I should be studying for finals. I really don't have much to worry about with my grades but I still should be studying...

(Key word: should)

Oh well. :P

Thank you for the kind reviews so far. Getting a couple positive comments so quick really made me happy and want to work on this ASAP. I hope you enjoy.

-Sarah (6/7/2016)

(REVAMP:6/21/16)

T minus eleven days until 'The Great Sting Eucliffe' will return.

Just great.

Rogue made a calendar reminder on his phone as he walked in the door to his apartment building. Two reminders, actually. One saying when Sting would arrive, and another set a couple days before so Rogue could booby trap Sting's room across the hall. Rogue had a long history of things he'd done to Sting when said blonde was being a jackass. It had things such as making food for him with copious amounts of hot sauce (which Sting was unaware of), to the classic water cup catastrophe wherein dozens upon dozens of plastic cups were laid out in key locations, to simple jabs to his ribs. It was a balance of power sort of thing. Sting pissed off Rogue (usually on purpose) and Rogue got revenge and the cycle would repeat itself. There would be complaints on both parties throughout the process but it all evened out in the end. It was a vicious, although somewhat welcome, cycle.

"Hey- HEY! Rogue!?"

Rogue had a feeling his friendship with the blonde was what made him so immune to strange occurrences, which was why, when Rogue walked in on a certain space pirate reading (one of his books) on [his] bed, her feet kicking casually in the air as though it was all hers, he simply took a sip of his coffee (in his new thermos) and pushed her onto the floor so he could take a much-needed nap.

"My bed." He stated simply. She scowled at him from her spot on his rug, he just brushed her off as he sunk into the familiar embrace of his down comforter. He watched her get up and brush herself off in a huff. He couldn't prevent the small chuckle from escaping his lips. She whipped around and fixed him a death glare. Rogue just laughed into his pillow. The space pirate was really so much like Sting in her responses to him that he simply couldn't help himself. After a few moments he removed himself from his pillow. He watched her sit in his desk chair and spin slowly in it, book open again in front of her face.

"Why'd you pick that one?" He asked. She had Stuff in her hands, a book about compulsive hoarding that he'd received from Sting as a joke after Sting discovered the absolute mess that was Rogue's back closet. Sting swore he had to have at least three globes, eight dozen Tupperware bins of crap, a few rotting corpses, and a gate to fucking Narnia back there. Rogue denied all accusations immediately, but he couldn't deny he had a problem in that room. Over the past year his neat little storage closet had become a landfill of just absolute shit. Rogue was a neat guy, the rest of his apartment clearly showed that, but he was always a sucker for keeping small things he'd found meaning in at some point. Slowly those bits of memorabilia took over the room, and now a piece of cardstock with the words 'DO NOT OPEN' was taped to the door (and likely would stay there forever).

Now he'd tried to read the book, but whenever he picked it up, Sting's taunts echoed in the back of his head that 'he had a problem and was trying to fix it', and it royally pissed him off and he found himself shoving it roughly back into his bookshelf every time. He was glad someone was reading it, though.

"I happen to like these sorts of things!" The blonde said in slight defense. "Or... at least I'm pretty sure of it." She muttered the last part under her breath, but Rogue had always had exceptional hearing.

"Hmm?"

She blanched briefly before returning to normal. "Nothing!" She chirped. He didn't peg her as the type to keep secrets, but he let it drop as it really was none of his business anyway.

He moved on. "You can have that if you want. I don't really ever look at it anyway."

"No," she said resolutely. "I don't need it."

Rogue could see she was contemplating his offer, though. He pushed it, "It's okay, really. Just take it." He made a sweeping gesture at her to keep it. She thought for a second, then gave in. "Thanks, Rogue." She smiled. He liked how it looked on her.

He saluted. "Aye, Capt'n."

Her laughter filled the otherwise silent apartment.

When he woke up the next morning (late, cuz' it was Saturday and he really couldn't be bothered to do anything like wake up early), he saw a head of blonde in his kitchen. He heard the feminine tack tack tack of heeled boots on his tile as she bounded around the small space. He stared at her for a few moments before she turned and saw his watchful gaze.

"Hey!" She sang as she turned to his stove to flip what looked like a sandwich. His nose took in the scent of tomato soup.

"Soup for breakfast?" He asked, he was a stickler for tradition, anyways.

She waved her spatula at his clock hanging off the wall. "It's not breakfast time anymore, Rogue."

"I see." He stated. His clock indeed read 12:09. He gently chastised himself for waking up so late. He got up slowly and made his way over to her side in the kitchen.

"Soooo do we still consider that a sandwich?" His red eyes widened slightly at the charred mass that lay in the pan. She made a high pitched squeak as she quickly turned off the fire and transferred it to a plate. They looked at the sad little thing in silence.

"Shit.. let's try that again," She piped as she prepared another couple slices of bread and some cheese. He took the spatula from her.

"I'll do it." It wasn't an offer, it was a statement. Rogue got to work scraping blackened cheese off of the pan before getting to work.

"So how'd you manage to make a brick out of a sandwich?" Rogue asked, honestly dumbfounded at how she managed to do so. The girl just shrugged.

"It just... happened. It was like it was common for me to do it. Like I'd done it before," she answered. She stared down at her toes and played with the tops of her long socks.

"Well have you? Sounds like you don't know you have?" At her continued silence, Rogue looked up. Her brows were knitted together intensely. He wondered why his question garnered that sort of response, or lack thereof. He brushed it off and moved on.

"So do you want a cheese brick for lunch?" He asked, returning to his task at hand. The bread was turning a lovely golden brown.

She laughed. "No, I'm not so much into that." She seemed grateful at the change in topic.

Ten minutes later they were sipping soup and watching a shitty reality TV show on Rogue's outdated set perched on top of his fireplace's mantle. Rogue had been thinking about this for awhile though.

"Why are you here?"

"Well Rogue, when two people love each other very much-"

Rogue let out a panicked squawk and nearly dropped his soup as he spun to meet her eyes. "Not like that!"

She burst out laughing at his slowly reddening cheeks.

"I mean, like, why are you here? In my house?"

She shrugged. "I like it."

He glared at her, she grinned. "That won't cut it."

She put her finger to her chin in mock thought. "Hmmm..."

"Maybe I like you?" She joked before turning back to her soup, swirling it with her spoon.

Rogue's cheeks turned a similar shade of red as his eyes. He groaned in frustration.

"Okay. Fine. Fuck it," he threw his hands up in mock surrender. She smiled into her bowl."Can you at least tell me your name? 'Space pirate' doesn't roll well off the tongue."

The blonde turned her head towards him and smiled softly. "Lucy. My name's Lucy."

"...that's better."

He couldn't fucking believe it.

The infamous partyman, the so-called 'god of lightning', the number one on his list of unreliable people (okay maybe he tied with Sting), actually did their part of the work. Rogue had been shocked a few days before when Orga Nanagear texted him asking to meet up to discuss their project, so when he came in the dorm room he was wary of it being a prank or something. But what really shocked him was that Orga was seated at his small desk (he dwarfed it in size) with his long green hair pulled back into a ponytail and a pair of glasses perched on his nose, he was completely ready to work.

When he'd been assigned to work with the man a couple weeks back he was crushed. This project was worth a great deal of points and each pair was graded as a team, not individually. He'd been hoping to get Laki or Levy or, hell, even the metalface Gajeel over Orga Nanagear, who was obviously nursing a nasty hangover that day. To be fair, he didn't know much about the other's academic life, but he had a pretty good guess at how hard he worked based on his reputation among the seedier characters in the college.

That day, he quickly selected a topic from the group of topics they were presented, split the work (with Rogue taking the more key elements of the work for himself), go Orga's number, and bid the man good day. He was not going to deal with a grouchy hungover giant that day. After that, he had dutifully avoided Orga in hopes to ease his brain from the added stress the other man would likely bring him.

Now, as Orga came over and apologized for his lack of cooperation the day the assignment was given, as well as his understanding for not wanting to trust him, he felt very foolish.

"No. I'm sorry. I let rumors go to my head and didn't give you a chance," Rogue replied to the larger man's apology with a shameful shake of his head. Orga placed a large hand on his shoulder and shot him a smile.

"I do know my way around a keg, so those rumors weren't entirely false. It's okay. Work?"

Rogue sent him a small grin. "Sure."

They finished setting up the final report in record time, and Rogue left the dorm with a warm feeling in his chest, as Orga had turned out to be quite the conversationalist. He really wasn't the smartest, but he was sharp and tried his hardest to separate his nightlife from his school life. Rogue admired the man for that. He was walking by the post office and glanced up at the large clock face. He smiled inwardly as he realized he had a good while before his favorite coffee shop would close for the day. He changed his course to head to the very place.

"Hey, Rogue."

"Hello, space pirate," He replied before taking a sip from his mug.

He set his mug down to look at the blonde who he knew had sat down on the opposite side of the small table he always occupied when he was here. Lucy was dressed in her usual black top, white shorts, and tall boots. She twirled her key necklace on her finger. He absently wondered if she ever wore anything else.

"You know my name."

"Fine. Hello, Lucy," he said with a small wave for emphasis.

She smiled at him briefly before she peered in his cup. Dipping her head down, she sniffed it.

She retracted quickly and crinkled her nose at him. "Black?"

"It's refreshing," he replied, suppressing a chuckle as he reached for his drink again. He loved black coffee. "I'm not much of one for sweet things."

She watched him, her elbows on the table as she held up her head with her hands. He let a small smirk grace his face at the childish expression she wore.

"What, my drink?" She blew a raspberry at him.

"You're such an old man."

He jerked his head up at that. He'd heard that before from a certain other blonde who bothers him on a regular basis. For a moment he saw much of his friend in the girl in front of him. He cringed at what Sting would say if he knew what he was currently thinking. ("Seeing me everywhere, now? You really must be in love with me!")

His female friend flicked his face. She raised her eyebrow at him in question. He just shrugged. "You reminded me of a friend just then."

"Ah. Who was-" She cut off her own question. She looked down at the old key in her hands. He watched as she traced her fingers gently and slowly across the ridges and cracks in the time-weathered key. He realized she must do this as a nervous habit. Her eyes were blocked from his view by cascading golden locks. She slowly tilted her head back up at him with a look on her face that made Rogue want to hold her in her arms and comfort her. Her whole person screamed vulnerability. He maintained his distance, a tad uncomfortable with the situation, and simply watched as emotion swirled violently in her chocolate orbs. "Nevermind," she said softly. He frowned.

"I met him a couple years ago when I moved over here. He's lived here all his life, apparently. His name's Sting. He's kinda' hard to miss, you might know him."

"I don't," she answered quickly. A pained look flitted across her features for a second. It disappeared as quick as it came.

"Lu-"

"I don't know him," she repeated, although seemingly more to herself than to him. She gripped the table, her knuckles slowly turning white. He was about to reach out to her when the shriek of shattered glass rang through the shop. He whipped his head around to see an employee staring at a pile of glass shards on the wooden floor. She had small cuts on her hands and one on her face. Blood slowly seeped out of them. Another employee came to her aid, as well as a couple other patrons of the store. They made sure she was okay and helped clean up the mess. The second employee took her by the shoulders and slowly walked her towards the employee-only area. Rogue could faintly hear mutterings of 'I-I don't know what happened' and 'They just... broke.' as they went away. He turned back to Lucy.

She was gone.

He looked around, seeing no space pirate anywhere in sight.

Rogue was thoroughly annoyed. He was about a month and a half into the new term, and with deadlines beginning to add up he was working his brain overtime into the early hours of the morning nearly every night to stay caught up. He had had the most incredible streak of bad luck as of late.

His calculus teacher, Mrs. Mirajane Geer, had gone on maternity leave. Somehow, even when Professor Lohr taught about six different classes of the subject, Rogue had managed to get the new, utterly brutal Miss Orland as his substitute professor for what was arguably going to be the toughest class of his college career (since he was utterly hopeless at advanced mathematics). After about a week he'd realized he must have killed at least a dozen people in his past life, because otherwise there was no way in hell he deserved this.

Summer had also disappeared entirely just that Monday, and with it took Rogue's chances at finding any amount of comfort when outside for the next few months. (He absolutely hated the cold, despised it to his very core.)

Aside from that, his favorite coffee shop had closed for remodeling just the day before. A sign saying 'Sorry for the inconvenience, but we'll be closed for at least a month for remodels.' hung on the door. Rogue swore he heard a crack rip its way along his heart at the sight of it.

A mysterious space pirate was really the cherry on top of a shitty, rotten week, as she had disappeared altogether for awhile since the coffee shop incident. Rogue didn't want to admit it, but he missed her (even though she had a nasty habit of breaking and entering and was fickle and really really confusing sometimes). He hated to admit it, but he was pretty much a loner, aside from Sting (who was gone) and Orga (who proved to be pleasant when sober, but when was he sober).

The buxom blonde had wormed her way easily into his daily life through her regular appearances at his house or lectures or just wherever. He enjoyed it, although he'd never admit it out loud. But she had all but disappeared, and Rogue wanted to rip his hair out.

He was sitting with his laptop on his bed, trying to think of anything but the girl and the weather and his coffee withdrawal when a whole new set of problems appeared in his doorway.

"Miss me, sweetheart?" Oh. Rogue had forgotten he was coming.

Rogue groaned loudly, his single visible red eye narrowing slightly at the blonde who'd walked into his small apartment and plopped themself into his desk chair across the room.

No, not that blonde. The other one. The one who, rather than constantly disappearing from his view, tried their hardest to block it with their (obnoxious) face at all possible moments. Oh yes, Sting Eucliffe was nothing like Rogue's mysterious space pirate. He honestly wished the guy would take a little more from Lucy's ways, even though Sting had never met the buxom blonde. (And Rogue was pretty sure of that, as Sting would've wasted no time in mentioning the woman's generous... assets... to his friend. Unlike Rogue, Sting wasn't shy from peeking (...staring) at women. Not by a long shot. )

"Hell no, stop calling me that, you gay fucker," Rogue blew his bangs out of his face, absently taking a little mental note to get his hair cut sometime soon.

"You do know I am a gay fucker, right? ("oh shut the fuck up, Sting") Except not now, I'm in a committed relationship," Sting boasted as he took a quick spin in Rogue's desk chair, nearly knocking it over in the process.

Rogue groaned again. He rolled over in his bed and put his laptop on the floor and rolled back in. Sting toyed with Rogue's little box on his desk that held his collection of paperclips, thumbtacks, and other small, miscellaneous items, almost dumping it on the floor as he took a second rotation in the chair.

"Miss me?" Sting asked distractedly, focusing more on the paperclips than on Rogue's lack of answer. Sting already knew ROgue wouldn't answer that truthfully unless he was threatened.

Rogue peered at a tiny crack running along his ceiling. He wouldn't admit it, but he had missed the loudmouth, who had just recently returned from half a year of post-graduate training off on the other side of the country.

When Rogue had moved here a couple years ago for college, he'd been almost one hundred percent sure that Sting Eucliffe was a guy with his head in the clouds and an over-inflated ego who had likely invested himself in a life filled with parties, alcohol, and a large harem of women.

So it came as a massive shock when he found out the fact that he, of all people, was pursuing a career in behavioral therapy, and was actually very much invested in his selected line of study. (also he was bisexual, but on second thought, that didn't surprise Rogue. Sting was often positively flaming.)

After finding out that information Rogue learned to never ever judge a book by its cover again, as it was kind of a painful realization that at that point Sting had his life pretty much figured out while Rogue had just finally discovered, after going a year and a half elsewhere as an undecided major, that he was a pretty good listener and problem solver and would enjoy a career as a psychiatrist. (That's why he'd moved colleges, as Sabertooth University was renowned for their therapy, psychology, and psychiatry programs. Oh boy, did Sting flip when Rogue decided to tell him that. ("You?... really? With your resting 'I'm-gonna'-fucking-murder-your-ass' face?" "Sting, there's a reason I make that face around you.")

Rogue faintly heard a sound through his inner reverie. It was the sound of a few dozen small items falling onto his desk and floor.

"Shit!"

"Clean it up."

"Agh, fine.. So how's life for you?" Rogue wasted no time in unloading all his problems to his friend, although he left out the part about the space pirate for fear Sting would've thought he actually went insane in his absence. ("I knew you loved me!" "Fuck you.")

Rogue admittedly didn't know all too much about his best friend, in terms of how he grew up. Rogue had constantly heard rumors about what the blonde was like as a kid, ranging from that he was a famous town druggie who had known all the hotspots for shady activity, to where he was a model student who was at the top of his class and set school standards, to where he was a loner, or a hotshot, or a player, or an absolute dick. Rogue quickly learned not to listen to any rumors about Sting, as there were many and almost all of them were contradictory and just plain wrong. (Although he did believe the absolute dick one, as Sting had proved himself to be just that on many occasions.)

Through the years Rogue did pick up a few things. Sting was popular, but had little friends. Sting was surprisingly smart (when he felt like it) and also an absolute dumbass. Sting was both incredibly secretive and also simultaneously lacking inhibitions. Sting acted one way and thought another. Sting was a walking contradiction of himself, and somehow this incredibly strange person meshed well with Rogue, who seemed to be the last person who would willingly form a friendship with the walking disaster. Rogue enjoyed his company, even if he was reckless and careless and downright strange.

Maybe that was what made him so tolerant of the new blonde who had wedged herself into his life. As she was very similar to Sting in many aspects from the little time he'd had to actually talk to her so far. She was absolutely random and seemed to move around with no reason. She also seemed to have that natural charm that made people want to talk to her, a charm that Sting also possessed. He felt like he could talk to her like he talked to Sting.

Although a glaringly obvious difference was that Sting made it a habit to annoy Rogue seemingly on purpose whenever and wherever possible.

When happened to be now and where happened to be his room, which he liked to keep pristine and orderly. It certainly was not when he dragged himself out of his bed.

He shook his head for a second, sleepy eyes glancing at the clock on the wall. It read either 9:18 or about 4:45. He wasn't really awake enough to tell. He assumed that it was morning though, as Sting came late in the night and the sky outside was pitch black. Rogue rubbed his eyes as he looked around. Sting was nowhere in sight. Ah, shit. Sorry, Sting. He'd fallen asleep.

It was obvious that Sting had been there though, as his normally orderly room was a mess and Rogue certainly hadn't done it.

Sting had not cleaned up his mess like Rogue had asked (demanded) him to. Instead opting to leave a paperclip chain draped haphazardly all over his desk, some post-it paper planes thrown about the room (likely thrown at him as he slept), glitter - which he was sure he'd never owned - all over and in his laptop's keyboard on the floor, and thumbtacks hidden in his carpet.

He found those with his feet, then decided he no longer cared that he fell asleep on his friend, and promptly vowed to plant the little fuckers all around Sting's apartment at the next possible chance.

Groaning, Rogue yanked the offending object out of his foot and stalked over to his desk to turn off his lamp, which Sting had also left on. Once the light was off, Rogue returned to his bed. He guessed he'd still apologize to Sting for falling asleep when he'd just returned from his trip (and then he'd stab him). But for now, he was tired and bleeding and wanted nothing more than to just sleep.

He fell asleep almost immediately, his brain tired from the late night sessions with his laptop he'd been having pretty regularly lately.

He didn't get to see the figure of a certain blonde girl walking through the closed door of his closet, quickly looking to see if he was awake. He didn't see her huff at the mess in his room. He didn't see her pick up the paperclip chain and take it apart, returning its pieces to its box along with his thumbtacks. He didn't see her blow some of the glitter on his laptop out the window.

He hadn't seen the post it stuck to his desk. He didn't see her rip a chunk off and stuff it into her pocket. He didn't see her put a new one down.

He certainly didn't feel her gently run her fingers through his hair.

Well, that's what she thought.

She was, of course, wrong.

He, of course, thought it was a dream.

Until, upon waking up in the morning, he saw two post-its on his neat and tidy desk.

'Hey, sweethartttt- Thx 4 falling asleep on me u asshole. XOXO' Rogue cringed. It was in Sting's resolute chicken scratch.

The second post-it made him much happier than he should've been, and than he would ever admit. Written in an unfamiliar, feminine hand, it made him forget the stolen note she'd pocketed.

'Sorry- See you. -Lucy'