Title: One of the Girls
Rating: M
Genre: Romance/Humor/Drama
Summary: Lucy gets a little too comfortable around Natsu for the Dragon Slayer's liking. High Citrus warning for the second chapter!
AN: I know I have yet to update any of my other ongoing fics, but fear not, the second chapter to this will be uploaded very soon as it is already 75% done!
Lucy never thought she'd see the day she would be comfortable walking around in nothing more than her undergarments knowing full well that her male best friend would drop by sometime soon. Sure, Natsu had already seen her naked on various different occasions. Hell, he even groped her boobs under the pretense of 'covering her up.' But by nature Lucy liked her modesty. She considered herself innocent…for the most part. She never had a boyfriend, never even kissed anyone. So if someone told her she would prance around her apartment in nothing but her underwear expecting her male friend to waltz on in she would have gasped in disbelief.
A year of him dropping by unexpected while she was finishing up a bath, getting ready for bed, or- her personal favorite-coming by on days she was going to do laundry, and therefore prancing around in clothes that barely passed as coverage really changed what she deemed acceptable and not acceptable. A month ago she would react violently in hopes of knocking some manners into his thick skull, but now, with how many times he barged on in while she had nothing on, she grew desensitized.
But don't get her wrong, she still gave him an earful when he would come in without knocking (or break in through the window). It was a matter of respect, and after a time period in which she even locked her windows so he couldn't get in, she hoped he'd get the message. Somehow, despite all her efforts, he still broke in to her little apartment. She never did figure out how, but she remembered coming out of the bathroom and into her bedroom in nothing but a towel to find him sitting on her bed looking all pleased with himself. She wasn't surprised, not in the least bit. At that moment she decided that maybe angry words would work better. Like maybe if she yelled at enough he would leave.
That never happened though. If anything it made him stay longer. Even when almost nude, Lucy would stand there and give him a piece of her mind and he would still refuse to leave the room to let her change. For a while she figured he wanted to see her naked, but after getting to know him better she narrowed his motives down to what he was really after. All she had to do was offer him dinner and he'd be out in the kitchen waiting for her before she could list off the options.
Though, after the first week of this compromise, she quickly figured out that if she fed him he never freakin' left. She tried bribing him, threatening him, assaulting him, hell she even tried asking politely, but all yielded to the same conclusion. After dinner the Dragon Slayer would crash on the couch, and then later (while she was asleep) he'd slip into bed with her.
Which in turn usually resulted in a one sided morning screaming match between the two in which she would flip out on him, and he'd be all groggy and sleepy and only register the word 'breakfast' even though she said he was going to leave without it.
After a couple weeks of the same behavior from him, it became a routine. She would take a bath while dinner cooked, and upon leaving the bathroom to finish dressing come in contact with Natsu. She would offer him food to get him out of the room, and he'd refuse to leave for home after the meal on the grounds he was 'too full to move'.
She'd never heard such a poor excuse in all her seventeen years of life.
Maybe it had to do with the countless times she woke up in the morning only to see his face inches from her own. Maybe it had to do with the amount of times he walked in on her in the bathroom. Or it could have possibly happened when he came in through her bedroom window-regardless of her state of dress.
Nevertheless, it was safe to say that Lucy didn't care anymore.
Upon entering the apartment Natsu's mouth began to water. Every Wednesday night Lucy would make meatloaf drizzled in the tastiest of gravy, and he had been waiting all day to inhale the scent of her cooking, and now, at about six at night, that aroma had taken over the entire house, conquering Lucy's normal scent of vanilla.
He jumped from the window, closing it behind him to avoid a lecture from his blonde partner. He had better things to do with his time than to listen to her rant about properness, and respect, and blahblahblah. He had food to eat, and sleep to get. Peering around the bedroom he stood in silence when the blonde did not make an appearance. Usually she would be standing there in mild shock clad in a towel as she rolled her eyes and told him to wait in the kitchen for her, but tonight unfolded differently. He just didn't know how different it would be.
He would be real dumb to not notice the changes in Lucy—dumber than people already thought of him. To his credit though, he did notice that unlike when he first met Lucy, she did not scream and curse and get all violent when he 'invaded her privacy' as she would put it. She no longer woke him with punches in the morning when she found him sleeping beside her in bed.
Natsu would call it a step in the right direction if it not for how abrupt the changes occurred. In a week's time Lucy went from a rage monster to indifferent. Sure, he wanted her to get used to having him around, but he also missed how embarrassed she would get around him.
Some shuffling in the kitchen caught his attention, and he smiled, swallowing down the drool that pooled in his mouth as his thoughts returned to the meatloaf. Without further hesitation he pushed the door that keep her room separate from the rest of the apartment open. "Mmmm, that smells tasty." He said as way of greeting only to stop dead in his tracks, meatloaf abruptly pushed to the back of his mind.
Red lace panties. That was the first thing he comprehended. Then he noticed the design of the lace, and how if he really locked he could see the pale skin of her butt. He felt bad for staring, truly he did, but Lucy busied herself with pulling the food out, her body bent over the open door of the oven, and he just couldn't help but stare because it was right there. He was a healthy man after all.
He wanted to ask her if she forgot to put clothes on but all that came out was a whispered, "…Lucy?"
She turned to him, brown eyes meeting his as she reach for her oven mitt. She held his gaze for all of a second before turning back to the oven, "Yes?" She asked, not sounding even a little but fazed by his presence. He thought she would at least look sheepish.
He swallowed hard, eyes begrudgingly returning to her rear. His fingers twitched, and he frowned balling them into a fist. He kind of wanted to touch her, and not in the way he normally touched her either. Like her butt looked so…touchable. "Uhm," He cleared his throat, "Where are your clothes?"
She stood with the meatloaf and put it on the nearby potholder on the counter. Placing the oven mitt but where she got it, she turned to him and made a show of looking down at herself. Natsu's on eyes followed. She wore a matching bra that did wonders for pushing her boobs up. Stifling the urge to touch them too, he averted his gaze to the meatloaf. It looked awesome.
"I just got out of the bathroom, and I didn't want supper to burn." She reasoned, shrugging her shoulders like she wasn't standing in front of a guy. A guy he probably had 'I'd rather eat you over the meatloaf' written across his face. He felt heat creep up his face at the thought.
Clearing his throat again, he stumbled out a reply. "I, uh, don't see why you couldn't have put on a, uh, shirt, or uh something." He made wild hand gestures out of nervousness, and he met her eyes for all of a second before they darted back to the meatloaf. He would have laughed at how confused she looked if he wasn't in the middle of one of the top most awkward moments in his life. Like why did he have to tell Lucy to put clothes on? If anything shouldn't he be more concerned with getting them off as a member of the male species?
"Because I knew it would be only you coming, so I didn't bother." His head snapped up, eyes wide. What did that even mean? She turned again, closing the oven door almost entirely before leaving it open just a crack. She once told him that her mother used to do that in the winter to keep the kitchen warm before the Heartfilia's came into money. He didn't understand why she still did that in the middle of August. She was sure weird.
"But Lucy," It felt odd having to say this, so he turned away and went to take a seat at the small table, "I'm a guy." He sat in his seat, which unfortunately faced her. He focused on his empty plate.
"So?" She asked. Did Lucy really not see where he was taking this?
"So, if Gray, or Loke were to come over you wouldn't put something on?" He didn't know how else to make his point other than outwardly saying I'm a guy, I like boobs and butts, put some clothes on.
She plopped a huge chunk of meatloaf onto his plate, and he wasted no time in taking a knife and cutting it into inch thick slices. He knew that if he just picked up the giant hunk of meat as it sat now and started to gnaw on it he would get hit.
Lucy scoffed at him, and although he kept his eyes trained on the meatloaf he caught what crossing her arms did to her boobs out of the corner of his eye. He stuffed a whole slice into his mouth, not bothering to take bites.
"If it's bothering you so much, fine, I'll put a shirt on. But you've seen me like this just as much as the girls have, so I don't see why you're making such a big deal out of it Natsu." With a huff she spun and made her way to her bedroom. He looked over his shoulder to get one more look at her ass as she sauntered away. Shaking his head as the door swung closed behind her. He dully wondered if that woman would be the death of him. Setting the knife down, he grabbed a couple slices of meatloaf and shoved them into his mouth at once, without gravy and all.
Lucy wasted no time in her room, and went straight to her pajama drawer. Pulling out the first long shirt she could find, she pulled it over her head. The soft material of the t-shirt ended just over her panty line and she decided it would suffice. She frowned, wondering what had gotten into Natsu. He never cared about the clothes (or lack therefore) so wore, and if he did he would just call her a weirdo and be done with it.
Upon reentering the kitchen, she found Natsu stuffing his face. He'd used the knife to cut the meatloaf into five or six large chunks, only to use his hands to shove them into his mouth. She hadn't even given him the gravy yet….
"Natsu! You forgot the gravy! I make that extra for you, you know! It's not like I like all that spice in my food!" She rushed to the large measuring cup of gravy. When she picked it up the thick topping's smell wafted up to her nose. It burned her nostrils.
He turned to her, and she caught the apologetic smile just before it fell away, and almost like a cartoon, his eyes widen, and his mouth dropped. Precious food feel from his mouth, and Lucy wrinkled her nose. "You're cleaning that up." She informed, pointing at the chewed chunks on the floor.
"L-Lucy?" He questioned. She could hear him swallowing from where she stood at the edge of the kitchen. Leaning over she poured almost all of the gravy onto his plate, Leaving a little bit of it in the glass to avoid turning the meatloaf into a stew. He only blanched at her.
"What? Is this still not good enough for you." She looked down at the shirt, and nearly slapped herself. One of Natsu's many T-shirts (Yes, the man did own T-shirts, in the winter he slept in them) hung loosely around her body.
"I-I've been looking all over for that one. It's so soft!" He exclaimed, pushing away from the table with his feet like he was contemplating wrestling it right off of her. She took a step back, crossing her arms over her chest as she scowled.
"Well, I liked it too. So I decided to keep it." She nodded to herself, not mentioning that she neglected to wash it. So what if she liked how he smelled. It reminded her of the guild.
Natsu stood up, food forgotten. She must have really shocked him-or something-because Natsu was a man that never wasted even a crumb of food under any circumstances. Yet there he stood with half chewed (Yuck!) bits of meatloaf on the floor and more getting cold on his plate. He walked towards her, eyes piercing with an intensity that she thought he only reserved for fighting.
"You shouldn't wear other people's clothing without asking. Jeeze, and you say I'm rude." He stood mere inches away from her, the tips of his toes peeking out from his sandals to touch her bare ones. He gave her a once over, and Lucy laughed at him. If she knew that to get him to understand her lectures she'd just have to take something of his without permission she would have done it a long, long time ago.
"Well how does it feel to have your privacy taken advantage of then?"
He didn't respond immediately. He stood there, real close to her, with eyes so intense it made her all sorts of uncomfortable. He watched her eyes, she would blink and they would be on her lips, then her shoulders, her arms, her stomach, and finally, after lingering on her legs his gaze returned to her eyes. He licked his lips. "You know Lucy, you've been acting real weird today," He looked to her legs again, "Actually all week. You've been being a weirdo all week."
Lucy sighed, feeling weird about him looking at her like that. If it was anyone else, she would have been flattered by the starring, but it was Natsu. "You call me weird all the time. I don't see of this time is any different."
He raised an eyebrow like the answer was obvious. "For starters, you've stopped hitting me when I barge in on you while you're changing," One finger shot up, and he waved it in her face, "Second off, I've slept in your bed all week, and you haven't woken up screaming yet."
A second and third finger went up.
"And third, I used the bathroom while you were showering, and you didn't yell, and threaten me or anything. You just told me not to flush. So what's up with you?" He finished, looking proud of himself. Again his eyes went to her legs, and she wanted to ask him why he kept looking at them. Before she could he spoke up, voice muddled with confusion.
"Are you coming onto me?" He asked.
Lucy laughed so loud it sounded obnoxious to even her. "Do you even know what that means? I wouldn't be coming onto you by letting you use the bathroom while I'm showering. You're the weirdo."
"Then what are you doing?"
She shrugged, "Nothing. I've just given up. You've seen everything I have to hide more times than I can count over the past year, so why try?" She shrugged again, trying to emphasis howlittle she thought of it in hopes of easing his worries. But seriously, why was he so up in her face about it anyway?
Natsu was quiet, almost like he was taking in her words and actually thinking about them. "Okay then." He continued to stare at her like he was looking at an alien.
Feeling sort of shy, she walked passed him. "The foods getting cold. You wouldn't want to waste it!"
And just like that the Natsu she knew came back with a flourish of excited yells as he launched himself back into his seat. He inhaled the food, and Lucy watched as she nibbled on her much smaller portion. He finished just as she took the bit that marked her halfway through her meal.
Leaning back in his chair, he closed his eyes and patted his belly. "Thanks Lucy that was great!" She smiled a tight lipped smile as she chewed, and he opened his eyes to look at her.
"You know I still want that shirt back right?"
