Snow drifted from the evening sky, covering the icy streets of Magnolia. Cold permeated the living quarters of the town's residents, who hunkered in warm beds and listened to the groaning of their furnaces—except for one unfortunate celestial spirit mage. The last three nights, she had rubbed her feet together, hoping the friction would provide some kind of warmth. For the three hundred and seventy-second time, the blonde cursed her volatile apartment heater—which had sputtered its dying breath a week before. And for the four hundred and thirty-eighth time, she cursed her landlady for vacationing at the hot springs—which meant the furnace would remain broken until after said vacation.
"Only two more days," Lucy reminded herself, rubbing away the goosebumps on her arms. "Just two more days suffering through this frigid hell."
So could anyone blame her if she seized the opportunity of a personal heater in the form of one fire dragon slayer? On any other day, she would have thrown him out faster than Happy could say "aye". But the moment she spied his pink hair through her bedroom window, she sacrificed what little heat remained in her apartment to all but drag the unsuspecting boy through.
The blonde was grateful that her teammate didn't ask questions as she ordered him to stay on her bed, but not to get any "funny ideas". He merely shrugged and followed her demands. The fire mage promptly fell asleep, not even teasing his nakama on her hatred of the cold as she pressed against him for full access to his radiating warmth. Even if he had, Lucy would have just slugged him.
Feet finally warm, the celestial spirit mage closed her eyes and prepared to drift off to slumberland…
—ZzzZZzz…
Lucy's eyes snapped open. Either a possessed lawn mower had snuck into her room or...Natsu was snoring.
ZZZzzZZZ...
Loudly.
The blonde was exhausted, but the snoring that assaulted her ears was enough to drive away any hope of falling asleep.
Lucy was torn. Either she could kick Natsu out of her apartment and lose her personal heater, or hope sleep would come despite the atrocious sounds reverberating through her apartment. Deciding on the latter, the blonde tried to fall asleep once again.
She lasted about three minutes.
"Hey!" she whispered loudly. "Natsu!"
The snoring stopped. "W-what? Happy's not my chew toy..."
Lucy stored that comment for blackmail at a later date. "I have a small favor to ask."
"Wazzit?" fhe fire mage asked groggily.
"Could you stop snoring?"
"I don't...snore..." zzzZZZ...
The celestial spirit mage tried to count sheep to block out the irritating sound. One sheep, two sheep, ZzZ, three, four, five, ZZZzz... Okay, not working. How about one exceed, two exceed, zeeeEECH, three, four, aye...
ZZZZZZ
Smack!
Natsu jumped. "Oi! What was that for, Luce?"
"I was hoping to knock the snoring out of you," the blonde quipped, primly smoothing her abused pillow.
The salmon-haired dragon slayer yawned loudly, incisors fully visible. "You're insane, Luce. Dragons don't snore." Natsu turned over, eyes already closed. "Night..." zzz
Lucy groaned. At the rate this was going, she would get no rest.
Trying to find an alternative, the blonde quickly dismissed every idea that came to her. Sleeping anywhere else (including the bathtub and couch) would mean braving the hypothermic atmosphere of her apartment and suffer an aching, frozen body the next day as a reward. Throwing Natsu out the window was counterproductive as well.
The celestial spirit mage lost track of how many times she'd begin to drift off to sleep before another snore brought her back to reality. She tossed and turned, praying that the man would shut up soon. Even her pillow was useless against the locomotive horn beside her.
ZZZ-Zzzz-ZZzzz-hngGGggh-Ppbhww-zZZzzzZZ . . .
What. The. Heck.
Groaning, the blonde resigned herself to her fate. She would not be getting any sleep that night. The pillow around her head would just have to suffice.
Slowly, Lucy succumbed to her exhaustion. As the blonde slipped into oblivion, she missed the grin adorning the face of her juvenile best friend.
Natsu usually woke shortly before dawn. It was more out of habit since his childhood training with Igneel would last from sunrise to sunset. The real question was how long it would take before he felt the necessity to get out of bed.
He found it especially difficult to leave Lucy's awesomely soft mattress. He was convinced it had some kind of magical properties to have such a powerful hold over him. Or maybe it was because he had the unique opportunity to listen to the blonde as she talked in her sleep—something he discovered soon after routinely sharing her bed.
As he watched the sun peak over Magnolia's hills, Natsu didn't have to wait long before his partner began to mumble sleepily. His grin widened when he made out a couple of phrases that she said.
A few moments later, the blonde yawned and opened her eyes.
"Mornin' sleepyhead," Natsu greeted cheerfully. "Have any good dreams?"
Lucy groaned, her bleary eyes making it difficult to glare at the dragon slayer. "Kind of hard for someone to have dreams if said person can't sleep."
Natsu blinked innocently. "You couldn't sleep last night? How come, Luce?"
"Your obnoxious snoring kept me awake all night," she muttered.
"Dragons don't snore," Natsu deadpanned. "They have throaty roars. Helps them to clear the sinuses and renew the throat canal."
Lucy stared. "I'm inclined to call out one of my spirits to punish you for lying."
"But it's the truth!"
"And this trait just happened to make an appearance after countless times you've hijacked my bed?"
"Uhhhh...yeah?"
"Natsu..." the woman growled.
"What? You could have called that clock guy if you really thought it was too loud."
The blonde blinked. How on Earthland did she not think of that? Stupid, stupid, stupid...
"Luce?" the fire mage called. "You can stop smacking your head now."
Wham!
"Do you store bricks in that pillow?" Natsu whined, gingerly rubbing his twice bruised nose. Lucy felt no need to reply as she braced herself for leaving the confines of her warm bed.
"Wait! I wanna know who was trying to get you pregnant."
The blonde looked flabbergasted. "Excuse me?"
"Just before you woke up, you yelled, 'I don't want to be pregnant. You can't make me.' Who were you talking to?"
From that day on, Natsu began to understand Lucy's fascination with pillows as weapons. But seeing Lucy's blush and hearing her angry stutters—something about a chew toy?—totally made up for it.
He never did find out who was trying to make Lucy pregnant.
Disclaimer: Fairy Tail belongs to Hiro Mashima.