I AM DROWNING IN COLLEGE.

This is based off of the song "Radiance in the Light of a Dying Sun" by AngelMaker. They're a really amazing deathcore band, and one of my favorite bands ever.

It had been months, and Gray was still missing.

It felt like it was only yesterday when he took a job far up in Northern Fiore. He had promised Natsu that it would only take a couple days, a week at most. It was supposed to be a simple job. A monster was terrorizing a town, and needed an ice mage to take it down.

But the day Natsu saw him leave on the train was the last he'd seen of him.

When a week passed and Gray still wasn't back, Natsu held hope. Maybe he's running late, the guild said. He'll be back soon, they said. Don't worry.

When a month passed, Natsu started getting anxious. Gray still wasn't back yet. The guild still tried to persuade him that Gray was okay, that maybe things were taking longer than expected.

But three weeks longer than he said? Without any communication with the guild, with Gramps, with him? Gray wouldn't do that, wouldn't leave Natsu in the dark like that. He knew how Natsu felt about being left in the dark about things, about people leaving him without a word. He didn't like being abandoned, didn't like his heart being torn similarly to how he felt when Igneel left him.

When two months passed, Natsu started coming to the guild less and less. He preferred to stay in bed in the apartment he and Gray shared, attempting to pull any of Gray's fading scent out of the covers. He went to the river he and Gray used to fight at, the cafe they used to go on dates to, the market they used to buy groceries at, scavenging for any small piece of hope that his boyfriend was going to come back to his arms. He was worried, so incredibly worried, because he hadn't heard from him in such a long time, and he missed him. He missed him so much.

Natsu knew the guild was starting to get worried about him. They knocked on his apartment door for hours on end. They tried to get him to go on a job with them, to come to the guild and get something to eat, to do something, to let them in. But he didn't. How could he? The love of his life, his everything, was missing.

How could they? Gray was gone and they were outside Natsu's door worrying about him when Gray was missing. They should be out finding him, tracking him down, searching for anything that would lead them to his love. But they were ignoring all of that, choosing to bang at Natsu's door every day.

Natsu knew he was being hypocritical. If the guild was going to search for Gray, then he should help. But he couldn't. He didn't want to do anything. He didn't want to leave his apartment, to entertain himself, to take care of himself. He couldn't laugh, or smile, or feel. He could barely get himself out of bed in the morning.

When three months passed, Natsu lost hope. The thought that Gray was never coming back had fully set in, been absorbed by his brain, and his heart shattered into a million pieces. He could no longer hear the crashing of fists on his apartment door. All of a sudden, everything seemed so hard and he just wanted to lay in bed. His mind was hazy and his body was so numb and he couldn't feel anything anymore.

He was fading, and it was happening fast.

It was like he was in the dark, and the light in front of him, the one guiding him, was dimming. There were so many things he wanted to tell Gray, so much he desired to do with him, but they would never happen.

They would never go on anymore jobs together. They would never go on anymore dates. He would never kiss him again, touch him again, feel the tingle when Gray's fingers moved across his skin, a million little fireworks going off as he hit each nerve. He would never feel the stress when proposing to Gray by the river. They would never plan their wedding, picking out a cake and rings and suits and everything the girls at the guild said were required for the occasion. They would never say their vows and have their first kiss as a married couple and be so in love with the thrill that they were two halves of a whole in one of the best ways possible. He would never experience raising a kid with Gray, teaching them magic, pranking everyone in the guild hall as a family. They would never experience growing old together. They would never be together when they experienced their last breaths.

His friends from the guild kept trying to reach him, but he just wanted to be left to destroy himself.

It was so cold without Gray lying next to him, embracing him, pulling him away from the dark void that was his mind. He was so sad, and his whole body hurt. He could no longer sleep at night, dark thoughts clawing through the walls he tried to construct in his mind.

At some point, he had started imagining things. He imagined Gray with him, next to him in bed, hugging him from behind as they made dinner together, laughing at one of his jokes. He couldn't tell what was real and what was pretend.

It was so dark, and he was so lonely. The sun was setting, and Natsu was panicking. He didn't want the light to go away. He didn't want to be stuck in the dark alone. He wanted to be with his lover. Why couldn't he be with him?

But the demons in his mind retaliated, convinced him that maybe Gray was in the dark. Maybe Gray would only appear if all of the light disappeared. Maybe the sun would go down and Gray would emerge with the moon.

So Natsu watched the sun setting in front of him, waiting for the moon to surface from beyond the horizon. Waiting to be with his love, his everything, his Gray, once again.

He closed his eyes, taking a deep breath as he watched the sun disappear.

I saw an advance screening of Onward and cried like a baby. That combined with the song is kind of where this came from.

In The Shadows is going to take a while. I have a ton of planning to do for it, and college is so stressful right now. I'm right in the middle of midterm season and kind of dying.

Well, it's almost midnight and way past my self-imposed bedtime of 10 pm. Goodnight!

Please leave a comment or review, I really appreciate them!