Natsu is fascinated by Gray, but he knows that if Gray finds out the truth about him, he won't stay.

TW for homophobic slurs

__________

she says that love is for fools that fall behind
and i'm somewhere between
i never really know a killer from a savior
- fuel, "shimmer"

Natsu chewed the end of his pen and stared at the neatly printed words on the whiteboard, tapping his foot against his chair. Lucy kicked his shin and he stopped, pouting. He stole a covert glance over at Gray, who was frowning and scrawling something in his notebook.

What I really want is this hot guy's phone number, Natsu wrote, grinning. And maybe a date where I can get him to smile. He paused, realizing that this probably wasn't the goal of the exercise and scratching out the words. He doodled in the margin of the page, trying to come up with a real answer. What I really want is somewhere not-shitty to spend Christmas this year, he thought. I wish Lucy's dad would still let me come over.

Something twisted in his chest as he thought of Lucy's face, looking crestfallen as she told him that her father didn't think he was safe to be around Kaden anymore. Natsu shook the memory away, tapping his pen against the back of his hand.

What I really need is... a new home. Also probably my meds but I can't afford them so maybe money I guess. Don won't pay for them 'cause he says it's not a real disease and I'm just being a drama queen but honestly if anyone is a drama queen it's him. Natsu popped the end of the pen back into his mouth, shifting in his seat until Gray turned and glared at him. It seemed like a half-hearted glare, but still.

A better attention span would be great too but that's part of the meds thing 'cause I think I'm manic. Actually I know I'm manic. I dunno what I'm gonna do when I crash. I haven't really slept in like a week. Natsu sighed, drumming his fingers on the edge of his notebook and staring at the messy, misspelled sentences. He hated writing. It took so long to get the words on paper – they flowed so much faster in his head.

He looked up again, trying not to be obvious about staring at Gray, who was curled up in the beanbag chair, long legs folded awkwardly beneath him, long fingers curled around his pen. Natsu could almost see what Gray was writing from here, but he didn't want to risk Gray's wrath. A soft, pained noise made Natsu frown, and he noticed Gray wince and grab his shoulder. Natsu considered asking if he was okay, but had a feeling it wouldn't be well received.

Something about Gray appealed to him. Even though he smoked, and glared, and was kind of a jackass, Natsu wanted to get to know him better. The fact that he'd moved over to sit with them was an encouraging start, even it was only to talk to Erza. And that whole thing about them being old friends was bullshit because Natsu had been going to school with Erza since kindergarten and he'd never heard about or seen Gray before in his life. He would have remembered those eyes.

"Pay attention, dumbass." Those eyes were currently glaring at Natsu as Gray kicked his ankle, forcing Natsu to snap out of his daydream and pay attention to Mira. He flashed Gray a smile and Gray didn't scowl back. Small victories.

"Laxus, would you please start us off?" Mira seemed unfazed by the glare on Laxus' face, and Natsu could tell that Laxus was trying to weigh whether or not this was the assignment he should pass on. After a moment Laxus sighed, then stared down at his notebook.

"What I really want," he said gruffly, "is to not be here." Cana giggled, but Laxus' face remained serious. "I want to be out with my friends instead of here in this stupid program." Mira didn't react, but he still glanced up at her and muttered, "sorry."

"All feelings are valid," Mira replied, "even the angry ones. You need to allow yourself to feel whatever it is that you're feeling, and accept it for what it is." Laxus grunted, and Mira gestured for him to continue.

"What I really need is..." Laxus faltered and his voice went quiet. "What I really need is to go live with Gramps instead of my dad." He looked like he might elaborate, but instead slammed his notebook shut. Mira smiled at him.

"Thank you, Laxus," she said. "I know how difficult it is to share those kinds of things with strangers." Laxus nodded tersely, and Mira turned to Gajeel, who rolled his eyes and gestured to pass. Mira nodded respectfully, then looked at Cana.

"What I really want right now is a drink," Cana admitted honestly. Natsu peered at her, noticed her shaking hands and the way she was licking her lips. "What I really need is to find a healthier way of dealing with shit." That brought an empathetic smile to Mira's face.

Now it was Erza's turn. "What I really want is to be playing music and ignoring my responsibilities." That got a laugh out of a few people. "What I really need is to learn how to set better boundaries."

"What I really want is to go home to Kaden," Lucy almost-whispered. "What I need is to be more assertive with my dad."

Natsu realized he was going to be last again – it was Gray's turn now, and Gray was staring at his notebook with a kind of angry intensity that Natsu recognized very well. Gray's face was still tight with pain, and he was chewing his lip.

"What I really want," he began, his voice quiet, "is for people to stop fucking asking me if I'm okay." A murmur of assent rolled through everyone in the room, Natsu included. "What I really need..."

Gray reached up and ran a hand through his hair, and Natsu couldn't stop himself from staring, wishing it could be his fingers in Gray's hair instead. He wondered if Gray knew how attractive he was, because he really –

"What I really need is to let my sister help me."

Natsu blinked. Gray had a sister? Of course he did, people had siblings all the time, this really wasn't the sort of thing to get worked up about, Jesus Christ brain, shut the fuck up. Natsu tucked his hands into the sleeves of his sweater, then realized that the room was quiet and everyone was looking at him.

Oh shit. Now it was his turn, and he had written about wanting Gray's phone number, which probably wasn't the best thing to admit out loud in this class.

"Uh... what I, um, really want..." Natsu tapped his fingers against the palm of his hand. "Is, um... for people to trust me." Natsu frowned at himself, surprised at the admission. He refused to look up, because he knew that Lucy's face would be full of guilt, and he didn't think he could handle that right now.

"What I need is..." There was no way he was admitting the meds thing out loud. What could he say that wouldn't make Gray think he was crazy? To be fair, Natsu was crazy. And as soon as Gray found out about the brain-thing and the Darkness, he'd be long gone. Not that he was going to stick around anyway. Still. "Um, a good night's sleep. I haven't really been sleeping well lately."

A roaring sound filled Natsu's ears as his face flushed with embarrassment, and he didn't hear Mira's response or what she said next. He was too busy chewing on his fingernails and trying not to look at Gray.

As it turned out, Mira was asking them to head to the art room, which was an enormous, sunny area with one wall that was almost entirely made up of windows. Gray hopped up onto the windowsill almost immediately, and Natsu pushed aside the disappointed feeling and settled himself as close as he could to Gray without seeming awkward.

"The topic of this week is going to be resilience," Mira said, writing the word on the flip chart at the front of the classroom. "Does anyone know what that means?" A predictable silence filled the room. "In the world of mental health, 'resilience' refers to the ability to adapt well in the face of adversity, trauma, or significant sources of stress." She began to jot some of those words down on the board.

Natsu slipped a hand into his backpack and tugged out his sketchbook. It was one of the only nice things he owned – a heavy leather cover and a hundred thick pages to write and draw on. He grabbed two of his pencils, tucked one in his teeth, and used the other to start sketching Gray.

"I'm going to describe a scenario, and then we're going to do an activity together." Mira's voice continued in the background, but Natsu was focused on the sharp lines of Gray's jaw, the soft curve of his shoulder, the angle of his knees against his chest. Natsu knew that Lucy – who had ended up sitting behind him – could probably see what he was doing, but he didn't care. She knew that Natsu was gay, and if she couldn't see that Gray was attractive, then she was obviously blind.

"I want you all to close your eyes and picture yourself, lost at sea on a stormy night." Natsu snorted quietly, fairly certain that his psychiatrist had done this exercise with him before, unsuccessfully. "You see a glimmer of light leading you to land. If you row hard, you will make it. Someone waits for you with a warm meal, dry clothes, and a place to rest."

Glancing up from where he had erased parts of his drawing, Natsu was taken aback by how open Gray's face was when his eyes were closed. Natsu quickly sketched it, tracing the soft line of Gray's lashes and the gentle curve of his frown.

Then Gray's eyes opened and he stared directly at Natsu. The lines between Gray's eyes deepened a bit, but it wasn't anger on his face, merely curiosity. Natsu felt something begin to bubble in his stomach, and a blush crept up into his cheeks. He bit his lip ring nervously, refusing to be the one to drop eye contact.

"You're sketching, then?" Gray finally spoke. Natsu blinked at Gray for a moment, then glanced around and realized that the other students were grabbing art supplies. He looked down at his half-finished sketch of Gray and felt his blush deepening.

"Uh... yeah," He stammered. "Sketch. Is what I like... to do." Jesus Christ, that was smooth. Gray raised an eyebrow, hopping down from the ledge. Natsu turned to a blank page in his sketchbook faster than he thought was humanly possible, letting out a sigh of relief when Gray didn't seem to notice. He looked around, hoping to get some clue as to what it was that they were doing – he didn't want to admit that he'd missed the instructions because he'd been distracted by Gray's eyelashes.

"Natsu, give me some of your artistic ability," Erza complained as she flopped down beside Natsu, breaking the awkward tension and giving Natsu room to breathe again. He turned to stare at Erza. "I don't even know what the hell a lighthouse looks like," she grumbled.

Lighthouse. Right. That he could handle.

__________

Lucy waved to Natsu as she took off across the parking lot toward her father's car, and Natsu felt an ache in his chest. Kaden was probably in there, and Natsu wasn't allowed to see him anymore. Thinking about it made a fire grow over the ache.

Natsu had been there when Lucy found out she was pregnant, when she'd broken up with her dumbass boyfriend Loke, even when she went into labor. Natsu had held Kaden when he was only hours old, sitting in the hospital next to Lucy while she was on the phone with her father, who was in Singapore for a business trip.

Before the Darkness came along, Natsu had been a major fixture in Kaden's life, and now it had been a month without even seeing Kaden. Natsu sighed, kicking at the rocks in the parking lot and checking his phone. He had already missed the bus, but it wasn't a particularly cold night tonight, and he considered just staying in the park again. It wasn't like he was going to sleep anyway.

"Hey, asshole."

A hard shove between Natsu's shoulder blades sent him tumbling onto the ground, palms stinging as they scraped across the asphalt. Natsu staggered back onto his feet, turning and glaring at the person who'd pushed him – Gajeel.

"The fuck do you want?" Natsu growled. Gajeel just sneered at him, arms crossed against his chest.

"Heard you got some pills," he said. Natsu's heart almost stopped. How the hell had Gajeel found out about that? The ones he'd stolen from Don were long gone, but he still had a small container of Ativan in his bag – six pills, that he had been keeping for emergencies. He suddenly felt very self-conscious of the quiet rattling in his backpack.

"Maybe you'd better get your ears checked, moron." Natsu's voice came out braver than he felt, and Gajeel snarled at him.

"Hey, if you're gonna be a bitch about it..." Gajeel, who was much taller than Natsu, stalked over and grabbed at Natsu's backpack. Natsu snarled and dodged out of the way, but Gajeel was stronger and managed to pin him up against the wall. A squeak escaped Natsu's mouth as Gajeel grabbed him by the front of his sweater and lifted him up off the ground.

"You never learn, huh?"

A bored-sounding voice caused Gajeel to turn away just long enough for Natsu to bite his hand. Gajeel swore, pushing Natsu to the ground by his throat. Natsu looked up to see Gray standing behind Gajeel, arms crossed over his chest, face drawn in irritation. Natsu was glad that Gray's scowl wasn't directed at him.

"You just think you're so much fuckin' better than us 'cause you left," Gajeel growled, ignoring Natsu completely now. "Maybe Lyon should'a—"

Before Gajeel could finish his sentence, Gray's fist flew directly into his face, knocking him backward and down onto the ground. Blood poured from Gajeel's nose, and he started swearing around it.

"Don't you ever talk about that prick to me again," Gray snarled, fist still bunched and slightly bloody. "Or I will do much, much worse than break your goddamn nose."

Gajeel tried to say something, and Gray stalked over to him and pressed a foot into Gajeel's sternum, enough to make him swear even harder. "Who do you think they'll believe?" he growled.

"Fuck... you," Gajeel spat. Gray inched his sneaker up higher, toward Gajeel's throat, and leaned over him, almost conversationally.

"Was I acting in self-defense?" Gray asked. Natsu blinked for a second before he realized that the question was directed at him.

"Y-yeah," he said, standing up slowly and dusting off his bag.

"Look at that," Gray said, smiling coldly at Gajeel. "Now, get the fuck out of here and don't let me hear another goddamn word from you about Lyon." Gray backed up a step toward Natsu, glaring as Gajeel stood and wiped blood from his face. "I'd get that looked at, if I were you."

Gajeel hesitated for a moment, then muttered something under his breath and took off out of the parking lot.

"Th-thank you," Natsu said quietly, still clutching his backpack tightly to his chest. Gray shook his head.

"It's fine." He rubbed his knuckles, and Natsu absently noticed that he was left-handed. Gray looked up at him and appeared to be contemplating something. "You need a ride?"