Lucy thought that the longer she stayed out in the cold the more accustomed to it she would grow. That certainly was not the case.
Despite the chill that tried its hardest to bite and burrow through her coat and the blankets Natsu laid over her and around himself as well, the company and conversation was oddly stimulating, stimulating enough that occasionally Lucy would forget her fears of catching a cold.
Of all things that surprised her, she didn't expect Natsu to be so verbal. He was always talkative, that was true, but there were times like this that they were alone when Natsu would embody either of two personalities; one would be quiet and calm, laying together and close, and the second would be a waterfall of words from the lips of his Lucy couldn't stop staring at.
Today, Natsu had brought up music. He wanted to play something but had nowhere to plug in speakers of a charger if his phone died. Lucy assured him it would be no problem as long as Natsu didn't try to sing to make up for it.
"What do you listen to?" Natsu had asked. He was so bold and curious of the things she liked, a selfless trait Lucy found to be rare in both others and herself.
She gave a weak shrug of her shoulders, yet they were piled under a coat and two thick blankets so it seemed she hadn't moved at all. "I listen to a lot really. I think it depends on my mood and what I'm doing."
Natsu shifted a little bit towards her so they were no longer shoulder-to-shoulder. "And what would those marvelous activities be?"
Lucy had to commend him on the seeming impressive vocabulary tonight. Usually 'marvelous activities' would be 'cool stuff.' She shrugged again. "I just like background music. The quiet unnerves me. Like when I'm writing or studying."
The pink haired boy smiled in relief. "What a coincidence, I also hate the quiet."
"Oh, I don't hate it. Sometimes it's nice, especially after listening to you jabber all day." Lucy rocked to the side and nudged his shoulder with hers. "But whenever I'm trying to write or to think about something, it's like the thoughts in my head are too loud. Music calms them down."
Just for a moment, Natsu sat still in a quiet awe. "Your mind is an exceptional place."
"So it tells me." Lucy's cheeks dimpled with a restrained smile. "Things are just easier to follow when you already have a rhythm."
Natsu pushed some of his shaggy hair away from his brow before shedding one of the blankets as if he was hot. "What kind of music calms those screeching thoughts of yours? Contemporary? R&B? Extreme heavy metal?" He tucked the blanket over Lucy's frame, his arm hanging around her shoulders for an added moment of warmth.
"Kinda, sorta, and definitely not." Lucy's voice was warm with a slight laugh. "And not any of that cheesy pop crap either. I like the way guitars sound, and people with strong but steady voices."
Head tilted back slightly, Natsu looked up at the sky as if asking it for answers. "So the lady likes calming acoustic. I can find that fitting enough."
Lucy nodded her head in agreement. "Especially the song 'Hothead' by The Thunder Gods. Have you heard it?"
A pair of pitch black eyes locked with Lucy's before Natsu nodded his head and, very seriously, said, "I am great at singing that melody."
Lucy coughed to cover up her laugh. "Yes, I'm sure. So what's your fav-"
"I'll sing it and show you, okay? Since we don't have speakers, you get an extra treat and get to hear me acapella." Natsu scooted away a bit in order to really sit up straight, bearing his one blanket like a cape.
Lucy pulled her lips back in a slight grimace. "Oh, please don't-"
"I know I've seen your face before, somewhere~," Natsu threw his head back as he sang, rather howled, the what should have been a very smooth melody.
Lucy's gloved fists clenched and pulled her blankets up around her lower face, a half smile half hidden.
"I can feel the warmth of your stare and the heat in the air~!" As much as Lucy truly wanted to love the moment, Natsu was a butcher of vocals. He had a lovely voice when speaking, but for Mavis' sake it was terrible when singing.
The corner of Lucy's blanket fell off her shoulder as she reached out to Natsu, hand placed on his shoulder in attempts to get him to settle down. He vaguely reminded her of a newborn puppy first learning t howl.
She couldn't help but laugh as the pink haired boy rocked side to side with enthusiasm and belted out the next line of the oh-so-familiar chorus to Lucy. "I remember your clothes and every word you said~!"
In retrospect, Lucy wished she let herself laugh harder. After all, no one was around to watch. Surely there were to be a few people walking on the sidewalk and wondering who was butchering a chart-topper, though. Her lips pulled back in a shy smile, buried beneath her scarf for warmth.
Natsu finally calmed down, letting his head fall down to a more natural angle, in which he looked dead across at Lucy. Voice much softer, he breathed out the last line in one shaky exhale. "You make me crazy...I'm a hot head~."
Lucy's teeth clenched down on the side of her cheek. "That was...impressive."
Tongue running along his lips dry from the cold, Natsu nodded. "I told you I was good."
"How could I ever doubt you?" Lucy pulled her arm back into the safety of her blanket-cape.
In one slow yet swift motion, Lucy let gravity pull her down a bit. She fell sideways into Natsu's lap, resting on the edge of his crisscrossed thigh. His face was upside-down above her, hazed by a halo of grey winter clouds above him. "What's your favorite song?"
The pinkette above her shrugged his shoulders. "How can I pick a favorite song? It'd be like picking a favorite food, or a favorite time of the day to take a nap."
A scoff left the gap between Lucy's grinning lips. "So it's really that difficult for you, huh?"
Natsu pushed his hand through his hair, the other hand propping him up lazily. "I just don't want to waste my life on favorite things. I like it when things are different and being able to have the choice of something. So my favorite food would be a buffet, by favorite time of the day to nap would be any," he trailed off with a laugh, "and my favorite song would be whatever you're listening to."
Lucy's mouth slowly shut; while she was rather in awe with his surprising words, she tried to avoid the cliché mouth-wide-open reaction. The assertiveness he exuded in his emotions would be forever appealing to her; even if this was somehow their last moment, she'd remember it for ages.
Her mouth opened up, but she found herself for a loss of words, exactly what she was hoping against. "So what exactly was the reasoning behind the tattoo-parlor-roof extravaganza? Why not, I don't know, a normal restaurant date, or maybe wait until Spring for a normal picnic?"
Natsu's free hand drifted down, fingers settling between strands of Lucy's hair, occasionally wiggling through a small knot then combing back through again. "Gajeel used to work here. Despite their appearances, the guys downstairs are pretty nice and let me use the roof once I asked. Besides, who knows if you'll still like me come spring."
He said it so casually yet Lucy couldn't help but frown a bit at his comment. Natsu was too busy looking at the other side of the street to notice; whenever he said such heavy hearted words, it was almost as if he was joking. It almost ruined his reputation for emotional intensity.
"I can't write out that far into the future," Lucy raised her hand up over her head and let her fingers glide along his jawline to guide his attention back down to her, "but I think we'll be fine."
Natsu's head immediately fell down to hers, casting an entirely new view of his face from upside-down. He seemed like a new person; same black eyes like a photo of deep space, same thin lips, same expressive brows, yet it was an entirely new, entirely beautiful, perspective.
"You really think so, huh?" Natsu inhaled sharply. A cold breeze pushed his hair in front of his eyes as he looked down at her, but he didn't bother pushing it away; Lucy did so for him. "Well, you are the smart one."
The blonde nodded her head just once, fingers feeling the ridges of his jaw underneath her gloved fingertips. "Lucy knows best." She sighed.
Natsu's lips pulled back into his signature smile: broad, cheesy, and white as snow. "Exactly."
His lips pressed down against her forehead. He kissed her skin and the small hairs the wind blew in his way, not being picking with his kiss just as long as he got one. Lips trailed between her brow to the curvature of her ski-slope nose and the button tip red with cold.
The blankets layered around her nor the warmth of Natsu's body heat near her could not stop the chills that raked her body. His mouth glided down to hers in one fluid motion, a move so graceful that she would not have believed Natsu was capable of it had she not been there to see it, to feel it.
As erotic as those lips had been to her in the past, there was nothing quite the same about each time he kissed her, both now and every instance before. Each time bear a new insatiable presence, a new exotic discovery of sensation that lead her to looking forward to each time they kissed, that she woke up craving it like a morning dose of coffee.
Her mind elsewhere, her fingers pulled off the gloves from her hands and let them fall down beside her head. Despite the cold, she let her bare skin trace along his on his jaw, savoring the kiss from a very new angle, savoring how his face felt while he hovered over her. He was warm like her daily cup of coffee also, yet he tasted so much sweeter.
"If I kiss you like that every day then I definitely think we'll make it to spring." Natsu's lips grazed over hers with each movement of his words as he spoke, letting her mouth feel the curve of his skin as he spoke. His breath warmed her own.
Lucy nodded so slight she doubted he could even tell. "I'm sure of it."
Her bare skin rested on his, her bare lips attached with his, and her bare soul crept from her body to dance with his, all in the matter of one second, one hour, one eternity - she really couldn't tell.
Nalu Lemon Novel
Exy Koroleva © 2016
Thank you for reading.
Some triggering scenes
to be included, so please
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& votes are appreciated.