Heyo and welcome to the third chapter!

"Hey Mira! I'm gonna need another bottle of the purple stuff!" Natsu said impatiently the bar maid. As Mira took her time getting the requested bottle, Cana leaned over to Natsu with a half empty mug swinging in between her fingers.

"I didn't take you for a drinker, Natsu." She said with alcohol thick on her breathe.

"It's not for me, stupid; it's for Lucy's medicine." Natsu slightly recoiled from the heavy smell of liquor.

"Heh, tell me about it, booze is the best medicine." She then took a deep gulp from her mug. It looked like something that took practice, Natsu thought with a grimace.

"No, I need a couple spoonfuls to mix with-"Natsu was cut off by a group of Lucy's female friends (Natsu's words) who surrounded Natsu like vultures around a corpse. Lisanna was the first to pipe up.

"Hey Natsu, are you sure that drink isn't to keep Lucy woozy?" Lisanna said a bit out of character but it was the smirk across her lips that annoyed Natsu.

"Why would I do that? That doesn't even make-"Another voice started up, cutting Natsu off again.

"Maybe letting Natsu take care of Lucy was a bad idea..!" An undertone of giggling followed suit.

"Hey! Lucy's has started to feel better super fast!" The group started to descend on the Dragon Slayer.

"Oh, I'm sure!"

"What does that mean-?" For the first time in his life, Natsu had a taste of claustrophobia.

"I guess we didn't know how to make Lucy feel right, huh?" In the back of Natsu's mind, he was slowly piecing together what they were insinuating but a gut reaction didn't want him to.

"You guys can all back off! I'm the one who knows what medicine she needs so if you ask me, you amateurs can go think about how you could have helped her!

Lisanna suddenly went serious and asked "What do you mean 'could have help'"? Her mind already making leaps to rash conclusions.

"I'm the now the soul carer for Luce, since you losers can't do anything but make lame jokes." Which Natsu didn't understand. Natsu then confidently walked right through the barrier of women like they were made of straw. Lisanna audibly 'phewed' and almost wiped sweat from her brow.

"Wait, what?!" It quickly snapped with the young mage but the Natsu had already left.

Natsu walked away from the guild with satisfaction as his definition. He would tell Lucy how he wiped the floor with Lisanna and Co. Well, maybe he shouldn't say that, she might get mad. Now that Natsu thought of the celestial mage more, he remembered his reason for going to the guild. The bottle! He forgot to get it from Mira! How could he have been so stupid? Natsu took out his anger on some nearby shrubbery and silently shouted curses to himself.

"Hey flame-brain! Forget this?" The unmistakeable voice of Gray reached his ears.

"Oh, what do you want, you stripper-"Natsu stopped dead in his tracks when he saw his sought after bottle in Gray's slender fingers.

"Ya know, you're really loud and it pained me to think of you being so dumb as to go back to Lucy's place empty-handed, so just take it before I change my mind."

Natsu quickly snatched it from the ice mage's hands and said with a sinister smile, "I guess I won't kick your ass today then, hehe..."

"Oh, I wouldn't push me today scale-face, not after I did such a kind act, right?" Gray returned the glare with that cold tone only he can do. Natsu's next act surprised the ice mage, instead of doing the classic Natsu sucker punch to the gut; he made quite a Lucy move and agreed with him. That's not to say there wasn't the usual Dragneel fire but still.

"Hey Luce, I'm back!" Natsu said as he unlocked the door to Lucy's apartment and entered. Natsu unknowingly smiled as he realised he could get used to saying that.

"I got the stuff for the medicine at the guild; you can trust Mira to have all kinds of stuff behind her counter. Oh, I ran into some of your friends while I was there and they wished you a good recovery," Natsu lied as he prepared the kitchen for another batch of 'Dragneel Soup' as Lucy jokingly named it, "and I was thinkin' we should try and get you out and up to the guild. Not to do a mission but to get you out-and-about coz-"

It suddenly struck Natsu that Lucy hadn't replied at all. He poked his head through the doorway to see a large lump under the covers of Lucy's bed.

"Lucy? Are you awake?" Natsu's ears went red at the thought of him talking to a sleeping Lucy. He peeked into the covers to see an uncontrollably shivering Lucy. Natsu instinctively threw back the covers with a whelp of surprise. Lucy had piled on extra blankets but she still looked disturbingly small due to pulling herself into such a tight ball.

"N-Natsu you...idiot put it-t b-back..." Lucy chattered out but the Dragon Slayer was already hastily pulling all Lucy's winter clothes from her neatly organised draws, sending the room into a storm of fabrics. Natsu replaced the covers and asked if this mountain of garments was any better. Lucy didn't reply so Natsu took it as a 'no'.

There have been very few times when Natsu Dragneel had fallen so far into the pit of panic.

"Ah, crap, if you're really cold then that means then you need to get warm or you'll die but the layers aren't working so what do I do, what do I do...?!" Natsu was pacing the room and furiously pulling at his hair as if the answer was hidden there in those thick salmon-coloured threads. "Come on think, think! What do I do Igneel? What would you say?"

Then, almost as if the old dragon was in the room, the solution popped into Natsu's head.

Lucy had a horrible dream that when Natsu had left, someone else was in her apartment. Lucy had a hard time putting it into words but it was like someone standing in the corner of the room but Lucy could only see them by the corner of her eye. She had heard of 'sleep paralysis' before but this seemed different. After what seemed like an eternity, Lucy woke up in her dream only to be greeted by the worst chill she had ever experienced. No matter what Lucy did, the cold wouldn't leave her body and then her legs started to go stiff with the cold and all see could do was curl up and wait to really wake up.

Lucky for the Celestial Spirit mage, she had and she felt the exact opposite of that frightful dream. Lucy was in such a state of euphoria and comfort that she had her eyes close and face pulled into a gleaming smile.

Little did she know, she was currently in the arms of a concerned Dragon Slayer.

"Um... Lucy?"

"Hm... Wha?"

"Are you okay?"

"...What are yo-!" Lucy couldn't finish her sentence as her eyes widened in surprise. All she could see was a white scale-like scarf snaking around both of them and covering most of Natsu's face with two deep onyx eyes peering over the top. Anyone else would have screamed at the top of their lungs but for Lucy, this was actually a normal occurrence. She has almost started thinking that Natsu sneaking into her bed at night was a sign of good luck. Were it anyone else, Natsu would have probably been kicked out and threatened to never come back by now but Natsu had a skill of escaping trouble when it came to Lucy. Then the blonde mage realised that the two of them had just been staring at each for a bit, so she hastily broke the silence.

"S-sorry, Natsu, you just took me by surprise, that's all." Her brown eyes darted to look at something other than his.

"Oh, no problem, Luce." Lucy could tell me smiled, even with his mouth cover by his signature scaly scarf.

...

It wasn't an awkward silence, but it was still a silence. Normally one of them would have something to say but not this time. They both opened their mouths at the same time to speak which caused a babble of words. After a few 'you first's, Lucy voiced her question.

"You said you were going to the guild this morning, so I was going to ask how everyone is."

"Oh, yeah, they're cool," Natsu said recalling the events from what felt like hours ago, "Levy and metal nose were off on a mission, (Lucy scoffed at this) Wendy and Erza got back from their mission super tired and stuff. Gray was just hangin' around." Natsu then leaned closer to Lucy and whispered, "I think he's start to enjoy the attention he gets from Juvia" as if it were a secret between school girls. Lucy smiled brightly and indulged in Nastu's cheerful way of speaking.

"Hey, Luce, do you remember when I got back from the guild?" Natsu suddenly asked after a long session of conversation.

"No, because I was asleep." Nastu gave her a look she didn't like, "...right?"

"You were freezing and I had to hold you for ages before you got warm again, don't you remember?" Natsu missing the blatant intimate nature of his words. Lucy would have normally picked up on this but she was too confused about what Natsu was saying. So her nightmare was real? She actually felt that freezing chill? It's didn't feel like it was real.

Lucy suddenly sat up and held a hand over her mouth in horror; a gasp escaped her mouth regardless.

Was that feeling of someone else in the room real as well?

Well, well! Here we are again. Enjoy this one? I hope so, hehe. I'm gonna try and make this story long but I don't want to start writing mindless drivel so I'll find a good balance. It's a bit late because my beta read has gone dark and I'm a tad impatient. (Yo Gily, you out there? (Also the reason if you see mistakes, I tried my best!))

I also wanted to say that I absolutely love writing that bumbling idiot Natsu. (Maybe some homo, don't tell my girlfriend!)

Leave a review if ya feel like it, give me some feedback.

Thanks for reading!