It's the early morning and Natsu is asleep, obviously – he only gets up early on Sundays to train and on Saturdays when Lucy wakes him up as she leaves for a walk.
Well, anyways, it's the early morning and Natsu is asleep except he's not because why is he falling and hitting the ground and why is Lucy yelling again?
"Natsu, get up, I swear I heard someone scream just now!"
Natsu mumbles incoherently and shoves his face back into Lucy's pillow, which he's taken to the ground with him. It's warm and he's warm and there's a lot of Lucy-smell that isn't completely masked by her perfume because she sleeps there, which makes the perfume fall off of her like a snake molting (at least that's how Gray described it… wonder why he was snickering when he said it).
Lucy yanks on his scarf, which feels kind of choke-y, but Natsu doesn't actually quite feel it at all because shhhh he's sleeping OW did Lucy just stab him with a pencil like Erza does?
Or… WAS ERZA THERE AND THAT'S WHO STABBED HIM?!
He launches to his feet, jumping backwards and assuming a defensive position, which is holding a madly protesting Lucy in front of him as he yells, "You can't get me without hurting her, Erza!"
"Erza's not here, Natsu!" Lucy flails until Natsu gets a hold of his surroundings and releases her.
"Then what is it? I was asleep," he half-whines.
"I heard a girl scream," Lucy explains, a little fear creeping into her voice as she tucks a carefully sharpened pencil back into her desk drawer, for later use.
Natsu rolls this in his head for a moment, but it doesn't quite feel like anything's wrong. "I'm sure it's fine," he says, collapsing back on her bed, his arms and legs out so that Lucy has to maneuver around him and lie down over one of his arms with her legs tucked in.
She grumbles things to herself, things like "stupid" and "idiot" and "needs to make room for me – it's my bed". He raises his head just enough to press his lips just under her eye, which was a total accident – he just wasn't aiming – and Lucy scrunches her nose before sighing and kissing his cheek, halfheartedly shoving him to make more space for herself.
Suddenly, Natsu bolts upright. "Did it sound like Wendy?!" he asks, his eyes big. "If anyone hurt my cousin, I'll kill them!"
Lucy sighs. "No, Natsu. I'm sure it wasn't her voice."
Natsu instantly relaxes, smushes his lips by Lucy's temple, lies down, and jolts back up as the scream restarts. He and Lucy share a look before dashing out the front door.
They don't really know what they were expecting, but what they see is definitely not it.
Shock. Confusion. Pure and adulterated terror.
The screaming girl – Juvia. Reasons for screaming – unknown as of the moment.
What they do know is that Juvia is yelling like a madwoman in the middle of the street in apparent anger as she throws water bottles hard enough on the asphalt that they explode.
Natsu's cousin Laxus, who lives just down the street, opens the door of his house wearing lightning-printed pajamas. He wipes his eyes of sleep and stands there a moment, blankly staring at the scene. Then, with a heavy sigh, he turns back around and retreats into his home.
Lucy watches Juvia's rage in half-awe, her eyes following the plastic wreckage of crushed water bottles in the street, lying in the splatter of water that glistens in the streetlights. "So many wasted resources," she mumbles.
Juvia shrieks some more, hurling more water bottles on the ground.
Natsu scratches the back of his head, turning to Lucy. "Is this a girl thing?" he asks, only to be smacked on the back of his head by an apparently offended blond. How was that insulting? Natsu pouts, rubbing his head.
"WHY?!" yells Juvia. "WHY DOES GRAY-SAMA NOT LOVE JUVIA? WHY DOES HE LOVE OTHER GIRLS? WHO WAS SHE? WHY HAS JUVIA NEVER SEEN HER BEFORE? WHY WOULD GRAY-SAMA HIDE HER FROM JUVIA? IS SHE REALLY THAT SPECIAL? WHY DOES SHE SPEAK SO FAMILIARLY TO GRAY-SAMA? WHY DOES HE HAVE A CUTE NICKNAME FOR HER? DOES 'TEAR' HAVE A SPECIAL MEANING TO THEM? WHY IS SHE ALLOWED TO HAVE A NICKNAME FOR HIM WHEN GRAY-SAMA WON'T LET JUVIA CALL HIM ANYTHING?!"
She screams once more in frustration, crushing an already ruptured water bottle under her boot.
Lucy sweatdrops at Juvia's rant. She stands on her tiptoes to pat down Natsu's bedhead, murmuring resignedly, "Go back to sleep, Natsu. I'll talk to her."
Natsu's a little too tired and confused to argue back, so he leans down to peck the top of Lucy's head with a mumbled, "'Kay, Luce."
"If I'm not back when you wake up, Juvia probably killed me," says Lucy. "Blame it on Gray."
Natsu nods back, accepting Lucy's kiss on his chin and staggering back inside.
Lucy pulls on the bottom of her pajama top, which is really just Natsu's shirt, and takes a deep breath to prepare herself before approaching the raging Juvia.
Lying in bed, Natsu can hear Juvia's voice drop at Lucy's arrival and the sickening crunch of another water bottle's death. He hears a hissed, "Love rival… did you know you and Juvia have another rival for Gray-sama's love?"
And Lucy's tired reply: "Juvia, go back to bed. This isn't helping."
"Why does Gray-sama love her and not Juvia?"
"Juvia, please. I don't know what you're talking about, but please stop killing the water bottles."
Natsu hopes Juvia won't kill Lucy. He can't imagine living without her. Where would the fun in that be? Oh, and he'd probably be sad. Really sad. He hopes she'll live past this encounter.
There's a brief sound of scuffling and then Juvia's crying. He knows Lucy wouldn't hit Juvia, but like. Yeah. Sounds like it, almost.
"Why won't Gray-sama love Juvia like Natsu loves love-rival?" wails Juvia.
"Juvia, I think you're delirious," replies Lucy, her voice shaking a little. "Natsu doesn't love me."
Except suddenly Natsu is wide-awake and he can't sleep because what. He doesn't love Lucy. Or at least he thinks he doesn't, but what exactly is love and how can he know for sure?
He tugs on his scarf, wondering if not wanting Lucy to die was a symptom of love.
After a little bit of thinking and a slight headache, Natsu lies back down. He hears Juvia give a choked sob and he hears Lucy saying, "Here, I'll walk you back to your house."
He nods to himself. Yes, he feels something for Lucy, and it's probably love. He loves Lucy. Okay, that doesn't sound so bad. It actually sounds kind of… nice.
Yeah, he could get used to this "love" thing.
Now, the problem was what being in love actually meant and what you do with it.
