TW for past sexual assault & PTSD

It's two p.m. on a Saturday and Gray's listening to the radio when panic hits him hard enough that he stops breathing.

The dish he'd been drying falls out of his hand and shatters on the floor, shards of ceramic spreading through the kitchen as he grips the countertop hard enough that his knuckles turn white. It's that fucking song, the one he was listening to then, when he should have been paying attention.

He fumbles for the radio blindly, trying to turn it off, but his hands are clammy, and he can't find the buttons. He grabs it off the shelf instead and throws it into the living room. When it hits the floor the music stops, but it's too late.

Gray's already there, with scraped knees and a bloody nose, throwing up into the lilac bushes along the side of the road. His leg hurts, hot and sharp, searing up into his hip. Gray grits his teeth, shaking his head and trying to focus on what's real.

It's all lost in the echoes of remembered shouts, breaking glass, that goddamn song playing on repeat.

It's fine, he thinks, glancing out the window. It's not raining. It's not Tuesday. I'm at home.

A sharp rapping startles Gray out of the memories and he jumps, looking up and letting out a shaky breath. Someone's knocking at his door.

His hands shake as he runs them over his face, wiping away the sweat that's beaded across his forehead and over the back of his neck. He can't feel his fingers, and when he forces his feet forward, he nearly falls onto the broken pieces of the plate.

Somehow, he makes it across the living room and leans against the door, peeking out the spyhole onto the front porch. When he sees a bright shock of pink hair, he blinks in surprise. It's Natsu.

"Just a… a sec," Gray manages, squeezing his eyes shut and trying to stop shaking. He presses his forehead to the door, taking another breath, and then another, until his heart isn't pounding anymore, and he can inhale without his chest aching.

It's fine. He's fine. He's not having a panic attack, and he's definitely not going to break down in tears in front of the guy he's had a crush on since sixth grade, and who he hasn't seen in almost a year.

He brings his fingers down to the handle, hesitating for a second before swinging the door open.

Natsu is standing on his porch, irritatingly gorgeous in a black leather jacket and messy hair that's pulled back in a short ponytail. The first words out of his mouth are, "Are you okay?"

"I'm…" Gray trails off, still trying to catch his breath.

"I heard a crash… I thought you, uh, fell or something?"

Gray glances back into the living room and the broken radio, then turns back to Natsu and shakes his head. He's about insist that he's fine when he realizes that there's a dog on the porch behind Natsu. She's just a puppy – giant ears and paws that are way too big for her body – and she looks like she could be a German Shepherd. When she sees Gray looking at her, she darts out from behind Natsu, wriggling until she can put her paws up on Gray's thighs.

"Hey, get down!" Natsu says, grabbing her collar and pulling her off Gray. "Sorry, she's still learning." The puppy looks up at Natsu and whines as one of her ears flops forward.

"Oh," Gray says, still staring. "It's—that's fine."

"You sure you're okay, Snowflake?" Natsu asks again, tightening his grip on the puppy's collar. The familiar nickname sinks into Gray's skin and it suddenly feels like Natsu never left. "You look a little…"

"No, I'm…" Gray shakes his head. "You just surprised me, that's all." He looks back down at the puppy, who is practically vibrating while giving Gray the most pathetic look she can muster.

"This is Zelda," Natsu says. He slowly lets go of her collar and she shuffles closer to Gray, whining and headbutting his hand. The fur behind her ears is soft and her nose is wet on his forearm, and Gray crouches down to pet her.

"Hey, pretty girl," Gray murmurs, scratching both sides of her face as she noses at him eagerly, licking his cheeks and wagging not only her tail, but her entire body. Her excitement is enough to push away the rest of the fear, and Gray is left with a warm sensation in his chest.

Eventually he looks up at Natsu, who smiles and reaches down a hand to help him up. Gray stands slowly, wincing at the pain in his hip. Even three months later, it still aches.

"You're back, then?" Gray says quickly, before Natsu can ask any questions that he doesn't want to answer.

Natsu's fingers linger a second too long on Gray's before he pulls his hand away. "Yeah," Natsu says, looking down at Zelda. "For, uh—for good now. I'm staying with Lucy right now, but she said you still lived here, so I thought…"

"Did you find your dad?" The question comes out blunter than Gray intended, and he grits his teeth in frustration. He's missed Natsu so hard it ached for the past three hundred and forty-eight days, and now that he's here, nothing seems to be coming out quite right.

Natsu shakes his head, tucking his hands into the pockets of his jacket. "Nah." He's trying to sound casual, but Gray can hear the hurt in his voice. "Found my brother, though. He's a bit of a weirdo but we got on okay. We might keep in touch, I dunno." He shrugs.

Zelda leans against Natsu and whines, then looks back to Gray, tail pounding on the deck. An uncertain silence fills the space between them, and Gray hesitates, then opens the door a bit wider and asks, "You wanna come in?"

Having Natsu in his house again is both reassuringly familiar, and deeply unsettling. Some of the panic from earlier creeps back under Gray's skin, and it intensifies when Natsu sees the broken pieces of the radio in the middle of the living room floor.

"What happened?" Natsu asks as Zelda moves forward to sniff the wreckage.

"It, uh… fell." Gray tries to move quicker than Natsu but his hip hurts and he's not fast enough. He can feel Natsu's gaze following his uneven gait, and the question hangs in the air between them. "I had an accident," Gray says quietly. It's not the truth, but it hurts less and it's close enough.

"God, Gray, I'm sorry." Natsu's voice is so sincere and Gray clenches his jaw, trying to forget how badly he wanted to hear it then. "Are you o—"

"I'm fine," Gray says, but when he gets to the mess, he can't bend down to pick it up. The pain is too much, and he exhales sharply in frustration.

"I've got it," Natsu says, and when his fingers touch Gray's shoulder, Gray flinches. The tears that he's been trying so hard to force down keep creeping back and are joined by an embarrassed heat in his cheeks.

"You don't have to," he says quietly, but Natsu shakes his head, crouching down and starting to pick up the pieces.

"Sit down," Natsu says, gesturing at the couch as he scoops up the last of the broken plastic and pushes himself to his feet. "I've got this."

"No, I—"

"Gray." Natsu's eyes are so, so green, and Gray missed him so fucking much. "You're obviously in pain. Sit down." Then he moves toward the kitchen to throw everything away and Gray hears him stop short when he sees the shattered plate.

Gray's about to try to come up with an excuse, something to explain this all away that isn't I had a panic attack because I can't fucking get over this, but Natsu interrupts his racing thoughts.

"Where'd you move your kettle to?"

The question is unexpected and Gray frowns before answering, "The corner cupboard." He looks back at Natsu, who doesn't turn around, just nods and tosses the pieces of the radio into the garbage. Then he crouches down and starts to pick up the broken plate, piece by piece.

Eventually the ache in his hip outweighs the embarrassment and Gray gives in, lowering himself carefully onto the couch and exhaling in relief. Zelda immediately hops up next to him, turning in a circle and then flopping down with her head on his thigh. He runs his fingers through her fur, trying to ignore the warring sensations of shame and relief in his chest.

Natsu moves around in the kitchen for a few minutes, opening cupboards and running water, and eventually he comes back into the living room with two mugs of tea. "You still take honey?" he asks.

Gray nods, taking the mug from him with hands that only tremble a bit. "Thanks," he says, staring down at the tag from the tea bag. It's peppermint.

"Do you need something?" Natsu's voice is uncertain and Gray looks up at him, frowning. "For the pain," Natsu clarifies, and now his cheeks are nearly as red as Gray's. "I don't mean—you just seem like…"

Gray's tempted to say no. He can wait – Natsu won't stay long, and once he's gone Gray can deal with the pain. But he's still in the shallow end of memories and it hurts more than usual, so he nods.

"In the kitchen drawer."

Natsu disappears and comes back with a prescription bottle and a glass of water, and Gray takes both without meeting his eyes. There's a dip on the couch when Natsu sits down on the other side of Zelda, who wags her tail happily and licks Gray's hand.

"Was it a car accident?" Natsu asks. Gray can feel Natsu looking at him, but he just cradles his mug in both hands and keeps his eyes on leaves that escaped from the tea bag and are floating on the surface of the water.

"No."

"What happened?"

Gray shakes his head. "I don't want to talk about it."

"Are you okay?" The question is so uncertain that Gray almost feels guilty, but he shakes the feeling off and shrugs in response. Zelda whines and nudges Gray's arm until he shifts the mug to one hand and starts to pet her again.

"When did you get back?" Gray asks.

Natsu sighs and Gray knows he wants to keep asking questions, but instead he says, "Yesterday. I was gonna call you, but…"

But I haven't answered my phone in three months, Gray thinks. He's seen every message – all the e-mails and texts and missed calls – but every time he tried to answer, he couldn't figure out what to say. He barely answers anyone anymore, and most of them have stopped trying.

"I'm sorry."

"No, it's okay," Natsu reassures him quickly. "I didn't know that something happened, I would have…" He trails off and Gray finally looks over at him. "I would have come home."

The words hit Gray in the chest, hard enough to leave him stunned. Suddenly he can't breathe, and his mind is filled with memories of sleepless hours spent staring at his phone, the words please come home, I need you waiting to be sent and ending up deleted instead.

He doesn't realize he's crying until he tries to talk, and the words come out wet and shaky. "I didn't—I just—"

"Gray." Natsu shifts closer and reaches out to touch Gray's shoulder, but Gray jerks away, hissing in pain when the tea spills over the edge of the cup and hits his skin.

"Don't," he manages, setting the mug down on the table and wiping his hand on his sweater. He wants to stand up and walk away, wants to hide in the bedroom until Natsu just fucking leaves like he always does, but everything hurts and he can't move. "Please don't touch me," he whispers.

He can't look up because he knows that there are tears in Natsu's eyes and he can't handle that right now. He focuses on Zelda instead – on her head in his lap and her nose pressing insistently against his burned hand. She belongs to Natsu, and Natsu's there, so maybe petting her is enough to feel like Natsu's touching him and he's still safe.

There's no answer from Natsu, and when Gray feels him get up and walk away, he can't stop the tears from falling harder. Natsu is leaving again because Gray isn't enough to make him stay.

Then the footsteps return and Gray forces himself to look up when Natsu crouches down in front of him. "Here," Natsu says gently, holding out an ice pack wrapped in a towel.

Gray takes it with a shaky hand and a whispered, "Thanks." The cold feels good against his skin and he sighs in relief.

Natsu doesn't get up again, just settles down on the floor with his legs crossed and his gaze on Gray. It takes a few minutes for Gray's heartbeat to come back to normal, and eventually he manages, "I'm sorry."

"No," Natsu says, and Gray can see him shaking his head out the corner of his eye. "No, I'm sorry. I should've come home earlier, as soon as…" He sighs, rubbing his face. "I knew something was wrong when you stopped answering me, but… I thought maybe you were just mad at me for leaving. And I deserve that, I shouldn't have left so suddenly, I wasn't thinking about you and that was selfish and stupid and I'm sorry."

Gray swallows hard, trying to stop the tears that are still spilling down his cheeks. He's wanted to hear those words for so long. Zelda whines at him, shuffling even closer and resting her head on his chest.

"It's okay if you don't want to talk about… whatever happened," Natsu says quietly. "Or if you want me to leave, I—"

"No." Gray shakes his head quickly as panic swells in his chest again. "No, please…"

"Okay," Natsu reassures him, shuffling just close enough to get Gray to look at him. "I'm not going anywhere unless you want me to." His expression is somewhere between guilty and hopeful, and Gray desperately wants to kiss him.

Instead, he pets Zelda's head, tracing his finger along the patterns of her fur. "I don't want you to leave," he says quietly. "But I don't want to talk about it either." Everybody's been pushing him – Lyon and Cana at the hospital, Sting and Rogue when they come to visit, his parents in their messages in his voicemail. He can't talk about it, though. There aren't words for what they did to him – none that Gray can say out loud, anyway.

"Okay," Natsu says, and the relief makes Gray feel a little bit lighter. "You wanna play Smash Bros?" Natsu tips his head toward the TV where the game system sits, untouched for months. "I can probably still kick your ass."

"No way," Gray says, wiping his face with his sleeve as he slowly pulls himself back together. "I'm gonna win and you know it."

"Guess we'll see," Natsu says, leaning forward to grab a controller and passing it to Gray. When Gray takes it, he brushes his fingers against Natsu's – a silent apology that Natsu seems to accept without hesitation.

The game starts up smoothly even though Gray hasn't touched it since Natsu left, and soon Natsu's laughing and Gray's almost smiling, and Zelda joins in the excitement with energetic tail wagging and licking Gray's hands.

The ache in Gray's chest starts to dissipate into a contented warmth that he hasn't felt in a long time, and he thinks that maybe, just for a while, he can pretend that Natsu never left, and nothing happened to him, and that things are normal again.