Shout out to Jeschura for pointing out that I was using the wrong form of runes in the last part. I am ashamed I didn't see it sooner, so thank you for letting me know!
As always, thanks for all the love and happy reading!
"Thanks for the meal, Lucy, it was amazing!" Natsu slowed down so he could throw an arm around her and pull her to his side. Lucy scowled slightly, but didn't pull away, even when she saw that he had no idea how annoyed she was. He had eaten eight entrees and four desserts! He'd only stopped because Lucy had begged him to. She wasn't sure she'd ever be able to face Loke again after what happened. Not only that, she had only negotiated for enough food in her apartment for him, so she'd had to pay for their meal herself, and it had not been cheap.
"So, are you always a bottomless pit, or was this just a special occasion?" she asked, still glaring down at the receipt.
"Sorry, but the food was amazing." Lucy glanced up at him. He doesn't look very sorry, she thought.
She sighed as she tucked the receipt in her pocket. "Well, I can't afford to feed you like this every night, so you'd better get used to home cooked meals pretty quick. Which reminds me, if you're going to keep eating like this, you're going to have to start providing that food soon. Like, tomorrow."
"Don't worry, I don't always eat that much," he reassured her. "It's just been a while since I've had food. We can go longer between meals in my world, so I kind of showed up hungry here."
"I hope so," she said, "because frankly, that was a little disgusting. My stomach hurt just watching you. I don't know how many meals I could sit through watching you gorge like that." Lucy felt her stomach twist a little as she thought again about the way he had practically inhaled his food.
"Sorry," he repeated, this time actually sounding regretful. As they made it to her place, he stood back and let her lead the way inside.
"It's okay, so long as-" Lucy barely felt Natsu bump into her as she froze in the doorway between her kitchen and the entryway. Her eyes traveled the space in front of her, finally landing in the next room on Plue and the now mostly white form of the blue Exceed. Her cat was sitting in the middle of the living room while Happy was some feet away, trying to clean the white off his fur.
"Uh oh." Natsu's words brought Lucy's eyes back to the kitchen. The counters and floor were covered in so many substances that she didn't try to name any of them. Her fridge was open with most of its contents strewn across the floor. On top of that, almost every surface in the room was covered in a fine layer of white powder, probably flour. Happy and Natsu were both frozen, barely breathing as they waited for the woman to explode.
Lucy turned and put her purse away before taking off her shoes. She carefully walked across the room towards Happy, who continued to watch her with wary eyes. Lucy stopped as she stepped onto the carpet and held out her hand. Happy slowly held out the towel in his paws and she cleaned off her bare feet. After handing it back, she moved forward to pick up Plue, who curled against her as she turned around.
She looked down at Happy, then over at Natsu. He saw the fire spark in her eyes, but her tone was even as she spoke. "I expect this to be cleaned up by the time I wake up for work at 6. Your room is the first door in the hallway on the left. Good night." Then she turned and went down the hall.
Natsu waited until Happy was done cleaning himself off before he spoke. "You just had to make her mad already, didn't you?"
"It wasn't my fault!" Happy argued. "I just wanted to try the canned fish, but Plue wouldn't tell me which tool I needed and then-"
"How about you tell me the story while we clean up?" Natsu interrupted as he finally stepped into the kitchen.
In her room, Lucy paced as Plue sat on the bed watching her. "I can't believe I agreed to this," she said again, combing her hands through her hair. "What was I thinking, Plue? 'Hello Mr. Demon,'" Lucy said, her voice high pitched and exaggerated. "'Wow, you just showed up out of nowhere, huh? And you want to fulfill my deepest, darkest wish? Sure, sign me up, sounds like a great idea!'"
Lucy angrily grabbed her towel and pajamas before leaving the room, shutting the door behind her to keep Plue out of the mess in the kitchen. She continued to mutter to herself as she went into the bathroom and got the tub ready. It wasn't until she was in the water that she finally looked down at the mark on her side. The mark on her body was made up of intricately scrawled lines of dark red, weaving together to create a rather beautiful depiction of a fire. However, it stretched from her hipbone to just below her breast. Why was it so big?! How was she supposed to hide this?! Lucy barely suppressed her scream as she grabbed her soap to wash up, no longer interested in relaxing in the hot water.
"'I can grant any wish,'" Lucy growled in a mockery of Natsu' voice as she scrubbed her skin. "'I just want to live here, eat you out of house and home, oh, and put a brand on you the size of your face, is that cool?'"
Meanwhile, as he continued to clean up the mess in Lucy's kitchen, Natsu's mouth lifted in a small smile.
Lucy took a bite of her sandwich as she continued to make notes on her computer. She gagged slightly before pulling the top piece of bread away to see a rather large circle of tabasco sauce soaked into it. Sighing, she let the sandwich fall back into her desk as she pulled out the apple instead.
When she had woken up, she'd found her kitchen spotless and her home demon free. In the still mostly empty fridge, she'd found her lunchbox sitting in the middle of a shelf with a note on it from Natsu, saying they'd made her lunch and would have the kitchen restocked before she returned from work 'whenever that will be.' She'd found it rather sweet, so she'd left them a note in return before leaving for work.
While the gesture was appreciated, she was going to have to have a chat with the demon about overdoing it with the spicy food. Everything she'd tried to eat so far had been covered in tabasco or some other hot sauce, making them unpalatable. The worst part was that she had no idea where they'd even gotten the sauces to begin with, because she didn't own any.
After sniffing the apple to make sure it hadn't been tampered with, she bit into it, resigned to getting something out of the vending machine once it was gone. She was just about done with it when Cana came to her desk. "Oh my god, Lucy, you missed so much last night."
"Did I?" Lucy asked, quirking her eyebrow.
Cana's face instantly fell. "No…" She groaned. "Only Juvia ended up coming with and she was depressed because the band with Gray in it had a sick member and didn't show up, so all she did was whine and drink." She leaned against the edge of Lucy's desk. "I was more stressed when I left than when I got there. How was your night, Ms. Responsibility?"
Lucy ignored the jab as she briefly considered not mentioning Natsu, but quickly dismissed the idea. She knew she wouldn't be able to keep him a secret long, especially since he was already traipsing around town. "Well, actually, an old friend came into town to visit last night."
"Really? Who? Aren't we all here still?"
Lucy waved her hand a little. "You don't know him. He used to live here while we were still in elementary school, but he never joined the school. His parents travelled a lot so he was homeschooled."
"I think I remember that," Cana said, staring off with a frown. "You didn't hang out after school with us for a few months. The rest of us never even got to meet him either."
Lucy shrugged, then apologized before changing the subject. She didn't want Cana to think about it too hard.
She might remember that it had been a girl that she'd befriended back then.
By the time Lucy drug herself into her home, later than usual, she was more than ready for the day to be over. After finding out that she was temporarily living with a man, Cana had demanded that she get to meet her mysterious friend. It had taken all of Lucy's remaining lunch hour to convince the woman to wait until the next day when they'd be getting together at the bar anyway, so she could introduce him to everyone at the same time. When Cana had finally agreed, Lucy's stress had only been slightly alleviated. She needed time to prepare Natsu before he met her friends, and now she only had one day to do it. All she needed was a get together or two, and then they would be past the 'tell me about yourself', 'what did your parents used to do' and 'what kind of stuff did you and Lucy do' conversations. Then they could just get to know Natsu as he was, and she wouldn't have to worry so much.
Lucy put her stuff away and then frowned as she saw that Plue wasn't in his usual spot waiting to welcome her home. She noticed her fruit bowl and shelves were full as she passed through to her living room. Once she got there, she couldn't help but smile.
Natsu was laying on her couch, his feet hanging off the end while his arms cushioned his head on the other end. Both Happy and Plue were curled up on his chest and stomach, wrapped snugly around each other. Despite coming home late, she decided she could wait to make supper and begin preparing him for the following day. She quietly took her work folder to her desk and pulled out the papers.
She hadn't been working at her desk long when she was interrupted. Happy floated silently beside her for a minute, not saying anything, so she continued to work as she waited for him to speak.
Eventually, he broke the silence. "I'm sorry about last night, Lucy."
That surprised the woman, but then she squinted at him suspiciously. "Are you apologizing because Natsu told you to?"
"A little," he admitted, "but also because I shouldn't have messed up your house like that. I got a little carried away, and I shouldn't have. Even though we're demons, we don't have to give in to our destructive tendencies. It won't happen again, I promise."
She considered his bright eyes for a moment before responding. "Alright. As long as it doesn't happen again, I forgive you."
"Thank you, Lucy!" he says, the brightness in his eyes turning into tears. In the blink of an eye he was on her, his head squished against her chest. "Thank you! I was so worried you were going to send me back!"
Lucy blinked, her arms pausing on their way to hug the little demon. "Can I do that?"
Happy froze, but before he could say anything, Natsu's sleepy voice interrupted from the couch. "Way to go, Happy. She wouldn't have even considered it if you hadn't said anything."
Lucy turned her chair, her arms firmly around Happy. "Seriously? I thought he was stuck here, too, because of our deal. I can really send him back?"
"Geez, Lucy, you have a lot to learn about demons," he said as he stretched. "It's a good thing you didn't summon a full blood- they would've taken full advantage of you." He rubbed his eyes as he sat up, carefully helping Plue to the floor. "Demons are all about loopholes when it comes to contracts, and ours is littered with them."
Lucy briefly remembered their agreement about Happy before it clicked. "Oh! I only agreed to bring him here, not that I'd let him stay!" She looked down to meet Happy's worried gaze. "Guess I know what to use against you now when you're being a pain in the butt." Natsu laughed when Happy just continued to look worried.
Lucy looked back and forth between them while his laughter slowly died. "So how come he can stay here without a contract and you can't?"
"For two reasons. One, he was part of our contract, so my magic is holding him here. And two, he's an Exceed and his kind don't make contracts. They can go between the different layers of our world without any problem, so they have no reason to deal with humans. When they're summoned here, they stick around for as long as their magic can last and then go back home. Our contract allows him to draw from my magic instead of his own, so he can stay here as long as the contract is in effect, or you send him back."
"How would I do that?"
Happy's eyes widened. "Natsu, don't-!"
"By drawing his summoning circle again. It cancels out the first and he's sent right back."
Happy humphed as he pulled himself out of Lucy's arms. "Some best friend you are. I'm going to get myself a fish, in case I need a last meal."
Lucy snorted. "Don't be so dramatic, cat."
"I'm not a cat!"
She ignored his outburst and turned back to Natsu. "Now that you're awake, I suppose I should make food. I also have to talk to you about tomorrow night."
"What's tomorrow night?"
Lucy fidgeted in her chair, a fact that Natsu found highly entertaining. "You'll more or less be meeting what I have of a family." At his confused look, she stood and made her way into the kitchen, ignoring Happy, who was sitting on the counter eating a whole fish raw. "My mother passed when I was young, and my father and I… don't talk anymore." She waved a bit as she opened the fridge. "You already know that, but I feel…" Standing straight, she ignored the chill surrounding her. "I suppose you know all about them, don't you? It's pointless for me to explain."
Natsu sighed. "I didn't read everything about you, Lucy. I picked up the more prominent memories that drew my attention, and any knowledge I could scrape up about your world. I didn't read all of your memories, though. I mostly dug around to get a feel for who you are as a person. It's possible to know too much about someone, and honestly, it's kind of rude to read a whole person." He smiled at her shocked expression, then moved her away from the fridge. As she continued to process what he'd said, he began to pull ingredients out of the fridge.
He had a pot of water boiling on the stove and was almost done cutting an onion before she finally spoke again. "So you didn't read everything?"
He shook his head and then shrugged as he poured the chopped onions into a frying pan. "I don't see the need. You get too much that way, and I'm here to learn about your world, not just you."
Lucy watched as he puttered around her kitchen, pulling hamburger out of the fridge. He put the meat into the frying pan and then added several spices before mixing it all together. "Where did you learn to cook?" she asked.
"The internet!" he said with a grin. "I'm not doing anything fancy for my first attempt, don't worry. Just macaroni and cheese with meat."
Lucy sat at the table, leaning down to pet Plue as he finally joined her to say hello. "I haven't had that in a while."
"I know," he said with a grin, causing her to roll her eyes. "Here," he added, pulling a bottle out of the fridge. "Drink this and tell me about these plans you have for me with your almost family."
Lucy smiled as he popped the top off her favorite beer and handed it to her. She leaned back and took a long draw from the bottle, allowing herself to relax a little. She could almost feel her girly preteen dreams being answered as she watched the attractive demon before her making her dinner.
Almost.
It was spoiled by the overriding image she had in her head of him consuming an entire table's worth of food. She blanched as she took another drink from the bottle, and then settled in to help him fill in his pretend backstory.
I liked Mature Natsu in the opening chapters, so I'm going to be bringing him in on occasion. While I plan on allowing him some collateral damage here and there, and allowing his usual boyish charm to shine, he is also trying to follow Erza's advice and be a little more mature, so that will come through sometimes as well. To that end, he's learning how to cook!
Edited 6/11/20
