Lucy hadn't previously thought that the guild partied too hard, but now she was reconsidering it. Getting back from Tenrou island was a happy occurrence, but why did the celebration need to be so happy that it became painful? The reality was painful enough as it was, particularly for Lucy.
Lucy finally decided to take stock of her current position, despite her aching head and comfortable bed urging otherwise. Without opening her eyes, she could tell it was definitely morning by the way that the light was filtering in the window. She moved slightly, yep, all her limbs were still there. Well, she felt pretty awful, but if the sun had come up and she still had all her limbs, it couldn't be that bad of a day. She tried to convince herself to leave her bed, but she lacked the real conviction to do so. Her post drinking nausea had more than enough conviction to make up for it though.
With a sigh, she opened her eyes reluctantly and rolled herself out of the bed as quickly and gracefully as she could. She was surprised when her foot landed on something on the floor but didn't have the time to check what it was before running to her bathroom.
Lucy registered a few things at that moment, but she couldn't understand the significance of them yet, it was too early and her head was killing her. What had possessed her to drink that night anyway? She didn't usually join in on that part of the guild's celebration. She took stock of her body again, and found that her whole body was aching. Did she drink wine? Well, that might explain the pain and hang over, though it seemed unlikely that she'd get drunk on wine alone. It didn't really matter that much either, as it seemed there was a far more important thing she hadn't noticed earlier: she was still in the dress she had worn the night before, but her panties were mysteriously absent. Furthermore, the run to the bathroom had been slightly more painful than it should have been.
She moved her face back over the toilet, and swore that she would never drink anything, ever again. When she finished throwing up, she actually started to feel better. She stood up to get some water from the sink tap to drink, and it dawned upon her again that she was quite sore to the point that walking seemed to be an issue. In fact, there was a certain part of her that hurt more than it had ever hurt before. She grumbled, wondering if someone had kicked her the night before in a drunken battle. Then she absentmindedly reached down with one hand to scratch the inside of one of her thighs and stopped. There was an unusual texture on her leg, like something had dried on it. She took the moment to investigate thoroughly, glancing downward and lifting the hem of her dress only as far as necessary to find what she was looking for. Ah, and there it was! There, on the inside of her thigh was... dried blood? Lucy grimaced, her period wasn't due for a while so it was incredibly unlikely that that was the source. If it had been, she would most definitely still be wearing her panties and yet they were still missing-in-action. Lucy dropped the hem of her dress and continued to sip some water out of a glass she kept in the bathroom while looking herself over in the mirror. She looked as awful as she felt, that was certain. In the mirror, she looked pale and hung over, but there was something else too. Her lips seemed a bit bruised, perhaps?
Lucy decided that everything could wait until after she had a nice, soothing shower. As a precaution, she creeped back to the door and peeked out. It was more likely than not that she had stepped on Natsu on her way to the bathroom, since it wasn't an unusual thing to happen in her apartment. What she saw in her room made her slam the bathroom door back closed and locked it, she eased back onto the floor from her unsteady standing position. It wasn't just that Natsu was on the floor next to her bed that had surprised her, it was the fact that there were two naked men in her room. Natsu was on the floor next to her bed, where he usually ended up if he tried to sneak into her bed and she kicked him out in her sleep because he was always too hot. Besides Natsu being naked (except for his scarf, oddly enough), Grey was passed out nearby on her couch, also naked. She didn't even care at this point whether her slamming the door woke them up, even though she realized that waking them up meant noise and her brain was struggling to keep it together as it was.
A shower... She needed a shower more than she ever had in her entire life and she needed it now for her pulsing head. With the door locked, she threw her lone dress off and turned the taps on. Lathering her hands with some pomegranate scented soap, she began the long journey to normality. As she did so, and she managed to get some relief, she began to put the pieces of her puzzling morning together. Soreness. Blood. Two naked nakama. No panties. She was on the cusp of a breakthrough when the soap reached her neck and she gasped out loud as she felt the stinging of an open wound. She was feeling calm enough at that moment to finish cleaning herself and then rinse herself off before she wandered back to the mirror and found the key to the puzzle. There, in such plain sight that she was a fool for not seeing it earlier, were teeth marks in her neck. Her stomach flipped at the sight of it, and for a moment she thought she remembered something before she was interrupted by the stirring of her nakama in the next room.
Author's Notes:
This is the first thing I've written in many years, so I might be a bit rusty. I've only read until chapter 342 of the Fairy Tail manga but I plan to keep reading once I finish writing this story.
I'd also make a special mention of my wonderful beta reader Gangzta4life5, without whom this story would not be published.
