"Let me in," Lucy demanded boldly, planting her right hand on her hip while the other hung at her side, her fingers clutched tightly against the handle of her medical bag in an attempt to appear more confident than she was as she stared down the man blocking her path. The dark haired guard named Rogue shifted his weight uncomfortably, glancing over his shoulder briefly before answering.
"Commander Scarlet gave us strict instructions not allow anyone to converse with the prisoner until she gave further instructions," the soldier relayed his orders dutifully.
Unfortunately for him it took a lot more than a simple 'no' to deter Lucy Heartfellia from getting what she wanted. The blonde huffed, adding an eye roll into the mix to convey her impatience. "No one will be able to interrogate him if he's dead," she snapped, causing Rogue to whip out his gun in .25 seconds while sweeping his eyes around the room, searching for danger.
"At ease, Soldier," Lucy struggled to suppress a chuckle as the man lowered his gun to his side slowly but not sheathing it. "The prisoner is wounded and requires medical attention. His bandages need replacing after I inspect the wound to ensure that it is healing properly. If I don't then the wound can get infected, leading to the infectious agents to release toxins into the surrounding tissue which would lead to the skin becoming inflamed as the body tries to fight off the harmful invaders. It can then lead to pus, fatigue, fever, chills, coughing, runny nose, trouble sleeping and ultimately death.
"So by all means, prevent me from continuing on with my job by allowing a man with useful information to die from a preventable disease. Otherwise, you will be the one explaining to Commander Erza why her best lead to defeating Zeref is dead. I will not be held responsible when virus and bacteria take control over a host of cells and-"
"All right all right, I'll let you in," Rogue interrupted, put off by her endless stream of word vomit involving medical information that made no sense to him.
Lucy smiled up at him too brightly. "Thank you," she nodded, slipping past him through the door that lead to a hallway of cells. The majority of them were empty since Mavis didn't believe in keeping prisoners just to torture them. Once she had squeezed out all the information from them like a lemon she ordered a squad to bring them to the war's established No Man's Land and released them so they could find their way back to their camp on their own.
The very last cell at the end of the hallway was the only one currently occupied. Expecting for the room to be silent, Lucy was off put by a man's cheerful chatter. Narrowing her eyes, she couldn't place the voice until she spotted a mess of blonde hair on top of a man who was standing in front of the holding cell. He was blocking her view of Natsu but from the lack of responses she heard from the said soldier she could imagine his annoyed expression. Lucy didn't understand what Sting was conversing with Natsu about but was able to decipher some of his confusing jargon.
"I can't believe it!..Your right hook is incredibly powerful…you can do it just as strong with your left hand?...I just can't believe I'm talking to the Salamander!"
"Yeah yeah, thanks," muttered a very disinterested Natsu, but when his sensitive ears picked up the sound of her footsteps, he craned his neck around Sting to catch a glimpse of the pretty blonde.
"Lucy!" he exclaimed, perking up. Even his green eyes the color of august leaves brightened at the sight of her. "You came to pay me a visit, eh?" he grinned that cheesy smile of his. It was unbelievable, here he was trapped in the enemy camp's prison with a smile on his face as if his friend came to visit him at home.
Instead of saying any of that, Lucy smirked at him. "Who else was going to change your bandages?" the medic questioned sassily, quirking up a blonde eyebrow.
"So you don't have any other medics here that could have?" Natsu countered slyly.
"I'm the medic who stitched you up so it's best if I continue with your healing process," she quickly retorted, dropping down to her knees to shuffle through her medical bag while Sting worked on unlocking the cell door. Thankfully her hair was long enough to hide her flushed cheeks. Once the door was open, Lucy slipped inside with the appropriate tools in hand, Sting closing the cell behind her in case Natsu had any intentions of escaping. The odds that he would attempt to escape were low considering he had turned himself in.
"Sting, can you give me some privacy with my patient? I can't focus as well with you breathing down my neck." the blonde asked in a firm voice, refusing to call Natsu a prisoner.
Upon seeing the reluctance the younger soldier held with him, Natsu spoke up, saving her from coming up with another excuse. "If I give you my autograph will ya leave us alone?"
And that is how the two ended up alone in a cell together with his shirt off. Neither one of them spoke as Lucy used a pair of medical scissors to cut the old bandages away. She peeled the soiled cloth from his body, purposefully keeping her gaze at the task at hand and not his glorious set of chest and abdominal muscles her fingers ached to touch.
The medic inhaled slowly through her nose, shooing away the pesky thoughts that infiltrated into her mind and returned her focus back to his wound. None of his stitches had broken, thankfully, so all she had to do was apply new bandages.
Halfway through binding them around his torso was when words finally escaped through her frowning lips. "Why?" she thought his eyes snapped down to her face when in reality he had been watching her the entire time.
"That's a pretty broad question there, Princess," he used to nickname to lighten the heavy air between them.
"Why would you turn yourself in?" Lucy demanded, her hands stilling on their work as they began to tremble, yet not once did she tear away from his gaze. "Why would you ever do that to yourself?!"
Natsu's expression appeared to soften seeing her so distressed, and over him of all people. "You told me that your camp had been attacked recently. I wanted to make sure ya got there safely," he explained in a calm voice, reaching out and taking her shaking hands in his. The bandages fell out of her hands, rolling on the floor and unwinding until it halted a few inches away from them when it lost momentum.
"Why would you do that for me?" Lucy's voice caught in her throat slightly and the backs of her eyes began to burn.
"I didn't want to see you get hurt."
"But why me?"
A pause interrupted the conversation as the soldier thought over his next answer carefully. "If you had gotten hurt I woulda never forgiven myself."
His words crumbled the damn that had been holding back her tears that now trickled down her flushed cheeks. "You idiot! What if they had hurt you?!"
Seeing her crying flustered the typically unruffled man. "H-hey hey! Don't cry! Nothin happened so you can't worry about the 'ifs'. Ya know, someone important to me said something pretty smart when I was young. He said 'Speak of your future, and that shall become your will to live.' For a long time I had no idea what the hell that even meant. I forgot about it, until I met you."
"Until you met me?" Lucy repeated in a soft voice, her eyes lowering to her lap. "Why would I have made you remember such a thing?"
"To be honest, I didn't know why it did. I blamed it on the near death experience," Natsu released her hands to rub the back of his neck awkwardly. "But after getting to know ya, I think I got it figured out."
"Oh yeah? Enlighten me."
Natsu made a sound that sounded almost like a snort of amusement. "You are so fearless in everything you do. You risk your life to help others no matter who they are. Fuck, you found me dying in the middle of nowhere, knew I was an enemy and still patched me up," his eyes narrowed as an intense look shadowed his face, underlying emotions swirling through his eyes that she couldn't decipher. "I had to protect that light from being extinguished."
"But I'm only a medic, one who is your enemy," Lucy muttered weakly.
"No. You aren't just a doctor…you're Lucy," Natsu smiled at her brightly, the strange expression dissipating from his features. Those simple words allowed the blonde to pause in her sniffling, mulling over his statement. Her cream colored hand reached out to grab his.
"I'll find a way to get you out of here, I promise," Lucy vowed.
In response, Natsu ran his calloused thumb across her contrasting smooth, unmarred skin. His tan skin held scars all over his body, some pale and soon to be forgotten while other flashed red and angry on the surface. "Don't worry about me," he murmured, resting his forehead against hers and closing his eyes contently.
"I'm glad just knowing that you're safe," he murmured. Lucy's eyes widened at his statement before a wave of calm washed over her. Similar to him her own eye lids fell closed and the pair stayed like that for a long time until Sting came back to check on them. When he saw them close together like that he made a noise, alerting the two of his presence. Natsu abruptly stood up and started yelling at his fan who in turn cowered away and let out a stream of apologies from his mouth. In a matter of seconds the blonde had rushed out and Natsu was grumbling unhappily. The whole scene was ridiculous and a bubble of laughter burst from Lucy's lips.
"Oi! What are you laughing at?" Natsu grumbled, sitting back down in his spot next to her.
"Nothing," she responded with a bright smile, another giggle she tried to suppress escaping.
"Whatever you say, Weirdo," the pink haired man rolled his eyes at her in a playful manner.
"I'm not a weirdo!" Lucy huffed, getting riled up again.
"Sure you aren't," Natsu chuckled as she began to argue with him light heartedly. It didn't matter to him because he knew she was happy again and that's all that mattered.
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AN: Long time no see aye? Sorry you guys don't want my excuses but ill try to update sooner than three months at a time. I was going to do one long chap but I didn't like the choppy transition so it will be split up into two. Second part is written but has to be worked on and edited. Hope you like this chapter! ~CelestialSpiritQueen