Lucy woke up at 1 in the afternoon. This was not normal for her, normally she would have woken up to face the day, at least an hour earlier, even on a morning where she begrudged the sun because she had been up all night writing about an adventure the characters in her novel undertook. Upon waking up she immediately wanted to go back to bed.
Lucy felt HORRIBLE.
Her nose was stuffed up so she couldn't breathe through it. Thankfully she had no roommate--she'd have woken her up with snoring loud enough to wake Natsu. Her eyes were gummed shut with a yellow goo, and she had an incredible urge to cough, which just grated against her throat that felt like she'd tried to eat fire. All in all she didn't like knowing that a mere illness had completely, totally, inconceivably ruined every ounce of her attractiveness. It was always a shock to her system, angering her, when she could not control men through her beauty.
No, for Lucy today was not a good day.
Hating herself for getting a cold, hating the world for allowing illness to exist, Lucy climbed out of bed and slipped her feet into slippers with a red heart over each big toe. Her baggy t-shirt (which was her one concession to comfort over fashion—a nice, cozy, t-shirt in the privacy of her own home, but just to sleep in) fell down to her knees. Grumbling the whole way Lucy ventured into the bathroom to wash the goop off of her very pale face.
Still half-asleep, she stumbled into her kitchen afterwards, hungry, but knowing that she needed soup rather than something solid. Her throat was too sore. The loud banging as she closed the cupboard, disappointed, hurt her ears.
Crap, I didn't go grocery shopping…not that I have any money to do so. Natsu and Gray keep destroying everything on our missions. It takes up half of our pay! Ugh, what did I do to get a cold anyways…Then it hit her what she'd done, or rather what Natsu had done to her.
Sick and tired of Natsu, sick and tired of being sick, and most certainly sick and tired of not looking her best Lucy decided that bed was the best option. She grabbed a glass of water and some climbed back into bed, sipping it every so often. A book lay on the bed next to her, a romance novel, but as she lay in bed she realized that her body fighting the cold, and the soft comfort of bed after a week-long mission with NO HOTEL had left her more tired than she thought, so the book was left alone.
Lucy's eyes had wandered shut, once, twice, thrice, and then they stayed down, her mouth hanging open so that she could breathe. Her head rolled to the side and she was just falling into a nice sleep, with dreams of a vacation without Natsu terrorizing her on their way (that had become a recurring dream lately, a vacation without destruction, or annoying boys eating fire, or stripping down to boxers….) when…
BAM!!
Her dorm flew open, wood grating as the lock failed to withstand the force throwing it open. Lucy sat bolt upright in bed as three figures wandered into her small apartment.
"Happy where's Lucy? I don't see her anywhere," exclaimed Natsu. Happy ran around the room looking for Lucy.
The threesome of Happy, Natsu and Gray were all vaguely surprised when a figure sat up from the bed glaring at them and throwing a half-full glass of water. Instantly on the offensive Gray froze the water, which promptly hit Natsu square in the head- but failed to knock the hard-headed boy over.
Getting a closer look at the figure in the bed the two males cringed and tried to hide behind each other. Happy just jumped up next to Lucy, grinning. "Found her!"
The boys were in shock. Lucy had never looked so awful, so angry… it scared them, as if they had done something wrong. They hadn't though! They weren't fighting each other-- it didn't occur to them that barging into her apartment, uninvited, might have been the reason for the glare.
"Go away," she croaked, using her voice for the first time that day.
Natsu and Gray turned and looked at each other, Gray comprehending what was wrong, but Natsu totally oblivious. "What's wrong with her," Natsu stage-whispered to his rival.
"She's sick, you idiot," came the annoyed reply.
Natsu's face lit up. "Oh I'm sorry Lucy. It must suck to be a woman. What's it like being sick? I'm glad I'm a man--getting sick would be completely awful."
Lucy's face paled even further if that were possible. …He hadn't thought 'sick' meant…..THAT had he? Anger, even more than previously lit up in her eyes, spreading a red across her cheeks.
Gray fled out of the apartment, and Happy bounced over to the other side of the room. Gray didn't feel the need to stick around to find out anymore: he knew why Lucy hadn't been at the bar all day…err Headquarters all day. Happy figured he didn't want to be next in line in the throwing-things-at-the-idiot-game.
Natsu was, naturally, clueless as to what he implied. He genuinely believed that only women could catch colds--and had no clue what Lucy had interpreted his statement as.