A/N: So.. this happened. We need more MardLu in the world, so it's about time I got some out of my fingers. Between that and realizing that I'd started writing this and never finished it, and one of my strongest enablers is MadSoullessQueen… I'm surprised I didn't actually finish this bitch sooner.

Those of you who have read my Writing Corner will recognize the beginning of this story from the "Writer's Block" chapter.

Let's get down to business, shall we?

Things had been going so well for her up until that point. The demons of Tartaros had turned over a new leaf and they were allies. In a sense. They weren't enemies any longer, so Lucy had been counting it as a win. And she'd actually been enjoying her time with Jackal on a cooperative mission between their guilds - the first of many, Makarov had been hoping - all the way through a creepy forest and disgusting marsh that smelled like rotten fish and moldy fries.

She still wasn't sure why it had smelled like fries.

But as she jumped to one side to avoid being hit with an explosion from the demon who'd been her partner, Lucy really couldn't find it in herself to care about the smell of the marsh. "Jackal!" she shrieked, covering her head to protect it from falling debris. "Jackal, stop!"

They'd long since passed his wild, maniacal cackling phase and now she was faced with his Etherious form.

Gone were his golden human eyes and the familiar line of his jaw. Now, pure white glared down at her from above a furry, snarling muzzle. He didn't speak anymore. Now it was all growls and too-fast slashes from his claws. Random explosions lighting up the night and surrounding her in a fiery flurry.

"Just calm down!" she shouted. "You don't have to do this! We can get someone to change you back and stop the - ACK!"

Lucy dodged another attack, feeling the ends of her hair crinkling from the fire that licked at her side. She crashed to the ground and scrambled to find some strategy she could use to get away. Just enough for her to keep him back.

That small distraction was enough for him though. Jackal channeled his curse into the knee he'd shattered nearly a year prior, still feeling his connection to the joint even after all this time. Lucy screeched in agony as an explosion blew her reformed kneecap apart, splitting the skin and sending thick trails of blood streaking down her leg. It was nearly enough to send her spiralling into unconsciousness, even as he came closer. Close enough for his clawed hand to wind around her throat and lift her writhing body into the air. For his hot, foul breath to feather across her face.

"J-Jackal, please…" The growl he let loose vibrated through her whole body, and his hand tightened until her vision was tinged with wriggling grey webs along the edges of her periphery. That witch who'd cast the spell on Jackal when she realized he was a demon… this was all that witch's fault. If only they'd thought of some way to counteract this.

Jackal's head tipped back and he roared into the sky. His free hand lifted with his curse seal wavering in the air just in front of it. He brought it to her face as her arms grew heavy and her legs stopped kicking fruitlessly at his solid, furry stomach.

"J...a…" Her eyelids fluttered as the his curse mark heated up against her cheek.

If they'd thought something like this might happen, she would've been prepared. A contingency. Something…

Anything…

Anything but this…

Not again…

Coal-black eyes narrowed with distaste as he watched the rabbit-eared demon lean over the examination table with a pillow in her hands. "Lamy."

Just a single word, and she froze just before bringing the pillow down onto Lucy's sleeping face. Lamy's eyes grew wide and horrified. Her muttered words about some unnecessarily deep-seated hatred for the blonde ended on a rasping wheeze.

Mard Geer strode across the laboratory at a leisurely pace until he stood beside the table holding their human guest. The only sounds accompanying his steps were the quiet hums of machinery, and some incessant dripping. His lip nearly curled with disgust when he realized the source of the sound was their guest. Specifically, her human blood trailing down from the knee that Jackal had blown apart - the injury that Lamy was supposed to be dealing with.

"How long has she been here?" He already knew the answer.

"Th-Three…"

"Did you stutter?" Mard raised a brow as Lamy's back stiffened. She stood at attention, her personality shifting to that of a seasoned soldier, following a commander's orders.

"Three hours, sir!"

"So this human has been bleeding on the table for three hours."

"I was just about to-"

"Disobey me," he finished for her. "I see that."

Lamy shrieked when his hand lifted and thorns sprung from beneath the floor, impaling her and sending her hurtling through the air. Mard looked down at Lucy again while the lifeless demon corpse splattered against a wall.

"Lamy, come here," he sighed. Almost instantly, another of Lamy's clones stepped out from behind a large glass cylinder. Of course it was the one holding Jackal's regenerating body. She was disgustingly obsessed with him. "Fix this human. I will not repeat myself again."

"Yes, sir!"

He turned toward the cylinder holding Jackal. Mard Geer was tempted to punish him for what he'd done at the behest of some lowly human witch. Except he'd already dealt with Jackal.

It had been a most unpleasant experience, feeling the ripple of power through his psyche that signalled Jackal's consciousness trying to get his attention. And what Mard Geer had found had angered him to the point of intervening himself.

"Mard, I'm so sorry!" Jackal shouted into his mind. "I can't stop. I'm trying, and it worked a little bit, but I'm killing Lucy! I can't stop!"

It hadn't made sense at first, but the disjointed thoughts from his subordinate had - in his mind - warranted a quick trip out to where the job with Fairy Tail's Celestial mage had taken them. And what he'd found was Jackal's etherious form ready to make her head explode. The remedy to that predicament had been Mard Geer rushing forward and snapping Jackal's arm in half, then forcing his explosive curse mark up to his snarling muzzle. Jackal's head exploded, and his limp hand dropped Lucy's unconscious body to the ground. And while his golden fur dissipated into etherion and returned to the guild for Lamy to reconstruct his body, Mard Geer had bent down and picked up the little human wizard. He'd carried her back to Tartaros himself.

"Sir," Lamy said softly, gaining his attention again, "How fixed would you like?"

He knew she wanted to experiment on Lucy. Torture her. They wouldn't do that to their allies. Fairy Tail's acceptance of the demons' continued existence meant they didn't need to fight against the humans. They all had a common enemy now. It wouldn't do for them to destroy that still budding alliance by turning one of their prized members into some hellish monster.

And the last thing he wanted was to hear that damned Celestial Spirit King yelling. It was hell on the eardrums.

"She is to remain human," he finally said. He paused, then added, "And not deformed." With that, he swept away from the laboratory, leaving Lamy to her work. He would check back in an hour to make sure their guest had been healed.

Her eyes opened slowly to find darkness around her. Was this what it was like to be dead? Heaviness on her chest, pressing her down into something feathery and plush? Did the afterlife smell like incense and flowers? If that was the case, then she really wasn't all that opposed to it. It was definitely loads better than the smell of marsh and smoke that she'd been inhaling before losing consciousness.

The soft crinkle of a page turning had Lucy's head turning toward the sound. Mard Geer Tartaros sat primly in a regal wingback chair, a small oil lamp beside him casting just enough light for him to be able to read the thick tome in his hands. The flames flickered eerily across his face, sending chills down her spine. Reformed guild or not, he still gave her the creeps. He was far too stone-faced, and she hated the way it made her instantly think back to high society gatherings when his chin lifted a fraction of an inch while he spoke to someone he deemed beneath him.

Which was everyone who existed, from what she'd seen.

"You should not be conscious right now," he said, never looking away from his book.

Lucy winced. "Humans are stubborn." She wanted to sit up and get out of there. And she wanted more than anything to check on Jackal, to make sure he was alright. Considering she was still very much alive, that had to mean that he'd stopped himself from actually killing her. More than likely, Jackal was acting like a kicked puppy over what had happened though, and she wanted him to know that she didn't hate him.

Because even though it was just a little strange to have been working so closely with the demon who'd tried to kill her - and who'd cackled so loudly over her torture at his hands… claws?... no, they'd been hands at that point - over the course of their short mission, Lucy had come to realize that Jackal was actually oddly sweet, in his own way. He was still very much a crazed lunatic when he really got into something (like making things explode), but something about the way his ears lowered and his tail swished just a little when he was uncomfortable had her wanting to pet him.

"Petting demons is a horrible idea."

She frowned over at Mard Geer, only to find him still reading.

"There are a great number who would rather bite off your arm."

"Jackal wouldn't," she said, just a little defensively. The whole mind-reading thing that he had going on was no secret. Natsu, and even Sting and Rogue, had told everyone about it when they'd learned that the demons of Tartarus hadn't actually died.

"Jackal is tame."

Lucy wanted to snort at that. Except then Mard Geer finally looked away from his book to stare at her with such derisiveness, that she found herself wanting to shrink down beneath the covers. How had he accomplished that with no actual expression on his face? He didn't blink for far longer than any human could manage. Just seeing his eyes staying open and locked onto her for so long had Lucy's own eyes feeling dry and scratchy. She blinked, and found him still staring at her, so she blinked again. Just for him. Because he was apparently not going to do it himself, and it was seriously stressing her out.

"You should rest," he finally said.

"I feel rested enough," she said. "And I should probably call Master Makarov, and-"

Mard Geer didn't move as she tried to sit up. It definitely hurt from her hip down to her knee, but Lucy had been through worse. She pushed past the discomfort, and threw back the heavy blanket, then her eyes widened when she saw the utter havoc that had been wrought on her thigh. Stitches ran all across her leg, even down under her knee. The skin was red, puffy, and when she tried to shift it just a little bit, a strangled cry of agony ripped its way up her throat.

"Ah, I see what Lamy meant," Mard Geer said, peering at her leg. "Your human body really is not capable of bearing that much stress."

"H-Huh?" she whimpered. She couldn't breathe. Looking at the damage she'd sustained was making the room far too hot. She officially had a Frankenstein Leg. The mottled purple bruises around her knee had her wondering if she would ever be able to walk again. Based on how this looked, she was going to forever be a cripple with a gimp little leg.

"I was informed that you would need time to recuperate before she could operate again," he elaborated. "She assured me this would not be the final product."

"Wha…" They were going to have to change her name to Tiny Tim. She was going to need a gnarled little crutch to prop herself up while hobbling from one place to another. God, her leg was never going to be the same again, and was this room getting too hot? It was stifling. Each short breath she pulled in felt as though she was trying to suck it in through a pillow. One that was being sat on by a great white shark.

Wait, why would a shark be sitting on a pillow?

It wasn't until that doubtful little question crossed her mind that Lucy realized her vision was blurry. She was freaking the hell out, and by that point it was far too late to do anything about it.

Distantly, she welcomed the oblivion that wrapped around her as she lost consciousness. It was a whole lot better than staring at that monstrosity of an appendage, attached to her hip.

She didn't hear the way her demon host sighed while returning his attention to his book. "Humans are so fragile," Mard Geer muttered. "And here I was, looking forward to my afternoon nap."

Lucy was also blissfully unaware of the fact that she was passed out in his own personal bed, and that two of Lamy's clones in a row got the axe - literally - when they'd inquired as to his reasoning for keeping a healing human in his bed when there were perfectly acceptable cots in the laboratory.

She woke up again two hours later, not that she knew it had only been two hours. Before Lucy had time to flip out over her Ragdoll Sally leg, her eyes opened to find Jackal's face only inches away from hers. She should have screamed right away, but she was more concerned with this oddly confused expression scrunching his muzzle, how his head had tilted just a fraction of an inch, and the fact that he was leaning over her and breathing the same air as her.

Just when she pulled in a breath to ask him what the hell was going on - and to make sure he was alright, once she knew why he was creeping all over her in her sleep - his hand shot up and covered her mouth.

Maybe she should have been more wary of him touching her, considering what he was capable of with his Curse. Any normal person would have shuddered over the increased temperature of his dark fingers wrapping around their cheeks.

Lucy wasn't. Instead, she was patient while he turned her head to the side, away from where he leaned over her and toward the center of the bed. She was even less prepared for what she saw.

Mard Geer Tartaros slept beside her, curled up on his side beneath the blanket. His long indigo tresses had been freed from his usual ponytail. In his arms there was a book, except… it wasn't the book he always carried around. It looked… Lucy squinted and tried to focus on just what he was holding a little more, because surely she was seeing things. But no… the more she focused, the more clear it became that Mard Geer was actually, legitimately, one-hundred percent snuggling with an oversized book plush with an embroidered Book of Zzz on the front instead of Book of E.N.D.

When she heard him take a deep, sleepy breath, and watched his cheeks puff out as he exhaled, she nearly laughed out loud. If Jackal hadn't clamped his hand over her mouth even tighter, she probably would have.

"Don't wake him up from a nap," Jackal breathed. "Ever."

Lucy wanted to ask why it was such a bad idea to wake Mard Geer up. Why Jackal sounded absolutely terrified by the prospect of cutting the demon's naps short. Also, why would Mard Geer take naps in the first place? Honestly, it was such an oddly human thing for him to do, and Lucy was positive that he still actually hated humans with every molecule of his being.

Mard Geer smacked his lips, and slowly nuzzled the plush in his arms. He looked almost angelic, sleeping next to her like this with his long lashes resting so delicately along his high cheekbones. "Jackal," Mard Geer muttered, his eyes never opening, "Get your hands off of her."

Lucy's eyes widened as Jackal's hand quickly left her face.

Mard Geer hummed and mumbled something unintelligible, then added more clearly. "I will kill you again if you don't leave my room." Lucy was highly unnerved by the sleepy, serene smile that barely curved up his lips when Jackal whimpered behind her.

She turned back to look at Jackal. "Does he talk in his sleep?" she whispered.

Surprisingly, Jackal nodded. "I'm not taking any chances though," he said. The soft scratch of vines along the walls had his fur standing on end. He stood to his full height and dashed from the room with his tail literally between his legs. After a moment, he peeked only his sheepishly grinning snout back into the doorway. "Also, uh… Sorry about your leg. My bad?"

Lucy didn't have a chance to say anything in response before he was gone again and the door was silently closing behind him. Granted, she didn't really have anything to respond with, but that wasn't the point. Besides, as she laid their in the bed next to an unconscious demon king - at least, Lucy assumed Mard Geer was actually a demon king, what with all his pomp and grandeur during the war - she realized that Jackal apologizing over hurting her was actually a sign of his own personal growth. She was pretty proud of him for that.

Slowly, Lucy directed her attention to the ceiling above her. There wasn't really anything else for her to look at, and she wasn't going to just lie there and stare at Mard Geer. That would be beyond creepy.

It took a moment for her eyes to really adjust to what she was seeing. Mard Geer didn't have a canopy over his bed like a normal person - which shouldn't have been surprising, since he wasn't even a person. No, instead there were thorned vines hanging over their heads, and wrapped up in those vines was the book he always carried around with him.

The Book of E.N.D. was right there, within arm's reach. If she was so inclined, Lucy could probably brave the thorns on those vines and take the book for herself. Except, she wasn't all that interested in taking the book. She didn't even know what it was for, or why it was so important to him in the first place. Maybe, if she was going to be stuck here for a while, she would find some way to ask him about it, but… well, she wasn't all that confident in that ever actually happening.

After some indeterminable amount of time, Lucy started getting stir-crazy. She wanted to move around, but the pain in her leg that was nothing more than a dull ache at the moment would double her over in an instant. She was sure of it. Still, she needed to do something. She was restless, and maybe it was a bit of Natsu rubbing off on her, but she didn't want to just lie around and not do something.

When she shifted just a little, that familiar sharp pain seared down the length of her thigh, pulling a quiet hiss from her. She turned her attention back to Mard Geer, her eyes wide and horrified when she realized that Jackal had never told her just why he was so scared of waking the demon from a nap. Luckily, she kept her screams to herself, but apparently that one small noise was enough to rouse the demon beside her.

"S-Sorry," she whimpered as his eyes slid open to small, tired slits.

Mard Geer sighed through his nose and closed his eyes again. "You move too much. If necessary, I will hold you down myself to promote proper healing."

Lucy squeaked in alarm at the mental image of him pinning her to the bed. She definitely blamed Erza and Cana for the lewd turn her thoughts took. There was no way she'd actually do something like that with him.

His eyes opened once more to peer at her, and his brows furrowed only slightly. Slowly, his grip on the book plush loosened and he pushed it toward her. "This will help you relax."

Lucy blinked in surprise when he fell asleep instantly. She could just barely hear his soft snores filling the air between them. Still, she held onto the book plush and pulled it to her chest, her fingers brushing across the soft fabric and delicately embroidered letters on the cover. "What the hell?" she muttered to herself.

This was beyond reasoning. Clearly, she was in some sort of messed up dream, and she would wake up back in the Fairy Tail infirmary, or even in her own bed. No way in hell was this actually happening.

"Not a dream," Mard Geer sighed.

"Are you even sleeping?" she hissed, glaring at him. "Because it sounds like you're doing this to mess with me."

He didn't respond. He didn't move aside from the slow rise and fall of his even breaths. If he really was asleep though… Lucy moved again, but didn't make a single sound that would wake up her bed companion. It was barely enough to make the blanket covering both of them shift, but Mard Geer let out a heavy sigh and wrapped his arms around her. He didn't move her closer to him - and she was pretty thankful for it, since her leg hurt enough as it was - but slid across the space between them until he was pressed flush against her side, and his head rested on her shoulder.

"Now stay still," he mumbled.

"But I-"

"I'm not opposed to taxidermy," he yawned. "Do you need to be stuffed?"

Lucy went rigid, her eyes widening in horror. "N-No…"

The fact that he simply smiled and snuggled against her chest didn't make her feel any safer. Not even the fact that she realized his hair smelled like dark, exotic roses could help her relax. Instead, Lucy spent the next several hours staring at the thorny vines above them, holding the Book of E.N.D., and wondering how long she was going to be used as a body pillow for the King of the Underworld, Mard Geer Tartaros.