Ripped to Shreds

Chapter 2: Bruise, Bite and Burn

So warm...

Not too hot and not too cold. Surrounding, encompassing, relaxing. He felt so soothed. Except for the fact that it felt like someone had scraped the skin on his back off with a cheese grater, and that each and every single bone in his body had broken, healed, then re-broken again. But hey, he'd felt worse sensations in his lifetime.

Wait... why was he in so much pain again? He couldn't really remember. Was the guild attacked? Was he knocked out? Was he dead?

He didn't want to open his eyes, he just felt so sleepy, and calm. He took a deep, slow breath out of instinct, and to his surprise heard someone gasp.

"Natsu?" A voice asked from above him. "Natsu, are you awake? Can you hear me?" The voice continued, small and quiet.

Lucy...

Lucy was here. She was ok, so everything was ok. What had happened was-

...

What had happened..-

..

What?-

.

Happened.

His eyes shot open. He sat up like a spring snapping, in a blind panic he desperately ran through the hazy memories playing on loop in his mind.

No! No! He hadn't! He didn't! He couldn't!

Arms flung towards him and wrapped around his tense shoulders.

"Natsu! Stop, it's ok! Slow down." She urged. "Everything's fine, just relax."

He turned his desperate gaze over to the woman holding him,

everything wasn't fine.

She was covered, smothered, mummified in bandages and gauzes. Her hands, arms, shoulders, chest, hips, legs, face, everywhere was wrapped or stitched or plastered. And under each one, he knew, was a cut. A slice, a bruise, a burn. And it was all his fault. He did that to her.

"Natsu, look at me." She brought her hand up to his face and gently tilted it, so his eyes looked directly into hers. "Don't panic. Everything really is ok." She gently insisted.

"No, no it's not." His voice quivered. "Look at yourself Lucy! I'm supposed to protect you! ... Oh my gods what have I done..." He began to shake and curl in on himself. He leaned back, away from her touch, only then did he begin to take note of his surroundings. He was in a bath. A nice, warm bath. A bath that she'd probably run just for him. He'd been layed down in it before, asleep, her watching over him from the floor like some kind of angel. She shouldn't have bothered, drowning in a fucking bathtub of all places sounded about right as punishment for what he'd done. Just as he was about to sink below the surface of the water to hide from his memories, two hands wrapped around his forearms and yanked him back up.

"Well have you looked at yourself either?" The bandaged blonde asked, looking like she was about to cry. She moved one hand to rest at the nape of his neck, and gestured down at the rest of his body with her eyes. Following her gaze he saw a small scratch, cutting smoothly into the front of his arm, but the more he looked the more he saw. Down his chest, stomach, legs, hands, there were hair thin scratches. He was littered with them, head to toe. He also had a fair few bruises, some suspiciously shaped like fading bite marks.

"Levy came over, after I woke up." She continued, choked up. "All I needed was food, water, bandages and some rest. You, Natsu, you needed so much more." She paused and reached down to the floor by her feet, still holding his head with one hand. She grabbed a handful of something and dragged it up so he could see. An absolute mess of bloody bandages, tangled like a ball of wool left in a kitten's paws.

"These are your bandages Natsu. These..." She grit her teeth and held back a guilty cry. "She had to stitch you up- with a needle and thread. Your back Natsu I cut it!" She began to loose her carefully laced composure. "She had to dig my nails out of your skin with a scalpel Natsu! I did that, that was me." She continued. As she spoke more attention was drawn to his back. He could feel it burning, it was sore and stiff. The cuts were deep.

She'd been in so much pain that she'd done that to him without realising. His mind flashed back to the incessant screaming and crying for him to stop, all of the shrill sounds merging into one replaying record of the worst thing he'd ever done.

"You'd never hurt me on purpose Luce." He quietly murmured, eyes open too wide to remember to blink. How could she feel guilty for this? How could she ever twist this in a way that made her the one at fault?

...

"But you would never hurt me on purpose either." She whispered.

"I hurt you! I used you! I-"

"I know!" She dropped the bandages back to the floor and lunged over the side of the bath, landing on top of him. The water was somewhat shallow, but still lapped at her sides as her wrapped form pinned his. He was naked, but she didn't seem to care.

"I knew, from the moment I suggested being your partner for this, I knew exactly what would happen. I knew it would be barbaric, and painful. But I still did it anyway. This was my idea. And yet I still ended up hurting you, even though I knew what was coming. I still ended up hurting you so badly that you needed stitches, when you were only carrying out one of your natural desires."

She lifted her hands back up and held his cheeks.

"Yes, you hurt me... but I hurt you too. So if we must, let's just call it even." She suggested with a meek smile on her face.

"No... wait..." She back tracked, looking straight into his eyes, he could see she still felt guilty, but there was a hint of glee beginning to form. She slowly began to lean in close. "Since our first time was so... yeah. I figured we could maybe... redo some things." She blushed, her skin just starting to become ruddy from being in the warm water. "Then we'll call it even..." She muttered quietly, averting her gaze.

It took Natsu a second to process what she was saying. After all that... she wanted... more?

Amongst all the begging and yelling engulfed in grey moonlight or white morning sun rattling around inside his skull, one tiny hint of gold shone through. A glowing moment, not quite stifled by everything else. It was bathed in orange sunset, a scene of ruffled sheets and tangled blonde hair. She lay spread out below him, tear tracks on her face but she wasn't crying. Instead, her arms were lifted up, around the back of his neck. She looked strained, but was smiling at him. Her hands hadn't been ripping him to shreds, not originally. She was holding him. She was in pain, but he was in pain too. She knew that. He knew that.

Slowly, and carefully, he lifted a near wrinkled hand out of the water, and cupped one of her cheeks. He turned her head back to face him the same way she had done when he'd woken up. He couldn't really remember all those cheesy lines Macao tried to teach him as a little boy, so he just said what he could say.

"Yeah, Lucy. Yes please." At his cautious smile, Lucy's own smile returned. She steadily began to lean down again. "That would make me very happy." He finished. One of her hands moved from his cheek to his hair, his other hand raised to delicately rest on her waist.

Then, their lips came together in a soothing kiss. No exploding fireworks, no earth-shattering revelations. Just private, and peaceful. Quiet and calm. Warm and happy.