Messes

Happy birthday dreamingoffairys! I'm nowhere near as good a writer as you but I hope you like this! This is pretty OOC for a while, please bear with me.

"Rogue!" Everything was fuzzy; he couldn't make out who was calling him. "Rogue!" Who? Who was it shouting his name? "Rogue!" That voice was getting closer, so familiar…

The Shadow Dragon Slayer was promptly brought out of his daze by a smack on the head. Ouch! Rogue knew he recognized that hit; he'd been struck by it plenty of times when the two trained together when they were younger…

"What the hell Sting!"

"You weren't waking up, I thought I was losing you until the healers said you were just sleeping, and then I felt like I needed to yell at you a little."

…Are you freaking serious? "Don't tell me… you woke me up, for that?"

"Well… of course I did."

Okay, payback time. One good revenge hit on the head coming right at Sting. If he grabbed a shadow to put some extra punch into it, nobody noticed. Except maybe Sting's face.

"Hey, now what the hell was that for?"

"You said there were healers, so I must have been injured recently, and you thought it was a good idea to wake me up by punching me so I feel justified in hitting you back."

Sting was probably about to hurl a retort right back at him if they hadn't heard a cough coming from the open doorway. "Honestly what are you two, children?" Rufus. That patronizing little…

"Please sir, let's just let everyone calm down and take a minute, don't start up another fight." Yukino. There was definitely no way they'd fight now, Rufus was one thing but hurting Yukino would be awful!

And it wasn't just because Minerva was standing behind her girlfriend with a dark protective aura around her; no it definitely wasn't that at all. Of course they'd never act so foolishly as to injure a guild mate, which totally wasn't something that had happened before…

"Honestly Sting, you could have just thrown a bucket of water over his head and let the cold wake him up." …Minerva was wearing a pleasant face now, but they knew… they knew about the demon inside that was holding a camera behind her back, ready to take pictures of a wet Dragon Slayer to sell to Sorcerer Weekly.

And that was also something that had never happened of course. Nope, never in a million years.

Sometimes they thought they needed better friends, every other time, they loved this guild to death. Family, friends, people they can rely on and trust with everything were all here, and were all here for each other. It was the greatest home any of them had ever known.

…Of course it didn't change the fact that Sting had woken Rogue up by punching him in the face. Now that was going to cause some problems down the road.

*/*\*

Sting struck first again, he obviously hadn't forgiven Rogue for the 'payback punch' earlier that day, and when Sting pranked, Sting pranked well.

Rogue ended up drenched, completely drained of energy and looking for Frosch, he had a great idea of what to do next.

*/*\*

Out of any prank war the Twin Dragons had waged, Rogue's first attack was by far the greatest one yet, he had an adorable Fro on his lap, smiling sweetly and sucking on hard boiled sweets while Rogue rested his head on his Exceed's gently, a soft smile touching his lips and calm eyes, but Sting saw… he saw the wickedness in those pools of blood red. Rogue's face just screamed, 'now don't I look cute, regret missing out on this by punching me?'

…Damn, this one was gonna be hard to come back from.

*/*\*

"Minerva I need your help."

"If it's about your silly 'war' with Rogue I'm not interested."

"But-"

"No."

Sting left the Lady of Sabertooth to her own devices, still determined to pull his newest form of weapon off and utterly defeat Rogue.

*/*\*

It hadn't worked by a long shot, name each and every one of Sting's failures and you'd never come close to how badly his plan had gone. But he had one trick left up his sleeve, and he'd get Rogue back, even if he had to give up his title of guild master!

Well… maybe not to that extreme, but he'd bet a lot on this latest plot.

*/*\*

A week later, the Twin Dragons of Sabertooth ended the petty feud, with a little help from their comrades and then even more help from them after each wizard of Sabertooth determined that Sting and Rogue were just being idiots at that point. Things like this usually went on only for a week tops, a fortnight like this new one was unthinkable! Except to Minerva and Rufus, they always knew everything.

Like how to stop a yelling match by clipping the Dragon Slayers round the ears. Sting yelled, Rogue didn't; glaring ensued, but it wasn't at one another at least.

"Look Master and you too Rogue, you've both been acting like stubborn idiots and we're sick of it. Can't you two grow up already and stop fighting?" They both opened their mouths to answer 'No' before Minerva kept speaking and cut them off. "Wait don't answer that, I already realize it was a stupid mistake on my part."

"Now, to get to the front of the matter, you need to clean your act up, at this rate you're going to pull a Natsu Dragneel and begin destroying things." Nobody tried to speak, oh no; they hadn't, had they?

"Don't tell me you've…"

"No!"

"Are you absolutely certain that-?"

"Yes!"

So their synchronized speaking was back, point one for the guild excluding those two.

Minerva and Rufus went on for a while, talking about the usual things like irresponsibility and their obligations even though it seemed to go in one ear and out the other… which was promptly fixed by quick flicks on their foreheads.

Yukino was just about to add to the conversation when Sting perked up, like he'd heard something. "I hear… Rogue?" Everyone appeared confused, Rogue had been staying still and silent this whole time and Sting wouldn't need to question if it was him seeing as they were so close. "Yeah that's definitely Rogue, but he's not speaking." Confusion levels in the hall rose, everybody's apart from two figures standing still.

The tension in the air could have been cut with a knife, or a bang, which is exactly what they got when the front doors to the guild slammed open and people fell back, the Dragon Slayers splashing into the pool, coughing and spluttering as they rose up from the water. Heads turned, magic was readied, only to see another Rogue. His mind still boggled, Sting whipped around to check on his friend beside him in the water, except he wasn't there.

"Okay, someone explain to me what the hell is going on?" Two coughs, two figures standing still; Minerva and Rufus with smiles on their faces. Crud.

"Rufus made the switch before you punched Rogue in his sleep, so the guy you hit didn't remember much and I spent most of my time teaching him things, like how you're a sucker for cute things like Rogue smiling and cuddling Frosch." Sting wasn't blushing whatever were you talking about? "The real Rogue has been locked in the basement thanks to my Spatial Magic for a week or two while we set things up."

"What was it you set up Minerva? Tell me!" Rating of the day from Sting Eucliffe's perspective, not a good one.

"Oh nothing, I don't think I really have to explain, let's go everybody." Nobody wanted to disobey Minerva when she was scheming something, the hall was emptier than a cemetery in seconds, leaving just the two team mates; Sting still standing awkwardly in the pool.

"It can't be comfortable in all those wet clothes, can it?"

"You're not subtle at avoiding eye contact Rogue, just look at me." Warm, red eyes were locked onto him like usual, which felt good. "And yeah, it's not fun being stuck in all these drenched things." And eye contact was gone again, terrific, though Rogue's cheeks seemed redder than usual… Oh! Oh. Oh. Now that was an idea. "Want to help me get out of them?"

The door was locked not a moment later, footsteps and splashes of water echoing through the building, lightly accompanied by the sound of clothes rustling and hitting the floor.

Now this is why I should not attempt humour, ugh! I hope it wasn't too terrible, I had a way better idea in my head but I couldn't write it out T-T