Work Text:
Lucy gazed out of the window as the surrounding green, rolling hills drifted lazily past. Cotton clouds danced with the sun and set patches of shade across the otherwise luminescent landscape. All things considered, it was a perfectly pleasant day for a train ride. However, the tenuously slumbering dragon slayer in her lap would argue to the contrary.
She’d had more trouble than usual coercing him onto the train that morning. Perhaps it was because they’d only just gotten back from another job via boat two days prior, and his stomach had barely recovered. In the end, she succeeded in convincing him by promising to treat him to dinner when they were finished with this job—though, she was sure that eating would be the last thing on his mind for the duration of their journey.
Lucy’s gaze drifted down to Natsu’s face. While his expression had been all in knots when she’d first offered to let him rest his head in her lap, his features had since softened. His mouth hung slightly open as he breathed soft and slow, dozing. A smile crept over Lucy’s lips. She was glad to be able to provide him some comfort, especially considering she couldn’t pull off anything like Wendy’s Troia spell—not that it helped much these days; its effectiveness had been slowly waning for a long time.
The celestial wizard resumed her observation of the passing countryside. After a while, she mindlessly began weaving her fingers through Natsu’s hair. It was thick…soft. Like the clouds. It wasn’t until she heard Natsu mumbling something that she fully realized what she was doing.
“Feels nice…” he mumbled sleepily.
Lucy instinctively withdrew her hand in alarm, but when she glanced back down, she found his eyes remained closed, his expression relaxed. She breathed out a sigh through her nose as another smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. No harm in it, she told herself as she lowered her hand once more to continue playing with the salmon pink nest. It was just another thing she could do to keep his motion sickness at bay, but in truth, it also relaxed her. Was it the act of helping him? Or did she simply enjoy touching him? Lucy blushed and looked back out of the window.
The two wizards remained this way for the remainder of the train ride. The sun bathed them in bright, warm light, the kind you might find yourself dozing in on a summer afternoon. Lucy relished in that warmth. She relished in a different kind of warmth, too, something intangible that welled up in her chest and flooded her body, out to the tips of her fingers and toes.
At some point later on in the ride, Natsu stirred briefly to mumble something else:
“Thanks…Lucy.”