"Waaaah! Natsu what are you doing?!" Lucy cried as soon as she stepped foot into her apartment after getting back from the guild one evening. This guy just barges in whenever he wants.

"Yo, Lucy! I was just looking for something to do," Natsu greeted as he stood up from her 'To Read' pile of books. Happy wasn't with him, and he had a large towel on his head, with drops of water beaded in his hair. The section of hair he usually kept out of his face had fallen across his forehead. Some of the water was dripping down his perfectly shaped cheekbones…

She mentally slapped herself. Stop it Lucy! Bad girl! She tried to ignore the way her heart was pounding loud enough to wake up the entire city.

"You don't just go looking through people's stuff! Get away from it!" she scolded, blushing. Erza had put a few books in there, and Erza wasn't known for reading anything PG. Natsu ignored her.

"What's this?" he asked, picking up a pink book that Lucy didn't remember being in the stack. Forgetting her annoyance, she moved closer and saw that it was titled "Vegrandis Amator."

"I don't know," Lucy answered, surprised. How had that gotten there?

Natsu opened it up. "Well, it has your name in it, Luce."

"Really? But I never…" this was getting creepy, fast. He turned the page.

There was a brilliant flash of pink light, and it dropped to the floor. Natsu had disappeared. "Natsu?!"

"Yeah, Lucy? Did you turn off the lights or something?" she heard his voice, though it was in the higher timbre of a young boy. "I can't see anything."

"Where are you?" the blonde looked around, not seeing any sign of him.

" I didn't move, Lucy. You mind getting this blanket off me?! It's not funny!" she heard his voice come from below her. Looking down, she immediately fell on her butt and scrambled backwards.

"Something moved!" she yelled, pointing. There was a damp hand towel on the ground, with a distinctly human-like shape struggling beneath it.

"What's moving?" she heard him again, and the thing stopped moving. "Are you okay? You sound like you're freaking out."

The startled blonde didn't answer. She was too busy slowly sneaking up on the now unmoving towel. She carefully grabbed a corner, and took out Virgo's key. Taking a deep breath, she whipped the towel off the floor, pointing Virgo's key at the creature. She dropped the poor towel on the floor.

"Oh, I can see. Whoa, I don't remember you getting this fat, Lucy!" Natsu was… tiny. The size of a child, small enough to pick up, but big enough to reach her knees. He looked to be around three or four years old. At least his clothing had shrunk with him. She stared in pure shock. And then she processed what he just said.

"I'M NOT FAT, DUMMY!" the enraged blonde cried out as a tick mark appeared on her forehead. "YOU JUST SHRUNK!"

Natsu seemed to look around, taking in the fact that he was only a child. "Crap! Now Gray has an advantage!"

Lucy sweatdropped. "Is that all you think about?"

He turned away from her slightly, hand rubbing the back of his neck. "No."

"Well, that's good," Lucy gulped. He was adorable. She just wanted to pick him up and squeeze him.

"Oi, Lucy! Let me goooo!" Natsu whined. "I can't breath!"

"Eh?" Lucy realized that she was, in fact, holding him tightly to her chest. She decided to go with the flow. "Mwahahahaha! No way, you're just too cute like this!"

"Waaaah!" he cried, struggling in her grasp. "Lemme go Lucy!"

"Awwww, you're no fun," she joked as she nuzzled him against her cheek before setting him back down on the ground. He huffed and glared at her, but she just laughed at him.

"So what're we gonna do about you being… tiny?" Lucy asked him. He raised an eyebrow.

"I thought you were the one with all the plans," he said. "So come up with something."

"Well, we could go to the gui-" she started with a mischievous glint in her eyes.

"NO WAY IN HELL AM I GONNA LET THAT ICY BASTARD SEE ME LIKE THIS!" Natsu interrupted her. Lucy threw her hands up in an exasperated way.

"We don't have many options, Natsu. It's that or I take you to Porlyusica," Lucy threatened, standing over him in a menacing way. He cringed down even smaller.

"Tch. Like that Ice Princess could beat me if he tried anyway," he muttered. Yes, he gave up!

"Come on then," and she promptly picked him up, resting him on her hip like she would to a toddler.

"Oi! I ain't a baby!" he protested, but thankfully didn't struggle.

"Actually, you are. Don't whine, you're getting a free ride," she grumbled, picking up her purse and looping it over her shoulder. "Let's go."

oOo

They got a lot of stares. Lucy didn't blame them, of course. A wizard from Fairy Tail walking down the street with her miniaturized best friend on her hip? Lucy would've given them a second glance too. But all the attention was making her nervous. It didn't help that Natsu had started hiding his face in her shoulder.

"Would you stop that?" she hissed to him.

He glanced up at her. "I'm afraid that if I have to look at anyone, I'll have to punch them in the face."

A tick mark appeared on her forehead. "Why on Earthland would you need to do that?"

"Because they'll laugh," he said softly. Lucy sucked in a breath. She could count the number of times Natsu had shown his insecurities to her on one hand. Maybe his young age was starting to affect him.

"They won't laugh at you," she comforted. He relaxed slightly, and removed his face from her shoulder to stare up at her face. Lucy bit her lip and looked straight ahead. He really was too cute.

"Okay," he stated simply. He didn't hide his face in her shoulder again, instead opting to look around while she walked.

They reached the guild shortly after. Right before she opened the door, she set Natsu down one that ground, knowing that he didn't want his guild mates seeing him being carried around like a little kid. What he did do was tug the bottom of her skirt in a don't-you-dare-leave-my-side kind of way.

She pushed open the door, and with mini Natsu trailing behind, she headed over to Levy's table. "Hey Levy!"

Levy looked up from the book she was reading. "Oh, hey Lucy. Hey Nat- NATSU?!"

"What's up Levy?" He asked miserably.

"What happened?!" Levy exclaimed, drawing the attention of nearby guild members. "You look at least ten years younger!"

"It was Lucy's fault. She wouldn't play with me so I had no choice," he replied. Lucy stiffened.

"Why are you blaming me?! I told you not to look through my books!" She defended. Levy looked interested.

"Books? So that's what caused this?" Levy asked. Lucy nodded. "Can I see it?"

Lucy face palmed. "I think I left it at my house! I'm so sorry Levy, why don't you just come over for dinner, then we can eat and discuss."

"Sure, I can do that," Levy smiled at them. Something tugged on Lucy's skirt. She looked down to see a bored Natsu looking up at her. Lucy rolled her eyes.

"Well Levy, I should get going. See you around 7?" She asked, reading Natsu's expression.

"Sure thing," Levy waved to them as Lucy and Natsu headed back out the door.

Lucy didn't pick him up again, as Natsu was just holding onto the trim of her skirt. Why was he being so clingy all of a sudden? Not that she minded. It felt nice to know that someone wanted to be around her so much. Especially Natsu.

"I need to buy food," she muttered. "Do you mind going shopping with me, Natsu?"

He grinned up at her. "Sure! I'm hungry, so we can eat while we're shopping, right?"

"Sure," the blonde's heart melted down into her feet. She looked away from him to hide the blush spreading across her cheeks.

Agh just TAKE IT!

Sorry for taking so long to update, I've had a lot of exams and finals.

~"When you look at the dark side, careful you must be... for the dark side looks back."~

-Tokyo Ghoul