tripping down love
In which Lucy, who has certainly never dated anyone, wakes up and finds a ring on her finger.
Lucy wakes up with a groan when the sunlight pokes her in the face almost obnoxiously, entirely too bright in her opinion. Maybe it's because she came home late yesterday, the mission having dragged on because Natsu and Gray couldn't stop their latest contest of who could eat more cake. Erza for once didn't stop them, because 'arguing over cake is acceptable' and Lucy remembers not being able to do anything more than stand on the sidelines and watch the rest of her team stuff themselves full with cake and cake and cake. The masses of cake eaten were enough to traumatize anyone and Lucy is only too glad that the shop ran out of cakes sometime in the night. It was just in time for them to catch the last train and so they got home very late, but at least early enough for her to get at least a few hours of sleep.
Although those few hours have very apparently been not nearly enough. Lucy blinks, trying to adjust to the brightness and notices with a relieved sigh that the expected headache is nowhere near as bad as it could have been. She sits up sluggishly and rubs her eyes and it happens. She feels something hard touching her eye, something on her finger and she wonders if she's going completely insane when her eyes and her brain both tell her that it's a ring, a very beautiful one actually, and that it's on her fourth finger. Lucy all but panics, cooking up all kinds of possible but definitely not real possibilities of what could be wrong with her. Maybe she hasn't gotten enough sleep yet. Maybe she's still asleep. Maybe she's finally gone bonkers because with Fairy Tail and its crazies, it totally had to happen sometime.
She closes her eyes and inhales deeply, letting the air go with a noise that she can only describe as the sound of her soul leaving her body, because deep down she knows she isn't hallucinating and because deep, deep down she has a pretty good guess who of all the people she knows would break into her apartment in the middle of the night only to put a ring on her finger while she's sleeping and not even tell her about it (and really, it's not exactly a suspicion anymore – he left the window wide open).
Lucy shakily gets up and dresses too fast and too slow all at once while her fingers tremble from the force of her heartbeat (she can hear it in her ears and feel the warmth spreading through her and it distracts her). The ring stays on her finger and she doesn't really have an excuse why she's allowed that when she doesn't even know who it came from (except she kind of does, especially when she looks closer at the gemstone and sees the flame shining inside it – it doesn't turn her insides to hopeful mush, she tells herself and it's true, if only because her insides have been hopeful girlish mush ever since she first caught sight of that ring). On the way to the door, Lucy passes a mirror and tries to make a (somewhat) determined expression. It turns out more anxious than sure, but that's alright. It's not every day she's (sort of) proposed to, she's allowed the throat-constricting and clammy hands (she feels like a girl on her first date and the comparison is so comically mismatched that she lets out a semi-hysterical laugh).
The stairs prove to be a surprisingly difficult part as she stumbles five times and falls twice (which is impressive, given that her staircase is really not all that long) and after the experience, she deliberately walks on the other side of the street than the river. It probably won't do to push her luck today. On the way to Fairy Tail, she has seven smaller accidents consisting mostly of running into other people, but somehow she makes it to the guild hall without any major injuries (the few small scrapes from where she fell down the street don't count) and is in a well enough state to … she doesn't really know. Confirm if she really is right with her thoughts on who gave her the ring, she guesses (her stomach churns uncomfortably at the thought that she's wrong, but she tries to ignore it). Lucy looks around the still not fighting guild and her heart rate drops when she can't find Natsu anywhere, but she's still nervous enough that she's quite sure it shows on her face when she sits down at the bar and asks Mira for a drink.
A few minutes later, she's considerably calmed down, even if her nerves are still frazzled and fluttery, and the sight of the gigantic smoothie Mira places in front of her instantly seems to make the world a much better place than before. With a happy sigh, Lucy begins nipping at it, not taking too big sips because she wants to savour it (and have something to hold on to, just in case).
"Who's that ring from, Lucy?"
Her stomach plummets at Mirajane's question, but she manages to keep a tone of voice that does not suggest she's so nervous she might actually lose consciousness from it.
"To be honest, I don't really know. It was just there when I woke up."
She doesn't tell Mira that she thinks, hopes it might be Natsu, but somehow, she has the feeling that the barmaid already knows. Mira hmms and takes Lucy's hand in hers to inspect the ring a little more closely. She coos at how beautiful it is, thankfully silently enough for nobody to overhear (she's sure she couldn't handle that if it happened) and then suddenly goes all silent, mouth in a little o-shape before it turns into a soft smile and Lucy is almost certain that Mirajane has seen the same fire whirling around in the gemstone.
"Do you think …", she hesitantly asks and Mira nods in that way that always makes Lucy think of a big sister. There's just so much heart in it.
"Of course I can't say for sure, but Lucy …" Mira pats the top of her head and it almost seems to miraculously make Lucy's wild running thoughts quiet down. "I'm glad for you."
In any other case, Lucy would probably have denied everything, spluttering that there's no reason to be glad, it's just a ring and she isn't even sure who it came from, but now, she just stays silent and gives Mira a shaky nod. The white-haired woman beams and pats her head again.
"Don't worry, it'll be fine."
With that, the barmaid resumes her work, hurrying to another guild member and Lucy is left alone a bit less nervous, but with butterflies in her stomach (a whole swarm of them) and redness in her cheeks, feeling so hopeful she might burst from it.
She takes another sip from her beverage, then yet another, and when she takes her sixth sip, there's a voice behind her that makes her almost spit the sweet liquid out again.
"Let's do a mission today, Lucy!"
There's an "Aye" accompanying it and she slowly turns around to the one person she honestly believes has so little romantic in him that he'd put a ring on her finger without even asking. She gulps.
"Luuucyyy."
Natsu is waving a hand in front of her face and she reddens when she notices she's been outright staring at him. He's behaving like normal and Lucy suddenly doesn't feel so sure anymore. She takes a deep breath, trying to calm herself, and shows him her hand with the ring, her voice almost giving out on her as she asks "Do – do you have anything to do with this?"
Natsu is still for a moment, then a nervous grin spreads on his face. "About that … promise you'll marry me?"
It may be the most screwed up proposal she's ever imagined Natsu to make (although honestly, she didn't think he'd actually propose to anyone at all) and even though there's a small part that's touched that he's doing this, that he's making her promise (because he knows she will never break a promise she's made and he's really asking her for forever), she can't stop the scream fighting its way out of her mouth.
"Idiot! Don't just make me promise something like that without making sure if I even love you!" Her voice is loud enough to carry the sentence over the entire span of the guild hall and there are quite a few heads that turn into her direction. Lucy desperately wants to take it back or at least vanish into a place where no one can find her. Natsu on the other hand seems shell-shocked and Lucy thinks she might want to take it back for different reasons.
"You don't?", he says with a horrified expression and Lucy immediately feels guilty, because that couldn't be farther from the truth and because she can see the hurt in his eyes if she looks hard enough. Her face is burning red as she answers. "I do! I do, alright?"
His face goes bright again and he lets out an almost relieved-sounding laugh. "For a moment there, I thought I was the only one." Happy throws in a "he liiikes you", complete with snigger and mischievous eyes, and Natsu nods in full agreement with his friend.
Lucy simply looks at him dazed, heartbeat quickening from his words, and then her feelings for him are simply too much for her to keep in and she pulls him into the fiercest embrace she's capable of. "I promise", she whispers into his chest, because now her voice really has given out on her, and she loves him more than she can ever put into words and it doesn't matter that she was raised not to just jump to the wedding, it doesn't matter that it's usually 'i love you' first, because Fairy Tail has never been conventional and Natsu least of all. She feels Natsu return the hug for a long moment before he breaks away from her, still holding her hand.
"Alright! Let's go on that mission, Lucy!"
And then he's running out of the hall with her, grinning like a madman and gripping her hand tightly while Happy flies after them and the guild erupts into the sort of belated cheers that make her wonder if they know the whole story.
She laughs, tears in her eyes, and once again a pink-haired boy is dragging her with him down the road to a happy future.