Hi...? So, heeey. This is my first Fairy Tail fic, but not really my first fic. ...Yeah. Sorry for any mistakes in this one! And sorry if they seem...OOC or something. But yeah. I hope you'll like this. :)
Oh, yeah. HEADS UP! There's some minor (and maybe major? Depends on how you see it) spoilers for the Key of the Starry Sky and Phantom Lord arcs (the former is present only in the anime). So, that's all. Enjoy!
DEDICATION: This is to my real-life friends, Seirah and Kathryn (not their real names lol).
DISCLAIMER: I don't own Fairy Tail. It rightfully belongs to Hiro Mashima.
Lucy Heartfilia has never been fond of lightning and thunder.
Every time she hears or sees it—during a thunderstorm or whatever—the celestial wizard wants to roll up in a ball or lock up in a cupboard or her closet. She just hates them with a passion.
Ever since the time after her mother's burial, when she spent the afternoon under the rain and eventually left Michelle—in her original doll form—alone, she'd long been afraid of not the rain, but rather the lightning and thunder.
Right now, Magnolia was experiencing one of its strongest thunderstorms in the past two decades. The blonde covered herself up with her thickest blanket, her ears guarded by her pillows. The lightning that struck every now and then illuminated the now-dark room. Sure, she had candles and match sticks somewhere in her apartment—maybe in her kitchen?—but Lucy was too damn scared to move from her place. Also, she felt really numb from the cold air coming in from the window Natsu and Happy usually use.
She sighed. I wish Natsu was here to warm me up, Lucy thought. She suddenly stiffened because of that inner musing.
"What the hell, Lucy. Just shut up," she chastised herself. After a long period of self-silence, she added, "But it would be nice to have my personal heater…"
Lightning shot from the distance and the sky rumbled, rain continued falling down hard.
"Kyaaaaaaa~!" she squealed and tightened her grip on the blanket. Apparently, the pillows over her ears were of no use. Why, oh, why did she lose her music lacrima, just when it was needed the most?
Deciding that she needed at least some warmth, she unraveled the covers over her body and removed the pillows from her ears. Slowly she got off her safe haven—meaning, her bed. Lucy tiptoed to the kitchen, legs slightly trembling from the previous phobia attacks. She danced in victory when she finally reached the kitchen.
Opening one of her drawers, the wizard got two candles and a box of matches. She also retrieved the handy baseball bat she always kept behind the refrigerator, as a weapon of some sort. (Of course, she still has her keys and whip, but now, a baseball bat is the weapon of choice for her.)
She tiptoed again, returning to her trusty and comfy bed. But, when she was by the kitchen-and-bedroom divider, something happened. And by something, it meant lightning and thunder. The loudest and strongest of the night.
Lucy jumped and shouted in shock and fear. She started to cry and curl up on the floor; the candles, matches, and bat temporarily forgotten.
She didn't want this cursed phobia. She didn't want to spend her alone time—her only time away from her destructive teammates—crying and, well, acting like a kid instead of a seventeen-year-old woman.
Oh, grow up, Lucy! Her inner self said. What if someone sees you like that?
"Psh. Like someone would break in my house in the middle of the storm," she muttered to herself.
The blonde took deep breaths, trying to calm herself down. When she finally got over her panic attack, she stood up slowly and got the discarded items. Once again, she tiptoed for the rest of the distance to her bed. And, for the third time that night, Lucy screamed.
Natsu didn't feel well.
No, it wasn't motion sickness or any of the sorts. It was like someone he cared about was in danger.
It was like the feeling he had when Lucy was caught by Phantom Lord and during the fight for the Infinity Clock. It was strange, though, because the Fire Dragon Slayer knew that his Lucy is in her apartment, probably resting. His Lucy isn't in danger.
But why was he feeling that way?
Shaking his head to clear out his thoughts, Natsu turned to the window next to his hammock. Rain continued pouring down, obviously not wanting to stop just yet. Streaks of lightning struck here and there, and thunder occasionally boomed in the sky. He suddenly wanted to go to the apartment on Strawberry Street, just to see if his partner is, indeed, safe. But the rain made it difficult for him to do so.
But, hey! Natsu Dragneel is a Fairy Tail wizard, and Fairy Tail wizards don't give up easily.
Natsu, now with a newfound determination, hollered out an "I'm going out!" to his Exceed, Happy, and raced to Lucy's apartment, despite the strong rain.
Natsu thanked all things that are holy—and Igneel, too—for granting him the unusually warm body of a Fire Dragon Slayer.
The wind blowing at him was cold, and the rain was almost like ice falling on him. But still, he made his way to the celestial wizard's apartment.
Passing by the bridge near her home, he saw the brightest streak of lightning strike down from the sky, and thunder resounded very loudly. He cursed and ran faster, lighting his elbows on fire to serve as boosters.
Finally, he appeared in front of Lucy's apartment. He turned towards his usual entrance—the window. Looking inside, he didn't see Lucy on her bed or anywhere near it. The only sign that Lucy was there before was the unmade bed. Natsu then decided to enter the room, but dried himself off first, using his very useful and handy Fire Dragon Slaying powers, because he didn't want his partner getting angry at him for making her apartment wet.
Due to his enhanced hearing, as soon as he stepped inside, he heard soft crying. Natsu also smelled the salty tears mixed with strawberries and vanilla—Lucy's scent.
The dragon slayer sighed in relief. At least she's still here. But why is she crying?
He began to move towards the source of the sound, focused on knowing what, or probably who, made the blonde cry. And because of his concentration, Natsu became oblivious to Lucy's movements. She was now moving back to her bed, holding some candles and a box of matches in one hand, and a baseball bat on the other.
Lucy, however, noticed the movements that came from her room. Her right hand tightened on the baseball bat, ready to swing at whoever is inside her house. As she prodded closer to the doorway, a figure suddenly appeared, almost bumping her.
"Aaaaaahhhh!" Lucy shrieked and swung her bat at the intruder.
The figure groaned in pain. "Ouch, Luce. So, this is your new welcoming act for me? Though, I admit, I like the Lucy Kick way more."
Obviously, said figure was a man. He scratched his head, half in pain, and half in amusement.
Wait, Lucy realized, did he just say 'Luce'? So, this guy is…
"Natsu? What are you doing here? You almost scared me to death!" she exclaimed.
"What? No 'hi Natsu!' or 'I'm so glad to see you here!'?" the pinkette asked in a teasing way.
The girl had a… Well, she wore no expression on her face. "Tell me this, Dragneel. If you were inside your freakishly dark apartment with no light anywhere and there's a very strong thunderstorm happening outside, then someone decides to barge in your house, would you welcome them happily?"
The dragon slayer stared blankly at her, completely confused.
"Okay, then. Never mind that," she sighed in exasperation. There's no use trying with this dense idiot. "So, where's Happy?"
Natsu scratched the back of his head and chuckled sheepishly. "Hehe…you see…I left him alone at home…?" he said, ending his statement with a questioning tone. He knew Lucy was against leaving the blue Exceed alone anywhere (she acted like she was Happy's overly protective mother), so he was nervous to how she would react now.
The blonde opened her mouth to reprimand him about leaving the poor cat alone, but decided against it, since she was not really in the mood for doing it.
"Anyway, back to my original question. What are you doing here?" she enunciated every word slowly, as if talking to a child.
"Umm…because I-um, I wanted t-to…um, check o-on you…b-because I thought you were in danger or something." He started off with a loud stuttering voice and ended his sentence with a soft, almost inaudible whisper.
Oh, man, Lucy chuckled inwardly, a stuttering Natsu! This is great teasing material!
"Did you just say you came to check on me because you thought I was in danger?" she repeated, pushing aside her thoughts about teasing Natsu for another day.
A sound of agreement—and embarrassment, maybe—came out from the boy's mouth. He hid his face behind his scarf, trying to hide his presently warm face, but it was of no use since the room was already dark; he was very grateful for that.
On the other hand, Lucy was trying to stifle her giggles. In no way was she in danger! Sure, she had her panic attacks, but that was far away from what Natsu considered as dangerous.
Then, she couldn't hold it in anymore. The blonde laughed loudly, shocking the boy in front of her. Natsu certainly didn't think of receiving that reaction from her, considering he just said probably the most idiotic statements of all idiotic statements of a certain Natsu Dragneel. And that was saying something.
"Um, Luce…? Are you okay? You're being weird again," he commented. Now, he really wanted to punch himself on the face. He wasn't so sure about the reason, though.
Lucy wiped imaginary tears of joy from her eyes. She calmed herself down before replying, "Hey, I'm not the one who ran through a thunderstorm just to check on my partner who is clearly not in danger. What made you think of that anyway?"
He shrugged. "Dunno. It was like during the Infinity Clock incident, y'know? When you were being sucked by that fish castle-clock-thingy. That's why I went here."
The celestial mage was in between feeling touched with the gesture and wanting to smack the boy really hard on the head because seriously, she was not a freaking damsel in distress, goddamnit. When will her dense, idiotic but sweet and caring partner-slash-best friend understand that?
She exhaled a long, deep breath. "Natsu," she started, "seriously. I. Am. Not. In. Danger. I'm pretty sure you're the one who might be in danger once you run under the rain aga—AAAHHHH!"
Here we go again, Lucy said internally while she covered her head with her arms. Just when I was about to say an awesome speech about danger, this happens.
The pink-haired boy jumped in shock when Lucy simultaneously shrieked with the boom of thunder and lightning. Natsu was trying to connect the two happenings together.
One second. Two seconds. Three. Four. Five.
"OH. OH OKAY. I KNOW NOW," he suddenly exclaimed, now knowing why Lucy had screamed. "YOU'RE SCARED OF THE SUDDEN LIGHT, AREN'T YOU?!"
Lucy slapped his shoulder. "Idiot! I am not!" And here I thought he'd be able to at least know my current weakness…
"Lushy~ I was just joking!" he said amusedly, grinning at her even though she couldn't really see it. "I know that you're really afraid of the lightning and thunder!"
"Why, you little… JUST ANNOUNCE IT TO THE WHOLE CITY, WON'T YOU?!" Lucy practically shouted.
And Natsu, being the obedient idiot he is, walked to the window and put his face out, getting ready to do what Lucy said. "HEY PEOPLE OF MAGNOLIA DO YOU KNOW THAT ONE OF LUCY HEARTFILIA'S WEAKNESSES IS—WHAT THE HELL, LUCY. STOP BITING MY ARM, DAMMIT."
"Ah lung ah yoo stahp dat." That meant 'as long as you stop that' in Lucy's arm-biting language.
"I don't even understand what you're saying!" Natsu shouted. "Stop biting me, your weirdness is going to my body!" He tried to remove Lucy's teeth from him, but she just gripped the other sides of his arm with her hands.
Weird, huh, Lucy smirked evilly to herself and bit deeper. She was pretty certain that there was already some blood she could taste. The blonde could care less, though. She wanted revenge, and she will make sure that she will get it.
The dragon slayer shouted in pain and staggered sideward, shaking his arm to unlatch Lucy's mouth and hands from it, but to no avail. As he continued to shake and move around the room, he bumped against one of the bedposts, causing him—and Lucy—to fall down on the bed. She stopped biting just in time to avoid hitting her head on the wooden edge; though, she fell on top of her pink-headed best friend, who wrapped his arms around her waist on impulse.
Lucy's cheeks started to heat up due to their close proximity. (Sure, she'd been hugged by Natsu lots of times, but those were different…or that's what she thinks.) Her heart beat three times faster than normal, and she's certain that her palms were already sweating.
Natsu, though, acted like this wasn't affecting him at all—which was half-true, because of his and Lucy's constant hugs, not to mention the times he had caught her when she fell (which had happened several times). The only telltale sign that he truly was affected by this was the slight blush that powdered his cheeks.
Lucy was about to get off her friend, but, unfortunately (or fortunately?), she saw a streak of lightning, so she squeaked and rested her head on his chest, eyes closed.
She took handfuls of his vest and gripped them tightly, thinking, Such is the luck of somebody like myself. Too many events happening in one day, and I'm not liking any of them.
In return, Natsu hugged her tighter, putting his right hand on her head in a comforting yet protective manner.
"Shh, Luce…" he muttered. "It's okay."
Oh, how badly did Lucy want to tell him that no, it's not okay, as long as I still have this annoying phobia, it's not okay! She decided against it, though; instead, she forced herself to calm down and just feel relaxed. Well…she already did feel kind of relaxed, with her partner hugging her like a protective father and all.
"Um, h-hey, Natsu…" her still-shaking voice said after moments of silence. "You c-can let go of me…now…"
"Why?" Natsu almost whined. Just when he was enjoying their moment—er, their silence. Yes, the silence was very nice.
"Because I'm going to sleep."
"So?"
"I can't really go to sleep in this position, you know."
Natsu was still confused. "What's your point?"
Lucy sighed. "Well, for starters, you're hugging me. Second, I'm on top of you. Third, this is a really bad position for me to sleep in."
"But, Lucy," he said, "I always hug you when I sleep in your bed! And what's wrong with our position?"
Seriously, this clueless boy will be the death of me someday, she spoke in her mind.
"Natsu," she exasperatingly said, "just let go of me, please?"
"Don't wanna."
"Pleeeeaaase?"
"Nope."
The blonde still had her last card to play, but she was reluctant because of her "growing feelings" (as Mira would say) for the Fire Dragon Slayer.
Yes. She finally admitted to herself that she does have feelings for the pinkette. That's why it's very bad to stay in their current position for probably the whole night.
So, she wriggled—or at least tried to—out of his tight hold, but he held on even tighter, practically bear-hugging her. Lucy knew it was the time to play her last card. She sighed in defeat.
"Okay, since you won't let go of me, how about a deal? Hmm?" she asked.
Natsu's ears perked up at the mentioned deal. "What's the deal?"
She was silent for some second, until she said, "You'd let me lay down on my bed properly, and, if you want to, you could stay for the night. Is that okay?"
Oh, that was more than okay. Lucy was voluntarily letting him spend the night in her apartment! It was already like a miracle!
"Okay!" he said a little too joyfully. He released her, and she then stood up in front of him while he sat up on the bed.
"Um, could you, like, stand up first? I can't really get on my bed while you're there," Lucy told him.
Natsu blinked. "Oh, um. Yeah." He rose from his position and scooted a little to his right to give space for her.
After she had situated herself comfortably on her mattress, Lucy patted the space next to her. "Hey. Aren't you gonna climb in too?"
For some reason, the dragon slayer was double-thinking the situation at hand. He was weighing the consequences of when he climbs in fast and excitedly, and reluctantly and slowly. Oh, goddamnit, I feel like a freaking girl. To hell with this.
He just got on the mattress like he always did: carefully and sort of eager (but not too much). And just when he was putting himself in an equally comfortable position as with Lucy, the sky resounded with thunder, making the girl cover herself with her blankets.
"Damn thunder," she uttered, "and damn phobia."
Natsu never had heard her curse (mildly or not), not even during their missions when they—Erza, Gray, and himself; but most of the time, it's only him—were being their destructive selves. So it just means that this was a very serious thing for her.
The next thing Lucy knew was that Natsu was once again comforting her through hugging. And yes, she was still covered by her blanket. She didn't even know how that worked out for them.
"Hey, Luce," he said comfortingly, "just relax, okay? I'll protect you from the thunder and lightning."
Now, that was what made Lucy think. "How would you even do that?" she asked, though, her voice was slightly muffled because of the sheets.
"Just like how I always do: fight them with my bare hands and my awesome powers!" Natsu said it in a voice that Lucy can't help but believe in. Yet she still refused to show it.
"Yeah, sure. Like you can do that," she scoffed.
The boy felt a tad offended. "Hey! You're talking to the leader of Fairy Tail's strongest team!"
"Mhmm. We all know that Erza is really the leader of our team. I don't even know why it's named 'Team Natsu', when it should be 'Team Erza' or something," she countered. Lucy wasn't sure if the idiot was actually getting her amused tone in her statements. If he didn't…well, for starters, she was doomed.
"Lucy…" he practically growled, but still kept her blanket-covered form in a hug.
"Hey, don't start talking like that," Lucy said, poking her head out of the blanket to look at him. "I was just joking. Geez."
Oh. Natsu felt like a complete idiot for taking what she said personally. Wanting to change the topic, he questioned Lucy, "I thought you were going to sleep?"
Coincidentally, Lucy yawned. (Natsu had always thought that Lucy looked cute when she yawned, but he'd rather not say that out loud.) "Oh, yeah. I did say that, didn't I? Anyway, good ni—KYAAAA!"
And once again, Lucy was interrupted by her phobia attack. She hugged Natsu firmly as a combination of lightning and thunder went off from the heavens; continuous rain still poured down. And again, the salmon-haired boy hugged her reassuringly.
Lucy took back what she thought several minutes ago. She did like all the events that happened that night. Except for some moments wherein her partner showed his idiotic self, but still, it was generally likeable.
Honestly, Lucy was very grateful to Natsu. And that was exactly what she was about to tell him. And maybe something else, too…
"You k-know what, N-Natsu?" he heard her trembling yet tired voice say.
He whispered back, "What's that?"
Lucy, despite her earlier phobia attack, was slowly inching towards unconsciousness. "I really—" she yawned between her words, "—really…appreciate your…coming here…"
"Thank you, Natsu," she muttered quietly before kissing his cheek slightly. "And…I…" She never got to finish that thought, for sleep had taken over her.
The boy sighed. He'd probably hear the end of that tomorrow…or someday. Already feeling sleepy himself, Natsu rested his head on Lucy's and placed a light kiss on the top of her blonde hair.
"Goodnight, Luce. And don't worry; I'll still protect you from anything."
And on that night, the two of them slept deeply with their arms around each other and small smiles on their faces.