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Strange Bedfellows	By : stellabomb Category: +. to F > Fairy Tail Views: 9473 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Fairy Tail and am not making any money off of this work.

Chapter List
- 7
- 8
- 9
Chapter 8: Head-On Collision

Sting took to sitting on the second floor of the main room in the hall. Like the first Fairy Tail building, usually only S-class mages hung around the second floor because the S-class job board was located there. Sting was not one of Fairy Tail's S-class mages, but he was roughly equivalent in Sabertooth. Besides, he had a hunch that hanging around on the first floor too often would lead to trouble.

There's another reason why he's been hanging around the hall more. The second floor opens up to the first floor, so Sting had a good view of who is coming and going. It was a good vantage point to observe Lucy and Natsu.

It's been a few days since Natsu and Lucy went on that job together. On the surface, they behaved the same as before as best friends, but Sting knew something had happened between them while they were gone. Something intimate. And he's pretty sure that something was continuing to happen when they're not at the guild hall because sometimes Lucy comes in smelling strongly of Natsu.

Sting had been watching them since then. Had Natsu made that crossover with Lucy? The mingling of their scents on each other seemed to suggest so, but whenever he saw the two together in public, they acted exactly as they had before the fight: as friends. Looking at the two, Sting couldn't help scowling.

"You seem upset," said a firm female voice.

Sting turned to find Erza. She looked at him with a firm expression, arms crossed.

"So what if I am?" he replied with slight bitterness.

"Master Makarov assigned me to keep an eye on you two. We don't want another 8-Island repeat."

"It looks like you're only keeping an eye on me. Isn't that unfair treatment?"

Erza looked down at the main floor where Natsu was going on merrily about the mission he'd gone on with Lucy.

"If Lucy is here, Natsu will behave."

"Is he her dog or something?" Sting scoffed.

Erza shot him a death glare. Sting knew when to back off. He shrugged shoulders and looked back down at Natsu and Lucy. Natsu's arm was slung over Lucy shoulder. No matter which way Sting looked at them, the two looked exactly the same as before. So why did they smell so differently? Sting's disdainful expression didn't change.

"I'll be honest with you, Miss Exquip. Everyone keeps talking about how they think Natsu and Lucy belong together, but I think Lucy is just getting shafted wanting something out Natsu."

"What does it matter to you, though? Is there something you want from Lucy or are you here to just cause trouble for them?"

Sting laughed. "I'm here because I've got a debt to pay and I've been kicked out of my guild. THAT stuff is not by choice."

"What you do with Lucy is by choice. As far as I can tell, you're confusing her."

"What we do together is a mutually beneficial arrangement. Lucy is free to stop hanging around me whenever she wants. We both know it."

Sting watched Erza's eyes furrow in frustration. He knew she couldn't say anything in return because what he said was true. Lucy was a willing party in all of this.

"Fine," Erza said looking straight into Stings eyes. Her expression stern, yet earnest. "But I hope you're thinking about your intentions towards Lucy. Otherwise you're no better than Natsu."

Sting looked at her, thinking about what Erza said. He opened his mouth as if to say something back to her, but then he stopped. "My intentions towards Lucy are my own business," he said coldly.

The next morning, Sting entered the Fairy Tail building and walked straight over to Lucy, who was sitting with Natsu and a few of their friends.

"You," Sting said looking straight at Lucy. "You're coming with me on a job."

"H-hey!" Lucy said as he pulled her out of her seat.

Natsu stood up, glaring at Sting, his fist already on fire. The guild members around him looked at him alarm. They could feel his anger seething from his skin. Everyone was quiet.

"Natsu," came Erza's firm command. "Stand down."

Natsu glared at Erza. "But-"

"Let her take care of this," Erza said interrupting him. "If you wanted to go on a mission with her, you should have said so sooner."

Erza looked towards Lucy to see what Lucy wanted to do. The exquip mage indicated that she would step in between the two dragon slayers if she had to so Lucy was free to make whatever choice she wanted.

Lucy looked towards the ground, her expression somewhat pained. She'd been avoiding Sting since the fight, but it was perhaps she owed him at least a little of her time. "I'll go with him…" Lucy said quietly. "For the money," she added.

Everyone watched as Sting lead Lucy out of the guild hall. Natsu sat back down in his seat, seething with anger.

Sting didn't bother consulting with Lucy about which job take. He had already signed them up when he dragged her out of the guild hall. The job he signed them up for was nothing particularly interesting: sneak into an abandoned site and retrieve some documents. The reward was fairly high because of the travel involved, which was fine by Sting as long as the price was right. This would also get Lucy away from that damn Natsu.

After giving Lucy a short brief on the job, the two set out for the job location. She was quiet most of the time, which was fine. When it came to work, Sting was all about business. He lead the way at a brisk pace. In their rare moments of down time, Lucy read a book, but otherwise they were on the move. What should have been two days of travel ended up being one day before they reached their destination. It was a small town just a few miles away from the abandoned site mentioned in the posting. Sting could tell Lucy was feeling exhausted, but he continued to move on in their mission. If Lucy was tired, she should toughen up or quit being a mage altogether, as far as Sting was concerned.

When they arrived at the small town, he spoke with the job poster. It turns out the supposedly abandoned site was now occupied by a mercenary group who seem to be killing people on sight. Sting scoffed, saying that that the mercenary group had always been there and that they were guarding the papers he and Lucy were meant to retrieve. Lucy wanted to show a little sympathy towards the guy because the papers were of sentimental value, but Sting felt otherwise. The blond dragon slayer demanded a higher pay rate, which the poster reluctantly agreed to.

The following morning they headed to the abandoned site was located deep in the nearby forest. The site itself lay in the middle of a circular cliff area that had only one path leading into the site, which was actually just a small cluster of small one room buildings that looked more like holding cells. The cliffs themselves were only about ten feet tall and had a slope, making it possible to climb up the sides. Still, based on the layout, it was clearly the perfect spot for a trap.

No one was there when Sting and Lucy arrive. It was obviously a trap, but Sting was confident. He led Lucy through the different cottages until they located the papers. As soon as they exited that cottage, they were surrounded by a large group of men, all of them armed and ready to do some damage.

Sting and Lucy stood with the backs to each other while the group of men circled in on them. Unlike the band of unruly bandits Lucy faced with Natsu, these men were mercenaries, meaning they were specifically trained in combat, some of whom seemed to deal with magic as well. Lucy felt a little nervous because there were so many of them, but she was up to the challenge. She had one hand held over her keys and the other hand holding onto her whip. Sting held his arm out in front of her, blocking her way.

"Don't even bother," Sting said. "I got this."

"I'm part of this mission too!" Lucy pleaded.

Sting let out a laugh. "You're too weak! I can handle this on my own. Besides, you'll just get in the way!"

Sting suddenly charged out, taking down mercenaries ten at a time. Each time Lucy tried to ready herself to fight as well, Sting would shoot her a look, yelling at her to just leave it to him. Sure, he was handling them just fine without her, but what was she supposed to do? Lucy gritted her teeth. How dare this guy tell her what to do! Sting was not her boss. She reached for a key anyway.

"Open the gate of the Golden Bull!" Lucy yelled, holding out a key. "Taurus!"

Taurus appeared standing tall. He looked over to Lucy, hearts immediately appearing in his eyes.

"Your breast are marvelous today, Lucy!" he said admiring them.

"Yeah, yeah," Lucy said furrowing her brow. "Thanks. I need you to fight off some of these guys so I can get higher on the cliff."

"Yes, ma'am!" Taurus said, steam blowing out his nose.

Taurus made quick work of the mercenaries blocking Lucy's path. Carefully, she scaled the small cliff until she got a good vantage point of the area below. After clearing the path, Taurus returned to the Spirit World.

"Open the gate of the centaur!" Lucy yelled. "Sagittarius!"

A tall man in a horse suit appeared in a puff of smoke. "Hello! Hello!" he said with a salute.

"Sagittarius, please take care of some of these men." Lucy requested.

"Yes, ma'am."

From their distance, Sagittarius was easily able to dispatch a few of the mercenaries with skillfully placed shots at their joints. In a short amount of time, the stellar spirit was able to stave off around a third of their attackers. Lucy cheered her stellar spirit on. Unfortunately, Sagittarius suddenly disappeared. Lucy turned around only to find three men had snuck up behind her, all of them with hungry looks in their eyes. She took a few steps back, thinking about who to call on next. Before she could decide, Sting came rushing up the cliff, knocked the three mercenaries down and turned to Lucy looking furious.

"What the hell are you doing?" he yelled. "I thought I told you to stay back."

"I'm part of this mission too! You saw for yourself! My stellar spirits and I took down at least a third of these guys."

"But you're limited in how far you can go. There are a lot of men out here. I don't want you to use up all your magical energy in the middle of a fight. I'm just preparing for your weakness."

Sting looked around. All of the mercenaries were indeed men and more were on the way. He took Lucy into his arms and slung her over his shoulder.

"Hey! What are you doing?" Lucy asked.

Sting didn't answer. Despite Lucy's resistance, he easily forced her into one of the cottages located in the center of the building cluster and locked her in from the outside. Lucy pounded on the door, demanding Sting let her out. Her only option was to summon Virgo to dig her way out… But that wouldn't do. If she called on Virgo, she wasn't sure how much longer she would last out there, especially knowing that more men were on their way. Lucy thought back to when she was on the mission with Natsu. She was lucky then because her energy drained after the job was over. Would she dare push her luck again? Just to prove a point to Sting?

Lucy leaned her back against the door and slid down to the ground. Her cheeks were burning red with indignation. She was filled with both anger and shame. Anger at Sting for excluding her from the mission. Shame due to her own weakness, a wound Sting's attitude seemed to rub salt on.

This was nothing like working with Natsu.

Sting took care of the rest of the mercenaries an hour later and then released Lucy. They returned to the papers to the original poster, collected their reward, and headed back home. The job started that morning, by then it was already night. Lucy refused to speak to Sting or even look at him at first. After an hour of walking in silence, Sting finally said something.

"I don't understand what you're so mad about," Sting said plainly. "You're weaker than me, so it's only natural that I do more of the work."

"You did all of the work!" Lucy exclaimed.

"I'm strong enough to do it. So what's the poi-"

"So what was the point of even bringing me along in the first place?!"

Lucy was yelling at the top of her lungs. She was hurt. Really hurt. How could he write her off to the extent of going out of his way to keep her from helping? Did he really think she was that weak? Lucy was obviously upset, but Sting didn't seem to feel guilty about it at all.

The stellar spirit mage ran ahead of Sting. Sting may have been right about her limitations, but he was being so arrogant about it. She couldn't even stand to be near him right now. She didn't want him to see her fight off her tears.

For the next three miles, Lucy stayed just within Sting's eyesight ahead of him. He thought it was so stupid that she was acting like a baby over something like this. Why was she having a hard time understanding the difference between the strong and the weak?

Sting had not planned on stopping at the next town, so he was caught off guard when Lucy started walking towards the town as they got closer.

"Hey!" Sting called after her. "Where the hell are you going?"

"I'm going into town to see if I can book transportation," Lucy said annoyed.

"Why waste your money on something like that?"

"Because you're being a dick," Lucy said.

Sting shot her an angry look. He wasn't used to women talking back to him like that. He knew it would be useless to try and stop her. With a low growl, he hovered around behind her as she waited for the next caravan heading in the direction of Magnolia. He needed to make sure she got in safely.

Sting didn't stop her from traveling ahead of him, but he damn well was not going to let this go.

Lucy arrived at her apartment later that evening. The whole ride back she kept thinking about what Sting had said to her and how harsh he had been. Sting was not particularly kind nor was he comforting. She knew that Sting was not that kind of person, of course. What did she really expect from him?

Lucy sighed, looking out into the moonlight. No one at the guild was expecting her for another two days. She decided to stay away until then, just so she can cool off.

The following day she spent most of the day cleaning her apartment and doing other little things to get her mind off of things. She summoned Plue for some company, took a long bath, and read another book.

By evening time, she got tired of being indoors all day, so she decided to go for a drink, but not at the guild. Instead, she went to a smaller bar on the other side of town. The lighting in this bar was dark and the booths were pretty private. There were fewer people here, which was fine by Lucy. She wasn't feeling particularly social this night. She sat at a booth, had a few drinks. A few men came by asking if she wanted a free one, but she passed them all up.

It wasn't too long before Sting showed up. Without asking, he sat next to her. She turned away from him, causing Sting to groan in annoyance.

"How long are you going to be mad?" Sting asked.

"As long as I want to be mad," Lucy replied.

"This is stupid, you know that, right?"

Lucy glared at him.

"What would you have done, then, if I hadn't stopped those three men?" Sting asked.

"I would have summoned someone to knock them down." Lucy replied.

"But you know you can't keep that up forever. Eventually, you would have run out of magical energy. There were a lot of men out there. Can you imagine what they would have done to you if you did end up being defenseless?"

Lucy looked at him, a little surprised. She had to admit that she can understand where he was coming from. It was his way of protecting her, she thinks.

"Fine," Lucy said begrudgingly. "I can understand what you're saying, but that doesn't change the fact that you were being a jerk about it."

There was a long pause. Sting looked at Lucy's expression. She was still turned away from him, looking annoyed. But the annoyance was less harsh than it had been. At least he could tell that she didn't hate him.

"Are you done being mad, then?" Sting asked.

"Only a little."

Sting let out a long sigh. He stood up and grabbed Lucy by the hand.

"I've got something for you," Sting said.

"W-what is it?" Lucy said, somewhat confused.

"You'll see."

Sting walked Lucy to the room he was renting while in Magnolia, which actually was not far from her own apartment. When they entered the room, he gestured towards the bed. In the middle was a large, old looking book. Lucy picked it up. It was labeled Speculations on the History of Fiore. Lucy turned to Sting, pleasantly surprised.

"Wh-wha…" Lucy began to say, but was at a loss for words.

"It's an unofficial history of Fiore. You could also consider a mage's history because it goes into some of the magical phenomenon that occurs in this area, especially in the deep forests. It's been out of print for a long time, but the information is still considered good. I thought you would be interested."

She looked at him, feeling almost bewildered. "J-just because you got me something doesn't mean I'm done being mad at you."

Sting took that as a comment of appreciation. He looked at her for a long while, thoughtfully. He walked up to her and took the book out of her hands. He reached up to brush away some of her hair towards he back. He leaned into the crook of her neck to catch a whiff of her smell. The strong smell of embers that had been there when Sting and Lucy started their mission together was lighter now.

"You kissed Natsu, didn't you?" Sting said suddenly. "That time you went on a mission with him. And probably a number of times after that."

Lucy laughed nervously. "That's pretty sudden," she said. "Have you been watching me?"

"No, I'm not a pervert like Natsu," Sting replied. "I can tell, though. You and Natsu have been close. Physically close."

"Is there no privacy when it comes to you dragon slayers."

"Scent is a powerful thing. And Natsu's smell is all over you."

Sting pulled her close to him, pressing her body against his. It had been a while since they were this close. They hardly touched each other during their mission. His mouth was just an inch away from hers. The air between them was warm. He noticed that Lucy didn't move as he held her. Usually, she really goes for it. Though, it didn't feel as though she were resisting.

"You came close, then?" Sting said, heavily implying something intimate.

"That's none of your business," she whispered back.

"What did he do to you?"

Lucy paused. "He was gentle," Lucy said.

"Do you prefer it gentle?"

She didn't answer.

Sting closed the gap between their lips, but he didn't kiss her.

Instead, he spoke: "Rough, then?"

Comments: Thanks everyone for the reading and reviewing! We're in a back and forth phase in the triangle, but don't worry, I do have an ending in mind.
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Strange Bedfellows