Author's Note: Seriously one of my busiest months ever. All I can say to you guys is thank you for all your support and patience! The next chapter shouldn't take as long. I'm really looking forward to writing chapter 5 (chapter 4 is done and will be updated when chapter 5 is completed). This chapter is connected to the special on Natsu's house, but I don't think you need to read it to understand the chapter. It's also pretty difficult to actually figure out what stuff is in Natsu's house, so I just made most of it my own.

Don't take the ending as more than it actually is.

Warning: This chapter contains shameless feely-good content for guilty pleasure, because that's what I wrote it for. Indulge, friends.

Constructive criticism and feedback is always appreciated. Enjoy.


Possession by HawkofNavarre

Chapter 3 – Into the Den


Lucy didn't like mistakes. She didn't like making them, and she didn't like seeing the people she cared about make them. They caused hurt, pain, and sometimes damage beyond repair, and though they were definitely a good plot device, they were often destructive in reality and she didn't support them.

This was a mistake. Lucy found herself being dragged up the pathway to Natsu's house—the house that she'd broken into a couple of weeks ago. At that time, she had wanted to give the dragon slayer a taste of his own medicine. He was constantly breaking into her house and giving her trouble—not to mention the fact that he was always scaring her out of her skin every single time, although she supposed she should be used to it by now. That still didn't give him any right to trespass on her property!

"Why in the world are you dragging me here?" she demanded, only resisting his grip a little. She was reminded of the little test she'd done on him a while ago. That time he hadn't been fazed by her holding his hand. His face had only been blank, and that had confirmed that she was right from the beginning. Everyone else was fooling themselves when they said she was "Natsu's girl", because after her experiment, it was abundantly clear that he had no interest in her whatsoever.

"I told you. I need your help with something," Natsu replied grumpily, Happy joyfully flitting overhead toward their cottage. His firm grip on her wrist didn't loosen as he continued down the path.

She realized that he was being weirdly gentle with her, even with the hold he had on her. It wasn't hurting her in the least, which was really strange with the way he was addressing her right now. He was grumpy and disgruntled and yet he was still treating her perfectly nicely—well, physically, at least. He still gave absolutely no regard to her objections.

Finally, Lucy gave in and let the fire-eater pull her the rest of the way to the house. The other mage quickly opened the door, shoved her inside, let Happy fly through, went in himself, closed the door behind him and locked it.

The blonde suddenly felt rather intimidated. "N-Natsu, what are you doing?"

His face was dead serious as he stepped closer to her. Lucy gulped unconsciously, backing up nervously. Natsu was never like this, and it was seriously scaring her that he was acting more like Gajeel than anyone. It shook her more that his eyes were staring right into hers more intensely than they ever had.

"You…" he began roughly, edging nearer with each word, Lucy stepping back respectively. "…will…" She stumbled, nearly tripping on a floor board. Her heart jerked in fear even as she regained her balance. "…help…" The spirit mage felt her ankle connect with something, then fell backward onto what she believed was a table. Her eyes widened as she gripped her keys with one hand and her whip with the other. "…me…"

The pounding in her chest was different than it usually was. It was thrilling and terrifying at the same time, almost like it felt during a battle. In fighting, it was just adrenaline, but this…it was different. She kind of liked it for some reason.

He leaned over her, his hands against the flat of the table. His head lowered until his lips nearly touched her ear. Lucy could feel his hot breath brushing against her skin, sending a tingling sensation down her spine each time he exhaled. The confusion and fear within her mixed, forming an unbearable tension in her chest. She wanted to scream and let out everything that was pressing inside of her, but terror caught in her throat and nothing would come out. An enemy had never scared her so deeply. There was never a time that she couldn't summon her courage and do nothing.

…But this was Natsu; this was cheerful, loud, and destructive Natsu. He was her closest friend in the world. Why—why was he doing this?

"Where is it?" he demanded finally, and everything that had built up inside froze at his voice.

"Where…" the celestial magician began bravely, managing to force something out of her throat this time. "Where is what?"

The dragon slayer straightened up and moved away, putting one hand on his face. This time, he just looked downright stressed. He started to pace back and forth in anxiety. "Gray said I should scare you like that, but I guess it's not gunna work," he seemed to say to both her and himself while Happy gladly stayed out of the whole situation. The flame-haired mage stopped and turned back to her, concern written all over his visage. "Lucy, we're nakama. I trust you, but I need to know where it is."

"I don't know what you're talking about!" Lucy cried in distress, mind spinning. Had he said something about Gray…? Out of the loop; the feeling was extremely familiar. "Natsu—what is going on?"

She didn't think he'd heard her when his head invaded her personal space again. The fire mage gave her a dark look. "I'm sorry, but I guess I don't have any other choice."

A second later, hands were at her torso stimulating her nerves. The blonde began to giggle as Natsu attacked her mid-section vigorously. She burst full-out into laughter soon after, unable to contain the tingling sensation that was working its way through her body.

"Where did you put it?" she heard him ask, though everything seemed hazy through her muddled mind.

As such, she did not answer, despite the fact that she had no idea what he was asking about anyway. Lucy was laughing so hard that tears were beginning to form in her eyes. She found herself hitting the floor as she thrashed madly, trying to stop the onslaught of tickling, but her current position proved that she was failing miserably. The spirit mage couldn't take anymore of the abuse.

Still, the laughter came out while Natsu slowly killed her. Her hand grasped at her side desperately, finally catching hold of the handle of her whip. She pulled her left hand over her tummy and lashed at Natsu with the other. The male yelped, apparently more in shock than anything else and retreated as she threw the end of her weapon at him once again.

"What the hell is your problem?" she screamed in fury, still lashing at him with her right arm as the other rubbed her ill-treated abdomen. She was relatively breathless at the moment, but she wasn't about to give him the upper-hand again.

"Ack!" Natsu moved back in fright. "Stop! You have my box!"

Hearing this, Lucy stopped, puzzled. "Am I always out of the loop? What box? Why am I supposed to have this box?"

"You broke into my house!"

"You're always breaking into mine!"

"Yeah, but you moved my stuff!"

"I cleaned this pigsty! You should be thanking me!"

The dragon slyer put his face in his hands. "I guess it's hopeless… Erza's strategy didn't even work."

"There's still Cana's," Happy suggested from his place on the sofa.

"Cana's doesn't make any sense," Natsu replied sulkily.

The whole subject changed completely when she heard these things. The Fairy Tail girl gaped in disbelief, remembering that Gray's name had been mentioned just a few moments ago. "Wait, our guild mates told you to do this stuff?" she asked, knowing what the answer was going to be.

"Uh huh. I asked Levy what I should do to get my box back from you, but then everyone else started giving me strategies too," he answered absently, looking like he was thinking of something else. Then he cringed, "Cana told me to put my tongue in your mouth. I still don't understand how that's supposed to help me though."

Lucy became positively red-faced as she seethed silently. It was bad enough being called "Natsu's girl" by them, but their meddling in her relationship with him was another thing. They were going to get it when she got back—especially Cana. Ooh, Cana was going to get very special treatment. Very, very special treatment.

"Elfman told me to 'take you' like a real man, whatever that means."

Ah, and apparently Mira's younger brother would be joining the alcoholic. It would be great fun for everyone.

Unfortunately, that would have to wait until she actually figured out exactly what was going on here. She took a deep breath to gather herself before continuing her investigation.

"So this box, it was in here before I cleaned?" Lucy inquired more calmly.

He nodded solemnly. "I knew exactly where it was too; right between the red cup and the right shoe," the dragon slayer murmured sorrowfully.

She just stared. "…"

"Well, it's not there anymore."

"Yeah…" the busty blonde drawled, shooting him the same look he would always give her when she did or said something that qualified as "weird" to him. "Look, since I moved your box somewhere, I'll help you find it okay?"

Natsu suddenly looked rather nervous, exchanging looks with Happy whose expression had finally changed to be similar to his friend's. "Alright."

She neatly retracted her whip and reattached it to her skirt. "What does the box look like? Maybe I'll remember what I did with it," she told him, trying to remember exactly how the pile of crap in his house had looked.

"It's small…black," he responded in concentration. "It flips open, and it's…velvet? I think that's what the guy called it."

The celestial mage couldn't believe what she was hearing. "Natsu, did you buy a ring for a girl?" she question him breathlessly.

He looked away shyly, but the blush staining his cheeks told her everything she needed to know. Natsu had bought a ring for Lisanna, and he was going to ask her to marry him! That sly boy had lied to her when she'd asked him if he found his love! Oh well. She'd let it slide. The thought of Natsu being a husband was already really weird, but she knew that those two had quite a long history, and them getting married actually made perfect sense.

What made this difficult was that Lucy had absolutely no recollection of ever seeing a black, velvet box. Had she seen it while she was cleaning, there was no way she would've just ignored it, especially considering its uncanny appearance. She guessed they would have to do it the old-fashioned way.

"Okay, I don't ever remember seeing the box, so we'll have to search the house," Lucy concluded confidently, "but first things first; we've gotta get a few things straight!" She pointed a rude finger at her partner, her face adorned with a stern look. "Tell me, how long have you had that ring?"

"About a month," he admitted in embarrassment, scratching the back of his head.

He'd bought that ring a month ago? Wow, Natsu had been planning his proposal for a while then. It was clear now that her loyal companion was going to need a little push in order to get him into action.

"Right, then you are going to promise me that once we find that ring, you're going to give it to the girl it's meant for right away. No delays, got it?" the whip-user commanded strictly.

"But—" Natsu protested.

"No 'but's. You want me to help you find that ring?"

The fire-eater sighed in defeat as he crossed his arms, once again pouting. "Fine, guess I don't have a choice."

She smiled mischievously, taking her finger out of his face and readying herself to get down to business. "Good!" she celebrated as she put her hands together like an eager child. "Then, Happy, you look through those drawers and don't forget anything. Check twice, if you need to. Natsu, you take that shelf and the sofas—don't you dare start tossing things around again! You put everything back where you found it because I'm not cleaning this place up again!"

"Yes, ma'am!" they saluted her and scurried off to do their assigned jobs. Lucy watched for a moment in amusement while they very carefully sifted through objects, definitely moving visibly slower than usual.

After laughing quietly to herself, the blonde moved to her own spot around his hammock and a dresser with a few drawers. Opening the top one, a question hit her. "Hey, Natsu, how'd you know it was me who broke into your house?"

His answer came in a simple tone, "What kind of person breaks into a house and cleans?"

He made a good point, but she could still hear the echo of the answer to the rhetorical he hadn't spoken: "Only a weirdo does." Smirking, she continued rummaging through the exceptionally neat drawer for some kind of small box. Shortly after, she moved to the next one only to receive similar results.

Sighing, Lucy knew that the box wasn't just going to magically appear and so moved on to the bed, a place where it was unlikely to be. Nevertheless, she needed to search every place possible. This had to be done in order to help Natsu achieve happiness.

An hour later, everything had been thoroughly explored and no box had turned up anywhere. Lucy groaned and threw her back onto the fiery-headed boy's bed in frustration, the other two in the room lying on the floor in equal frustration. It made no sense at all! It had to be in the small house—assuming the box had really been…between the red cup and the right shoe as Natsu had recalled. She knew the cup had been put in the cupboard with others of its kind and the shoe paired with its counterpart and placed nicely in the drawers Happy had checked. She'd seen both things and put them in their proper place. She'd only thrown out food wrappers and old papers that were unnecessary—the dragon slayer was at least good at keeping mould outside the confines of his home.

"I don't get it! It's got to be in here somewhere!" Lucy whined with good reason. After all, her head was meant to be reliable and not fail her like this.

"Are you sure you didn't throw it away?" Natsu asked suspiciously, eyes narrowing in her direction.

"Yeah, I'm absolutely certain," she retorted defiantly. "I know I didn't throw it away. I looked at everything I did, and I definitely would've noticed a box like that if I had seen it."

"Are you sure you didn't eat it?" asked Happy randomly.

Lucy sputtered at the question and shot up in one swift motion, the hammock rocking softly. "What the—please tell me you're kidding!"

The indifferent smile never left the cat's face, convincing the teenage female that being friends with these two was detrimental to her health. She was never going to win whatever battle this was, and being the only sane one between the three of them really didn't help her much.

"So we've looked everywhere and we still can't find it," Natsu muttered mournfully.

"No, no, we can't have looked everywhere; we're missing something. This box is in here somewhere! I just know it!" she denied in determination. "When things like this happen, it means it's in a stupid place that none of us have thought to look in. It's got to be somewhere obvious that we just overlooked, somewhere between the cracks!"

"Between…the cracks…" the dragon slayer repeated to himself in consideration before his eyes connected with the dark space next to the stove—the gap between the stove and the fireplace. The space was small, but big enough to hold a ring box in a certain position. It was dark, obvious, and staring at them right in the face.

It was the one place they hadn't searched.

Natsu stood up and pulled the stove out a little. He reached down, and sure enough, there was the tiny, black box in all its velvety glory. It seemed like time moved in slow motion when he opened the top of the little thing and a beautiful, gleaming sapphire shone through. It was small, just a little larger than the width of the silver band it was attached to.

He turned to Lucy, holding out the box and offered two words: "Happy anniversary."

She stood there and blinked once. Twice. Three times. For a second, her mouth opened in speechlessness before she finally found her words. "What are you talking about, Natsu? What anniversary?"

The boy looked away in annoyance as he outstretched the hand with the box. "Next month it'll be three years since we first met. It's early, but you made me promise I'd give the ring right after it was found, so here it is."

"But…it's such a beautiful gift, and it definitely didn't come cheap. Why in the world would you buy me something like this?" she asked in confusion.

The red returned to his cheeks. "I'm glad I met you. I just wanted to make sure you knew that. I saw the ring through a store window 22 missions back and I know girls like jewellery, right? Besides, I thought the gem would go nice with your hair," he explained reasonably, cutely trying to mask his embarrassment.

Lucy, however, just felt overwhelmed by the flood of feelings that rushed over her. Firstly, she had been completely wrong about Natsu's ring on all accounts. Secondly, the boy she'd judged to be completely oblivious to everything had been thinking about a gift for her two months prior to the two year anniversary of their meeting. Thirdly, his confession to her was making her feel so warm and fuzzy that she just wanted to explode. She was so full of happy feelings and had no outlet for them.

Her face cracked into a weak smile as she threw her arms around him and pressed her lips full onto his. For a few seconds, Lucy was kissing Natsu, and he was kissing her back. It was a fleeting moment of emotional weakness on her part, doing something she would've done to any guy if he did something this sweet for her, but she gathered herself and pulled away, remembering that this was her best friend. Instead, she settled into a hug as her arms squeezed his torso. If Happy thought anything of this incident, he didn't say a thing, fortunately for her.

"Natsu…" she started, a wider smile forming on her lips as she attempted to figure out what to say next. There was no possible way to describe how his incredible thoughtfulness was affecting her. "Thank you so much. I'll treasure it."

"You're not even wearing it yet, weirdo," Natsu pointed out, trying to seem macho even as the fire in his cheeks grew brighter.

"Yeah," she laughed as she took in the moment, so deliriously filled with euphoria that she could die. "I am a weirdo."