It happened by accident. Well, mostly.
His repeated insistence that they were searching for something wasn't entirely untrue. They were searching for something to help her get out of the depressed rut she had been stuck in for so long. And, well, she found something, but it hadn't at all been what Cobra was meaning for her to find.
He wasn't sure how he'd overlooked the signs. Now that he was thinking back over the last couple weeks, there were plenty of them. As they made an extremely indirect route back toward their starting point, their conversations and bantering had taken on a different edge, an edge that wasn't entirely innocent. The changes he had missed – or maybe ignored was a more fitting word – for so many days became glaringly obvious when she gave him the look.
All men alive knew what that look meant, he just hadn't been expecting it to be directed at him. And then he was giving her the same look and then they were taking off each other's clothes… and now they were lying side by side on her bedroll as she fell asleep against his chest.
Well, shit. Now what was he going to do? Operation: Save the Star Gazer was not supposed to go this way.
"I'm pretty sure Sabertooth is that way." Lucy stood looking the opposite direction of the way Cobra had turned at the crossroads.
"It is." He answered without slowing his pace or looking back.
She started following after him as she asked, "So, we're not going to Sabertooth?"
"Nope."
Lucy made an irritated noise as she jogged a few steps to catch up with him. "I was looking forward to seeing Yukino."