Break Him

Prologue

Princey28

"Natsu, I'm going to kill you!"

"Ha-ha-ha!"

"Guys, please, we're going to get our pay cut."

"Natsu, you idiot!"

Natsu continued to laugh with all his might as an icing-covered Lucy charged after him with a piping bag. The dragon slayer was laughing so hard that tears were threatening to form in his eyes. Though it had been an accident…

…it still didn't make it any less hilarious.

"Pfft—ha-ha!" Natsu sputtered as he glanced at the girl chasing him around a flour-covered counter.

A request had been made for help at one of the local bakeries, and Erza, the resident cake fanatic, had insisted they go; which, of course, meant that she had dragged all four members of her team to the door of the quaint little shop as soon as the sun had come up. Happy and Carla had been forced to skip the mission, as animals of any sort weren't allowed in the shop—somehow, though, Natsu had made it inside.

Needless to say, it was beginning to seem like a mistake.

"Natsu, stop; you're making a mess!" Wendy cried, the young blue-haired mage snatching the bowl of cake batter she'd been working on up from the counter. It was just in time, too; Natsu jumped on the surface and sprung across the kitchen. Lucy growled and followed him, her cheeks burning red in anger.

"Lucy, I—" Natsu tried to speak, but burst into laughter as soon as he looked at Lucy again—so much for an apology. A spatula was hurled at the fire mage, missing its target and flying into a stack of dirty kitchen utensils that had been piled into the sink. The bowls, pans, spoons and various other instruments clattered noisily on the hardwood floor.

"I just got my hair done, Natsu!" Lucy screeched, ignoring the mess she'd created and lunging at the boy, missing as he spun out of the way, his scarf slapping her face as if it were taunting her. "Now it's covered in blue icing!"

"I didn't mean to—"Natsu cackled, and sucked in a deep breath before trying to talk again. "I'm sor—Lucy it's turning your hair green!"

The fire mage pointed and howled in laughter as Lucy stopped in her tracks and lifted a lock of hair into her vision, letting out a squeak of disbelief. "Natsu!"

The chase started again, Natsu flipping over sinks and counters and dodging Lucy's onslaught of kitchen utensils. Gray, apparently, had decided to try to ignore the attempt at murder taking place around him, narrowing his murky blue eyes and just continuing to cool various ingredients with his ice-make magic for the owner, who was out trying to find a new refrigerator. Wendy was frantically trying to calm Lucy down while she attempted to clean up the flour, sugar, eggs and various other ingredients that had been thrown to the floor from Natsu and Lucy's war. And Erza…

…Erza had just walked through the door.

"What is going on here?"

Everyone froze in what they were doing—including Lucy, who was in the middle of pinning Natsu to the ground, ready to pipe icing into his "stupid pink hair" after he had commented that she smelled like a cupcake. The scarlet-haired mage's eyes went dark and narrowed, as she put down the items she'd been given the task of buying from the market for the owner of the bakery. Her Heart Kreuz Armor glinted dangerously in the sunlight pouring through the window of the bakery.

"Uh—uhm—"Lucy stuttered, her eyes growing wide while she quickly got to her feet, hopelessly hiding the piping bag behind her back. Natsu stood up too, though his face was still split with an ill-hidden grin.

"Lucy got icing in her hair," Natsu snickered, putting a hand over his eyes as if it were too much, "—and now it's green!" He then proceeded to chuckle as he gave Lucy another look, unable to stop himself as her face morphed into something that reminded him of Mirajane's demon souls.

"What?! You mean you squirted icing into my hair!" Lucy said with a growl, shaking the piping back as she would her fist. "This will take days to get out!"

However, the two were interrupted as Erza suddenly loomed over them with her eyes narrowed and her expression deadly. Natsu's grin, along with Lucy's snarl, was replaced by a look of terror.

"We'll clean this right up!" They squeaked.

By the time the bakery had been cleaned spotless by Lucy and Natsu, it was well after sunset when Erza finally allowed them to leave. Natsu offered to walk Lucy home, in which the blonde-now-milky-green had replied by sending a look that would kill, if they could. The fire mage had simply chuckled and backed away with his hands up. They parted ways, with Natsu walking towards his home with his hands behind his head and Lucy stomping towards hers.

When Natsu had called out a 'goodnight' to her, she hadn't bothered to answer.

"Wow, Lucy, trying out a new style?"

"That's, uh, an interesting color…"

"Mama, why's there snot in that girl's hair?"

Lucy got plenty an earful of chatter about her hair on the way to the Fairy Tail guild the next morning. The air was crisp and cool, but did nothing to stifle the burning in her cheeks. With each comment and question, her frustration grew until her face was set in a scowl when she walked through the grand wooden doors of the guild hall. She could feel the eyes on her as she trudged to the request board that was to the immediate right of the entrance of the hall. The sounds of glasses clinking, feet stepping, and voices speaking filled the room—the atmosphere was comfortable and warm.

That is, until everyone could feel Lucy's almost tangible rage.

Lucy's chocolate eyes raked through the familiar faces of the guild, among them being Wendy, Carla, Happy and…him.

He was currently shoveling in handfuls of his breakfast, apparently forgetting that he had silverware available to use, and darting out his tongue in between bites to take care of the occasional dribble of gravy traveling down his chin.

Lucy caught the eye of the group as she came to the request board, waving at them and making a point to make eye contact with everyone except…him. She turned up her nose as he tried to get her attention, not at all phased by the attempted wave the fire-mage sent her.

Nab stood at the board as he usually did, staring at the requests as if they were some elaborate puzzle. She greeted him, and he returned the gesture with a smile before turning back to his calculating, crossing his arms over his large belly and causing the red cloak over his shoulders to shift and the skull necklace he wore to rattle.

As Lucy searched for a job, she couldn't help but watch…him in her peripheral vision as he eyed her while he ate. Even after she selected a solo job request—book sorting, but its pay was somewhat decent—she refused to even glance at the pink-headed fire mage. She walked past her group of friends in search of Mirajane to take the request, smiling at three of the four members of her team.

When Natsu asked her what job she'd chosen, and if he could go, Lucy didn't even acknowledge him.

'That…jerk!' Lucy thought as she shoved a book a bit forcefully into its place on the shelf she was organizing. 'Cancer couldn't even get this stuff out! I can't believe it. And he thought he could just talk to me like nothing happened? Fat chance!'

She briefly wondered if she was, perhaps, overreacting a little; Natsu had apologized—well, he had attempted to before bursting into laughter—and it had been an accident, but…

As she bent over to pick up another stack of books, a green lock of hair fell into her face. She glared at it.

Nope. He totally deserved this.

Lucy couldn't help but mumble under her breath as she continued to file books away, glancing at the clock and realizing she would be here for at least three more hours, which added heat to her sour mood. The milky-green-haired girl only continued to brew on her grudge, her annoyance at Natsu building and building until she had to take a deep breath to stop herself from throwing a book across the room.

It's not that she was annoyed at just the icing incident—though, she was a tad past frustrated at it. Natsu had been really grating on her nerves lately for some reason. The fire mage usually got on everyone's nerves every once in a while, but he'd been especially energetic now that things had calmed down after the eclipsed celestial spirit catastrophe. Lucy figured he was just trying to get rid of his pent-up energy.

Speaking of her spirits, she realized, she wondered if calling one of them would help the time pass as well as cut her work in half. Feeling dumb from forgetting her spirits, she pulled out one of her keys, rubbing the golden item with her thumb over the different curves and grooves.

Lucy held the key out and called upon her friend.

"Open, gate of the sea goat—Capricorn!"

The key lit up in golden light, followed by a flash of the same color enveloping the room. When the light faded, a goat-like creature in a suit and sunglasses was left in its wake.

"Hello, Lucy," The goat greeted, a white ear twitching and his thin tail swishing.

"Hi, Capricorn," Lucy smiled up at her tall friend, not at all perturbed by the horns and hooved feet that adorned the goat-man.

The goat's polite smile faltered and he adjusted his glasses. "Excuse me, Lucy, but I believe my glasses are wearing out—your hair appears to be green in this light."

Lucy felt heat creep into her cheeks as her smile dropped, replaced by a scowl as she was reminded of her hair-style. "Sadly, no—it's green. I had an icing incident," She explained, and waved a hand as if to shoo away the thought, "Anyways, I need some help here. I figured you knew a lot about books so I thought maybe you could help me sort these."

"Oh. I see," Capricorn said, though Lucy could tell his eyes were inspecting her hair behind his sunglasses, "Yes, I can help. Just show me what to do."

"Great! Okay, so the non-fiction goes over here, but the owner was very specific about it being in alphabetical order, so I've managed to get most of them arranged…"

An hour later found the last book sliding into place, and Lucy couldn't help but sigh in relief and stretch her stiff muscles.

"It appears we have finished," Capricorn commented, crossing his arms and admiring his handiwork. His hooved feet thumped sharply and gracefully on the floor as he came to Lucy's side.

"Yeah, finally," Lucy said, "Well, thanks for the help, you can go, now—"

"Actually, Lucy," Capricorn interrupted her as she went to pull out his gate key. The mage paused and gave him a curious look. "I get the sense that you are troubled by something. While I realize it's none of my business, it is my duty to make sure you are safe. Is it anything I can help you with?"

Lucy blinked at the goat, and looked down to her feet. Was she really so mad that her spirit had been able to call her out on it? But she'd hidden it so well!

Well… except for mumbling under her breath a few times... and cursing when a pile of books toppled over…and not to mention her growl of rage when she had put away a fiction story about a dragon.

Okay, so maybe she hadn't hidden it all that well.

But she was just so…mad at Natsu! And why? It had been an accident, and he had apologized, but…

Her hair…

"It's…nothing, Capricorn," Lucy said, gripping the side of her arm uncertainly.

"Lucy," The goat pressed, his eyebrows drawing forward.

"Well, it's just… Natsu's driving me insane!" She blurted, "He got icing in my hair and made it worse by laughing about it—and then we had to clean the entire bakery and on the way home I tripped into a mud puddle and this morning everyone was—they were—Ooh!"

Lucy clenched her fists in frustration.

"And that's not all!" She continued, throwing her hands up and beginning to count on her fingers. "Last week he broke into my room while I was in the middle of changing, and the week before that he sneezed and set my table on fire! How does that even happen?!"

Capricorn looked about ready to say something, but Lucy wasn't finished.

"And—And—this is the real kicker—he has the nerve to act like nothing even happened, and expect me to be fine with it! It's just so…!" Lucy paused, clenching and unclenching her fists while she searched for words. "He's just been getting on my nerves lately—he's literally going to make me lose my mind one of these days!"

Capricorn stared at her with his brows raised, waiting a moment to assure she was done before he spoke.

"Well," He started, "That's… not what I had been expecting. Though, perhaps you could try talking to him?"

"That doesn't work with Natsu; he's too dense. He'll probably think I'm asking him to bug me."

"Has he apologized?"

"Well…" Lucy faltered, "Yeah…"

"Was it sincere?"

"I guess…" 'As sincere as Natsu could get,' she added to herself bitterly.

Come to think of it, Natsu had apologized for ruining her hair and her table, even if it was in the midst of a laugh or a snort.

That was just Natsu.

He wasn't one for the 'mushy stuff' or anything sentimental. Lucy understood that, but…jeez. You'd think he'd at least learn to cover his mouth when he sneezed.

Lucy sighed, and she felt her anger melt a little at the guilt that settled into her heart. Maybe she was being unfair to Natsu. He didn't deserve to be ignored, at the very least.

"Well, I guess I'll try talking to him," Lucy decided out loud, and glanced up at Capricorn. "Thanks," she smiled.

"Happy to help," The goat replied with a nod, and in a golden flash, he was gone.

Lucy gathered her things and prepared to talk to the owner of the room full of books for her reward, and she couldn't help but feel guilt settle in her system. She sighed. She'd have to apologize to Natsu. It wasn't too late in the day; she figured that maybe he'd still be at the guild. And if not, she'd just make it up to him by signing them both up for a job she knew he'd like.

Lucy smiled as she went into the hallway of the book-owner's home. She'd make it up to him.

(A/N): Hellooooo! *giant wave* Thank you for clicking/tapping and giving my story a chance! Before we continue, however-the rating of this story may change later on as I delve into the chapters further on-this story is going to take a dark turn soon enough. Don't worry, I'll spare grotesque details (I can't say on what, though-spoilers XD), but, if you are someone who likes to be attentive to the rating of stories, I do suggest glancing at the rating from time to time as we go deeper into this fiction.

I wrote this story because I love bringing out the dark side of characters-and the fact that there just simply aren't enough fics like this with Natsu being caught, and all.

Also, the next part of the story is already written and is undergoing finishing touches-the wait shouldn't be too long ;)

Thanks for reading! I hope to see you next time! :D

(Also, the quote in the description is by Palden Gyasto)