"Natsu!" Rissa called out as she ran through the double doors of the Fairy Tail guild and stopped cold as she spotted the pink haired young man slamming down a mug of beer and getting to his feet and pushed his way through the crowd of people that had been around him and grabbed her as soon as he reached her and growled in an dark tone that she'd never heard before.
"Lucy Heartphilia! I'd take you over my knee and spank you for coming here at this ungodly hour if I didn't already know why you came here." His fingers tightened around her shoulders a fraction before loosening again as he leaned in close and hissed, "The next time I disappear- Don't. Come. Looking. For. Me!"
Rissa looked at him wide eyed, unsure of what to make of his sudden aggressive behavior as she stammered, "S-S-Sor-ry I-I w-as w-w-wor-ried." Natsu stared at her for a second, his expression furious.
Then slowly, ever so slowly his anger seemed to drain away and he gave her an unreadable look as he slipped his hands up from her shoulders to frame her face and leaned in again to touch his forehead to hers.
"I know you were worried. I'm sorry I didn't have time to leave a note." He said in an soft almost apologetic tone before dropping his hands and stepping away from her. That was when she noticed how dirty and ragged his normally clean clothes looked.
His vest was nearly in shreds and he had banadges around one wrist, one of his biceps, both of his legs had bandaged around his upper legs over his pants, and some bloody bandages around his middle. And he was covered in blue and black and yellow spots from his face down and Rissa wondered what could have happened to hurt him this badly.
Natsu took two steps away from her before turning his head to look at Lucy over his shoulder, gauging her reaction to his wounds while he tried to piece together why another guild like the one before would be after Lucy. The guy that he'd fought with had been super strong, nearly stronger than Natsu himself. But he'd been a loose tongued idiot and Natsu had been able to gather a little bit of imformation from him before he'd put him down.
Apparently Lucy's father had had nothing to do with this attack.
Which in itself was odd considering how much money he'd spent the first time around trying to get Lucy home via kidnapping. Of course her father was probably none too thrilled by the fact that the people he'd hired to bring her home by force, before; had nearly killed her.
Still Natsu didn't understand why another guild would be after her. But as mentioned before, he had some info. So far he'd gotten the name of the guild and figured out that Lucy's father wasn't involved...it wasn't a lot of info but it gave him a little bit to work with.
He'd been here for the past few hours or so asking some of his friends about the strange guild that was apprently new since no oen had ever heard of it before tonight. He'd thought he had come across something when Lucy had shown up, scaring the bejesus out of him. Which was part of the reason he'd reacted so...well, badly.
He'd been scared that maybe something had happened while he'd been at the guild trying to get info. It hadn't occurred to him until she'd stopped just inside the door that she was looking for him to make sure that he was okay. "Luc-"
She looked at him and he held his hand out to her hoping that he hadn't upset her to the point where she'd go running blindly out of the guild and into trouble. She looked at his hand for a second then slipped her hand around his. Natsu sighed softly and laced their fingers together and pulled her away from the door.
"How bad are you hurt?" She asked after a moment or so of silence.
Natsu looked down at her with another unreadable look and then said gently, "Don't worry about that none. You and me need to have a little chat about what happened here tonight and why."
"Is it that bad?"
"Dunno Luc, but it could be."