@fuckyeahgratsu request for @watcher-ofthe-sky

Prompt: You Make Me Want Things I Can't Have
First Person POV

Why? Why couldn't you have ended up at some other guild?

Before you came along, I was perfectly happy to keep everyone out, to lose myself in the chill that reflected not only my magic but the way I felt I deserved to live. I needed to atone for my sins, for the lives I'd taken. It didn't matter to me that they'd sacrificed themselves willingly, their love for me had killed them, and I would never let that happen again.

The loneliness I endured was my penance for all the pain I caused. For the souls that were no more and the lives I'd destroyed. My parents, my Master, Lyon.

But in you came, with your stupid pink hair and your blinding smile. Your overwhelming affection and your god damned warmth worked at me continually until I was left raw and open. Gods, I wanted to hate you.

But I couldn't.

So I pushed you away with all my might. I came at you with fists, words, magic and anything else I had left in my crumbling arsenal. It was a desperate bid to keep everything the same, but no matter how hard I fought to push you away, you pushed back just as hard. Demanding things from me that I couldn't give. But I...I wanted to.

I hoped that you'd eventually give up and leave me alone. I didn't realize then, how fucking stubborn you were. Did you think it was a game? You couldn't have known it was my frozen heart that was at stake. Except it wasn't frozen anymore, was it? You'd begun working at it from the moment we met, slowly making it beat to your rhythm.

As time passed, I looked forward to our daily fights more than I cared to admit, to your touches and your fire. They were the only thing that made me feel alive. Thank the stars for Erza, if it hadn't been for her constant interference, I fear I would have given myself away a thousand times.

I let myself think about what our future could be if only I were brave like you. Because throughout everything that happened, your eyes always remained on me. Squinty and bright and fearless and — dare I hope — yearning, as I yearned for you.

I was such a fool.

Because one day you ran off searching for Igneel as you'd done a hundred times before. But when you returned, you weren't alone. You'd brought someone with you, the stars to your sun and I could see that your spell had already begun to work on her as it had on me so long ago.

And everything changed.

Lucy.

She was everything you were supposed to want, how could I hope to compete? I could feel her weaving her spell on you, taking you away from me. And it stung. I didn't know how to fight it, didn't even know if I should. There was so much she could give you that I never could. So I distanced myself, pretended I couldn't see the confusion on your face, the hurt.

I told myself I was doing what was best for you, that I was selfless, but I knew the truth. I was a coward, scared you'd pick her over me.

I know I have no one to blame but myself. I let it happen. Soon you were around less and less and my heart, it was lost. No longer capable of feeling properly without you as its metronome.

Natsu.

My love for you endures, preserved within the darkness of my soul and my feigned animosity. Doomed to travel beside your light, always near, so close I can almost feel my skin burning.

To yearn for what I can't have... I never suspected you'd been my penance all along.