14: let's get down to business.


"Oh Romeo. Romeo. Where for art thou, Romeo? Deny they father and refuse thy name!" Lucy called out.

She was on a balcony and was wearing a poofy pink ball gown. In this dream, she was Juliet and she was in the middle of the famous balcony scene.

Suddenly, a hand that did not belong to her grabbed onto the balcony and a person lifted himself onto the balcony. Lucy quickly backed up and folded her hands together. "Romeo!?"

The person who had lifted himself onto the balcony happened to be Gray. Looking at her with a seductive glint in his eyes, he ripped off his shirt, showing off his toned body. "I am Romeo!"

Lucy blinked. "Really?"

Gray dramatically pulled Lucy into his arms. "Now, we shall seal our love with a kiss."

"Was that how the story went?" Lucy wondered as Gray brought his lips close to her lips.

Before anything else happened, Gray was suddenly tackled down to the floor by someone and Lucy quickly put her hands up like she had just committed a crime.

The person who had just talked Gray to the floor stood up and took Lucy's hand. "I'm Romeo." He kissed the hand.

Lucy blinked. "Natsu?"

Gray stood up and pointed an accusing finger at Natsu. "Stay away from her!"

"Me!? She's mine!" Natsu cried.

"You're not Romeo!" Gray cried.

"I'm definitely Romeo! You're just a fake!" Natsu cried.

"Were there two Romeos in the original story?" Lucy wondered out loud as the demon and the demon slayer argued over who was the real Romeo.

Natsu and Gray's fight quickly turned violent.

"Fight me! Fight me!" Natsu kept on yelling.

Gray charged at Natsu and the both of the wrapped their fingers around each others' necks. As they attempted to choke each other, their feet shuffled as they moved around the balcony. They were trying to push the other off the balcony without losing their grip.

"Hey! Whoa! Whoa! Stop fighting!" Lucy yelled, getting in between the boys.

The boys broke up the fight.

"Tell him I'm the real Romeo!" Natsu told Lucy.

"No, tell him I'm the real Romeo!" Gray told Lucy.

The boys glared at each other before Lucy quickly got in between them and held them back from fighting each other. "Stop!"

She shot them both a look before she moved out from in between them. "As much as I secretly like guys fighting over me, stop fighting over me. Why can't both of you accept the fact that there are just two Romeos?"

Natsu scrunched up his nose is disgust. Gray vigorously shook his head. "Ew, why would I want to be in a threesome with him?"

Lucy blinked. "...what? Okay. So what do you two want me to do?"

Natsu and Gray pointed to themselves. "Say I'm the real Romeo and kiss me!"

"Do you two have proof that one of you is Romeo or something?" Lucy asked.

"Yes, actually," Gray said before clearing his throat. "I was the one who helped you when you had all of your stuff stolen after you crashed your car when you first came to the city. I was the one who introduced you to Fairy Hills and Fairy Tail. I'm the one who you go to whenever you can't go to the girls. You've seen me naked a bunch of times even though all of those times were on accident. We just have a mutual agreement on everything we do. What else should I list?"

Natsu simply laughed. "Really? That's nothing compared to my proof!"

"Oh? Then what's your proof?" Gray asked, eying Natsu up and down.

"I brought her back to life," Natsu answered, lightly slapping Gray on the cheek a few times. "So...yeah. That automatically makes me her Romeo."

Gray slapped Natsu's hand off his face in annoyance.

Lucy faced Gray. "But hold up. I don't have any feelings for you."

"Ha ha! Sucks to be you!" Natsu cried, mocking Gray.

Lucy faced Natsu. "And in this life, I don't have any feelings for you either."

It was Gray's turn to mock Natsu. As a response, Natsu punched Gray in the face. Soon, the boys were involved in a fist fight.

Lucy stared at them in disbelief. "I'm not going to even bother to try to break them up."

Suddenly, the boys both flipped over the railing of the balcony. With wide eyes, Lucy ran over to the railing and looked down to see if the boys had landed safely. "Whoa! You guys good!?"

"Finally. I was wondering when they'd leave," a new voice said from behind her.

Lucy turned around and found herself face to face with Loke.

She wanted to run away but she couldn't get her legs to move. Instead, she stood there with her fists clenched tightly as Loke slowly came closer to Lucy with a mischievous smirk on his face.

Once Loke was in Lucy's personal bubble, he took a few strands of her hair and brought it to his nose so he could smell it. "Forget those two. I'm the real Romeo."

Lucy made sure she looked everywhere but at Loke. She shivered when Loke brought his lips to her ears. "I know you love me."

Finally able to move her body, Lucy pushed Loke away and backed away from him. "This is just a dream. All I have to do is wake up."

Loke chucked as he leaned against the balcony's railing and looked up at the night sky. "Maybe, but does that even matter?"

"If you're here to threaten me, there's no need. I am your master now," Lucy spat out.

"Do you even know how to open my gate?" Loke asked without looking away from the stars.

Lucy hesitated before answering. "...no." She gripped the skirts of her dress in order to stop herself from shaking and actually do something to hurt Loke. However, she was still terrified.

"Exactly, so why should I fear you?" Loke asked before facing Lucy with an amused look on his face. "You should fear me though. I can kill you in this dream world since Celestial law doesn't apply here. And if I do kill you in this dream, you'll die in real life."

He reached out and grabbed Lucy's arm, pulling her into a hug. One of his hands were engulfed in light and he put the hand flat on her back. "I'll be nice and give you a painless death."

The candles that were lit all over the place suddenly flared up as if they were angry. The flames grew and grew and formed a ring around them. Then, a figure walked through the fire. The figure was Natsu and based on the facial expression that was on his face, he was relieved mixed with pissed off.

"Found you, Neinhart. Looks like you're using your Historia of the Dead to do your dirty work again," Natsu said.

Loke's hand stopped glowing and he quickly let go of Lucy. "Y-Y-Y-Y-You were the one who made me enter spirit form...! You could have killed me if I were a human!" He cried as Natsu walked towards him with his hands behind his back.

To get to Loke, Natsu would have to walk past Lucy so when he made it to her, he smiled and stopped walking. "You okay, Luce?"

She nodded as she rubbed her arm. "Yeah...I just don't know why I just froze when I was talking to Loke..."

"Sweet dreams," Natsu said, pushing Lucy's forehead back with his pointer finger.

Immediately, Lucy's mind was transported from the dream world to the real world.


Suddenly awake, Lucy sat up in bed.

The first thing she noticed was that her side didn't hurt as much anymore, although there was still a lot of pain left. The second thing she noticed was Natsu attempting to drag the body of a man with indigo hair out of the room through the door.

The man was burnt and cut up and a long trail of blood stained the floor as he was dragged away. Natsu grumbled about how annoying it is to find a place to hid a body.

"Um," Lucy simply said.

Natsu looked up and saw that she was awake. He smiled. "Lucy!" Then he glanced at the body. "Oh...yeah...I can explain."

"He looks dead," Lucy commented, noticing the way the man's arms hung lifelessly.

"Cuz he is..." Natsu answered.

Lucy closed her eyes as she tried to stay calm. "You killed someone."

Natsu carelessly dropped the body before scurrying over to Lucy's hospital bed. "He's one of the Spriggan 12!"

"He is?" Lucy asked, taking a good look at the dead man.

"His name is Neinhart. He's the reason people get nightmares. He looks into people's hearts and bring the dead person who has brought them all sorts of negative emotions to them back to life as long as they're sleeping. Those brought back to life in the dream can actually kill you if you don't wake up fast enough, but I woke you up," Natsu explained.

Lucy pointed to Neinhart. "So that's him."

"I had to go inside of the dream in order to hunt him down and kill him," Natsu said.

"How did you enter my dream?" Lucy asked.

"I...uh...kissed you..." Natsu answered.

"Without my consent!?" Lucy cried.

"I know! That's really bad, but it was the only way I could enter your dream! I had to save you! If I was too late, you would have died!" Natsu cried.

Lucy touched her soft lips. "Fine. That kiss doesn't count."

"Good," Natsu responded.

Awkward silence.

"Is it true that you don't have any feelings for me?" Natsu asked.

Lucy laid back down. "Why are you asking?"

Natsu pouted as he walked back over to drag Neinhart's body out of the room. "...no reason."

Lucy heard the door close behind Natsu. She was left with her friends who were all deep in sleep. She stared up at the ceiling.

I need to un-pause life now. What am I going to do about the keys? Yukino needs them and I need them too. Should I just give up my keys? But Natsu did make a good point. We went through so much trouble to get the keys we have now. But the person I want to talk to is dead and it's not natural for me to talk to them when they're already dead. Yukino is trying to prevent 6 people from dying and bring one person back to life when they shouldn't be alive. Besides, whether I do choose to talk to mom or not, I don't even know how to open the celestial gates so how am I supposed to convince the spirits to help me and how am I supposed to cast the spell? She sighed. "I'll give Yukino my keys."

"Giving up so soon?" She heard a voice ask.

Lucy sat up and faced the window to see who the voice belonged to. She grew tense when she discovered who it was: Brandish.

Brandish was looking out the window. "You know, you're only alive so you can open the gate to the spirit world. But since you don't want to anymore, I guess I'm here to kill you. There goes all of that fire boy's hard work."

"But what would you do in my situation?" Lucy asked.

"Um, not give away my keys?" Brandish answered as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

Lucy looked at her in disbelief. "But that's selfish!"

"Wanting to live isn't selfish," Brandish answered, crossing her arms.

"But..." Lucy guiltily looked down at her hands and played with her fingers. "One way or another, I have to give Yukino my keys. I don't even know how to open the gates of the Celestial spirits."

"Wasn't Layla Heartfilia a Celestial wizard?" Brandish asked.

"...yeah..." Lucy slowly answered.

"So shouldn't she have some information on using Celestial magic, including how to open spirit gates, or something?" Brandish asked.

Lucy looked up. "Yeah! She had her own library and there were so many books on using Celestial magic! I learned some of it from the books!"

"Which means...?" Brandish started.

"I should go back home and find a book on opening spirit gates!" Lucy concluded.

Brandish nodded. "Exactly."

Lucy looked down again. "But that means I'll have to see my father."

When she didn't get a response from Brandish, she looked up and scanned the room. Brandish was nowhere to be seen.

A few minutes later, Natsu entered the room. The blood on his hands were gone but he still had some on his pants and his shirt. He looked down at the trail of blood he had painted on the floor with Neinhart's body. "What am I gonna do about this?"

"Did nobody not see you!?" Lucy cried.

"Chillax. Everyone's under a sleeping spell Ajeel casted. They'll wake up in 6 to 12 hours," Natsu answered, grabbing a random towel.

"Is Ajeel one of the Spriggan 12?" Lucy asked as Natsu poured water all over the towel.

"Yeah, but I think he's on our side. I'm not completely sure though," Natsu answered, crouching down to rub the blood off the floor.

"Okay. Here's another thing. I need to get discharged tonight, latest tomorrow morning," Lucy answered.

Natsu looked up in alarm. "But you're not better yet! Don't think that I can't sense the pain you're feeling from your side!"

"It doesn't hurt as much as it used to. And the faster we get things done, the better," Lucy protested.

Natsu went back to scrubbing the blood off the floor. "Yeah, I get it. The faster, the better. But you should pay attention to your health first."

Lucy frowned. "Natsu."

"Do you think I liked seeing you get shot?" Natsu asked in a quiet voice.

Lucy didn't give him an answer.

Natsu dropped the towel and walked over to Lucy. "Thoughts like, 'why did I let you run over to that kid?' and 'I should have done more to protect you' went through my head as I watched you fall lifelessly onto the ground. The worst thing about it? I was eating up your pain and I had actually wanted more. I don't want my demon side to take over and hurt you but the only way I can prevent that is if you don't get hurt."

He knelt down and took Lucy's hand in his. "Lucy, I care so fucking much about you. Everything I do is for your sake. I wasn't able to protect you all those years ago so this time, I want to do a better job of protecting you." He rested his forehead on their hands and closed his eyes. "So please. Take care of your health."

Although she didn't want to admit it, Lucy felt her heart drop as she watched Natsu and listened to his words. Hesitantly, Lucy used her free hand to run her fingers through Natsu's salmon pink hair and pet him in reassurance. She could tell that he was still feeling guilty about her original death.

Guilt. A strong emotion. Those entangled in guilt have a hard time trying to get themselves out. It can last for a whole lifetime and it hinders you from living your life to the fullest.

Lucy understood that very well. "I'll wait until I'm completely healed before I get discharged."


Lucy was discharged from the hospital a week later. While she was laying in her hospital bed, awaiting for the news that she's getting discharged, Natsu kept on tending to her every need. It was annoying at first but eventually, Lucy found it both comforting and amusing. Her friends had lives to live to but they stopped by whenever they could and managed to get Lucy's mind off of things by being chaotic.

Now that she was finally discharged from the hospital, she was sitting at her desk in her bedroom as she talked to Jason on the phone.

"I still can't believe that you were shot in the Sabretooth Shooting! Are you okay!?" Jason cried.

"Yep. I'm perfectly fine," Lucy answered.

"Don't worry! The police are working on catching the shooter! I'll write a super cool article about it to avenge you!" Jason cried.

"You don't have to but thanks," Lucy answered.

"I'm happy that the intern was with you though," Jason said before letting out a sigh of relief. "He was able to keep an eye on you while you were out of commission."

"Yeah..." Lucy answered, looking out the window.

"I don't wanna be 'that boss' but I kinda gotta have to. You're well enough to come in for work tomorrow, right?" Jason asked.

"Actually, I have to go back home first," Lucy answered.

"Ah. Your folks must be worried after hearing about the shooting, right?" Jason asked.

"Sure," Lucy answered. "But I promise when I get back, I'll work for one month straight!"

"Atta, girl! Bye! Stay cool!" Jason cried before hanging up.

Lucy was about to put her phone on the desk when she saw that she got a text from Natsu.

waiting outside

She stood up and walked over to her window. Like he said, there was Natsu waiting outside for Lucy to come out. He looked up and waved at her with a large grin. She waved back before texting him a reply.

i'm coming down rn

Lucy felt as if she was in high school preparing to go on a date with her high school boyfriend. With a smile plastered onto her face and butterflies fluttering in her stomach, she looked at her outfit through her full-body mirror. She debated whether she should tie her hair into a ponytail or not. After deciding not to, she went to her desk, grabbed her purse, and walked out of the room.

A note was left sitting on the desk: I will go home.


Random Fact: I have these twin cousins who sleepwalk and sleeptalk and it's so fucking creepy

Wassup!? It's ya gurl sugarsugarrush!

I did a mixture of the balcony scene in the original Romeo and Juliet and the balcony scene that was a parody of Romeo and Juliet from Strong Girl Bong Soon for the dream scene

Reviews:

Copperreign12- Lol thank you so much!

Between the last time I updated and this time, I've watched Journey to the West: Conquer the Demons, 2001 Bollywood movie Asoka, the book version of the Chinese drama Ever Night, and the manga of Toilet Bound Hanako-kun! Those four got me some more ideas to make Natsu and Lucy suffer even more mwahahaha!

Bruh, I'm so mean to my characters!

I gotta go and live my life so ima end this! Don't forget to PM me or leave me a review! Later yo!