And They Danced
When Lucy had first woken up, she had no idea her day was going to start off so horribly. As soon as she had gotten into work, her ridiculously awful boss, Minerva, had yelled at her in front of the entire floor about not having her article submitted on time. Lucy had almost burst into tears when Minerva started yelling at her but she had only stood there stoically until the vindictive, horrible woman was done. Then she had walked calmly to her office, but if she were honest, it was probably more like fleeing.
Once Lucy was safely hidden away in her office, her blinds shut and her door locked, she let her head fall into her hands with a low moan. Did Minerva have to call her out in front of the other reporters and various other staff members? Why did she have to be such an awful, awful person! She knew that…woman knew her father had just passed away and she had requested time off because of it, and that's why her article wasn't "on time" but…ugh! That woman! Just then, her phone rang and her hand shot out unconsciously to answer it.
"Lucy Heartfilia," she said automatically, her head still down on her desk and her thoughts a mess. She just wanted to have a good first day back; was that too much to ask?
"I'M GETTING MARRIED!" Lucy's head shot up and her mouth gaped open as she heard her friend Mira's voice thunder over the line. She suddenly felt even worse than she had before when she remembered that Mira's bachelorette party was tonight and she was expected to be there. And she had completely forgotten.
"Yeah you are!" Lucy cried back, injecting her voice with cheer. She truly was excited for Mira, honestly. She was just struggling with switching so suddenly from irritation and sadness to happiness. But she would do it for Mira if it killed her! Mira was one of her absolute best friends and Lucy would do pretty much anything for her friends.
"Are you so excited about the party tonight!" Mira squealed on the other side of the line while Lucy scrambled to remember what was going on tonight. Oh that was right! They were supposed to go to a bar…some bar that Mira and her other girl friends had gone to for years but that Lucy herself had never really gotten around to going to.
"I am so excited to be able to celebrate your upcoming wedding!" Lucy said sincerely, "Laxus is a truly lucky man, Mira! He's getting the best girl in the world! Can't wait to see you tonight, almost Mrs. Dreyar!"
Mira laughed delightedly as she repeated Lucy's sentiment about her new name. Mira had been wedding planning for months and was so excited to be marrying the man of her dreams in a week. Lucy was just as excited for her and had been a huge part of the planning process, as well as planning what was going on tonight with the rest of the girls, although Lucy would readily admit that Cana had done the majority of the planning for this night.
"So what time are we supposed to come pick you up, Mrs. Dreyar-to-be?" Lucy asked in a teasing voice once Mira was done giggling.
"Eight o'clock sharp!" Mira trilled just as someone knocked on Lucy's office door. With a very put-upon sigh, Lucy bade Mira farewell and promised to see her that night before going and opening the door, feeling today was going to be a very long day.
Lucy was right about her day being long. After Mira's phone call, she had had no fewer than twelve other reporters drop by her office to give her their condolences over her dad and to commiserate with her about Minerva's being a bitch. Lucy felt like she had fielded so many well wishes and unflattering comments about their boss that her head was going to explode. It wasn't until lunch that the last person finally left and Lucy was able to get back to her article.
If having to field all those people wasn't enough, Lucy's computer had crashed, causing about half of the work she had done on her article to disappear. She had called IT about the crash and had been sitting at her desk despairingly when the two guys, Max and Warren, had come in, arguing. Lucy had sighed at their antics and left her office while they tried to retrieve her work and make sure her computer wouldn't crash again.
While out getting her lunch, Lucy had realized she had forgotten her wallet, and had to go all the way back to her office to get it, only to see the IT guys still there. With a huge sigh, Lucy had left once again to get her lunch only to split half of it with a homeless teenager she saw on the street. She felt pretty good about that since the kid was super scrawny and half-starved. Once she got back to the office, though, her day didn't get any better; if anything, it got a bit worse. Max and Warren told her her computer was totally fried and that they had gotten all they could off of it but would need to get her a new one. With no way to work until they got her a new computer, though, Minerva had deigned to send her home early to work on the article at her own home.
Once safely at home, Lucy had sat at her computer and worked on the article until it was completely finished and her eyes were tired and heavy. She e-mailed the finished product to the proofreading department and Minerva at her work and then leaned back in her chair, rubbing tiredly at her eyes. What a long day… Lucy thought to herself.
As Lucy stood to stretch, her doorbell rang. Curious, she went over to see who it was only to have the door almost crash into her face as her friends fell into her apartment, giggling madly. Cana was in the lead, the brunette laughing wildly as she adjusted her crop top and swung a bottle of booze at Lucy once she righted herself. Levy and Erza were a close second, apparently having already started to drink, too, since Levy was giggling madly and Erza was contemplating something quite seriously.
"Are you kidding me?!" Lucy cried as the three picked themselves up off the floor, "You could have broken my nose! Why didn't you wait until I opened the door!"
"Lucy! Lucy! Lucy!" Levy laughed as she wrapped her arms around the blonde's neck, "Mira's getting married!"
"I know that, Levy," Lucy said with a sigh. Cana must have convinced them to have a few drinks before they came over and Lucy wanted to strangle her for it.
"They really didn't have that much. It's not my fault they're lightweights," Cana said with a shrug when she felt Lucy's disapproving gaze on her. Lucy was about to open her mouth furiously when Mira and Juvia strolled in, followed by a rather excited looking Bisca.
"I'm getting married!" Mira yelled out excitedly as she twirled around in her "bride" get up. She had a god awful tiara and veil sitting on her head and a sash that proclaimed "BRIDE". Lucy felt her eye twitch as she noticed Juvia was holding very similar sashes, but with the word "BRIDESMAID" on them instead.
"Ooo give me mine!" Levy cried as she let go of Lucy and lurched forward, Bisca reaching forward, alarmed, as Levy swayed dangerously.
"Cana!" Mira whined as she noticed Levy and Erza's rather intoxicated states, "I told you not to start drinking until I got here!" Lucy's eye definitely twitched at that. What about here? They were supposed to go to a bar, not her apartment!
"It was just two little shots of tequila," Cana brushed off Mira's comment, "They'll be fine in no time."
As it turned out as the girls all collected their sashes and headed out for a night on the town, after spending about an hour at Lucy's apartment eating all of her food and drinking the booze Cana brought, they were not fine; they just got more and more sloshed as the night wore on before it finally brought them to the girls' (minus Lucy) favorite bar, Fairy Tail.
It had been a pretty tame night by Fairy Tail standards when seven gorgeous girls came wandering in. Natsu and his fellow bartender, Gray, both grinned when they saw them. Five of them were regulars and had practically grown up with Gray and Natsu while the other two were new faces.
"Hey, Mira! Happy wedding!" Gray cried from the bar as he subconsciously began to strip off his black button down, causing the blue haired girl with very pale skin and dark eyes to blush profusely.
"Gray!" Natsu roared, looking at the idiot, "Put your clothes back on, pervert!"
"What?" he asked before looking down at himself and realizing he had already untucked his shirt and his rather spectacular abs were now on display, "Not again!"
Mira and the other girls laughed while the two newcomers looked on curiously. The new blue haired girl was staring at Gray like she wanted to eat him while the really pretty blonde one looked highly uncomfortable. They all waved as they headed off into the back, to a booth they always used when they came around. Natsu watched them go with something akin to wistfulness on his face when he felt someone hit him on the back of the head.
"Put your eyes back in your sockets, flame brain," Gray said with a roll of his eyes, "We have orders to make."
Natsu really wanted to sock Gray in the face for that one, but tore his eyes away from the girls and the blonde in particular before he started making drinks and giving them to Lisanna to serve. Before he knew it, final calls had passed and he was cleaning up the bar alone, having sent Lisanna, Gray, the other waitress, Kinana, and their cook, Nab, home.
Natsu really didn't mind cleaning up by himself. He didn't really have anyone to go home to besides his cat, Happy, and the little guy was actually staying over with his cousin, Gajeel, to hang out with his new cat, Lily. So all he had at home at the moment was a TV, and Natsu wasn't really feeling it. As he was contemplating what he had left to do besides sweeping, the bell above the door rang, letting him know it had been opened.
"Sorry, we're closed," Natsu said as he started to look up, only to feel like he'd swallowed his own tongue as he saw the blonde who had been spending time with Mira, Erza, and the others that night. She smiled at him rather sheepishly as she approached the bar anyway.
"I'm sorry," the woman said with a very apologetic expression on her face, "I know you're closed, but I really hope I left my purse here earlier tonight. I haven't had it that I can remember since I came in here."
Natsu felt immediately sorry for the woman; not having your wallet sucked big time and he knew most women carried their wallets in their purses.
"Um I think Lisanna brought one over when she was cleaning out the booths," Natsu said with a shrug as he leaned over to look through the shelves underneath the bar, "It's probably yours."
Once he had found the purse, he stood with a triumphant grin and held it up like some kind of trophy.
"Is this your purse?" Natsu asked with the same grin on his face as the woman looked at the black and white polka dotted purse in relief.
"That is mine! Oh my gosh I am so glad it was here! I don't know what I would have done if it wasn't here," the blonde gushed as she reached forward to take the purse from him. As she reached for the purse, though, Natsu realized that once she had it, she would leave, and he inexplicably didn't want her to leave. So he did the only logical thing he could think of; he leaned back, just barely keeping the purse out of his reach.
"Um can I please get my purse?" the woman asked with a tight, but still polite, smile.
"How do I know this is actually your purse?" Natsu asked her with another flashy grin, "For all I know you saw someone leave it here earlier tonight and now you want to take whatever's in it."
The woman's eye twitched just briefly and Natsu suddenly had the very bad feeling that he was about to get slapped, but then she just smiled and flipped her hair behind her ear.
"If I show you my ID, would you believe it's mine?" she inquired, suddenly leaning forward on the bar. Natsu's eyes flashed down to where her chest now rested on the bar and then back up to her face. Didn't she realize he had just wiped it down? Now he was going to have to do it all over again!
"How about I look at the ID in here and then tell you what I think?" Natsu asked cheekily as he leaned even further away from the bar and started digging through the woman's purse. With an indignant shriek about keeping out of her private things, she lunged across the bar in an attempt to get him to stop pawing through her stuff, but Natsu was too fast and he leapt away with a laugh as he pulled out the wallet and looked at the ID.
"Lucy?" he said as he pulled the ID out of the little sleeve holding it, "Is your name Lucy?"
With cheeks burning, Lucy confirmed that it was indeed her name and could he please give her purse back? But the pink haired man whose nametag proclaimed him to be Natsu just shook his head and continued to paw through her purse.
"Why do you have so much stuff in here?" Natsu asked, utterly bewildered by the amount of things Lucy could cram in her purse. He had found, not one but two, full size bottles of lotion, her wallet, a pad of paper and several pens, keys, various make-up items, a travel size toothbrush, toothpaste, and floss, a small first aid kit, a pack of tissues, and somewhat inexplicably a deck of cards. That was when Lucy succeeded in reaching across the bar and snatching the purse out of his hands though. He was pretty certain, given more time, that he would have found more stuff. Her purse seemed bottomless.
"It's none of your business!" Lucy screeched, her cheeks still a brilliant red, as she rearranged everything in her purse back to how she liked it, looking up to glare at the unapologetic bartender every few seconds.
"So I saw you here with Mira and Erza earlier," Natsu said as the silently fuming blonde kept moving things around in her bag. "How do you know them?"
"We were in the same sorority," Lucy said rather begrudgingly as she finished righting her purse, "They were a year ahead of me as well as Cana, Levy was in the same year as me and so was Juvia, and Mira introduced me to Bisca when she started nannying her little girl." Natsu nodded with a smile on his face; he liked Bisca's little girl Asuka, even when she tried to make him do things he'd rather not, like pretend to be a horse.
"That's cool. I've known all of them, except that girl Juvia or whatever, since I was little. We all went to school together and were kind of adopted by the guy who owns this bar," Natsu told her as he leaned back against the opposite side of the bar. Unexpectedly, Lucy sat down at the bar stool directly in front of him and started to ask him what it was like to grow up around all of those girls and then she regaled him with tales of growing up in a mansion, only to run as far as she could when she finally turned eighteen. Before they knew it, Natsu's phone alarm announced it was five o'clock and they both startled to realize they had been talking for at least three hours nonstop.
"Oh is that the time?" Lucy said rather frantically as she looked at her own phone. When she realized his alarm had not been wrong, she groaned.
"What's wrong, Luce?" Natsu asked with some concern when she laid her head on her arms down on the bar and pouted.
"I have to go to work in a few hours," Lucy's muffled voice came out from between her folded arms.
"Oh that sucks," Natsu stated, very matter-of-fact. Lucy just groaned again before she lifted her head and began to stand. Feeling something akin to panic, Natsu grabbed her purse and hid it behind his back. He really didn't want her to leave.
"Natsu!" she cried exasperatedly, even while her eyes danced with amusement, "Come on I have to go home! I have to sleep!"
"Dance with me," Natsu blurted out randomly. He wasn't sure why, exactly, he wanted to dance with her, but it felt right and it would keep her around for a bit longer.
"What?" Lucy asked, astonished. Did this pink haired hottie not understand she had to work in a few hours?
"Dance with me and I'll give it back," Natsu told her with a cheeky grin as he put the purse back under the bar, leapt over said bar, and then turned the jukebox on to some slow song Lucy had never heard before.
"One dance," Lucy said sternly while trying hard to suppress a smile at his antics. With a delighted whoop, Natsu wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her into his embrace. Feeling suddenly shy, Lucy just wrapped her arms around his neck and laid her head on his chest, refusing to look up and let him see the pinkness of her cheeks.
Natsu couldn't believe he was dancing with this beautiful woman he had just met, that she was allowing him to hold her like he would never let her go. As he spun them slowly around the bar's floor, he couldn't help but lay his cheek down on the top of her hair. As soon as he inhaled, he could smell her scent of coconut and chocolate and he had to admit, she was the best thing he had ever smelled.
Lucy felt like her heart was going to pound out of her chest as Natsu held her and danced them around the room. Was she really letting some random dude hold her like they had been lovers for years? But she couldn't help herself. It felt completely right to be in Natsu's arms like this. To be leaning into him, to let him support her, to lay her head against his chest and feel him breathing in and out. What was wrong with her?
Neither of them noticed when the song actually ended, too wrapped up in each other and the moment to realize the music had stopped and the bar was silent outside of their steps as they moved across the hardwood floor. Gradually they came back to reality and Lucy stepped away from Natsu first, eyes shining with something dangerously close to attraction and admiration. Natsu felt a little bereft when she stepped away and even more upset when he watched her pick her purse up from the bar; he wasn't ready for her to leave.
Lucy hesitated as she turned away from Natsu and headed towards the door. What was wrong with her? She had never in her life felt so instantly connected to someone, and it scared the crap out of her. She couldn't help but feel like she was making a huge mistake as she took step after step towards the door of Fairy Tail.
Did he just let her go? Would he ever see her again? Natsu felt so many thoughts whirling around his head, thoughts he had never had since he usually just did whatever and hoped for the best, that he wasn't sure what was going on, or what to do. She was leaving. He was watching her walk away and he realized he couldn't take it. He couldn't just let her leave, right?
"Lucy wait!" Natsu cried as Lucy's hand finally landed on the door of the bar and she started to open it. Lucy turned to him, feeling immense and inexplicable relief fill her when he started walking towards her.
"Don't leave," Natsu said softly as he reached out to cup her face in one hand and pull her towards him with the other.
"I have to go home," Lucy said with a sigh as she stared into Natsu's dark eyes. Why did it feel so wrong to be leaving his side? She just didn't understand why being there, with him, felt so right.
"Marry me," Natsu blurted out randomly, as usual speaking before actually thinking.
"What?" Lucy gasped, feeling her world tilt even further on its side, "But we just met!"
"So?" Natsu said with a huge grin as he felt an utter sense of right fill him, "It feels right." Lucy could only gape at him as his words registered in her mind. It felt right? But they just met! People don't marry people they just met, right? Not if they wanted to have long, happy lives together. First you are friends, then you date, then you get married, just like Mira and Laxus, right?
"What do you say?" Natsu asked, his voice taking on a husky quality that sent a shiver down Lucy's spine, "Take a chance, Lucy. I promise you won't regret it."
Lucy wasn't sure how to respond. Would she regret it? Was Natsu The One? Did she even know what The One was? He made her feel happy, just by standing near her and talking to her. She felt her heart fill with joy at the thought of spending her life with him, even though she barely knew him. He was fun, reckless, silly, fierce, and incredibly loyal. If she could learn all of that about him in a few hours, what more could she learn over a lifetime?
"Yes," Lucy finally whispered after what felt like hours. When Natsu realized that she had agreed, Natsu let out a whoop, lifted her and twirled her in a circle, and then rather clumsily kissed her. Lucy laughed around the kiss even as she twined her fingers into his hair, bringing him even closer and deepening their first kiss. She knew without a doubt that she was doing the right thing. It was crazy and made absolutely no sense, but she was doing the right thing. She laughed again when Natsu finally released her and looked thoroughly awestruck.
"So…" Lucy said, trailing her fingers down Natsu's chest with a sultry grin, "Are we going to the chapel, then?" Natsu grinned as he wrapped his fingers around hers, pulled her back to the bar to grab their things, then proceeded to practically drag her out of the bar and close it up.
"To the chapel we go," Natsu said as his eyes flashed with excitement and adoration before he swooped down for another quick kiss. "Just wait till we tell Mira we got married before her!" he said with a rather maniacal grin.
"Wait!" Lucy said, her eyes as wide as saucers, "We can't ever tell Mira we got married before her!"
"Oh come on, Luce!" Natsu said with a warm laugh, "Where's your sense of adventure!" Natsu then proceeded to sweep his bride-to-be up in his arms, Lucy letting out a startled shriek, and race off towards the chapel and a lifetime's worth of love and laughter.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I just love the idea of Natsu and Lucy meeting and immediately getting married. This one-shot was inspired in large part by the song, "We Danced" by Brad Paisley. As always, I own nothing. Not Fairy Tail, any of its characters, or the song "We Danced" by Brad Paisley.