TW for panic attacks and mentions of past self-harm

__________

god it's been so long (wide awake)
that i feel like someone else
i miss the way that you saw me or
maybe the way i saw myself
- marianas trench, "who do you love"

"Gray, come here and let me read your future!"

Gray glanced across the room at the Youth Center to where Natsu, Erza, Lucy and Cana were sitting. It was Friday, and Gray had managed to survive another week in the group – although if Gray was being honest with himself, he looked forward to spending every day sitting next to Natsu.

Cana grinned at Gray, a set of tarot cards splayed in front of her, and beckoned him over. Gray liked Cana – she was honest and raw in a way that he wasn't, and it both scared him and made him admire her.

"My dad left when I was fifteen," she'd said in group today. "Just fucked off and didn't even say goodbye. And it hurt, just hurt everywhere, like a giant ball of pain spreading through my body." Gray had nodded along, feeling the ache of his missing parents keenly in that moment. "And I just wanted to make it stop, make everything go away, so I broke into my mom's liquor cabinet and downed the first bottle of whatever I saw. I felt so numb. After that I just found older kids to buy me booze, and drank until I couldn't feel anything."

Gray remembered trying that a few times, but the alcohol hadn't mixed well with the OxyContin, and Ultear had given him hell after he had puked until he felt like he was going to die.

He shrugged now, tucking his journal away and making his way across the room. Sliding into the chair across from Cana, he glanced over at Natsu, who didn't look up. He was busy fiddling with the sleeves of his hoodie.

Gray frowned – something still seemed off about Natsu. After their trip to the pier on Saturday, Natsu hadn't talked to Gray as much. They'd been friendly, but Natsu's excited enthusiasm from the day they met was tempered by something darker.

"Luce, can you pass me those scissors?" Natsu leaned back toward Lucy, who looked at him hesitantly. A look of confusion crossed his face, which slowly turned to anger. "I just wanna cut thumb-holes in my fucking sweater, Luce. Jesus Christ." He shoved his chair away and leaned over, grabbing the scissors himself. Gray was shocked – he'd never heard Natsu speak to Lucy like that before.

Lucy whispered something soft that Gray couldn't hear, and Natsu's frown deepened. He jabbed the scissors through the fabric of his tattered sweater – did he ever take that thing off? – then threw them down on the table and stalked away.

"What's up with him?" Gray asked, frowning as Natsu stormed out towards the front door. Sure, he'd been acting a bit strange lately, but nothing like this.

"He has... moods," Lucy said quietly, tucking her hands into her pockets. "It's pretty normal. He'll come back." Gray frowned. Shouldn't someone be going after him?

"All right Gray, pick three cards and lay them on the table."

Gray turned his attention back to Cana, who had shuffled the deck and was holding it out to him. He tried not to roll his eyes – tarot reading was a silly, inexact pseudoscience, but he didn't want to hurt Cana's feelings. He reached out and plucked three cards from her hand, and spread them out in front of him.

"Oh." Cana's eyes widened. Gray looked down with a frown – a tower, some guy maybe hiding somewhere, and... a dead body being stabbed with swords. Well, that couldn't be good. Not that he believed in this shit anyway.

"So, what's my future?" he grumbled, trying to ignore the pensive look on Cana's face.

"Well, I'm not great at this," she began, chewing on her thumbnail. "My Gram's better at it, she does this for a living. But... hmm. You've had some sort of disaster in your life. A change that can't be unmade." Gray stiffened a bit, but relaxed when he realized that could describe literally everyone in this program. "The hermit—" here Cana tapped on the hiding man "—is reversed, which indicates isolation or withdrawal from people you love." Also true of everyone here. Even so, Gray felt his pulse rise uncomfortably.

"That's pretty vague," he said quietly. His throat felt thick, and his mind filled with the images from his dreams. Sharp teeth, dark eyes, bloody hands. This was a terrible idea.

"The ten of swords, though, that's not a good card." Cana continued like she hadn't heard him speak. "It's a symbol of ultimate betrayal. Someone you loved, that you cared about and trusted, hurt you, probably physically and emotionally..."

Cana's voice trailed off, leaving Gray with an open door, and soft flakes of snow drifting around his ankles.

No. Gray pinched his thigh under the table, trying to shake away the memory.

Sharp, unimaginable pain, blistering through his shoulder and stomach, and a voice saying it should have been you the first time.

"I gotta..." Gray tried to come up with an excuse but his mind was blank, pulse pounding in his ears. He shoved his chair away from the table, shaking his head from side to side. "I gotta go." Ignoring the girl's shocked expressions, he turned around and stumbled out of the room, toward the door.

Air. He just needed air. Gray shoved the door open as hard as he could, and winced when it connected with something solid.

"Ow, fuck." The something was apparently Natsu, who was now rubbing his cheek and looking at Gray curiously. "You okay?"

"I gotta go," Gray repeated, pushing past Natsu and sprinting through the parking lot. It was snowing today, too, the same soft flakes, and Gray felt his chest tighten and his eyes blur with tears. Stop it, he whispered to himself as he ran, not knowing where his footsteps were going. Stop it. You're better than this.

He sucked cold air into his lungs, skidding around a corner and nearly tripping over a loose slab of pavement. Where the fuck was he going? It didn't matter. He just needed to get away from the harsh burning in his chest and the feeling of dread that was creeping through his limbs.

There was a loud blare of a car horn, and Gray felt a pair of arms wrap around him, yanking him backwards until he stumbled and fell on his ass.

"What the—"

"Are you okay?" Natsu's frantic voice caught him off guard, and Gray turned to see Natsu, also on the ground, staring at him with concern. "You just about ran out into traffic! What the hell were you thinking?" Gray blinked at Natsu, looking up to the road and seeing that he had indeed been about to traverse a busy intersection.

"I..." Gray swallowed, realizing that the panic had subsided and all he was left with was a pounding heart, and the warm ghost of Natsu's arms around his chest. "I... wasn't paying attention."

"No shit." Natsu stood, brushing dust from his jeans, then reached a hand down to Gray, who took it uncertainly. His legs felt unsteady beneath him, and he leaned forward, hands on his knees, taking deep breaths. Natsu placed a hand on his shoulder. "Seriously. Is there anything I can do?"

Gray shook his head, finally feeling a return to calm, and a pink flush of embarrassment flooded into his cheeks. His first instinct was to snap at Natsu, tell him to fuck off and mind his business, but he couldn't. Natsu had been nothing but kind to him since they'd met. He didn't deserve that.

"Just...a bad memory," Gray said quietly. Shame rushed through him, heat blossoming from the nape of his neck to the tips of his ears. "I'll be okay." He forced himself to look up into Natsu's concerned face. "Thanks for the save."

"No problem." Natsu smiled easily at Gray as he finally stood, running a hand through his hair. "You still up for jamming? I wanna hear that new song you wrote." His smile didn't reach his eyes.

"Y-yeah." Gray smiled uncertainly as Natsu began to head back toward the centre. "Hey, um, are you okay? You booked it outta there earlier too." Natsu's shoulders rounded inward and he began to chew his lip.

"Sorta. Just..." He looked up, like he was contemplating how much to share with Gray. "I had a... bad few months a while back. Did some stupid shit. It scared Luce, and she's still overprotective, y'know?" He rubbed the back of his neck. "I get it, it just pisses me off sometimes."

Gray wondered what the scissors had to do with any of this, then slowly wondered if it had anything to do with the fact that Natsu never took off his sweater. Oh. He didn't say anything, just nodded and continued following Natsu back to the Center.

__________

Natsu was amazing on the guitar. Gray loved watching him – he curled around it like it was a lover, hands caressing the frets and fingers dancing across the strings, pink hair falling in his eyes, lower lip caught between his teeth while he concentrated. Okay, he was also incredibly sexy when he played guitar. That didn't help things either.

Over the last two weeks, Gray had found it easier and easier to sit with this group, to revel in their casual familiarity and occasionally make his own contributions to their conversations. The cautious side of his brain occasionally warned him against it, but Gray told it to shut the fuck up, thank you very much. If it meant he got to spend time with Natsu...

"You've got it bad." Erza flopped down on the floor next to Gray, who was sitting on the piano bench, a respectable distance away from the rest of the group. He had been composing before he had been distracted by Natsu's hair, and hands, and lips. Jesus fuck.

"I... what?" Gray blinked up at Erza. She had the long side of her hair tied up in an intricate braid, and a pattern was shaved into the other side. He looked at her contemplatively. "You look so different from before." She laughed easily.

"Yeah, well...you don't." Gray gazed at her, unsure how to respond to that. "I mean, you've grown up, that's for sure. We both have. God, we were stupid." Gray laughed a little at that.

"Yeah, well, I'm glad we got out." He doodled absently in the margin of his scorebook. "Gajeel too, even if he did end up doing some time in juvie. He seems to really care about Ryos."

"Oh my god, the last time I saw that kid, he was what, twelve?" Erza cracked her knuckles and Gray noticed she had something tattooed on the inside of her ring finger – a stylized letter "J".

"Are you still..." Gray gestured at the tattoo. "With him?" Erza's face hardened slightly.

"It's complicated," she said softly, running her finger over the ink. "He's in rehab right now. He just... we both had such a shitty life. I know that's not an excuse," she said hastily, holding up a hand, "but I think he can change. Be better."

"Hopefully we all can," Gray said softly, eyes drifting back over to Natsu, who was still strumming softly and singing under his breath. "Now that..." He struggled to say the name. "Now that Lyon is gone, and the gang fell apart." Gray swallowed heavily.

"Do you wanna talk about what happened with him?" Erza leaned back, crossing her ankles and looking at Gray. "Sherry said you almost died."

Blue and red sirens, blood everywhere, on the floor and his hands and everything was happening in slow motion...

"Yeah," Gray said quietly. "I mean yeah to the almost died, not to the talking." He avoided Erza's gaze. "I'm not ready." She nodded.

"Just... know that I know what it's like to have someone you love hurt you." Gray winced, remembering the way Erza didn't speak around Jellal, how she flinched when he raised his voice or slammed doors.

"Sorry," he said, but she shook her head, playing absently with her tongue ring.

"It was a lifetime ago," she said softly, then turned to Gray and grinned. "Now stop ogling Natsu and let's get to playing some music."