Hear me

A year later (arc 2)

"You might want to slow down on those pancakes, Nat," a shirtless Gray warned from his seat beside the dragon slayer as he watched her decimate the stack of breakfast confections. Luckily, she hadn't managed to get syrup everywhere. Yet.

"You might want to shut the hell up," the girl in question growled, her mouth so full that the threat came out sounding more like 'oo 'ight wa'a shut th'ell up.'

"Be nice, Natsumi," Lucy scolded her friend from the opposite side, "He has some news you might want to hear."

The dragon slayer swallowed her huge mouthful and brandished her fork at Lucy. "What could the Stripper have to say to me?"

"The 'Stripper' is right here, you know," Gray rolled his eyes, ignoring how Natsumi whirled around and held the pointy end of her fork in his face. "And if you don't want to hear any news about the Thunder Legion, then by all means, keep stuffing your face."

Gray barely registered how he was no longer sitting upright on a bar stool, but flat against the ground with a crazy-eyed dragon slayer holding him down, pressing her forehead into his.

"What's Natsumi doing, Lucy?" Happy asked the celestial mage, tugging on her collar. She shrugged. She didn't pretend to know her roommate's motivations any more than the next person, especially recently.

"What do you know?" Natsumi asked Gray, her voice full of uncharacteristic intensity.

He blinked up at her, eyes going wide.

"I said tell me, Droopy Eyes!" she yelled and gave him a good shake when he didn't say anything.

"Okay! Just get off me! Jesus, you're so weird," he pushed her off, but she didn't let go, only continued to stare him down.

"When Juvia was coming back fro her mission yesterday, she told me she ran into Evergreen and Bickslow near the train station. They told her that they were finishing up and were all planning on heading back today." He told her, still trying to get out from underneath the overzealous dragon slayer.

Natsumi hit him in the head. "Why didn't you just say that before, stupid?!"

"I was going to before you decided that pancakes were more important!"

Lucy didn't want this to come to blows again. They'd always fought, but Natsumi had grown increasingly volatile over the past few weeks, and she didn't trust the girl to pull her punches. "Guys, come on," she tried to get their attention. Like she expected, they completely ignored her.

"What's that supposed to mean?!"

"It means you're a pig!"

"At least I'm not a dirty exhibitionist! Where are your pants, huh?!"

"That's a big word coming from you!"

Once more, they managed to throw themselves into a grapple. Lucy watched in horror as Gray put Natsumi in a headlock, but was immediately thrown back when the dragon slayer slammed the back of her head into his nose. He cried out and Lucy winced. That had to hurt. To his credit, the ice mage didn't let up, wrapping his arms around the smaller girl and rolling, slamming her into the hardwood floor.

"They're lucky Erza's not here," Happy tittered.

"I wish she were," Lucy groused. "I'm so tired of this,"

Lucy sighed again as she watched Gray slip out of submission hold Natsumi had on his arm, throwing out an elbow and caught his opponent under the chin and sent her flying backwards. She landed gracefully on all fours and sprang back, however, tackling Gray once again.