Dedicated to Miroyasha! Oh, I am so glad to be done with this. So tired... But I have a reason this is so late! Please put all blame on the power outage that made me unable to use my computer for two days (yes, I know power isn't necessary to type, but my computer has special circumstances). Also, I was idea-less. Brain-dead, as Lucy puts it. I had NO CLUE WHAT TO WRITE. SORRY. Anyway, review and favorite and follow! Keep in mind that this is a oneshot, so there won't be any more chapters. You can follow me for more fics, though. Enjoy!
"Hmm..." I shifted in my chair and closed my eyes tightly. They popped open impatiently a moment later. "Ughhhhhhhh!" I shoved away from the desk and flung myself face-first on the bed. "Wh–y?" I moaned around my mouthful of the bedspread, drawing out the word so it sounded like it had six or seven syllables, not one. "WHY?"
"Natsu, I think she's finally lost it," Happy's voice commented. I tossed a pillow in the direction his voice seemed to be coming from and was rewarded with a high-pitched "oof". I flipped over and stared at the white ceiling. Natsu's face swung into my line of sight, hovering over me. I grunted unattractively.
"What?"
"What's wrong with you, Luce?" he asked, nudging me over and sitting next to me on the bed. I groaned and shut my eyes. I flung an arm over my eyes, trying to block out the light even further.
"I can't write," I explained. "I'm brain-dead. I have no inspiration." I huffed. "And I wanted to enter a short story in the Sorcerer Weekly writing competition this year. But I have no idea what to write about..." I sighed. "I'm about ready to give it up."
"Why?" I frowned, opening my eyes and blinking at the sudden light. I sat up and looked at Natsu.
"The deadline is in a week. If I can't write anything before then, I can't enter." Natsu just shrugged. Happy flew down from where he had been floating below the ceiling and perched on the bed next to him. My gaze met Natsu's, and I stared at him. His hazel eyes were serious, a rarity. My skin broke out in goosebumps. My brain wouldn't stop churning. It was probably the longest we'd ever gone without saying anything or Happy crooning, "You li-ike him". I didn't know what to do. My stomach fluttered as his mouth opened.
"Let's go out." I blinked. He looked the same. Solemn. Staring right at me, unwavering. Waiting.
"Go out? You mean..." He grabbed my hand. I flinched and glanced down at the spot his skin met mine. There was no way this was happening. Absolutely no way. Natsu had no feelings for me beyond friendship. If anything, he probably saw me as a sister. I was misinterpreting him somewhere, I just knew.
Natsu smiled brightly at me, the sun coming out from behind the clouds. I reminded myself not to blink. Or squint. "I mean, we should go out and do something together! You won't get any ideas cooped in here. Let's do a job or something, okay?" The breath I was holding all left my lungs at once. See? I knew it. A perfectly reasonable idea, phrased in just the right way to make my heart start going a million miles an hour. I didn't even know what I was really expecting from him. This was Natsu, after all. Did he even know what 'going out' entailed in the romantic sense? I seriously doubted it.
"Yeah," I agreed, pushing back my hair from my face. I felt too hot, like someone had been fiddling with my thermostat. I was half-tempted to check, but I knew that wasn't it. The culprit was something I had labeled 'the Natsu Effect'. It happened every time he said or did something misleading, turning my cheeks red and sending my temperature skyrocketing. "Do you already have a job, or should we go pick one out?" He pulled out a sheet of faded paper from behind his back, holding it up for me dramatically. I squinted at the typewriter-style lettering curiously. It was hard to read, because Natsu wouldn't stop bouncing up and down. Eventually I grabbed his wrist, and he went still. "Calm down," I said, glancing up at him as I leaned closer to the request paper. He nodded, not quite meeting my eyes. I returned my attention to the paper. "Two or more wizards preferred," I read aloud slowly. "Book organizing in the Magnolia Public Library." I frowned, settling back into my original position and releasing Natsu's wrist. "You're this excited about sorting books?" Natsu rolled his eyes.
"Of course not, dummy. That's not..." he trailed off, reading the sheet of paper for himself. His eyes bugged out. Over his shoulder, Happy's did too. "What?! Mira told me this was a request for two wizards to train an Abominable Snowman on Mt. Hakobe!" He pouted adorably. "I don't want to organize books..." I laughed, picturing Mira's mischievous wink. She was probably having trouble getting rid of this one. After all, it wasn't really wizard work. I took the request from Natsu and looked it over again. Maybe it at least paid well... I gaped at the reward. Were they serious?
"Natsu, we're doing this job." My deflated partner glanced my way gloomily.
"No way, why?" I thrust the reward in his face.
"Do you see this reward?" I exclaimed impatiently. "Do you see it?" He squinted.
"Luce, it's too close to my face, I can't read it..."
Happy hovered behind him, reading the words listed as the promised compensation. "Natsu, it's not even money! They're paying us with books!"
"Books?" Natsu exclaimed indignantly. "You mean we won't even get paid?" I huffed.
"You guys are such philistines! [A/N: a philistine is someone who doesn't appreciate things like art, or, in this case, literature. She's saying they're uncultured. Stupid. Anyway, it's an insult.] They're promising a collection of the unpublished works of Ron Trevor! Do you know how rare and expensive something like that? And we just have to organize some books for them!" Natsu and Happy were clearly unconvinced. I huffed again, hopping off the bed. "Fine, don't help. I'll get Levy to help me. She'll appreciate this much more than you idiots."
"Hey!" Happy protested. "Just because I don't read anything harder than picture books doesn't make me an idiot!" I rolled my eyes and opened the door.
"I'm leaving now, so you two should go home." I watched Natsu slide off my bed and walk across the uncarpeted floor towards me. His feet were bare, for some reason. They were surprisingly delicate feet, long and slender. I liked his feet.
And why I was thinking so intently about Natsu's feet, I had no clue. His eyes or his mouth or his hands, I could sort of justify. But his feet? Really? I was worried my crush was getting worse. You can only like someone so much before you start to love them. And... I didn't think I could handle being that serious about Natsu. It would shatter my heart, not just fracture it. A crush I could handle. It was fleeting, sweet, and forgettable. Love wasn't so easy.
A hand on my shoulder jolted me back to reality. I stared up at him. He seemed to be studying my face, looking for something I couldn't identify. When he noticed he had my attention, he smiled. "Don't worry, Lucy. I promised you we'd go together, didn't I? So let's go."
I smiled back. "Yeah. Come on, we won't be done today if we don't hurry it up. It's noon already, and the library's pretty big." I followed him out the door obediently, telling myself to think of the books. The unpublished works of the Ron Trevor... The thought of owning something like that was enough to make a girl drool.
The Magnolia Public Library was big. Like, really big. Picture the biggest library you've ever been in. Now double that, and triple the number of books in it. You should now have a fairly good idea of the size of the Magnolia Public Library. It wasn't even really a library anymore. It was more like an ancient archive building, designed to hide important information in the stacks and stacks of books. 'Public Library' seriously didn't do it justice.
"Lucy, did you know it was this big?" Natsu asked me, a slightly panicked look in his eye. I glanced around, trying to understand.
"I've never actually been inside before! I knew from the outside this place was big, but I didn't know it was this size..."
"There's a rumor that this building was long ago enhanced with magic, making the inside actually larger than the exterior," a creaky voice explained. I whipped around, but there was no one to be seen. Natsu and Happy had identical expressions of horror. Shivers caressed my spine. In the dim light and stale air, it wasn't hard to believe there were ghosts haunting the library. Then an old man emerged from between two dusty shelves, hands folded behind his back. I bit my lip to contain a shriek, startled. He chuckled. "Sorry to scare you, children. You must be the guild wizards who answered the job request." I nodded hesitantly.
"Is it true, the reward?" The old man frowned.
"Reward?"
"The Ron Trevor works?" I pressed anxiously. Thankfully, his wrinkled brow cleared and he smiled.
"You have a good eye, young lady. Yes, the reward is indeed the unpublished stories of Ron Trevor. Are you a fan?" I nodded emphatically. The old man's smile widened. "Excellent. I would be glad to hand them on to you, then. But first, your job." Natsu, clearly bored, yawned. I pointed to a corner.
"If you're not going to help, go take a nap or something over there." He nodded sleepily and walked toward the indicated spot. He promptly curled up and really did fall asleep. His snores filled the empty library and were soon joined by Happy's. I sighed and put my hands on my hips. "Honestly, that idiot..." The old man chuckled again.
"What are your names, young lady?" I raised my eyebrows.
"Oh, we never introduced ourselves!" I turned back to him and held out my hand. "I'm Lucy, and those two idiots over there are Natsu and Happy. It's nice to meet you, sir." He shook my hand.
"Likewise, Lucy. I am Jurta. Welcome to Magnolia Public Library." He spread his aged hands wide. "As you can see, it's a bit of a mess." Understatement of the year. Books were thrown willy-nilly, and most weren't even on the shelves. Dust caked everything with a film inches thick. Most of the lights weren't working, and the main sources of lighting were clusters of precariously perched candles. It was clear that the library was in need of a serious makeover, something that would ordinarily require an army of workers. I sighed, glancing at the snoring twosome in the corner.
"Well, they'll be no help." I grimaced at Jurta. Think of the books, Lucy. The books. "Where should I start?"
Two hours later, I was starving, dirty, and exhausted, and there was still four-fifths of the library left to clean up. I had managed to locate the windows (they were hidden underneath moth-eaten black drapes at the back of the library) and get them open after several minutes of pushing and grunting. The fresh air felt good on my skin, but then the wind had blown into the room, sending up a goliath-sized cloud of dust. My throat was still itchy. I'd fixed the lights next after several mishaps and near-disasters (involving losing my skirt and getting stuck upside-down). The candles were tossed in the trash, and I scolded Jurta on the hazards of having open flames anywhere near so many valuable books. Next was dusting and sweeping, a task I was not looking forward to. It was going to take me the rest of the day, at least. So I summoned Virgo to help me out, since she was always so eager to help. Also, if anyone knew dirt, it was Virgo.
"Punishment, princess?" I sighed.
"Virgo, there is seriously something wrong with you." I gestured to the dirt coating the inside of the library. "Would you help me clean away all this dirt, please?"
She saluted, and it occurred to me that Virgo would make a disturbingly good soldier. I shuddered at the thought. I could just hear her saying, Punishment, sir? to her commanding officer. "Leave it to me, princess. Please stand aside." I stepped back behind the main desk to stand and watch with Jurta.
"Virgo is a Celestial Spirit of the Zodiac," I bragged proudly. "Just watch. She's amazing."
I wished I could have looked away, but it was like having a sick fascination with horrible wounds. It made you nauseous, but you couldn't stop staring at it.
Virgo tore through the room like a muddy whirlwind with a duster, stirring centuries of dust into the air. Soon it was impossible to breathe without sucking in a noseful of dust along with the oxygen. I coughed, shutting my eyes tightly against the swirling dirt. I fumbled for my keys and finally managed to shut Virgo's gate on her, sending her back to the Celestial Spirit World. It took several minutes for the dust to settle. It fell like snow, landing in my hair and down my shirt. I coughed again, narrowing my eyes. Natsu and Happy were, unbelievably, still asleep. They seemed to be in danger of being buried. I hurried over to them and made sure their faces at least were clear.
Looking around the library, I realized Virgo's cleaning wasn't a total bust. The shelves and the books on them were now totally clean and dust-free. It made sweeping out the dirt much easier for me. It only took me an hour to get all the dust outside for the wind to blow away. I heaved another sigh and scrubbed a hand across my forehead. Now there was just putting the thousands of books back on their shelves by genre and in alphabetical order...
I gritted my teeth. Ron Trevor's unpublished works had better be worth it.
This time, I summoned Loke to help me. He was willing to help organize books, so I decided I would sort through the stacks and have him put them back on the shelves, since he was taller than me. "Hey, Lucy," he said conversationally as we began near the back. I nodded, not looking up from the stack I was looking through. It was mostly cooking books, with a few books on magic potions mixed in. I ran a finger over the spine of one titled 'Notice Me! Simple Love Potions For the Beginner'.
"Yeah?" Loke took the alphabetized stack of cookbooks from me and began shelving them.
"How's Natsu these days?" I jerked, the love potion book slipping out of my fingers and landing on the floor with a loud thump.
"Shouldn't you be asking him that?" I said laughingly, picking up the book and setting on the table I was sitting at. Loke picked it up and glanced at it, then slid it on top of the other magic books.
"Maybe I should rephrase. How are you and Natsu these days?" I stared at the tabletop. Virgo had cleaned off the tables too.
"There is no me and Natsu." Loke patted my head. I looked up at him, eyes wide. He just smiled at me.
"Are you okay with that?" I stood up to get the next stack of books.
"It doesn't matter whether I am or not, because there's no way it'll ever change." I bent over to pick a particularly big pile and staggered back to the table. I dropped them on the wooden surface with a resounding thunk. "We've got work to do. Sitting around here won't get me Ron Trevor's books." I smiled, sorting out genres and putting them in order. This one was pretty much novels, classics like Austen and Tolstoy. I picked up a copy of Pride and Prejudice and flipped through it. "I love this book."
"Because Lizzie Bennet is everything every girl has ever wanted to be?" Loke asked. I slid over a pile of sorted books for him to shelve.
"No," I replied softly. "Because Darcy is the world's biggest idiot, and poor Lizzie Bennet has the bad luck to fall in love with him, of all people she could give her heart to. She could marry that stupid what's-his-name if she wanted, but she doesn't, because she has standards. And in the end, they get married. They get a happily-ever-after. That's why." I laughed. "It's true, she does have it all. Beauty, smarts, wit, family... She's independent, and wise in the ways of the world, and she understands herself well. She won't settle for second-best. She knows what her happiness is, and she waits for it. She's an amazing character." I snap the book shut and lay it on the table lightly. "But people that amazing don't exist. Endings that perfect aren't real. Happily-ever-after is a lie made to placate lonely children."
"Cynical much?" Loke teased, taking Pride and Prejudice away to the shelves. "It's okay to hope for things like that, you know. It doesn't have to be perfect. You can still have your happily-ever-after."
"No, I don't think I can," I whispered. "Not the one I want."
"Hmm?" Loke asked, coming back with a fresh stack of books for me. "Did you say something?" I smiled brightly at him.
"Nope, nothing. You must be hearing things. Come on, we'll never finish at this rate. I want to get through half the shelves today!" Loke smiled back sympathetically and accepted the books I handed him.
As it was, we finished something like a quarter of the shelves by midnight. Jurta was dozing at his desk, and I got the feeling that he slept at the library every night. I'd found suspicious evidence of food crumbs scattered here and there.
"Thanks, Loke," I mumbled sleepily. "You can go back now. I need sleep." He nodded with a slight smile.
"Okay. Good luck with your short story." I frowned.
"How did you–" But he was already gone. I sighed, too exhausted to think about it. I decided we could sleep in the library for a night. It would let me get an early start on the books next morning. Still worrying about finishing the job in enough time to write my short story, I fell asleep.
I woke up around dawn feeling refreshed and better than I had in a while, although my shoulders and elbows and chin were sore from sleeping in a chair and leaning on the table. There was a blanket on my shoulders and a note on the table. I picked it up and struggled to decipher the raggedy curves.
Lucy,
Went with old man for food. Be back later. Good work.
Natsu
I sighed, slipping the blanket off my shoulders and standing up to stretch. Good work, huh? I looked around the library. I guess it did look a lot better now, with clean surfaces and fewer books on the floor. The lighting helped, too.
"Well, guess I should get back to it." I yawned and picked up a new pile of books. These were thicker and seemed to be older. I flipped through one. It was written in an ancient language I had never seen before. There were no listed authors, either. I frowned and set them aside, diving into another stack.
Eventually, I called out Capricorn to give me a hand. He complied readily and we settled into a pattern. It was much faster than with Loke, because Capricorn didn't keep stopping me to talk. I was grateful for the quiet. Jurta came back as the clock was striking ten a.m., whistling cheerfully.
"Your friends are very nice," he commented, taking his place behind the front desk. I nodded, handing off a stack of books to Capricorn.
"You mean Natsu and Happy? They're fun to be around." He smiled.
"They seem to care a lot about you." I had practice not freezing in place when I heard things like that. I smiled back at him.
"Yes, we're very close. Natsu's the one who brought me to Fairy Tail, actually. They were my dream guild – cool, popular, kind, friendly... They're my family now." I smiled at a book of acne remedies. "Fairy Tail is a magical place, you see. Lonely people find their best friends. Bullies become kind people. The misunderstood are the easiest to understand. Everything defies reality there. Lost people find a home. Orphans find a family."
"You must love them very much," Jurta said kindly. I bit my lip.
"Yeah," I agreed. "I love them a lot." Suddenly, I realized someone was missing. "What happened to those two, anyway?" Jurta chuckled.
"They said they were going to Mt. Hakobe to train an Abominable Snowman," he explained. I laughed. Those idiots... They really should have known Abominable Snowmen had only ever been sighted on the other side of Fiore, in the Kamalinas. They'd never find one this far south.
"Of course they did," I gasped, losing my breath. "Of course they would." I laughed even harder, listening to the sound fill the empty library.
It took me the rest of the day to finish the job. Literally – I put the last books away sometime around three in the morning. Jurta had stayed up to give me my reward before I went home, but he was swaying on his feet as he shuffled around under his desk. Or maybe that was me – my eyes couldn't quite stay all the way open. Finally, he came up with a thick bundle of paper. He handed it to me carefully. "This is now yours, Lucy. Take good care of it." I smiled sleepily and accepted it, tucking it away in my jacket pocket.
"Thanks a lot, Jurta. I had fun." I waved and left the library. The cool night air cleared my head a tiny bit as I walked home, but I still felt faintly dizzy. I put a hand to my head. I had five more days to come up with a story idea and write a polished draft to submit. Luckily, I had plenty of material to put together into an idea.
"Oh, little miss doesn't look so good," someone said from the dark. I closed my eyes tightly and scrubbed my cheeks. Calm down. I sped up my pace a little, but a hulking figure stopped me. "Whoa there, missy," the same voice said from my right. A thin man stepped out into the pool of light cast by the streetlamp. He had an ugly scar tracing his forehead and beady rat's eyes. I took a step back. Everything was turning kind of foggy. I knew I should have slept at the library again.
"What do you want?" I was aiming for bored and sarcastic, but my voice was high and scared. The thin man licked his lips.
"Just a little fun," he purred, coming closer. Just as his fingers brushed my cheek, something blue and blurry barreled into his stomach, knocking the breath out him and sending him to the ground.
"Don't touch Lucy!" Happy shrieked, biting the thin man's nose. The man screamed. The world tilted, and suddenly everything was sideways. My vision was getting blurrier and darker, but I could make out bursts of red flame and a shock of pink hair.
"Natsu...?" I mumbled, confused. He roared, punching the enormous man in the face. My last thought before losing consciousness was that the world had gone insane, leaving me as the last normal human alive.
I was unnaturally warm when I woke up. Late afternoon sunlight filtered through my window, lighting up my room. I was in my bed... And then it hit me why I was so hot. Natsu's pink head was tucked under my chin and he was wrapped around me, his legs tangled with mine. Happy was curled on the pillow above my head. My first instinct was to scream, but I bit down on it as it entered my mouth. I had to assess the situation first. So, why was it like this?
I had been walking home... I was stopped by a couple creeps... Natsu saved me... I passed out. I sighed. That was it. He'd brought me home, and in his sleep he'd done this. I'd seen him doing it with pillows or (one very, very weird time) Happy before. I was just his pillow.
"Wrong," Natsu murmured, blinking sleepily at me. I stared at him, frozen in place. No, no, no no nonononononononono...
"Did I say that aloud? Wait, you were awake?"
"You think aloud a lot," he explained, closing his his eyes again. "And yeah, I was awake. And like I said, you're wrong. I did this on purpose." My entire body turned the color of a tomato. I spluttered wordlessly.
"What- What do you mean by that, idiot?" I finally managed to ask. He snickered.
"Do you really think I'm the idiot right now, Luce? I'm saying..." He stopped. "Um..."
"Really?" I whispered, unbelieving. "Right now? You get a bout of idiocy right now?" He frowned.
"I don't really know the word for it. It's, um, you know, like..."
"Just stop." I began the complicated process of detaching Natsu from my body, made more difficult because he refused to let go. "I'm hungry and I want to shower. Let me go."
"You li-ike her," Happy murmured from the pillow. I turned on him, about to explode.
"That's it!" Natsu grinned at me triumphantly. "It's 'cause I like you, Lucy."
ONE WEEK LATER
"Natsu, I won!" I flew at my boyfriend, grabbing him and hugging him hard. He coughed, pushing the Sorcerer's Weekly magazine out of his face.
"Luce, I can't breathe..." I released him guiltily. Natsu grinned brightly. "But congrats!" He wrapped me in another, much gentler, hug, resting his chin on the top of my head. "You worked really hard," he said softly. I smiled against his shirt.
"Thanks for you help. I wouldn't have even submitted an entry if it wasn't for you." He cocked his head curiously.
"Oh yeah, what's your short story about? You never told me." I kissed his cheek. His ears turned bright pink and I smiled at him.
"Happily-ever-afters."
Okay, what'd you think? It was good, right? Please say it was good. Sorry it took so long. Remember to review, favorite and follow (not the story – me. Following the story is sweet but pointless).