than glowing things to say about the time she spent at her big brother's.
Erza continued the circle to the back of the cottage, where a slapdash workbench sat against the cabin’s back wall.
Beneath an awning, atop the early planks of a future porch, it was buried in hammers, nails, and open paint cans.
A couple of ladders leaned close, still flecked with wood powder. Just beside it, a brand-new backdoor had been fitted in.
Set just off the porch, a swing chair for two rested on the lawn, its frame newly finished and still tacky with stain.
The chains lay in a loose pile next to it, ready to be hoisted once the wood cured.
Erza stood and balked, rubbing where her neck met her cheek with a hand.
How much free time did this burglar have?
The splash of water made Erza turn.
A wide lake shimmered before her, its glassy surface catching the sun with such elegance that Erza nearly missed the jagged majesty of the mountains lining the horizon.
Far off forest edges that framed the lake were slathered with streaks of mountain mist.
This Erza did remember. Natsu had himself quite the view.
Out in the blue expanse, a bob of wild pink hair cut through the water, trailing ripples as it made its steady way toward shore.
Erza trekked down the shallow slope to meet it, the whisper of grass turning the clack of wet pebble beneath her boots.
Natsu's familiar muscular form rose from up from the waist deep shallows like a kaiju breaching land, glittering sheets water-falling from a frame broader than Erza remembered.
A massive gaping trout wriggled for its life in one of his hands as he lugged it behind him by its tail.
The closer he got, the quieter Erza fell
Eyes crinkled as she sat in silence at all the scars.
So many scars.
That's all he was.
Scars.
Like they had carved away the rest of him, leaving him lean to the point of savagery yet broad and thick with strength that bulged ruined skin back into shape.
Some were wicked, some were jagged, some new, some faded, all stretched taught over arms and legs and a chest that looked ready to split them open again.
Time slowed as her heart ached.
She… didn't remember it ever being this bad.
From a distance tan skin disguised all but the worst of it, the dips and divots in his flesh.
All it took was movement on his part, maybe a glance on hers, and the scars blurred to bronze while burns were lost in the shadows cast by muscle.
Natsu always had them. Marks from battle. Ones too deep for Wendy to take away.
He got more and more and more as time passed. She faintly remembered that.
But she felt sick.
He looked sick.
Natsu stayed the same more than he changed. Erza was sure of that.
Natsu came back from his training with scars, with plenty of them, all painfully new.
He came back frighteningly calm, frighteningly restrained, frighteningly strong.
But he was still silly and stupid and smiling.
She…
She didn't think about Natsu that much.
The same way she didn't think about the sun falling and rising in the sky every day.
She had him figured out.
Safe and familiar and reliable despite embodying the antithesis of the steady routine she longed for.
He was Natsu.
He was… simple.
And no matter how beaten up he was, how many times he got humbled, no matter how consistently he had one foot in death's door, he never looked sick.
Natsu spoke first, keeping Erza from ever pinning down why the color of his guild mark on his shoulder was so faded.
"Erza? Hey! What are ya doing in my neck of the woods?" he said, warm and calm.
His eyes weren't right. His voice wasn't either. Both too quiet.
But their fondness and the smile he gave was very much real, and it snapped Erza out of it.
Words struggled to take flight from her lips at first, leaving her to offer lamely, "I-i… just wanted to know…. what are you….. doing?"
"I was taking a dip n' catching dinner when I heard ya holler. What's up?"
"I meant where have you been." Erza clarified with a cough, backing away when Natsu trudged his way out of the water.
She put a blade in her tone just in time for Natsu to come up, arms out to wrap her up in a hug.
Naked. Holding a fish. She stopped him with a palm to his sternum.
"Clothes." she snipped, fighting a shiver from how rough his skin felt.
Natsu's smile was silly and gentle as he handed her the fish, "Here, thanks."
Erza spluttered as Natsu trudged away to where his clothes dangled on laundry wires.
"Natsu are you kidding me!?" she hissed as she held the flopping fish far enough away to where it couldn't dirty the white of her sleeveless blouse.
Natsu gave his usual snicker. But it was quieter, and took him a bit to let out.
She could feel the heat Natsu's body swelled with from meters away as he used his magic to dry himself off and slip back into some clothes.
Natsu at the very least had the decency to be swift about, taking the fish back from her before trying for another hug.
Erza slid back a few paces, sending him an irate glower as she flicked her hands of mucus.
She didn't dare risk staining her blue skirt, so she stepped back within arm's reach, if only to wipe her hands down on the unbuttoned front of his duster.
Natsu laughed, but didn't move, "Ah c'mon now, that's low."
"Don't whine when someone uses your childish tactics against you," Erza admonished, feeling a smile itch at her lips.
She shook herself of that mirth and channeled her signature Erza Scarlet glare, brown eyes glowering.
Her shoulders rose, her fists rested at her hips, and she demanded,
"Now, where in the world have you been?"
Natsu wasn't sweating bullets. He wasn't shriveling. He was brushing past her to hang the fish up on a rack with hooks half way up the shallow slope to the cabin.
"Here, workin' on things, just a little housekeepin'." he hummed.
The fish's floundering came to a painless permanent end with the prescient press of Natsu's fingers beneath its gills.
Erza stalked after him with a tight frown.
"I've gathered. But why? No one has seen you in weeks."
After he was finished hanging the fish on another wire rack, Natsu continued up towards the cabin, giving a pause and glance to let her follow.
"I mean, I'm sorry for that Erza, but is it that big of a deal for ya?"
"Well when you disappear without telling anyone where you are and if you're okay, then yes, yes it is." she pressed sharply.
"I told Lisanna." Natsu rasped as he passed the workshop area, "She probably shared it with some others."
"Congratulations Natsu, you got one of the seventy some people in the guild." Erza remarked, "We're getting off topic, what… what is going on with you? Beyond the running away part, you've never done anything like this."
Natsu was still calm, pleasant, "Huh? Like what?"
"Do basic housework, landscape, be productive."
"Yeah, fair," Natsu snorted as he stopped, stiffly lowering himself to his haunches over the garden.
She watched him, gentle and diligent, as he inspected rows of petals with softly shaking scarred fingers.
He balanced a ladybug along his ground down knuckles, giving a little grin when it buzzed off to the other side of the nursery.
Which made it all the more impressive when he managed to anger her with a question.
"So what's really botherin' you Erza?"
Erza repeated herself impatiently, "I just told you dolt, you up and disappeared out of nowhere. Again."
Natsu gave her a soft look as he rose to his feet. She didn't enjoy the creaks his tendons made, and fluttering hands reached out to help him.
He gently battled her efforts away, reassuring, "Hey, I didn't mean to worry ya Erza, you know better than to waste your time on that. It's me, I'm fine."
His earnest eyes soothed her concern, but did little to dull her frustration.
"I know that," she replied quickly, gesturing over to the backside of the cabin, "but what am I supposed to think when I see all this?"
Natsu gave her a wordless shrug as he sprinkled finger fulls of fertilizer from a plastic sack over the aisle of strawberry buds.
"The renovating and the landscaping," Erza clarified, "where did you learn how to make porch swings?"
Natsu simpered, "Ya like that? Neat huh?"
Erza's eyes narrowed.
Natsu sighed, set the sack of fertilizer down, and turned, rounding to the front yard with yet another pause and glance to make sure she was behind him.
"'Kay, yeah, it's all outta left field for me too, but I'm bein' real Erza, nothing's wrong." he told Erza the moment she was on his heel.
"Have you been sleeping properly?" she demanded.
"Yeah."
"Eating?"
"Yep, but I ain't really ate much yet today. I had uhh, two orange halves. So like… like an orange I guess."
"How many fingers am I holding up?"
"Uh seven, wait no, four, nope hold on, can I change my answer?"
"Natsu!"
Natsu rumbled a chuckle as he peeled to the left for a moment, testing the sturdiness of a fence post with a shake before sliding back.
"I feel like I should be asking you what's up," Natsu mused, "you seem more bothered than worried."
"Of course I'm bothered, you just left. Without a word. Just because you can walk off the war does not mean you can disappear without a trace t-to come… paint your roof?"
Natsu looked back, then up, "Re-tiled it too."
Erza growled, her glare tightening scarlet brows.
"So you can head into town to buy-"
The sound of feathery flutters and squawks had Natsu racing out to the middle of the front yard, standing far back enough to see a sparrow hopping around the roof ridge.
"Hey, hey, hey! This ain't part of the deal, that's fresh freakin' paint!" Natsu hollered, back near his usual volume for the first time.
He jabbed a finger to the back left corner of the yard with a hiss, "See that? Built ya the birdhouse, which is prime real estate, and you agreed that was it! That was the end of this!"
The sparrow chirped around a beak of bedding.
"Don't make me come up there! I will eat you!"
It chirped again.
"Erza, could you throw an axe at him?"
Erza gave him her usual cuff upside the head, "Pay attention when I'm talking to you!"
Natsu didn't give his usual pained whine and head rub as he straightened his neck and sighed at her.
"I am paying attention to you."
"No, you're doing chores for the first time in your life." she snapped, "You keep brushing me off as if I'm being unreasonable at the fact you did this whole disappearing act for the second time."
"More than that, you have the gall to tell me I'm not actually worried. You think I don't care?"
He took a deep breath and backed away, "Again, I'm sorry for that Erza. I didn't mean to make ya think I was runnin' off like that again. That was a sucky thing of me to do, and I'm sorry."
It was genuine. His tone, his eyes.
But then he turned and went right back to chores, brushing mulch off the smooth stone plate steps he had on either side of the front door with his feet.
Natsu slapped the side of a fist into the wall, the cabin gave a tiny jolt, and spooked the sparrow off the roof.
Natsu had just leaned down to grab a metal watering can when Erza's fingers yanked him around to face her by the ear.
"And that makes it okay?" Erza's glare had not softened, "You've managed a sincere apology, you managed to tell one person where you were going, is that enough for you?"
Natsu gently shrugged off Erza's hand, leaving it to shrivel into a fist at her side.
"Do you know how much you've missed? Levy and Gajeel are going to have a child! Lucy released a book, threw an entire party where everyone but you, her partner, was present!"
Erza found herself spluttering with all the indignation she couldn't soak her words, demanding without breath, "I-i mean, have you ever considered where Master's health was at?"
Natsu studied her, then softly swallowed nothing.
He at the very least had the decency to look like the guilt weighed something.
"I wasn't there to mess anything up for Luce's party, or for Levy and Gajeel's moment," he appealed to reasoning she at the very least approved of.
"Porlyusica said Gramps would be alright, n' he had all of you to take care of him till' he got back on his feet." Natsu said quietly before he turned, again.
He pulled out a wooden trough of plants tucked against the cabin foundation and hunched over to water them, "Everyone needed some quiet. Best I not be around."
The swish of Erza's skirt swiped across the top of his vision as her legs came to stand on the other side of the trough.
Erza folded her arms, slowly shook her head.
"We just fought in a war Natsu. Nothing about that is simple to where you can just come and go when you please." she said.
When Natsu didn't meet her gaze, when no amount of the Titania glaring that he always folded under had any effect, a growl of frustration ripped from her throat.
"Gah, I cannot believe you!" Erza seethed with a stomp of her foot, " War, Natsu. You actually had me believing you understood the severity of that when you came back, that this time you finally grew up."
Natsu stopped and straightened to look down at her. Erza looked back up. She looked up.
She remembered him getting taller, taller than her, she didn't remember Natsu having that much clearance over.
Erza didn't have time to think much more about that, she had to instead think her way out of the silence she found herself left in.
Natsu just searched her face for a few seconds.
This felt like when she made the mistake of getting into a serious argument with Gray.
Natsu's eyes were unreadable, just like his rival's but for entirely different reasons.
She grew up knowing there wasn't a thought behind Natsu's gaze.
There was far too much thought behind Gray's.
She had learned just to stick to the easier Natsu, who she knew she could always get the better of.
Natsu pushed the trough of plants back against his cabin with an ankle to brush past her once more, as if he had swallowed down hard words.
The worry had long since left her belly, surrendered it to the burn of disappointment and frustration. His silence turned her stomach cold for just a moment.
Seeing him walk away without a word, her gut had no trouble flicking back on the fire.
"What am I possibly supposed to think about all this Natsu?" Erza asked, staying in her spot but swiveling to keep track of him as he crossed back to the other side of the yard.
"How long would you've stayed gone?" she demanded to his back.
"I've been here the whole time, it's a twenty minute hike from town." Natsu said.
"Oh, so someone has to go into the forest if they want to find you. I don't know if you understand this, but not everyone else is at home in the wilderness as you. You want to make it as difficult as possible to worr-"
Natsu suddenly turned.
"But you're not Erza!" his voice didn't rise from its low rasp.
He didn't snap, his eyes were still too soft with love for that.
He just looked frank and gentle.
"Ya know better than to worry 'bout me, and if you were for real worried, ya never would've taken a month to come find me. Your heart's waayy too big for that."
Erza nearly stumbled in her spot, "What?"
"I think you're upset because it took ya while' to realize I wasn't around, but I don't wantya' to feel bad about that." he said.
"I-i was busy Natsu." she shot back.
"N' that's why I said I don't want you on the fritz about it Erza, you didn't do anythin' wrong." Natsu remained patient.
"You're bothered because everything's probably settlin', you wanted your groove back, and noticed I wasn't there to do our usual thing-"
" ' - thing?' " Erza echoed through a taut jaw, "Define 'thing' for me Natsu."
Natsu's scarred forehead crinkled further as he looked around the yard, at the space between them, then finally back to her with a few slow blinks
"This. What we're doin', like, right now." he said haltingly, as if waiting for sense.
"I don't even know what 'this' is Natsu," Erza's pale face tightened as she huffed, "the entire time I've been here you have been dead set on brushing me off at every turn."
"My visit did not just fall out of the sky, you left without a word, been gone for a month with no attempt to contact us, and-and you're suddenly doing… housework, " Erza stopped listing grievances on her fingers to wave down at his neat lawn.
"And you've made a paltry effort to explain any of that." she finished.
Natsu tilted his head back, not out of confusion, more a lid easing back onto a boiling pot.
"I don't know what's gotten into you Natsu, but I am not a fan of this new brand of aloofness. This is not the time to test me-"
"I ain't testing you Erza, you just aren't a fan of what I have to say," Natsu interjected, loosening the bind of his scarf around his collar, "cause you want 'this', our usual song n' dance when you're upset."
Erza felt her ears burn and it took her a moment to fire back with her infamous tone, the one where each word was a tap on the foot or the sharp warning of sparking flint.
Her magic flared, and she glared hard through frayed bangs, "Oh, so it's a big game to you then."
"I know what this is." Natsu replied simply, unshaken by the tides of her wrath he had been at the mercy nearly all his life.
"It's you, angry, glarin' and growling and hitting because I did something to tick ya off and you ain't happy till' my tail is between my legs."
Erza's ears burned harder until they itched.
She didn't even bother sending out the shattered sentences on her tongue, knowing the first word would trip over the second until left a mess of breath and disbelief.
Her stomach flipped, again, back to the cold.
She always knew better than him.
But right now, she had no idea what to say.
"R-routine?" she croaked, fluttering hands soothing her blouse down, thumbing the blue ribbon bow at her collar, "Really?"
Natsu's eyes were achingly soft as if she sounded hurt. His shoulders rose and his head dipped as he braced a forearm against the round stone edge of the chimney.
His words however, missed no beat, "Yeah. You like routine. Our routine, where I show my belly every time ya bare your teeth."
"Look, I get how important it is to ya and I wish I could help you feel like you're back ina' rhythm again…" Natsu drew off before he brought his shoulders up to shrug.
"Nothing's wrong, I just ain't up for that today. You got all the reason to be cross with me for leaving, but I can't do much more than say I'm sorry."
"I don't wanna get into a spat with you, I missed you!" Natsu confessed cheerily, "I missed seein' you, hearing your voice. It's on me, I know, but it's been a month."
"I want to catch up with you, I want to make ya lunch, hey, I still want that hug," he chuffed playfully before pleading, "so can we not do this right now Erza?"
Erza swallowed, rubbed her arms, silently choking on the stone suddenly in her throat.
She had no idea what just happened, being left speechless.
But she had been offered an out from whatever it was.
Natsu was… talking back. To her.
She rubbed harder as her crawling skin before shakily clearing her throat.
"V-very well."
"You are not off the hook, so don't delude yourself into thinking you talked yourself out of the consequences of your actions." Erza added, so quick it was almost desperate.
Natsu beamed. His usual brightness was duller, a lantern behind the fogged glass of his eyes.
His big stupid grin got caught in the lines carved by old pain, a smile softened by the tug of scar tissue that refused to stretch fully.
It made Erza nearly forget about the exchange they just had.
"Hey, you hungry? I’ll go grill up that fish!" Natsu chirped, already ducking out of sight around the cabin’s side.
From where Erza stood, it was quicker to meet him by circling the opposite way.
Erza rounded the far side of the cabin, where the woods pressed in closer.
Tall trees leaned tall over the fence, their branches stretching far enough to rake the sloped roof with lazy fingers, tickling the wind chimes hanging on their edges.
Erza stepped over a rough chopping stump when she spotted an owl perched overhead.
It watched her from a low branch, round and feathered like a puffball, blinking slowly as if mildly curious but too polite to ask questions.
She took another step forward, still looking up.
And then sank one boot straight into the cold clear water of a cozy little duck pond.
She gasped, flailed just enough to rustle the nearby reeds, and froze as a flurry of feathers burst from the far edge.
Two peeping ducklings scrambled up a stone, their tiny webbed feet slipping while their mother issued a low, offended quack and ushered them to the other side.
Erza retracted her blasphemous misstep and softly crooned an apology, backpedaling to look the duck pond over.
The pond was small, darling, hand made as if for little families only.
Just a shallow basin nestled in a dip of earth, ringed with the same river stones from the garden and lined with a scattering of reeds.
Another small wood sign was posted near it. More carved letters.
'Mavis' Duck Pond. Warning: Don't disturb the little duckies!!!'
Erza found her eyes itching and her lips smiling.
Her mind flashed back to Lucy's book party. To the peace for the guild's sorrow she saw.
She wasn't quite sure what she saw, nobody was, but no longer having Fairy Tail's First Master around hurt less.
Erza, and everyone, liked to think they had seen their First Master move on for another adventure.
Erza sniffled, and was still sniffling by the time she met up with Natsu at his newly installed backdoor.
Natsu had taken the fish inside but came back to open and close the new door again and again, with each swivel producing a faint squeak. Natsu pouted.
When he spotted Erza and the expression she wore, Natsu's gentle look came back again, "Hey, you good?"
Erza straightened her back, "Y-yes. I just… was not watching where I was going… and then… the p-pond… h-her pond…"
Natsu spotted one of her soaked boots and smiled as wide and sweet as his face would let him.
"Stepped into it? Don't sweat it Erza, she did that all the time, why'd ya think she made the sign?" Natsu reassured with a nudge.
Erza gave a small solemn nod.
If Natsu taking Wendy in was controversial to some, then the fact coming out that Natsu had been secretly harboring the First Master at his cabin just as Wendy moved out for weeks before the Grand Magic Games earned him quite a few cuffs upside the head.
But from memory, and from what she just saw, First Master had been happy here.
"Oh Erza, can you keep the mouse out of the house?"
Erza's head snapped up, "What?"
She followed his impish eyes to her feet where a tiny dot of brown fur lapped at the droplets her soaked boot left behind.
Erza squealed.
Natsu cackled as she leapt several feet into the cabin and immediately got into a tug of war with Natsu in her attempts to slam the back door shut.
"N-natsu!" she yelped in outrage, cheeks red. "What the hell is wrong with you!?"
"Hey, hey, hey! Easy on the door knob, I just put it in!" Natsu admonished through his giggles as he pried Erza's grip from the door.
"Y-you idiot, why do you let th-that foul beast around your domicile?!" Erza hissed, glaring at the mouse that was somehow more aloof than Natsu was.
Natsu snickered, shrugged, "Dunno, but it paid off hearin' you squeal like Luce."
She slid her embarrassed glare to him, "I did not 'squeal', I was cau-"
"Oh yes you did, you totally did and it was totally adorable, like that time you fell into that hole on Galuna," Natsu heckled.
"Why do you remember that and do you want to get punched!?"
"Okay, okay, let's take a good deep breath, yea? C'mon Erza, lookit' the lil' guy, he ain't doing a thing wrong! He's harmless."
"It's unsanitary! And if you will not dispose of it, then I shall do it myself!" Erza explained, requipping in a brilliant glittering flash to her Nakamura Armor.
Before she could lunge through the doorway with her spear, Natsu caught her over his shoulder and hefted her up as an armored bag of potatoes.
"You didn't even take your boots off, so like no way you'll be using your armors in the house!" Natsu announced.
She squirmed feebly in Natsu's gentle hold, "Natsu Dragneel you put me down this instant!"
Natsu finally did so, but kept a careful grasp of her shoulders, "Here, watch, I'll shoo him off."
"Hey you, get or else you're helping me repaint my roof."
The mouse turned and darted off deep into the grass.
The owl Erza saw before promptly swooped down and plucked the mouse up in its talons before streaking off.
They both stared at the empty front door for a moment.
Natsu turned to her, "But for real though, no boots in here."
On a technicality, the cabin was clean. But far from minimal.
The floor was swept, the hammock neatly slung, and the little kitchenette where Natsu grilled the fish was free of crumbs or soot.
The worst knock Erza could give was that Happy's shedding was everywhere.
But every surface told a story, and none of them were short.
Erza did indeed take her boots off, leaving her pad around with bare feet on the rugged covered floors of the one room cabin interior.
Photos were everywhere.
Across the space of his cabin, across his time spent as a Fairy Tail mage.
Taped to the walls, tucked into the corners of mirrors, wedged above door-frames, even clipped to the pull cords of hanging lights.
They weren’t hung with any sense of design, just placed wherever there was space.
Erza found that so many of them were of her.
A repeat of what happened when Erza saw Natsu actually cooking occurred.
Natsu didn't know how to cook.
Mirajane had tried to teach him around the time Erza herself tried to teach him to read and write. Neither of them had been successful.
Natsu replied to her that Lisanna had taught him, and the memories of Natsu cooking for his team over shared campfires on their adventures flooded back.
Now it was that Natsu didn't know how to use a camera.
More than that Erza wasn't quite sure he knew what a camera was.
Natsu laughed as he gutted the fish, told her Lisanna had given him one when they were kids and taught him how to use it.
Then memories of Natsu pulling everyone aside or sneaking up on the rest of their team at random moments to take a picture using a camera that was old even for its time.
Erza had rubbed her head.
These were numerous memories, and some of them had conversations and confused questions just like this.
Erza could only guess these things were so not Natsu, his boundless sentiment being meticulous, his abilities being domestic and human, that she hadn't been able to wrap her head around it.
She knew him well, probably better than anyone except maybe Lisanna.
So Natsu? Using a camera?
Just no.
She felt like she was going insane, the only one in the world who understood all this was like a dog driving a horse carriage.
Damningly enough, she found the old thing on a low shelf next to what she assumed was one half of the egg Happy came from. Lisanna reasonably had the other half.
On the shelf just above the weathered camera was the broken hilt of an old sword.
Erza gasped softly in recognition, and her fingers curled around the familiar feel of the grip.
This was her old sword.
She settled back on her haunches where she kneeled before a tall dresser of shelves.
The sword's blade had been shattered at the hilt, yet she held it with awe.
Erza had used and lost countless swords over the years, but she remembered each one.
She got this one maybe weeks after first coming to Fairy Tail. It was destroyed shortly before her S-class trial.
"That's the first sword you ever broke over my head," Natsu rasped fondly over a hissing stove.
Erza looked over at him with furrowed scarlet brows, "You kept this?"
"Yep," Natsu grinned softly, nodded even softer, "ya can have it back if you want."
Erza rose to her feet, cradling her old sword hilt, running disbelieving fingers over what was left of the chipped blade.
It had been so long ago she clung to this sword, but until the moment she had it in her hands again, the moment she looked back, it had felt like no time at all.
Wonderful adventures blended together in her head at times.
Still well remembered, still fond and held dear, the chaos she didn't want but could never bring herself to get away from made things a blur.
There was clarity in that blur. Always had been. Natsu.
That didn't feel like the case anymore.
He was cooking. He had been cooking.
He had known how cameras work.
He apparently had known how to renovate his cabin into something livable so it wasn't a pigsty in the forest.
Erza felt lost as she looked around at the endless trinkets that littered the cabin or filled up the 'second floor attic', mementos from all of Natsu's countless quests.
She knew better, she always did, but right now she felt like she knew nothing.
She had been to his house before, she was absolutely sure of it, it had been messy and wild as he was.
Suddenly it wasn't.
Maybe this whole place, the cabin, the cooking, him—was just playing tricks on her.
Because she knew Natsu. She always had. Hadn't she?
"Hey, the smoke too much?” Natsu asked, flipping a fillet with the practiced ease of someone who did this more often than he’d admit. “Could crack a window.”
“It’s fine,” Erza replied stiffly as she began to pad around his cabin again.
They traded scattered bits of small talk after that, he asked soft questions about the guild, about Master Makarov's health and recovery and if everyone was settling back into the normal flow of things.
Erza was absent when she replied in turn, snipped answers and distant hums that got calmer and smoother with each response.
Her steps slowed as she drifted toward the far side of the room, where the hammock hung in a gentle arc beside the window.
A low wooden table sat just within arm’s reach of it, scuffed with age.
Framed photographs crowded its surface, angled inward like they were keeping one another company.
The first one, faded from age and affection, gave her pause.
Lisanna, still a darling young girl, sat cross-legged on a porch step, cradling a squirming, impossibly tiny Happy in her arms with a baby bottle held to his mouth.
"Apparently exceeds can speak before they can eat solid foods," Natsu snickered from across the cabin.
Erza hummed, glancing over to see Natsu had pushed open the small window above the kitchenette.
The owl from before had landed on the tiny windowsill and hooted until Natsu tossed it a scrap of cooked fish.
Erza's scoff lacked bite, and her lips were already curled as she looked back down at the photo.
Young Lisanna's smile was impossibly far beyond her years, small, focused, soft. Maternal.
Erza's mind drifted quick.
To the time she had been on the receiving end of Lisanna's glare, burning with the rage of a mother.
Then to the time she had been stared at with the love of one.
To the war…
To Irene.
Erza soothed herself just as quickly, looking elsewhere and holding her old sword a little tighter.
The surrounding framed photos on the table were painfully new in comparison.
Clear, colorful. Full of a different little girl’s bright eyes and bigger expressions.
Erza hadn't expected Natsu to be the one to take them, but the numerous photos of Asuka weren't the least bit surprising.
Erza looked up directly above the hammock to see there were even a cluster of pictures plastered to the underside of the wooden attic cleft, with planks that spanned all the way to the circular window over the front door.
Most were of herself and Lucy, and the ones that did include Gray had stink lines drawn onto him.
Erza gave a flat but soft snort, her cheeks tingling.
Another sweep of the cabin, and Erza found that there was no angle Natsu could awake from his hammock where he didn't open his eyes to the faces of Fairy Tail.
Whether it be the bedside table to his right, or the ceiling above, it didn't matter.
If he looked at the kitchen he'd see a few pictures of Levy as she grew up throughout the years, with one of Shadow Gear and a brooding Gajeel at the very end of the row.
Looked at the front door? Him and Elfman locked an eating context at the guild bar, fervently devouring mountains of noodles.
The new back door? Happy and his furry blue face were in the corner as he took a picture of Natsu drawing on a passed out drunk Cana's face.
The post the hammock hung from at his feet? A single picture of Lucy being unfairly beautiful as she usually is.
To the right of his hammock? A plain blue curtain loosely draped over the corner.
The way it hung over whatever it covered felt more intimate than private.
Erza flashed a look over to Natsu.
"Natsu stop pestering the owl." she chided as he tried to sink his finger deep into its fluff of feathers, his cooking momentarily forgotten.
"Never!"
She rolled her eyes and rounded one of the posts that the hammock hung from to get to the corner.
Erza stopped at the expected sight of more pinned photos.
Most of these were taken by Happy as Natsu either pestered a napping Master Makarov with feathers under his nose or tortured poor Mirajane with surprise lifts from behind and merciless tickles.
She noticed that the photos stopped about two thirds the way down the post, with small notches carved into the wood at varying spots where Natsu had recorded Wendy's height.
She pursed her lips to swallow a laugh when she spotted claw marks at the base of the wood where Happy used it as a scratching post.
She glanced at the curtain cover in the corner once more.
She was half expecting a stash of all the issues of Sorcerer's Weekly where Lucy modeled for the cover.
No shame in that, Natsu was around that age as a young man, and Lucy was the most radiantly beautiful girl Erza had ever met.
Those two were obviously head over heels for each other anyway, had been for what felt like ages.
But what if it was something else?
Curiosity tugged at her fingers, and her fingers tugged at the curtain until the corner opened up into a world of its own.
Three corkboards were nailed to the walls, their surfaces dense with a staggering volume of layers of color and paper.
The left board was filled top to bottom with quest forms, faded job flyers, hand-scribbled notes, tattered slips, pages from every mission Natsu and Lucy had ever taken together.
Each quest page had little addendums added from Happy;
'Lucy wore a maid uniform for our first quest, dunno why Natsu keeps it locked up in his side of the attic . ’
'Solid developmental real estate here.'
'Lucy was extra nervy on this one, she'd turn beet red whenever Natsu tried to use her as a teddy bear like usual. She's lucky she has Aries and Virgo as cuddle buddies for him on demand.'
'Found a cool fishing spot on this one, gotta show Carla later. She's a bluegill type of gal, hopefully catching her a few of those big boys will get my foot in the door.'
Another scribble was directly below that one;
'Update - Yeah no go on the bluegill, Lily said she leans towards yellowtails but I still haven't completely disqualified him as a threat.'
Erza was laughing, and she couldn't stop it.
Natsu spoke up behind her, chuckling, "What? Did ya see Happy finding out Carla doesn't like blue gill or Asuka's drawing of Gajeel?"
Erza squinted beyond her shoulder at him, her voice hitching with a snicker, "W-what?"
Natsu nodded past her, "Center board, all of Asuka's drawings. Bottom left corner I think."
Erza whirled back to the center board, a gallery of crayon and marker and colors unashamedly bright.
Whole stories immortalized by a five year old girl, telling of all the days spent with her favorite Uncle Natsu. Carnivals and picnics and zoos.
Her cowboy hat was drawn sometimes longer than she was tall, Happy started out being drawn as a blue meatball with a tail and whisker, but every last portrait was signed 'Love, Asuka'.
"You gotta have a few of your own, yeah?"
Erza smiled to herself, "Of course. I've been privileged enough to receive her artwork numerous times. I have them on my dresser."
"Where did you say this drawing in particular was? I still don't quite believe you."
Natsu pointed again, "Around the bottom left unless Happy moved it."
Erza came across that particular drawing in question.
Drawn in bold crayon on pink paper, Asuka sketched a large stick figure that scowled with a zig zag frown, angry brows made of gray dots.
The black scribbles for Gajeel's mane of hair took up half the page.
Below him, the label: 'Gargle. He wears the grumpy pants.'
Erza burst out laughing. Loudly.
She even giggled through the knuckles she pressed to her mouth to stifle herself.
Every glance back at the picture through watery eyes only prolonged her squeaks.
"I know right?" Natsu chortled as he pulled the window over the kitchenette shut, "Look don't tell Levy, she wanted to pin that on her fridge but I bribed Asuka with some new boots for it."
Erza leaned back against the wood post and caught her breath, wiping her lashes with a sniffle.
Giggles still bubbled from her throat sporadically, but she focused her mind on the last corkboard of photos on the right.
So much Wendy.
Some photos were pinned with such careful symmetry it was obvious a smaller, more precise hand had helped, likely hers.
The first one Erza focused on was Wendy kneeling in the garden just outside the cabin, trowel in hand, dirt on her knees, and a sunhat slightly too big slipping over her ears.
She beamed up at the camera with warm doe-brown eyes like the whole world had been kind that day.
The next one Erza's eyes fell to was of Wendy in the lake, mid-swim, her long hair trailing behind her in dark blue ribbons. She was laughing as Carla and Happy paddled after her.
They began to blur together Erza found, there were just so many photos of Natsu loving on her. And Carla too.
Even one of his harshest critics appeared again and again, always in the same spirit Natsu used when photographing Happy.
Caught mid-yawn, curled up on a pillow, blinking slowly in the sun.
Sometimes with Wendy tucked under her arm, sometimes being hopelessly trailed by a swooning Happy.
"Really? Carla?" Erza chuckled with a flat look that was soft around the edges.
Natsu didn't meet her gaze, grinning and shrugging as he moved filets from a pan to a cutting board.
"Can't help it. Raising an exceed sticks with you.” he defended, “Besides, if she ain't a little sister, then why did she become little sister-shaped?"
Erza looked back at the bottom of the board where the newest pictures hung, "And Lily?"
Carla's human form made her roughly Wendy sized, but she clearly didn't consent to the role of little sister if her consistently puffed cheeks and glared daggers were anything to go by.
Natsu scooped her up for playful squeezes and left her pristine white hair a mess no matter how much she pouted or flushed.
She would be embarrassed, indignant, and endlessly doted on.
If Erza had to guess, it was Wendy taking these photos.
"Ya think Gajeel would let me do stuff like that? You're lucky you get to be buds with him like you are, otherwise he's on a real stingy streak, only lets Levy and Juvia dote." Natsu replied, "He's also like thirty two apparently."
"And these are your photos of Carla? You're not just covering for Happy?" Erza said.
Natsu crouched to rummage through the cupboards beneath a counter, "Pfft, nah, his stuff is upstairs in the 'attic'. Mosta' that stuff is off limits to me."
"I see, well, does Happy still see Pantherlily as a…" Erza bit down a smile, "'threat'? Or have they made nice?"
Natsu's shoulders moved despite his head being out of sight, "Uh… yeah, yeah, think so. Hatchet's been buried for a good bit. I think Lily got him a sturgeon or splitfin to smooth things over."
"Check his fish journal, middle shelf over here."
Erza scoffed, "Fish journal?"
"Luce taught him to scrapbook."
Erza continued the scavenger egg hunt of Natsu's cabin, crossing to the other side of the cabin to bend over in front of a short dresser of shelves.
She did a double take at what amounted to a shrine of a well used fishing rod on the very top shelf.
"Hey, yeah, no touchies on that, it's Hap's lucky fishing rod," Natsu warned with a grunt as he pulled himself back to his feet using the counter's edge.
"Apparently the fish can know if a kindred spirit has come into contact with it." he said with a straight face.
Erza giggled, "W-what?"
Natsu shrugged and beamed, whether at the sound of her laughter or in understanding of the absurdity of it, Erza couldn't tell.
Erza did some rummaging of her own, pulling out tackle boxes from shelves to find fishing trinkets, camping gear, and pictures of Romeo filling several metal containers.
Said pictures were of Romeo using said gear, tagging along with Natsu and Happy for camping and fishing trips. There were even a few of him and Natsu sparring.
After the third tackle box proved to be less strange fishing lures and more pictures of Romeo, Erza remarked, "How many more pictures of Romeo do you need?"
"All of them."
Erza was grinning as she sunk to her knees and shook her head, "Why isn't Romeo up on those boards?"
Natsu gave a mournful sigh, "He was embarrassed, threatened to start looking up to Gray if I didn't put them somewhere outta sight."
"Oh the horror," she chuffed.
Erza's exasperated hands eventually slapped against her lap, "and now I don't even know what I'm looking for here anymore. There's too many of your… 'knick knacks'."
Natsu padded over, swallowing her with his shadow as he bent and reached over her, clicking his tongue as he sifted through the shelves, "Uhh, let's see, let's see… huh, where is it?"
Erza's gaze followed his hand as it searched through all sorts of oddities.
"Natsu, is that a revolver?"
"No."
"What possible use could you have for a firearm?"
"It's… not mine."
"Seriously, w-what, w-why? Why would Happy own a gun? Why would he need a gun?"
"Let's not get off on that culd-de-sac."
Natsu pulled out a pastel blue book with a thick fabric cover from shelf clutter and pressed it to Erza's chest.
Erza rose to her feet and looked over the thick journal as he slipped back to the kitchenette.
The front cover was covered in glittery fish stickers, a crooked label in Happy’s handwriting reading “Happy’s Legendary Fish Log,” with a single googly eye glued where the 'O' should be.
Erza flipped it open to find the pages were comically meticulous.
Each fish was categorized alphabetically, photos glued with care, and detailed notes beneath like scientific entries: species, weight, flavor, and personal rating out of five stars.
"This is almost frightening," Erza muttered with awe, flipping through page after page, "I had no idea this was an actual hobby, I thought it was just because he was a cat."
Natsu snickered over the dull thumps of a knife chopping against a cutting board, "No yeah, h-he's… yeah."
"But to be fair, ya don't really sit down and talk with him much."
"Well I'm still restricted from interacting with Happy without supervision, remember?" Erza snipped.
Natsu managed to shrug with the twitch of his lips as he hummed, "I'm only one of half of the decision there Erza, I've been ready to try and move past that for a while but Lis is a tougher customer."
Erza's hand stilled over a page mid-flip, and for a moment she thought the stone in her throat was back to make her unsure and uneasy.
"I-it was… I did not mean to-"
"Erza look, Lis already laid all that out a hundred times, she don't care what you 'meant' to do. Happy's joke was awful, but ya punted him way too hard into the ocean over it." Natsu cut her off.
Erza wilted.
These conversations she did remember. The conversations where a 'you may hit me if you wish' did nothing.
Where Lisanna's rage seemingly never ended and Natsu took a few days before he knew how to talk to her again.
She just didn't like to remind herself of their existence anymore than she needed to never forget the restriction.
"He's way tougher than he looks, but when you're as strong as ya are you just can't be hitting Happy, especially as hard as you'd hit me, he's just not used to it." he said, gentler than she knew she deserved.
"I'll keep talkin' with her about it." Natsu stated, "It's in the past now, and if it makes you feel any better Lis was way more miffed at me than she was at you."
Erza stared at the page she stopped on until she no longer saw it.
She had been wrong.
Through the distance and contrition, the punishment and chores, Erza understood that.
When Lisanna set Happy down before Erza as she scrubbed the guild hall floors, an icepack taped to his head and a two minute apology about how wrong and awful his joke was on his lips, Erza understood that.
When Lisanna later had them both doing chores, watching with hard eyes and constantly reminding Happy she hadn’t raised him to be mean or cruel, Erza understood it then too.
She had been wrong, but wrong was so… foreign.
Especially when she was supposed to know better.
“Heyo, lunch’s up,” Natsu called, voice bright and easy, like nothing had ever been heavy.
A plink of a beak against the kitchenette window had Natsu sending a hard look at the still lingering owl.
"Nah, you don't get seconds until you handle that bird." he chided.
Erza blinked as she was snapped from her thoughts, the weight in her chest loosening before she could name it.
Sunlight stretching across rugged floors, the scent of grilled fish thick in the air, and Natsu setting down two plates side by side at the small kitchen nook like it had always been meant for sharing.
Without thinking, she moved to sit down, drawn in by the shift like a leaf tugged by current.
Whatever had been clinging to her spine a moment ago slipped quietly off.
She left a bookmark in the fish journal with her old sword hilt and set it down next to her plate as Natsu came around with a sizzling skillet.
Natsu portioned golden crusted fillets that steamed like they’d come from a tavern kitchen instead of a forest cabin.
They were buttery and hearty enough to make Erza instantly notice the meal was conspicuously beige.
"No vegetables?" Erza asked.
Natsu wordlessly gestured with his chin to the front door mat that declared his cabin a 'no vegetable zone' in bold defiant lettering.
She looked back to Natsu, "Are you eight?"
Natsu scoffed his way back to the kitchenette, where he set the skillet down in the sink and nudged the tap on with his elbow.
He turned back with a smug, open-palmed gesture toward the running water—not bad, huh?—as if he proved his maturity beyond question.
Erza was laughing through her nose as she tucked a cloth napkin on her lap.
"So functioning plumbing but no toilet?" Erza countered.
Natsu's larger warmer shoulder brushed hers as he plopped down next to her.
"Lake." he explained.
Her nose crinkled, "The same lake where our lunch came from?"
Natsu had already cut off a bite and was mid-chew.
Erza gave in to the smell and followed suit.
The first bite was savory and seasoned enough to make those memories of Natsu cooking for their team over campfires, the memories Erza still didn't know where to fit in the truth of him she carried.
Maybe because of course Natsu, a fire mage at home in the wilderness, knew how to roast meat over a fire.
She just hadn't been able to reconcile him knowing how season said meat with anything other than his own flames.
"I'm no Mira or Elfman, but ain't too shabby, yeah?" Natsu said, "Usually don't get to use seasoning on the road, nice change of pace."
Erza hummed in agreement through her own mouthful.
"Lis is a good teacher." he murmured.
They ate quietly, shoulder to shoulder, legs flat against each other.
It was nice.
The food. Flipping through Happy's fish log between bites. Natsu.
Calm. Peace and quiet with family.
Wasn’t she upset about something? She kept forgetting.
Halfway through his second fillet, Natsu bumped her shoulder with his chest, “How’re you doing?”
Erza didn’t look up. “The guild is fine. Most relief work is done, what remains is being handled by—”
“Meant you,” Natsu rumbled, "the war was whole a lot. How ya holdin' up?"
Her fork paused mid-cut. A moment passed.
Gray asked her this a few weeks back.
But he approached with that look that let Erza know clear as day he saw right through her.
He patiently took her redirections, allowed himself to be brushed off, but she knew that. He knew she knew that.
Gray delivered her a standing invitation to talk about the war with just a gaze.
She had long since lost the ability to pin Gray down. But it had always been offset by Natsu remaining steerable, up until twenty minutes ago.
He was being odd right now, Erza remembered, but he was still silly, stupid, and warm. Said things he meant.
Said things were rarely about the same topic given he had been bending moods of entire conversations at his whim since forever.
Since forever. So still the same, safe, familiar.
Natsu could drive her up a wall, but he cared.
So she spoke before realizing, leaned on him without thinking.
This was just Natsu after all.
She cut a bite of fish but didn’t lift her eyes, not at him.
Instead she slid them across the cabin to the picture of little Lisanna bottle feeding Happy with love in her eyes.
That same love. That same love she wanted to forget that she wanted.
“One of the Empire's Spriggans, Irene Belserion, was my mother.”
The table didn’t shake. The sky didn’t fall. But her own voice sounded like someone else’s.
Natsu didn’t say anything at first. Just leaned in slightly, his larger shoulder pressing firmer against hers.
"Heard about that, that was a real tough draw, n' I'm sorry. To you and Wendy. That I wasn't there." Natsu responded softly.
Erza had already chosen to just not think ever about the reason he hadn't been.
"It was a war. We knew it would not be a neat fight going on." she whispered.
“Still, Erza, I’m… I'm so sorry, Erza,” he murmured, barely above a breath. “I can’t imagine what that would be like.”
She let the silence settle between his words and hers.
“She was my enemy. The things she did, to me, Wendy, our family, u-unforgivable. B-but… bu-but at the end, she looked at me like… the way she looked a-at me."
Natsu held a palm up atop the table. Erza took his hand, rougher, larger, and let it squeeze hers.
"Like a mother." Erza finally steadied, "Just for a moment. And I—”
She stopped, jaw tight.
She wished it had just been for a heart beat that she wanted it. Wanted her.
Wanted a mother.
"I-i… I let myself imagine what it might’ve been like. If she’d raised me. If she’d been anything other than a monster.”
Her eyes stayed on her plate, on the stray flakes of fish she hadn’t touched, as Natsu's rough thumb stroked the soft back of her hand.
"In doing so I might as well be spitting in Master's face, aren't I?" Erza hiccuped.
Because what did that say about Makarov?
About the man who raised her. Loved her. Believed in her.
Could she still claim to be his daughter if, even for a moment, she’d longed for someone else?
"What kind of daughter thinks that? After everything Master Makarov gave me.” she sneered.
Natsu stood and slowly stacked up their plates, his free hand stroking her back. A few minutes ago she would've hated how small that made her feel.
"Only you could find a way to beat yourself up about this," Natsu mused, leaning down to peck the side of her head before making his way towards the kitchen sink.
Erza blinked hard several times at his back, "What?"
"I mean, you, who got dealt like the worst hand outta all of us, think you're somehow betraying Fairy Tail? For what? Wantin' a mom?" Natsu chuckled through the words, half-teasing, half-scolding.
"You're laughing." Erza said, more bewildered than accusatory.
"Well yeah," Natsu began to rinse their dishes, "it's silly, you gettin' onto yourself for bein' you."
"I know how soft that heart is, so you seeing good where others wouldn't don't make you anything other than a good person."
"How many people have we added to our family that were lost like that, that needed someone to see something past all the crud? We'd be lost without em'." Natsu reminded over the wet clink of moving plates.
"Ya know how much it'd suck if I couldn't go break a table over Gajeel's head every day? Or remove all the screws in Laxus' chair?"
Erza scoffed a laugh.
Natsu gave her a sly look from over his shoulder, "And Jellal? If I didn't rip his head off all the times I wanted, where'd that leave you?"
Erza looked for something to throw at him, and settled for her old broken sword hilt.
Natsu ducked as its shattered blade stub embedded the hilt in a cupboard.
"Hey! You wanna do the dishes?!" he squawked.
A red faced Erza just hissed at him.
Natsu snickered and turned back to the sink, "It's what Fairy Tail is, ya know? Home for people who got lost, or were on the path they shouldn't be walkin'."
"I don't think I could forgive your Mom for what she did to you and Wendy and Mira, to our family and friends, but nobody would think you're in the wrong for wanting better days."
Erza settled, both her and the knots in her gut, and gently wiped crumbs from her skirt.
That was true. Makarov's compassion is why they were all here.
Why she had a family, why she had comrades to love with all her heart.
"I think ya know this because if it were anyone else feelin' the way you are now, you'd have all the compassion in the world." Natsu added as he scrubbed a particularly stubborn stain.
"People are worth understandin' Erza." he rumbled.
Natsu could sometimes stumble his way into saying something wise.
Most of the time when he was trying to be reassuring, and that was very reassuring.
Too reassuring.
Too much eloquence and perspective from someone who she had seen for herself struggle to learn the basic alphabet.
Erza has forgotten, Natsu was acting odd.
Natsu gave a startled grunt when he felt the familiar sensation of Erza cuffing him upside the head.
He whirled with a squint, "Uh okay, what was that for?"
"Checking if you're really Natsu." Erza said, looking him up and down.
"Like if I'm a skinwalker or…"
"If you're someone else in disguise."
"Like you did when ya found out Gajeel was working with the Royal whatever dudes? Cuz by the way, I'd stop hitting him because I ain't too sure how much longer I can convince him to not start hittin' back."
Erza ignored him and tilted her head, her frown sharpening. “All this cooking. Chores. Offering… wisdom on purpose instead of by accident. The entire time I've been here, you’ve been acting strangely responsible.”
Natsu blinked at her, "We're doing this again?"
“It’s enough to make me mildly suspect you’re not real. Or that you’ve been replaced.”
For a heartbeat, something in his expression tightened. Too quick to pin down before it was gone.
He just looked back down to finish the dishes.
“Well, guess I’ll have to do somethin’ dumb later to prove it’s me.”
“You usually don’t have to try,” she deadpanned.
Natsu just hummed in response.
She studied him for a moment before saying, “Perhaps a spar would set you back to normal.”
"Thinking about it now, it's been ages since you even challenged me-"
Natsu’s reaction was almost immediate. “Nah. I'm good.”
Something in the way he said it, too quick, too final, landed wrong. Like the thought didn’t just disinterest him, it unsettled him.
Erza felt the heat rise in her chest and bristle under her skin before she even knew why.
“Why?” she pressed, eyes and voice hard as she leaned against the counter next to him, "You used to challenge me nearly every day.”
Natsu kept his eyes on the plate in his hands, rinsing it under the tap. “Yeah, well… not really in the mood.”
“That’s it?”
He set the plate on a dish rack, grabbed another.
“Got no reason to. And I don’t like the idea of hurtin’ you.”
As sincere as the part was, it left Erza unsatisfied.
“You never minded that before,” she snipped.
“Yeah, but before’s… before. It makes me sick now.” He scrubbed at the skillet, shoulders hunched.
"This won't be roughousin' like in a brawl, or you wanting me t'show ya some moves, it's a spar, different thing." Natsu said.
Erza’s arms crossed hard over her chest.
The patience in his tone was the same maddening calm he’d used outside, the kind that made her feel handled, that made her stomach burn and freeze.
The memory flickered, him outside earlier, patient to a fault while she’d picked at him.
Letting her have an out, walk away without more words when the truth was she didn't have any of them to respond with.
“Do you think I won’t be a challenge?” she demanded, jaw taut.
Natsu didn’t even look up from the sink. “Not what I said.”
“Then what are you saying?”
He rinsed a plate, slow and easy, “Just don’t see the point.”
“The point,” Erza shot back, “is that I’m offering. Or do you think I’m not worthy enough of your time?”
"Didn't say that either," Natsu flipped a skillet over to scrub off the soot, "I already told you why."
"And I already tell you I don't believe that!" Erza hissed.
Natsu let the skillet loudly clatter in the sink as he straightened up, confused eyes finally on her.
"You don't?" Natsu's tone was the hardest it had been, but only tense enough to make the question not sound like one.
"I do not buy it, 'I don't want to hurt you', why?"
"Because you're my family and I love you." Natsu shot back the obvious, ripping a towel from its rack to roughly dry his hands.
"Again, that didn't stop you all those years growing up! So what the hell has changed!?"
Natsu slapped the towel down over the sink edge.
"Because I'm stronger than you."
Erza wasn't sure at first why that landed like a punch to the sternum, why she made some small little gasping noise, or why she teetered back.
She knew that. She knew that better than anyone.
She believed that, believed in his strength, with her whole being.
She declared that to enemies' faces, she advised everyone to trust and lean on it, all in the darkest times.
Erza believed in it so much she did not even think about it anymore.
Erza just never believed Natsu himself actually knew.
More than that, say it aloud to her face.
It was a secret, his strength. Her secret.
Natsu's soft stare was swimming with confusion and apology. He reached out, and if she let him he would've wrapped her up in his arms.
That gentleness made her feel boxed in more than if he’d come at her swinging.
"I d-didn't… hey, hey, what's up? I thought it was obvious," he asked, his wandering tone reached out innocently, but landed like a jab.
Erza's stomach was twisting again. She chose heat before the cold came back again.
Her slack arms tensed, hands feeling empty as if Natsu had ripped something from her that was only hers to give.
"Is that so?" Erza hissed, taut with the weight of the bait in the words, "It's 'obvious'?"
Natsu blinked at her, "Uh, I didn't wanna bring it-"
"No, no, enlighten me Natsu, it's clear you must believe you are so far out of my league you don't need to take me seriously anymore." Erza almost felt clever for that.
Natsu rubbed the bumpy ridge of his scarred nose before he leaned with a hand against the sink.
He looked at her, quietly looked for a softer path through the bramble he had no idea why he was suddenly wading in.
"Did you at least hear what I said about you gettin' onto yourself about-"
"Yes I did. Stop changing the damn subject."
Natsu's other hand clenched against his hip and sighed, "You really want this argument, don't ya?"
This time, Erza was almost happy at the boldness, no matter how soft it was. It was an excuse.
"I'm tired of the kid's gloves Natsu, it's disrespectful. I am not something for you to just shelve for later." Erza sneered, arms snaking back to the comfortable fold across her chest.
"Now answer the question."
Natsu didn't pause long.
"Because I'm not special like you are." he stated.
"What?"
"Ya know, I still don't know why ya always told me all those things about my potential, about bein' stronger than you," Natsu confessed freely, "it made no sense because you've always been so much more amazing than me Erza."
"Strength comes so easy to ya because you're just strong. You work hard when ya need to but you just usually… don't need to."
Erza hated the adoration he oozed with, hated how it made her feel warm.
Colder than hot, closer to that cold.
Natsu flashed a smile, "Cause' when the time comes you're always gonna push through and get the job done because you're just that special."
"If this is your idea of a dress-down, you are awful at it." Erza clipped back, shuffling.
Natsu's hand went from his hip to his forehead, fingers rubbing as if somehow smoothing his crinkled brow made the scarred skin any less craggy.
"No that's not— Erza why is like every exchange a contest? I'm being serious here, I know you won't like hearin' this but I've trained circles around ya nearly all our lives, and I got basically nowhere."
"I'm being real," Natsu repeated, "I don't know why ya ever believed in me, maybe cause' things were at their worst, maybe ya didn't have anyone else, I-i dunno."
"You think I was being dishonest? Being called a liar is one thing, but I promise you will have your hands full with plenty of future cabin renovations if you're calling into question my belief in you." she warned.
"Unconditionally." Erza heaved thickly, "You've heard that word come from my lips, do you not know what that means?"
Again, Natsu was bewildered at what he said wrong, and was frustratingly tender in his attempts to soothe the harm he did.
Erza wiped her eyes and ripped her arm away from his reach.
"I ain't doubtin' that Erza, I'm sorry, I never have or will, I just- I was just confused." Natsu told her.
"There's a big ole' gap between what ya say, and what ya do, and even then that don't always line up. I mean, I hear what ya say about me to Luce and Mira, so…" Natsu left off with a shrug.
"You have so much love, that's the point of what I was sayin'. All the fuel ya need is just how much you love Fairy Tail." he said.
Erza softened herself to mere disbelief, "So that's it? That's why you're stronger?"
"Well yeah," Natsu nodded with a snort, "you didn't need to try hard to be so much better than me, n' it's impossible to love Fairy Tail more than you do so I needed more fuel than you."
Erza rolled her eyes as she turned away, scoffing softly, "Oh I see, it's your inability to not challenge every living being to a fight that's what separates us."
"Sure." Natsu remarked.
"Well with the headaches that has brought all of us, I can safely say I'm not ashamed to be lacking your lust for battle," Erza reached past him to yank her old sword hilt from the cupboard.
Her pull accidentally rippled the entire cupboard door from its hinges.
Natsu, who had shuffled aside to give her room, just stared at cleaved wood hanging from the shattered stump of her old blade.
His eyes were quiet. Old like Master Makarov's.
Erza winced as Natsu sluggishly unskewered the cupboard door.
He looked almost unfamiliar. He still looked steerable, but she wasn't driving him anymore.
For just a moment it looked like somebody else had hollowed him out, something slow and weary wearing Natsu's scarred skin.
Natsu eventually managed a grin. He brushed past her with a playful bump of the hip.
"Don't sweat it," he chuffed reassuringly, "with how much crud I break I deserve it. Fuel, remember?"
Erza lingered on the phrase, rolling it in her head until it soured.
Deserving it. Fuel.
Erza felt unsettled as she turned towards the back door, where Natsu slid on some boots and stepped out onto the porch.
The cool air off the lake pressed in as Erza quickly stopped the creaky door from shutting after setting the sword hilt down on the kitchen table.
Erza leaned against the doorframe, her hands fussing with her skirt as she watched him set the cupboard door on the bench.
He busied himself, finding new hinges as if her silence wasn’t stalking him step for step.
“Natsu,” she pressed after a few beats, voice firm, “what did you mean?”
He didn’t answer right away.
Instead, he rummaged through the small crate of tools, pulling out a bent hinge and a handful of screws, his movements slower than usual, like even the simple rhythm of work was a stall.
“Forget it,” he muttered, crouching to test the fit of the metal against the splintered wood.
Erza stepped closer. “No. You said it for a reason.”
“You always gotta pick, huh?”
“I’m not picking,” she snapped. “I’m asking you to tell me the truth.”
Natsu sighed through his nose, “It’s not important.”
“You’re lying.” Her tone bit, harsher than she meant, but she couldn’t stop.
She wasn't sure whether her stomach was hot or cold right now.
“You never speak without reason. Whether whatever you have to say is anything of worth is a different debate, but you say what you mean and you always have.”
"I just meant… It's no big deal. I break things all the time, so what’s one more? I got it comin’.” Natsu grunted, screwdriver in hand.
The rhythmic turn of bent screws was maddeningly calm. He tossed away one broken hinge.
Her eyes narrowed. “That isn’t what you meant.”
The second hinge came off just quick, and the new one screeched as he tightened it on, his scarred knuckles whitening on the screwdriver handle.
Erza pushed again, sharper, “You called it fuel. Why? What are you feeding?”
The last hinge squealed tight as Natsu drove the screw flush, each twist of his wrist sharper, quicker than the last.
His movements weren’t smooth anymore, like he was sealing up more than wood and iron.
Natsu still didn’t look at her. He bent closer, thumb pressing against the edge of the hinge, testing its bite, as if the quiet would hold her back.
It didn't.
"Say. It." the teeth in her hiss was shaky. Afraid. "What do you deserve?"
Natsu set the screwdriver down with a dull clack against the bench.
The cupboard door hung straight again, the wound sealed with a strip of glue.
He stood there, staring at his work for a breath too long, shoulders stiff, chest rising once in a hard swallow.
Natsu spoke with the barest of grit.
"Nothing."
Natsu grabbed the cupboard door, the screwdriver, some new screws, and slid past her back into the cabin.
"What the hell does that even mean?" Erza let the backdoor fall shut as she gave chase, "You deserve it because you don't deserve anything?"
"Yeah."
Erza shook the cabin with a stomp of her foot, "Five minutes! All I want is for you to go five minutes without trying to bench me mid-conversation!"
"At every step and turn, it's like pulling teeth!" she said, "You tell me you're glad to see me, but then you refuse to engage with any goddamn honesty!"
"To top it all off, you are the last person I ever expected to have this issue with! So you can either look me in the eye and talk with me, or I can just leave right now and never make the mistake of coming here again!" Erza heaved.
"You don't deserve 'anything'? What's 'anything'!?"
Natsu had long since turned back to face her.
His face was back in that punchably gentle look.
He gestured all around him, "All this, don't deserve it."
Erza was ready to rip into him, but then she remembered that everywhere she looked was family. Fairy Tail.
Her gaze darted and bounced and zipped to every inch of the cabin before landing back on Natsu, blinking, " W-what? "
"You. Don't deserve you, or Fairy Tail."
Her stomach had made its decision.
She was cold.
Freezing.
So she shook, she shivered, she stammered, "I-i don't understand."
"Good." Natsu said back.
She stumbled to the middle of the cabin, and stared hard at the sword hilt Natsu had kept all these years just to offer back to her.
"Why is that good?" her voice was small.
"You deserved Fairy Tail, a family. So yeah, ya shouldn't understand."
Erza swayed where she stood, breath thin, like the air itself was scarce.
“W-why was I… why was I-i deserving and not you?”
Natsu had already gone back to the cupboards, hefting the door up with one arm and bracing it against the frame.
His other hand fumbled for the screws, the screwdriver biting into wood that refused to hold.
The hinge sagged with every turn, but he kept at it, screwing and screwing.
“You weren’t a wild animal,” he finally said, “Ya weren’t destructive, weren’t stupid, weren’t loud, weren't annoying.”
The screwdriver squealed against a hollow hole. Natsu forced it tighter anyway, shoulders knotting with stubborn force.
The hinge slipped, the screw turning useless in the gaped wood, but Natsu kept twisting.
"You were just a little girl." Natsu finished softly without a speck of bitterness on his tongue.
Erza’s legs felt unsteady, and her hand nearly missed the table she tried to brace against.
The horror pressed against her ribs like a vice.
The wrong suffocating weight of what felt like a whole lifetime, of years and years of good, bore down on her.
“N-no… no, that’s,” her throat caught, the sound tearing raw. “that’s wrong. You’re… y-you’re wrong, Natsu. There’s no way— no way you’ve felt like that all these years!”
"That's wrong! " Erza blurted, as if enough force could reshape the truth
“Y-you’re… y-you,” she stammered, “y-you can’t keep your damn mouth shut about anything! If… if something was eating at you, if we—if I—had been making you f-feel like that, you would’ve… y-you would’ve said something! Done something, left the guild, a-anything.”
“You would’ve said something…” she whispered, words jagged and pleading, almost childlike in their panic.
Natsu finally stopped screwing, turned, and all his effort clattered from gashed wood, off the counter, and slapped against the floor at his feet.
Natsu huffed, and tossed the screwdriver on the counter, rubbing his brows.
Baffled concern circled behind his eyes and made his head shake.
"I mean you said it yourself Erza, I didn't have anywhere else t'go. Nobody else would've taken me in or loved me like Gramps n' Fairy Tail did." he explained.
The old memory Erza's mind soared back to was a fond one.
One she had convinced herself was of her being a good big sister figure.
Young Natsu had just started another fire in the guild, and she gave him the knock upside the head he deserved.
She had felt so wise when she stood over him and told Natsu this place, this guild, was a second chance, and that he was wasting it with this feral behavior.
There was nothing else for him if he ruined what he had, nobody else to give him another shot.
No one in the world would be as kind and loving and patient as Master Makarov.
That had been Erza putting him on the right path, reminding him of Makarov's compassion.
She had even bragged about it to Mirajane, how much better she was to Natsu than her.
Erza's breath hitched and she nearly fell into a seat, "No, no!" she heaved.
"I w-was trying to help! I didn't want t-to see you kicked out! I d-didn't want you to go anywhere!" Erza felt the table splint under her grip as her voice broke.
Natsu was approaching, crooning, "Hey, hey, it's oka-"
She glared him to a stop with glistening eyes.
"D-don't! Don't even!"
Erza’s chest hitched, breath tearing out of her like a sob she refused to let form.
“I-I was just… just trying to help,” she croaked, then again, smaller, “Just trying to help… just trying—”
Natsu shuffled and stared like she’d spoken a language he didn’t recognize. His brow furrowed hard, confusion crumpling across his scarred face.
“Hey, Erza…” he said carefully, reassuringly, yet still utterly befuddled, “I know.”
He took another step, and Erza knew if she let him take a single step more he would wrap her up in his arms before she could blink. Erza hissed that attempt to a halt.
“You were tryin’ to help. I know you were. I should’ve listened sooner. Should’ve gotten it through my thick head back then that I was what's wrong.” he said softly.
“I knew what ya meant then, I know now.”
No he did not.
No, he very much did not.
He was still as oblivious as he always was.
Obvious and stupid to take that of all things with him when he finally grew up.
"So you just took it? Whatever w-we did, a-and everything we said, you just… took it? Like it didn't hurt?"
Natsu opened his mouth, then closed it.
Erza's palms slammed the table with a crack. The sound froze the cabin still.
Natsu stood there, watching her shake, her glare demanding an answer her voice couldn’t yet ask for.
He swallowed once, the line of his throat moving, and finally spoke with that same quiet gentleness that made it all the harder to bear.
“’Course it hurt,” he said, “every time ya hit me or called me names or told me Dad wasn’t real, o-or when everybody laughed ‘cause I couldn’t read right."
"I mean yeah, it hurt, could hurt bad, but man it had nothing on every day I spent alone in this forest not knowin' where Dad went or why he left."
Natsu didn’t look away. If anything, he leaned into her stare.
He gave a small shrug and grinned, dry laughter rasping up his throat as he rubbed his neck.
His grin was crooked, but it wasn’t bitter—it was just Natsu, loving and honest to the bone.
"Nothin' you or anyone else would do to me could ever hurt worse than it did when I couldn't protect you guys."
The floor seemed to tilt beneath her.
The cabin pressing in from every side, walls closing like jaws, and all she could feel was the ice.
The cold ice of being wrong, of stumbling blind, of the ground she’d built herself on shattering.
And still he looked at her that way.
Still Natsu stared with eyes full of love, antsy in his spot, as if it was painful he couldn't reach out to swallow her in his arms.
Erza couldn’t take it.
Her chair scraped back hard and she tore for the backdoor.
“Erza—” Natsu’s voice called after her, quick and worried.
Her snarl cracked the air like steel. It wasn’t words, just grief and fury twisted into one.
The door rattled the frame when she slammed it behind her, leaving the cabin trembling in silence.
Natsu let out a stunned breath, heart in his throat, hands on his hips, and eyes on the floor.
He hadn't taken off his boots and tracked dirt in.
"Crap." Natsu muttered.
The lake shimmered beneath the sun, its surface flashing white and blue with every ripple, as if it were trying to blind Erza into calm.
The grass bent cool beneath her bare toes, damp with afternoon dew, the slope easing down toward the murmuring laps of the lake against the shore.
The dirt was grounding, but not enough. The air was warm, but she was still cold.
Her world still felt split wide open.
Natsu didn’t feel like Natsu, and worse, she wasn’t who she thought she was.
Erza had always told herself that as long as she could protect her comrades, she didn't care if she was the weakest in the world.
She thought she lived for Fairy Tail.
She wasn’t strong, wasn’t steady, wasn’t good. She was a bad friend.
Maybe she always had been.
An argument she started didn't go her way, and here she was, sulking, hiding her face behind her hair. Like a child.
The porch creaked faintly. Then the crunch of grass.
She didn’t look back, but she knew. Natsu was there.
Close, uphill, only an arm's reach away.
Erza spoke first with wet words.
"All this time… I-I made you… feel like some… some wild thing. T-that had to be chained a-and scolded. I did that. Me.”
Her throat closed, but the words still fought out.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry-” she fell into near-sobs, “I was a terrible friend. I-i betrayed Master M-makarov, betrayed what he built, betrayed you-"
"Erza, if you're a bad friend, or bad person, then I'm just about the worst of either there ever was." Natsu told her gently.
“No!” Erza whipped around so fast her scarlet hair lashed her cheek, her voice cut glass, “You are not! Don’t you dare-”
“Well then ya ain’t one either.”
When she spluttered nonsense at him, he only tilted his head, shoulders easy, voice still soft.
Natsu took a few steps down the slope past her.
Even lower down the incline, the taller Natsu stared back at her on even ground. Eye to eye.
Eyes she couldn't meet for long.
"That—th-that’s not how it works!" she insisted with a croak.
"Sure it is," Natsu mused, still matter of fact, "there's no one or the other here Erza. If you are a bad friend, well then I suck-"
"Y-you are not th-the 'worst friend there—'"
"Then you ain't a bad friend. Or person." he chirped right back.
Erza looked up, but only to glare at him. At that stupid damn grin he still had.
He was the gentlest wall she’d ever crashed into.
"Whatever bad ya think I did, I promise I have that beat. I've been sooo much worse than ya ever think you were." Natsu said.
Erza wiped her nose with her wrist and rolled her eyes behind her bangs.
"T-that's absurd, that's different. I'm supposed to know better!"
Natsu made a so-so waggle with his head, "Yeah, n' usually, you do, but not right now, not with how ya came out here thinking you're actually mega turbo bad, that all these years of putting up with me, fightin' alongside me suddenly means bupkus."
Erza hugged herself tighter. Has she really become so trivial to dissect?
"I still dunno what happened back there but your world ended the moment you thought you were a bad friend, sort of an instant no go of being a bad friend when ya instantly make that jump."
"I h-had a… a responsibility, to Master Makarov, a-and the guild, and to you. I was supposed to guide you, not teach you for years and years that you were what's wrong!" she sneered her way through those vile words, that sickening idea.
"Well it wasn't just you, and are ya really gonna stand there and act like I was easy?" Natsu bent down back into her line of sight, "Hmm?"
"Ya ever destroy half a town and then just leave? Leave so many innocent people t’clean up the mess you made of their homes? " Natsu asked, "If there's one thing I can beat you at, it's the tally game with our screw ups."
"I came to your house to use you as-as s-some doormat!" Erza hiccuped back.
Natsu gasped, "Oh, ohhh, yeah okay I get it, so like my cooking was so bad that's all ya remember!?"
"What? No! Would you—no, t-that's not at all what I said, you're being ridiculous!"
"You're ridiculous!" Natsu goaded back, "What I am, okay, is a worse friend."
"N-natsu stop saying such a thing! You're not a-a bad friend!"
"Then you ain't either! See how this works?"
"Y-yes, and it's stupid!" Erza nearly shoved him.
"Nuh uh!"
Erza's chest hitched again. Her hand that she clamped over her mouth muffled a stuttery laugh.
“What are you even doing?” Erza breathed, her wet cheeks streaked with the heel of her hand.
Natsu’s grin went sideways.
“You’re cryin’,” he said simply. “n' since you won’t let me hug ya, and there’s nothin’ around here I can blow up, just doin’ the next best thing.”
She tried to glare. It came out thin, too watery to be incredulous.
Natsu rocked back on his heels, squinting under the sun.
“Look, I’ve been worse than you, way worse, whole life of it. You still forgave me, loved me,” he reached out to tap the middle of her chest, “your record, not mine.”
Erza swallowed, the grass cool under her toes, the sun warm on her shoulders.
Still, neither were getting through.
Natsu's eyes, his voice, they were.
“It’s fine to feel like the rug got yanked,” Natsu went on, softer, “but how ya feel is exactly what I was talkin' about inside, where your heart has wayyyy too much love in it and you end up trying to hold up th' sky for everyone."
"Then the moment you find out you're a person just like the rest of us, it's all 'I betrayed Gramps and Fairy Tail'."
"But if you’re so worried about betrayin’ what Gramps built…” Natsu tilted his head toward the cabin, toward a guildhall that lived in both their bones, “then ya gotta listen to one of his best: forgiveness.”
"I don't deserve it." Erza rasped quick.
"Kay', I didn't deserve Fairy Tail then," Natsu replied.
Erza's face contorted in a weak sniffly sneer as she kicked his shin, "We are not doing this again!"
Natsu didn’t move, shrugged, stuffed hands in his duster pockets, "I agree, so when it comes to that forgiveness thing, yourself is a real good place to start."
"You have to look after yourself too Erza, and if ya won't do it, then well you'll be stuck with me doing it for you."
Erza sniffled again, her throat aching, "That's foul work-."
"Nah, never, not when it's you." Natsu cut her off.
"This 'don't let me in' thing, it's old hat," he continued with a delicate chide, "I've been in, so don't look me in my eyes n' pretend I'm still at the base of Mount Erza."
Erza stared past him to the water, and the steadiness there only made the tilt inside her worse.
“I don’t… I don’t know where to put any of this,” she admitted, voice small, "I wished for things to return to normal, now they feel so off. I had no idea I was this… frail.”
She hated the echo that followed—small, helpless, the feeling she despised.
The cold of being unsure.
Of being wrong.
Of being lost.
Of not being in control.
That’s when things broke: the Tower of Heaven, Tenrou under Acnologia’s shadow, the guild scattered, Makarov burning himself with Fairy Law.
And now apparently a stupid spat with Natsu went on that list.
But… it was still Natsu.
Different, somehow grown in a way she hadn’t noticed until today, and yet the look in his eyes hadn’t moved an inch.
“I don’t know what to think right now.” Erza murmured.
Natsu’s mouth tugged. “Welcome to my world,” he said, gentle as a nudge, “I barely ever think."
A helpless huff slipped out of Erza, and the edge in her lungs and cold in her belly eased a fraction.
His grin softened.
“I’m really sorry I upset ya, didn't mean to, I missed you. Like way more than you can imagine,” he murmured, scuffing the grass with his heel before gesturing around them, "and hey, I’m really glad you came. Glad I got to cook for you. Glad I got to hear you laugh.”
"Maybe things are different, but it's still me, and we're still family."
The word family landed warm and sure, so sure Erza stopped feeling lost.
Erza glanced at the slope beneath her bare feet. “Natsu,” she said, bashful, “could I…?”
Shy hands played, wet cheeks reddened, and Erza brushed hair from her face as she looked up at the little brother Fairy Tail had given her with both her dewy eyes.
"C-could I get that hug now?" she hiccuped.
Natsu folded her up in his hard arms in an instant, swallowing her smaller frame, lifting until her toes left the grass. The world shrank to breath and heartbeat and the solid wall of him.
Mortification nipped at her, this too had changed. Once, affection had been hers to give on her terms.
But then somehow he’d recently grown into a man who wrapped her up first, who made her feel safe and, saints help her, soft.
When he came back from his training, he would take his face being shoved into her breast plate.
Then he'd hug back.
Then she'd go red and melt against him. Just as she did now.
Erza's stomach settled, and she spoke up from his neck.
"I'm sorry. F-for how I acted, for everything I've done." she murmured.
"Don't be, it's all good." Natsu softly set her down.
She still hung onto his shoulders as he tucked her head beneath his chin, "There's still ground under your feet Erza, I promise."
He promised, and she believed him.
"N' if you don't feel like there is, if ya feel like fallin', hold onto me. I'm right here." Natsu rumbled.
Erza hid harder in his neck with another hiccup. Natsu gently rocked her.
She still wasn't entirely sure of things, or if that was all just nerves and emotion, or if she needed a hard long look at herself as a person. As a comrade.
His words, and his shoulders, were solid enough to hold onto until her stomach felt steady. Until she figured out what to do with everything in her heart and her head.
He stayed silent and swayed her as seconds stretched to minutes.
Eventually, he pecked her brow and hummed, “So… you stickin’ around?”
Her brows pinched as he parted back a step.
He was so casual about it, because of course he was.
“Why would you—after—” she started.
“You think I’m gonna let a spat chase ya off? Nah, we got along just fine when I made us lunch, yeah?”
She stared at him, lost, until he kept going.
“Could help me repaint the roof.”
“No.”
“Porch swing then. I gotta get it up before it gets dark.”
Her lips pressed thin. “No.”
He snapped his fingers like he had another master plan.
“Alright, alright, gotta come to the table and play, I can respect it. I got some danishes yesterday, and it's almost nap o'clock.”
Her toothless glare wavered. Pastries. And… warmth.
Natsu’s grin grew when he saw the temptation of cuddles make her eyes go doeishly big.
"Danish first." she said, still lingering close, her fingers brushing down his arm before falling to her side.
She glanced back at the cabin, its mended walls, the garden, the warm air still scented with fish and spice.
Her throat ached, but she forced the words through, needing to leave a marker in the shifting ground.
Her eyes and words shone with big sister pride as she gave him praise that she always felt so wise and strong for giving.
“I’m proud of you, truly, Natsu. For this. The cabin. The garden. Cooking.” Erza told him.
This was when she thought she was at her loudest with him, what she knew for a fact stood out amongst the scolding and yelling and hitting.
It eclipsed all of it.
It was what embarrassed him and motivated him and meant so much to him because it let everyone know she was his big sister. It was unconditional love.
In response, he just…
Walked past her back towards the cabin.
"Hm? Oh thanks." Natsu told her on the way.
"I'll go find the danishes, you can get comfy in the hammock."
He left her there without a hint of bitterness.
Erza stood rooted in the grass. Cold crept back in as the door creaked shut behind him.
The world felt unfamiliar again. Things had truly already changed.
What else?
How much?
Erza was lost again.
There was still ground under her feet.
And she had poisoned it.