"Shit," Sting muttered, glancing between the swiftly retreating back of his partner, Frosch trailing meekly behind, and the near-hyperventilating blond on his other side, torn between chasing one or comforting the other.

Deciding that the girl having a panic attack was of a slightly higher priority than his brooding partner, he cautiously approached the celestial mage, quietly telling Lector to follow Rogue as he did.

"Are you okay?" he asked, resting a hand on her shoulder.

Lucy flinched away, slapping a hand over her mouth to quiet her breathing.

"I'm fine," she choked out after a few seconds, looking pale. She blinked a few times.

"I'm fine," she repeated, more to herself than him. "I'm okay."

Sting paused, rolling around the words in his head carefully, even though he wanted nothing but to spill them all out like a carelessly dropped drink. He could tell that this was a definitely a touchy subject. (Really, you would have to be blind to think it wasn't. She was practically crying, for God's sake.)

"You know that... Whatever that thing did you... That wasn't Rogue," he said softly. "And..." He hesitated briefly, then steeled himself. "For what its worth, I'm sorry."

Lucy stiffened, and Sting thought, with a terrified skipped beat of his heart, that damnit he had said the wrong thing, but when Lucy flung her arms around him and hugged him tight, he didn't think much at all.

"Thank you," she murmured, her soft voice muffled by the fur on his vest.

Sting tentatively placed his hands around her shaking form, and he noticed belatedly that he was still dripping water from his dip in the canal.

"I'm wet," he said, suddenly, lamely, and flushed a little when Lucy let out a short, hiccupping laugh.

"I noticed," Lucy commented, smothering a laugh behind her hand. Her eyes were still watery and smile was more than a little forced, but it was a far cry from her shaking sobs mere minutes ago. "You can stop by my place and dry off, if you want," she offered. "Since it's sort of my fault anyway."

Sting took a second to collect himself, awkwardly attempting to regain some of his arrogance.

"Uh," he blurted out instead. (To be fair, he wasn't used to this mushy comforting stuff. At all. And "not used to" really meant "I told a cat he could be my disciple when he was crying and that's about it.")

Lucy smiled a little and took his hand. "My apartment isn't too far away."

Sting stared at their intertwined hands like a plant had sprouted from their fingertips, obediently complying when the celestial mage began to gently tug him in what he assumed was the direction of her apartment.

He racked his brain for some sort of icebreaker, something to help him regain some of his suave, cool, ladykiller persona.

What came out of his mouth was, "I didn't think you were a one-date kind of girl."

Lucy turned to face him, her face blank as her brain scrambled to process Sting's thoughtless blurb.

Then her face flushed pinker than Frosch's costume, and, yanking her hand from Sting's loose grasp, stormed off.

"Uh," he said. "Sorry." The dragon slayer paused. "Sorry," he repeated awkwardly.

Sting stood, abandoned and dripping, in the middle of the cobblestone road. The first thing he thought was, 'Wow. I didn't even know you could screw something up this bad.' Then, 'At least she's not crying anymore.' And finally, 'Holy shit I'm stupid.'


Lucy blasted through her apartment door (not literally, that was more Natsu's style), made a beeline to her bed, and flopped down. Then she realized that, in the process of blasting through her door, she left it unlocked and open.

With a long-suffering sigh, she rolled off her bed and shuffled back, closing her door with no small irritation.

Lucy eyed the her street-facing window suspiciously, and gingerly leaned out, bracing her arms on the ledge. If she squinted, she could make out Sting's silhouette down the road.

A tiny pang of guilt (barely noticeable, honestly) shot through her. She made a disgusted sound in the back of her throat. An old lady peered up at Lucy and hastily crossed the street to get away from the blond's expression.

Ignoring the feelings of wrongdoing- it was his fault that Sting was standing out there soaking wet, really- she stared at his blurry form until he turned and ambled away, undoubtedly following his partner to whatever unfortunate hotel that was housing them.

'Okay,' Lucy thought morosely as the remorse settled in her gut. 'More than a little guilty.'

So maybe he was a massive womanizing pervert. He had comforted her, albeit extremely awkwardly and he didn't really seem to know what to do when she had hugged him, but it was comfort nonetheless.

Lucy sighed and collapsed on her bed, determined to get some rest. She would figure what to do about the Sabertooth guild master sometime in the hopefully-not-so-near future.

Maybe.


Rogue blinked as Sting trudged into the hotel room, idly petting Frosch as Lector curled up next to them on the armrest of an black overstuffed leather sofa.

"Sting."

"Rogue," Sting replied dryly, shrugging off his sodden vest and kicking off his waterlogged boots, leaving both garments strewn carelessly on the floor before throwing himself on the couch opposite to his partner. Rogue grimaced at the unhappy groan and sag of the furniture, which the blond pointedly ignored.

Sting glanced at his teammate, brow furrowed. His partner seemed to be over whatever funk he was in with Lucy, but Rogue had never showed too many emotions, even now, after the Grand Magic Tournament and the Eclipse fiasco. Admittedly, as a team, they were still much closer than before, but even Rogue had his limits with the "power of friendship" that Fairy Tail seemed to thrive on.

Rogue wrinkled his nose in distaste. "Go dry off before you ruin the furniture," he grumbled.

"You can't make me," Sting muttered into the suede seats.

Rogue paused for a second, as if mulling over how exactly he could make Sting do something.

Sting had an unpleasant suspicion that most involved extreme acts of violence.

The white dragon slayer eyed his partner suspiciously for a moment, debating whether or not he was unmotivated enough to gamble with Rogue's unholy wrath before deciding that, no, he wasn't going to risk decapitation (among other things) just because he was too lazy to get of his ass.

Sting groaned dramatically, flailing uselessly for several seconds he pulled himself off the couch, glaring at Rogue like his teammate was the source all life's problems. Rogue's responding stare was apathetic and cold enough to make a stone shiver.

Sting frowned. "Whatever," he muttered, and ambled off to shower. God knows what kinds of crap floated in that disgusting canal.

Half an hour later, Sting flung the bathroom door open and strode out in nothing but a towel loosely wrapped around his hips. He saw Rogue turn his head towards him, grimace, and turn away again. (Sting could have sworn he heard his partner mutter "Disgusting," under his breath, but a second glance saw Rogue as dispassionate and blank as before.)

The blond took a second to survey the hotel room. As far as temporary housing went, it wasn't too bad. The floor was a dark honey, polished to gleaming and made of fine wood, and the walls were a dark cream color that reminded him of fresh butter. The two sofas, one holding his shadowy counterpart and the two Exceeds, were placed around a low oaken coffee table in the center of the room.

Sting hummed and nodded his approval, quietly appreciating the simple layout.

"Are you going to go dress, or are you going to stand around naked all day," Rogue said from the couch, the irritation clear in his voice. "You're ruining the view," he added blankly.

"Fro thinks so, too," the Frosch purred sleepily. Sting cast an accusing glare on the tiny cat.

The white dragon slayer took a second to decide whether or not Rogue was joking and decided that, considering that it was Rogue, he couldn't tell and would probably never find out, so he gave up and sulkily plodded to dress.

Rogue saw Sting leave out of his peripheral. "Disgusting," he said again, shaking his head.


A/N-

Such update. Very wow. Much interesting.

This chapter was weird for me to write. I couldn't get a very good grasp on how to write any StingLu so early so I gave up and settled for awkward pervert Sting and dragon slayer duo dynamics.

Closet violent Rogue is fun to write.

I don't know when the next update will be? There's testing going on at my school and the block schedule has really thrown me off my game. Not like I update fast anyway lol.

Time to play a game! Whoever is the first one to guess both my age and my grade level gets a one-shot with any Lucy pairing that they want. Literally, any one you want. Yay. I'll pm the winner to let them know and edit the AN later.

Edit: gotten few close guesses, but not the right one yet! Keep guessing folks!