CHAPTER 30

"So are you sure there's not a test or something I have to do to join this guild?" Natsu asked as they headed for the newly completed guild hall.

"I'm positive." Lucy laughed, "Master Makarov is the one who has final say in who joins or doesn't, and I'm pretty sure you already passed his inspection." She smiled and poked his cheek playfully, "Besides, you're my familiar. They can't have me in and not accept you too!"

"Well I guess that's true." Natsu conceded, his fingers twitching with the urge to tickle her in retaliation, "I'm more worried about that tattoo I'm supposed to get. You know my skin's a lot tougher now than it used to be..."

Lucy burst into outright laughter at that, "It's not a normal tattoo silly! They're magic!" She grinned at him, "The master has a stamp that he uses. You just tell him where and in what color. It doesn't even hurt. It just tingles a bit."

She held up her hand, "See? There's no way I'd get a regular tattoo on the back of my hand like that!"

Natsu caught her hand in his, turning it over curiously and a low whistle bursting from him, "Yeah that's true. It would hurt if it was here, and I know you can't stand that stuff."

"Yeah well not all of us are genetically predisposed to magically developing cool tattoos," Lucy stuck her tongue out at him, causing his eyes to light up.

"Awe you think they're cool?" He purred at her, this time not resisting the urge to grab her and dig his fingers into her side. She let out a shriek of laughter as she attacked him back.

He roared right back in laughter as he collapsed his side right against the fence, swiping at Lucy as she danced out of his reach.

"Vengeful little devil," he purred at her and Lucy winked back.

"You said it, not me," she giggled.

She slid back in to him with a sway of her hips that made Natsu's mouth go surprisingly dry very quickly, and she took his hands to lead him the rest of the way back inside.

He went tamely, looking around at all the bustle going around.

He spotted Gray sitting perched on a barrel, laughing loudly over something Jellal had said before his eyes clapped on them.

"Hey look who the cat dragged in!" Gray hopped off the barrel and walked over to them.

Happy gave an offended noise and jumped from Natsu to the startled Gray.

"I will have you know they were impossible to get up this morning! They stayed up all night watching movies and they didn't even get me a fish this morning!" Happy complained to Gray and butt his small head against the slayers chin.

"It wasn't a critique on you. I figured these two would be catching up, Lucy is usually up much earlier," Gray laughed when Natsu held out his hand. They clapped them together, both looking pleased to see the other.

"Yeah, well I guess it's not so bad seeing your ugly mug again. Didn't get a chance to take it all in yesterday," Natsu shot back at Gray who scowled. The humor in his eyes softened the look though.

"Natsu!" Erza called out, striding behind Gray without pause, the slayer ducking out of the way, "we missed you!"

Natsu quickly found his face being crushed into Erza's breastplate.

"Owrmph!" He struggled against her grip, caught somewhere between pain and unable to breathe.

"It has been far too long!" Erza proclaimed, "Couldn't your travels have a least brought you to Galuna for a time!"

"I'm not sure he can breathe my love." Jellal chuckled wryly.

Erza looked down to see Natsu turning an interesting shade of purple and abruptly released him, "Forgive me! It seems I let my exuberance get the better of me!"

Natsu shot her a baleful glare as he gasped for breath while Gray, and most of the guild, burst into laughter.

"Well at least you didn't concuss him." Lucy laughed a little as she rubbed Natsu's back.

"Hmph!" Natsu huffed, but flashed the Amazon a grin, "I missed you too Erza." He straightened himself out a little, "And Galuna was too populated. The surges got really bad after a while and I had to hide out in the most remote places we could find."

"How bad was bad?" Gray asked curiously and Natsu smirked.

"You remember that story that made the news about the volcano in Bosco suddenly erupting?"

"That was you?!" Gray exclaimed, "Your surges caused that?"

Natsu nodded, "The site was active anyway, so we went over there to see if being near the lava would help." He shrugged, "It did, but not before the eruption happened."

"Just like your old man." Laxus snorted, "If memory serves, he's the reason Harjeon has a port city these days."

Natsu turned to look at him and blinked as he got his first really good look at Laxus, and before he realized what he was doing he found himself in Laxus' face snarling savagely.

He checked himself in confusion as soon as he realized what was happening, but Laxus just smirked at him as he tilted his head, baring his throat, and whined softly.

"I... what?" Natsu asked in even more confusion as something in him settled in contentment.

"Relax kid." Laxus replied as he straightened up, "I've been expecting that since I spotted your marks. You're as much a drake as your old man was, and I've got no interest in challenging you. Though it looks like you could use some tutoring."

"Tutoring?" Natsu echoed the man. He knew he held a spirit of a dragon, and hadn't had a real chance to regard him before. He took another step back from Laxus and frowned deeply.

"Of sorts, we can't have you running around not knowing why you're feeling what you are," Laxus' eyes softened, "Blondie tells me you didn't have that much time with your ma and pop before they left and you had to surge."

Natsu felt his throat tighten again at the reminder of his parents, but shook his head.

"Then I'll give you something more than a crash course when you get your stamp," Laxus clapped him hard on the shoulder and Natsu felt his knees buckle under the hit. The man may not be a dragon anymore, but he was certainly supremely powerful by human standards.

Natsu eyed him with interest when Makarov sidled up to them.

"Laxus certainly knows how to make an appearance," Makarov chuckled and beckoned Natsu to lean down. The dragon did so, hoping he wasn't about to get smacked for threatening the Master's grandson.

"Now Lucy tells me you were wanting to join the guild?" Makarov held up a stamp, "Tell me boy, what color and where?"

Natsu blinked at him.

"That's it?" He asked, "you don't need to see me prove my worth or nothin' I was just about to pick a fight with Laxus?"

"Laxus has that effect on people," Makarov said dryly, "And it's in the nature of dragons to assert themselves. If you couldn't handle a good ol' fashion fight with all these types hanging around then maybe we'd be having a different conversation."

"Besides, who am I to even think to turn you from your family?" He asked.

A brilliant smile lit Natsu's face at Makarov's words.

He tugged up the sleeve to his shirt over his muscular arm with a bit of difficulty to expose one of the few places on his skin that did not have a tattoo, "Red."

Makarov smiled and pressed the stamp against Natsu's shoulder. The dragon positively beamed when the stamp was pulled away and it left the dark red mark circled by the beautiful dark lines of his dragon tattoo.

"Congratulations Natsu!" Lucy cheered excitedly, "You're officially a Fairy Tail wizard!"

Natsu's smile widened even more as the others added their congratulations and the rest of the guild started introducing themselves properly. He was surprised to find that there weren't any that he immediately disliked. As much as he normally hated change, this was surprisingly easy.

Maybe it was because Lucy had already accepted them? Or maybe it was that lingering sense of gratitude from yesterday?

Whatever the case, he was happy for it.

"Now that that's done..." Makarov cleared his throat and hopped up on the bar once everyone was done, "I have an announcement for you brats." He grinned broadly at them all, "Yesterday you proved beyond my wildest dreams that this guild has what it takes to actually be a guild we can be proud of! Not one of you hesitated to do what was right to protect not just Lucy but each other. And I couldn't be prouder of you!"

The guild hall erupted into cheers and Makarov's smile managed to somehow widen even more.

"Now... because of that I've decided to put an end to picking the teams for everyone." He announced, "I believe you all have more than learned the lessons I was trying to teach you. More importantly, I trust you all to accept anyone new coming in as new members of our little family and act accordingly."

The gasps this time were excited and Natsu felt a strange sense of pride that he'd helped bring this about.

"This is great!" Levy exclaimed happily, "Team Shadowgear is back in business!"

"Not without me it ain't." Gajeel smirked and the hall erupted into laughter.

Natsu let out a laugh as Lucy slung an arm around him and he looked at her with all the same exuberance he shared.

"So what do you say partner?" Lucy asked him, "want to team up with us?"

"As if you have to ask," Natsu smirked back at her.

—::—

Lucy frowned at the job board, huffing a little as she looked over their options. As far as jobs went, they still weren't getting supremely good ones, but they had started to pick up a little. Mostly it was a collection of the jobs which had been considered 'independent' in the past, which allowed them to be better organized according to difficulty.

Still it was better than starving and they were grateful for the jobs a new guild like theirs was collecting. Lucy plucked one up off the board, thinking this one would be interesting enough for the poor attention span of her demon.

Natsu had been used to exerting a tremendous amount of energy practically every day for the past three years. Now that he was done with his surges, he was constantly nagging Gajeel for a fight or one of the others.

And as much as she liked how lively it made the guild, there was also something to be said about restraint.

She walked over to where Natsu was momentarily sprawled on top of Happy, the cat transformed into his larger shape with his wing sheltered over his body.

He cracked an eye open when Lucy approached, giving view to his slitted pupils for a brief second before his face relaxed and he registered it was her with a smile.

"Found something more interesting than trying to capture a few will-o-wisps, I hope?" Natsu asked, eyeing the flier in her hand.

"Don't be so picky, that would have been a perfectly fine job. You're lucky Bickslow loves stuff like that otherwise we'd be the ones going," Lucy chastised him, only causing Natsu to shrug.

He leapt to his feet in a flash and plucked the paper from her hands, reading it over happily.

"Hunting down a trio of imps that got loose in our world. How interesting," Natsu purred, "Imps are tricky. This sounds fun!"

"Here's hoping!" Lucy laughed, "According to the flyer they're based out of Oshibana currently. Ordinarily that would be Blue Pegasus territory, but Master Bob's busy dealing with internal guild issues and this one's a little urgent."

"What's wrong with old man Bob?" Natsu asked in surprise as Happy shrank back down and they began heading home to pick up their packs. Years of being on the road, or on jobs, had ingrained the habit of always having a packed bag ready to go.

"I don't know all the details." Lucy admitted, "But from what I understand, after Master Makarov came out of retirement to lead Fairy Tail a lot of his old friends started following his lead. Fairy Tail's a proof of concept so a lot of them are watching us to see what happens. But the ones who were already neutral towards people like us, like Bob, have started taking steps."

She grimaced as she unlocked the door and grabbed her pack, "I think mostly what that means is the master's working on adjusting attitudes internally. And you remember how extreme some of them were when we were little."

"Karen." Natsu hissed in distaste, "Yeah I remember."

Lucy shrugged a little, "Karen's not one we have to deal with anymore. She died a couple of years ago trying to hunt a vampire out of her league. But there are a lot of others like her, and not all of them like change."

Natsu hummed thoughtfully as he slung his pack on his back, "So what's that mean?"

"I dunno." Lucy admitted as she locked up again, "All I know for sure is that more than one guild master has expressed an interest in allying themselves with Fairy Tail if we can prove we're capable enough to make the guild work. But doing that means adjusting some attitudes and that's not easy."

"Well good luck to the old man then I guess." Natsu shrugged, "Unless they come after us directly I don't really care what they do. And I'm sure as hell not gonna complain when we get their jobs!"

Lucy rolled her eyes but smiled, "Yeah, trust you to worry more about finding a good fight than anything else."

"Aw c'mon!" Natsu laughed, "You expected anything else?"

"No not really." Lucy smirked as they approached the train station, "I just hope you're ready for a train ride."

Natsu froze and paled a little at that, "Ah, what?" He breathed nervously, "Do we have to do one of those? I mean... we could walk it right?"

"Onibus is a little too far to walk in any reasonable length of time Natsu." Lucy replied sweetly, a wicked smirk curling her lips, "And it's right on the rail line."

Happy promptly buried his face in Natsu's neck as he burst into snickers.

"You're an evil mistress." Natsu whimpered in defeat.

Lucy laughed and pecked his cheek with a kiss before darting off to get their tickets.

"I think she liiiiikes you." Happy snickered at the way Natsu's cheeks heated up, "When're you gonna do something about that anyway?"

Natsu let out a slightly blissful smile at the way Lucy's ponytail swung after her, his heart thumping as he thought about telling her how he really felt. Now that he was here in front of her, it was so easy to slip back into how things had always been.

He loved her, more deeply than any words he could say, and he had no idea how to even bring up how he felt for her. The full scope and emotion of it felt consuming and he didn't want to frighten her off with a demons love. Not with the history between Acnologia and Anna hanging over their heads.

But he couldn't do anything by half measures either, and one way or another he would burst before long.

"Shush Happy," Natsu hissed at the cat, panicking a little that Lucy might overhear, "I'll tell her when I'm ready to. I don't want to freak her out yet."

"You've been pining after her for ages Natsu," Happy stretched out on Natsu's shoulders, his claws pricking at the skin but not piercing through thanks to his tough hind.

"So?" Natsu pouted, aware he was acting childishly.

"So maybe you should do something about that." Happy licked his paw and rubbed it around his ear, "after all she's a pretty girl. For a human of course, so that will make her appealing to many species and races."

"And if she's not tied down to you, then someone else can swoop in and woo her before you ever get the chance!" Happy laughed at the way Natsu growled.

"Don't give me that," Happy flicked his tail against Natsu's nose, "you have your chance now. Be a demon, seduce her. It should be easy for you."

Natsu bit his bottom lip, looking pained. He could seduce her. There was nothing saying he couldn't... but he didn't want her for sex. He was in love with everything that made up Lucy. Her mind, her ferocity, the kindness in her eyes, and the sharpness of her tongue. And by Happy's smug look, he knew that.

"I can't just seduce her Happy, she's not one of my meals!" Natsu growled back at him, "I want an actual relationship with her."

"I don't see why you can't do both." Happy pointed out reasonably, "You know the kinds of things that catch a human's attention right? So why can't you use that to catch her attention and then just explain to her that you mean it for more than feeding?"

Natsu's brain stuttered to a halt at that logic. He was sure it couldn't be that simple, but at the same time he was having trouble figuring out the flaw in it.

There was so much between him and Lucy. So much history, and feelings, and... everything.

They'd been each other's pillars when their worlds had crumbled under their feet. They'd been each other's only solace for the pain and sadness. They'd also been there for all the happy times too. At least until his surges had hit.

And in the face of all that, moving beyond the comfortable boundaries they'd had as kids was incredibly daunting.

He didn't want to mess up what they had now for the sake of a thing that could blow up in their faces.

And he could imagine very little worse than his feelings being one-sided.

But how could he ever find out if he didn't just tell her up front?

It was a conundrum that had been spinning him around in circles for the better part of three years now, and he was no closer to an answer now than he had been before.

Nor would he be given the chance to contemplate it in depth now either.

Lucy was trotting back to them, looking entirely distracting as she did, with the tickets clutched in her hand.

"Okay!" She breathed, "I got them. Platform two. The train leaves in a few minutes so we should hurry."

She slipped her hand into his and Natsu's resistance immediately melted into a puddle of goo. He knew the ride was going to suck, that he would be sick as soon as the train started moving, but for the moment he didn't care.

And so it proved.

He groaned as he felt the first vibrations of metal and wood under him, "I swear this gets worse every time I get on these damn things."

"I hope not." Lucy replied as she stowed their gear, "This is pretty bad as it is."

"Fortunately..." She smiled as she sat next to him, "I came prepared. Here."

Natsu blinked as she thrust a bottle of water and some motion sickness medicine in his hands. He shot her a grateful look as he quickly downed it and half the bottle in one go. It wouldn't do more than take the edge off, but he appreciated the gesture anyway. Though the greater surprise came when she sat next to him and tugged lightly.

"C'mon and lay down." She smiled, "I'll rub your head."

It was official. His mistress was a goddess from on high, and he would fight anyone who claimed otherwise.

He gratefully curled up in her lap and buried his nose in her leg while her fingers started working their divine magic, and almost instantly the roiling of his stomach receded to a mostly manageable level.

At least to the point he wasn't in danger of puking on her shoes. That had to count for something right?

—::—

Natsu felt like he was dying. Even Lucy's pets hadn't been enough to totally assuage the roiling of his stomach and the train ride felt as if it had gone on forever.

Now he was at least upright, if wobbling a little.

He made a reluctant noise out of the back of his throat and shuddered. "Never again."

"You say that every time," Happy said plaintively. Natsu merely grunted at the truth behind Happy's words despite his dislike of any and all form of transportation.

Natsu moaned and staggered heavily against Lucy's side, his thick arm sliding over her slender shoulders. He wasn't able to even enjoy their proximity by how his stomach was cramping but it was at least beginning to lesson.

Still, he would have been in much worse shape if it hadn't been for Lucy soothing him with her magic fingers and preparedness.

His motion sickness had only worsened the stronger he got though, so it took him quite a bit to get through riding any kind of transportation.

He was relieved they were on solid ground though, and he proved that by dragging Lucy with him as he staggered away from the train as quickly as possible.

"Natsu you're heavy!" Lucy protested, her hand plastered against his chest, almost freezing as she felt the hard muscle tighten under her palm. She blinked at the flex against her skin, unable to wrap her mind once more around how solidly built Natsu was now.

Of course he was heavy. He was all muscle now, no longer having the softness in his cheeks of boyhood. She could see the strength in the cut of his jaw and broadness of his shoulders. But it was still so surprising that the weedy teenager she had always known was...

Well far from that now.

And it was proof when she tried to support him. His body felt like he could take her down to the ground with little effort, and a small part of her...

... was surprisingly interested in the thought of being smothered between the ground and Natsu's warm body.

The thought seized her and she had to fight back a shiver at how much the rest of her perked up at it. It had been a while since she'd been on a date, let alone had a boyfriend intimate enough to play with a little, and her magic was immediately interested in the idea of a nice strong man she could work out some of her energy on.

To say nothing of the rest of her.

The fact that it was Natsu didn't matter at all.

If anything that made it worse.

Because Natsu wasn't a boyfriend. He was her familiar. And they'd grown up together with all that history between them. And now... gods and now he was a very fine specimen indeed.

She shook her head a little and firmly throttled back her more primal urges, silently resolving to spend some quality alone time doing something about her obvious sexual frustration when they got back.

It was certainly better than lusting after her demon inappropriately.

"Can you walk normally yet?" She asked after a few minutes, "I'm not sure I want to meet the client with you draped all over me."

"Aw, but what if I want to be draped all over you Lucy?" He rumbled in her ear, and Lucy felt her knees buckle a little as his warm breath tickled her. He was so close he could practically nibble on her ear lobe if he wanted.

"Alright, alright!" He laughed, having felt her stumble, and straightened up, "I'm up!"

In truth he was still a bit queasy, but he didn't want to push things. Though her reaction to him just then had been... interesting.

"So where's the client at anyway?"

Lucy hummed as she pulled out the flyer, "According to this, it's a bounty from the police chief's office."

"A cop calling us in? That's new."

"It wouldn't be the first time." Lucy shrugged, "Let's go see what we can find out."

Natsu nodded and grinned, "I'm all fired up now!"

Alright guys! Thanks for tuning into this chunk! I'll see you guys soon for the next 10 chapters! - Mslead