A Touch of Randomness
Everything started when Lucy walked into the guild, calmly strolled up to Freed, and smacked the Rune Wizard across the face with the fish that no one had noticed her holding.
The Celestial Spirit Wizard turned on her heel and, ignoring the demands about what the heck she thought she was doing from the rest of the Thunder God Tribe and giving the fish to a confused Happy, strolled back out of the guild as calm as could be.
It was eerily quiet for several moments while everyone else in the guild tried to process what had just happened and Freed stood up from where he had been knocked on his butt by the unexpected fish-slap. Surprisingly, the enchanter just dusted off the seat of pants and, acting as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened, continued his conversation with a bemused Laxus where he'd left off. Only the slight red mark on his cheek from the fish confirmed for the stunned guild members that what they had seen had indeed happened.
Although wondering what in Mavis' name was going on, the guild slowly returned to its' normal rowdy state since Freed wasn't mentioning it, even as everyone, especially Laxus, Bixlow, Evergreen, and the other members of Team Natsu wondered what all that was about. Before the day was over, everyone had pretty much forgotten about it when Natsu and Gajeel got into another fight and the entire guild joined the ensuing brawl.
The next several days saw more strange behavior after the initial action by the blonde, on both Lucy's and Freed's part, including Lucy entering the guild with her hair turned bright pink, Freed getting a bucket of white paint dumped on his head, Lucy finding all of her clothes were suddenly a size too small, and many other pranks. By the end of the first week, everyone in the guild was pretty much wondering if Lucy and Freed had gone insane, as when either of them walked into the guild after one of the random occurrences, they always acted as if everything was completely normal.
Lucy would somehow switch all of Freed's clothes with plaid replicas; Freed would retaliate by using some creative means to make Lucy smell like a mixture of barbeque and fish (Natsu and Happy had followed her around for the entire day until it wore off). It just went back and forth, and there was always one prank pulled per day, usually involving something in the privacy of the two pranksters' residences. Still, there were some occasions when the guild got to see either a prank or behavior on one of their parts that left everyone there completely baffled i.e. Freed would abruptly pour his drink over Lucy's head, or Lucy would tape a 'Kick Me' sign to Freed's back – and half of the guild would gladly oblige.
What freaked everyone out the most, however, was the way that the two of them would do all of that with such straight faces.
Seriously, even when one of them did something to the other in full view of the guild, they were always completely calm, if a little surprised, and that just made other guild members freak out (Erza and the other girls had started looking into Mind Control magic and ways to tell if someone was being controlled). When the second week of the pair's strange behavior rolled around, pretty much the entire Fairy Tail guild was at their wits' end with wondering what the hell was going on with the Celestial Spirit wizard and Rune-magic wizard.
On day 18 of what the guild had declared 'the-month-Lucy-and-Freed-went-crazy', Lucy walked into the guild with her face painted a bizarre mix of magenta and periwinkle blue and carrying a fish in one hand. A fish which with no warning whatsoever abruptly made contact with Freed's face, though on the opposite cheek this time.
And their guildmates were abruptly reminded of what had apparently started the whole thing.
"What the fuck is the matter with you two?!"
Freed blinked, Lucy following suit as the former rubbed his cheek ruefully and they both stared at Bixlow, the one who had finally cracked and asked/shouted the question that the entire guild had been wondering. The rest of Fairy Tail stared at them with wide eyes and bated breath. They all wanted to know the answer to that too, apparently…
The blonde girl and green-haired man turned their heads to look at each other for a moment, and to everyone's shock they both burst out laughing. All the guild-members watched as Lucy and Freed had a fit of hysterics right there in the guildhall, Lucy practically shrieking with laughter while Freed had to clutch the side of a table for support as he doubled over in laughter. Both of them had tears in their eyes as they laughed, and everyone else was just confused as all hell.
Makarov, from his position sitting on the bar, turned to look at the wide-eyed Mirajane and asked her, "Did you perhaps spike their drinks? Or serve them any questionable food items?" His answer was a shake of the silver-haired woman's head as she continued watching Fairy Tail's Celestial Spirit Wizard and Rune Wizard laugh like crazy.
Lucy had fallen to the floor by then, sitting on her butt and curled into a giggling ball as she hiccupped, arms crossed beneath her chest as she laughed, her face returning to its' normal color while she did so. For his part, Freed was clutching his ribs with one hand while he gripped the table with the other hand, alternating between laughing and snickering as he cried tears of laughter. Both of them were wheezing for breath after five minutes, and the two wizards barely managed to get themselves under control a few minutes later.
Smiling, a few giggles and snickers randomly escaping, Lucy held out her hand towards Freed and crowed triumphantly, "Ha! I knew it! Pay up, Freed." The blonde was beaming as Freed rolled his eyes, pulled out his wallet, and lightly slapped several Jewel notes into her slim hand.
As the green-haired enchanter pocketed his wallet, he noted the stunned, confused, and all-around bewildered looks on the faces of his fellow guild-members, and he smirked as he explained, "Ah, Lucy bet me that Bixlow would be the first one to actually ask us what was going on, while I guessed Natsu, and as you can see she won."
"Seriously, what the fuck is going on?" Laxus asked, a perplexed look on his face, and the expression was so out of place that both wizards laughed for several more minutes.
"It was something Freed and I came up with while we were bored; it was mostly just something to do for a change of pace and to see how creative we could get. We decided to pull tricks on each other and otherwise act as random as possible and see how long it took someone to ask us what was wrong with us or something along those lines." Lucy explained in between her giggles.
Freed picked up where she left off, "We set some rules, of course. The tricks could only affect either Lucy or me, depending on whose turn it was, and the results could only last a day."
A moment of silence through the guild, and surprisingly Gray was the first to break the silence by asking, "…What do you mean by 'whose turn'?"
Lucy answered, "We took turns pulling pranks – didn't you notice that only one of us had dyed hair or something wrong with our clothes at a time? The way it worked was that one of us would start it off, which I did-"
"Getting slapped in the face with a fish hurts," Freed interjected ruefully as he gently rubbed his still-red cheek.
"And then Freed would counter, and then I would do something to him, and so on and so on until someone asked us what was up." Lucy finished with a bright grin, cheerfully counting out the Jewels in her hand.
There was silence as everyone digested the fact that two of the sanest wizards in the guild had apparently conspired to mess with everyone else. Slowly, a low chuckle became audible from where Gajeel was sitting next to Levy as the Iron Dragonslayer started laughing, and soon everyone else slowly joined in on the mirth as the information settled in.
As Lucy and Freed smiled at each, laughing once again as they enjoyed the success of their joke, everyone thought at the exact same moment:
'Only in Fairy Tail!'
Author's Note: And that just goes to show that even the sanest in Fairy Tail enjoy messing with people once in awhile! :D I basically wrote this to clear out a plot bunny and experiment with writing Lucy and Freed, so I'm curious as to how you all think I did. As always, constructive criticism is welcome, so please review and tell me what you think!