Ch. 14 - Rimo gets uncomfortable

"She's fine, for now. I asked Gray to make some ice chips; give them to her when she wakes up. It will soothe her throat, and I don't think she can handle liquids yet," Porlyusica said to the anxious blonde woman waiting outside the curtain. Lucy breathed a sigh of relief and buried her head in her hands. 'Ugh, thank god the guilds aren't in here right now…' she let herself think in slight embarrassment. Here she was, her close friend lying down from passing out in the bed next to her and she was worried about her appearance to her guild. 'God, I'm such a bitch…'

Her thoughts were interrupted by a hand on her shoulder. "Lucy…" Porlyusica muttered. "She's sick," she informed.

Lucy peeled her hands off of her now panic stricken face. "You just said she was fine," she whispered back darkly. Was this a joke? Judging by the hard expression on Porlyusica's face, it was most definitely not a joke.

Porlyusica sighed. "She is, for now," she replied patiently. Lucy leaped from her chair.

"What do you mean by 'for now'?" She demanded anxiously.

"I mean, that she's got something strange going on in her body," Porlyusica muttered, seemingly irritated. "Something quite strange," she said, as the mage collapsed to the chair again.

Lucy had never felt so afraid to ask a question before, but she did it anyway. "Is… Is she going to be alright?"

Porlyusica looked Lucy dead in the eyes. "It seems to be incurable at the moment, and it's spreading quite rapidly, but I'll work on it," she replied flatly.

Lucy sat in her chair, not saying a word. She remained like that for some time, Porlyusica likewise. Minutes passed before Lucy finally got up, thanked Porlyusica, and reached for the curtain separating the two friends.

Just before Porlyusica left the infirmary, she heard Lucy utter something so quietly Porlyusica could barely hear it.

"Thank you."

Porlyusica stood in the doorway for a moment before leaving quietly.

Macarov was waiting outside the door. "Is she going to be alright?"

Porlyusica smiled softly. "Here you are again, caring for people that you barely know," she mumured, closing the door behind her. Macarov crossed his arms.

"Well?"

"She's incurable as of this moment," she stated bluntly.

"What? What type of disease could this be?" Macarov asked.

Porlyuisca sighed. "I am afraid I do not know; whoever did this to her was brutal and merciless."

Macarov frowned. "Whoever? What do you mean by that?"

"What I mean is, that this 'disease'," she turned to face him. "Was inflicted on her. Most likely when she was not aware of it."

"Hm…" Macarov placed his hand on his chin.

"I will work on a cure, but I cannot guarantee it will work," she said. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I will take my leave and begin to work on a cure in my home. You know how much I hate humans," she finished, striding quickly down the hall.

—

Lucy gently brushed Sakimo's wispy locks of hair out of her face. "What are you doing all the way here…?" Lucy muttered softly.

Much to her surprise, Sakimo's eyes fluttered open, and she began violently shaking and gasping for air. Lucy froze. Right, she was told to give Sakimo some ice chips when she woke up.

"Sakimo, it's me, Lucy," Lucy cooed. As soon as Sakimo's eye's caught hers, the aggressive shaking calmed. Lucy saw something… weird in her eyes. Urgency. Lucy brushed it off, deciding there were more important matters at hand. Like a close friend who just recovered from aggressively spasming.

"Here, I have some ice chips for you…" She picked up a small ice chip and placed it on Sakimo's tongue. She sucked on the ice chip greedily before opening her mouth, requesting another one. Lucy gently placed another ice chip on her awaiting tongue, but it was then that she noticed her throat was a strange… hue. It was tinted black, as if she had swallowed charcoal or something.

Sakimo finished the ice chip and opened her mouth for more, but Lucy declined. "I don't think you should eat so many at once." Lucy put down the bowl. "Now, I don't want to stress you out or anything, but," Lucy paused hesitantly, "Why did you come all the way here…?"

Sakimo suddenly shot up, clutching the sheets and her eyes, caked with fear, glanced around the room.

"Oh, god, I'm so sorry," Lucy said hurriedly. "It's fine, don't tell me until you're better." Lucy rubbed the girl's arms and slowly laid her back down, where Sakimo promptly fell asleep again.

Lucy sighed. What had made Sakimo come all this way? She was just itching to find out, but causing Sakimo more stress wasn't going to help her know any sooner. She got up and stepped quietly over to the door. She opened it quietly before turning to give the sleeping girl one last look before stepping through the doorway.

As soon as she stepped out Lucy grew suspicious. The guild was… unusually quiet. She glanced at a clock conveniently hanging over the hallway exit. Lucy's mouth dropped open.

"It's 2 am!" She exclaimed. That meant that Porlyuisca had spent almost half the day with Sakimo… and that Lucy had waited in that chair for half the day!

She bolted down the hallway and burst into the guild… Only to find a very little and quiet array of guild members, including the women of Night Pythoness, sleeping on the tables and chairs.

"Hey, who was that girl?"

The sudden voice almost caused Lucy to jump. Almost. She whipped around to come face to face with… Natsu.

She let out a relieved sigh. "It was just a friend I met during the time I was gone… I wonder what she came her for," Lucy said to herself. She was quiet for a couple minutes until she noticed Natsu staring intently at her.

"What?" She snapped.

Natsu either didn't notice her tone of voice or just chose to disregard it totally. "We didn't really get to spend much time with each other because you were busy catching up with everyone at the guild," he stated bluntly.

"Oh. Right." She recalled catching up with her former guildmates, and she realized that she indeed had not really hung out with Natsu that much. Nothing more then a occasional, 'Hey,' before another person would pull her to a table.

"So, uh, where's Happy?" She inquired, praying that that was a suitable conversation starter.

"He went home," he replied, leaning against the bar counter and crossing his arms behind his head.

"Ah. Why? Aren't you guys always together?"

Natsu looked at her like she had grown another arm. "I thought you were pretty smart, but I guess not," he said. Her face flashed with confusion. "It's two o'clock in the morning, Lucy," he finished, watching her facial expressions with great interest.

A light pink dusted across her cheeks. "R-right… So you… You stayed up for me?"

Natsu shrugged like it was no problem, spinning around to face her. "I would wait at your house, but you know," he murmured, stepping closer to her. Lucy backed up, and winced when she felt the counter behind her. He trapped her with his arms, placing them on either side of her, grasping the bar counter. Lucy's face felt so hot that she could probably cook a sausage on it.

When did Natsu learn to be so… sexy?

Lucy's face burned up even more when she thought that, and she pushed the thought out of her mind. Natsu's face was slowly moving closer and closer to her's. She froze. She didn't know what to do.

Until she just barely heard a very tiny, very quiet, minuscule snort.

Natsu and Lucy both jerked their heads away, and Natsu quickly removed his hands from the bar counter, putting his right hand behind his head and backing away from the counter awkwardly. Doing so, he crashed into a sleeping body on the ground and tripped.

Lucy, despite herself, allowed a small grin. She quickly wiped it off her face when she heard another giggle. The blonde narrowed her eyes, and tried to make herself look as menacing as physically possible. At once, the giggling stopped.

"You better come out now," she began, her voice hard. Whoever that was, they certainly didn't have the guts to come out. Lucy tried, deciding to try a different method. "How about this? You better come out now," she started, "Before I have to come find you myself."

Quickly and quietly, a small figure appeared in the shadows. Lucy squinted. Of course.

It was Lupa. "S-sorry Licia…"

"Go back to sleep," Lucy commanded.

"Y-yes Licia…" Lupa promptly heat up a space on the floor and curled up on the now warm spot.

Natsu grinned widely from his spot on the floor and chuckled. Lucy whirled around.

"The hell are you grinning at?" She yelled quietly, not wanting to wake anymore peeping eyes.

He laughed. "Nothin,'" he replied. "It's just that you act so mean but you're actually really considerate," he explained.

Lucy huffed, crossing her arms and turning away. "Whatever," she muttered. She couldn't help but allow a small smile to creep up on her face.

She wandered around to look for an empty space on the floor to sleep. Her guild was tough; and she refused to allow them to sleep in a hotel.

So they'd been sleeping on the floors of the Fairy Tail instead.

—The next morning—

Lucy stirred to the sound of laughter. That didn't sound too bad, did it? Now picture this: Lucy stirred to the sound of maniacal laughter, and it wasn't just one person either. It was whole group of people. And it sounded like they were attempting to stifle their laughter, but failing greatly. There were also flashes in her eyes.

'What the hell is goin' on…' She thought. 'Whatever… I'm tired still.'

"Ten more minutes…" She mumbled. The laughter suddenly died at the sound of her voice. She decided to think nothing of it and promptly rolled over, trying to face away from the strange flashes. She wrapped her arm around something, snuggling up closer to the heat source. The 'heat source' also wrapped an arm around her, pulling her in tightly.

"Mm," she murmured happily. So… warm… Wait.

Shit.

Her eyes snapped open. Her face was inches away from a certain dragon slayer's face. She squeaked - something she hadn't done in a long time - and swiftly rolled away and leapt up.

Natsu finally stirred and rolled onto his stomach, reaching his arm out and trying to grasp the empty place where Lucy was previously lying. "Why so early…?"

Lucy crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes at the group of people, frozen with cameras in their hands. Discreetly, she gave Natsu a gentle kick. Natsu grunted and also stood.

"Oh, hey guys. Why're you all here so early?" He mumbled, stretching. He wandered over to the bar. Right before he asked if there was any food, he turned and smirked at Lucy, saying, "Hey, and Luce, you snore."

Lucy was just about to unleash her caged anger until she sensed something.

Embarrassing pictures forgotten, her eyes caught the silver eyes belonging to a very sick young woman, weakly standing in the doorway, using the doorframe as her support. Sakimo slowly reached out a trembling hand to Lucy, and she seemed to be holding a note.

And then she was falling.

"Sakimo!" Lucy screamed. In a flash, Lucy was by her side. She caught her just before gravity caught up with her. Lucy carefully laid her on the ground, cradling her head in her arms. "No, no, no…" Lucy whispered. "Why did you get up, why didn't you wait for me to check on you," she pleaded.

Sakimo desperately pressed the note into the palm of her hand. The silver eyes slowly begun to slip closed. 'Shit!' Lucy thought. Not thinking, Lucy did what her instincts told her to.

She slapped Sakimo's face.

At once, Sakimo's eyes fluttered open and Lucy swore she saw the corners of her lips turn up.

Luckily, Porlyusica swept in out of nowhere and swiftly carried Sakimo back to the infirmary without a word.

Lucy sat on the ground for what felt like hours, sighing with relief, and clutching the note.

She slowly unfolded the note, seeing it to be surprisingly short. The writing was messy and sloppy, almost rivalling Natsu's chicken scratch writing. Her eyes widened as she read the five lone words on the sheet of paper.

'sandra is coming. be prepared.'

Lucy glanced up at her guild, all 17 women surrounding her, already guessing what the note said. "We gotta talk," she whispered.

— Rimo and Sandra, on a train, 1 days into their trip —

Rimo was sitting quite uncomfortably on his chair. He kept squirming around and wiggling. Sandra observed him with great amusement.

"Rimo, are you uncomfortable?" Sandra teased. He glanced up darkly.

"I'm just… Just not very used to chairs like this…" He muttered.

Sandra smiled. "Well you better get used to them. This trip lasts for about 8 days, I believe."

Rimo groaned.

A/N

I don't own F.T.

holy shit I am so sorry.

Forgive me for not updating. There are reasons but it's partially my own fault and I feel like a shitty fuckface.

So also, I have an announcement to make.

I have midterms coming up (pls no) and my first one is Friday (PLS NO) so I don't know if I am able to update. (wow good job, Jo. Don't update for a month or something like that and tell your epic followers that I won't be able to update again. You should be called Jocrastinate.)

I will probably be writing in short bursts throughout the week of exams (much like I did for this chapter) so hopefully I'll have one chapter by the end of next week.

But also, thank you for waiting guys! I'm very very sorry! I'll work hard over the next week and bring you a new chapter.

I promise. (maybe)

As always, please review! (Feel so crappy for asking that rn)

- Jo