I wrote this ages ago, but in light of recent events in the chapter I think it's still applicable. God dammit, Hiro Mashima.
My FT OTP Is Women x Clothes
by hashtagartistlife
Natsu Dragneel was going to kill the editors over at Weekly Shonen Magazine.
I mean, he didn't really have a clear-cut idea on how things went on down there (breaking the fourth wall in his profession is strictly discouraged), but he was at least 89% sure that the torture he was currently going through was all their fault. Or maybe more like 92%. Maybe even 99%.
Look, he's just gotta have someone to blame here, he's just gotta, or he's going to go insane.
Gulping, he tore his eyes away from Lucy Heartfilia's glorious, enticing, very nude body and focused on not setting everything around him on fire.
"So, uh," he started, wincing as he noticed his voice was at least two octaves higher than it normally was, "you gonna put on some clothes anytime soon, Luce, or?"
"Hmm," Lucy replied absently, flicking a page over on her book like she wasn't reading it sprawled out on the floor completely naked. At first, Natsu had thought that maybe the Ice Bastard's unholy stripping habit had finally gotten around to Luce as well – after all, it seemed very contagious, what with Juvia picking it up after living with him for only a year—but when her reaction to his pointing out her nudity was a disinterested 'oh, yeah. I know,' he'd known something else was up. Unholy stripper Gray might have been, but he at least was a mostly unintentional unholy stripper. Lucy hadn't seemed to care at all about the fact that she was naked.
"Lucy," he tried again, now profusely sweating—Happy was curled up on Lucy's bare back, giggling at him from behind his paw, the smug traitor— "it's, like, the middle of winter. You gotta put on some clothes."
"I have heating," was her short reply, and Natsu knew that tone of voice—it was her 'I'm reading, interrupt me at your own peril' voice. But he was already in plenty of peril – a little more from his favourite girl would hardly push him into the red, when he was already waaaay over red, gliding straight into orange, yellow, green, all the way down to the end of the rainbow and into ultraviolet. Okay, that might have been a bad analogy, but point was, he was desperate.
"Yeah, but," he managed to get out, before Lucy shut her book with a decisive snap and looked up at him irritably.
"Look, Natsu," she said, gently prodding Happy off her back and getting up from the floor—Natsu turned his head away from her so fast he might've dislocated his head— "I've decided I'm giving up on this whole 'wearing clothes' lark. I just can't be bothered anymore, not when all the clothes I wear get torn and burned and melted and disintegrated and just straight up magically taken off me every two chapters or so. Like, what the hell? It's like the people over at Weekly Shonen have never heard of the word 'consent'. I mean, I did sign a contract till the end of this goddamn manga, but I'm so sick of being treated like this all the time that I figured if that's how things are going to be, I might as well just own it, you know?"
Natsu was still resolutely not looking at her, so he couldn't tell you what the expression on Lucy's face was, but if he had to hazard a guess, it'd be 'angry but resigned'. Not that he was peeking. No sir, Igneel raised him to be better than that.
Mostly.
Lucy sighed. "So, that's what's happening from now on. I don't think anyone will be complaining, either—I mean, this is what they want, right? And all of you guys have already seen me naked so many times that I doubt it'll have any impact anyway. We're always naked around one another."
And he was cool with that—mostly. Look, most other times the nudity ended or was covered up by a single chapter, and he had enough self-control that he could take it in small doses at a time. Plus, the fact that Lucy was usually distressed about said nakedness probably played a part in keeping his hormones in check. But this was entirely different—Lucy voluntarily being naked for entire days on end (if what she was saying was true) was not something his frayed nerves could take.
I signed a contract, I signed a contract, no hooking up till the manga finishes, no hooking up till the manga's done… Natsu chanted in his head as he heard Lucy rustling about behind him, but it wasn't much help. Oh, what the hell?! It's like they want me to fucking break the contract. They can't keep doing this to me. Surely there's gotta be some sort of loophole in that fucking thing—
"Well, are you hungry, Natsu?" Lucy said, and Natsu couldn't stop the instinct to turn his head to face whoever had spoken to him. The moment he set eyes on her, though he wished he'd never turned his head. Hell, he wished he'd never been born with eyes.
Lucy. Naked. But in a frilly pink apron. Naked Lucy. In apron. Holy fuck.
If the situation wasn't what it was, he'dve been thinking that he's the luckiest bastard alive, but tragically, the situation being what it was, he was actually thinking the exact fucking opposite.
"Wha—" why are you in an apron when you literally just said you were going to give up on clothes forever, he tried to say, but what actually came out of his mouth was a hopelessly mangled string of syllables that did not resemble anything coherent. Given the absolute riot in his mind, he thought that getting at least the first syllable right was a bit of an achievement, actually. Lucy raised an eyebrow at him, and fuck—he was so far gone that even that innocuous movement seemed like a flashing beacon to hell.
"Why am I in an apron when I literally just said I was going to give up on clothes forever?" she asked, being practiced at discerning Natsu's incomprehensible gargling—look, boy talked while choking on blood a lot, it's a skill she's had to pick up to explain things to the audience— "Firstly, aprons aren't clothes, Natsu. Secondly, I'm gonna make lunch, and like hell I'm going to be boiling things on a hot stovetop with my entire torso exposed. No third-degree burns on my smooth, creamy skin, thank you. Anyway, you want some? Offer's not gonna stand forever, you know."
Fucking shit hell yeah I want some, his mind screamed, but his mouth hadn't quite caught up with proceedings yet and only spat out further incoherent muttering. Lucy correctly interpreted his wretched excuse for a sentence as "I would love to have lunch, thank you," (even though his mind was decidedly not on lunch) and smiled at him, before turning around and—
Fuck.
Natsu's mouth ran dry, and he leapt out of her (closed) window, shattering it in the process.
"Natsu—!"
Jesus Christ, he was going to get in from her tomorrow. He'd have to let her drag him around on at least twenty missions to help her pay for that window, and to sate her anger besides.
But for now—
He had a bunch of editors (and some fans, and maybe even Hiro fucking Mashima himself) to find and violently murder.
