I'm going swimming for the afternoon, so I'm posting the last two for the day now, just in case I forget in a sun drunk haze later! Enjoy!

Slow Speed World

In which Lucy has a lazy day and Natsu's cat gets in trouble.

Lucy was enjoying her day off. The national holiday meant she didn't have class, or work, and while she had a research paper waiting for her to stop procrastinating, she just couldn't rustle up the gumption to do anything but lay around and read. She snuggled into her window seat, the light patter of rain on her window soothing away any thoughts of productivity, and turned the page.

'One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other.'

Austen always got her thinking. She missed her library at home, the sunny room always a peaceful, comfortable place to unwind. Plus, the wheelie ladder that she could sail around the room on, like Belle, didn't hurt. There were a lot of things she missed about her former residence. Never having to clean or do her laundry. Having something delicious on hand within minutes from their personal chef. She would have had to be crazy not to enjoy those things. And those aspects of her past had only gotten rosier as she learned how the other half lived.

Though, learning how to take care of herself did bring a spark of adventure to everything. The smell of her first batch of undamaged laundry tumbling warm out of the dryer was something she would never forget. It reminded her of how she used to dive into the clean laundry baskets to hide from her mother when they played hide and seek.

And the whir of the vacuum as it picked up bits of dirt and gravel from her carpeting, leaving behind fluffy, clean fibers was a satisfying sound that her kitty Leo had always hated. She liked to imagine he was sitting just out of eyesight while she worked, waiting to pounce on the evil monster in his home as he always did. She missed Leo. It wasn't practical to take him when she left, but she wished she could get him back somehow now. If her father hadn't thrown him out. Her lips pulled into a frown. She hoped he was ok.

Lucy was just finding her place on the page again when she felt a tingle on her arm. Eyebrows furrowing she pulled up the sleeve of her coziest sweater and looked down at what Natsu was writing to her.

hey Luce. whats with the long face? rain gotcha down? Lucy's eyebrows snapped together and she reflexively looked out her window. As though she would see him staring out from the nearby tree or something. Then she realized her idiotic mistake. He had felt her frowning, not seen it. Lazy Lucy wasn't the quickest rat in the maze.

Just thinking about my cat back where I used to live. Couldn't take him with me.

Instead of a response, Lucy felt Natsu stroking soft fur and the rumble of a purr roll through her thighs. She smiled, closing her eyes and picturing her fluffy tabby tomcat under her fingertips. It was almost like having him in her arms. Which sent an irrational shiver of fear down her back. It had only been a couple of weeks since the crazy-cat-zombie-apocalypse and there was still a part of her that feared waking up to find a cat sharpening its claws on her ankles, or chewing on her hair.

I forgot you had a cat. She responded after a few minutes. They let you keep him in your fraternity?

let is kind of a strong word… its more like they can't stop what they don't know about…

Lucy laughed, knowing he could feel her mirth. It was nice not to have to write out silly acronyms to show her reactions, like she did when she texted Levy. They were necessary, but using them always made her feel like a bimbo. A second later her phone notified her that she had a picture message. She smiled and opened up the message.

She almost fell off the window seat. It was a picture of the cat that had first attacked her! While she was trying to write! She read the message with the picture twice. What were the fucking chances? Immediately, she hit the call button for Natsu.

"Well, hi there," Natsu's lazy voice answered the phone, a hint of flirtation in it. Unfortunately for him, Lucy's brain was elsewhere.

"Your fucking cat attacked me last week!"

"Um, what?"

"Your cat. The one in the picture you just sent. He attacked me and stole my pen on the green last week!"

"Um...maybe?"

"Wait...you knew?" Natsu opened his mouth to tell her that his cat had brought home a Heartfilia Hotels pen and he had put it together. Only to realize he wasn't supposed to know her last name. Shit.

"Uh, no, he just...does that a lot! He's got a whole pile of pens and stuff that he's stolen from people." There, that sounded like a normal response right?

"Oh. Well, you should keep a better eye on him! He led a massive cat rebellion against me. I was spritzing for my life out there!"

Natsu's eyebrows went up, but he didn't comment on her somewhat indecipherable rant. Lucy was just weird. And he liked her that way. If he questioned everything she said and did, where would the mystery be.

"Well, sorry?" He could hear Lucy starting to growl at him. Like actually growl over the phone. " I mean, on behalf of my smartass cat, I apologize profusely for any trouble he might have caused you…" Natsu's eyes flicked down to the cat in his lap who had a very self-satisfied look on his face. Narrowing his eyes at Happy, Natsu moved the ball of fluff from his lap and got up to inspect the ever growing pile of stuff Happy had stashed behind his desk.

Apparently his cat had been busy. Two more pens, a few notebook pages with crossed out writing that were torn to pieces, a shoe, and the piece de resistance, a small leather purse that had bite marks on every reachable surface.

"Uh, Lucy, you didn't happen to lose a purse did you? Or...a shoe?"

"ARE YOU FUCKING TELLING ME YOUR CAT HAS MY PURSE?! AND MY SHOES?! What kind of animal is that thing?!"

Natsu cleared his throat as he held the phone away from his ear. Lucy could be fucking loud when she wanted to be. He could almost hear her through the bond even. He shot his cat an irritated look, pointing at his phone.

"Dammit Happy, could you maybe not make her hate us anymore?" he griped, a thumb over the microphone on his phone as Lucy continued to rail at him.

Happy licked his nose and meowed at Natsu, hopping up off the couch to roll around in his pile of treasures.

"Fuckin' hoarder," Natsu said under his breath as he wedged his phone between his ear and his shoulder and subconsciously opened the drawer where he'd stashed Lucy's pen. He began twirling it through his fingers as he listened to Lucy lose steam. Slowly. Over many cuss-word-filled minutes. He couldn't help but smile. Only she could sound so good yelling at him.

He started doodling a cat chasing a ball of yarn on his leg, inciting a new spurt of chastisement as Lucy realized he wasn't listening. He added another cat, with a shoe in its mouth, sitting on a handbag. More cats joined that one, ready to pounce on the cat with the shoe.

Eventually Lucy's tirade tapered off into the usual state of awed bliss she embodied when he drew on her.

Somehow the rest of the day wiled away as Lucy returned to her book, and Natsu doodled, each tossing out a word on the phone when the moment called for it.

They both smiled and sighed in contentment.

Nothing beat a lazy day of doing nothing important in a slow speed world.