Author's Note:

Well I'm back! Finally!

Jeez, that took me way longer than I expected...but hey, it's out and that's all that matters!

As I'm sure you read in the description, this story is about Natsu going into heat, but let me warn you that it won't be the usual PWP type of story. This one has a whole plotline to go with it, so it's a slow burn... but never fear! There WILL be a lemon of epic proportions, so the wait will be worth it. ;D Also, if lemons aren't your thing, it'll be pretty obvious when it comes, so you can always just skip it if you need to.

I'll be publishing every weekend, probably Sunday, so you can expect regular updates. ;D And my policy is that if we get up to ten reviews on a chapter, I'll put a sneak peek at the end of the next chapter I publish.

Alright, alright...I'll stop the jibber jabber. Let's get on with the show shall we. ;D

"Hey Luce!"

The sudden greeting made Lucy nearly choke on the hotdog she'd just put into her mouth, and she burst into a round of coughing…. which wasn't helped in the slightest when Natsu slung his arm around her neck.

"N-Natsu!" she hacked, not even caring that she spat a bit of bun out in her search for breath.

"Wow…aren't you always telling me not to talk with my mouth full? You're spraying food all over the place!" he teased, squeezing his grip on her even tighter and leaning in.

She sputtered as she was forced practically into the table and one of her hands came up to land solidly on his cheek, pushing him back some. "C-could you not?!"

"What? What am I doing?"

Finally giving up on speech, she finished clearing her air pipe and then replenished her lungs with much needed oxygen. Only then did she attempt to communicate with her pushy partner.

"Good grief Natsu…what are you doing anyways? Why are you hanging off me like that?" she questioned.

Her hand was still pressed into his face, fingers bracketing one eye and her palm smooshing his nose to the side. The pressure she exerted was pushing his head away from her – which forced him to crane his neck back at an odd angle to accommodate – but it still hadn't made him give up his hold on her neck. He practically had her in a headlock and was draped over her like a shawl.

He eyeballed the position and then shrugged. "Eh, just felt like it I guess."

After a moment he finally pulled back, much to her intense relief. She was used to him being an extremely physical person, but that had dented her personal bubble just a little too much.

He parked his behind next to her as she finally turned back to her lunch, deeming the incident nothing more than a mildly odd fluke.

"So, what do you wanna do today? Wanna go on a mission?"

After chewing – and swallowing this time – she replied, "Not today. I have a bunch of chores to do."

"Aw…that's no fun…." Happy interjected as he flew over to join them, fishy prize in paw. He'd obviously made a trip to the bar and pilfered off Mira.

"Sorry Happy." she said with a smile and reached to pat his head. "But I've put them off too long as it is."

"Well…guess we could tag along with you for these 'chores.'"

She cocked her eyebrow in surprise at her pink-haired partner. Since when was he interested in chores?

"Um…why? I'm pretty sure you'd get bored silly."

He shrugged again, and then casually draped his arm around her shoulders…as if that was a natural thing for them. Well, it sort of was, but not really like this.

Her head turned so she could eyeball his hand, which flopped over her shoulder and dangled in front of her collarbone. And sheesh, was he hot…. as usual his body temperature was through the roof, and she very quickly felt toasty warm. Anyone who was less used to him probably would have started to sweat immediately, but Lucy had gotten shockingly accustomed to his particular brand of heat, thanks to his weird habit of sneaking into bed with her.

This was pretty strange behavior for him though, and she wasn't quite sure what to make of it.

Her eyes swung back around when he answered her question. "I just feel like hanging out with ya today I guess."

It was said so casually that she found the statement perfectly normal. If he wasn't already acting a little odd, she wouldn't have thought anything of it, but paired with his actions it rang a few little alarm bells in her head.

Narrowing her eyes, she poked him in the chest with her finger. "You aren't planning some sort of prank are you?"

The expression that crossed his face wasn't the carefully innocent one she halfway expected. Instead he truly looked surprised and confused.

"No…why?"

"Huh. Well, I guess you're just acting a little…weird. So I thought you were up to something." she confessed, once again eyeing his arm around her and now wondering about its purpose if it wasn't to keep her next to him for some kind of prank.

Was he just feeling strangely cuddly? That was usually reserved for when he was asleep, but she supposed it might not be out of the norm. He didn't seem upset either, so this wasn't for comfort…not that he would necessarily use physical contact as comfort. Usually when he was truly upset he went off and dealt with it alone.

After a few wasted minutes pondering the situation, she just decided to follow his example and shrugged, figuring she'd find out soon enough what it was all about. Ignoring him for the moment, she went back to her temporarily forgotten hotdog and finished it.

The very last bite was thrown at Happy though, when he interrupted her meal with an inappropriate joke.

"Ooooh, Luuucy, it looks like he liiiikes you."

Natsu had no reaction aside from laughing, but Lucy felt a shot of embarrassment sting her in the butt.

"Can it, Cat!" she shouted with a blush and chucked the aforementioned bread and meat in his direction, beaning him right between the eyes.

"Ew!" he squeaked and rubbed at the yellow mustard stain her food had left behind.

"That's what you get for saying stupid stuff like that."

He pouted. "But it's not stupid…"

Before they could go into another round of, 'Natsu and Lucy sitting in a tree,' or whatever rendition of the overused joke he would use this time, Lucy shook off Natsu's arm and stood with a dramatic flourish to dispose of her trash.

"That joke is super old, Happy. Come up with something new once in a while would you?"

As she walked away, it was to the sound of Happy laughingly saying, "Why? This one still works so well."

She huffed in frustration as she dunked the used napkins and dirty food into the bin, thinking to herself that he was right. If she didn't react to him, he'd probably give up on the stupid thing. But unfortunately she just couldn't seem to prevent herself from getting all flustered whenever he said something like that.

It was probably because he was right… half of the time at least. She was pretty sure Natsu was asexual, because she'd never, ever seen him look at a girl with any kind of lust on his face. Even the blush he sported whenever he accidentally saw her naked from time to time didn't exactly seem to be a lustful kind of flushing…although she wasn't entirely sure what it was. He didn't seem interested, but he also wasn't shy, so she couldn't explain those particular facial expressions.

On the other hand, she was very much interested in him. In fact, she was pretty sure she'd fallen in love with him years ago and had possessed a crush on him ever since he first crashed into her life. At first she hadn't acted on the feelings because she simply hadn't realized them. Then, when she finally figured it out, she had been vaguely horrified, since he was so far from what she'd considered 'boyfriend material' that she simply couldn't imagine being in a relationship with him. He was destructive, impulsive, chaos incarnate, untactful, generally unsensitive, and boneheaded.

Lucy had always liked to think of relationships in terms of husband potential. Oh, she'd gone on plenty of dates, but nobody had ever really lived up to her lofty standards. It was likely a throwback to when she'd been raised as a 'proper' lady. She might dress like a harlot from time to time, but she certainly wasn't one. She was only ready to commit to a relationship that looked like it was going somewhere, and if someone didn't seem like 'husband material' then he wasn't 'boyfriend material.'

And Natsu was basically the opposite of what she'd always considered as 'husband material.'

That phase had lasted a surprisingly long time, until she was finally forced to admit that the heart wants what the heart wants…. and hers happened to want crazy, pink, fiery pandemonium. Of course, he wasn't just that – he was also kind, surprisingly considerate, loyal to a fault, strong, heroic, morally sound, warm, generous, and just about every other good quality that actually mattered.

She sighed and grimaced, thinking to herself that it was just her luck she managed to fall in love with someone so disinterested in romance. After being his best friend for about five years now, she was definitely over dismissing him as a potential partner just because he was wild and crazy. But there was no way she could pursue a relationship with him when he obviously had zero interest in her. Their friendship simply had to be enough for her.

As usual, that train of thought left her feeling gloomy, and she was in the process of trying to cheer herself up when the object of her thoughts effectively distracted her. An unnaturally hot hand landed on her head and ruffled her hair, then gave it a little tug.

"Oi…what's with the long face? Did that trashcan eat something important of yours or something?"

She jerked, suddenly realizing that she'd been glaring at the trashcan for the last few minutes and probably looked more than a little weird.

"Ack! Jeez, I totally spaced out!" she said with an awkward chuckle as she turned to face him.

His hand surprisingly stayed on her head and he continued to pat and rub her as he cocked his head and shot her one of his big grins. "You're such a weirdo!"

She was almost positive that he didn't even realize he was basically petting her like a dog…. just another bit of strange contact to add to the list. Everything else about him seemed absolutely normal though, so she decided to ignore it once again.

With another awkward laugh, she took a side-step toward the door and managed to duck out from under his hand. "Um…yeah…well, like I said, I've got chores to tend to, so I'm gonna head out."

"Cool!"

His broad grin didn't decrease one wat, he just followed her as she started heading towards the door.

"Hey Happy! We're leaving!"

The blue Exceed quickly flew over and joined them.

As the three of them walked down the street towards her apartment, Lucy wondered just what strange alternate universe she'd stumbled into.

That confusion only increased as Natsu ambled just a little faster so that he could be RIGHT next to her, almost crowding her as they walked. Their hands brushed on every single step, yet when she glanced over she was utterly consternated to find him looking around with bright eyes and a totally normal happy expression. He looked for all the world like he wasn't aware of his invading her personal space.

A quick peek at Happy though showed big brown eyes on them and cheeks puffed out with amusement, so she wasn't the only one who noticed the weird behavior. All joking aside, she was actually rather grateful to him, otherwise she'd start thinking that she was going crazy.

Testing the waters a bit, she decided to distance herself from Natsu and see what happened. Subtly enough for the boneheaded dragon slayer not to pick up on it, she carefully put some space between them by walking a little faster. It worked for all of a minute, but as they started on the last block to her apartment, he once again caught up to her and pressed close.

By this point, she was truly starting to think that Natsu actually wasn't conscious of it, which meant that this – whatever this was – was a subconscious or instinctual need to be closer to her. And that meant…. well she was sure it meant something, but she had no idea what exactly that something might be.

When he smooshed close the second time, she shot Happy another look to see if he noticed, and he certainly had. This time she made purposeful eye contact and gave him a, "do you have any idea what this is?!" sort of expression and gestured subtly at Natsu.

His amused expression didn't exactly go away, but at least he sobered up enough to shrug in answer to her silent question.

With an exasperated shake of her head, Lucy just put up with the oddity and pondered it silently in her own head until they reached her door.

Once inside, she immediately started on her chores, but when Natsu followed her into the bathroom – which she intended to clean – she'd had enough.

"Hey Natsu, why don't you go raid the fridge? Your sensitive nose probably won't like these chemicals."

His eyes brightened immediately. "Good idea! Thanks Luce."

After that, he finally left and she breathed a sigh of relief. Her poor heart couldn't take much more of this new clingy Natsu…. it was activating way too many feelings she did her best to hide.

With him gone, she decided to try to forget all the strangeness and snapped on a pair of cleaning gloves before getting to work. Scrubbing the sink, tub, and toilet certainly helped take her mind off of things and was unpleasant enough to thoroughly distract her. Especially the tub. She loved having a super huge tub for soaking, but it was a real pain to scrub.

About halfway through, Natsu had come back in, but he'd immediately left again with a crinkled-up nose. Strong chemical smells were a very good dragon slayer deterrent.

Once she was finally finished, she marked that chore off her list and then grabbed her dirty laundry hamper and carried it into her living room to sort through. She dumped it out on the living room floor and then sat down and started sorting, making sure to pick her underwear out and throw it back into the hamper first. The sooner she got that out of sight the better since she had company that liked to go through her underwear drawer and tease her over them. Honestly, she never would understand her friend's fascination with her lingerie.

Predictably, Natsu came over and plopped down next to her. She'd halfway expected it, but still flinched a little when he sat down cross-legged and his knee pressed into her thigh. Once again, he was much closer than usual, and she shot him a look out of the corner of her eye as she tossed a pair of thigh-highs into her hamper. What the hell was up with him today?

She decided to try and just ignore him, but that became a little difficult when he leaned in closer to the pile of dirty clothes and started audibly sniffing at them. Lucy's 'Weird Meter' suddenly shot through the roof, and she found herself frozen and staring at him in shock. Seriously, what the hell?!

"What are you doing?! Stop sniffing my dirty laundry! That's weird!"

He completely ignored her protest and instead asked his own random question. "Hey Luce? Have you been wearing some new kinda perfume or using a new kinda soap or something lately?"

Lucy could feel a vein pulsing in her forehead and gritted her teeth. This was so strange that it was starting to seriously piss her off, but she decided to play along and see where it went.

"No. Why?" she managed to grind out, though her irritation was pretty audible.

"Huh…weird." he hummed, and then sniffed even more deeply.

Her eye twitched. "That's weird?"

"Yeah. For some reason you smell really good. I mean, you always smell good, but you smell even better than usual. It's super strange…. Huh. Well, whatever."

He shrugged and sat back, finally removing his nose from her unmentionables. His body language and the delivery of that last comment had been so casual that it took her a long moment to absorb what he'd just said. Then, when it did hit her, it was such a shock that she responded before filtering herself.

"Wait, what?! Did you just say that I smell good?"

As soon as the words were out of her mouth she flushed, realizing that it was embarrassing and confusing enough for him to say it, but for her to repeat it was ridiculous. She should have just dropped the whole subject and tried to figure out what he meant later.

He blinked at her, as usual seeming completely oblivious. "Duh."

She could just feel the sweat dripping down her forehead in shock and perturbation. After that, she clammed up for a long moment and focused on sorting through her clothes silently… but inside, her brain was screaming. Natsu thought she smelled nice. Go figure.

It was… well she couldn't help but find it flustering. Given her romantic inclination towards him, information like that sparked her imagination way, waaaaay too much. It took a lot of force to remind herself that just because he liked the way she smelled did not mean that he liked her as anything more than a friend. He probably thought Erza and Mira smelled nice too. After all, he was a dragon slayer, and dragon slayers had very sensitive noses. Of course scent would play a part in how he saw someone.

It also made her curious, and she suddenly wanted to ask him what she smelled like. But she figured that would probably be wildly inappropriate.

With a sharp head shake, she did her best to clear her mind and just focus on her chores…once again going with the option of ignorance or at least feigned obliviousness. Hopefully, if she could just ignore the strangeness long enough it would go away.

Unfortunately it did not.

No matter how she pretended things were normal, Natsu did not stop acting weird. If anything, as the day progressed he got more and more clingy. When he wasn't touching her, he was certainly close enough to touch, and by the time evening rolled around her nerves were shot.

"Natsu! What is wrong with you?!" she finally yelled as she ran into him once again and reached her limit.

Throwing down the knife that she'd almost just stabbed into the counter, she whirled around and came nearly nose to nose with Natsu who was once again crowding her.

He'd been hovering behind her the whole time she made dinner, and whenever she backed up she bumped into him. She'd very nearly spilled boiling water over herself, had dropped a whole bag of carrots on the floor, and had knocked over a box of salt. Enough was enough.

"What do you mean?"

She could practically feel steam exit her ears. "I mean, what is up with you today?! You've been seriously in my personal space all day!"

Just like before, he simply shrugged. "Dunno, I just feel like being around you."

That was almost the exact same thing he'd said when she asked about it earlier in the day, and her eyebrow started ticking on her forehead.

"And you don't find it strange?!"

"No."

After just staring at him for a long moment, she took a long, deep, cleansing breath and forced herself to calm down. "Alright, fine. Whatever the case, for right now you are going to go sit down at the table. Otherwise I'm not going to feed you."

He pouted but did as she asked. Without his breath on the back of her neck, she managed to finish the beef stew without any more mishaps and soon they were all digging into their food. Happy ate his fish though of course.

While they ate, Lucy broached the topic of the day again.

"So, you said that you don't feel weird or anything?"

With an exaggerated eyeroll, Natsu grunted around his food, "No. I feel just fine. Why're you making such a big deal about it?"

"Because you are acting different, no matter what you say. Come on Happy, back me up here! Isn't Natsu acting a little weird today?"

He nodded and swallowed his fish. "Yep, you've been snuggling up to her all day like you looooove her."

Lucy did her best to ignore the adlibbing on Happy's part and just kept getting at the point she was trying to make. "See?! And you don't even seem to be aware of it. I'm worried that it's something bad…like a spell gone wrong or something."

"Eh… I guess. But I don't really get why it's a problem. What's wrong with me wanting to be closer to you today?"

His delivery was so damn innocent and oblivious that Lucy really just wanted to slap her palms to her face and scream into them. What was wrong with him wanting to be closer to her? Nothing! If it was normal and not totally strange. But this smacked of outside interference and she'd learned to trust her instincts with these kinds of things.

"There's nothing wrong with it, if it was normal. But it just seems like a really sudden change."

"You worry too much Luce."

This continued on for a bit more, but in the end there wasn't enough to go on to really do anything about it anyways. So, Lucy decided that they'd just have to watch the odd behavior and see if it developed into anything, or if it really was some random passing urge Natsu was having.

After dinner, she did the dishes and then parked at her desk and worked on her book while Natsu and Happy lounged on the couch. Everything went just like any other evening they spent together… so much so that Lucy started to feel like the universe was mocking her for making a big deal out of nothing. Or perhaps Natsu was putting in a concentrated effort to keep a normal distance from her just to prove that nothing was wrong.

She wasn't quite sure what to make of it, and the whole thing distracted her to the point that she barely got any work done on her book. In fact, she was so focused on trying to focus, that she failed to hear Natsu come up behind her. So, when she felt a light brush of hair against her cheek and realized he was reading over her shoulder, she flinched violently with a loud yelp.

"How's the book goin'?"

"Jeez Natsu…" she wheezed, trying to rein in her shock and compose herself again. If this kept up much longer she was definitely going to have a heart attack. "It'd go better if you didn't scare the crap out of me!"

He retreated some and snickered. "Oops, sorry Luce."

"Yeah, sorry…sure." she muttered sarcastically, rolling her eyes.

With a sigh, she glanced over at the clock and judged the time. If her shoulders were anything to go by, it was past time for a long hot soak in the tub and then bed. Maybe in the morning things would go back to normal and she could forget all about this strange cuddly behavior of Natsu's.

"Actually, I think it's about time I got ready for bed."

He grumbled something inaudible as she pushed her chair back – nearly pinching his toes under the chair's legs in the process. Once standing, she stretched a little, popped her back, and then headed towards her dresser, dragging out her favorite comfy pajamas. After such a crazy day, she was definitely in need of comfort and pink fluffy bunny patterns.

When she reached the bathroom door and Natsu and Happy hadn't made a move towards the window, she turned and gave them a look.

"Goodnight you guys. See you tomorrow."

Natsu pouted. "How about I just spend the night?"

"Um….no. Not tonight. I need some 'me time.'"

The pout deepened and a distinct note of whininess entered his tone. "Come ooooon Luce. Pleeeeeaase?"

"No. Absolutely not. I'm not in the mood to babysit. I've had a hard day full of housecleaning and I'm completely wiped. Shoo."

"We won't be a bother, will we Happy?"

"Aye sir!"

"Don't even try to give me that. If you stay, a mess is inevitable. Plus I know you'll try to sneak into bed with me, and then I'll have to wake up and Lucy Kick you. I just don't have that kind of energy tonight! Now get out before I throw you out!"

Their eyes widened upon her using the, 'I am DONE,' tone, and they finally skedaddled, much to Lucy's immense relief.

"Thank Mavis…" she sighed as she drew herself a big bubble bath and sunk into it. "Please let tomorrow be normal… I don't know if I can take another day of this nonsense."