~Here's your daily dose of drama and dragony goodness! Let me know what y'all think!~
Chapter 25
Mavis, what the fuck happened? I feel like my bones are goo...and my insides are squirming...and fuck, I think I'm gonna be sick. As she opened her eyes to take in enough of her immediate surroundings to see the bucket sitting next to the bed and promptly heaved everything she had inside her stomach into the metal pail. Groaning as she leaned her forehead on her arm resting over the brim of the bucket, "Ugh, why does it feel like I'm dying..."
Her back straightened too quickly as she heard someone respond from her side, only succeeding in sending a fresh wave of nausea through her.
"Fuck, Luce. I didn't mean to scare you," Natsu's voice overflowing with concern as his warm hands were rubbing small, comforting circles over her back, "You've been out for a week and we were starting to get really worried about you."
She breathed his name with so much relief ti nearly broke the pinkette's heart all over again. The Fire slayer could have wrapped her up and locked her away so she never had to be that far away from him ever again.
Confident she wasn't going to up chuck anytime in the immediate future, she set her gross vomit pail back to it's original home on the stand next to her bed, finally taking her surroundings in enough to realize she was in the guild's infirmary again. Having the sense to keep her hand from connecting to her skull in a habit that was becoming far too regular for her liking, like she wanted to, the blonde beauty took a deep breath and motioned for the pinkette to get in the little bed with her.
His voice was playful and just what she needed, "Mavis, I thought you'd never ask."
Giggling as he lifted the blankets to curl her into his chest, her lips brushed against the tanned, toned muscles she desperately ached to touch, his arms wrapping her up in a tight embrace, "Since when do you wait for permission, Natsu?"
Pressing sweet, soft kisses into her hair, his words came out completely opposite of his tender actions, "I didn't want you to throw up on me. I really like staying vomit free."
Lifting her head to run the tip of her nose against the hollow of his throat, her voice was quiet, "I missed you so much. I'm sorry for thinking it would be good idea to be apart."
He sent shivers down her spine as he traced lazy swirls over her back with his fingertips, she couldn't help but smile at his rich, throaty voice, "Don't worry about it, Princess. It all worked out in the end."
Sighing, she pulled back to look into his star-studded onyx orbs, she was tired and confused and all she wanted was answers, "What happened? You said I was out for a...a week. Why?"
"Short version? You pushed your body too far, Luce. Between channeling my magic, almost breaking Gajeels bond and Laxus' lightning going haywire, you didn't really-"
Her voice was panicked, her head rushed as she sat up too fast again but she managed to push through the spinning sensation as she grasped her head and winced at the pain that shot through her skull, "I almost did what?"
Cringing at her obvious stress, he reluctantly added, "We don't really know what happened. One minute I could feel you, your connection to him and then it was just heat and Gajeel's bond tightened to quickly. There's really no telling what happened." She could feel his body tense as he kissed her neck before pulling back and whispering sadly, "He's...been gone ever since you came back, Luce."
"No. No, he can't be gone. I'd be dead if he was gone...Natsu would be dead...Why would he just up and leave? I know we were at a...disagreement on the mountain but he should have trusted me. He-he should have known I could...I could do it. He should have helped me."There was no anger in her words, only a terrible pit in her stomach as she fumbled through her thoughts.
Natsu's gentle voice was in her hair, his words caressing her, "I need to know what happened between the two of you. Laxus refuses to talk to anyone aside from growling at anyone who isn't a dragon who ventures too close to the infirmary. When I ask him about it, when Wendy asks him, he just closes up but you can see it's haunting him, whatever he saw."
Her hair fell around her like a golden shield as she hunched forward, she could tell tears wanted to fall but they couldn't, they wouldn't, Lucy wouldn't let them. Her hand was bracing her forehead when she recalled their fight, "When we finally made it where Cassiopeia's key was trapped in ice, she asked where you were, that you would be able to melt the ice to free her key but when I told her you didn't come with me, she told me to ask Gajeel about channeling your magic. He immediately shut me down, refused to tell me how to do it, to help me... I-I fought with him, Natsu. I refused to back down even when he said it could kill all of us because our bond was weakened. Mavis, I even yelled at Laxus when he was just trying to help." She laughed then, ugly and self-depreciating before continuing, "So I did it anyway. I tried to my best to bring your magic to my hands, I could feel you so close to me. It was like you were right there with me, all I could feel was your fire and your warmth. Then it stopped. All of a sudden, I was...my body was cold, my skin was numb...I was numb but my veins...gods, my blood was molten steel and then everything went black."
Natsu heard the door open and click shut, but Lucy didn't hear the Lightning mage come in until his voice, a raspy timber from a week of silence broke through, "It's a good thing you were unconscious. Gajeel was...rabid. Completely out of control from being cut off from you. You didn't see the way he looked you, at us. He had no recognition of who we were and he was ready to attack when I brought you from the cave. I tried to go back, but what was I going to do? Fight him? Talk to him? It was pointless anyway, when I finally made it back, he was gone. No trace of him from the blizzard that tore through."
When he looked up into her sunken eyes, she could see the regret flash behind them but she was focused on the sparking ring of gold that hugged his pupils, tendrils reaching out from the thick ring to cut through the stormy blue-grey of his iris. He holds his precious thunderstorms in his gaze now.
Reaching a hand the side of his face, she ran her thumb over the bottom of his scar, before tilting her head, getting a little cheekiness in her tone, "How long's it been since you looked in a mirror, Sweetheart?"
He closed his beautiful orbs and shook her hand away, "Mavis, are you serious? You're going to be an ass-"
"Laxus, while I've been slacking off, my magics been claiming a certain Lightning dragon." Letting out a breathy laugh, "I'm not being an ass, you jerk."
This seemed to knock some of the funk clouding around him, before Natsu punched his shoulder, voice light and easy, "Welcome to the club, Sir Mopes-a-lot! It's good to know your vow of silence was only temporary."
Lucy let out a melodic, airy laugh and felt the rush of relief from her dragons.
She steeled herself before her tone grew serious, "I have to fix this. I have to find him and I know I won't be able to do it alone."
When Lucy heard the angelic voice of the dragon she'd come to think of as her little sister, she equally as excited as she was confused, "Lu-chan, you have to let Gajeel come to you. You can't just go to him, but lucky for you, your bond is in tact. All you have to do is reach for him, remind his dragon that you're here and you're his. I would probably recommend not being at the guild when he comes back though."
She watched the little blunette as she crossed the floor to plop on the end of her bed, tucking her hand behind her ear before the Sky dragon gave her a beaming smile.
The blonde felt a little twinge of irritation at herself for not thinking about it sooner, her words were determined as she questioned, "When can I go home then?"
Her little dragon smiled innocently, "You don't...exactly have a home...officially."
Her voice was more a silent threat than a question, "I don't?"
Even Wendy was shrinking at the beginnings of Angry Lucy stirring, "Well, uh, you see, when Master told the guild that you'd mated with Natsu, Gajeel and Laxus, Mira and Erza sort of got into it and when Mira won...she demanded Erza's spare key to your apartment and disappeared. When she came back, she had a wad of jewels and devilish smile on her face. When Natsu asked what she had done, she gave him the scariest glare I'd ever seen before she spoke eerily sweetly about how you'll be fattened up with dragonlings sooner if you were shacking up with them."
"Mira terminated my lease. Of my apartment. That has all my things in it."
Laxus, in an attempt to soothe his mate, piped up, "All your stuff is at my place, Blondie. We were all going to end up there...anyway...right. Sorry, Mira is bad and I'm going to stop talking."
Rescinding the piercing glare she had shot the Lightning mage, she nodded in approval before continuing, her jaw clenched so tight it reminding all the dragons of their missing kin, "So let me get this straight, I am currently bed-ridden, my mate is missing and I'm not allowed to go after him, and in order to get him to come to me, I need to be somewhere private but alas, I am homeless?! Mavis! Why is everyone so fuckin' bent on being in my business?"
The Sky Maiden's voice was haughty but still tentative, "The guild cares about you and is excited that you've found the people you're meant to be with. You know how our nakama is, you can't expect them, especially Mir,a to just sit back and wait. She even scheme's about my love life and I'm just coming into my dragon instincts!"
Rubbing her face furiously, she threw herself back, only to be caught in her pink-haired slayers arms, "I know, sheesh, do I know, but ugh! My apartment?! I was going to take care of it when I got back anyway I suppose...and my landlady is someone I like to avoid...okay, I-I guess this is okay." She had pulled Natsu's hand into her lap and was tracing the lines of his palm as she turned to look into her stormy eyed slayer, "But you're sure this is okay? I feel like you were supposed to get nervous and fumble around a bit, maybe some pre-teen blushing before asking me to move in with you."
The older mage's broad shoulders shook as laughed at the sassy blonde, "Mavis no, Blondie. Do you know who I am? I don't fumble and I don't blush like some twerp whose balls haven't dropped yet. I'd have heaved you over my shoulder and locked you away."
Deadpanning, "Right, in the dungeon...I remember."
Wendy's giggles danced over the mages, "And I get fill my apartment at Fairy Hills with adorable exceeds! It's a win-win!"
Lucy turned to look at her Fire slayer, brows furrowed, perfect bow lips tight, "What does she mean? Isn't Happy staying with us?"
His hand found it's way to the back of his head in a nervous tick the Celestial mage had learned to adore, not only because it was the only time her Fiery dragon blushed and showed off his incredible biceps but he just looked so damn adorable when he looked up at her from under his lashes, "I explained to Happy that we would probably need a lot of privacy for awhile and Wendy's pumped to have he and Lily stay. They've been staying there since we left for Crocus anyway."
"Well then. I guess we can go...home now. To Laxus' house? Huh, what a foreign concept that I never thought would come to fruition," she was trying to sound like an adult who knew what was going on in their own life but she couldn't stop the childish need to reiterate everything they had just talked about.
Her tiny Sky dragon answered brightly, "Absolutely! You'll be tired for the next few days, and you really shouldn't do any strenuous activities," giving the older slayers very intimidated narrowed looks before smiling back at the beautiful blonde, "but you'll be well taken care of, I just know it."
Before she knew it, she was being carried into the enormous, beauty of a bachelor pad that had touches of Laxus everywhere. Frustrated at being whisked up his staircase and into his bedroom before she could get a good look, Lucy let out a frustrated 'hey!' as the Lightning dragon laid her gently in his bed, clean, black Egyptian cotton neatly tucked at the edges.
She could tell the blonde slayer was holding himself back, restraining their mutual need to strengthen their bond the way his rough baritone tightened, "You need to find Gajeel, Blondie. He was pretty fucked up when we left him on that mountain. He was primal and there's no telling what he's been doing for seven days in that state."
Her honeyed orbs look between the two dragons, admiring the way her magic flashed through the the bright ash and crashing blue of her dragons, and she felt it; the thread that tied her to her ruby eyed dragon had trembled. Her voice was pleading, but she knew they wouldn't be too far from her when she needed them, "Could you give me a minute? Don't go too far though...I just...want to focus on him for now."
Natsu was quick to abandon the door frame he had been leaning on to wrap her in a bear hug, his muscles flexing tightly as he squeezed his mate, "I'm gonna be a bond-tug away, Luce." pulling back enough to raise his brow playfully, his voice light as he shot the Lightning slayer a look that was sure to antagonize the older dragon, "I'll be snooping through Laxus' creepishly large house for all his secrets and hidden treasures. I bet his hoard is huge."
Pulling the pinkette from the giggling Celestial mage, she eyed the hulking blonde and the stern look etched on his face, "Hoards? You all have...hoards. As in, there could be a pile of gold and gems and other dragony hoard type things that you...what, sleep on top of when you're feeling particularly greedy and you need to remind yourself that you are in fact, a dragon?"
His voice was tired but that panty-soaking grin she loved spread across the blonde's dimpled face, "Actually? Kind of." Pausing thoughtfully before ducking down to poke the end of her up-turned nose, "and I only sit on it every once and a while. All those sharp edges from my heaping piles of treasure hurt when I try to sleep on them."
Natsu's slung his arm around her shoulders, his voice taking that rich, velvety tone once again, "You're gonna love my hoard. I've been adding to it since we visited your castle house."
Her eyes went owlishly as she blinked at him, completely taken aback by his simple statement. Astonishment wove it's way through her words, "Natsu, that...that was years ago! Just how long have you known I was your mate?"
"Not long, Luce. I mean, I just really hoped it would be you and I know how much you love books and reading so I started gathering as many as I could find. Levy even helped me get some really old, rare ones. They smelled like dust and old people and I almost burned them when I sneezed but they're okay now...only a few got burnt. Only the covers though." His last statement was almost an afterthought, a rushed reassurance.
Nodding as if in a daze, she turned to the Lightning slayer, "And you?"
Rolling his gold-rimmed steely eyes to the Fire slayer, he spoke with a careless irritation, "While I actually waited until my dragon nagged the shit out of me to start collecting things, I couldn't help the draw to all these fabrics. Jewel-tones mostly, silks, cashmere, cotton, velvet, lace, you name it, I got it in droves. Literal bolts, miles of fucking fabric. You should have seen the look on Bickslows face when he stumbled on them, he thought I was losing it the way I started sparking at him. I don't even know what all I have honestly, it was more of a gut impulse than a conscious decision."
She spoke decidedly, "Shiny."
Her dragons gave her odd looks, slight frowns at her unrelated response before she elaborated, "I bet most of the fabric, the things you've gathered are shiny."
Thinking for a moment, the Lightning mage shrugged, "Yeah, actually. A lot of it is."
"..."
"..."
"..."
"Mavis, that is so bizarre. Probably one of the most adorable, non-threatening, dragon things that you guys could have picked up from your inner dragons. You have an inexplicable and uncontrollable urge to gather shiny things and stow them away and bask in them." Smirk twisting the corner of her lips, the Celestial mage teased, "I bet you purr like kittens and get all growly when someone gets too close."
Natsu nodded his head innocently, "Yeah, we do. Our hoard is supposed to be for our mate, an offering to them, to show we are capable of providing and proving we are worthy of you. The bigger the hoard, the happier the mate, the better off you are. It shouldn't be tainted by anyone else's grubby hands."
"This has been an incredibly eye opening and delightfully enlightening revelation that I am very excited to explore more thoroughly at a later time, when I have all of my mates happy and not...feral...so scoot your boots. You don't have to go home but you can't stay here and all that," her voice was sweet as she physically shoved the heavy men, shouldering them out the door before shutting it and turning back to take Laxus' bedroom in.
Mavis, I'm in Laxus' bedroom. He's literally been balls deep inside of me and I still can't believe I'm standing in Laxus' bedroom. It smells just like him, thunderstorms and rain and crisp green grass, like spring. I wonder if his closet is just a bunch of the same purple dress shirts all hanging on neat hangers in a row, dress pants folded neatly in stacks. Giggling to herself, she padded to one of the doors to her left and peaked inside.
Instead of being greeted by plum silk though, she had found his master bath, and fuck all if it didn't hold the most amazing open shower she'd ever seen. There were shower heads at every angle, even one large round one suspended from the ceiling. She only took a moment to take it in before backing into the bedroom and walking through the french doors leading to a small balcony with a big, cushy chaise lounge.
Folding herself up in the soft, grey piece of furniture, she looked out over the fading flames of a beautiful sunset. Her voice was a soft whisper, a gentle prayer, "Please, come back to me."
Closing her eyes, she focused on the too thin thread of her bond. It hurt her heart, made her gut wrench to feel just how frayed and lax it was, before pushing her own uncertainty and anxiety down to send her Iron dragon all the need and longing she had for him; the need to feel his rough, calloused hands on her skin, the need to hear the sinful gravel of his voice ghost over the shell of her ear, send shivers to her core, the need to run her fingers through the silk of his long raven hair, to see look into his deep wine pools reflect all the things he couldn't say. Sent wave after gentle wave to her mate, the feelings she had for him, the way she wanted to soothe him, to comfort and reassure him as she remembered his deep throaty chuckle, his cocky smirk and the way his chest shook when he growled just before he kissed her.
When all she felt in return was the cold, aching nothing in response, she wept. Her chest was heaving as she sobbed into her crossed arms over her folded knees, clutching them to her chest like a lifeline.
She could tell Natsu and Laxus were quite literally pacing in front of the door, torn between giving her the privacy she wanted and tearing the door from it's hinges to ease her troubles.
It felt like hours had passed, the moon was shining brightly above her and even her precious stars couldn't keep the sting of rejection from her chest. When all her tears had long since dried, leaving little dark spots on the suede of the chair beneath her and she felt empty. She felt cold and empty and she hated it. Whether she meant to or not, her bond with Gajeel was pulsing with anger at herself, at him, at being so far away and when he finally pushed back, she gasped from the unexpected force from it. The surge of his essence, molten hot, filled her with an influx of energy she felt a deep-seeded need to work off, to run off.
Clad in a pair black silky sleep shorts and Natsu's grey t-shirt, she scrambled from the balcony, ignored the sound of Laxus' door slamming through drywall as she flew down the steps and out the front door. She vaguely felt the prickling of the pine needles under her bare feet as she ran away from the giant house hidden away in the forest on the outskirts of Magnolia.
Her pants were breathy and frantic as she twisted and turned to peer into the trees. I know he's here. I can feel his hungry eyes on me. I just...I just have to find him.
She hadn't been frightened when she felt his warm breath in her hair, when his hands gripped her hips over his mark, his fingers digging into the smooth skin that was sure to bruise, when she felt his canines elongate against her neck as she bent her head to let him take whatever her wanted from her.
His deep, throaty growl was rough in her ear, "Ya should be scared, Little Bunny."
~DO YOU HATE ME? mwuah hah hah
No but for reals, sorry but there was no good way to split the next chapter so unfortunately, I've left you hanging over the cliff but you'll be free falling by tomorrow!
Quick a/n: If Jude was still around I imagine he would LOVE Laxus, smack Gajeel upside the back of his head constantly and he would just despise Natsu. I imagine Lucy's facepalming habit would emerge from her father with Natsu presence. Also, also, I have been desperate to write some babies so we shall seeeeeeee!
With all the love, kendraleaanne~