Category: Romantic Fluff

Characters: Lucy Heartfilia, Natsu Dragneel

Requested By: searchfortheonepiece (Tumblr)

Natsu's nose twitched as a heavenly scent wafted up his nose, and, like a demon preparing to rob a baby from its cradle, he squatted on all fours in the frame of Lucy's window, salivating shamelessly as she aroma drifted in through the entryway of her kitchen. If he had a tail, it would be wagging non-stop; whatever she was baking in the kitchen smelled absolutely delectable, and it was making him ravenous. The instant he had caught wind of it on the street, he knew he had to have it. Really, Lucy was all but inviting him in; why else would she leave the windows open and allow it to spill out into the cobblestoned streets? She would've known that Natsu would come pestering her on a Saturday; it was ritualistic at this point. Well, Natsu wasn't about to refuse a downright open invitation for food, now was he?

Lithe as a jungle cat, he hopped down from the windowsill to prowl across the laminate floor of her apartment, swiping his tongue across his lower lip and taking a second to suck up some of the drool leaking from his grinning mouth. Lucy wouldn't like it if he slobbered all over her floor like a hound dog. His stomach was twisting into knots at the anticipation; it was baying like a hound itself, and he put a hand over his belly, drawing his abs tight in a vain effort to silence its greedy howls. He had no idea what exactly she was making; he only had a clear view of the kitchen table from his perch, not the counters or oven, so he was literally vibrating in suspense. Natsu liked meat best, but sweets were a close second. Could she be making a cake? Cookies? Pastries? Ugh, he had to know and then sink his teeth into whatever it was!

His footfalls were silent as he snuck down the hallway. Just as he had arrived in the entryway, nearly panting like a dog with his pupils shrunk down in voracious desire, his belly gave a particularly adamant yowl of demand. He froze as the gurgling sound echoed in the quiet apartment, staring at Lucy as she jumped and whirled around. She was holding a plastic spatula coated with some pink batter, and it splattered across the countertop and floor with her sudden movement. Natsu's face slowly turned the color of his hair as he gawked owlishly at her, one leg still hiked up in a tip-toe and his arms held out wide on either side to maintain his balance.

"You didn't have to sneak in here, you know," she said finally once she realized it was the dragon-slayer who had come calling. She jutted out a hip, resting her prim little hand on it as she puffed out her cheeks indignantly. "I left the window open for a reason! Jeez, you're gonna give me a heart attack one of these days."

A stupidly giddy smile split Natsu's face at the fact that Lucy had indeed left the window open just for him. His foot fell down to the floor in a happy little scamper. He pranced like a baby deer up to her, green eyes alight with glee as he peeked into the bowl of pink batter she had been stirring before he startled her. His nostrils flared as he breathed in deep, his heightened senses allowing him to discern that the delicious scent he had been so enraptured with was strawberry. No wonder he had been gripped with an overwhelming need; strawberries reminded him of Lucy's smell. Hers had a slight undertone of lemon, though, which made for an interesting combination that made Natsu's tongue tingle a little bit every time he caught a whiff of her.

"What are you making?"

"Cupcakes!" she answered jovially with another twirl. She jabbed the spatula back into the bowl of batter to resume stirring it with gusto. "Valentine's Day is coming up, and so I thought that I might make cupcakes for everyone at the guild."

"That's gonna be a lot of cupcakes," he frowned thoughtfully as he tried to do the math in his head. It proved too daunting a task. It seemed he had arrived before any of the cupcakes were finished, so he walked over to her kitchen table to flip a chair around and straddle it, resting his crossed arms on the chair's curved back and propping his chin down on the meat of his forearm.

"Where's Happy?"

"He's with Wendy and Carla. We were walkin' and happened to run into 'em, and they said they were going shopping, so he went with 'em because Wendy promised to take him to the fish market." Lucy laughed and said something along the lines of "sounds like him." Natsu had stopped listening because he was enthralled with the way her body moved as she repeatedly swirled the thick batter around, her arms flexing with each turn. One wouldn't think it when looking at her, but Lucy was toned; his keen green eyes flickered as he watched the tendons subtly stretch beneath the milky skin of her arms. Her hips bounced a little too as she dug into the batter, trying to eliminate any remaining chunks of powdery batter. Sexy… he thought absentmindedly.

Natsu's face immediately blazed with a fiery blush again, and he hurriedly jerked his gaze away to the much less interesting bag of flour beside her. Natsu really didn't know what to do when it came to Lucy. He liked Lucy, a lot; he probably even loved her. He just didn't understand it all that well. He had never been in love before. He knew that platonic love and romantic love were supposed to be different, but he didn't know how to act differently to express how he felt. He was handsy and made off-handed comments and such, thinking Lucy may get the hint, but so far it seemed to him that she thought they were really, really good friends. That was true, of course, but it was frustrating because Natsu wasn't sure how to upgrade.

"There. That oughta do," Lucy said to herself. He looked back to see her grab a nearby baking ban for heart-shaped cupcakes. With a small grunt, she hoisted the heavy bowl of batter up and began spooning it into the holes. She had clearly made double or even triple the recommended amount in order to feed the whole guild, because the bowl was nearly spilling over with the frothy pink stuff. Natsu's eyebrows quirked as he noticed her arm begin to tremble violently with the strain of hefting it up, and she began to grow red-faced and out of breath. Wordlessly, he slung his leg over the chair to push himself up and tottered over, easily hooking his arm behind hers to push the bottom of the bowl up with the flat of his hand and reduce the strain on her. "Oh, thank you, Natsu!" she cried, throwing him a grateful, beaming smile. Natsu felt his heart constrict in his chest, and the twisting pain almost made him drop the bowl. God, he loved it when she smiled. It was so gorgeous that it was enough to make a man's heart halt in his chest.

Lucy filled the pan and they eased the bowl back down onto the counter. Natsu had to try real hard not to stare at her behind as she walked over to the oven to slide the pan in. Natsu didn't want to figure himself a pervert, but it was so hard when she bent over and it was just… right… there. Oh, God, now he wanted to slap it. Biting down on his knuckles hard enough to draw blood, Natsu whipped around so he wasn't looking at her anymore, eyes shaking as he blushed hard enough to pop a blood vessel and get a nosebleed. God dammit, why did she have to be so stupidly gorgeous? If she ever got an inkling of the kinds of thoughts he had in his head, she would slap him silly.

"Natsu? You okay?" He nearly jumped a foot in the air as her innocent voice rang over his shoulder. He couldn't look at her until his blush quieted down, so he just laughed nervously, zooming to the fridge to begin rifling through it without thinking of what he was pretending to look for.

"Yeah, um, I'm just, really thirsty!" he lied quickly as he grabbed random things that were definitely not made for drinking, like a bottle of ketchup and a jar of pickles. Lucy watched him with knitted eyebrows until he picked up a bottle of water and his frazzled brain successfully registered the fact that it was a beverage, in fact made for drinking. He slammed the fridge closed and bolted upright, laughing again before guzzling the entire bottle in about three huge gulps. "Ah, that's better!" His voice was several octaves higher than normal due to his heightened anxiety. He tossed the bottle at the trashcan, thinking maybe he could look cool after a whole minute of looking like a freak, but it bounced off. He watched with big green eyes as it bounded across the floor only to land right back at his feet. "Goddammit," he sighed and plucked it up to deliver it to the trashcan like a normal human. Lucy giggled, doing that thing where she held her hand up to her mouth, and Natsu thought he might die.

"Heehee, anyway, would you like to help me make the icing, Natsu?" She waited patiently with an expectant look as his fried brain struggled to process the question. "Yes," "yes," you want to say "yes," Natsu, he reprimanded himself after a moment too long of consideration.

"Er, yeah, I'd love to!" he responded jovially. As she turned around, he shrunk back into himself, biting on his nails. Did he look too excited? It was just frosting, for crying out loud. Lucy didn't say anything, so he sighed in relief, thinking that she must not be thinking anything of his excitable behavior. He walked back over to stand over her shoulder, watching with curious eyes as she piled the frosting ingredients into the bowl.

"Here! Stir this!" Natsu jumped back as she suddenly whirled around to shove the bowl and a whisk into his hands. He had been standing right behind her, close enough that his breath was puffing over her ear, and if it hadn't been for his reflexes, the bowl would've tipped, and the stuff would've gone spilling all down his front. He grabbed the bowl in a white-knuckled grip and began whisking it, trying to keep his cheeks from turning pink again. For a second, he thought Lucy's cheeks might be pink, too, but she spun around to go check on the rising cupcakes for him to be sure. "Mhmm, they smell so good," she admired breathily.

"Yeah, I can't wait to sink my teeth into 'em," Natsu growling in appreciation as he continued to lackadaisically swirl the frosting mixture. It was thickening rapidly into a white, gluey paste, requiring him to put a little more backbone than he would imagine putting into whisking frosting. Man, and Lucy does this a lot. This is hard work! He thought as she came over to peek into the bowl. He lowered it so she could inspect it properly.

"You're doing good." It was a light compliment but Natsu gushed like a teenage girl about it anyway. "By the way, you only get one! I want to make sure there's enough for everyone," she warned him firmly, waggling a finger in his face. He scowled slightly; one measly cupcake wasn't enough to satiate his rapturous hunger, but he didn't want to see Lucy upset after all the hard work she was putting in for everyone. "Promise me!"

"Yeah, yeah, I promise, sheesh," he huffed as she took the bowl from him and set it on the counter. He poked out his lips in a childish pout. "But I'm starving, Lucyyyy…"

"I'll make you dinner after this is done, okay?"

"Woohoo! You're the best!" he howled in glee and threw up his arms into the air. She looked over her shoulder at him with a smile and an amused huff. By this time, the cupcakes had finished baking. Lucy removed them from the oven and set them on some potholders, allowing them to cool a bit before plucking them from the molds. They filled the pan with another batch and slipped it into the oven before returning to the next task, icing the cupcakes. Natsu kept fluttering around her, asking if they were ready yet, and she kept barking that if they didn't cool enough the icing would melt all over the place. It was an agonizingly long time until she allowed him to pick up a butter knife and begin smoothing the creamy mixture over the rounded tops of the cupcakes. He found it a task that required more delicacy than he imagined, as he kept doing it sloppily and getting icing all over his fingers. Not that he cared, because that just meant he got to lick it off. Lucy made him wash his hands every time, though, saying that no one wanted to eat his spit.

After that she let him douse the cupcakes in pink sprinkles. Lucy showed him a neat trick where she filled a bowl with the sprinkles and dunked the cupcake into them, coating the icing evenly in sprinkles. Natsu marveled at her ingenuity, and she got all flustered when he called her a genius and lavished awe on her. After about an hour of repeating the process, Natsu was now salivating at a big red serving plate laden with their masterpieces.

"They all look so delicious… I don't know which one I wanna eat," he said as he crouched down so he was eye-level with the treats, inspecting each on critically with his eager fingers drumming on the table. Lucy laughed from where she was washing the dishes at the sink.

"Choose wisely, because that's the only one you're gonna get until tomorrow." Natsu whined loudly at the impossible task before him. They all looked so perfect! After a few minutes of deliberation, he plucked one that looked particularly delicious and stood up, turning to her. She was just finishing, wiping her hands off on a dish towel.

"Here, Lucy. You try first!" he grinned and shoved the cupcake against her lips, smearing a little of the frosting on the underside of her nose.

"What? I thought you wanted to eat it!" she cried, voice muffled by the spongey cake smooshed against her lips.

"You worked so hard to make these! You deserve to get the first one!" he insisted. Natsu's stomach was yowling and scratching at his insides in angry protest, but Natsu knew that was the right thing to do. Shyly, Lucy opened her mouth to take a dainty bite of the cupcake, chewing thoughtfully when she drew away.

"Yummy!" she beamed. "We make a great team!"

"What? We knew that already," Natsu laughed and proceeded to pop the entire cupcake into his mouth. It made his cheeks bulge out like a chipmunk's. He instantly melted into the chair he had been sitting in, the mute tang of strawberry mixing with the divine cream frosting making him ascend into blissful nirvana. "Ahhh… That's so good," he said as he smacked his lips and continued to work at the thick frosting coating his tongue. "Now I'm sad I only get one," he moped with a longing look at the cupcakes.

"You should've savored it instead of eating it whole!"

"I was so hungry though," he pouted, but he knew better than to test her ire by attempting to sneak another one. She enclosed the serving tray with the matching lid before picking it up and putting it on the counter to deliver to the guild the following day. He could tell she was beat by the way her shoulders sagged and she sighed every few minutes and her eyes drooped. Nonetheless, she was tying a new apron around herself and pulling out pots and pans.

"What do you want for dinner, Natsu?"

"… You don't have to," he refused suddenly. She looked up at him wide-eyed from her spot on the floor, half-way through pulling a skillet from her cabinet.

"What? I thought you were hungry."

"Well, I am, but," he scowled as he fought his ravenous belly, "you look so tired after baking all those cupcakes… All this cooking is hard work… It's not cool of me to impose like that."

"Oh, now you grow a conscience?" she laughed teasingly before standing up, skillet in hand. She flipped it around before plunking it down on the stove. "I don't mind," she told him gently, and the way her expression softened made him bolt upright in his seat. She was looking down at the empty skillet with an almost… loving expression. "Cooking for the people I care about isn't a chore. I don't mind at all, Natsu." She flipped her head around, tossing her lovely blonde hair, and Natsu was hit with a wind of that lovely lemon-strawberry scent that made his nerves go wild. "You don't have to answer. I've got a recipe I've been wanting to try out," she chirped, turning her back to him again as she tried to reach up above the stove where her shelf of recipes sat. She pursed her lips as she accidently shoved it back, out of reach of her wiggling fingers. "Oh, dammit, let me get a chair."

Natsu was behind her suddenly, with no recollection of even moving, reaching up to easily pluck the book she had been grasping for from the shelf. She tilted her head back to stare up at him as he lowered it into her waiting hands. "Oh… Thanks, Natsu." She gawked at him as if expecting him to retreat. His body was caging her against the stove, his chest just barely pressing against her back, arms slowly reaching around to grip the stove on either side of her body. His nostrils were flaring as he drank in that scent of her, the tangy zest of lemon-strawberry, his nerves singing with every puff of it that wafted up his keen nose.

Natsu didn't know what to do about Lucy, but his body did.

He was suddenly aware of how big he was compared to her when his hand slid underneath her chin, fingers stretching all the way to the undersides of her ears as he gently turned her face over her shoulder. Lucy did not resist; like a puppet to his will, her body folded for him, allowing him to maneuver her as he wished. He scanned her wide brown eyes for any sense of fear or discomfort as his face hovered over hers, only a few centimeters away. She didn't seem scared; her eyes were blown wide, shaking, but Natsu could discern the unmistakable glimmer of excitement and anticipation brimming in the rich brown depths.

Still, he wanted to be sure.

"Can I kiss you, Lucy?" His voice was husky, raw with months of suppressed desire. Her eyelids twitched as if she were a doll suddenly springing to life. She blinked once, twice, before looking at him in mild surprise.

"Of course you can, Natsu." She phrased it as if he should know, which made him flush lightly in embarrassment. Who knew how long she had been waiting for him to pull a move? He squirmed uncomfortably, all the confidence he had just had in the moment dissipating like it had drained out the soles of his feet. Lucy giggled that little giggle that made his soul light on fire and reached up to thread her fingers into his cotton candy-colored tufts of hair. "Kiss me," she demanded in a breathy whisper. Natsu felt a pleasurable shiver sing up his spine. Dammit, she was sexy, looking at him through lidded eyes and ordering him around like that. Hot damn.

He didn't keep her waiting any longer. With a wolfish smirk, he dove down to smooth his lips over her own. He relished the way her nails scratched along his scalp as soon as he made contact, and the contented hum that vibrated against his moving lips. His thick arms encircled her waist to tug her against his body, because it felt like she simply couldn't be close enough to him. Their noses bumped a little as he passionately kissed her; it felt like his hunger for food had morphed into a hunger for her mouth, because he couldn't get enough, not nearly enough. His tongue kitten-licked at her lips, begging for entry, and when she parted her lips for him and he got a taste of her he nearly collapsed on the spot. Strawberry cupcakes and icing and lemon-strawberry bliss, that's what she tasted like. It might as well have been alcohol because he was drunk on it.

They separated but only just. Natsu's eyes flickered down to watch the string of saliva snap between their moistened mouths. Hot damn. It made him want to kiss her once more so he could see it all over again. Her fingers were lovingly threading through his messy hair, and her head fell back against her shoulder as she opened up her eyes to gaze at him with a feeling so powerful that Natsu wanted to cry. "I love you, Natsu."

"I love you too, Lucy." He smiled and hugged her as he nuzzled his cheek against hers. She made a happy purring sound that had his veins humming with unbridled glee. He had never heard the sound before, but dammit if he didn't want to hear it more, every day for the rest of their lives. She allowed him to hold her for a moment before she straightened up and began grabbing random implements to cook.

"Natsu, do you want dinner or not?"

"Yeah, but I don't wanna let go," he said as he buried her face into the crook of her neck and breathed deep. Lemon-strawberries tickled his nose alongside the fine blonde hairs. He had spent so long wishing to hold her like this; he was gonna get his time's worth. Lucy exhaled deeply in resignation.

"All right, all right, but I have to go to the fridge," she said. Natsu shuffled his body along with hers like a male penguin toting about its young. After a second, a thought occurred to him.

"Hey, Lucy."

"Hmm?"

"Next time you should make lemon frosting."

"Like strawberry lemonade cupcakes? Now that's an idea," she said, pausing from the chicken was slicing against the cutting board. Natsu grinned to himself, burying his face further into the warmth of her being.

No… Like Lucy.