request fic from tumblr - "Hey, hey, calm down. They can't hurt you anymore." + "I need a place to stay."
with everything that's lucy's encountered since her very first mission, it's hard to say when her night terrors begin. quite probably it started after galuna island, but she'd rather not think about that ordeal.
some nights, she wakes up gasping for breath, dreaming of the depths of a lake, and other nights, she dreams of creatures she's not sure she's seen before. they chase her as she runs, faster than she could have imagined herself running. she won't remember if she outran them – the dreams always shift before she finds out.
some nights – some blissful, quiet nights – she dreams of nothing. and in her experience, sometimes, nothing is good.
she doesn't tell anyone at first. no, how could she? she was the light of their guild, how could she tell them that she's terrified of going to sleep at times?
she doesn't tell anyone, but natsu figures it out anyway. he shows up a week after her first dark circles are prominent enough to get mira asking worriedly, "what's wrong?"
lucy brushes it off with a laugh and blames it on the stress from her last mission.
"i need a place to stay," is what natsu tells her when he shows up that night. he tells her a badly made-up story of how he destroyed his house, but lucy lets him in even though she knows he's lying.
dinner is a quiet affair, and they soon turn in for the night. natsu takes the couch without complaint, and they bid each other goodnight.
she dreams that night, a haunting dream that has her screaming for her spirits to run, and before she realises, natsu is at her side trying to calm her down. she flinches in alarm – she hadn't remembered that he was over.
"hey, hey, calm down," natsu says as he pats her head gently. "they can't hurt you anymore. don't worry."
lucy falls into sleep soon, and the only indicator that she had woken up in the middle of the night was a curled-up natsu on the floor. she looks down at him, and after a split-second of thought, grabs her blanket and tucks it under him.
her fears probably won't disappear overnight, but maybe now she could rely a little on natsu too.