Little man is spending time with dad, and I find that I have a lot of time on my hands today. Have a second helping!

As always, thanks for all the love and happy reading!


Lucy laughed, one hand holding on to the bar to keep her from falling off the stool she was seated on. "I can't believe that! That's insane!"

"It's truuue," Stier said as he laughed with her. He was sitting to her left, while Natsu was seated to her right. He'd been awfully quiet since they'd sat down, but Lucy had been trying not to think about that too hard as she spoke with her one time savior.

"In fact, the ooowner said if we ever came back, we'd better pray it wasn't a day he'd missed his meds or he'd kill us ourselves."

Lucy continued to giggle as she took a sip of her beer. "And you're still friends with this guy?"

"Oh yeah. He's one of my best friends! He acts like he's all sophisticated and suave mooost of the time, but when he's with us and we get a few beers in him, his true colors come out. We always have a great time, even if the cops are called occasionally."

"Stier, I think you need better friends. You know it's possible to hang out with people without getting in trouble with the police, right?"

He seemed to consider her words. "You know, I'm not so suuure about that. Maybe if you looose the booze, then sure, but where's the fun in that?"

"Even without the booze you can have fun, but I wasn't saying you should lose the alcohol. We drink every Friday and have a good time without getting in trouble."

"Is that so?" Stier leaned on the bar to look around Lucy. "This true, Natsu?"

The half dragon didn't look his way, just continued to stare at the bottles on the shelf. "For the most part, yeah."

Stier raised an eyebrow at Lucy who held up a finger in response before turning to face Natsu. Leaning forward, she whispered, "Natsu, are you okay?"

"Yeah, fine," he said.

"You don't seem fine."

He glanced over her shoulder at the man on her other side before meeting her eyes. "I don't like him," he whispered.

"What do you mean? He's been nothing but nice."

"He's too friendly," Natsu griped.

Lucy frowned at him. "That's ridiculous, he's the perfect amount of friendly. He's even being nice enough not to point out that you're being kind of a dick."

Natsu looked away towards the stage, where the band was getting ready to start playing. "I just don't like him, okay? Call it a gut feeling. There's something off about him."

Lucy sighed as she fought the urge to study her new friend. "Natsu, you're not even giving him a chance."

"I'm letting him talk to you, that's as much chance as he's going to get."

"Excuse me?" she hissed quietly. "Natsu, you have no say over who I do and do not talk to. It's not about letting people talk to me, it's about me choosing who I talk to. I don't know what the hell is going on with you, but I don't like it." As the music began to play, Lucy sat up straight again. "You can protect me when you need to, but delegating who I talk to is not your prerogative. Once reasonable Natsu is back, let me know. He owes me a dance."

Lucy spun around in her chair towards Stier. "You wanna go dance?"

"Suuure," he said as he stood and offered his hand. "I'm a terrible dancer, but it's still fun to try, right?"

Natsu could almost feel the radiance of the smile she gave the bigger man as they turned and headed to the dance floor.

As they walked away, Natsu quickly stood and made his way to the door to leave. One hand stamp, walk and elevator ride later, he found himself unlocking the door to their room and searching for Lucy's phone.

Once he found it and unhooked it from the charger, he called Loke. It rang three times before the man answered. "Hey Lucy! How's the trip going?"

"It's me, Loke."

The voice on the other line grew hard. "What do you want, Natsu? Can't you just enjoy your vacation and talk to me once you get back? This is getting ridiculous."

"Why is there another one here?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

Natsu sighed loudly. "Damn it, Loke, I know, okay?"

"I still don't know what you're talking about."

"I know who you are."

"Yeah, we've sort of been working on becoming friends so I'd hope-"

"Shut up, would you? Stop deflecting and tell me why there's another one of you here. I know he's here on your orders."

"Natsu, I still-"

"Leo, don't mess with me, I'm not in the mood." When Loke didn't respond, Natsu continued. "I know, okay? And I know you know after Halloween, so can we please just stop all the avoiding stuff? Answer my question."

After a little more silence, Loke finally answered. "Your presence complicates things. You're making my job more difficult, and to compensate for that, I needed to call in an extra hand."

"Why not use Aries?" Loke made a surprised noise. "Please don't deny it, you let her go by her real name so it wasn't hard to figure out.

"So tell me," Natsu continued. "Why has Leo, the leader of all guardian angels, taken such an interest in Ms. Hearfilia? It must be important if you have three of the Zodiac helping to keep an eye on her."

"Only, two," Loke corrected him. "Aries does not actively help with protecting Lucy."

"I don't care," Natsu said through gritted teeth. "Tell me why she is so special I have to deal with the pervy Taurus. I'm not surprised, by the way, that the bull angel is so horny."

"That was a lame joke."

"It wasn't a joke."

Loke sighed. "It's part of the job, Natsu. We've protected a lot of the Heartfilias over the centuries. I'm just doing my job and following the King's orders."

Natsu frowned. "That's odd. I've never heard of any family having that much contact with the guardian angels before."

"It's not something that's talked about a lot, okay?"

"Why the Heartfilias?"

Loke waited a beat before he responded. "The king has an invested interest in their family line, and that's all I can tell you. Now drop it before I have to get mean."

Natsu ignored his warning to speculate. "I'm guessing blood ties, if he's got you and multiple other spirits protecting her." The silence on the other end was enough of a confirmation for Natsu, so he continued. "That doesn't matter to me right now. I want Taurus off this assignment. It's bad enough I have to deal with you, I don't want him around too."

"You don't have the authority to make those calls, demon."

Natsu grit his teeth. "You do understand who I am, right?"

"Yes," came the response. "I've even figured out who you fully are, and it's only my respect for your father that has kept me from petitioning the king to have your contract terminated and have you confined to the demon realm for the next century." Natsu's teeth snapped shut so loud Loke heard it and laughed. "What's the matter? You figured out who I was, but thought I couldn't do enough digging to figure out you're the son of the deceased dragon king? I mean it, Natsu. The King has a lot of sway and if I were to ask, the contract binding you to my charge would be erased in no time at all. If I were you, I'd learn to make friends with us angels, at least outwardly, for Lucy's sake. I know she'd feel better knowing that all her friends get along.

"Now I have to go. Stop breaking into Lucy's phone to call me, it's annoying. You should know by now that I can't avoid any call from Lucy, so I'd prefer it if it was only her voice I heard on this line. Have a good evening, Natsu."

"Wait," Natsu growled. "What happened to those men, the ones who scared Lucy? What did you do to them?"

The chuckle that came over the line made the hairs on Natsu's nape stand on end. "I did my duty as Lucy's guardian angel. Trust me, they won't be bothering her anymore. And for her sake, I think we should go back to pretending that we don't know what the other is. Sound good?

"I'd hate to cause Lucy undue stress fighting with you or letting out your little secret and getting you in trouble with that punishment demon, the one in charge of contracts. What was her name? Erza?" Natsu gulped at the thought, terrified of facing the red haired female over something like having his demon status revealed.

"Just remember, Natsu, I have many ways of making your life more difficult. So you keep my and my associates identities to yourself, and I'll do the same with yours. Otherwise, there will be some rather unpleasant changes in your life. Understand?"

Natsu fought to keep his hold on Lucy's phone loose as he growled into the receiver. Once he was done, Loke merely laughed and bid him goodnight before hanging up. Natsu carefully plugged Lucy's phone back in and went to stand on the small deck outside. The cold wind whipped around him, but he ignored it as he studied his surroundings in the setting sun, desperately trying to control his anger.

A freaking guardian angel. Not only that, but the leader of the Zodiac, their realm's strongest angels. What had he done to deserve so much headache? He made trouble, sure, but he didn't think he'd ever done enough wrong to warrant this.

Not to mention the fact that someone contracted to a guardian angel as Lucy was should have had more trouble summoning him - and she'd done it on accident.

There was definitely something special about Lucy, and he wanted to find out what it was. Leo hadn't given him much, but he'd given him enough. He would have to talk to Happy about doing some investigating in the demon realm for him, since he was still stuck in the human world.

First things first, he had to mend things with Lucy. He couldn't just stay hidden in their room, sulking while she fraternized with the enemy. Natsu took a deep breath, filling his lungs with the crisp mountain air as he turned around to go back inside. He could make friends, he could pretend, it wasn't that hard. All he had to do was make small talk with the angel and not try to rip his head off. Easy.

Natsu fixed his clothes and hair as he made his way back to the ballroom, where he showed off his stamp and returned to the party. As he moved towards the bar to get another soda, he noticed Lucy and Taurus still on the dancefloor. There were several other pairs there as well, so he had some trouble keeping an eye on her as the man with her spun her in circles from time to time.

He ordered a soda and two beers for the other two, then moved to sit at a table next to the dancefloor. He sipped at his drink as he watched the pair, smiling at how happy Lucy looked, despite who she was with.

As the song ended, Lucy looked his way and smiled as he waved. She pulled on Stier's arm and they came to join him, both sighing as they took a seat. "Where did yooou run off to?" Stier asked. "It looked like you disappeared for a little bit."

"Just took a walk," Natsu answered. "The smell of alcohol is kind of strong at the bar and it was giving me a headache. I left to clear my sinuses a bit."

"Sounds like a solid mooove," Stier said, reaching over to smack him on the back. "I'm glad you seem to be in a better moood."

Natsu's eyes were sharp, but his voice was light as he responded. "Yeah, well, a sensitive nose has its downfalls. I apologize for my earlier behavior. I hope you're still willing to make a go at being friends."

"We could be very goood friends, if you'd like."

The man's smile was just a little too knowing for Natsu's taste, so he turned to Lucy. "I'm sorry to you, too, for being a bear."

"Apology accepted," she said, looping her arm through his. "Now you owe me a dance."

"Are you sure you don't want to rest a little more first?"

"Nope." She finished her drink and then softly slammed it on the table. "Let's go." She pulled on the arm she'd looped hers through and began to drag him out onto the floor. He gave Stier a nod as he followed, content to let her lead. There'd been something in her eyes as she'd looked at him and he wanted to know what had happened.

As they began to dance, slower than the music actually called for, Lucy looked up at him with an unsure expression. "So I need to talk to you about something. Usually I'd talk to Cana or Levy or Juvia but they're not here and I don't have my phone."

"Well you can talk to me about anything," he said. "What's up?"

"Stier asked me out on a date."

Natsu stopped dancing, just stopped moving his entire body, his arms still held away from his sides and one foot in the air. His eyes flashed that same gold from earlier and he lifted his lips away from his teeth. As she watched, he grew more angry, his canines elongating as he began to growl low in his throat. Lucy panicked as she looked around. She didn't know what the hell was happening, but they were surrounded by other humans and she knew for sure that she needed to stop him from doing whatever he was doing.

"Natsu, what's going on?" she whispered. He didn't budge, his expression didn't change. He didn't even act as though he'd heard her. She started to freak out as she saw scales beginning to appear on his neck.

Quickly, she reached forward and put her hands on his cheeks, far enough down to cover the growing scales, and pulled his face to hers. "Natsu, you have to stop. Now. Look at me."

Natsu blinked as his eyes finally focused on hers. Slowly, his expression began to relax. His scales disappeared, his teeth retracted, and his eyes reverted to their regular dark color. He continued to blink, then suddenly seemed to realize how close they were as he gave her a confused look. "Why are you holding my face so close, Luce? Do you do this to the girls, too?"

"Of course not," she said. "I was trying to stop you from going berserk."

He frowned. "What do you mean?"

Lucy blinked up at him as she realized he'd forgotten again. She released his face as she stepped back. "Nothing, I must have been mistaken." They really needed to talk about what was happening to him once they were away from the crowd. She needed to know what kind of triggers to avoid so he wouldn't unknowingly expose himself to the human populace.

"So back to what I said before. Stier asked me out and I don't know what I should do."

She saw his eyes grow hard as they darted towards their table. "You should say no."

"Should I?" she asked. "He's a really nice guy and it's been a really long time since I dated anyone."

"If a date is all you want, I could take you out."

Lucy ignored the way her heart leapt at his words. "While that's a nice offer, Natsu, dates aren't just for friends to go on and hang out. It'd be nice to spend some time with someone who likes me."

"I like you," he said quickly.

She sighed. "Not like that, Natsu. I mean someone who has a romantic interest in me."

Natsu seemed to think about his answer for a long time. They were barely dancing at this point, and as the song ended, they didn't seem to notice, at least until the next one started. It was a slow song, and instead of giving his answer, Natsu reached forward to put his arms around Lucy. "I know how to dance to his one. How about one more before we return to the table?"

Lucy gave him a small smile. "You got it." As she put her arms around his neck and leaned her head against his shoulder, she considered staying quiet. It was nice dancing with Natsu, really nice, and she didn't want to ruin the moment with chatter, but she couldn't seem to keep her mouth shut.

"I'm thinking about saying yes."

Natsu's arms tightened around her she could have sworn she felt him begin to vibrate. After a while, he let out a long breath, his heat and smell filling her senses as he finally answered. "You should do whatever you want to do."

Lucy could tell he didn't mean a word, but she appreciated the effort. With a smile, she whispered a thank you as she leaned in closer and hugged him.

Natsu spent the remainder of the evening reminding himself of the many, many laws he would be breaking if he were to kill a guardian angel on human soil without just cause.

In those few moments he wasn't considering the different ways he could kill the angel, he wondered just why the thought of someone else taking his master out, alone, made him so violent and angry.


So, lot of stuff happening in this one! It just kind of fell out of my hands onto the keyboard and I couldn't wait to share it.

Shout out to TheFranticPhantasm for being the first to suspect that Loke wasn't human and to linithamonre77 for being the first to guess Loke was Lucy's guardian angel.