Archive of Our Own

0

Of all the people in the guild, Lucy does not expect it to be Erza who convinces her about Natsu.

She used to think it'd be Levy, or Mira, or—heck—even Cana. The people who constantly put her on the spot about their relationship; the people perpetually suggesting there's more to it than just friendship. She'd always been convinced that one day she'd grow so fed up with their teasing that she'd confess to Natsu out of spite. Just to shut them up. 

Erza, however, is someone she never sees coming. 

The redhead has always seemed… above these topics, somehow. Such frivolous matters—crushes, dating, romance—are not things Lucy can imagine Erza holding up in conversation. Especially since whenever the subject of love is even brought up, Erza never fails to turn red and lose all coherency in her speech. Lucy has always just assumed that she isn't one to talk about it.

(This is not to say that Erza doesn't indulge in romance, of course. No one says a thing, but everyone knows what really happens when Erza quickly excuses herself from parties to "attend to some important matters". Always during public holidays, too. How much more obvious can a person get?)

Then again, Erza has always been one to defy expectations.

In Erza's defence, Lucy doesn't make it very hard for her to broach the topic. They are sitting by the bar, trying out Mira's new recipe for strawberry milkshake, and Lucy is… well… staring at Natsu.

(Again.)

It physically pains her to admit it, but she can't help it. She's tried focusing on other things, on other people, but forcing herself to not think about him just makes her think about him even more. The instant her mind drifts, she blinks and she's staring at her stupid partner again. It's ridiculous. And obvious. So she shouldn't be as surprised as she is when Erza decides to comment on it.

"You haven't told him."

Lucy stiffens; retracts her gaze immediately to glance at the woman beside her. "What?"

Erza side-eyes her while taking a slow, calm sip. She's enjoying this, Lucy notes darkly, catching sight of the slight sparkle in Erza's eyes. Evil woman. 

"Natsu." Erza says, like it's obvious. "He still doesn't know."

"Know what?" Lucy laughs nervously. She bows her head and determinedly drags her straw through her milkshake. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

In the distance, Natsu lets out a loud shout. She knows it'll only incriminate her further, but her body moves before her mind can tell it not to. Her eyes dart towards him and back to Erza, who is trying and failing to hide the smugness in the upturns of her lips.

"He surprised me," Lucy explains, as if she would stop looking at him even if he hadn't. Erza nods—not unlike a parent trying to pacify their lying child.

The redhead looks over towards the commotion, where Natsu and Gray are in the middle of a heated debate—hands flailing, tables being slammed, the air between them fluctuating between hot and cold. When she turns back to Lucy, something in her face has changed. Softened.

"You really should tell him," Erza says quietly. "You know how he is—he's not going to see it on his own. It has to be you."

Lucy wraps her fingers around her glass, gripping it tightly for a second before loosening her hold. Her eyes fall on Natsu again, and the sight of him makes her chest tighten a little. "I know."

Erza laughs. "Then why haven't you said anything?"

Why, indeed? Lucy reaches deep into herself for the answer, and comes up empty. It feels like she's holding a puddle of water in her hands—she can't seem to get a good grasp on it; she can't seem to put it into words. At a loss for what to do, she exhales and tries to be as honest as possible. "I don't know."

Erza sighs, giving her a tired smile. Lucy returns it sheepishly.

They return to their drinks, stewing in the silence for a moment. Lucy's gaze drifts back to Natsu, and it seems as though his argument with Gray is over. It evidently didn't end well for him—seeing as he's sitting on a bench, cradling his cheek and scowling at the floor. Then, almost like he can sense her looking at him, he raises his head and meets her eyes across the guild hall. 

His face breaks into a grin. His hand unlatches from his cheek and stretches high into the air as he gives her an enthusiastic wave—as if this glimpse of her has made his whole day, as if seeing her is enough to make him forget everything else. The thought makes her stomach flip. She waves weakly back at him, unable to stop the smile crawling over her lips.

Gray passes by, then, and Natsu jumps to his feet, suddenly filled with a new bout of energy that has him raring for another fight with the ice-make mage. 

Erza witnesses the whole exchange. Lucy can feel her weighted gaze on her, feel the question from earlier hanging in the space between them. She determinedly stares at the pink swirls of her milkshake.

Erza lets out another sigh. Lucy isn't prepared for how serious the other woman sounds when she speaks.

"Can I be honest with you?" When Lucy nods, Erza continues. "I don't understand why you won't tell him. You have the chance—the choice, the freedom to tell him, and you're not using it. There's nothing stopping you. If you just- said something-" she must notice how agitated she's become in her speech, because she pauses, breathes, and deflates. "To not even try—it just seems a little silly."

"It's-" Lucy hesitates, frustration budding beneath her tongue. "When you put it like that, it sounds easy, sure, but it's different when you're face-to-face with it. This-" she fumbles, face heating up. "Feelings. Feelings are hard."

Erza hums in understanding, shifting to look into the distance. "Of course," she says, "of course they can be hard. But feelings can be easy, too. It's how you choose to face them." Turning back to meet Lucy's gaze, she asks again—more gently. "Why won't you tell him, Lucy?"

Lucy thinks about Natsu, about his smile, about the weight of his arm across her shoulders. About how he can upend her whole life with a single word. "I'm…" She inhales, squares her shoulders, admits it. "I'm scared."

Terrified. That he won't understand, that he won't feel the same way, that she'll ruin the best thing that's ever happened to her. Because Natsu is her whole life. If she loses him—she doesn't think she will ever recover.

"Well," Erza says, "I don't think you should let something as insignificant as fear stop you from going after something that will make you happy." Something raw shines in her eyes, and this rare display of vulnerability from one of the strongest people Lucy knows is enough to make a smile tug at the edges of her lips. "You deserve to be happy. Both of you."

Most people see Erza as someone strong, intimidating—an impenetrable fortress. They write her off as a warrior, a fighter, and leave it at that. But the Erza Lucy knows—this Erza—is so much more than that. Of course she's strong. Of course she's a warrior. But she also cares. She also loves. And seeing her show these soft sides to her never fails to make Lucy feel special.

"Thank you, Erza." And she means it. "You deserve to be happy, too."

Erza smiles at her tenderly. Then more noise from the other side of the guild hall draws their attention, and they share a slightly exasperated look before turning to see what it's about. Natsu and Gray are at each other's throats now, physically butting heads as they try to make the other give in. 

Natsu's cheeks are puffed up in indignation, and Lucy feels an involuntary grin push at her lips. She's not sure when everything Natsu seemed to do started to become endearing to her, but the sweet, fizzy feeling that accompanies watching him has become a part of her now. 

Erza shakes her head fondly and makes to get up. "I better go stop them."

Lucy laughs, nodding. However, instead of leaving, Erza stands there a moment longer. There's strange look on her face. When she opens her mouth to speak, it sounds as if she already knows the answer. "Do you love him?"

The words hit Lucy like a lightning bolt.

"Well-" she flusters, stumbling on the words, "I... I think so...?" The admission is like stepping on solid ground after hours of slipping on ice. She says it again, more firmly, a bone-deep warmth seeping into her tone. "Yeah. I do."

The warm twinkle in Erza's eye is back. "Then fight for him. Because love—love is something worth fighting for."

Erza's hair sweeps over her shoulders like a hero's cape as she crosses the guild hall. She makes quick work of the argument—delivering a swift punch to each boy—and begins to chastise them for their actions. 

Lucy embraces the sweet, fizzy feeling that rises as she watches Natsu leap to his own defence, turns Erza's words over in her head, and makes up her mind.

1

Valentine's day arrives in a flurry of pink, red and white. Lucy arrives at the guild with a basket of nerves, cookies, and one specially-wrapped box of homemade chocolate.

Levy is onto her as soon as she steps through the doors, eyes gleaming with excitement. "You're doing it? For real, this time?" 

Lucy grips her basket handle and nods, throat too tight to speak.

Levy downright squeals. "Gosh, Lu—I'm so happy for you!"

The hall is an explosion of festive decorations. Mira had really gone all out this year, more so than previous years, and as she winks at Lucy from the bar, Lucy has the niggling sensation that she knows. Mira scares her much more than Erza does, sometimes.

Lucy scans the area, searching for the person she wants to see least... and most. He's not here yet, a fact that both relieves her and puzzles her. It isn't often that she arrives at the guild before he does. 

"Here, Levy," she busies herself with fishing out a cookie from her basket, "happy Valentine's!"

Levy accepts the gift with both hands, smiling widely. "Thank you!"

"I chased Natsu and Happy out early yesterday just so I could make these," Lucy sighs as she recalls their protests, recalls how she'd almost been persuaded to let them stay. Self-restraint is hard. "They were not very happy with me. But they'll probably forget it as soon as they see that I have food."

Levy giggles, patting Lucy's back in sympathy, and Lucy tries to put her impending confession at the back of her mind by going around to her guildmates and handing them friendship cookies. 

When the guild doors next burst open with a loud greeting and a brief wave of heat, Lucy feels every part of her freeze up. Cana looks at her curiously with a mouth full of the cookie she's just received, but understanding fills her eyes when she realises who has just come in. Then her line of sight falls on the chocolate box standing out prominently among the cookies, and her grin turns wicked.

"Oh, Lulu," Cana coos, but the effect is diminished by the crumbs lining her lips. Lucy stifles a laugh, tension unrolling from her shoulders. Cana's smile melts into something more genuine. "Good luck."

Instead of responding, Lucy chooses to hand her a tissue and gesture to her mouth. Cana belts out a belly-laugh and takes the tissue, wiping away the crumbs.

"If it doesn't work out, you know where to find me!" Cana calls teasingly as Lucy bustles away from her. Lucy turns back once to stick her tongue out at the brunette before continuing on her way.

However, she's intercepted by Levy, who takes her by the elbows and steers her towards Natsu. Lucy hates her friends.

"No- wait- Levy!" She hisses, heart stilling when Natsu makes eye contact with her. "I'm not ready! Oh, God damn-"

"Luce," Natsu hollers, and as Lucy's internal compass immediately aligns itself to him, she knows she's done for. "What was up with you yesterday?" The more she nears him, the more she sees that his brows are pinched slightly. "Is that-" His gaze drops. He lights up like the sun. "Food!"

The box of chocolates in her basket seems to double in weight. Lucy whirls around to Levy for support, but the shorter woman is nowhere to be found. Lucy valiantly tries to swallow her anxiety.

"Wait your turn," she chides, when Natsu rushes over and makes grabby hands at the basket. It's an attempt to seek some semblance of normalcy. She passes Happy, who has come to perch on her shoulder, a cookie, and he pats her head in thanks. The exceed also notices the box in the basket, judging from the sudden gleam in his eyes, but wisely chooses to say nothing. He makes the even wiser decision to leave them alone.

Lucy takes in a deep breath, counts to five, and releases it. She can do this. She's done much worse. She's a Fairy Tail mage—being brave should come easily to her. This shouldn't be hard at all.

She turns to face him. He has gotten bored at this point, staring at where Happy had flown off to while drumming his fingers impatiently on the side of his leg.

Lucy clears her throat so she can harness his attention. "Natsu."

He perks up at the sound of her voice, finally focusing his sights on her. "Hey! Is it finally my turn? Am I getting my cookie now?"

Her heart flutters. Flutters. If she could punch herself, she would. "Yeah, well, see," her voice shakes despite her best efforts. "You're not getting a cookie." His features take a dive into something crestfallen, so she hurries to amend herself. "You're getting something else." Warmth spreads from her stomach to her chest to her cheeks. "Something special."

With shaking fingers, she retrieves the chocolate box from her basket, sets the basket down, and presents the box to him. The box is wrapped with elegant paper and held together with a neat bow—no one but her will ever know that she spent half an hour perfecting it that morning. The result is that it's glaringly different from the rest of her gifts, and paired with her earlier words, it's obvious that it means something to her.

Natsu reaches for the chocolates. Her pulse roars in her ears.

His fingers connect with the box, but he doesn't tug it towards him, doesn't say a word. Seized with a sudden anxiety, she forces herself to seek his gaze.

"Do you know what this means?" She stares at the box of chocolates linking them together, stares at his fingers, then lifts her head to stare at him—hoping, praying he'll understand.

He peers at her curiously. "...Do you need me to do something weird for you again?"

What?

She scrunches up her nose, baffled. "What do you mean- 'Again'? No-" A sigh. She wrestles with herself for a moment, debating whether or not she should press on. 

Screw it, she decides. All or nothing.

"It's…" She inhales; soldiers through it. "It's Valentine's Day."

"Oh!" Natsu brightens, and Lucy subconsciously leans closer to him, like a plant to sunlight. Does he get it now? Is this it? "Damn! That means free food!"

Lucy loosens her gip on the chocolate, too numb for speech. Natsu takes that as his sign to collect his chocolate and leave.

"Thanks, Luce," he pulls her into a one-armed hug before she can find the words to express herself. "You're the best."

He strides over to a nearby Gray, blatantly flaunting his chocolates. "Hah!" He jeers, "Bet you got a cookie, didn't you? Loser."

Lucy finds the words.

Tilting her head to the sky, she stares blankly through the roof of the guild hall. "What the f-"

2

Lucy is not sure if what happened on her first attempt constitutes as a rejection or not, but after days of screaming into a pillow and two weeks of swearing off chocolate, she's decided—for the sake of her sanity—that she won't count it as one.

It still takes her a while to piece her ego back together. She doesn't look Natsu in the eye for a week—something he confronts her about and that she grudgingly agrees to work on; she shies away from his touch and tries her best not to be in the same room as him. 

After a while, the embarrassment starts to recede, pooling into a pale grey disappointment. It's also part exasperation—because she really should have seen that coming. Why had she expected anything different?

Symbolic gestures like that require social context. And Natsu doesn't really understand social context. He had probably never even received a Valentine before her—just accepted friendship gifts from his guildmates, and over the years he had probably come to see Valentine's Day as a day for free homemade food. (Even if he had received Valentines before her, she's comforted to know that they had probably received the same treatment she did. She's not alone in this.)

Still, the failure from her first attempt sticks in her head for a long time—she refuses to entertain thoughts of wooing Natsu over again until Cana slaps her on the back and tells her to "woman up".

"So what if it went badly the first time?" Cana slurs, but her bright eyes and languid smile tell Lucy that she's nowhere near drunk—even though she's on her second barrel of the day. "He's stupid. You know that, I know that, everyone knows that. All this means is that you have to try until he gets it!"

"But what if he never gets it, Cana?" Lucy groans, burying her face in her hands. It's a very real possibility. She's also ignoring the other very real possibility—the one where he actually does understand, but is just trying to be nice about turning her down. 

Cana laughs. "Then you and I can go for a whirl." She turns, throws Lucy a wink, and Lucy feels herself flush. "I bet you'd like me a lot better than Natsu." 

"Cana…"

Cana chuckles heartily at her whine. "Okay, okay." Her voice grows lower, more serious, but her fond smile doesn't fade. "He'll see it eventually; I promise. Everyone else already does. Maybe you just have to do something that's more… Natsu. Something physical. He understands actions a lot better than words, doesn't he?"

It's one of the most helpful things Lucy has ever gotten from the card mage. 

She keeps those words in mind, trying to think of a simple, plausible way of showing Natsu how she feels. It's at the back of her consciousness wherever she is—in the guild, in her apartment, sometimes even on jobs.

Which is how she gets to her second attempt.

Team Natsu are out on a mission. This one is a tad more serious than the rest—the dark guild they're after has taken a group of villagers hostage, and it's up to them to make sure everyone gets out safely.

"Let me at 'em," Natsu demands, eyes ablaze and fists clenched. He looks excited enough about the impending battle that he might just spring out and start attacking even Erza, which would not be good for anyone, so Lucy reaches out and places a hand on his shoulder to stop him if he gets too carried away.

He calms a little at her touch, relaxing his stance and reining back his eagerness. Lucy tells herself not to be too proud about that, and fails miserably.

"We can't just charge in recklessly," she chides, "there are civilians involved. We have to be careful about this."

Erza nods. "Lucy's right. We need a proper plan."

"I was thinking we could split up," Lucy suggests. "Natsu and Happy should go ahead to track down where the hostages are first, and Gray should follow up with him. Erza and I will start a fight outside of the hideout and lure most of them towards us so you guys have an easier time."

"Why do I have to deal with Gray?" Natsu whines. Lucy rubs the bridge of her nose.

"His magic is the most suited towards defence, so he's able to protect the hostages best if anything goes wrong," she points out. "And we need you to track them down."

Erza raises a warning brow at the boys. "I trust the two of you will be able to put your differences aside and work together smoothly on this."

Gray, who doesn't look altogether happy about the arrangement either, shoves his hands into his pockets and nods sourly. Natsu, however, isn't as smart.

"But I don't wanna-"

Erza inhales, injects more force into her voice and repeats, "I trust the two of you will be able to put your differences aside and work together on this."

Natsu's entire body seizes like he's been electrocuted. "Yes ma'am." He proceeds to turn around and kick the ground as he grumbles to himself. Lucy can't completely make it out, but she catches the words stupid, Gray, and don't wanna more than twice in his mutterings.

And damn it, there's that affection again. Swelling up within her chest as if it's just been waiting for this exact moment to strike, to knock the air out of her lungs, to fill her with an emotion so soft and sticky that it renders her unable to do anything else except feel it.

She's suddenly overcome with the urge to take him by the arm. To pull him close. To wrap him up in her embrace and- and...

Maybe you just need to do something that's more... Natsu. Something physical.

Maybe she shouldn't hold herself back, after all. What's stopping her from doing all those things she's thought about? How many times has he completely thrown all regard for her personal space away? How many times has he blurred the lines of their friendship with physical touch?

"Natsu," she calls. He looks up from his sulking. "Come here," she requests, gesturing him over with her fingers.

They're face to face. Natsu's brow is creased like he's deep in thought, and he's staring at her like she's a puzzle he can't figure out. She wonders if he can hear how loud her heart is pounding.

Her smile is shaky. "Bend down a little."

He looks even more confused now. She beckons him lower until his forehead is level with her nose. He doesn't speak, but she can feel his question in the air. What are you doing, Lucy?

Lucy tries not to think about how Erza and Gray are watching them right now. Instead, she thinks about Natsu, how sometimes his gaze is like a hearth on a cold night, how when they go on missions he always reaches to carry her bag without being asked, how he trusts her enough to stand here patiently with his head lowered, waiting for her to do what she wants.

She places her palms on his cheekbones, fingers fanning out and flattening against his hair. Then, she tilts her head and presses her lips to his forehead, holding them there for a second before pulling away. Natsu has gone entirely still under her touch.

"Be safe," she whispers, with more emotion than she means to.

With how strong her team is, how strong Natsu is, most people tend to forget that they aren't invincible. Almost every battle can be life or death. One misstep, one heartbeat's worth of hesitation, and everything can go wrong. Lucy never forgets this. Lucy watches her team—especially Natsu—throw themselves into life-threatening situations and, though she is confident that they can handle themselves, she still worries. She still wants them to stay safe and sound; to be unharmed.

She removes her hands from his face. Slowly, he pulls himself back to full height. His eyes are blown wide as he stares at her; an indiscernible emotion shimmers in his irises, and for a split second heat curls around her and she swears he's about to do something—but the moment passes and nothing happens.

She's gripped by a sudden panic. Anticipation.

He knows what she's just done, doesn't he? He knows she's just done something huge, right? He knows that she kissed only him—not Erza, not Gray, him—for a reason, right? 

He knows the reason, doesn't he? Can't he see it? How obvious she's being?

He nods a little dumbly at her and she thinks he understands, that he's answering the questions bouncing around in her head, but then he turns away, motioning to Happy before they take off in the direction of the hideout, and she hates herself for the way her face falls. He was just responding to her request from earlier. Be safe.

Gray catches sight of her expression before she has the chance to school it back into something presentable. Thankfully, he doesn't comment on it. All he says is, "Can't believe you managed to make him shut up."

She takes the out he has given, pushing all her writhing feelings aside and forcing words out of her mouth. "The whole 'working together' thing can't be one sided on his part, Gray," she tries to keep her voice light. She's too distracted by the weight on her chest to notice if she's doing a good job. "Behave yourself."

He makes a face at that, and she attempts a laugh. It comes out rougher than she would've liked. "Go on, now. Don't you have a certain dragon slayer to catch up to?"

"Yeah, yeah, Mom," Gray mutters, rolling his eyes good-naturedly as he makes in the direction Natsu had left in. He pats her shoulder in goodbye—and maybe something else—before he leaves.

Erza looks at her, a look filled with both pity and guilt. Lucy wants to laugh it off, laugh this whole joke of a situation off, pretend like she hadn't done anything in the first place—but try as she might, she can't even bring herself to form a little giggle.

3

Face burning hot as everyone in the room simultaneously boos her, Lucy wonders, not for the first time that night, if she should have gotten better friends.

"You're so boring, Lucy," Gray shakes his head, but his lips are turned up at the corners into an amused smile. 

Lucy scoffs, turns to him, and barely manages to hold back an instinctive laugh at the sight. "If being 'interesting' is what it takes to get myself into the mess you did," she gestures pointedly to his face, "I think I'll stay boring, thank you very much."

Gray rubs at his face self-consciously. Cana had scrawled clown markings over his lips, eyes, and cheeks in bright red marker during his last turn, where he'd confidently proclaimed "Dare!" and immediately regretted it when Cana had gotten that merciless glint in her eye. 

"Words of a pussy," Levy jeers, sticking her tongue out. 

Everyone boos again. Lucy crosses her arms and sticks her chin in the air. "No amount of booing is going to change my mind—besides, no take backs, remember? Now, what's the question?"

Elfman scratches his chin and stares into space, brows furrowed in concentration. Levy sets her beer bottle down and raises her hand. "I'd like to confer with my client."

"Permission granted," Mira says sweetly, before Lucy has the chance to express her outrage at that. 

"Hey! What?" The blonde sputters. "Client? This isn't even- Oh my God."

Levy has traipsed over to Elfman and they are now in the midst of a heated, whispered discussion. Lucy watches as Elfman's face turns bright red, and feels dread pool in her gut. Levy, you asshole.

"I can't possibly ask her that," Elfman whisper-yells. 

"Sure you can," Levy whisper-yells back, but she's drunk so it's less of a whisper and more of a sloppy protest. "Just do it."

"I can't- I won't-" Elfman rushes to meet Lucy's eyes, snaring her attention. Lucy plasters on her best puppy-dog eyes and hopes she doesn't get fucked over by her best friend. "I'm not doing it." She sighs in relief. "Lucy—what's something about you that no one in this room already knows?"

Levy smacks Elfman upside the head at his lame, boring question. Lucy tries to convey her infinitesmal gratitude through the look in her eyes. 

"Well," she thinks about it as Levy walks glumly back to her seat beside Gajeel and lays her head in his lap. An unbelievably soft feeling rises in her chest when Gajeel reaches to idly stroke his girlfriend's hair. "You guys know that canal on Strawberry Street? The one outside my apartment?" When everyone nods, Lucy grins sheepishly. "I actually fell in while walking home once."

"How?" Juvia voices. 

Lucy shrugs. "I like to walk on the edges. And in my defence, I was drunk." She smiles a little at her next thought. "Natsu had to fish me out."

She doesn't remember much from the experience—many parts of it are a blur, like how exactly she fell in and what she was thinking as she fell, but what she does remember is the sharp, sobering chill of the water, how being surrounded by it had sent her into a sudden breakdown, and how it ended with her sobbing loudly about Aquarius. She's not sure when or how Natsu found her, but what she remembers is that he did. The memory of his warmth, of his hand rubbing soothing circles into her back, of the careful way he'd held her as he took her inside her apartment is the clearest, most vivid one of them all.

As quickly as the light, fuzzy feeling in her chest appears, it disappears and is replaced by something bittersweet. She had gotten into this game in order to stop thinking about him—yet here she is, thinking about him again. She really needs to get a hold of herself.

It's quite late—past ten, when most of the guild members have gone home and Mira has turned half the lights off to save energy. Their group, made up of the people who haven't quite found it in themselves to leave, is huddled away in a corner of the guild, just a little distance away from the closets. They're playing spin-the-bottle-truth-or-dare-seven-minutes-in-heaven—a name Lucy scrunches her nose at, but can't really think of a way to shorten. Essentially, every seven minutes, they spin the bottle and shove two people in a closet. During the seven minutes, the rest play truth or dare with the bottle. 

There are nine of them—Lisanna and Cana are currently in the closet while Lucy, Mira, Elfman, Gray, Juvia, Levy and Gajeel sit in a circle. The bottle in the centre of them all has been good to Lucy tonight—letting her scrape by without embarrassing herself too much, as she'd done just now.

"Bo-ring," Levy sings from Gajeel's lap. Gajeel fixes her with a disgustingly sweet smile. 

Lucy huffs out a laugh, rolls her eyes, and tries to change the subject. "Anyway, how's the timer? It's been a while since-"

And then, because while the bottle has been perfect, the rest of the world has just been absolutely horrible to her lately, she feels someone come up from behind her and squat down, resting their chin on her shoulder.

"What're you guys doing?" Natsu asks.

Lucy shrieks.

She jolts away from Natsu, glaring at him when all he does is just grin mischievously at her and burst into laughter. Under the cover of darkness, no one had seen him arrive. Everyone was too engrossed in the game to be paying attention either way.

"You're going to give her a heart attack one of these days," Mira titters against her palm. 

Lucy buries her face in her hands, her heartbeat steadily slowing down in her chest. "He already gives me aneurysms on a daily basis. The heart attack would be mercy." She peeks out at him through her fingers. "What are you doing here? Didn't you go home?" Upon noticing the lack of a certain feline creature, "Is Happy asleep?"

"Dropped my wallet," Natsu holds up the tattered pouch in his hand. "And, yeah—he passed out as soon as we got back. What are you doing?"

"We're playing a game, dumbass," Gray drawls. To Lucy's horror, he doesn't stop there. "Wanna join?"

"Hell yeah," Natsu starts, then takes a good look at Gray and sputters. Soon enough, he has dissolved into full-blown laughter. "Holy- fuck-" he manages in between snorts, "Gray's true form—he finally unlocked it!"

Natsu's laughter is contagious. As the circle shifts to make room for him, chuckles once again fill the air at Gray's predicament.

"You guys are gonna get what's coming for you," Gray grumbles, but he's not very convincing. 

Juvia's aura swells, suddenly, looming over everyone in a silent threat. Any and every trace of laughter is wiped from the room.

Natsu gets comfortable in his new seat beside Lucy, points a finger at Gray, and issues a challenge. "I'm gonna beat the shit outta you."

Gray sneers. "I'd like to see you try. You don't even know what we're playing, idiot."

As if on cue, the kitchen timer Mira had grabbed for the seven minutes goes off. Lucy hears a not-so-mumbled "shit" from the closet, lots of rustling, a sweet giggle and then a "stop" that is certainly too high-pitched to have come from Cana.

A minute later, the two girls emerge from the closet. Cana had gone in with a half bun perched atop her head, but her hair is now down and loose, falling to her elbows in messy waves. Lisanna's pixie cut is sticking up in places like the nape of her neck and the back of her crown. They are both flushed and breathing more heavily than they should, and they resume adjusting their clothes after stepping into the light. 

Lucy spots a red mark along Cana's neck. She finds a similar one on the tip of Lisanna's shoulder.

Natsu breathes in and furrows his brows, glancing between the now open closet and his friends like he's trying to solve a big puzzle. "What were you two doing in there?"

Cana laughs. She catches Lisanna's eye and matching grins spread across their faces, like they're sharing a secret. "Wouldn't you like to know."

Natsu opens his mouth to ask follow up questions, but Lisanna beats him to speaking. "Alright, who's next?"

Six heads swivel to face her. The other three do so accordingly. Lucy's world comes to an abrupt, screeching halt. 

Shit. Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit-

"Lucy," Mira's voice is as sweet as honey. "It's your turn to spin."

Shit.

"But it's not my turn anymore," she protests hotly. "I already did my truth!"

Levy sits up. "That one isn't counted. This is your punishment for being lame."

"You can't do that-"

"Objection overruled!" Mira chirps.

Holy shit. Lucy shoves her face in her hands again.

Natsu attempts to tug her wrists away. "Come on, Luce, hurry up! I gotta play and beat Gray."

Lucy glares at him without any heat. "This is bullying," she says, with one hundred percent conviction.

"No, it's not," everyone choruses. Lucy resigns herself to her fate.

Reaching for the bottle, she presses her fingers to both ends and spins it as hard as she can, purely out of spite. As soon as she lets go, she jerks her head to the side and squeezes her eyes shut, trying to run from this reality for as long as she can.

'As long as she can' doesn't turn out to be very long. A few moments later, she hears a murmured "oh, fuck" and wrenches her eyes open, just in time to watch the bottle slow and come to a stop.

Pointing slightly to her right.

Pointing directly at Natsu.

"This can't be happening," Lucy says. She feels lightheaded. Thousands of emotions are swirling in her chest, rising to her brain and frying all her cognitive senses. Her heartbeat is terribly loud. "This can't be happening."

Levy cackles. Wolf whistles ring shrilly in the air, and though Lucy can't tell, she's just about positive they come from Cana. However, when she whips around to search for the source of the sound, she finds that Gray is also smirking lazily at her through the ridiculous vandalism of his face. That combination is an… interesting one, something she files away to unpack later.

"Alright, Luce!" Natsu gets up, clearly pumped. Clearly with no idea of what's about to happen. "It's you and me. What are we doing?"

"Going into the closet," Levy jerks her thumb in that direction. The glee in her eyes is apparent. Lucy wants to kill her. 

"Oh," Natsu says. "To do what?"

This is when Gajeel chimes in, grinning a grin with all teeth. "Blondie will tell ya."

Natsu sits on this for a moment, then shrugs. "Okay."

Mira drags Lucy to her feet and proceeds to shove her and Natsu towards the closet. For Lucy, it's almost like an out-of-body experience. She can feel everything happening to her, but she's unable to think of how to protest, or stop it.

"Go get 'im, Lulu!" Cana hollers. Levy cheers supportively. 

Mira has her deceptively kind face on, but her features are shadowed because she’s blocking the light source outside the closet. It only serves to illuminate the devil she truly is. "Your seven minutes starts…" She tilts her head cheerfully. "Now!"

The closet door shuts with a loud clack. Pitch black blankets the room.

Lucy hears Natsu shuffle around and almost immediately crash into something.

"I can't see," he grunts, and lights his finger on fire. 

The glow from Natsu's flame fills the closet with light, grounding Lucy to the present and allowing her to collect her bearings. She breathes in and out slowly to calm herself down.

This is fine. She's stuck in a closet with Natsu for seven minutes. Everything is fine. Nothing has to happen. All she needs to do is wait this out. 

All those thoughts immediately flee her mind when she blinks and Natsu is there, face inches from hers, staring at her with a speck of concern in his eyes. He has bent down slightly to align his line of sight with hers, and she's thrown back to that time she put her palms to his cheeks and kissed his forehead and he didn't- 

"Are you okay?" He asks, voice a low rumble.

She staggers back, away from him, away from the light, and hits something—a wall, maybe. His brows furrow and his mouth opens—probably to tell her to be careful—but she forces herself to get back under control and responds before he can say anything. "Yeah. I'm fine."

He narrows his eyes at her. "You're being weird."

"You think I'm always weird."

"Yeah, but not like-" he gestures helplessly. "This."

Her heart clenches. She knows she's being strange. She's been acting strange since her last attempt at—she doesn't even know what to call it, confessing? She hasn't really actually taken the time to think about it. Just shoved the whole thing to the back of her mind and tried to pretend it didn't happen.

But it did. And her pretense isn't very effective. She has been spending time with Natsu as usual, sure, but only with Happy as a buffer. She's deliberately avoided being alone with Natsu, because being around him wrangles all sorts of feelings out of her, and not all of them are good. Not anymore. Not after what happened the last two times.

Sure, they weren't proper rejections. But Lucy's hope can only hold out for so long. Maybe everyone doesn't know what they're talking about when they say Natsu feels this way for her, too. Maybe this has all been Lucy's wishful thinking. 

And now she's let her feelings affect their friendship. The thing she's most afraid of losing. What good is worrying that she'll lose him if he's the one who loses her first?

She steps back towards him, entering his bubble, letting him enter hers. Bathing herself in his light. "I'm sorry," she says, "I'm just a bit embarrassed."

He laughs, and the softness of it melts into her bones and cools like lava on her heart. She has come to realise that he never laughs like this around other people—around their friends, their guild. She only hears this laugh when it's the two of them and Happy. 

"What do you have to be embarrassed about, silly?" His mouth quirks into a half grin. There's something about the gentleness in his eyes that makes her feel, despite herself, like this expression is different, somehow. Like it's private. Like it's made for her. "It's just me."

Her heart bursts into bloom. A bouquet of flowers spurts forward in her chest. "Yeah. I know."

He straightens his shoulders and leans back. "What are we even doing here, anyway? Is there a monster we're supposed to fight?"

Of course his mind would immediately jump to fighting. She sighs, fondness colouring her exasperation. "Why would there be a monster in the guild closet?" 

"Dunno." He shrugs. 

She'll have to explain their whole situation to him. Gosh, she has the worst luck. (And the worst friends.) "The game we're playing," she says slowly, fastening her gaze to her shoes, "is called Seven Minutes in Heaven. It's a game where two people have to spend seven minutes in a confined space together," she opens a palm in a half-indication of their current predicament, "and in those seven minutes they can do whatever they want."

She chances a glance upwards, just in time to see Natsu's nose scrunch as he tries to make sense of her words. Cute, she thinks rather unwillingly. "So there's nothing for us to actually do here?"

Here comes the tricky part. She swallows the lump in her throat. "Yeah… because, usually, people use the seven minutes to…" she grips the hem of her shirt. "Kiss. Make out."

There's a weight to the silence now. "Oh."

Lucy doesn't dare to look up, in fear that her face will betray everything she feels right now: her nervousness, which is certainly too large for being alone with someone she's known for years, almost a decade; her apprehension from her failed attempts at confessing; and most of all, the strongest of them all, her desire to do what all their friends outside put them in here to do. Her desire to be close to him, to hold him, to kiss him. 

After a while, he speaks up again. "Is that what Lis and Cana-"

"Yes."

"Oh. Damn."

She clenches her fingers over cotton. Opening her mouth, she calls out to him before she can think to stop herself. "Hey, Natsu?"

"Hm?"

Inhale. "Have you ever been kissed?"

Her question stuns him—she can tell from the sudden shift in the mood, and also from the way the whole room instantly goes dark. He relights the fire when she yelps softly in surprise, but after a long moment of silence, when she finally summons enough strength to look him in the eye, he's still blinking at her soundlessly—as if those five words have turned his world upside-down. Lucy can't decide if she wants to laugh at his bewilderment or cry from embarrassment. 

"You don't have to answer if you don't want to," she hurries to amend, waving her hands and looking away to hide the heat in her cheeks, "I was just curious-"

"Have you?"

Lucy swears her heart stops. "Wh- Huh? Me?"

"Yeah." His eyes seem darker in the low lighting. An uncharacteristic seriousness outlines his voice. "Have you?"

Her answer feels like lead when she unloads it into the air. "...No."

He's quiet for a moment, as if he didn't expect that answer from her. Lucy's heart is thundering a million miles per second. Then, softly, "I haven't either."

His admission seems to electrify the atmosphere. Lucy is suddenly hyper-aware of the sound of his breathing, the sound of her breathing, the way her fingers clutch the cloth of her shirt like they want to hold on to something else, hold on to something solid. Hold on to him.

It would take two half-steps for her to be close enough to kiss him.

Remember the last time, the bruised, swollen part of her heart reminds her, don't do this again.

But there's a larger part of her that drowns out the discouragement. It's the part of her that says, The last time was a fluke. He didn't have time to give you a proper answer—you were in the middle of a mission. Or maybe he misunderstood. Friends can give each other platonic head kisses too. All you have to do now is do something that he can't misunderstand. She digs her nails deeper into the hem to make it go away, but it only gets louder. Do it. Show him.

Lucy raises her shoulders. Releases her shirt from her vice-like grip, keeps her hands trembling at her sides.

Natsu is gazing at her like he's transfixed. Like he can't look away even if he wanted to. Hope rises and glows in her fingertips.

She takes one half-step. He doesn't move. She takes the second.

Slowly, she reaches her palm up, keeps it tight against his jaw so he can't feel it shaking. He tenses like a coiled spring as soon as his skin meets hers—just like the last time.

"Can I try something?" She whispers, her breath against his face, his lips. "Do you trust me?"

He doesn't reply, just blinks at her with wide, dilated pupils, like he's in a haze; like his brain is thinking too fast for him to form words. But she knows in her heart that his instinctive answer is Of course I do.

So she closes her eyes and leans in. The light in the room grows brighter and brighter and brighter until the backs of her eyelids are seared white-

The timer rings. 

Lucy gives a jolt, flinging her eyes open. Natsu physically jumps back at the sound, and she's left to blearily wonder where the warmth beneath her palm disappeared to. 

His mouth is agape. His eyes are darting all over the place, never settling on a spot for more than a millisecond, and she can almost hear his jaw creaking from the way it moves open, shut, open, shut, all without his voice box producing a single sound. Lucy would have found it comical if she wasn't so overwhelmed. If a boulder the size of a mountain hadn't materialised and dropped to the bottom of her gut.

Did he not want to? Did he not—did he not want her? Has she done it, then? Ruined everything?

Before she can say anything to save this, save herself, save them, he rushes to the door and barges through it without a single glance back.

She follows him out on instinct, clutching the side of the closet door as she tosses her gaze around to find him, but all she catches sight of are the wide-open guild doors and the stunned looks on her guildmates' faces.

The boulder from before stuffs itself in her throat.

"I'm sorry," she somehow manages to force out, blindly grabbing her belongings from the floor and holding them to her chest, "I kind of have to‐" her eyes burn. "I have to go."

There they are. Her stupid emotions again. Filling in her eyes, blurring her sight. Her stupid heart.

She flees without another word.

4

Lucy returns from her solo mission with two months’ worth of rent money and apprehension stewing wildly in her gut. She’d been completely unbothered throughout the whole thing—not by Erza, not by Gray, and, most surprisingly, not at all by Natsu. She has had radio silence from her team and from the guild in general, which is probably Mira’s doing. The take-over mage probably knew Lucy needed this alone time and forced her teammates to stay put.

(If she’s being honest, she’s a little disappointed she hasn’t seen a sign of Natsu at all, because usually he’s determined about these things. He’s adamant on making sure she has someone to watch her back, and most times that someone is him. But him showing up would have ruined the whole purpose of the solo mission, anyway—she’d only taken it to get away from him. Everything she does seems to be about him, lately.)

It’s still quite unsettling. And really lonely. 

She’ll have to pay the guild a visit soon, she thinks as she gets out of the shower, a towel slung around her neck and her skin fresh from having just scrubbed all the grime off of it. The thought that follows makes her stop in her tracks.

I’ll have to face Natsu soon.

Before she left for the solo mission, facing Natsu after what had happened in the closet that night would have been a task as impossible as telling Erza to calm down. Even the last time she saw him—when she had a job request between her fingers and he’d been heading into the guild—she’d barely been able to do much except nod and brush past him, tightening her jaw and pretending not to hear him when he made a noise of befuddlement behind her. Now, however, she’s a little more certain of herself and what she wants to do.

Well… not so much on that last part. But she’ll probably be able to look Natsu in the eye now. Keyword being probably.

She spends the rest of the day writing at her desk. While the words usually come easily to her, it's not at all the case this time. No matter how hard she tries to think of something, the resulting sentences just aren't good enough for her. The words don’t flow. Nothing she tries is working.

Frustration mounted, she drops her pen on the table and sighs, folding her arms over the table and leaning her cheek against the wooden surface. This sucks. Her life has been topsy turvy recently, both her head and heart a jumbled mess, and now she can't even write to get away from it. 

She groans; runs a hand through her hair. And then her window opens.

The skies were already grey when she got back, but now they are several shades darker. With the window open, the strong winds rolling through the skies barge straight into her room, and Natsu tumbles in along with them.

Her heart gives a pathetic little squeeze at the sight. All her confidence from earlier zips out of her, and she instantly wonders how she could have ever thought she was ready to face him.

"Yo," he says, giving her a two-fingered salute.

That horrible, beautiful feeling that hurts her to name crawls all over her chest and settles in her smile. It's an instinctive response, now, to see him and have happiness flood through her soul. "Hey. Close the window, won't you? It's about to rain."

He obliges quietly, something rare and unnatural, and that's when she knows she's done something irreparable by trying to kiss him that night one week ago. He never acts this subdued around her. 

When he's secured the window—though she highly doubts he closed it properly, he always leaves it a smidge open so some of the wind can come in—he rounds back over to her desk, peering over her work. "Whatcha doin'?"

Lucy scrambles to hide her writing, but stops and relents when she remembers she's already scribbled all over it anyway. "Writing. Trying to write." She slumps over her desk again. "It's hard. Nothing is clicking."

She's half expecting him to say something to make fun of her. She's half begging for him to make fun of her. Because that will mean that they're back to normal, that she hasn't majorly screwed up their entire relationship, that he still sees her as his best friend. She isn't ready to lose him yet. She'll never be ready to lose him.

He exhales through his nose from behind her, the sound familiar and heartwarming. His hand falls onto her hair as he pats her head comfortingly. Lucy almost cries from the sheer relief of it.

"You're working too hard, weirdo," he says warmly; too warmly for her heart to handle. He's too much, really. He's too much. "Didn't you just come back from a mission?"

She doesn't lift her head—her eyes are still stinging and she's afraid he'll see more than she wants to show if she lets their gazes connect. "Yeah, but this is- this is supposed to be easy .” Her brows tug downward. Her words are bitter when she releases them. “Everything's been hard and… complicated recently, and this is the one thing that's supposed to be easy, but it isn't. I can't even do this. I can't do anything. It feels like I'm ruining everything I do."

"No—what?" She can practically hear the frown in his voice.

Stubbornly, she refuses to look at him.

"Hey," he says, tugging at her shoulder to turn her around, "Lucy, look at me."

She subtly tries to wipe at her eyes as she pulls herself away from her desk and drags her gaze up to his. The earnestness in his eyes makes her entire being tremble.

"How can you say that? You don't ruin anything. You make things better. You make missions better. You make fishing trips better. You make Fairy Tail better." He pauses, smoothing his fingers over her hair like he's a little embarrassed to say it. "You make me better."

"And about your writing—I can't say much because I don't know a lot about it, but I do know you." He smiles brilliantly at her. "And I know it'll come to you eventually. It will. Just take a break for now and get back to it later."

She swallows and tries her hardest to not let her vision blur with tears. 

This is why she's in love with him, she thinks. Because he knows her. Because he always understands what she lacks, what she wants, and he is always somehow everything she needs. 

"C'mere," he smiles, soft. His arms open wide, and she surges out of her seat to wrap her own arms around his torso, pressing her cheek against his chest. He rests his chin on top of her hair and hums—she feels it reverberate through to her toes. “Don’t overthink it.”

She grips the back of his top, breathes him in, and tries to remember how she could have ever stayed away from him in the first place. Where had she gotten the strength? Where had she found the willpower?

"Thank you," she says, knowing he can hear the tremor in her voice. The tremor caused by everything she wants to tell him, but can't. The tremor caused by the sudden mountain of feelings shaking and rumbling within her chest like an erupting volcano.

He exhales. His grip on her tightens by a fraction. "I missed you."

He doesn't elaborate, but she knows what he's referring to. The mission had only been the most drastic of her string of attempts to distance herself from him, hoping that for whatever reason, space and time would cause her to love him less—as if her love was a wound, an ugly, festering gash upon her soul, and something as miniscule as time would allow it to close up. But it's not. She knows that, now.

"I missed you too," she says rawly. 

He pulls her closer to her chest. "It's not the same without you."

"Don't say that," she says a little despairingly. Don't make this hard. Don't make me hope.

"Why not?" Indignance colours his tone. He pulls back from her to look her in the eye. "It's true. Everything— everything is better when you're here."

The honesty in his eyes burns as bright as the flame he'd lit in the guild closet. The light that had blinded her as she'd leaned in.

He had been affected by it, hadn't he? Her? She'd unbalanced him in some way, hadn't she? If he'd really hated it, he wouldn't have come back. He wouldn't have come to look for her and not say a word about it. He wouldn't have hugged her; comforted her so easily. 

Don't, she warns herself.

But damn it, she hopes anyway.

"Natsu," she inhales. No more games, no more tricks this time. "I have something to tell you." 

He cocks his head and stares at her, apprehension clear. Seized by a sudden fear that what has happened before will happen again, she blurts, "You can't run away after I say it, okay? Promise."

He looks even more concerned now. "Yeah. Promise."

Forcing breaths into her lungs, she moves and shifts so she can take his hands in hers. His palms are warm, rough, but soft. Pliant and steady under hers. She can barely sense anything outside of him, outside the drumming of her heart in her head.

"I like you."

She summons all of her strength and all of her willpower to meet his eyes after the words leave her mouth. The boulder from weeks ago hovers unsteadily over her chest—barely lifted, ready to come crashing back down at any moment. The ball is in his court now.

His lips turn up in a sweet, fond smile. "Of course you do, weirdo. Isn't that why we're friends?"

Her heart fumbles. "No—not the kind of 'like' you're thinking of." Screwing her courage to the sticking place, "More than that. More than as a friend."

His expression falters. It's terrifying, how fast her heart can plummet with just a twitch of his features. She feels like a chasm is opening up between them when he starts to draw away. "What?"

She's an idiot. She's the biggest idiot of all time.

"I like you," she says, more desperately this time. "I-" love you. But she can't say that. She's scaring him enough as it is.

"Oh." His face is unreadable.

She's gone and screwed up everything again. God, how stupid can she get?

"I-" The words leave her in a rush. She needs to get away right now, right now, "I'm sorry. Heavens, I can't believe I said that. I thought- I- I'm so sorry."

She makes to pull away, to run, but he doesn't let her. "Wait- Luce."

Stop, she wants to scream, tear her hair out, stop saying my name like that. Stop making all of this harder than it already is.

“I care about you,” he says slowly, softly, and God, Lucy kind of wishes he hadn’t said anything at all, because the words punch a hole through her heart and crack it wide open.

Guilt is quick to rear its ugly head, and she immediately feels terrible for having that thought. It’s not his fault she loves him the way she does—more than she thought possible, more than she should—it’s her own, and it’s unfair of her to hold him responsible for her own feelings. He’s just trying to make her feel better.

“I know.” She attempts to smile, but it comes out weak. “We’re best friends.”

He makes a noise of frustration. “No- listen. You mean a lot to me. More than anyone else.”

Her stupid heart shrivels up and drops like a stone in her gut. “Don’t be cruel, Natsu.”

“No,” he shakes his head firmly, brows slanting downwards and his hands reaching for her shoulders. “Listen to me. I’m not- you don’t-” his eyes settle on her, and she sees resolve harden in his gaze. He steps closer, closing the distance between them. She holds her breath. 

His hand reaches to cup her cheek, his thumb lightly swiping over the skin beneath her eye, and she lets out an involuntary shudder. His face is more gentle than she’s ever seen it. Hope sprouts again, like a persistent weed in her chest. And then, so slowly she can stop it if she really wants to, he angles her face to his and leans in.

Kissing Natsu is nothing like what she thought it would be. In her dreams he kisses the way a fire burns—passionate, unwavering, greedy, but this kiss is soft enough to hurt. It tugs at her heartstrings and plucks notes of confusion out of her mouth.

"I thought-" she shifts back so she can look him in the eye properly, but keeps her hands fluttering close to him, unsure. "Why- what?"

His hands slide down to her shoulders. Holding her there, like he's afraid she'll run away. It's funny, because the last time she tried something like this, he was the one who ran away. She decides not to call him out on his hypocrisy and instead waits for his explanation.

The look he gives her is earnest, and maybe a little bashful. "I'm- I'm no good at saying it, this stuff," he visibly struggles trying to find his next words, and the resulting picture of uncertainty is so absurd on him—him! Natsu Dragneel! The man who charges headfirst into his problems with the confidence of a bull!—that she can't help but laugh.

"You want me," she confirms, pulling him closer, pulling a chuckle from his lips. She's still reeling from how surreal it all is.

"Of course I do, weirdo," he smiles, and then she's kissing him again.

"I can't believe it," Lucy leans into Natsu's chest, a small solace as their friends chatter excitedly around them, "all this time."

Natsu's hand circles around her waist and finds her fingers at her stomach. "Yeah," he teases, "you were real slow about it, Luce."

Her jaw drops. "Me? I've been trying to get you to ask me out for months."

He squints at her as she spins around to face him. "What? When?"

She sputters, embarrassment flooding her cheeks. "Wha- Valentine's Day? The most recent dark guild mission? Seven Minutes in Heaven?"

"Oh," he blinks at her for a moment, then breaks into laughter. "How were those—you could've just said so."

"Well- I-'' she scrunches her nose up, curling in on herself a little. "I just thought—you know, they say actions speak louder than words."

There's silence as he tries to make sense of her words. "That's stupid," he declares. "You're better with words, anyway."

"Yeah," she sighs, raises herself on her tiptoes and lands a kiss on his forehead. He responds in kind, letting his lips linger on her skin. "I'll leave all the action to you."