There are bad days, and then there are bad days. Bad days are when you wake up late, find a hair in your food, or trip right in front of that cute guy in the bookstore. Bad days include all of the above, with the added bonus of a really embarrassing sunburn or maybe a Cana-induced hangover.
As she stood knee-deep in a swamp and dripping with some lime green slime, Lucy decided that she was having the worst day.
She should have seen it coming. That morning, she had woken up an hour before her alarm was set. After tossing and turning in an unsuccessful attempt to chase the sleep that so rudely evaded her, she accepted her fate and grumbled as she gathered her things for the short mission she and Natsu picked for the day.
It was supposed to be an easy one. Short and sweet. Find the bandit hidden in the Foul Forest, capture him, and return his stolen loot to the rightful owners. Oh, and watch out for his pet frog. The two of them laughed when they first read the job description, but ultimately accepted the mission in hopes of a little fun.
Unfortunately, the Foul Forest was about an hour away from the guild—by train. In comparison to some of their other trips, this should have been a breeze. But combined with the "everything" hot dog that Natsu insisted on eating from the street vendor at 9 in the morning (Mavis help her) and an inevitable case of motion sickness, Lucy was forced to say goodbye to her brand new boots after Natsu leaned over and hurled "everything" back up. As she stared down at the vomit from where her soul hovered above her body, she noticed that where "everything" bagels had sesame seeds and garlic, the "everything" hot dog had corn and… was that ramen?
He apologized of course, but the damage was done. She found a pair of flip-flops at the corner store and insisted that they would do when Natsu voiced his concerns. After all, who knew how long it would take to find appropriate shoes in this small town? She just wanted to get this job over with. "If you say so…" he had muttered, which she promptly ignored.
Yet as Lucy maneuvered through a particularly nasty patch of briars, she cursed her stubbornness. Natsu shot her a number of withering glances as he forged the path ahead with Happy, but she kept her eyes trained on the ground in an attempt to avoid any more damage to her already raw feet.
The three eventually stopped when faced with a river that must have been at least 50 meters wide.
Lucy looked at Natsu, and Natsu looked at Lucy.
"We could swim across—"
"What if we build a raft—"
"No way!" they exclaimed in unison.
At that point, Happy intervened with a solution that agreed with the both of them. He grabbed Natsu and carried him across, then flew back for Lucy. Of course, just as she might have forgotten that this day was out to ruin her, a blur of greenish goop hit her square in the face, causing Happy to lose his grip.
Lucy fell directly into the middle of the river, the cold water rushing over her head in an instant. As she sputtered to the surface and coughed violently, she heard muffled yelling, but the aggressive current drowned out the noise and dragged her away from her partners. Throat burning, she blinked repeatedly to clear the water and mystery goo out of her eyes, all the while struggling to keep afloat. Eventually, she made her way to the bank and dragged herself out of the water and onto her back.
There, Lucy wiped away at her face with limited success before giving up and gazing at the sky. She thought about lying there, in the sandy mud, for the rest of her life. If she didn't move, she couldn't possibly run into more trouble. Right? Yet a plume of smoke obstructed her view of the sun, and her eyes lazily followed it upstream, where it seemed to come from.
Sighing to herself, she sat up and stared at the smoke. No, she could not stay here for all of eternity. First of all, she thought as she slapped a mosquito on her thigh, the bugs would eat her alive. And secondly—arguably most important—Natsu was fighting the stupid sticky bandit alone while she sat and contemplated life.
With that thought, she pushed herself off the ground and scanned the sky once more. Squinting, she noticed that the smoke was rapidly headed away from the river and into the forest, so she began walking into the trees. Of course, after taking her first step, she realized that Natsu was absolutely right earlier.
Her flip-flops were gone.
Natsu was not one for pessimism, but in his humble opinion, today could not suck more.
Not only did he upheave all of that stupid hotdog onto Lucy's shoes—which he still felt really, really bad about—he wasn't confident that he wouldn't do it again.
Apparently, the Foul Forest was not named after foul monsters that roamed about, looking for a good ass-kicking (as Natsu had previously imagined). No, it was named in honor of the disgusting odor that wafted through the air. He could have sworn that the trees oozed with the stench, but he couldn't be sure since the forest was saturated in the heavy, vomit-inducing air. Even the river that they came across caused his nose to scrunch up with disgust.
Natsu figured that the odor didn't affect Lucy or even Happy as much as it did him, with his enhanced dragon slayer senses, to which he was grateful. He knew that Lucy wasn't having a particularly good day either—arguably worse than his. When he politely fell into her apartment earlier that morning, she didn't even yell at him for using the window. Instead, she had simply mumbled "G'morning" and walked out with a very obvious case of bedhead.
He hated seeing his best friend with anything less than a smile, so his mood was considerably dampened after he couldn't raise her spirits. Even that stupid hotdog was an attempt to rouse her out of her stupor, albeit a dumb one. He had hoped for some sort of reaction besides 'apathetic zombie.'
Look at how that turned out.
So one could imagine his humor (read: sarcasm) as he watched his partner fall into the stinky river after getting hit with what he thought looked like a giant loogie.
Natsu cursed whatever deity that was absolutely laughing at them and yelled, "Happy, go get Lucy!"
Steadying himself in the air after the hit, Happy turned tail. "Aye, s—"
A string of that sticky goo struck him in the back and threw him against the nearest tree where he hung, immobilized by the substance. Natsu, dragging his hands down his face, finally turned to the perpetrator. The greasy looking man sported an equally revolting smirk as his hands dripped with the offensive goop. His nasally voice rang out, "I am Wilfred, master of adhesion and slinger of—"
"Shut up!" Natsu shouted as he expelled a column of fire at the mucus freak. "Mavis, could you be more annoying?"
The mage simply darted behind an old tree and replied, "Is that a challenge?"
With that, he ran off into the depths of the forest, to which an aggravated Natsu chased with no shortage of angry fire balls. Wilfred obviously knew the terrain well already, and thus evaded him for longer than expected, to Natsu's intense displeasure. But no one could match an irritated dragon slayer, and so after one mistake he found himself stuck between a rock and the slayer himself.
Natsu stalked closer with an eerie smirk of his own, the other mage glancing uneasily at his fangs. "Not so cocky anymore, are—"
A high pitched scream cut him off, and his blood ran cold. "LUCY?!" he yelled, concerned gaze rapidly scanning the forest in the direction of her voice.
Meanwhile, the nasally mage nearly squealed in glee. "It seems your girlfriend found Toddy!"
Natsu whipped his head to find him darting towards the source of the scream. "Hey! Come back here, you a—AGH!" He almost toppled over trying to follow, and after balancing himself with swinging arms he looked down to find his feet coated in that nasty green slime.
"You've got to be kidding me!"
Lucy hadn't made it thirty feet before stumbling upon a particularly swampy area. After a quick scan, she realized that the only way past it was to maneuver through the soggy terrain. Gathering her wits, she winced only slightly as she stepped, barefoot, from log to decaying log. Yet while her agility proved helpful to navigate safely across, fate had its own ideas.
She had just jumped on a raised tree root when a heavy object hit her square in the back and shoved her into the murky waters before… jumping off? After pushing herself out of the water, her wet hair framed her face and she spit out the salty muck. Lucy wiped at her eyes once more before standing to face her attacker, sitting on a nearby log, seemingly indifferent towards the seething blonde.
Apparently, she and Natsu grossly underestimated the "pet frog" from the job request. This beast, sitting on its slimy haunches, looked as though it could swallow a small child—if it hadn't already.
Standing knee-deep in the swampy water, Lucy glared at the amphibian and tried her best to ignore the way its glassy eyes seemed to point in different directions yet stare at her at the same time. Skillfully grabbing a key from her belt, she pointed it at the frog and yelled, "Open! Gate of the Giant Crab—"
Thwump.
Eyes widening, Lucy stared at the giant frog, then at her newly mucus-covered hand, then back at the frog. She almost didn't see its tongue whip out, but she certainly felt her key as it was torn from her grip. Rage boiled in her blood; every injustice of that day crawled to the surface of her skin, and she couldn't help the angry scream that burst forth.
"AaaaAAAAHHH!" In that moment, Lucy decided it was time to take control of the shitty cards she'd been dealt. Enough was enough. "You wanna fight? Well today's your lucky day, you oversized TOAD!"
She could've swore she saw fear flash through its lopsided eyes before it leaped out of her reach. A sharp crack rang out through the forest when she grabbed her trusty whip and sliced a path through the air. But before she reached the slippery amphibian, a nasally voice stopped her in its tracks.
"Ah, so you have met my friend. How wonderful!"
Backing up so she could see both man and frog, Lucy immediately noticed the lime green slime dripping from the mage's hand. "You!" she seethed, pointing a shaking finger towards him.
He might have misinterpreted her trembling for fear; for that he would pay dearly. "Yes, me," he said with a smirk, "I am Wilfred, master of—"
Before he could finish his introductions, Lucy wound her whip around his wrists, binding them together, then pulled him towards her. He let out a small yelp just before her fist connected with his face, propelling him into the swampy water.
He grabbed at his bleeding nose, and exclaimed, "Hey! I think you broke my nose!"
Lucy slowly stalked forward, the green algae parting for her, and growled, "I'm about to break more than that."
He scrambled back as she waded forwards, stealthily dodging his gooey attacks, and this was how Natsu found the two. He stumbled into the marsh, instantly grimacing at the strong odor, and opened his mouth to call for Lucy before stopping in his tracks. She hadn't noticed him, her intense gaze locked on something else, but the fire in her eyes caused his heart to skip a beat. Her hair clung to her face and neck, dripping onto her already soaked clothes. Green bits of algae spotted her damp skin, and he narrowed his eyes at the scrapes that littered her calves. If she were in her right mind, he knew she'd be appalled at her current state, but Natsu couldn't help but appreciate the fact that he had a vengeful swamp angel as a partner.
He gulped once before tearing his gaze from the way her torn legs moved through the water, and finally noticed the flying snot balls that she was so easily evading. Well, that explained a lot. Moving to get a better position, he watched as she landed another punch in the mage's midsection. He grinned and yelled out, "Atta girl, Lucy!"
She stared as Wilber—or whatever his name was—struggle to inhale, then turned to find Natsu sitting on a tall stump. Cocking an eyebrow, she asked, "Are you gonna join?"
He replied with a grin, "Do you want me to?"
Her eyebrows shot up, and he could see her brain mulling over what he said before a slow smile spread across her face. "Actually, I think I've got this one."
He gave her a nod in agreement, but the moment was ruined by the now panting mage. "Hah! You can call off your guard dog for now, but I'll be dragging you through the mud before he can save your sorry ass."
Natsu felt the steam rise from his body as he bared his fangs, but Lucy's eye only twitched once before she turned to face the idiot.
"My ass is not what you should be worried about," she growled just before kicking him right where the sun-don't-shine. Natsu cringed—he knew firsthand how a Lucy Kick felt, and there no less—but he didn't feel bad for the jerk. Said jerk released a high pitch yelp and paled drastically before falling back into a tree, unconscious.
She turned around again and Natsu offered her a reassuring smile. "Was that a leftie?" he asked.
"…Yeah, it was." Lucy tucked a dripping lock of hair behind her ear, and gave a small smile with warming cheeks.
He didn't have a chance to respond before she shifted to confront a large… holy shit was that a frog? She put her hands on her hips and stared at the slimy monster, arching an eyebrow. He had no idea what she expected from the thing, but its creepy eyes seemed to contemplate something before it opened its mouth and expelled a nasty pile of slime. It leapt away with startling speed, and Lucy trudged forward before sticking her hand into the goo with a scrunched-up face. Natsu watched with no little amount of confusion as she pulled out a key—if he remembered from when she lectured him, it was Cancer's—and tucked it safely back in her belt, sighing heavily.
He scooted off his stump and into the water, meeting Lucy halfway. Her watery eyes met his, and he felt his heart lurch painfully before she leaned forward and rested her forehead on his chest, arms limp at her sides. His own reached around her back and held her softly.
"Natsu?" her muffled voice called out.
"Yeah?"
"I had a really bad day."
"I know."
She sighed again and lifted herself from his chest, sniffling quietly then immediately cringing. "And I smell so bad. How can you stand it? Ugh, they'll never let me on the train like this!"
He couldn't help himself. "Aw, that stinks."
She slapped his shoulder lightly, whining, "Natsu! I'm serious!" But her twitching lips gave her away.
A sly grin crawled across his face and he stepped back, releasing Lucy from his hold. "Well, if you don't have to ride that death trap, then I shouldn't have to either!"
Her brows knit together in confusion. "Well of course you don't—Natsu!"
To her horror, he had thrown himself into the murky water, and was in the process of pushing himself back up when she fell into uncontrollable giggles. "Natsu! You didn't have to—oh Mavis!"
He was wiping globs of algae from his face and gaping like a drowned fish when he exclaimed, "This stuff reeks!" which only caused Lucy to laugh harder.
"Why—why did you do that?" She said when she finally caught her breath.
Natsu smiled brightly at her laughter and shrugged his shoulders. "I dunno."
Lucy's grin matched his as she asked, "Who's the weirdo now?"
He walked over to the unconscious mage and replied, "You are, duh." Grunting, he lifted the man over his shoulder. "Happy says so, too."
Instead of complaining about the comment, she asked instead, "Where is Happy, anyways?"
The look on Natsu's face would have sent her into another fit of giggles if he hadn't responded with:
"Oh, shit!"
…I have no idea how this happened. All of the original inspiration for this one-shot never actually made it into the story, and then it turned into… whatever this is. That isn't to say I'm not happy with it! I could roll around in fluff for decades, so I'm pleased to share what I can produce with you!
I think I was having a bad day when I started this, and then I imagined what Lucy would do if she felt the same way. The obvious answer? She wouldn't take it sitting down. And I'm tired of seeing people bash the queen, so this turned into her kicking ass. And of course Natsu is there to support his bae (or whatever you would call her with the whole more-than-friends-less-than-lovers deal).
At some point, I decided to fix this trainwreck with a little inspiration from Pan's Labyrinth. Bonus points if you can spot it!
Let me know what you think, and check out my tumblr if you have the time! My username is lover-of-the-light117 and I don't bite!