C H A P T E R • T W O

"The Dare"

▸▸ "NATSU, I SWEAR to god I am gonna kill you when I catch you!" I shout as I take off after my best friend who had just stolen my last tater tot. I had waited in line for ten minutes just for those tots, no way was I gonna let Natsu just take them!

I catch up to him and leap onto his back, surprising him and causing him to stumble slightly and he reached his hands back to grab my thighs and keep my upright.

"Damn Luce," he grunts, "I wasn't ready for that."

I smile mischievously, "you ate my last tot, and that's gonna be the last mistake you ever make!" I jokingly wrap my arms around his neck to pretend choke him.

"Oh no, I'm so sorry, I have learned my lesson!" He feigns fright and I gently slap his arm.

"You should know better than to steal a hungry girls' food," as I speak he chuckles.

"I only do it cause it's you," he says, turning to look back at me over his shoulder, his eyes twinkling with laughter. "So are you gonna hop down or am I carrying you across campus like this?" I realize he has been shifting his hands on my thighs to get a better grip and his fingers are tantalizingly close to a place they really, really shouldn't be.

I laugh nervously and begin to pull away, "yeah, sorry."

His grip tightens as he says. "I was teasing you, Luce. I really don't mind carrying you." I stop. His hands...

"Oh... okay. Thank you," I smile, telling myself he was completely unaware, I'd just ignore it. "Are we still meeting everyone at the dorm?" I settle my chin on the top of his head.

"Of course, I'm ready to get some more points under my belt. That prize is gonna be all mine," he draws out the word all, and as he does so I roll my eyes.

"You're just gonna spend all the money on food!" I protest and he shrugs.

He retorts with, "Best thing to do with it!"

This draws a sigh from me, and I concede with a laugh. "At least it's something innocent."

"Oh, I never said I wouldn't spend it on anything else," he squeezes the skin of my thighs making me squeak. "I am a grown man Luce."

I stare down at him bewildered, glad that in this moment he couldn't see me. "Well... you sure had me fooled," I recover, shooting him a half-assed insult. I had better ones up my sleeve but he had thrown me off my game, big time. By now we had reached the dorm and Natsu was sliding me down onto the ground. I reached around him and scanned my key fob to get in, glancing at him as I did so.

He was grinning from ear to ear, almost mischievously.

"What?" His facial expressions drew the question from my lips. He shook his head.

"Nothing, just thought of a great dare idea," he chuckles and walks inside, holding the door for me. Somehow, I had a bad feeling about this.

•••

▸▸ THINGS WITH NATSU had always felt easy. Our friendship was always simple, and doing things together had always felt right.

That being said, we did still have our fights. Natsu wasn't the most self-aware person on the planet—not by a long shot. He said stupid things from time to time and I, not always having the best temper had a tendency to lash out.

Despite these things though, Natsu and I clicked. We did everything together, we practically lived at each-others houses in high school, I even went on a family vacation with him and his parents. To say we were inseparable would be an understatement.

That's why his dare seemed easy at first. He had leveled his eyes at me from where he sat directly across from me in the circle, a mischievousness flashing in them as he grinned widely at me.

"Lucy," he stops, adding a pause to be dramatic. Gajeel rolls his eyes. "Truth, or dare?"

I smile, not to be easily phased by his antics. "Dare."

"I dare you to be handcuffed to me until your first class tomorrow morning," he grins. The group 'oo's and they all look to me expectantly.

"That's so easy!" I laugh in response. What did he think I'd shy away from him after all the time we had spent together? As if. This would be easy, hands down.

"But do you even have-" before I am able to finish my question he reaches into one of the drawers on Gray's side of the room and fishes out a pair of shiny silver handcuffs. I look at him and then at Gray with confusion. "Why do you have cuffs?" I question.

Gray shrugs in response to me. "A man can be kinky." The room goes up into shrieks of laughter and I look at Natsu, who his holding the cuffs and their keys up like some sort of prize.

"Better yet," I continue, "why did you know where he kept them?!" My eyes narrow accusingly at Natsu. This draws a grin from him, and he wiggles his eyebrows at me.

"Friends can share," he tells me and this then makes the group howl again, and I shake my head with a laugh.

"Oh my god, I can't believe you two." I mutter as Natsu stands up and comes over to me, pulling me up off the floor. He puts the keys to the cuffs into his jogger's pockets and while the others get back to the game he opens the cuffs and puts one side around my wrist.

"I wonder how long it'll take me to drive you crazy," he grins, sending my heart racing. He wasn't speaking any differently than normal, but oh man did it feel different. Much like earlier I decided to play it off. It was Natsu after all.

"Well, you've got until 9am to figure that out, don't you?" I respond teasingly, knowing in the back of my mind that I'd hate myself for this at 9am when I had to be at my lecture.

"Is that a dare?" He whispers, making eye contact with me as he clicks the cuffs closed. I purse my lips.

"I guess so."

•••

Hello! I'm back with another chapter after another long break. I'm really bad about that, I apologize. However, I can say there should be one, maybe two more chapters and I am writing them right now! They should be out by the end of December at the latest. Hopefully they're out much sooner though!

This is meant to be a short story, I have too many longer works I still need to finish that would get in the way of this and vice versa. Either way, I hope you enjoyed and continue to enjoy the coming chapters!

Thank you very much for reading! Until next time then.

- kels [11/23/19, 6:12pm]