Author's Note:
Hello everybody! It's Wednesday! And time for a new update. :D
It's another shorter one, but we've got a longer chapter coming up soon.
As always, I wanna give a shout out to all of my FANTASTIC reviewers, who are all wonderful, and amazing, and awesome! Thank you all SO MUCH! Big hugs and kisses to all my repeat reviewers: Elphaba818, WisdomDragon27, TheJSmooth, mumof4, valerioux, FantasyDreamer06, Lady La-sara, Donthedarkdragon26, Daisy73, ravenqueen162, Leomae2.0, HotvampGurl23, thechani, KitsuneLover05, Firefly9917, kilatails, xxIt'sAllAboutThemxx, Shadowslayer15, Bakers28, MiseryWolf97, ThatOneAnimeGirl08, Wolves silver wind, and fox0920! Equally big hugs and kisses to my newest reviewers: Meow Orbit and Alice!
Now, on with the show! I'm sure you're all dying to know what happens next. ;D
Be sure to stay till the end for a sneak peek of next chapter!
The next day, everyone's roles were switched. All the women were waitresses, while the men were performers on stage.
For their waitressing outfits, Lucy wasn't at all surprised to find out that they would be wearing skimpy maid costumes. The bottom was a black ruffly miniskirt with a white petticoat underneath, and a frilly white apron was stitched to the front. The top was just a black corset with white piping, and the edges were trimmed in white lace and black ribbon. Puffy sleevelets made of black silk and white lace went around her biceps, a lace choker with black ribbon adorned her neck, and one of those ruffly maid hat things sat on her head. Sheer white thigh-highs and black high heels completed the look.
Since she'd done waitressing before, it wasn't hard to get into the rhythm of serving customers as they started to arrive. However, the guys on stage were a bit of a distraction … mainly Natsu. Today the theme was apparently old-time rustic warrior or some such thing, because they were all wearing leather, bits of armor, and some wore fur.
Some of the dancers wore leather shorts, while others wore full length tight leather pants. Some wore fur lined boots, some wore leather boots, and a few had on shin armor or leather strips tied around their calves. They were all shirtless, but a few had on very short vest-things which accentuated their shoulders but did little in terms of actually covering them up. The vests were made of either fur or leather, and a few had metal on the shoulders. Some of the dancers just wore leather harness things, sometimes with a piece of armor over one shoulder or both. They all wore something on their forearms, either leather strips, metal armor, or thick leather cuffs.
As for Natsu, he wore black leather pants with a hole cut in them for his tail, and up top he had on a leather harness, which held a fancy armor piece to his left shoulder. That arm also had a shiny metal forearm guard. Once again, his horns were out. Lucy couldn't help but think he definitely rocked the look.
And his outfit was only part of the problem, because there was also the dancing to consider. It was both sexy and amusing.
The server who had been assigned to show him the ropes had also apparently showed him how to dance, and he was doing better than her. It took less training time for him to be put in with the lead dancers for his first rotation, and he was able to keep up pretty well. His moves definitely weren't as smooth and polished as the others, but they were still pretty close. The backup dancers did little more than thrust their hips and do a few simple moves, but the lead dancers actually did some complex dance patterns – although there was still plenty of thrusting to be had.
Seeing Natsu dance like that made her mouth go dry, but at the same time she had a hard time not laughing when he was a backup dancer. Largely, her amusement stemmed from his facial expression, which was kind of blank. She knew from experience that it was his bored face, and it was obvious that he found the simple backup dancing beyond dull. Every half hour the backup dancers and the lead dancers swapped places, and whenever he was in the lead he perked up significantly. It was obviously a challenge, and of course Natsu loved challenges of every shape and form.
He looked hot, she couldn't deny it, and it kept distracting her from her job…which wasn't good, for multiple reasons. Aside from the obvious, she also had to keep an eye out for grabby hands in the audience and had to dodge more than one set.
At this particular moment, she was being harassed by a group of young men around her age who were all well on their way to getting drunk.
"How are your drinks? Do any of you need a refill?" she asked while brandishing a pitcher of the beer they had all been drinking plenty of.
A couple of hands raised, and she carefully maneuvered her way around the table, watching their hands to make sure none of them made a pass at her. One did as she poured the beer into a glass, and she artfully sidestepped the clumsy attempt.
"No touching please." she reminded with a smile and saw the guy pout. None of these guys really meant any harm by it, but she did have to constantly remind them.
"Oh com'on pretty lady…" one tried, but she just wagged her finger at him while keeping the smile pasted on her face.
"No sir! I'm sorry. Now, would you like a refill?"
Once she had finished all the drinks at that table, she quickly returned to the kitchen to check and see if any of her customer's orders had been completed. One had, so she snatched up the tray and made her way out to that table. This was a pair of couples who were watching the performance with wide smiles. They were both gay couples, so she had no trouble from them as she gave them their food, although she did fume a little when she overheard one of them commenting on Natsu's butt.
There was a little satisfaction when his partner slapped him lightly in a teasing manner and said, "Don't push your luck, Mister!" There was a pause and then he added, "But yes, he does have a fantastic ass. And the rest of him is pretty fine too."
All she could do was roll her eyes as she walked back to the kitchen to drop off the tray. None of the other food orders were ready yet, so she headed to the bar to check on drink orders. There was a tray waiting for one of her tables, so she snagged it and trotted over to the table it belonged to. This was a table of older ladies who had all ordered things like cosmos, sex on the beach, and fruity daiquiris. Lucy had found this group of customers quite enjoyable, because not only did she not have to worry about getting groped, but they were also quite nice and liked to gossip with her.
"Hello ladies! Here are your drinks." She handed them out. Halfway through, one of them started bouncing in her seat and excitedly exclaimed, "Oh look! That new dancer is coming up for a solo! Oh! I'm so excited!"
After hurriedly handing out the last couple of drinks, Lucy whirled around to look, and sure enough Natsu was taking the stage. She stared with a dropped jaw as he grinned and started dancing. It was a mashup of various moves he had obviously been taught, and then he added in a little fire. The crowd whooped as he danced with his flames, guiding them around his body as he jumped and spun and twisted and thrusted (of course). It was downright mesmerizing and she felt herself flushing as she watched, unable to tear her eyes away from him.
After an embarrassingly long time, she finally managed to jerk her head and break her stare. Grumbling to herself to cover up her embarrassment, "Natsu you idiot, you better not burn the place down."
One of the ladies must have heard her, because she said, "Oh, you know him?"
"Um yeah, we're both fill-ins from Fairy Tail. We're just here for a couple of days."
"So he's your friend then?!"
"Um…yes…"
Suddenly she had all the ladies' attention and they eagerly began to pester her with questions. These women loved gossip.
"So are you two a thing?"
"N-no…"
"Oh my! She's blushing! Look everyone! Oh, how cute!"
There was a series of coos that made her flush even harder and she pursed her lips.
This continued on for a little while until she finally managed to politely excuse herself.
…
As for Natsu, he was having an interesting day. The dancing thing was actually kinda fun … when he actually got to dance and wasn't just standing around bouncing to the beat and pumping his hips. That got old real fast.
Dancing solo was a blast because he got to use his fire, and he noticed Lucy watching from the crowd, which made it even better. Now that he knew his feelings about her, he felt an odd urge to show off and thoroughly enjoyed the way she looked at him with a gaping mouth and wide eyes. At the very least he'd shocked her – which was hilarious – but he was pretty sure that she also looked impressed. He couldn't help but get fired him up at the thought – though he had to control it and not get too excited, otherwise his flames might get a little out of control.
However, what wasn't so fun, was having to watch as guys grabbed at her. That had been happening basically all day off and on, and he had a hard time keeping himself on stage instead of stomping down there to tell them off. Or punch them. Probably punch them. Seeing any guy harassing one of his female friends made him get super aggressive … but seeing someone harassing Lucy made him positively lethal. Thankfully none of them seemed too pushy about it, and it looked like she was able to fend them off easily enough.
It wasn't like he was exactly worried about her – he knew from firsthand experience how painful a Lucy Kick was – but of course this was a job, and he knew she probably wouldn't want to beat up the customers. He wasn't above it though, if the situation called for it. Lucy was his mage, and it was literally his purpose in life to protect her. Plus, she was his best friend…and so much more now. There was no way he was gonna let any of these dudes fuck with her, and he made sure to keep his eyes, nose, and ears tuned in her direction.
If someone got too grabby, they were in for a barbecue knuckle sandwich.
And Lucy wasn't oblivious to his gaze on her. She could practically feel it, even when she knew she was out of his sight. It was almost unsettling, if she hadn't known he was just watching out for her and probably mad about the guys getting grabby with her. Not that she thought he was jealous or anything, she was sure he was just worried about his best friend…
The rest of the day passed in much the same way, but right around closing time a group of really rowdy older guys came in and parked themselves at one of her tables. She could tell from a mile away that these weren't people she wanted to associate with – especially not where she couldn't give them a Lucy Kick without getting fired. Still, there wasn't anything she could do about it, so she pasted on a fake smile and marched over, getting a few sympathetic pats on the back from her fellow waitresses.
When she got to the table, all of them looked her up and down like a piece of meat, and they all had variations of creepy smirks on their faces.
"Um, what can I get you to drink?"
A man with slicked back black hair, ripped jeans, and a button-down white shirt said, "Hello Sweetheart…we'll have two beers, one brandy, and a whisky on the rocks."
She took it down in her little notebook, then asked, "And did you want to order any food? I can get you a menu if you would like."
"No. No food for us." said the blond with a five o'clock shadow and sunglasses.
"Very good. I'll just go put in your orders then."
She was turning to walk away when one of them snagged her wrist and stalled her. "Service us real good, okay Sweetheart? We'll give you a special tip if you do."
Goosebumps rose up on her arms and she jerked her hand away, much to their amusement. She could hear chuckles as she walked away. Those guys were real creeps, and she hoped like heck they wouldn't be here long. She didn't know how long she could deal with them…or how long Natsu could hold out. The heat that crawled across her skin had to be his glare.
She dropped off their order at the bar and then went around to tend to her other tables, stalling as long as she could before going back to pick up the drink order for Creeps-R-Us.
"Here are your drinks. Two beers, one brandy, and a whisky on the rocks." she said as she handed them out. "Is there anything else I can get you?"
"Plenty, Love. There's plenty you can do for us."
She suppressed a shiver and decided to ignore that comment. "Are there any other drinks you would like? Or have you reconsidered seeing the food menu?"
"I'll have a shot of Jack." one said, and she nodded before turning to scurry off as fast as she could.
As she dropped off the new order, she told the bartender, "That table is full of creeps. If they do anything inappropriate, can I please have them thrown out?"
The bartender gave her a sympathetic look. "Of course. If they do anything untoward, just tell me and I'll have security all over them. No worries."
She nodded, feeling a little better about it, but just for some extra security she mentioned, "And uh, if they assault me or something, they're probably gonna end up hurt."
He blinked and then grinned. "I wouldn't expect anything less from a member of Fairy Tail. If they assault you, you have every right to defend yourself. Just please don't hurt them too badly. It could cause us some problems if you do."
With a grin she nodded in agreement and grabbed the shot of Jack that was ready. With a deep bracing breath, she took it to the table under discussion and dropped it off. All she said was, "Here's your shot of Jack. I hope all the drinks are to your satisfaction?"
Barely waiting for a nod, she finished by saying, "Wonderful. I'll check on you again in a couple of minutes to make sure you're still doing good." And then she made a quick escape before they could say anything creepy to her.
She managed to get away with minimal contact with them for a while, but naturally her luck had to run out at some point. Near the end of the day, she approached their table with their bill in her apron, hoping that they were ready for it.
"Hello! Would any of you like more drinks?"
"I think we're just about done, Honey." the leader of the group said, smirking at her.
Relieved, she tugged out the bill and put it on their table. "Take your time. Thank you for coming."
Finally, it seemed to be over, and she sighed in relief as she turned away to scamper off, but all her hopes came crashing down when one of them caught her wrist again.
"Easy there, Sweetheart. What's the rush?"
Another chimed in with, "Yeah, I believe you told us we could take our time."
A third voice joined in. "And don't thank us yet. None of us have finished."
She stiffened, especially at that last comment, and jerked on her arm. "I'm sorry, I have another table I need to attend to. Excuse me."
To her surprise, the man holding her wrist just tightened his grip instead of letting her go, and he tugged her back towards him. "Surely you can spare some time for us. We haven't given you your tip yet."
She gasped when a sharp yank had her stumbling backwards, and then yelped when she was dragged down onto the guy's lap. Naturally her first reaction was to try and immediately stand back up again to make an escape, but his arm wrapped around her middle to lock her in place.
"Don't be like that. Here, this should make it all better." one of the other guys said, and then gave her a smarmy grin as he reached forwards and waved a thousand jewel bill under her nose. Before she could turn him down, he had shoved it into her corset between her breasts. "Consider that a down payment on your tip."
With a full-body shudder, she threw her elbow back into the human under her, and with an oof he let her go. As soon as his arms loosened around her waist, she shot up and took several large steps away before spinning around to see their shocked faces. Then, she reached into her bra to grab the bill that had been shoved there and threw it back at them.
"No thanks! I am not that kind of girl! Now get out or I'm going to call security!"
"You bitch- how dare you-!" one of them started, but the leader of the group raised a hand to stop him.
"We haven't paid yet."
"DO I look like I care?" Lucy countered. "You assaulted me!"
"We paid you, you little slut!" the blond growled, standing up and taking a step towards her.
"I'm getting security."
When she spun around to do just that, a harsh grip on her upper arm stopped her, and she had to resist the urge to spin around and kick him into the wall across the room.
"Take your hands off me." she simply said, not turning around.
"No."
Suddenly there was a wave of heat from behind her, and a new voice growled, "If I were you, I'd let her go. Unless you wanna break something."
At the sound of Natsu's voice, Lucy spun around to look, and a broad grin spread across her lips.
The guy holding her scowled at him. "And who are you to tell me what to do? You're just a dancer. Aren't you going to get in trouble for leaving the stage?"
Natsu just crossed his arms, and his eyes snapped back from where they had been looking at Lucy to stare at the idiot addressing him.
"I'm not gonna repeat myself."
"Excuse me." The leader stood up. "I think we have a misunderstanding here. You see, we have paid for this woman's attention, so -"
"Actually, you haven't." Lucy pointed at the money on the floor. "That's yours by the way. You might wanna pick it up."
The leader ground his teeth together and shot her a glare.
Natsu cut in before anyone could say anything more. "So, I guess you want me to punch you."
He addressed the blond holding Lucy, completely ignoring the leader and what he'd just said. At Natsu's threat, he cringed back and released her.
He reared back an arm and was about to punch the blond anyways, but Lucy stepped forwards and hurried to say, "Uh, let's not punch the customers. Okay Natsu?"
As soon as she stepped forwards, Natsu's punch changed into snapping his hand forwards and grabbing her. He hauled her towards him before wrapping an arm securely around her waist and glaring at the four other guys in front of him.
"Lucy is MINE. Nobody touches her but me, got it?"
Lucy gaped up at him, not at all sure what to make of him calling her 'his,' or saying that nobody got to touch her but him. What the heck did that even mean?!
"Yours? Is this little bitch your girlfriend or something?" one asked, sneering at him.
Another chimed in with, "If that's the case, how come you let her work as a slut? What kinda man are you? And you're a dancer too? How sick is that? I guess it's a match made in heaven huh? A whore and a male stripper…"
"Yeah, and what exactly are you supposed to be? What's with those crappy props?" the blond said, pointing at his horns. Apparently he hadn't seen Natsu's tail yet. "You supposed to be some sort of devil or something?" He started laughing and jeering at him, making fun of his costume.
Natsu grinned, showing some fang. "A devil huh…?"
He released Lucy and stalked towards them. Letting lose a feral growl, a blast of heat came from him, causing the four in front of them to cringe back a little in shock. Then their faces switched from shock to horror and fear as Natsu changed. His wings snapped out and scales rippled across his exposed skin. His tail lashed back and forth in rage, and Lucy was seriously concerned he might take out one of the nearby tables with either a wing or his tail. All the nearby patrons seemed to think the same thing and got up from their tables to put some distance between them and the enraged dragon.
"I'm a dragon actually, asshats. But I'd be happy to send you all to hell…" Flames licked his lips as he snarled at them.
They glanced at each other and mouthed, 'dragon…?' Then they all looked back at him with absolute terror stamped across their features. When flames suddenly burst around his clenched fists and he took a fighting stance, they turned tail and ran.
Lucy could see his muscles tense, and he took a menacing step forwards – as if he really wanted to chase after them and beat the ever-living-daylights out of them – so she hurried to grab his arm. He froze and then slowly turned to face her.
For a long moment he stared at her, his golden eyes growing darker by the second, and eventually something in him snapped. With a short growl he grabbed her and hauled her over his shoulder before turning and stomping out the door. She couldn't quite help but shout a little in shock as she got tossed over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, and then grunted heavily when his shoulder slammed into her solar plexus.
It took her a good minute or so to process what just happened, but when things finally clicked, she started throwing a fit, smacking his back and yelling, "Oi! Put me down! Natsu! What the hell are you doing?!"
By that point they were at least a block away from the restaurant, and he had transformed back to his normal form. Thankfully it was also after dark, because they certainly would have gotten a lot more stares if he'd been running around with her thrown over his shoulder in broad daylight.
After a lot of loud protesting and pounding on his back, he finally stopped and she was able to slide off his shoulder.
"What the hell Natsu?! What was that? We're probably going to get fired now for walking out in costume and before our shifts were over!"
"At least I didn't break anything or kill anyone. Which is saying a lot, cause I really wanted to burn the place down…"
"Well…yeah. I'm glad you didn't do any of those things. Good job." She did have to concede that point at least, and she was incredibly relieved that he had managed to control himself pretty well – all things considered. "Now how about we go back and finish our shifts?"
"No. It was almost closing time anyways."
"Wha-…Why? What's gotten into you?"
He was silent for a long time, and she could see his jaw clenching and unclenching as if he were grinding his teeth. She wasn't sure she'd seen him quite this perturbed before – furious for short periods of time, yes…but usually as soon as he kicked the bad guy's ass he was back to his cheerful self.
Finally he grumbled, "I'm too pissed to go back right now."
She absorbed his answer for a moment, then sighed and gave in. "All right. If you're really that mad, then we'll go back to the hotel for now. But we're taking these costumes back tomorrow and apologizing profusely for walking out like that. Okay?"
"Fine."
Thankfully, by the time they got back to their hotel room, he seemed to have chilled out and was mostly back to normal.
Lucy went through her normal getting-ready-for-bed routine, hoping that Natsu might decide to go back to the celestial realm for the night all on his own without any prompts from her, but by the time she was ready to crawl into bed, he was still hanging around. Although, he had changed out of his costume and back into his normal vest and trousers – which was a good sign.
"All right, well … I'll see you tomorrow okay?" she said, trying to give him a hint without being too rude about it, since he still seemed a little tense.
Silence met her, and she turned to look at him fully, wondering what was going on. He was staring at the carpet intensely for a long time, and then when he finally raised his gaze to meet hers, she found her breath suddenly getting stuck in her throat. His eyes were so…intense…and yet so incredibly vulnerable too, in a way she'd never seen before. It stunned her senseless for a long moment.
"Hey Luce…can I please sleep with you tonight?"
The question was so simple, yet it was said in a tone he hadn't ever used before. Not to mention the fact that she couldn't ever remember him actually asking to sleep with her…or for anything really…and she was pretty sure she had never heard him say the word, 'please,' before.
Under these circumstances, she found it impossible to say no, especially not with the way he was staring at her – his dark eyes practically begging. So, with a sigh, she turned to the bed and grabbed an extra pillow. She plopped it firmly in the middle of the bed and then crawled in on the other side, before saying, "Fine, but this pillow stays between us and you stay on your side. Deal?"
Suddenly he was back to regular Natsu, although there was still a hint of that odd look to his eyes. With a broad grin, he bounded into bed, and nestled under the covers on his side. "Thanks Luce!"
"Sure…no problem." she grumbled as she grabbed the pillow back from the foot of the bed where he had accidentally flung it.
She stuck the pillow under the covers between them, just to make sure it didn't get knocked off again. Since they were both under the covers, it acted as more of a barrier that way too.
"Alright, well, goodnight Natsu." she mumbled as she turned off the lamp and plunged them into darkness.
"Night Luce."
And then there was silence and Lucy closed her eyes, attempting to find sleep.
The sound of Natsu's breathing kept her on edge for a long time. She had never gone to sleep with him in bed with her before – at least not when she was of sound mind – and it was amazingly awkward. Maybe it wasn't uncomfortable for him, but for her it felt like the air was heavy with tension that made it hard to breathe. That was all in her head of course, and after several hours of forcing herself to relax, eventually Lucy was able to slip into an uneasy sleep.
Thanks to the light nature of her slumber, it wasn't hard for her to wake up when she felt some movement in the bed. She was still groggy and slightly disoriented, but as soon as she felt warm arms wrap around her waist and body heat press up against her back, she became fully conscious. Her first reaction was irritation that he had ignored her request to stay on separate sides of the bed and had somehow removed the pillow from between them.
However, as she geared up to throw an elbow back into his solar plexus and shove him off the bed, he snuggled his face into her shoulder and sighed. The sound was so peaceful and happy that it caused her to still, and something inside her melted a little. Then he nuzzled into her shoulder, like a puppy, and started up the softest, cutest rhythmic snore that almost sounded like purring. It was so adorable that she just couldn't bring herself to push him away.
So instead, she found herself stuck in his embrace as he snuggled up to her and purred/snored away, apparently sound asleep. There had been a few times where she had been too tired to shove him out of bed, or had simply found his warmth too appealing, but she'd never been quite this awake while sleeping with him. The experience was certainly novel, and she found herself memorizing the feel of his body pressed up against hers…the way his arm wrapped around her and held her close, the way she could feel the rise and fall of his chest against her back as he breathed, the firm warmth of his legs pressed behind hers and curling them both into a ball…it was shockingly comfortable. Even the deep thrum of his snore started lulling her until she felt herself begin to drift off again.
In the unguarded state right before sleep, she let herself wish that this could be … that she didn't have to kick him out of bed and could just sleep with him every night.
Sneak Peek
It was a bad idea, and that was saying a lot coming from someone who regularly charged into danger blindly. But in this case, he'd been watching guys eyeballing Lucy all day, not to mention yesterday and the day before, and he was at his max.
Actually, he had reached his limit yesterday.
Last night, he would have hunted those perverts down and given them a beating if Lucy hadn't stopped him, and if they hadn't left when they did, he would have taken them out right then and there…and probably the restaurant along with them.
Sleeping with her had only soothed his nerves so much…and certainly not enough to deal with having to watch her get 'kidnapped.' Even if it was just a stupid performance that Silvester had concocted, he already knew he was going to blow some major fuses if the servers pretending to be 'bandits' got grabby with her. Hell, if they even laid so much as a finger on her, he was going to have trouble controlling himself…and he was already pretty sure they were going to do a lot more than that.
It was going to be a god-damn miracle if everyone got out alive tonight.