A date was fine enough.

It felt kind of normal to Natsu, since he already did nearly everything with Lucy. What was different was the way he could reach down for her hand and she'd take it.

"This makes me happy. I don't know how to describe it, but I feel like I'm flying super high and I'm not going to come down," she said.

Natsu asked, "Do you want to see my house?"

"I've actually already seen your house once. I broke in once and…cleaned it. That doesn't make sense when I look back on it," she answered.

"I know! Your scent was everywhere! Happy and I mainly wanted to know if you put on the maid's uniform when you did it," he teased.

Lucy answered, "Of course not, that was only for seduction that one time."

"Speaking of which, you could wear it for me sometime, right?" he said, his tone a little deeper and different than she was used to. Then, as she stood frozen and blushing, he laughed.

"Yeah, right, Natsu! I mean…do you…do you want to see me wear it?"

His only response was to emit something akin to a nervous near-giggle. "Just kidding."

"Are you?"

"I don't know! I didn't think this through before I mentioned it."

Lucy lightly shoved him and then grabbed him by the hand and pulled him back to her side. "Do you ever think anything through?"

He said, "Of course not. That's why I need you. Anyway, I don't think a lot of people in the guild know this, but during the fight with Zeref's army, our house was destroyed."

Her jaw dropped. "Oh no, I didn't…you should have told me."

"We were able to save the stuff that mattered. Just not the walls or roof or anything like that. We've been rebuilding since then. It's actually awesome. Well, it's getting better at least."

"You're building a house?"

"Yeah, our house means a lot to us. It's hard work. Mostly for me. Happy's not great at heavy lifting. We've lived there for a long time, so we want it to be better than ever," he explained.

Lucy followed him down the street that led out of town. "How'd you guys end up with it anyway?"

Natsu said, "The property has actually belonged to different members of the guild for a long time going back. There was an old man in the guild named Miko. I used to do little errands for him all the time. He was nice. I honestly didn't know him that well, but when he died, he wrote in his will that I made him look forward to the future of the guild and left me the house. I'd only been with the guild for about six months then."

"You outright own it?"

"Yeah. I've been a homeowner since I was thirteen."

Lucy sighed. "That actually kind of depresses me. If your house wasn't disgusting, I'd ask to be your roommate. I mean, I assume you built a new house where the old one is, and it's still full of dirty dishes and trash."

Natsu withdrew his hand. "What a mean girlfriend. I'll take you back to the store and ask for a nice one."

"I'll throw you in the river."

He wrapped his arms around her from the side and kissed her hair, flashing that big smile again.

It wasn't as far as Lucy remembered, and it looked drastically different. The house was house-shaped but it looked like it was made from solid grayish rock with colored veins running through it and it hung over the cliff, leaving most of the yard open.

Natsu had put a similarly constructed rock fence around the whole property with a ridiculous sign that said, 'Beware of Cat.'

"How did you make this?" she asked.

"Big rocks. I drag them over here, and I melt them into lava, and then they're sort of like hot clay. When it cools off, the new parts and old parts have melted together. You can make glass from melting the sand from the lake. It's actually been pretty fun."

Natsu was obviously incredibly proud of his work, and to his credit, it looked amazing.

When he opened the door, it was another story. Lucy found it sparsely furnished and quite unfinished. They had a stove, a refrigerator, and a couch in the main room. The bathroom had a toilet and the house's only sink.

"Where do you bathe?"

"In the river, where else?"

There were exposed electrical wires leading to the few powered items and pipes in the middle of the floor.

That said, the entire back of the house was just one huge window that looked over the edge of the cliff to the East Forest, the lake, and the town. It was the best view in Magnolia without a doubt.

"This place has a lot of potential."

"You could stay with us if you hate rent."

Lucy laughed nervously. "I'm sorry, did you just invite me to live with you in a house with no bathtub and exposed wires everywhere? And do you wash dishes in the bathroom sink?"

"No, we wash dishes in your sink, because we eat your food at your place. We're not barbarians," he said.

"You're living in a house that barely has a toilet."

"That's actually kind of new," he laughed.

She sat down on their blue sofa and he took a spot next to her. "You could help us finish. It could be a project. I could make it bigger, give you a room you can hoard books and stuff. I could make you a huge bathtub."

Lucy stopped herself from fussing further, because she remembered that Natsu and Happy were having to rebuild everything from scratch because their house was destroyed in the battle. That was sad for her to think about: Natsu coming come after all the hurt and finding his house in ruins. They were working hard to do the best they could and he'd obviously taken it just about as well as a person could.

Natsu laughed a bit nervously. "We have some savings, but I don't really have business sense. Even if you could just help us figure out some stuff, it would help a lot."

This was true; Natsu had virtually zero knowledge of a lot of different subjects. He wasn't stupid, he'd just lived a very strange life and he'd put everything he was into magic. They'd come far by themselves working off Natsu's abilities but hadn't taken many steps beyond that except to supply the house with the barest necessities.

"S-Sorry. I was being rude. You guys have worked hard, and it must have really sucked to go through that. I'll help you. We're partners, right?"

Natsu waved for her to follow him. "Right. This is my room."

It was a huge and nearly completely empty room except for a hammock, but one wall was a window looking over the cliff.

"This could be such a cool place to live, Natsu."

He jumped in the hammock and gestured for her to come to him with his finger.

Lucy blushed and carefully crawled in with him.

"Don't rock it too much, hammocks are transportation," he warned.

There was no reason to question why he'd sleep in something that could cause him motion sickness. It was just a very Natsu thing to do. Lucy actually assumed he probably liked being snug in the hammock versus sleeping flat in a bed. Because Natsu.

They lay side-by-side, nose-to nose, forehead-to-forehead with her head resting on one bicep while his free hand came to rest on her side.

Lucy whispered, "I'm sorry about your house, Natsu."

"It's okay. All my friends survived. You survived. I can build a thousand new houses but there's never going to be another you," he said.

They kissed, and kissed again, and when he tried to move, the hammock tilted and he let out a vomit-tasting burp directly into her mouth, causing her to roll and flip both out of the hammock.

She covered her mouth. "Natsu! I tasted your barf burp! Gross!"

"Oops? Sorry," he bashfully answered.

She ran to go wash her mouth out in the bathroom, and he entered after her and brushed his teeth, looking over at her occasionally to smirk.

"Why are you smiling at me?!"

"Because I'm happy," he mumbled with the toothbrush in his mouth.

Lucy snatched it out of his hand when he finished, rinsed it off, and brushed her teeth.

"Sharing toothbrushes is gross, Luigi," he teased.

Lucy spit in the sink and wielded the toothbrush, swinging it at him like a weapon. "You know what else is gross? Almost throwing up in someone else's mouth. Never, ever ask me to get in the hammock with you again. If you want to touch me here, you're going to have to get a big boy bed. Besides, you put your tongue in my mouth last night, and our mouths are equally gross, which is probably a worse deal for me."

"How do you figure?"

"I'm not four hundred years old or part reptile"

Natsu said, "I'm just joking. You're welcome to anything I have."

"Maybe you and Happy should stay will me full time until your house is fixed up. It'll be better."

"You don't mind?"

She shook her head. "It's been a long time since you guys had a solid place, right? Of course you can come over. Honestly, you basically live with me anyway. That battle was a year ago, it honestly hurts my heart a little to think you and Happy have had to work this long to get this far."

After they were finished in the bathroom, she said, "I think we should go to the library and get some books about home building and renovation. If we learn what needs to be done, then we can figure out how much it should cost and what you can afford. It'll probably be cheaper to do as much as you can on your own instead of having someone else do it, but there are some things that are best left to a trade guild, like electrical stuff."

"Why?"

"It's dangerous. You could get shocked," she said.

"I'm basically an expert. I've eaten more lightning than any of the professionals in town," he casually answered.

"The professionals in town don't eat lightning, Natsu."

"Exactly. What do they know about it?"

Lucy decided Natsu was probably actually safe from normal construction work. It was obviously absurd to worry he might accidentally get shocked while knowing Laxus blasted him halfway to hell on a somewhat reliable schedule. At Natsu's request, at that.

Once they made it to the library, Lucy flipped through books and took careful notes about what they needed. From there, they went to a building supply store and she wrote down prices and picked up a tape measure and headed back to the house with him.

Natsu sat on his sofa while he waited for her to finish her calculations.

Lucy finally said, "So, we don't have enough money. We're short by a lot, even if we do everything by ourselves, just the materials are expensive. But I think if we work hard and invest here, we can make a lot of progress, and finish the rest as we can. Or maybe we could take a difficult job and try to make what we need all at once," she said.

"I'm S-Class. We could do an S-Class job by ourselves. With Happy, of course."

"Maybe," Lucy said as she wondered about why Natsu waited so long to tell her he'd become homeless during the fight with Alvarez. No matter how one wanted to look at it, if anyone had known, they wouldn't have allowed him to get stuck like that. That whole conflict was deeply painful and incredibly exhausting for Natsu, so she had a hard time even understanding how he'd been any sort of okay in the aftermath, especially considering the fact he didn't even have a home to go back to after it was over.

After she sat down with her notebook and made some calculations and some prioritizations, they went all the way back to town, and bought a big haul of supplies and tools that Natsu carried to the house in a big pack on his back, and for the rest of the afternoon, worked alone together.

Natsu was the king over over-tightening things until they were broken, but he was also actually a master at soldering pipes because, well, he was Natsu. And depending on one's perspective, he was either the worst person to ever wield a nail gun or the king of the nail gun. Lucy and Natsu had opposite opinions on this subject.

After a few hours of grueling work that left her sore, he asked, "Does this count as a bad date?"

"I'm actually having fun," she said.

Natsu paused then, and stared at the door as Happy fluttered in.

"Natsu!"

"Happy, how was your job?"

The exceed gave a full retelling of the job from the perspective of a flying cat preoccupied with another flying cat, and then said, "I told you Lucy would help us fix out house!"

Natsu flashed a grin. "You're totally right, Happy! She's so smart she figured out we're too broke to finish."

Happy frowned. "Useless Lucy."

"Hey! I am hard at work here!" she exclaimed.

The dragonslayer added, "Guess what else, Happy?"

"What, Natsu? You caught a big fish?"

"Lucy and I are together now," he said, looking up from his work just briefly, only to hammer his own thumb when he tried to refocus. "Ow-ow-ow-ow!"

Happy floated undisguised shock for a moment, and then covered his mouth and playfully said, "Lucy…he liiiiiiiiiiiiiikes you."

Natsu grinned. "Damn right I do."

It suddenly occurred to him that if they were all together in Lucy's one-room apartment, they would have zero privacy. Natsu was trying to think his mind around how they were even going to make it work that night.

Happy fluttered around and looked at all the supplies. "I'll go stay with…Lily tonight. You guys are gross."

"Gee thanks, but you're not getting out of doing work," Lucy said.

"I'm a cat. Meow."

Happy didn't hang around long at all, and Lucy and Natsu both knew he was probably just trying to not be in the way. Truth be told, he had good instincts for things like that, and for all his relentless teasing, seemed to want Natsu to be 'liiiiiiiiiiiked' more than anything else in the world.

By the time it got dark, they'd made impressive progress, so they headed back to Lucy's place, grabbing dinner from a food stand on the way. They'd finished eating by the time they made it there, and since the day's work was hard and quite sweaty, needed to clean up before bed.

Lucy went first, and while Natsu was in the bath, she put on something a matching lace bra and panty, turned out the lights, and lit candles all over the apartment until it had a romantic glow. They hadn't really talked about trying to make it all the way, but she just assumed that had been on the agenda the whole day.

Natsu came out into the dimly lit room, took in the atmosphere, and said, "You're really sweet. Putting little snacks all over in case I get hungry."

"What do you mean, little snacks?...They're candles, Natsu, not little fire snacks."

Then, he looked her over, in her black lace bra and panties as he stood there with a towel wrapped around his waist. "What is that?" he asked.

Lucy found his question direct and awkward, like it didn't have the desired effect on him, and so crossed her arms over her chest. "I feel kind of stupid, but I just thought you might find it…you know."

Natsu moved with inhuman speed and was suddenly in the bed, crawling on top of her with a rather intense look on his face. He'd made it there before his towel hit the floor across the room. In some ways, she found this sporadic, rare, and incredibly intense side of him almost cat-like, seeming disinterested until completely engaged.

He bent down kissed her, and just when her heart started to pound, gently whispered in her ear:

"You're beautiful, Luigi."

"…you…actually had the nerve to call me that while you're naked in my bed?!"

"What's wrong? I'm all fired up!"

When he flashed that smirk at her, she tried to kick him, and he easily caught her foot, brought it to her mouth, and bit her big toe playfully.

"Natsu!"

They tumbled and he pinned her down to tickle her, leaving her squealing for mercy and also complaining, "Stop tickling me, you naked weirdo!"

While they were wrestling about, Lucy managed to gain just enough leverage that suddenly, she was on top of him and he was flat on his back. The game came to an immediate end when Natsu felt a world of heat against him and while he had no regrets about leaving the poor towel behind, the mere sensation of his manhood feeling her warmth made him feel almost intoxicated.

From that perspective, Lucy really was just an absolute goddess, all curves and black lace.

Lucy felt him start to get hard and for a moment, felt a little afraid, until she remembered that this is what they wanted. When she leaned down to kiss him, the movement of her body against him caused Natsu to make a noise she would have sworn was identical to a puppy crying.

The blonde kissed him and then rolled her hips. "Natsu…say my name."

When she moved again, his teeth clenched together, and he hissed, "Lucy!" through them.

For this torture, Lucy was suddenly on her back, under a heavy, hot, and strong dragonslayer. His green eyes were lit with fire as his hand slid under her and pulled her body against his, kissing her deeply. Near frantic movements of hands and legs made awkward adjustments and restless, fevered moves as their bodies grew closer.

Their mouths parted long enough to breath and little else, although when they came up for air the fifth time, Natsu held a hand up over her chest and whispered, "Can I?"

Lucy put her hand over his and brought it down to one of her breasts. His hand squeezed gently at first and then a little tighter. When she winced, she put her hand back on his. "Easy, Natsu. I'm right here."

"Sorry."

She sat up just enough to unhook her bra, knowing there was probably a greater chance that they'd be struck by a meteor than there was that Natsu might get her bra off without destroying it. In the back of her mind, she believed he was, in fact, eager to do so.

Natsu kissed where the strap slid from her shoulder and eased it off gently, and Lucy ran her fingers through his hair and then delicately kissed along the scar on his face.

Being patient and going slow were two things that Natsu was just naturally very, very bad at, but here, it wasn't so bad. Touching her smooth skin was enough that he almost wanted to go slow because he wanted the experience to last forever.

Then his whole body all but seized when he felt her hand touch him.

Natsu rolled onto his back, eyes fixated on Lucy's fingers as they wrapped around his erection.

"Can I?" she coyly asked.

Natsu managed to nod.

"Am I doing it right?" she timidly asked. "Natsu?"

"Can't…words…" he panted.

Lucy found she was a little terrified by the sight of his manhood at first. Various things went through her head. Namely, she tried to do some math and diagrams in her head about how it was going to fit inside. Knowing she could make Natsu feel so good he couldn't remember how to speak made her happy, because she wanted him to feel good. And because it gave her incredible power over the monster that was Natsu Dragneel.

She wasn't sure if Natsu had ever paid attention to anything in his entire life as intensely as he watched her lean down slowly and kiss him right on the tip.

He sat up suddenly and pulled her back into his lap. Although he wanted to tease Lucy for doing something so incredibly dirty and wonderful and perfect, he still could not remember how to speak and decided if he could, he'd probably just provoke her to tease him more.

When he laid her on her back and slid between her legs, he hooked his teeth in her panties and tore them off. Because, as she would point out in the future, there he had to destroy any article of clothing that he didn't feel like thinking about. And basically all the blood he needed to think had gone elsewhere, the mechanics of removing panties might as well have been rocket science.

Lucy was more than a little shocked when he slid his arms under her thighs. "What are you doing, Natsu?"

Finally, he found a word. "Tasting."

He did not ask Lucy for help, because Lucy was the most vocal person than he knew and a basic exploratory round yielded knowledge of a little bump that made her moan in a way that made his heart pound so hard he couldn't hear anything but the sound of it under her soft cries.

Natsu took his time, egged on by how his girlfriend quickly became unraveled. Lucy begged, she moaned, she writhed, she fisted her hands in his hair and called his name over and over.

To her, his unnaturally hot mouth and borderline demonic tongue were a bit more than she'd expected. Some part of her fought it at first, but it was so good, and it was Natsu that brought her that pleasure. Lucy's toes curled, her back arched, and let Natsu win. And win again. And again.

Once Natsu figured out anything, it was his forever, and she felt like he was going to exploit whatever magic he'd mastered until she couldn't take it anymore. Yet the more she let herself revel in it, the more Lucy became aware of a specific absence in her. Never in her life had she felt the urge to be filled like that before, like an intense sense of longing that she needed him to be inside of her.

"Natsu…"

"Hmm?"

"I want you. Come here," she whispered.

Natsu obeyed, propping himself up on top of her. "It might hurt."

"I'm ready."

He was as gentle as possible but felt a little friction and the feeling of Lucy's fingers digging into his back for a few seconds. Natsu went slow at first, heeding Gildarts' words that he was sometimes rougher than he meant to be.

When her body started to move under his, they struggled for a minute or so to find a pace, and Lucy found the pain subsided rather quickly.

In this ultimate form of intimacy, he moved deep inside of her and she wrapped herself around him.

Their pace gradually quickened, and at Lucy's direction, his movements became more powerful. He growled her name when he was deep, relishing the way her smooth body felt. Where he was going, she was going to go with him, and he pulled her down with him, crashing together into a spectacular climax that left both of them shaking and spellbound.

Natsu rested on top of her for a while, and she brushed her hand over his face.

When he lay down next to her, she saw him put his arm over his eyes, something she'd only ever seen him do a couple of times to hide his face.

"What's wrong?"

"I just thought of something that made me sad, that's all. Sorry, Lucy."

Lucy leaned over him and moved his arm, stroking his face softly. "What is it?"

"I wish I could take you home to meet my dad. Not Igneel the giant dragon, but Igneel my dad. I'd give anything in the world just to be able to talk to him and tell him how I feel right now. He would have liked you a lot, because you have so much life in you, and you're kind. When you kick me for doing something stupid, he'd laugh so hard the whole earth would shake. Igneel used to worry that I'd be too hot-headed and too stubborn to make friends, or to find someone to be with someday. I just wish he could know that I'm all right, and that I have someone great, and it's all because of him.

"But I can't. Because he died, Lucy. I watched him get ripped to pieces and I couldn't do anything. To everyone else, it was a dragon dying, but to me, that was my dad. I don't know why I'm thinking about all this right now."

Lucy snuggled him close. "Natsu, I write letters to my mom all the time. I tell her about my friends, about my life, about you. I know she's never going to read even one, because she's been gone for a really long time. She loved me, Natsu. Really loved me. My mom and your dad died for the same thing: the future we live in right now. So we can be together right now," she said, unable to keep herself from crying.

Letting out a single laugh even though she was still in tears, she added, "My mom would have loved you, Natsu. Just loved you to death. I think if my she hadn't died, even my dad might have been able to get on board with us. You're passionate and funny and sincere, and you make me happy. Being your teammate and being your friend, all these years has given me the strength to grow into the person I was meant to be."

Lucy crawled out of the bed and briefly went into the bathroom, where Natsu had left his scarf hanging on the door, and brought it back, wrapping it around him after she got back in bed. "I believe our parents can see us. And I believe they're proud. And I believe they still love us just the same way we still love them even though they're gone. Let's never forget about them."

When she snuggled back up to him, she rested her head on the dragonscale scarf.

Natsu said, "It's the last piece of Igneel that's left in this world."

"Natsu, your dad's legacy isn't some scaly scarf. It's you. You're more important to this world than you know. Just think of all the amazing things you've been able to do. Igneel helped make you who you are, so without him, the world would be a darker place," she said.

Since Natsu didn't really talk in depth about how he felt about Igneel's death, this was both a painful but healing conversation. He wasn't even sure why he'd been hit by such powerful feelings, or why the things he'd been holding in his heart just spilled out so hard.

"I feel like I'm only supposed to feel happy, but my heart hurts so much right now."

"You'll be okay, Natsu. I'm here. Let's just rest for now, okay? Tomorrow will be another day."

XXX

It was a few of days before Gildarts returned, and when he did, he headed straight for Natsu's house for an update on his situation once he was unable to find him at the guild.

Natsu was home with Happy when the old wizard came in through the open front door to find Natsu hanging drywall.

"Are you handy now?"

"My house got smashed, so I guess?"

"How did your house get smashed?"

Happy said, "During the fight with Zeref, a giant stepped on it."

"Ah. The hot one?"

Natsu answered, "There was only one. I think giants are usually about how tall they are. I don't think 'hot giants' is a thing."

"You're so young and naïve, Natsu."

"You're old and gross, Gildarts. How was the job?"

"It was fine. Erza is kind of intense. She punched me where my insides are gone for missing the train, then said, 'Sorry, I forgot you aren't Natsu.'"

Natsu gave Happy some bills. "Can you go back and get another hammer? I melted another one."

"Aye, sir!"

Gildarts said, "Are you sure you're handy? Because I'm sure that's not how hammers are supposed to work. And you're making me nervous with that nail gun."

Happy flew off to buy a new hammer and Gildarts wiggled his eyebrows. "Well?"

"Well what?"

"How are things going with Lucy?"

Natsu replied, "I dunno."

"Have you become a man?"

"Yeah, whatever. It was good and then once it was over I started crying like a baby about my dead dad, and I did not stop for a very long time," he answered.

Gildarts scowled. "Yikes."

Natsu said, "I've just been avoiding Lucy. Then her feelings got hurt. I'm too embarrassed to talk to her and I feel like trash and I think she hates me."

"There's a difference between having sex and making love. There's the physical act, which you can do with anyone. Then there's the other thing, which is rarer and more special. Where you do that act with someone you care about. If you boiled over when you were close to Lucy, you probably had a lot of stuff trapped inside that was wanting to come out," he said.

The dragonslayer scowled at Gildarts.

It was rare to see Natsu in a mood that could genuinely be classified as 'bad,' but he was definitely in a funk.

Gildarts asked, "Why were you thinking about your dad?"

"It's stupid, I guess. I was just thinking that I'd like to introduce her to him, and how he'd like her. They'd probably laugh at me and make jokes about me, and we'd all be happy. But that's never going to happen, because Acnologia ripped his body in half and he died," Natsu darkly answered.

Gildarts studied him and gently said, "You never got a chance to deal with that, did you? You buried it, and then suddenly everything in the world was wrong again. You had to fight and deal with all the END crap."

"How am I supposed to 'deal' with that? I saw his insides fall out. That was my dad, Gildarts. He died a terrible, gruesome death. And then what's wrong with me, talking about all this stuff with a woman who has just…Men are supposed to be the strong ones, aren't they?"

The old wizard answered, "No one in this world is going to argue that you're not a strong man, Natsu, but you need to realize you're not invincible either. You'll be ten times stronger with a girl who can help you face your weaknesses than you could ever be alone."

"Aren't you alone? Literally always?"

"I'm not a great guy like you. I had someone like Lucy at my side for a while and you know what I did? I distanced myself from her, ruined the relationship, and left her to raise a child alone. Part of the reason I've really taken time with you is I see what I was like when I was young in you and I don't want you to make the same mistakes that I did. Where I ended up isn't great, Natsu. What you experienced maybe felt bad to you, but it was powerful. Can you imagine how powerful that act really is, drawing you so close it pulls out your weakness?"

"I can imagine I don't want to think about it anymore."

Gildarts shook his head. "You love her, right?"

"Of course I do. That was the whole reason we wanted to be together," he answered in irritation.

"Is the issue that you're angry at Lucy for making you feel those things?"

"Why would I be mad at Lucy because I'm down about something?"

After trying to find some other way to come at the subject, Gildarts finally shrugged. "You're in a gloomy mood, Natsu. You're being rude and closed off to people who care about you and that's only going to make you more confused. Your dad loved you, but he is gone. Lucy loves you, and she's just a few minutes away."

Natsu flinched.

"I need to go talk to Lucy, I guess. She's gonna be pissed."

"Probably gonna get that kick to the brain. And you know what?"

"I deserve it?"

"You're getting smarter, Natsu."

-Reviews Welcome!-

Note: omg I was so excited to see people actually reviewed like eeeeeeeeeeek! Thank you so much valerioux and Ember Reverie for taking time to do so. I love this pairing and I just want to explore it, and laugh about it. Gildarts/Natsu is such a sweet relationship too I just can't.