~It was a game to end all arguments. It was a game that'd developed with time... It was a game that was inexplicably confusing... and it was a game she was positive was going to destroy her apartment.~

Don't Hate the Game

No one could really say how or when the game Team Natsu played at Lucy's apartment was created. Maybe it was when Natsu threw his shoe at Gray and he deflected it with one of her pots… or maybe it was when Happy had put Lucy's underwear on his head one too many times… or maybe even when Erza had opened that bottle of champagne with one of her swords…

The fact of the matter was, no one knew exactly when it was created. No one knew how it'd been created. Very few aside from Team Natsu even knew it existed. And no one, no one, aside from Team Natsu knew how to play. In fact, even some of the members of Team Natsu –mainly Lucy who'd lost track- didn't know all of the rules.

It was an absolutely insane game. It'd started out rather simple as a fun way to end arguments, disputes, or conflicts of any sort. From what job to go on to who got the last slice of cake, it was used as the 'end all' to every disagreement. The rules had also started out rather simple as well.

It was sort of like a game children played where the floor was lava. No one could touch it or they were out. If they happened to be playing two-on-two someone else could tag them back in, but if they were playing singles –which was usually the case- that person was out.

Then the rules were amended. The person who touched the lava became a neutral party, not on any team and not able to win, but able to help out other players by trying to push the others off into the "lava". Of course this led to bribes from the remaining players, trying to get the neutral player on their side.

Then the rules were amended again. Now the neutral player couldn't touch any of the remaining players –this rule was created after Natsu punched Gray in the face and then Gray punched Natsu in the face and then there was just a full-on brawl. Instead, the neutral player had to use other objects to try and knock the remaining players off.

Then the rules were amended again. Apparently Erza was winning "too much" in this new game and they needed to find a way to make it more difficult. And so, the "lava" stayed, but pretty much every other aspect of the game changed.

This was when Lucy considered herself to have gotten completely lost on what the actual rules were. It turned into a turn-based game… er, unless someone called "Grand Magic Games" in which case it was a free-for-all for thirty seconds, timed with an egg-timer they'd found in her cabinet.

When it was someone's turn they had two seconds to jump to some other piece of furniture or something so they weren't touching the lava. Then once they landed they could either pick up an item near them or call out a mini-game. They had designated different items in Lucy's apartment to mean different things.

Apparently the big pot in her cabinet had been deemed the "king's crown" and if someone donned the pot on their head, they became "king of the game" until they were dethroned. The "king of the game" was immune to any penalties enforced through the mini-games. To dethrone someone, a wooden spoon had to be picked up and thrown at the "king". If it hit the pot and made a clang, the king was out and the spoon-thrower had a shot at obtaining the pot. They then had to rush to where the former "king" was standing, trying not to get tagged out by any of the other players before they obtained the crown. The former king was then back in the game as a normal player, and got one free wooden spoon in five turns.

Where any of this had come from, Lucy would never know.

But the game continued to morph.

Apparently if someone made it onto her dresser- yes onto not near or by but onto her dresser they could open one of her drawers and if they picked the correct one that had her underwear in it (she moved them constantly in hopes they would stop throwing her what-should-be-private garments around) they could then put them on like a hat, and they became a "lava minion". Happy was the one to create this rule since he had an uncanny way of always seeming to pick the right drawer her underwear was in.

A lava minion was then immune to the lava, and could sneak from place to place in between turns as long as no one saw. If they were sneaky enough they could actually obtain other items or knock others off their spots without being noticed. If they were noticed however, they had to wait out a time penalty before they could move again, at which time they got a strike. Three strikes and the lava minions became mortal to the lava again.

There were a myriad of other items in her apartment that also granted special advantages, statuses, and other valuable things. Aside from the pot, her underwear, and the wooden spoons used to dethrone the king, the list went on and on. Metal spoons were used by "beggars" who would try to convince other players to give them one of their advantages –usually through either bribing or blackmail. These spoons had to be held in their mouths at all times. They could also be used as catapults for whatever the user wanted to fling across the room at other players –a rule introduced by Natsu who thought flicking things with the spoon was quite literally the most awesome thing in the world.

Beanbags were introduced as "stun rays". If hit with a beanbag, a player could only talk, not move, until they either won a verbal mini-game or convinced someone to tag them back in.

Lucy's books were used as part of a special game. If someone made it to her bookshelf they could pick a novel at random, open to a random page, and point to a random word. If the word was a noun they got a free beanbag. If the word was a verb they got a free wooden spoon. If the word was a small word like "a, an, the, it at, etc." they were penalized with having to carry the book around with them for the rest of the game, and if the word was an adjective the person had to shout "Grand Magic Games" at which time it was a free-for-all and everyone could run around the room, lava or not, picking up previously used items such as missed beanbags, spoons, lost underwear, and anything else that had been used already.

After the "Grand Magic Games" period was over, the items gathered by the players were theirs to use. The only person who couldn't participate in this was the "king". However, he took a "tax" after the time was over and got to choose one item from each player that he wanted to take for himself. The books were easily the most argued item in the game. Natsu said they were stupid, as he'd ended the game once with six books stacked in his hands, and Erza countered, saying "luck was an aspect to skill". Long story short: the books stayed, and Natsu eventually learned to use them as shields.

There were more items that meant more things than Lucy could've ever kept track of. There were feather pens, polka-dot pillow cases, empty glass bottles, toothpicks, hairspray cans, her personal favorite: "the bunny slipper of immortality", along with many others that made their way into the game as power-ups and penalties.

Besides the items which granted different things, there were also more general rules and advantages.

Whoever made it into her bathroom first could shut the door and formulate their own plan to win while the others continued play. They could raid her cabinets and drawers to try and find any item that might benefit them in the game (Lucy sometimes put spoons or beanbags in drawers specifically for the game), or they could simply wait it out until there was only one player left, at which time they were required to leave their bathroom safe haven and compete with the remaining player to win the game.

She'd lost a diamond earring two weeks after she'd moved into her apartment, and it became a rule that if, for whatever reason, someone found that earring at any time during any of the games, that person automatically won right then and there. So far no one had found it; she was nearly positive it must've fallen into an air vent or jumped into another dimension at this point. She'd looked everywhere for it. This list expanded over time to include an emerald ring she'd lost, her old house key which she'd lost off and on since she first received it as a child, a green marble Natsu had somehow gotten choked on, which had been lost when it'd flown out of his mouth after she performed the Heimlich maneuver on him, and the matching sock to one that'd been missing its other half for almost six months.

And then came the mini-games. On each person's turn they could either move one space and choose an item such as a book off her shelf or the underwear in her drawer, move one space and then move another space to end their turn, or move one space and choose a mini-game.

Most of the mini-games were verbal only, but a few involved physical movement. This was where Lucy truly considered herself to lose track of the game. There had to have been at least ten mini-games. There was one where someone shouted out the name of a guild mate and the first person to correctly guess where they currently were, was the winner and got to move two spaces. This usually involved getting Happy to quick fly and find the person to confirm their whereabouts which took much longer than it was worth, but it was still a mini-game that was frequently chosen.

There was one that was a bit like "ISpy", and one that was basically just rock, paper scissors. There was one called "catch the cheat" in which the caller accused someone in the room of doing something, and if someone had actually done the thing, they were frozen and the other players were allowed to throw anything soft at them as hard as they wanted as punishment. For example, Lucy accused someone of eating Erza's cake. Of course, no one had ever been stupid enough to eat Erza's cake… aside from Natsu who had caved and eaten one of her slices around six months prior. Upon finding this out, Erza threw a pillow at him so hard it quite literally knocked him all the way across the room and into Lucy's door. She'd had to paint over the chip of the door he'd knocked out with his forehead the following weekend.

She also knew there was one that sort of felt like Truth or Dare which she did not enjoy as everyone seemed to ask her incredibly embarrassing questions, most of which involved Natsu. And of course she was one of the worst liars in the world so she was forced to tell the truth and just get it over with. The dares also got a little crazy and she guessed that that was ironically probably the reason she finally decided to shut the game down.

It'd been fun, undeniably so. A lot of the time the games would last hours and while she'd laughed so hard her sides hurt and no one really cared anymore about what they'd originally been arguing over… there was also a path of destruction left behind that she didn't want to deal with any longer. Whether it was her belongings strewn out across her floor, having to bandage everyone up afterwards, or having to clean Natsu's vomit off her floor after he'd slipped on a bit of water in her kitchen and his motion sickness had kicked in despite only moving for about two seconds, she had to call it quits.

The day she announced that they would no longer be playing the game was a sad one. She was sad, but she was also getting rather worried about the structural integrity of her apartment. After all, it could only take so many hits before someone accidentally sent it all crumbling down. And she was positive her landlady wouldn't take kindly to that.

Natsu whined and Gray huffed. Erza seemed to understand, but Lucy could see the disappointment in her eyes. Happy asked her if she'd lost her mind… and then asked her if she liked crushing other's dreams and joy. Natsu had reprimanded him for this comment and he'd apologized.

But the fact was that the game they played in her apartment was no more. They'd played it for a good solid two years, watching it morph and grow into the absolutely insane and confusing game that they'd all grown to love. But now, for the past two months, they hadn't played it at all.

She missed it in a lot of ways, but she didn't miss cleaning up the mess.

And so it was on that near-two-month anniversary since the game had been retired that she came home to find Natsu and Gray in her apartment, sprawled out on her floor and her couch, looking tired. She had glanced back and forth at both of them, her eyebrows pinching together and her suspicions arising. Those two never sat quietly together in a room…

She placed the groceries she'd bought on the counter quietly, still eyeing them. Their chests were heaving and they didn't seem to have been in a fight. She spotted a bruise on Gray's cheek but that was about it… Normally if they had a spat there were cuts, scrapes, and bruises everywhere.

"Hey guys," she said slowly.

Natsu rolled his head to look over at her from his spot on the couch. "Yo, you back from the store?" His tone was odd…

"Yeah." She looked down to Gray on the floor. "You okay?"

Gray raised an eyebrow, tilting his head to look at her as well. "Yeah, why?"

He sounded off, too… She pointed at her cheek. "What happened?"

His hand reached up quickly to his own bruise and he winced when he touched it. "Oh that? Oh, ah… yeah I'm fine, I just… uh… hit it on a door…" He made a face at his own choice of words and she could tell it was a lie.

"Oh, is that so…" she said slowly. Both Gray and Natsu exchanged a look but kept quiet. Lucy was unsure of whether or not to push further. On one hand she was curious what they'd been doing. On the other, when it came to those two sometimes not knowing was a whole lot easier.

She began placing produce in the fridge. "I was going to cook spaghetti tonight; does that sound alright?"

"Ooh, you bet!" Natsu piped, licking his lips.

"Sounds good to me. I dunno if Erza will be here or not…"

"Levy said she was coming over late with a pie. Erza probably won't want to miss that…" Lucy smiled, shutting the fridge door.

"Ah, true. And I'm sure Juvia'll come knocking sooner or later," Gray huffed irritatedly. Indeed, Juvia usually showed up eventually whenever Gray didn't come to the guild at night for dinner. She'd mutter something about love rivals under her breath and then ask if she could stay to eat. Of course the answer was always yes.

"Well, she's always welcome," Lucy said with a nod. She placed out the pasta and sauce, bending down and opening the cabinet to retrieve a pot. She pulled out her biggest one, turning on the faucet to begin filling it with water. Her eyes narrowed as suddenly she spied a rather small, but very new dent in the side. She turned off the water, pouring it out of the pot and running her fingers over the indentation. Yep, definitely a new dent.

She looked up to see both Natsu and Gray were as stiff and still as boards, now looking anywhere but at her. "There's a dent in this pot…" she said slowly, trying not to sound accusatory.

"O-O-Oh really? I wonder what c-could've done that?" Natsu stuttered with a forced, awkward laugh at the end.

Gray joined in, scratching the back of his head. "Couldn't it just be an old dent?"

"Yeah, it's definitely an old one," Natsu replied.

She stared at them as they continued to fake laugh together. She'd been skeptical at first but now she was positive. After all they never laughed like that together. Normally if she'd said there was a new dent, one would've accused the other and they'd be in a full-on fist fight right about now. "Dammit you guys, I said there's no more playing that game in my apartment anymore!"

Natsu and Gray both scrambled up to sit straight. "What? What game? We weren't playing a game!" Gray said.

Natsu nodded so fast he looked like a bobble head. "Seriously! Honestly! We weren't! You said we couldn't and we haven't!" They both sat there then with puppy-dog like eyes, looking as innocent as they could under her scrutiny-filled gaze.

She watched them for a few moments and then doubt crept in. They did look awfully earnest… Maybe she'd jumped to conclusions about the game. Maybe they had been telling the truth and they were acting weird about something else-

At that very moment Happy came swooping in through the window, looking victorious. "Juvia's baking Gray cookies in her apartment just like I said! I was right! I won that ga-" Happy's eyes bugged as he saw Lucy staring at him, his words trailing off in a squeaky gasp-like sound. His wings poofed away in an instant and he thumped down onto the ground painfully.

Lucy's eyebrows narrowed. "You weren't playing the game, huh?"

Natsu bowed to her, burying his face in the carpet and Gray went to his knees to plead. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, we were just doing it a little bit," Natsu whined.

"We just couldn't find a compromise, we couldn't," Gray reasoned. "It was our only choice."

Natsu looked up at her, his nose a bit red from being pushed into her carpet. "We just love the game so much and we haven't played it in so long and just-" He couldn't find words for it, instead breaking off into a deranged moan-like sigh.

Good lord she hadn't realized they'd missed it that much. "What was the disagreement?" she asked blankly.

"We're really sorry, we won't do it again, just please still make us spaghetti-"

"What was the disagreement?" she repeated, cutting off Natsu. If it really was that important she wanted to hear what it was.

"He…" Gray cleared his throat, looking off to the side. "He said my scar looked like a banana and I didn't think so and we couldn't get anyone to answer us seriously so we decided to…. play to convince the other of who was right." He was turning more pink in embarrassment with every word he uttered.

So that was the all-important reason?!

She stared back and forth to both of them, pursing her lips. This was ridiculous. She'd asked them nicely, pleaded with them even, to stop playing the game and wrecking her apartment and she'd actually thought they'd listened. But no they'd played it behind her back… She looked around her apartment. It looked fairly tidy but she swore she spotted things shoved under her bed and dresser…

She was ready to get mad at them… she really was…. and yet somehow she couldn't muster the courage to scold them. They both looked so sad and embarrassed and… had they really missed the game that much? … She supposed she'd missed it too.

She let out a long, loud, and drawn-out sigh. Both Natsu and Gray cringed, looking up to her and awaiting their scolding.

But instead she shook her head, twirling the pot upside down and promptly donning it as a hat. "Fine. But I get dibs on being the king, then."

#40 - pot

This started out as a simple silly plot bunny... then that bunny just decided to up and run away. I told it to come back but it stuck its tongue out at me and said 'lol no'... and then kept running.

Aka, I don't know how the prompt "pot" got to this... but I'm not too mad. XD I can see the four of them and Happy playing some insane game like kids and having a great time with it. I have to admit I sort of want to hammer out the rules to this game and make it a real thing lol XD
Also shoutout to the TV show New Girl and their weird game called True American that sort of inspired this odd one-shot... kinda... ish...

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed and have a lovely week! I love, love, love all the reviews as always, too! :D
~Foxtail-chan