This has been redone, so if you haven't just re-read it. I've done some slight adjustments, but it won't hurt you to not read it. If this is your first time reading this chapter since my last update (Oct. 1) I do apologize for the late chapter update! My beta is too busy to help me now But enjoy!
Lucy awoke to the loud meowing of a certain cat siting above her head. She grumbled and attempted to move over, but there was an arm trapping her in her spot. She was wondering why she had felt abnormally warm that night, and she turned her head to the body next to her and shrieked. Quite loudly for that fact. The man lying next to her moaned, rolling over as he pulled the pillow over his ears.
"Happy... shut up."
Lucy sat up in her bed, holding the covers over her chest as she shoved Natsu off her bed with a swift kick to the rear end. He fell with a loud thump, and she tugged the covers over her more. He wailed in pain as he rolled around holding his elbow.
"NATSU!"
He looked up groggily at Lucy, whose face was red in embarrassment and her eyes glistened with unshed tears, before it dawned on him where he was exactly. He scrambled back to the opposite wall, his face a scarlet red as he tried to utter words out of his mouth that refused to function.
"I-it's not like that Lucy! J-Just c-calm down."
"DON'T TELL ME TO CALM DOWN! YOU WERE IN MY BED SHIRTLESS AND HOLDING ME!"
"Oh, so you do understand."
"THAT'S NOT THE POINT YOU IDIOT!"
Natsu plugs his ears, wincing as she continued to yell at him. He zoned her out after she said the same things over and over again, and he was getting annoyed with it. He yawned, and attempted to cover it to his elbow as he continued to plus his ears with his fingers. She was still yelling, and it was almost 5 minutes now. Or, it felt like it was 5 minutes. "Okay, okay. I'm sorry! You were just shivering like crazy, and your teeth were chattering and it was getting really annoying. Like, it was so loud!"
He watched as Lucy's face turned a bright shade of red before she shoved her face into her covers. He slowly released the makeshift plug he had on his ears and stood up. He walked to where his shirt was and slipped it on. He snickered as Lucy was screaming profanities into her covers, and he slowly tried to slip out of her apartment. Just as he was about to leave her bedroom, he tripped over Happy and cursed under his breath. Lucy shot up from her spot on the bed, and she stumbled around her covers to chase after the pink haired idiot. He crawled on the floor as fast as he could to the exit, but she jumped in front of him, standing tall before him.
"Don't you dare think of leaving before I can do anything to you!"
As he looked up at the woman, his face flushed and he looked away.
"Y-your shorts…"
Lucy looked down and realized that her shorts were very, very short. And that didn't leave much for the imagination. She squeals in terror, squatting down as she shoved her shirt to cover herself.
"D-don't look, idiot!"
She shoved his face away with her free hand, and she slowly scooted away from him.
"What's there to even see?"
Lucy screeched as she kicked him in the face, standing with her shirt pulled over her shorts with her face a bright shade of red.
"GET OUT! GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT!"
Natsu had landed a ways back, his nose bleeding profusely as he tried to clog it. His face had a slight bruise from her kicking him square in the face, and his right eye was a little swollen.
"YOU DIDN'T HAVE TO KICK ME!"
"YOU WERE BEING RUDE!"
Natsu had gotten up, shoving the end of his shirt up to his nose and was towering over here with a look of anger and distaste.
"I was only telling the truth!"
"Don't be so cruel!"
He winced as she continued to yell at him. His nose was still bleeding, and he didn't know what time it was. He had left his phone at his dorm room, and he knew better than to ask Lucy what time it was. She might yell at him for changing the subject or something dumb.
"Have you finished punishing me for being in your bed?"
Her eye twitched, and she stomped over to her front door and propped it open before she stomped back over to him and grabbed him back his collar and tugged him roughly to the door.
"Don't do that again, idiot!"
She removes her hand from his collar and she turns him quickly around so he's facing outside and she kicks him in the back so he's forced to go outside.
"Fix that nose of yours too! You got blood on my floor!"
"You were the one that kicked me!"
Lucy scoffed, and she slammed the door on his face as he tried to go back inside. He huffed, but ended up sputtering as blood was dripping through his shirt to his mouth. This was going to be a long walk back to the dorm.
As Natsu continued on his day at school, he got tons of comments on his face. He was used to it, but because a girl caused it he was more flustered about it. His eye was slightly swollen, and his nose was pretty bruised up. It looked like he didn't put up a fight, and a lot of the guys at school was poking fun at him because he was all beaten up. He was known for never losing a fight, and to see Natsu with bruises on his face that actually looked pretty bad was hilarious and scary. Slowly, a lot of the students began to spread rumors that there was someone way stronger than Natsu, like scary strong. A lot of people laughed at it, saying that there was no way someone was stronger than Natsu.
The whole thing was frustrating Natsu, and he had this really bad itch to just knock anyone out who came up to him with comments about his face. He was glad he had MMA practice today though, because if he didn't, a lot of people would be seriously hurt because they don't know when to keep their mouth shut. He didn't have the chance to see Gray at all; throwing a few punches at the guy would have helped a lot too!
Natsu just continued to grumble throughout the day as people continued to poke fun at him, and he couldn't be anymore happier that classes were finally over after lunch. He would finally be able to go to practice and vent out his frustration through a punching bag or a person. Or both. Both would work just fine to him.
By the time he ran out of the university and to the school gym, it was packed. All sorts of college guys wanting to let out their angst through sweat and random grunts were already using all the different machines, and he huffed. He ignored everyone else and went straight to the locker room to change out of his jeans. He walked to the back of the locker room away from everyone else, and found his typical locker that was tucked away from the rest and smiled to himself. As he was changing his clothes, someone bumped in to him and he cursed, turning quickly with his hand clenched into a fist.
"What the hell man?!"
The man that had bumped into Natsu scoffed, blowing his long black hair from his face. Natsu's face scrunched up in distaste at the sight of the man. The taller man had fairly long black hair, and piercings on his nose and where his eyebrows should be. After looking a little harder, Natsu noticed four more studs on each of his forearms, but the guy had a lot of scars. The guy looked like he'd been through more than a few fights, and Natsu grinned in excitement. Maybe this guy would actually put up a good fight compared to everyone else at the MMA team.
"I was here first. Why don't you go somewhere else?" Natsu glared at the man, both of his hand clenched tight into a fist. The taller man just scoffed, a small smirk on his face.
"Tch. Think you're hot stuff?" The man scowls at the pinkette, tilting his head slightly to stare at him with a weird glare. Since the pinkette was shorter, it did look slightly menacing. But only slightly. He loved a challenge, and if this guy was willing to give him one, he wanted in.
"Yeah, actually. I mean, I do play with fire." Natsu had this shit eating grin as the man just rolled his eyes.
"You know what I mean idiot."
"Nah, I don't."
"What, are you actually stupid? Get dropped too many times as a kid?"
Natsu slammed the door to his locker shut, and he stood angled with his arms crossed tightly across his chest. He didn't really mind the whole dropped comment, he just wanted to pick a fight with the guy.
"Hardly. But I have a better idea; let's take this to the mat?"
The studded man smirked, and he shrugged.
"Yeah, why not. I've wanted to beat someone up lately."
Natsu laughs at the man, and he cracks his knuckles.
"I'm pretty sure it's going to be me beating you up."
The taller man just grunted and walked away from Natsu's little corner, and Natsu opened his locker door back open to pop the rest of his stuff back into it. He carefully folded his scarf and placed it on top of his backpack before he shut the locker door. He had a wide grin on his face as he was getting more and more pumped to actually have a fight. Hopefully it was going to be a good one, the guy looked pretty tough.
When Natsu made it to the mat, he saw that the guy had already wrapped his hands and was stretching.
"Dude, how long does it take you?" The guy stood there with his arms crossed now, his finger tapping impatiently on his forearm. Natsu knew he was barely 5 minutes, but it still ticked him off that the guy was impatient. They were going to fight, couldn't the guy just wait a few minutes?
"As long as I need! Now let's get to it." Natsu quickly wrapped his hands, making sure they felt comfortable before he slid on his gloves. He watched as the taller man did the same before they walked onto the mat, a small crowd gathered around it. Both fighters popped their mouth guards in before meeting in the center of the mat, both of them shuffling their feet and rolling their shoulders. The yelling around the mat got a lot louder, and they waited to see who would strike first.
Natsu huffed, clenching his teeth tighter on his mouth guard and took a quick step forward as he waited to see what the other man would do. The black haired man just stood still, waiting for an actual strike. Natsu grinned, as well as he could with a mouth guard, and he went in for a punch to his side. The man just shoved his hand aside and sent Natsu a swift kick to the leg to knock him off balance. As Natsu moved backwards to regain his balance, the other man just continued to move forward with several punches aimed at Natsu's head while the pinkette just dodged every attack from the taller man. When
Natsu was finally able to regain a moment to himself, and the other guy just chuckled.
Natsu growled in frustration, and he charged at the guy. After a few punches thrown at each other, Natsu was finally able to land a kick sweep, but the man tangled his legs with Natsu's so that he would fall with him. The two grappled at the floor with Natsu on top, his punches landing every so often. After a few minutes of punches and half attempts at getting out, Natsu stands up. He pops his mouth guard out of his mouth and stands over the man, who now has several cuts on his face from the punches he received, and holds his hand out.
"That was a good fight, but the way it was going, it wasn't going to end." The man stared at Natsu's outstretched hand, contemplating on taking it.
"There's no way we tied. I could have definitely won that." The man rubbed the blood from is cheek as he spoke to Natsu, and Natsu just grinned.
"Oh yeah, you could have definitely won."
"Oi, I'm serious!"
"And I'm serious too!"
The man below him huffed in annoyance and slid his glove off before taking Natsu's gloved hand. Natsu pulled him up with ease, and he grinned at the man.
"I'm Natsu by the way."
"Gajeel."
"What kind of name is that?"
"It was the name given to me!" The two had their heads rubbing against each other, and a small growl could be heard from the two of them. A couple of the guys from the crowd around them came up and pulled them away from each other. Gajeel wiped the blood from his face, taking his other glove off as Natsu did the same. Thankfully he didn't have as much blood as Gajeel, but his nose hurt like no other.
"Are you here with the MMA team?" Natsu looked over to Gajeel, who was holding a cut on his eye with the spare cloth he had, who looked up at him with question in his eyes.
"There's an MMA team here?"
"Well, we're kind of a team. We all just get together on certain days and fight."
Gajeel just stared at the pinkette, a dumbstruck look on his face and he just snickered.
"I can believe an idiot like you is on that team."
Natsu advanced on Gajeel but someone was holding him back from the man, and he scowled at the taller man.
"I'm not an idiot!"
"And I'm not falling for that."
Gajeel turned away from Natsu, a smirk on his face as he walked away.
"Next time we fight, I'll win."
Natsu laughs at Gajeel as he walks away, and he huffs once he's out of ear shot. He angrily ripped his last glove off and he runs a hand through his extremely messy hair. He could feel the sweat drip down his forehead, and his upper lip curled in disgust. He was frustrated; he could have easily defeated that guy, but it kept going nowhere. He was tired of dealing punches and getting punched. Or kicked. He hated that guy's piercing too! They would barely graze his skin, but it felt horrible. Natsu shuddered at the thought of them touching his skin again.
He needed to shower.
Mainly because he was sweating. Not because of that guy.
No. Way.
I'm going to keep chapters fairly short. Thanks to a wonderful review from rebma726 that helped me sort my chapter out! I didn't realize that I bunched in 2 chapters in one ^^" Thanks for reading!
