Drawings, Writings, and I'm Sorry's

The whole thing was completely an accident. Honestly, how was Natsu supposed to know that paper was flammable? Huh? And wasn't it kinda Lucy's fault then, for letting him around her desk? And it wasn't like he burnt up something terrible, like a letter to her mother or something. No, it was just a twenty page story that she'd spent two weeks working on.

No biggie, right?

Wrong. Apparently to Lucy, it was a very big deal. Enough so that she kicked he and Happy both out of her apartment.

"I don't know why I had to go too," Happy complained right after she did it. "I mean, I didn't do nothing."

"Yeah, little buddy, but you know that we're a packaged deal. You'd have come with me, huh? Even if she didn't kick you out?"

Happy only took to the air then, flying over head, not answering. Natsu frowned, but didn't blame him. It was rather cold out. And they'd been avoiding the guildhall because they'd pissed Erza off too (you eat one strawberry cake that might have been hers and the woman goes bananas). Then their house was out because it was so rundown that it was practically a fridge in there!

Lucy's place had been the only one where they had a chance to stay warm. And he'd ruined it, trying to be funny. Entertaining.

When did Lucy stop thinking all his little mess ups were entertaining?

Oh yeah. When they started dating and then everything got all screwed up.

Still though, it wasn't like he could just leave things as they were. Though he still wasn't completely certain what it was that he'd done wrong (couldn't she just write the story again?) he knew that it was his job to make things right again.

Mainly 'cause he really, really wanted to sleep in her apartment that night.

"Let's get her a present," Happy had suggested quite quickly. "Something to make up for you burning those pages of her story. How many jewels do we have?"

"Not many," he sighed. "So I don't think that I can buy her anything."

"Then…" Happy thought for a long moment. "I know! Let's write her a story."

"Write…write her a story?"

"Yeah," Happy said excitedly. "Let's write a story for her. To replace the one that you burned."

"But Happy," he said slowly. "We don't know how to write a story."

"Of course we do," he insisted. "What's a story, but a bunch of words? And me and you? We know a bunch of words, don't we?"

"Guess you're right."

"Of course I am. So now all we gotta do is get some paper and ink and get started on this."

Except for the fact that that was easier said than done.

Number one, neither guy had very good penmanship, Happy being a feline and Natsu being, well, Natsu. That turned out to be the least of their problems as the second one they encountered was a much bigger one.

"I want it to be about fish!"

"Well too stinking bad, Happy. I burned the paper up so it's going to be about what I want. I-"

"No one cares about dragons, but you, Natsu!"

"Take that back."

"No!"

So it took awhile for them to come to a truce. In the end, as they sat in their very cold and damp home, they decided to make it about a fish eating dragon that was found and slayed by a dashingly handsome cat and his side kick, a blubbering idiot of a human (that was part of the agreement for Happy allowing the dragon in).

Then they were back to problem one. Because as it turned out, writing wasn't just about knowing a bunch of words.

Oh. And they discovered that they really didn't know that many words. They just usually repeated the same ones. A lot.

"I really thought you'd be better at this," Happy said as he sat atop Natsu's head, staring down at the blank sheet of paper. Scattered all around were other crumpled up ones that just weren't cutting it.

"Me? You're supposed to be helping here, Happy."

"I am helping," the Exceed defended. "I thought up the idea, didn't I?"

"Yeah, but at this rate, it'll be next winter before we get back in the apartment!"

"Not my fault you're so stupid."

"I'm not stupid!"

Again, they took some more time out to settled down with that fight. It was easier said than done. Both were frustrated at that point and bored. Just as Natsu was thinking about giving up and just succumbing to their fate of never being invited back into Lucy's cozy apartment again, instead dying horrible deaths with only a small fire and a poorly insulated home to keep them company, he got an idea.

"What if we draw her a story instead?"

Happy, who taken to curling up in a blanket, only glanced over at his friend. "Huh?"

"Yeah. Don't people do that?"

"Sure," the cat told him. "But even if we did, we'd still need words."

"Yeah," Natsu agreed. "But not that many. 'cause my pictures would tell the story. Huh?"

"Well," Happy said slowly. "That could work. But can you draw?"

"Can I draw? Can I draw?"

"Can you?"

"We're about to find out!"

As it turned out, yes, Natsu could draw. Just at the level of a young child.

"I thought you said you could draw," Happy complained.

"I never said that. I said that we were going to find out."

Happy only rolled over on his back as Natsu got to the last piece of paper they had. "It's hopeless. Lucy's never going to forgive us."

"Of course she is, little buddy. Just not tonight, probably. We'll just, uh, stay here, yeah? And then tomorrow, we'll see her up at the guild and we'll all laugh about this."

"Something tells me that it'll only be you laughing."

"Us laughing, me laughing. What's the difference?"

"Natsu-"

"And hey, you know what? I guarantee you that in the morning, I won't even remember any of this."

"I believe you."

"So there's a good chance that Lucy won't either, don't you think?"

Happy only frowned. "She still brings up that time that we were helping her groceries back to her apartment and I sort of dropped the jar of pickles from up above her and it landed on her foot."

"That's our Lucy," Natsu agreed. "The memory of a…of a… Huh. I can't think of anything."

"Figured."

Finally just crumpling the other piece of paper up as well and tossing it away from him, Natsu moved to stretch out on the ground and stare at the little fire he'd built in the fireplace for awhile.

"We're screwed, aren't we, little buddy?"

"Yep."

"You sure you haven't seen them?"

Lisanna only shrugged before glancing over at Mirajane. She was still behind the bar, finishing counting out the money for the day.

"Have you, big sis?" the woman called over. Mirajane only glanced up before shaking her head.

"Sorry," she said. "Not since you guys were all here earlier."

"What happened?" Lisanna asked as she went to get her coat. They were closing up the guildhall for the night, her and Mirajane, and it was rather cold outside. She slipped her mittens on as Lucy only sighed.

"They were just being their stupid selves and I got upset. When I kicked them out though, I didn't think that they'd think I was serious. I do it all the time."

"You must have really been angry," Lisanna said to which the blonde nodded her head.

"When they didn't come back, I figured they'd try to go stay with you and Mirajane for the night."

"Nope," Mira told her. "They didn't even come by here."

"Maybe they went home," Lisanna suggested as Mirajane finished with the money and came around the bar to get her own coat. "To their home."

"They couldn't be that stupid," Lucy said. "It's so rundown and it's, like, below freezing out. They-"

"Lucy," Mira cut her off. "It's Natsu and Happy. They're exactly that stupid."

"I'm sure they're fine," Lisanna told her with a giggle. "Before you, they stayed there all the time. During winter and all. I'm sure Natsu built a fire and they're all snuggled up around it. So don't worry about them."

"I just feel bad is all," she said with a shrug.

"Don't," Mira told her. "Unless you got mad over something stupid."

"What'd they do again?" Lisanna asked.

"Natsu was messing around and sort of burnt up one of the stories that I'd been working on," Lucy said. "I know it's stupid, but-"

"No, it's not," Lisanna assured her as Mirajane headed for the door. The two younger women following, they got the lights for her as Mira wiggled the keys out of her pocket. "They destroy your stuff all the time. I'm sure it gets annoying after awhile."

"Yeah, but…" The celestial mage only sighed. "I think I'll go down to their place and check on them. I mean-"

"Alone?" Mirajane frowned. "Lisanna and I will go with you."

"That's really not-"

"It's late though," she insisted. "We-"

"Really, I'm fine. Trust me."

Lisanna giggled. "You just don't want us to be there to see you make up with Natsu."

Blushing slightly, Lucy merely said, "It's just something stupid. And I'd feel bad for keeping you guys out. I'll be fine."

"Alright," Mira said, sighing slightly. Then she grinned at Lucy. "Maybe they went out and bought you something real nice, you know? To make up for hurting your feelings? Elfman does that every time we fight."

"Something tells me that's not the case," Lucy sighed.

She walked with the two takeover sisters for awhile before turning off. Mirajane tried one last time to go with her, but Lucy truly didn't see the need.

No. They were her stupid boys, so it was her job to make sure they were safe.

It had taken her some time over the last few months to finally get the hang of getting to the place. It was so out of the way that she really wasn't sure what she liked less; the journey or the destination.

Still though, she had it pretty much down pat by that point. And when she smelt the burning fire and saw the smoke in the dark night sky, she knew she was close.

"These two better actually be sorry," she grumbled as she headed through the dense forest to her destination. "Or else I'm not talking to them for at least another day. Seriously."

Snow was falling gently once more by the time Lucy got there. And the door wasn't locked. Only creaked open when she shoved on it a little.

"Guys?" she called out when she found them in the open room, both laying on the floor near the fireplace, sleeping. Great. She was so glad they weren't losing sleep or anything over the whole thing…

Still though, she'd come all that way. And she was sure that they'd rather be at her apartment than their cold little house anyhow. Even if they didn't though, she did want them to know that she'd forgave them.

Not that they cared. Apparently.

As she walked across the floor though, the crumpled balls of paper littering the ground did kinda interest her. Enough so that, after kicking one with her foot, she bent down to uncrinkle it.

On it was scrawled some sort of a sentence that she could hardly make out. Something about once upon a time or something. Frowning, she dropped it and went to pick up another one. That specific one had a drawing of a stick figure with an arrow pointing to him saying, Natsu, and a little circle with some triangles on it with it's own arrow saying, Happy.

"That was our second plan."

Frowning, she glanced over at Happy, who was curled up close to the fire place, yet still huddled under blankets.

"Huh?"

He yawned before slowly detangling himself from the blankets. "We were gonna write you a story. To replace the one that Natsu burned up."

"You what?"

"But," she heard then, from the other guy in the room. It was Natsu, who had been laying face down, snoozing. In that moment though, he was pushing up before going to walk closer to her. "It was harder than we thought."

"So then Natsu had the big idea that he was an artist or something-"

"I said I didn't know, Happy."

"How could you not know you suck at something?"

"You-"

"You guys did this for me?" she cut off their fighting. Natsu only rubbed the back of his neck.

"We're real sorry, Luce," he told her with a shrug of his shoulders. "Apparently, we can't draw or write."

"I blame Natsu," Happy said, his wings appearing then as he flew through the air to land on Lucy's head. She was wearing a knit cap, but he fit just as nicely on it. "For everything."

"You know, you sure have been a real sell out today," Natsu mumbled as he came over to his girlfriend. She only went over to another one of the sheets of paper and picked it up as well. It was the stick figure then with a bubble coming from his mouth, no doubt meant to be filled with words, but he'd been crossed out for some reason.

"This is…" Lucy sniffled then, glancing at Natsu. He frowned at the sound and took a step back.

"Don't start crying," he said then, almost pleading. "I'll try again. To write the story, yeah? It was gonna be real great. Not better than what I burnt, I'm sure, but-"

"This is the nicest thing you guys have done for me," she said, tearing up some. Natsu frowned at that as Happy only jumped from your head.

"I suppose we're not counting all the times that I've saved both of you from imminent peril, huh?" Happy asked, making a face. He was expecting Lucy to make a snarky comment back about how he did next to nothing on most jobs. Instead, she only giggled softly.

"Natsu," he said softly. "I think we broke her. And by we, I mean you."

"Me? I just did something nice."

"I think that's the problem!"

"You didn't break me, guys," Lucy giggled again as Natsu took a tentative step forwards, coming to pat her on the shoulder. When he did that, she only moved to hug him which made the guy relax some. So she had forgive them. "I'm just…happy. This was really nice."

"But we didn't do anything," Happy said. "I mean, really, we did nothing, but waste even more paper."

"Yeah," she sighed as Natsu took to grinning. "But this is one of those it's the thought that counts, kinda moments, Happy."

"Huh." Thinking it was safe again, he came closer and patted her on the leg. "Lucy?"

"Mmmhmm?" She looked down at him as Natsu let her go.

"I'm sorry that Natsu burnt up your papers," he said. "Even though it wasn't my fault at all. I mean-"

"Hey, Happy?" she said.

"Hmmm?"

"I totally heard you dare him to set something on fire."

"Really?"

"Mmmhmm."

"Oh." Then he giggled. "Then I guess it is partially my fault?"

She only smiled before looking back at Natsu. "And next time you do something like that, it is not going to be this easy to get me to forgive you. I mean, I work really hard on my writing, Natsu. And I finally got over writer's block-"

"Yeah, no, I totally get it now," he said, nodding his head. "Writing is, like, the worst. I don't get why you enjoy it. At all. It was horrible. I'll never bother you about it again."

"Never again," Happy agreed.

So, Natsu figured, as they set off back to Lucy's apartment that night, Happy on his head and Lucy snuggled up under his arm because she was cold, that the mission to write a short story or draw some pictures had been a big bust. But the ongoing mission of keeping Lucy happy had once again hit a rocky point, only to level out some. So that was good.

"Natsu?"

"Hmmm?"

"When we get to the apartment," Lucy said as they walked along through the wooded area. "You and Happy are definitely sleeping on the floor."

"Yeah," he sighed. "I kinda figured."