If he was perfectly still, how long could he go without being noticed?
Natsu held his breath and went rigid, watching from behind as Rogue scooted Mr. Hopper across the table. In the wordless play Rogue was putting on for himself, it seemed that Mr. Hopper was having some dispute with Sir Honey, likely because the evil dragon Fishlogia had abducted Stripy the Tiger. Luckily, King Bear, who was the ruler for being the largest, and for having lived in the house kingdom since the day of the amusement park, was coming to settle the dispute. At least, that's what Natsu guessed was going on.
He had a good thing going, standing there and suffocating himself while Rogue was probably at his pinnacle of cute, un-Rogue-like behavior. Of course Frosch had to ruin it.
"Does Natsu want to play with Rogue?"
His presence discovered, Natsu gasped for air while Rogue whirled around, desperately hoping that Frosch had just said that to scare him.
"Ah… Nats… uh…" Rogue gulped and covered his mouth with his hand as his cheeks turned red enough to rival Erza's hair. "Y-you… when…?"
Seeing that his poor pregnant boyfriend was trembling, Natsu cleared his throat as said, "Don't be embarrassed. It was really cute."
"C-cute?"
"Yeah. You don't usually act so-"
He was startled out of his sentence when Rogue catapulted up and grabbed his vest, yanking him towards the door. Before he knew it, he was standing outside, door slamming shut and even locking behind him. Odd. He didn't know his house had a lock. Rogue must have added one at some point.
"H-how much did you see?" Rogue asked from the other side of the door.
"Eh? Not too much. I came in when Fishlogia was killing Duke Blackington. That's what was happening, right?"
Silence.
"Rogue?" Natsu asked, giving the door a test knock. "Let me back in. I want to see if King Bear is able to stop Fishlogia. Rogue?"
"Stop it…" Rogue muttered. "You're laughing at me, right?"
"No, I'm talking to you."
"But you think it's funny!" Rogue cried. "Seeing me… you…"
"I never said-"
The door swung back open to reveal Rogue, face still bright scarlet, tears pooling at the corner of his eyes. "Liar!" he screamed before slamming the door again.
Natsu almost broke down the door and shouted something back, but stopped his hand just in time to keep from wrecking his own house. Still, Rogue was acting strange. Would he be even more upset if Natsu asked about hormones?
Sighing, Natsu sat down in the snow and waited for Rogue to calm down. He wasn't Gray, but he generated enough heat that the cold wasn't usually a bother. He just needed to wait… and wait… in rotten weather… and…
"Y'know..." Natsu said after a few minutes, "This is kinda like how you got kicked out."
For a moment he thought Rogue would ignore him, or maybe hadn't heard. But those dragon slayer ears were working, because Rogue asked, "Is it?"
"Well… kinda. I mean, I don't mind too much but… I would like to come back in."
"Go away."
"And never show my face again," Natsu muttered without thinking. "Ah! Sorry. I'm mad at Sting, not you. I don't get how you can put up with him coming around after what he did. Was he here yesterday? I thought I smelled him."
"…He stopped by the guild. He heard about the baby shower, and he wanted to bring something for Alex."
"Oh. Is that what we're calling the baby?"
No response.
"Alright," Natsu grumbled. "Don't tell me. It's not like-"
"Natsu?"
"Yeah?"
"What do you know… about caring for an infant?"
"Well, you've got to feed it, right? And change diapers."
"That's it?"
"Is there more too it?" Natsu asked.
"A bit… never mind."
"Well, that's something we don't need to know yet. But Rogue… why do you let Sting keep coming back? I'm just sitting out in the snow for a little bit, but what he did to you was too much."
Rogue sighed. "You have good hearing?"
"Yeah."
"Well, so do I. So I heard… when the guild master and Sting and Mira thought they were talking in private… how Sting ended up thinking I had cheated on him. The guild… doesn't have that thick of walls. He overreacted. I know. But… I caused him grief too…"
It had been a while since Rogue's speech had gotten so halting. Natsu sat forward and pressed an ear against the door to see if-ah, yes. That was definitely a sob. Muffled, but he did have good hearing.
"Rogue, if you're not going to let me come back in, why not hold onto-" he caught himself before he could suggest snuggling a stuffed animal for comfort. "Frosch is in there with you."
"Fro can hug Rogue," a little voice agreed.
Natsu nodded. "Alright. Let me know when Rogue is feeling better, okay Frosch? I'm getting a bit cold waiting out here, and talking to Rogue is just causing trouble. I'm gonna go pick a fight with Gray for liking this white crap."
Maybe that had been the wrong thing to call the snow, because Natsu heard Frosch squeak and complain about Rogue tightening his grip as he walked away.
-o-
"Rogue is holding Fro too tight!"
"Sorry."
Rogue loosened his grip, letting Frosch squirm out of his arms and crawl down onto his lap. If he got that careless with his baby… "Frosch?"
"Hm?"
"Thank you. For the book," Rogue said. Even if the title was insulting, he'd only needed to read two pages to see that it was a perfect fit for him. Child rearing was foreign territory.
"Happy helped, and the books Sting brought yesterday were better."
Guides on toys that helped a baby develop leg strength, short stories that were good for reading to a young child, enough quick read articles on things that helped a newborn grow to keep a person occupied for weeks. It was like Sting had grabbed everything he could find that advised on taking care of a baby (and didn't include an insults in the title) and wrapped it all up for Rogue. That he was able to rattle off a lot of the information he thought Rogue would most like had made it all the better.
"Does Natsu need to read the dummy book?"
"Probably." Gently scooting Frosch off of him, Rogue rose to his feet and pressed an ear against the door. Once he was sure Natsu wasn't waiting outside he undid the lock. He'd probably be in a better mood later. No sense in trapping Natsu out of his own house. "I'm going to shower. If you want to play with the dolls-"
"Fro wants to shower too." Rogue paused and looked to his little friend for confirmation. "Fro's dirty."
"I know you washed up this morning."
Slipping out of her suit, Frosch licked her paws and began to systematically scruff up all the fur on her body. When she finished she looked up at Rogue and declared, "Fro's a mess."
Unable to resist smiling at that, Rogue sighed and picked Frosch up. "Let's get you cleaned up then."
-o-
A warm shower had washed away Rogue's bad mood, and gotten Frosch shiny to boot. He helped the little frog-kitty redress and set about finding something to keep himself occupied until Natsu came back. He'd have to apologize. It had been silly of him to get so worked up. Sure, it had been embarrassing, but Natsu wasn't Happy. As long as he asked, no one would ever hear about it.
His eyes drifted back to the dolls, but Natsu or Happy could come in at any moment. He let Frosch roll around with them instead while he looked over Natsu's book collection. It had changed a lot since he'd first arrived. Most of the books that had once been there had been returned to Lucy's, only to be replaced with stories from her next shelf down.
Her old shelf had been more interesting. After fanning through a forth book Rogue gave up and started pacing around the room, scanning for any little messes he might be able to take care of. Finding none, he settled for doing something he hadn't had to in a long time: cooking.
But once the dough had been mixed, rolled into little balls, and placed in the oven, Rogue still had to wait a never ending twenty minutes before he could eat his cookies. Twenty minutes… Natsu couldn't have left more than an hour ago, and Happy would likely come back with him. If it was just twenty minutes…
He almost locked the door again, but didn't trust himself to remember to unlock it after. He'd just count on Natsu to want to spend time with friends. That was probably the most reliable aspect of Natsu's personality.
Taking a deep breath, Rogue went back over to the table and picked Fishlogia back up, resuming his story about the tiger and the dragon who had run away so no one could interfere with their love, and how the evil bears were trying to capture and separate them.
The wedding was just beginning when the door burst open. Rogue dropped the dolls and spun around, readying an excuse for when Natsu saw him at play again.
"Hey, sorry. Meant to knock. So I got back home yesterday and saw that I'd forgotten to grab this one and…" Sting paused, book on ways to make children eat healthy slipping out of his hand as he realized just what he'd walked in on. "And… uh…"
"We can come back later," Lector offered.
"Please," Rogue told them.
-x-
STA: Because if Rogue had 3 bunnies, 2 bears, 1 large bear, a tiger, and a dragon, why wouldn't he play with them. Oh, and by the way, those bunnies are Mr. Hopper, Mrs. Hopper, and Sir Floppy. The small bears are Sir Honey and Duke Blackington, and King Bear is the one Rogue won back in chapter two. The tiger is Stripy. The stuffed dragon is Fishlogia. Happy named Fishlogia. Frosch named the rest. (But seriously, can anyone say 'OoC' for me?)
Okay, so this chapter was largely fluff. It did include a bit of relevance to the love triangle, but it was largely fluff. There was also the thing where Rogue turned out to know how Sting had come to assume he'd been unfaithful, but I wouldn't honestly consider that relevant. I never even planned for him to know. I was just typing and he suddenly said it and I was like "Oh. Wow. He heard that?" I had no idea Rogue knew.
Also, I think that was the first time Lector showed up in this story.