A Natsu-less weekend of video games and frantic book-writing passed, leaving only Monday and goth boys and uncertainty.
Good uncertainty. The fluttery kind that made Lucy feel as if she might float away if she didn't focus on mundane things, like biology or Levy's rant about her deep loathing for Gajeel Redfox. Lucy never thought of herself as a head-in-the-clouds kind of girl, but wherever her head was, it had no intention of coming back when she most needed it.
A bus stop at 7:15, moments before seeing a cute goth boy, was a terrible time to have your head desert you. But there's only so much you can do before crushes make you all stupid, right?
"Lucy, my love. Focus." Levy grabbed her friend's chin and tilted it down, forcing Lucy to look into her concerned green eyes. "Have you heard a single word I've said all morning?"
"Of course," Lucy scoffed. "The last thing you said was, um...something about Gajeel. And his piercings. About how you wanted to yank them out and make him eat them?"
Levy rolled her eyes. "Keep up, you fool. That was so ten minutes ago. I now want to yank them out, smelt them and use the metal to make something Gajeel despises. Like Barbies. Or Girl Scouts."
"You want to make a Girl Scout out of metal? Like...a human female child?"
"I never said it was a perfect plan."
Lucy sighed. "I'm sorry, Lev. I just can't believe I actually have to—"
"Have 'The Talk'," Levy finished. "Define the relationship. Trust me hun, the only people to ever look forward to the talk are delusional and probably characters in a romantic self-help book."
"Wait, do you read those?"
"My point is, you just gotta do it. An undefined relationship is the same thing as no relationship at all."
Lucy peered suspiciously at her. "Okay, now that definitely sounded like a line from a book."
"Oh shut up." As if on cue, they heard the telltale screech and hiss of school bus brakes. Levy squealed and gave Lucy a quick kiss on the cheek. "Just go, okay? Rip off that Band-aid. It'll be over before you know it."
"If you would just come with me I could—"
"Bye!" And Levy was gone in a traitorous flash of blue hair and evil laughter, leaving Lucy standing in front of open bus doors, staring at a driver who had one hand up his nose and another digging around in a packet of McDonald's fries.
It felt like looking into the abyss.
Still searching for her brain (which was probably floating above Africa by now), Lucy kind of went on autopilot. Bend legs. Climb stairs. Find empty seat and sit in it. Turn around to—to find the seat was not empty, and look blankly at the pink hair and dimples of its occupant, who's fiddling with the strings of his hoodie.
Her brain was well and truly dead now. Natsu's smile just killed it.
"Hi," he said, one corner of his mouth tilted up, both eyebrows raised in surprise. It was an expression she'd never seen him make before, but it made it feel her simultaneously excited and also like she just got hit by a shovel. In a good way. A cuddly, nervous shovel.
She could almost hear her inner Levy shaking its head and saying, It's really time to get your meds checked, Lu.
"Levy says I should talk to you," she blurted before she could change her mind. "Or at least she did. When she was talking to me earlier in between the piercings and the Girl Scouts—"
Natsu blinked.
"And the very evil chuckles in the morning...like today, it still being morning and all...but my point is that she insisted we converse and now I am here conversing with you, so I think you should start conversing back so I can shut up and quietly burrow myself into this pleather seat because I meant to say hello before I started ranting to you about Girl Scouts and everything is awful." She screwed her eyes shut. "And hello. By the way."
Seven seconds (or years, or lifetimes) passed in darkness, because she could obviously never open her eyes again. Well, she thought, I think our relationship just got defined: sweet goth boy hides from scary chick who blurts crazy nonsense in his face.
Wonder if that'll fit in a Facebook status.
"You can laugh or jump out the window now." Eyes stayed firmly shut. "I can take it."
"Luce." Fingers brushed her shoulder, and she leaped halfway out of her seat.
"What?"
His voice held barely concealed laughter. "It'll be funnier when I jump out the window if you watch me do it. I'll prolly fall. Pull out your video camera too, in case I split my pants."
Pause. "Are you wearing funny underwear?" One eye involuntarily popped open to catch a glimpse of his face: His lips were pressed together to hide a smile, and his eyes were warm and shy and everything she was too emotionally stunted to deal with all at once. But she took it in stages, opening the next eye a fraction every few seconds. The delays gave her time to process how very...Natsu-ish he was.
"Uh...do little pink dancing dragons count as 'funny'?"
Lucy snorted. "Oh, of course not. Very manly."
"Thought so." He fiddled with the black rubber bands on his wrists, most of which had little multicolored skulls. "Is this good enough? For conversin', I mean?"
She took a moment on that one, stroking her chin. All the talk of underpants and windows didn't exactly define a relationship, besides defining them as two very strange people indeed. But...then again, didn't that sort of count? Why did she like Natsu, if not because he was weird and lovely in the most unexpected ways?
The bus came to a squealing stop, giving her an opportunity to turn, face him and say (with as much seriousness as one can muster when talking to someone whose T-shirt had a vampire bunny on it), "Look, Natsu. Is this a dating thing? A friendship thing? A hang-out-and-eat-cake-and-yell-at-each-other thing? I'm just looking for some clarity, because you have me really confused. Pretty much all the time."
Unexpectedly, and pleasantly, Natsu didn't laugh or look even remotely freaked out. He just shrugged and said, "Define 'dating thing'."
"You know. Dating. We go out and eat places and post nauseating selfies online until we have a dramatic fight about something pointless and break up. Good God, man, have you never watched a movie?"
Natsu blinked. "Well, we definitely ain't doin' that. Other options?"
"We could just hang out. Be friends," Lucy ventured, but not with much enthusiasm.
"So...I couldn't do something like"—he reached out and tucked a frizzy strand of hair behind her ear—"this, if we just hung out?"
DEEP BREATHS, LUCY. LIKE BUDDHA AND THE DALAI LAMA AND EVERY PERKY YOGA INSTRUCTOR ROLLED INTO ONE.
She looked down and muttered, "Certainly not."
"And that's cool with you?"
"Certainly not." She peeked up at him, and then quickly looked back down again.
"So..." Natsu trailed off, picking at his rubber bands so hard they looked like they were about to snap. "I dunno, how 'bout a combo? We can do dating stuff when we feel like it. Or just hang out when we feel like it. Or I can buy you cake and you can yell at me whenever you want," he said with a smirk.
She smacked him with her book bag. "It is not funny."
"You are, though, is the thing. And I just..." His voice got all funny and shy again the way it did on their cake fiasco, right before he confessed his Funion breath. "You're weird as hell and you're beautiful and you make me laugh, and I really like you, okay? So if you ever stop wantin' to see me, you can just, I dunno, tell me. 'Cause I hate fights. And eating out." He scowled and added, "Especially at the same time in an Olive Garden. Divorced child trauma."
Feeling a deep, soulful connection in the works, Lucy said, "I hate Olive Garden too."
Natsu's smile practically fell off his face and stretched the length of the bus seat. Seriously, did that boy get mouth enlargement surgery or something? "Okay!" he said. "No Olive Garden. I can live with that."
"But combo platter of dating menu options?"
"Hell yes we take a combo platter." They fist-bumped solemnly.
It wasn't until they were off the bus and in separate classrooms that Lucy caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror, and realized—oh, how fucking charming was this—that her face had turned the exact color of Natsu's bubblegum-tastic hair. A blush. Lucy never blushed She scrubbed her face as if she could rub the disgusting romance of it all out, but to no avail.
And then she rubbed harder, because a couple minutes had passed and she was pretty sure blushes aren't meant to be this permanent.
"Hey Lev," she said to her friend, who was just walking through the door, "how the heck do I get this horrible pink blush thing off my face?"
Levy looked at her face for a second before suddenly turning white and bursting into laughter.
"What?" Lucy snapped. "I've had enough humiliation for one morning already, thank you—"
"That's not a blush, Lu."
"Then what the hell is it?"
"Its..." Levy hiccupped for breath, gave up and kept right on laughing. "It's a rash, babe. You got them when you were a kid, remember? Stress rashes, or excitement rashes, or—"
"Crush rashes," Lucy groaned. "Damn it. I get freaking crush rashes." She ran her hands through her hair until it looked like a bleached lion's mane. "I hate dating."
"But Natsu looooooves you," Levy crowed (which still sounded unfairly pretty in that damn bell-like voice of hers). She did the classiest thing a person could do to support their best friend of many years: dance around in a circle, singing a song to the tune of "Jingle Bells" that she dubbed The Lucy Love Rash Rap. And to make it even worse, sang it well. (The rapping was even better.)
So much for stress-free, Lucy thought, sinking into her chair and covering her face with her textbook. She zoned out in silence as Levy found an impressive seven dirty words that more or less rhymed with "Natsu".
"You'll dance to this song at your wedding, won't you?" Levy begged.
"If the Elvises in Vegas allow it." Fighting between the urge to smack Levy or kiss her cheek, she settled for a quick hug and a, "Now be off with you, evil thing." But she did smile as she watched Levy skip down the hallway like a fairy on crack, working out her beatboxing technique.
And she smiled even wider when she saw Gajeel Redfox watching too, with six new piercings and a look that would have been wistful on anyone else, but on Gajeel just resulted in him looking slightly less murderous than usual. Not that it wasn't sweet, in its own way.
And Lucy practically died laughing when Gajeel lifted his heavy black hair to scratch the back of his neck, which—was that blisters she saw? And a certain bubblegummy tint to his skin?
Maybe she should put up signs: Love rash epidemic impending. No one is immune.
An image of Gajeel stringing her to a pole by her underpants surfaced in response, so she thought better of it. But she gave him a wry look as she passed his locker. A look that said, I know your secret, man. And I'm onto you.
Gajeel raised a studded eyebrow. She raised one back. They studied each other for several long moments, before backing away with mutual grudging respect.
Lucy almost felt a little sorry that his piercings would be melted down into Girl Scout robots.
notes: sorry it's been an age since i've updated this story. but i'm still at it. and now levy deserves love, don't you think?