To Heal a Burn

Fire is hot.

Hot is dangerous. It hurts. Keep away from the oven and the stove. Don't put your fingers in that boiling water. Don't stand too close to the bonfire. If you smell smoke get out of the mansion as quickly as possible.

All her life she'd learned that free and open fires were to be avoided. The only safe fires were small, caught, and tightly controlled.

Which was still true.

She sat in a chair at her table with burn ointment and bandages spread out in front of her. Even sitting her hand on the stove for a short, short period of time could result in a very painful injury. To make matters worse it was on the outside of her dominant hand. Awkward for bandaging.

She winced as she touched her fingers to the burn. The ointment was cool, but the pressure of applying it hurt. She'd been reading and cooking and not paying a bit of attention. Rested her hand on the red-hot metal coil.

Yeah, this one was going to blister.

Wendy was away on a mission with Charle and Lissana, or Lucy might have gone to her. It was enough to make her wish she lived at the girl's dorm where help would be right next door, or that her teammates had crashed her apartment like they so often did.

But no, if that were true, she wouldn't have been reading while she cooked, and it wouldn't have happened in the first place.

None of her spirits were good with healing, though Virgo would help if she asked. Any of them would help if she asked, but she wasn't in a mood to ask. She wasn't in a mood for company. She was pissed off at herself and her stove and the world, and her hand hurt.

The bandage was sloppy. Hand bandages often were. It made her tired to look at it, and looking at it seemed to make it hurt worse. When she looked at it, it was almost as if she could see it pulse and throb in time to the beating pain in her temples.

Enough. She'd drink a glass of water, down some pain powder, and go to sleep. It would hurt less in the morning.

Sleep was eluding her. Every single time she closed her eyes the pain in her hand would treble. That pain would feed the headache, and her thoughts would swirl around filled with pain and pain and pain.

Pain.

Dammit.

She was so tired. She felt so tired, but all she could think about was her hand, and that kept her awake. It was stupid that she could be so tired and yet be completely unable to find sleep.

The room was too hot. The room was too cold. The blankets coiled around her throat and ankles in a cunning attempt to confine her. She thrashed and freed herself, but made the stunning tactical error of rolling on her bandaged hand. She sucked in a breath and tears welled in her eyes.

"Ouch," she breathed, trying to play off the pain like it was no more than a stubbed toe.

When in fact … in fact … yes, she could smell it now … she had ruptured a newly formed blister. Strange on so new a burn, but it had been a bad burn. Even worse than she originally thought.

She tumbled out of her large bed and went to her bathroom, turning on her lights in a daze. The bandage was moist with pus and some small amount of blood. The pus smelled … well, it smelled, she would leave it at that. That meant she was dealing with an infection as well as a burn.

Shouldn't surprise her. The stove wasn't exactly clean. She actually couldn't remember having ever cleaned the coils. So yeah, not exactly a surprise that she'd picked up something from the burn. And probably a good thing then that she'd popped it, even if not on purpose.

She unwound the bandage, threw it away, and proceeded to clean the wound site again. The cool water felt good on her hand, and she kept it under the steady flow until the water in her sink ran clear with no lingering yellow or pink.

She couldn't remember how you were supposed to dry an open wound like that, but she was hesitant to rub or even pat a bandage against that raw-looking skin. Air drying seemed the better option. She wandered back into her main room to get something to drink and wait for her hand to dry.

And anyway she'd left the ointment on the table.

She stopped at her bedroom door.

She'd also apparently left a fire-dragon slayer on her living room floor, an ice-alchemist stripper on her reading alcove rug, and a flying, talking cat on her couch. None of them had been there when she went to sleep.

Of course she had gone to bed very early. The sun was still in the process of setting when she shuttered her windows, if she remembered correctly. But she hadn't managed any sleep at all; how had she not heard them come in her house? And why did they stay?

And why were Natsu and Gray sleeping on the floor when she had chairs and a couch that was more than big enough for a person AND a cat?

There was no holding back the giant huuuuhha of a sigh at once again having her home invaded. She needed that ointment, but now she would feel guilty walking across the small distance from the bedroom to the kitchen, more than likely waking all three of them in the process.

Her hand gave a particularly big throb and she got over the guilt. They invaded her house. She was injured and just wanted to take care of herself. They could get over it or get out. Her preference being, at the moment, get out.

She stomped to her table, deciding to make it a point to wake them. As she was snatching the burn cream and fresh bandages from the table Gray and Natsu were stirring. Happy remained immobile.

"Luce," Natsu mumbled as he rubbed his eyes. "You smell bad."

"Wow, thanks. You come into my home without asking and then you insult me. That's just sooo sweet. Thanks Natsu." Sarcasm fell from her lips like small bombs and did nothing to alleviate the pain in her head or hand. In fact the anger raised her blood pressure actually making the pain worse.

"Lucy?" that was Gray. He was sitting up, and the sleep had left his voice completely. He sounded concerned.

She winced as she felt something like an ice pick being shoved behind her left eye. "Whatever," she muttered, scrunching up her face in a vain attempt to ward off the hurt, "just leave. Please."

"Lucy, what's wrong?" Gray again. The sound of his voice annoyed her. She only wanted new bandages and then to pass out as close to her mattress as possible. Was it really too much to ask for peace and quiet?

"Ung," she moaned as she walked, uncaring, back into her bedroom, slammed the door, and flopped on her bed. She didn't care. Stay, not stay. Just leave her alone. Lying in bed, she untwisted the cap on the tube of ointment and squeezed out enough to cover the raw flesh under her pinky finger. It tingled, but – like the water – it was cool and felt good.

This time she was more careful as she spread it around, and it didn't hurt her like it had the last time. The bandage still gave her problems. Doing it in the dark didn't make things any easier.

"Crap," she spat for the third time. It kept slipping. She wasn't holding on to it tight enough. And the cockeyed angle between the burn and her thumb wasn't making the job any easier.

"Luce, you really don't smell great. Are you sick? I sent Happy home in case you're sick, but are you?" The door cracked open, and she could see Natsu and Gray's silhouettes against the light of the outer room. Gray pushed past the dragon slayer and entered the room. He sat on the bed next to her and put a hand on her forehead.

"Lucy, you've got a fever."

"No, no; no fever," she told him weakly, unconsciously leaning into his cool, dry hand. "I have a burn, but I bandaged it, and I'm fine."

Then Natsu was beside them, curiosity writ across his face, "A burn?"

"Yeah, a burn. From the stove." She looked up at the two of them, both concerned, both caring, and she couldn't help the honest statement; "It hurts."

Natsu called up a fire around his hand to form a torch, and Lucy shrunk from him. It was instinct and residual fear from the fire that had harmed her earlier that day, but she felt guilty for the brief flash of pain she saw in his eyes. "Let me see, Luce."

"Why," she winced at the defiant note in her voice. Sometimes it was like she couldn't help but be stubborn and contradictory.

"Cuz Gray and me, we can make it better," Natsu answered with a big smile, like he didn't even notice her attitude. Which she knew he did.

She swallowed, bit the inside of her cheek, and gave it a moment's thought, but in the end there weren't really any worthy questions. She trusted and loved both of them. They wouldn't hurt her. She lifted her hand to show them the truly awful bandage, and Gray laughed.

"You suck at that!"

"Hey! I had to do it one handed with my bad hand! Give me a break!" He was still chuckling while he unwrapped the bandage, but the sound cut off when the bandage fell to the bed.

Both men hissed. "That's nasty, Lucy. Second degree at least. How did it happen?" She explained as Gray passed her hand to Natsu and put his own hands on her temples. She heard the crackle of frost and the sharp taste of freezing air as his hands went cold around her head. It felt wonderful.

And distracted her from the amazingly troubling sensation of Natsu's tongue on her hand. She tried to jerk upright, but Gray held her in place. "Oh my god, what are you doing?"

"I'm eating the burn. It's not fire, but it's a product of fire. It's kinda like … kinda like licking the bowl after the food's all gone. I guess."

"It's so nasty. Stop! Stop!" She wiggled and squeezed her eyes tight. She bit her lip and tried not to cry while thinking of the ointment and the pus and the raw layers of muscle and skin that the burn had laid bare. "Please stop. You don't have to do this."

"We don't like it when you're hurt, Lucy. Don't worry." Gray touched the corners of her eyes, freezing the tears there and wiping them away before returning his hands to her temples. He then slid them to the crown of her head. Around the back. To her neck and shoulders, massaging them gently.

Then back to her temples.

The pain was almost completely gone. She wanted to cry again, but this time for a different reason.

"You've helped to take care of both of us whenever we've been sick. It's only right that we do this."

"But it was a popped blister," she whispered at the dark-haired mage, doing everything she could to ignore the feeling of Natsu's tongue. "And I think it was infected. It smelled funny..."

"But now it's fine," Natsu said handing her arm back to Gray. "I got all the heat out, but you might numb it just for the hell of it. She'll sleep better that way." The sparkle and taste of frost filled the air around her again, and she lost all sensation in her hand.

"Thank you," she told them, still a little embarrassed but genuinely pleased at the lack of pain.

"You should sleep," Gray said, removing his hands from her head, while Natsu nodded. She mouthed 'okay' without actually saying the word and closed her eyes. She might have kept them closed, might have gone to sleep, if it weren't for the shifting of the mattress and the lifting of her bedsheets.

"What?" she said, once again startled out of her sleepy haze. They had crawled into bed with her, one on each side. Gray – she wasn't entirely sure because she was board straight and not moving – might very well have been completely nude, and Natsu – at the very least – had removed his vest.

At one point or another she'd spent time in a bed or sleeping roll with both of them. But never at once. And something about this felt different. This whole day had felt different, but this … this really felt weird.

"So Luce," Natsu said, as he tucked his face into the dent in the pillow by her ear; she shivered, "what if we were to tell you a secret?"

Her eyes went wide, and she turned her head to look at Gray, who had snaked his arm across her midsection to grasp her bandaged hand. Keeping it cool … or just to hold her hand?

"Whu-what kind of secret?" she swallowed. What was going on here? Her stomach was in knots and her breathing was shallow. Something was about to happen.

"Well, the thing is Lucy, we both like you. A lot." Gray shifted at her side, and she very clearly felt his bare thigh brush hers. It was if her brain rerouted all nerve power to that one spot. A flush swept over her.

"What?"

"And we thought," Natsu continued, "that we'd fight. You know. To see which of us gotta try to be with you. But we fought, and ..." she felt him shrug.

"Neither of us won."

"We talked about just saying and letting you make the decision, but we couldn't decide if it was fair or not, ya know? Because you're nice, and we were afraid that you wouldn't want to hurt us."

"You might worry about how it would affect the team."

"It would affect the team," she insisted, though she still wasn't fully caught up on the liking and fighting and all the rest.

"Then we came up with an even better idea," Natsu said. She felt him smile against her cheek. She shivered again.

They were quiet. The atmosphere in the dark room was heavy. They pressed on her with their silence and their bodies and their … their 'like'. Her lip was trembling, but she could not name the emotion that moved her.

Gray shook her hand, giving great concern to the injury, "Aren't you going to ask us what the idea is?"

"What?" She was beginning to feel some concern over her extreme lack of vocabulary.

"Instead of you and me or you and Natsu. Why not all three of us? We're a team, after all, and we love you."

"And you love us."

"I never said...!" she sputtered at Natsu, but he was grinning and so was Gray.

"Don't be upset, Luce. This way we can all be happy." She felt his warm lips on her shoulder, and then Gray's on her cheek.

Blinking back tears she lifted her hands to cover her face. "You want … the three of us... the three of us to be a couple?" She reconsidered. "A … a trio I mean? A group? What would you even call that?"

They were both laughing again. "I think you call it a threesome," Gray said, as close to her left ear as Natsu was to her right.

She shivered again, but tried to shake off the all too pleasant feelings they were managing to stir in her. "Don't laugh! This is … I never expected … I mean, this isn't normal! What girl grows up wanting -"

"What does normal and not normal matter, Luce?" Natsu pushed up so he could look at her face in the dark. "Do you love us? Or do you only love one of us?"

"Neither of us?" and there was something like fear or despair in Gray's question.

"N-no, that's not it. It's that. I just never thought. Of course I love you both. M-maybe I always have, but how is this really supposed to work. What you're suggesting... you two fight all the time! And you're proposing sharing me. It'll lead to fights! And that will be awful.

"Why can't we just stay as we are?"

"Things change sometimes Lucy, and well … we like to fight. But us fighting has never made us … we're still both Fairy Tail mages. We don't give up what we care about just because we both care about it."

"How about we sleep, and you decide tomorrow, eh?" Natsu was still smiling above her. He leaned down and kissed her, his lips soft and warm. The kiss wasn't long, but it was long enough that she arched her neck in longing when he removed his mouth from hers.

Then Gray was there to take that desire, his cool mouth soothing. His tongue gentle.

They both draped arms over her and curled around her, and she realized:

Cold on one side, hot on the other, the temperature leveled out to something very nearly perfect. And with both of them there beside her, the blankets hovered over her, no longer clinging at her neck and ankles.

Their combined embrace softened her heart.

Fire was dangerous, but she had someone who could control it and another someone who could counter it; didn't that make her safe?

She smiled and closed her eyes. She wouldn't need to decide in the morning. She had already made up her mind. Once again her thoughts, and then her dreams, swirled with one word, one idea, but this time it was not pain.

Not even close to pain.

Author's Note: For all the non-traditional romances out there. Because sometimes love doesn't follow the old stereotypes. Hope you enjoyed. Please leave a review.