"If I were rain,

That joins sky and earth that otherwise never touch,

Could I join two hearts as well?"

― Tite Kubo

Natsu felt better by mid-summer, and Gray's strength had vastly improved. They raced each other a few times a week, no matter where they were heading. If it was just out to the guild pool, they were even. If it was out to a café in town, Natsu was usually faster, but if it was a long distance, like to the train station, Natsu had to quit running before he even reached there, finding himself gasping for air. Gray was still slow and his leg felt fatigued; Natsu lost his breath far quicker than he normally would and felt hesitant to push himself whenever he felt tightness in his chest. They both had healing to endure.

Still, nothing could stop these two opposites anymore. They were liberated from the confines of convalescence, they felt more comfortable around one another than they had been in almost a year, and they were determined to make up for lost time. They argued, they brawled, they laughed and went on missions. It was like the old days, their team reunited, everyone happy and working together.

Then Juvia would come over and give Gray a kiss. Natsu always diverted his eyes. It still hurt to see them together.

"Are you and Juvia in love?" he asked Gray one day when it was just the two of them practicing magic up on a hillside outside of town.

Gray looked over in surprise. "Well, we're dating."

"That doesn't necessarily mean you're in love." He had never told Gray that he heard what the ice wizard said in the hospital, that he had never been in love before, and Gray refused to let Natsu be his first love. He always felt bad about that. Juvia was obviously enamored with Gray. If Gray was using her just so he would not be in love...

'It's not like he'd ever fall in love with me, anyway.'

"We ... um..." Gray glanced around sharply. "Is she nearby?" he whispered.

Natsu took a deep sniff. "Just us."

"She's a sweetheart," Gray said hesitantly, "but ... how can I put it? I really care for her but ... I just don't ... not really and truly..."

Natsu looked over in surprise. "Wait a minute! You've been dating for three months and you don't love her?"

"I like her a lot," he corrected, "but as a girlfriend."

Natsu scratched his head. "Hmm ... I don't get it."

"You've never had a girlfriend, have you?"

"Not really," Natsu muttered awkwardly.

Rei-chan did not count. She taught him how to kiss and be attentive to a partner; there was no love between them. He and Lisanna had been too young, although he did care about her back then, maybe liked her. Lots of people thought he and Lucy were a couple, and although she was fun to be around and really cute, she kept their relationship strictly as teammates. Besides, now she and Loke were a secretive couple, sneaking off to be together, although the whole guild knew they were dating.

Gray tried to think about how to explain it. "Girlfriends are fun, and you can like them a lot, but ... maybe it's just me, but I consider love to be something a lot more. You can like lots of people, but you probably only love a few people in your life."

Natsu thought about it. He supposed it made sense. "You like friends, but you love a mate."

"Is that something Igneel told you? It sounds like something a dragon would say."

"Maybe," Natsu shrugged. "Igneel told me that you should only have sex with a person you love deeply, and that person is your mate. Dragons only have one mate for life, but he said humans can have many mates. Still, I think you should only mate with a person who you really, truly, deeply love."

Gray lowered his head. "That's probably a good idea. It'd keep down a crapload of drama. I wish someone taught me that when I was younger."

"Have you and Juvia...?" He made a crude action with his hands.

"No!" Gray snapped. "Not that I wouldn't want to, but ... but you're right. I've slept with a few girls, but it was pretty meaningless, just hormones taking over. I don't want to treat Juvia that way. I dunno, it just ... doesn't seem fair to her. I've known how she feels about me for years, and I'm trying to fall in love but ... I can't," he sighed. "I want to love her, but I just don't feel that way."

Natsu shrugged lightly. "Maybe you should break up."

"I don't want to hear relationship advice from a guy who hires a stripper to teach him how to kiss!"

"Well, either the things you do with someone should mean nothing, or they should mean everything," Natsu reasoned. "It's like with fighting. You either have no reason at all to fight, or you're fighting for a reason: to hone in your own skills, or challenge the other person, or because they're an enemy, or to protect your friends. Otherwise, the fight is meaningless. You can fight without meaning, of course, but that's no fun at all."

"Yeah, that makes sense," Gray admitted. Leave it to Natsu to explain everything as fighting. "So what about you and that other stripper?"

Natsu smiled as Gray said it again: other stripper. "She's training me, letting me hone in my skills."

"That's despicable!"

Natsu slid his eyes over slyly. "Oh? And why did you take those two girls in that northern resort town?"

"Are you still fixated on that?" Gray shouted.

"Because you never answer me when I ask. You dodge it each time."

Gray folded his arms and looked away. "Fine! I agreed because ... I ... I wasn't sure if I actually could, you know."

"Do you mean if you could have sex?"

"Why do you put things so bluntly?" Gray snapped.

Natsu held back the memories of listening in on Gray when he was in his bathtub while still paralyzed. "Didn't you try on your own? You know, experimenting if you could or not ... with your hand?"

Gray shot him a glare, but he supposed that Natsu was a young man, same as him, so he would know that guys did that sort of thing. "I had, but ... it's different, you know. On your own isn't the same as with someone else."

"I wouldn't know," Natsu admitted.

Gray looked over in shock. Was it true then? Natsu and that stripper had not had sex? Was he really still a virgin? "I was ... having problems," he said delicately, not liking to admit to that sort of issue. "I was hoping that if it was someone else doing the touching, it'd be easier, but ... but it wasn't. Those girls couldn't do anything for me." He laughed awkwardly. "Thank God that isn't an issue anymore!"

"So you can..."

"Dammit, I do not want to talk about jerking off with you, of all people."

That stung a little, but Natsu supposed conversations about sex were always weird, especially between two guys, and especially between two rivals. If it was him, that was probably the same thing he would say if Gray asked him about masturbation.

"So your reason was the same as mine," Natsu said. "You were challenging yourself, seeing if you still had the ability to do that. For me, I'm honing in my skills. Same thing, in the end. It's something without emotion and serves only to strengthen ourselves."

"Sucks to do that sort of thing, doesn't it?"

"Yeah," Natsu had to agree. "Rei-chan and I ... we aren't meeting anymore."

"She said the girl you like got mad."

Natsu looked over sharply. "You talked to her?"

"While you were in the hospital," he nodded. "We only talked for a little bit. She said you're not ... intimate with her anymore."

"Oh," he whispered. "Yeah, it ... it got awkward."

"So, how far did you two go?"

"Like I'd tell you!" Natsu shouted. He realized that he sounded the same as when Gray had snapped just a moment ago. "We didn't go all the way, just ... touching."

"And blow jobs, right?" Gray asked. Ever since their talk at the beach, he had fantasized about doing that to Natsu so much, it was probably unhealthy.

Natsu's face flushed brightly. "W-well, we ... I mean ... L-like I said, she was training me, teaching me what to do, so ... so we did some things, but there was never any love between us. Just training. Mostly it was me doing things to her."

"Like what?" Gray asked, although a corner of his brain was cursing himself and screaming 'Why are you even interested?'

"Like I said, touching!"

"You fingered her?"

"Shut up!" he yelled, feeling sick with humiliation.

"Hey, it's not a problem. I mean, I've done that plenty of times."

"With Juvia?" he yelled, hating the jealousy burning in him.

"None of your business!"

"Same here."

"Fine."

"Fine!"

They stared in opposite directions. Strangely enough, Natsu was the first to cool down.

"It was just training, touching, and kissing. She sucked me off maybe twice. That's all. I didn't ... you know ... put it in. Just training, but ... it wasn't good anymore. Training is no good if the person you want to protect gets hurt."

"I guess so," Gray mumbled. "I wonder then, with me and Juvia ... I mean, I do think she's nice, I don't mind her being my girlfriend, but ... if it's gonna hurt someone else..."

"Who could it hurt?" Natsu asked suspiciously.

Gray pouted and looked off while grumbling, "Hell if I know."

Natsu watched him closely, wondering what he meant.

"I dunno, what do you think?" Gray asked, glancing over to Natsu. "I could maybe stay with Juvia. With enough time, something might develop. I could grow to love her. Then again, it's rather shitty when she says 'I love you' and I feel like I have to say it back when I just don't feel that way."

"Um, I'm not the expert on these things," Natsu pointed out, "so what you do with her is something only you can decide. However, I really think you and Juvia need to talk about this, about your feelings and expectations."

"She expects thirty babies," he groaned.

"You don't want kids?"

"Well, not now," Gray shouted. "I'm not exactly good around kids. They're weird and small and smelly. Maybe because I never had a little brother or sister, or even a little cousin around. I grew up around adults. Children ... that's not really my thing. I don't want something that serious in my life yet."

"So what do you want?"

"Just ... fun. Having a good time. Pleasure. I know you don't want sex with anyone but a mate, but ... well, part of me wants it again."

"But not with Juvia?"

"She's a member of Fairy Tail. It would mean a lot more if it was with her."

"You want meaningless sex?" Natsu asked, looking confused and a little disturbed.

"I want ... oh, hell if I know what I want," he growled in frustration.

"Wait, are you planning to cheat on her? I won't allow that, Gray! Juvia's a friend." Even if Gray said he wanted to cheat on Juvia with Natsu himself, he would turn him down. He was loyal to friends, and he would not hurt one, not even to get happiness for himself.

"No!" Gray shouted. "I'm not an asshole. I just ... I want..." He closed his eyes. Images came unwanted: Natsu on his knees looking up at him, or Gray laid back and gazing up at those fiery eyes while hot hands caressed his body. He sneered and turned away, unable to look at the Dragon Slayer. "I'm done training. Do you feel like getting drunk?"

"I'm not supposed to." Natsu patted his chest to show he meant his heart issue.

"Too bad. See ya around, sulfur breath." Gray left with a wave of farewell.

"Don't puke and pass out, popsicle pants." Natsu watched him go and waited until he could not hear or smell Gray. "He's gone. You can come out."

Up from a nearby puddle rose Juvia. Her eyes were sad, but Natsu realized that it had not yet started to rain.

"I didn't like lying to him," Natsu told her with a harsh edge to his voice.

"Juvia apologizes," she whispered. "Juvia had concerns about Gray-sama. Juvia is glad Gray-sama is loyal. Gray-sama just ... doesn't ... love Juvia."

"He cares about you," Natsu passively pointed out, keeping his emotions neutral. "It could grow into love."

"It could," she sighed. "Juvia does not know what to do."

Natsu turned aside. "Then I'll say the same thing to you: you guys need to talk about it."

"If it was you, Natsu, what would you do?"

Natsu really did not want to get between them. He had his own goals and desires. He could easily manipulate this into convincing both of them to break up with each other. However, that was hardly loving. If Gray could be happy, Natsu would have admitted defeat and stepped aside. Finding out things were like this made it even more awkward for him.

"If it was me," he said slowly, judging his words for once in his life, "if I found out the person I love was saying 'I love you' back to me, but never once really meant it, to me that's lying, and that's not something I can tolerate. I would rather have a partner be honest with themselves and with me, rather than lie because they think it's what I want to hear. At least for me, honesty is important."

Juvia's head dropped, and Natsu finally saw storm clouds gathering overhead.

"That's just me," he stressed.

"Yes, but you're right. Honesty is important. Being honest ... not lying and saying ... that Gray-sama loves Juvia." She began to struggle with the sadness. Her arms hugged herself, and her face tensed up with grief. "Natsu, you should go home."

"Try not to flood the city," he said seriously. Then Natsu slowly walked away, heading home as he felt the first drips of rain falling from the stormy sky.

Two days later, Fairy Tail was rocked by the most unexpected love drama to strike them yet: Juvia broke up with Gray.

She left in tears, and outside a gale raged over Magnolia. Inside the guild hall, people stared in complete shock. Juvia had said the words clearly and firmly, not hateful, just a calm declaration.

"This isn't working out. Juvia cares very much for Gray-sama, but Juvia needs love, not just a friend. Juvia deserves honesty, not flattery. Juvia cannot force Gray-sama into feeling love. It's not turning out how Juvia wanted. Juvia would be very happy to keep Gray-sama as a close friend, but ... we should stop dating."

Gray, for his part, could only stare and mutter, "If that's what you want. We're still friends."

He did not even try to argue and persuade her. He let her go, yet the shock was apparent in his dropped mouth and glazed eyes.

After all, this was Juvia. She had lusted and obsessed over Gray since before joining the guild. She had forced her feelings onto him over and over again. For them to break up after just three months seemed absurd. For Gray, it was like some bizarre dream, and he was left staring ahead blankly. Sure, he had been ambivalent toward how he felt, but to be dumped by the one girl he thought he might actually be able to love, at least if given enough time to fall in love ... it numbed him.

And what did she even mean about "deserving honesty"? When had he been dishonest? Or had she seen through his emotions so easily?

Natsu had watched the breakup from the side with Happy and Lucy. Lucy's mouth was dropped, utterly stunned. Happy hardly seemed to care and kept eating his fish. Natsu's eyes were firmly on the ice wizard.

For some reason, he felt guilty. Juvia had approached Natsu earlier that fateful day and asked him to question Gray about his love and loyalty, saying that she knew her boyfriend would be honest with his closest male friend. At the time, Natsu figured that Gray would confess how much he loved Juvia, how happy they were together, probably brag about their heartfelt joy, so allowing Juvia to spy would be fine. He never imagined Gray would say he was not in love.

He never thought Juvia would break up with Gray!

Even if there was no true love between them, Natsu figured she would agree to wait for his love to develop and remain vigilantly by his side until then, no matter how long it took. He supposed that learning the truth, that Gray was saying 'I love you' without meaning it, had hurt Juvia a lot deeper than he could imagine.

No ... he could imagine it. What if Gray confessed? What if he told Natsu 'I love you' but then it turned out to be a lie? That would devastate Natsu. He supposed that was how Juvia felt.

As much as Natsu tried to tell himself that he did no wrong, he had done nothing more than question Gray and allowed Juvia to spy, he knew he was guilty. He had lied when Gray asked if Juvia was nearby, and he hated lying to anyone, most of all to Gray. If Gray had known Juvia was around, hidden in the puddle, listening to everything, he never would have said those words, but that also meant Juvia never would have known the truth.

As much as Natsu wanted Gray for himself, he also did not want to see his friends get hurt. Now he felt like this breakup was his fault.

While the guild sat in shocked silence, Natsu rose and walked over to Gray.

"Mira, something strong," Natsu ordered quietly. The white-haired lady jolted, but she hurriedly fixed a drink. Natsu placed the cup in Gray's unmoving hands and sat beside him. "Drink up."

"Did I do something wrong?" Gray asked in shock. "I mean ... this is Juvia. She ... she's supposed to be ... an easy win."

Natsu's eyes narrowed. "Easy win?"

"You know what I mean!"

"No, I don't. Love isn't about winning or losing. It's about figuring out yourself and hoping the other person figures out the same thing. You figured yourself out. You told me you weren't in love."

Gray turned to him in anger and lashed out, "Did you tell her?"

"No," Natsu said honestly, "but Juvia isn't a stupid girl. I'm sure she could see the truth for herself."

Gray drank the cup in a single shot and then suddenly collapsed his head down into his arms. "Now what the hell am I supposed to do?"

Natsu shrugged awkwardly. "Try again? If love is a battlefield, then if you lose one fight, you move on to the next fight and try to make yourself stronger through experience. I wouldn't call this a loss, though," he added for Gray's sake. "This is more like a draw. You weren't in love, and she wasn't getting what she had been expecting. It wasn't a fight. It just didn't work out."

"But I ... I really thought..." His fists clenched up. "If I just gave myself a little more time, maybe ... maybe I could have grown to love her, you know."

Natsu awkwardly patted Gray on the shoulder. "So, lesson learned. Next time, don't leap into a relationship hoping that maybe it'll develop into love. Wait until you really do think you could be in love, and then agree to try a relationship with that person."

Gray muttered into his arms, "I don't even know what it's like to be in love."

Gajeel walked by then. "Dumb ass! What do you mean, you don't know what love is like?"

"Have you ever been in love?" Gray shouted.

Gajeel's face went pink. "So what if I am?"

"Well, lucky you, huh? Shut up!"

"Che! You get dumped and suddenly you're Mister PMS."

Natsu glared at Gajeel as he walked by. "Don't listen to him," he whispered to Gray. "That metal-head has been hot for Levy for ages, you can smell that they've done it, so he's cranky when it comes to her. Dragon Slayers are like that about new mates."

"You're in love, he's in love, Elfman's in love ... seems like everyone can fall in love but me," Gray muttered. "So how do you even know if it's love?"

Natsu thought about it. "It's a tickle to your belly, a fire in your heart, but your brain freezes up."

"That makes no sense at all."

"Well ... it feels like my stomach is empty even though I've eaten everything in sight. It feels like fire burning in my chest, flames that are hotter than Igneel's most awesome attack, and it's like my head starts spinning, like I'm about to throw up even though I'm not on any sort of transportation."

"So typical of you," Gray scoffed.

"It ... hurts," Natsu went on solemnly. "It's a pain in my heart, just like when I was a kid and waiting for Igneel to return, but this time I'm waiting for that person to come back to me. When I see that person with someone else, it hurts like I've been punched in the gut by Gildarts. When they smile at me, it feels like butterflies could soar away with my heart, but then suddenly I see them sad and it's like Droy just sat on my chest. If they yell at me in anger, it feels like every bone in my body has been crushed.

"Thinking about them makes my heart race ... or maybe not that it's beating faster. It beats stronger, and every beat rocks my body until I get dizzy. When you're in love, you feel silly and giddy when you think about the other person, but frustrated every time you can't be with them. When they start to walk away, you instinctively want to follow them, just to be with them, because being apart feels so unnatural. You feel the desire to simply stand next to them, even if you're both quiet, or if you're arguing, or talking about the stupidest things. You even find that their insults are cute. You smile even if their jokes are stupid, and when they're funny and you're joking together, you laugh a little extra just because of how happy you are. You wanna punch a wall just to hide your grin, because you know that if you smile too much, they'll get suspicious, and even though you want them to know how you feel, it's so embarrassing you could just die."

Gray shook his head. How stupidly complex! However, Natsu kept going on.

"The littlest sign of appreciation makes you so overwhelmed, you wanna cry, simply because you made them happy. And then on some days, you're trying to focus on something important, but they come into your head and bombard you with their smile, and suddenly your heart feels like exploding, and your stomach is twisting itself into knots, and it's all of those weird feelings all over again, just because you thought about that person a little."

He glanced down at Gray with longing. He knew that feeling, because he was experiencing it right now, confessing all of this, although Gray looked like he had no more interest. It hurt, but it made Natsu want to say more, to punch into that glacier brain of his just how strongly he felt.

"You wanna fight next to that person for the rest of your life," he said softly. "You know deep down inside, that you would do anything for that person, even if it almost kills you."

Finally, Gray slowly turned his head over and glanced up at Natsu in surprise, as well as a little confusion. That was a little too suspiciously like what Natsu said to him when Gray was still in a wheelchair.

"You find yourself more worried about them than about yourself, and you want them to be happy, even if it means you'll be sad. You want to fight for them, protect them, and destroy anything that might hurt them. Love makes you weak, but at the same time, it makes you incredibly strong, strong enough to put up with all of those emotions, all the pain and happiness and overwhelming bombardment that would probably make a person pass out from emotional exhaustion at any other time. But since it's love, and it's that person, you not only manage to put up with it all, you actually like it. You like how it feels, even if it hurts, because even the painful moments are proof of your feelings."

Natsu looked firmly at him, wishing he was Warren and could scream into that icy head.

'Open your eyes, you ass, and see what's in front of you! Why can't you see that I'm talking about you, idiot?'

Gray gulped, but he looked aside with a perturbed clench to his jaw. 'Why can't it be...? No. It definitely isn't me. You're just talking about that girl you like. I don't deserve it anyway. Feelings that strong ... some jerk like me doesn't deserve to be loved that much. It's just wishful thinking, and I'm an idiot.'

"That's pretty deep," Gray mumbled. "Is that how you feel about that girl you love?"

Pain pierced his heart, but instead of giving in to the ache, a tiny smile tugged on Natsu's mouth. "Yeah, that's how I feel. It's annoying and it's amazing and I don't think I can ever fully stop feeling that way."

That stabbed at Gray. Those fantasies were foolish after all. Natsu felt this strongly about some girl, and he just said he would never stop feeling like this. Even if he could get Natsu to accept him, it would never be with love this profound, and that made Gray depressed.

"I can't get that person out of my head. Ever," Natsu confessed. "And I don't want to. For how weird and painful and crazy it feels, I don't want to stop feeling this way."

Gray's eyes stared out blankly. "I wonder if that's how Juvia felt about me this whole time. I wonder how much it must have hurt her to realize I don't feel the same way."

"It's agonizing," he stated quietly. He couldn't confess, definitely not right after Juvia broke up with Gray. That was seriously the shittiest thing in the world to do, taking advantage of his emotional weakness.

Gray sighed and looked down at his empty glass. "Love is really complicated. Maybe I'll never feel it."

"I hope you do some day," Natsu whispered, looking sadly at the black-haired man.

He really did hope that. Even if it wasn't him, he wanted Gray to be happy in life. If he was straight, then that simply meant it would be a lady to comfort him at night, and Natsu had to accept that. He could not force Gray to suddenly become interested in boys.

Suddenly, Natsu jumped to his feet. "Come on! You need a change. Stop focusing on what you did wrong and do something else." Natsu pointed a dramatic finger at the ice wizard. "I challenge you, Gray! Fight me!"

Gray stared in confusion, but then he laughed. "Idiot. Fine! I won't lose."

"Neither will I."

Mira chimed in sweetly. "Not here, boys. Take it outside."

Both of them had mischievous grins at one another.

"The river?"

"Yep, the river."

"Let's go!"

They left to chase away the dark emotions with a little bit of Fairy Tail craziness and a battle between Fire and Ice.

———

Notes:

This story was my 2014 Nanowrimo entry. During that contest, rather than spend a lot of time sculpting the right declaration of what love is like (and maybe because I've been with the same man for so long, I forgot what falling in love for the first time is even like), I asked my loyal followers over on "Rhov Anion's Minions" for their explanations of what it's like to fall in love. From their responses came Natsu's great love speech. It's serious, silly, and so totally Natsu at times.