The Rules and Regulations of Love (Nalu Fanfic)

Chapter Twenty

Natsu

Rule Number Twenty: Sometimes Sacrifices Have to Be Made, No Matter How Painful

A week had passed since I'd been Lucy's slave. A week since I'd yelled at her. A week since I'd had to sit through The Notebook. Out of those three things, the thing I regretted most was yelling at Lucy. Even if she'd been pushing me to tell her about my nightmares, she hadn't deserved that. To make it up to her, I'd sat through The Notebook even though I was terrified of that movie. My dad had taken my mom to see it when it had first come out a few years ago, and he'd come back looking like he'd been scarred for life. I'd looked it up on the internet the next day, and just the movie description gave me the heebie-jeebies. But I'd sat through it for Lucy, and I'd held her awkwardly as she cried and laughed and told me how she hoped her life would be like that. Not with all of the drama and confusion, but with the love and passion and dedication. I'd just nodded my head, unsure of how to answer a statement like that. I'd thought of answering by saying that I'd be right there beside her for the rest of our lives, protecting her and loving her and taking care of her, but I couldn't get the words past my lips. I didn't want to tell her anything I wouldn't be able to hold myself to.

Yelling at Lucy brought a lot of things into perspective for me. It made me realize just how much these nightmares were tearing me up. Since the night I'd yelled at her, I'd slept restlessly and had gotten a grand total of eleven hours of sleep. Not much. Now I sat in my room, staring up at my ceiling while I thought about what I was going to do about the whole situation. I didn't want to tell Lucy about my nightmares. I didn't want all of that sitting on her shoulders, and telling the wall about my nightmares like she'd suggested hadn't done any good. Yeah, I'd tried it. Don't judge me. I love Lucy with all my heart, and I'd do anything to protect her, but right now I was so confused that I didn't even know how to protect her. A knock on my door brought me out of my thoughts and I frowned and lifted my head up, surprised to see Jellal standing in the doorway.

"Hey man, come on in," I said with a sigh, letting my head fall back again.

"Nice to see you too, dude. Way to be enthusiastic about me gracing you with my presence," Jellal said sarcastically. I sat up just in time to see him snag a Twinkie off my dresser and rip open the package before stuffing the whole thing in his mouth.

I smiled despite myself, then grabbed one for myself and stuck the whole thing in my mouth too. Jellal raised his eyebrows, a challenge written over his face. I responded with my own raised eyebrow, then we both scrambled to grab as many Twinkies as we could before going to opposite sides of the room and cramming the Twinkies in our mouths, barely taking the time to swallow before we stuck another one in. Jellal usually always beat me at food related contests, but I am Twinkie King and rule all in the land of cake-and-frosting goodness, so naturally not only did I eat more Twinkies than Jellal, but I also finished sooner.

"Dude, it's sick when you can eat twelve Twinkies in the span of three minutes," Jellal said incredulously as I stood and walked around my room with my fists in the air like a prize fighter. Oh yeah, I'm the man. I have no idea how I ate twelve Twinkies in three minutes, but I was feeling the effects of them now and I collapsed on the floor on my back, focusing on keeping the Twinkies down. Jellal was doing the same thing, and both of us started laughing hysterically when our stomachs started grumbling loudly, protesting the processed treats we's just shoved down our throats.

"How are you and Erza doing?" I asked as a distraction a few minutes later, trying to get my mind off of my aching stomach and my aching heart. Lucy did funny things to my heart. Sometimes she made it thump erratically, sometimes she made it slow down as if it were going to stop beating altogether, and sometimes she made it ache so badly that I wished it would just break. Or scar over. Or whatever hurting hearts do. Oh no. I'm starting to sound like a chick! Quick, I need football and porn, stat!