Disclaimer: Fairy Tail belongs to Hiro Mashima.

CHAPTER 1

The bed felt like heaven. Lucy felt warm and content under her blanket and if it were not for her stubborn bladder demanding attention, she would happily lay there forever. It was all thanks to her blanket. Because her blanket was the best blanket in the entire world.

It had nothing to do with the dragon slayer that was cuddling her as if his life depended on the woman in his arms staying exactly there.

Nope.

It was a very good blanket, that was all.

She sighed, and tried her best to sneakily get out of the strong, powerful, sexy arms of –

Okay, maybe it was not entirely the blanket. Maybe.

Her small hands pushed on the tanned arms that kept squeezing her stomach, but she failed to push the slayer away. The man was too strong even in his sleep, she hated it.

Really, hated it.

Shut up.

Natsu buried his face further into her neck as she kept trying to wiggle out of his arms, letting out a warm puff of air that made Lucy shiver.

She gave up trying to escape without waking him and slapped her hands on his arms to wake him up.

"Hey, Natsu? Natsu, wake up already!"

The dragon slayer just grunted, his arms tightening around Lucy.

"Natsu!" Lucy slapped his arm, only for silence to meet her. "NATSU!"

"Ssh. We sleep now." The slayer mumbled, going straight back to sleep.

"No, we do not! Let me go Natsu!"

She kept hitting on his arms and wiggling, until she tried to push him away from her back with her ass and- Oh.

Her face went up in flames, her bladder temporarily forgotten.

Which, of course, was the exact moment that the slayer decided to make the matters worse. He huffed, the arm under her body pulling her closer to his chest as he shifted his body, basically lying on top of her instead of behind her.

"You are too loud." He mumbled to her neck, the tips of his hair brushing her face which by this point resembled a tomato.

She tried to talk, trying to wake him up without moving but her voice cracked. This new position meant his leg was between hers and she could feel exactly how much his body was awake unlike his brain.

She took a deep breath, now or never.

"NATSU! ERZA IS WAITING! WE ARE GOING TO BE LATE!"

With bunch of colourful curses, the slayer pushed himself up, trying to get out of the bed as soon as possible, only to trip over the blanket around his feet and faceplanting on the floor. He groaned, raising up to his knees and holding his nose, glaring at the giggling woman that was rushing for the bathroom.

"Sorry! But you would not wake up!"

Natsu refused to say anything, still glaring at the giggling weirdo until she closed the door behind herself. Getting up from the floor, he kicked the offending blanket and made his way to the kitchen.

Well, he thought, that solves one problem.

Truthfully, he was woken up a few hours ago due to some loud noise coming from outside, the town already awake as the two slept the day away. He had not felt tired anymore, the weeklong mission losing its effect on his body so he could not go back to sleep right away.

He played with her hair a bit, then cuddled her close and managed to fall asleep when he buried his nose into her neck as he enjoyed the scent of the sleeping beauty in his arms.

He was enjoying her scent too much when she woke him up, but in his defense, he was allowed to do so in his dream. Thankfully after hearing Erza's name, and the imagined threat of her punishment, he no longer needed to will his body to calm down, as it already did.

After the two went through their "morning" routine, they decided to go to the guild. They did stop by before crashing at home last night, but only to say that they were back, and the mission went well. They were both too tired; Lucy exhausted after trying to tidy up behind him during the mission, Natsu half dead from the 5 hours long train ride. Happy however, found enough energy to stay a bit more so he could tell Carla about how he saved them both (and maybe the rest of the world and a few more universes too) during the mission.

No exaggerating.

When they entered the guild however, they found most of the members crowding one of the tables. The usual fights were absent, but there was a loud chatter around the said table, which made the two mages look at each other questioningly as they made their way to that.

"Yo! Ice for brains! What is going on?"

Natsu asked, punching Gray on the shoulder when he was close enough.

"We got a new member."

Gray said, for once ignoring his attempts to rope him into a fight and pointing at the black-haired girl sitting on the table.

She was a true beauty. Her fair skin looked flawless, her hair dark as night and her eyes a beautiful shade of blue. Combined with high cheekbones and plump lips, Lucy was not surprised people were all over her.

"H-Hello."

Mumbled the girl, waving up to them awkwardly as she blushed and looked down. Gaining herself a few more heart eyes, so to speak.

"Oh! Hi! Welcome to Fairy Tail!" Lucy said, smiling warmly at the girl.

"Yeah!" Natsu joined in, "Welcome to Fairy Tail! What is your name? And your magic!" He bombarded the poor girl with questions as he laughed and patted the girl on the head. She blushed even further, and Lucy found her eyes locking with Juvia's.

"I- I am Riku. I use wind magic." Riku mumbled, her eyes quickly looking up at them then away.

"Wind? Awesome! Let's have a match Rika!"

"Her name is Riku."

Lucy chided gently, watching the said girl start playing with her hair and fluttering her eyelashes. "I cannot fight with you, Natsu- san! I am not strong enough to be with you on battlefield..."

Riku kept mumbling refusal over Natsu's requests for a match, and as the other members of the guild laughed and joined along their conversation Lucy was stuck over how close Natsu decided to sit to the girl.

Soon Gray joined in, sitting on the other side of the girl and started bickering with Natsu over who she should be fighting with first.

Lucy found herself looking back into dark blue eyes, not liking how she found the emotions swirling in them similar to her own.

xx

The entire day passed around Riku. What does she like? What does she want? Who does she think is strongest mage in the Fairy Tail guild?

Lucy managed to join along, enjoying the stories the new member brought in. She even laughed at her guild mates' frantic attempts to rope the new mage into a fight so they could see her magic.

All in all, it was a nice day.

What wasn't nice however was the feeling of anger that stubbornly stayed on top of heart the entire day. Or how her eyes kept noticing the distance (or lack of distance) between Riku and Natsu. Or the way her body felt cold as a certain fire dragon was absent from her side entire day.

She wasn't stupid, she knew it was jealousy. She did not understand why, however. Natsu was her best friend, her teammate but that was all. They did not have what Mira or Levy thought they did between them. They did not have what Cana thought they have between them. If he found a woman good looking and wanted her attention on himself, he was fully allowed to go for it.

So what if sometimes he held her too close? So what if some mornings they cuddled up each other, lips almost touching, legs tangled? They didn't mean anything. The way he looked at her sometimes didn't change anything. They were friends, that was all.

And if she wanted to break a chair on top of him for the way he kept touching the girl to get her attention from Gray, it was just a friendly fight.

Nothing more.

"Luce, I think that chicken is dead enough."

His voice snapped her back to the reality, and she noticed that she kept stabbing the chicken meat she was supposed to be cutting.

"Oh. Yes. Right. "

She mumbled awkwardly, chopping the chicken quickly and going on with making dinner to ignore the strange way Natsu started watching her. They didn't say anything for a while but then the silence started to become uncomfortable.

"So, why isn't Happy with us again?"

Natsu snorted, "He said he and Carla had important things to talk about, or something."

That was not entirely true. He did say that but followed with "Unlike you, I do go after the woman I want!" and instead of responding Natsu decided to chase the little exceed around, which resulted in him hiding behind Wendy, who invited him to stay yet another night with them.

But like hell he would tell Lucy that.

He wasn't as stupid as they thought, he knew Lucy was not ready. It took him a very long time before he got her used to his touch, and she still sometimes froze whenever his hands were on her body. He was not ready to risk anything with her.

He couldn't say he was content with what they had, because he wanted so, so, so much more but he knew her well enough that if he started anything too soon, she would run away.

No matter what type of evil they faced, how strong the enemy was, she never backed down.

It was one of the things he loved about her.

Yet she often run away from her own emotions.

But he needed her to make a move, so he could take what he wanted from her without the fear of her not being ready. If she just showed him that she was ready, just one step to him, he was ready to run up to met her. He was ready for her.

If only she was ready, too.

Hey there! Life gets chaotic and i find myself back in fanfiction, lol. I swore I would never write again, but here I am.

I plan for this to be a long one, but i don't know exactly where it will go. We will see I guess.

Hope you guys liked it, please share your reviews, they help a lot! Also if you spot any mistakes, and point it out, I would happily fix it as I do not have a beta, and English is not my main language so sometimes mistakes happen.

Anyways,

Take care till next time!