Lessons in Love » NaLu A.U.

chapter » fifteen

"Tell me about your day."

Natsu had his arms around Lucy, her back pressed up against the security of his solid chest. It was a simple demand he gave her rather than a question, but one that made her voice feel needed to be heard. It was a nice sensation.

"It was perplexing." Lucy said the word slowly, suggesting Natsu would need some time to process it if he even understood it at all. She guessed by the silence he was not following. "Just a lot happened today. I'm tired."

The pink haired boy behind her made a puppy-ish whine. "How so?" He asked. His hand brushed through her hair, which did not exactly help her drowsy state.

Lucy pressed her lips together as she thought of what to say. Gray and her had talked about a lot today, as he promised, but none of it was satisfying. He had this manipulative way of saying what he wanted to say and making it sound like what she wanted to hear. She had no idea how such a weasel couldn't get his way out of a few fist fights.

Perhaps he just didn't want to. That was precisely the reason she gave Gray absolutely zero of her 'dirty little secrets'; she knew he said he didn't care about Natsu, but they were brothers, that much was obvious.

"Class was long and boring." Lucy started. Her legs stretched out in front of her, hands playing with the hem on her lazy t-shirt. "I sat with Gray at lunch, and...he confuses me."

"Huh," Natsu snorted with dry, teasing laughter, "I wonder what that's like."

Lucy chose to ignore that remark. Instead her eyes just kept watching her legs shift around restlessly before her, sprawled across her couch. "I don't know how you've been friends with him so long. He seems like he has so many secrets."

"Don't we all?" Natsu said almost immediately--it was hard to think of Natsu as a particularly private person though. "I've been with Gray through mostly everything, so it's like his secrets are mine too."

Mostly everything. Lucy chewed the inside of her cheek. "Still...I'm sure there are things to him that you don't know."

Natsu laughed without humor. "Like what?"

Her fingers wrapped and unwrapped the edge of her shirt around it. "Like what's up with him and Loke."

Natsu went silent, and suddenly Lucy remembered that angered look in his eyes that day she shared a cab with Loke; he was so protective in such a violent way. Lucy had a hard time picturing his expression in comparison to the smile he almost always bore.

"I don't think that mystery will ever be uncovered." Natsu said slowly, his breath letting out of his chest in exasperation. He leaned his head back as if just the thought of Loke wore him out.

Lucy smiled even though he wouldn't be able to see. "I suppose that's true." She said.

There was a comfortable silence that followed: where the air was thin between them, yet they stayed so close that words seemed to flow through one another without needing to be spoken, heartbeats playing Morse code onto another's skin. Yet Lucy wanted to hear his voice.

"What's your family like?" Lucy asked after a moment. In nothing but thin running shorts her legs began to get cold, but she didn't dare move.