Gratsu one-shots/drabbles

Gradually

Prompt: I could kiss you right now.

Everything that was between them happened gradually. They started at one end of the spectrum and they slid along to the other, moving so slowly that it went almost unnoticed. Only a few payed enough attention to them to see it happen, and Erza was the only one who predicted it early on. Not that she told anyone. If she had ever once suggested that the guild's biggest rivals could fall for each other in the future, she'd be sent to a mental institution.

It all started when they met. Natsu was ten, Gray was eleven, and both of them were completely unaware of what was to come.

The entire guild had gone silent when an odd pink haired child began speaking to their master. Several of them had jumped when he first opened his mouth, having not heard him come inside over the brawl. "Mr. have you see any dragons lately?" He was about the same height as the Wizard Saint, making them believe he could be no older than eight. He had a bright smile that seemed to light up the entire area, and his eyes reflected so much hope that it overwhelmed a few of the onlookers.

Their master nearly spit his beer everywhere. "What in Mavis's name is a child his size doing here without his parents, and asking about dragons no less?" He stared at the child in front of him with an odd expression. The boy bore a powerful seal on his magic that he'd only seen twice. One of those times it had been on the first master herself. "I have not," he answered honestly.

The boys smile faltered, "Oh. Okay. Thank you." He turned around dejectedly, and the urge to hug him was difficult not to act on.

"Since you asked me a question," Makarov began, "I believe that it's alright for me to ask you one in return?" The pinkette turned around to look him in the eyes, and Makarov could suddenly see things he wished he couldn't, especially not in a child, "Why are you looking for the dragons, brat?"

The flat look that he was given would have been comical if not for the sentence that came out of his mouth next, "You wouldn't believe me if I told you. No one has. The all think I'm crazy. Fucking humans." This time Makarov did spit his beer, alongside several other people.

Seeing the small, pink-haired child swear had been the breaking point for many of them. Macao slammed his beer down on the bar, pushing it away from him. "I'm never drinking again. I swear I just hallucinated a child dropping the f-bomb."

"No that's what he said," Makarov muttered after the shock wore off. He turned back to the kid, who looked completely unapologetic, and decided to get the full story, "You'll find that I'm not like most people, brat. Tell me everything."

It was the pinkette's turn to raise an eyebrow, "You want the whole thing? Not just why I'm looking for a dragon?" Makarov nodded, once. "Okay, " he plopped down on the floor with a thud, "I can't remember anything from before I was three. It's all just blank. I don't remember my parents or if I lived somewhere else, or if I had siblings. There's just earliest thing I remember is waking up in the middle of the woods next to a cave with a dragon in it, and that I have a big-ass scar on my neck." They all glanced at his scarf as he pulled it off, the to the awful mark across his neck. "Igneel says that it technically killed me, and that it's the reason I don't remember anything else. Igneel's the dragon by the way. He taught me my magic and how to survive, and he named me Natsu. He's the closest thing I have to family, and a week ago, he vanished. I couldn't track his scent, his magic signature, or anything." He paused for a moment to let it sit in, taking in the shock on all of their faces with an odd sense of satisfaction. "I eventually wondered into a city, but I couldn't recognize the language. I stayed there for a couple of days to listen for patterns and pick up on it, so that I could ask people if they'd seen my dad. Fiori is a weird language by the way, especially compared to the one's Igneel taught me."