(A/N: Short chapter just to wrap up the 8th day! I felt like I could do something cute- so I did!)
Natsu slowly awoke to the sound of his alarm lacrima beeping, he reached over and smacked it a couple times to shut it off. He still felt pretty bad, even after passing out and sleeping for another hour. It took him a while before he was able to get comfortable again in his bed, 'Well that sucked...' he thought to himself. Before he could fall back asleep he realized 'Crap! I need to go!', he shot up into a sitting position but before he stood up he noticed a certain someone sleeping on the coach. Being the great strategist he is he screamed and jumped towards the lump from the edge of his bed.
Zeref shot up thinking Natsu was having another mental breakdown. Of course that thought was quickly interrupted by a flying fireball with pink hair slamming into him at what felt like Mach Two. "Ahh!" The two screamed. One, a battle cry, the second out of shock, surprise, and pain. After the Fire Wizard stopped punching and took a look at who he was punching he saw a certain Black Wizard sprawled out underneath him. "Eek!" He jumped off "Sorry sorry sorry! I didn't realize it was you Zeref- wait a second! What are you doing here!?".
After the initial shock he slowly regained enough sense to reply. "You were screaming when I woke you up... then you grabbed onto me and started crying, so I stayed- and this is the thanks I get..." He mumbles the last part to himself.
"Ohh- w-why..?"
"What do you mean 'why'?" The eldest asks.
"W-why would you do that?" The salmon haired one asks. "And I don't just mean staying in my room I mean why would you comfort me while I was screaming and c-crying." He seemed slightly embarrassed at admitting he was crying.
"Umm- I don't know I just didn't want to see," Zeref was tempted to say 'my little brother' but(A/N: SADLY!!!) decided not to, it would probably be too much after everything that's already happened. "You crying."
"But why..?" the other was starting to look annoyed for not being given an actual reason.
The ravenet shrugged. "I don't know, It just hurts seeing you cry. Sorry I can't help being empathetic." It was only a half lie. He did know why, but it did hurt to see him cry.
Suddenly Natsu hugged him. "Fine, if you don't want to tell me, fine. I'll figure it out, eventually." He continued hugging him, but Zeref restrained himself from hugging back. Natsu said sounding emotionally distraught "I'm supposed to hate you, I'm supposed to want to beat you to a pulp, for everything you did. But you just have to make it so hard to hate you.". The pink haired fireball laughed returning back to normal, "But thanks, for helping me earlier." he pulled away, and then smiled down at him as Zeref was still sitting.
"N-no problem..." he tried to smile back but it didn't work.
"Err- anyway..." quickly changing the topic he began "What about the festival?"
"Ohh yeah... we're gonna have to miss the opening night since we're leaving tomorrow because of- err..." Zeref tried to say 'Your random meltdown' nicely but found no way to do so. Luckily Natsu already understood.
"Ahh yeah..."
"Okay well I'll head back to my roo-" Zeref stated as he stood up but stopped as he was startled by his brother's hand grabbing his wrist.
"C-can you s-stay, please?" He asked nervously, Zeref couldn't help but smile broadly. His brother, who didn't have any knowledge of their legitimate family relation, asked him, the dark wizard, to stay. "If it's not too mu-"
"Sure!" He smiled normally, but inside his head, his thoughts were racing 'EEEEEEK! EEEEEEK! He just asked ME to stay! AHHHHH!' (A/N: hope y'all know this is how I feel while writing this, I might be going insane.). He cleared his throat, "If your hungry one of the servants can bring food up?"
"Oh yeah, I guess. That'd be nice".
So that's what they ended up doing. A few servants came to the room with plates of different foods from different continents and cities. Natsu as expected consumed what Zeref thinks was his weight in food, maybe double. 'It wouldn't surprise me if he ended up eating the plate-' he laughed to himself going unnoticed by the fire dragon slayer. Eventually the food ran out, enough food for twenty to be specific, so Zeref decided he should take his leave. He stood up and was walking towards the door, "Okay, by-". He was once again stopped by his brother's hand grabbing his wrist.
"C-can you stay, and sleep on the couch a-again." He said while looking at his feet.
"W-what? Why?" He said, ruder then he intended, which was absolutely not at all.
"Umm- never mind actually..."
"Natsu, I'd be more than happy to sleep on the couch if you needed, but why." Zeref asked, almost pleading for an answer.
"I don't know- I just would feel better with someone close by..." he kept looking at the ground.
"Okay then." He said with a warm smile. "I think it's best we get some sleep then, we still have to go to the festival tomorrow. If your up for it then I mean-"
"Okay." Natsu said cheerfully like the way he normally is, then walked off to his bed while Zeref went to the couch. In some weird way in Natsu's mind it helped knowing one of the most powerful wizards of all time was in the same room as him.
"Natsu, just remember that I'll always be there to help you. Don't forget that, please." Zeref replied from the couch where he was already lying down.
"Okay... I promise, I guess. Goodnight Zeref." As he laid down Natsu already felt himself drifting off to sleep.
"Goodnight Natsu," Zeref replied, and after a moment silently whispered, "Little brother". While it was whispered Natsu still heard it, barely, but it was too late as he was too tired, and already almost asleep, so he didn't do anything about it and probably wouldn't remember it when he woke up.
(A/N: EEEEEK, this chapter was shorter than a normal chapter but it was just supposed to be something cute to keep y'all fed. I loved writing this and it reminded me exactly why I'm writing this. It's #%*]€$& adorable! I hope you don't mind that it's shorter than the others, I promise I'll keep all my writing above 2k words unless it's, what I'll call, a 'finisher' chapter or a 'special' chapter. This was what you would call a finisher as it completes what wasn't written in the previous chapter. A special would be just something with, mostly, not cannon to the story information. Most likely I won't have many special chapters in this, but in my other work 'Heart and Soul' there might be a few here and there. Cya guys, hope you enjoyed what you read!)
Word count: 1204 words!