Lucy first meets Natsu in some mysterious dark alley as he's hopping around while holding one foot and repeating the word "fuck" over and over again.

Finally, he stomps his foot back down and shakes his fist at the brick wall before him. "You wanna go?" he demands, his eyes lighting up with an insane kind of fire. "Let's go! Come at me! I'm all fired up!"

Lucy blinks in surprise. She really should retreat, but she's eating this stuff up like one of those horrible comedies she likes to watch when she's bored. So she kind of just stands there at the mouth of the alleyway, openly gaping at the spectacle before her.

The pink-haired stranger punches the wall. Hard. Like really hard.

The wall shakes and the man leaps back, cradling his fist. "Fuck! Fuck fuck fuck fuckity fuck you, you fucking wall. Making me use Ice Stripper's dirty words. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck you!"

He clenches his hand into a fist again. "I'm still fired up!" he yells as some form of a battle cry, and he's about to hit the wall again when his cell phone goes off to some kind of an upbeat tune.(We will blow away mukai kaze ni tachimukai…)

He picks it up with a furious glint in his eye. "Who's it?" he demands, flexing his fingers on the hand he used to punch the wall. Even from far away, Lucy can see the bruise blossoming over his knuckles. His expression has shifted from pure rage into a kind of angry pout. It's kinda adorkable, but whatever.

"Ice Princess?" Lucy hears him ask. He sounds rather disgruntled and somewhat angry again. "What do you want?"

He starts yelling into the line and then he says something along the lines of "No, not Erza!" and then there's a screeching from the phone about strawberry cake that was lost last week, and then the stranger looks thoroughly chagrined.

"No, Erza, I haven't checked out the apartment yet. I'm… uh… I'm lost," he mumbles, almost so Lucy can't hear.

He winces at something from the other line and hastily says, "No, no! Erza, you don't need to come! I can find my way myself! I… I'm all fired up!" And then there's a lot of "uh-huh"s and "yeah, I'll call you when I get there" and "I promise to stay out of trouble." Lucy idly wonders if this "Erza" person is his parental guardian.

Finally he hangs up his phone with a relieved sigh and slumps against the wall he had previously tried to attack. "Erza's gonna beat me up," he mutters, but then his eyes light up again. "I'll get her this time," he vows. "I'm going to win this fight!"

Lucy pauses, watching his weird mood swings in a kind of confused fascination. Finally, she shakes her head and turns to leave... but then she hears the stranger's voice call out, "Hey, you! Uh… the person walking away from me!"

Startled, Lucy turns around. She's met with a sheepish grin and bright eyes.

"Sorry, but, can you give me directions?" he asks, sort of hopeful. His knuckles are bleeding.

He's a potential maniac, but Lucy figures that giving him directions can't hurt. He's holding a piece of paper with writing in fancy, looping font.

Natsu,
Your apartment's address is 1190 Strawberry Street, Magnolia, Fiore.
Your apartment number is 643.
I have already moved over all your things. Don't pick any fights or do anything reckless.
Don't get lost. Don't wander off-track.
I will visit your apartment tomorrow. You should be settled in by then.
I hope you read through this entire letter instead of just reading the address, or you will be in pain.
-Erza

It's a strange letter, but the stranger seems weird, anyways, so Lucy shrugs it off.

She rereads the words, and her eyes widen. She glances up at the stranger, who is humming his phone's ringtone to himself and smiling at nothing.

"Your apartment is right next to mine," she says, still not quite comprehending the words. "We're neighbors."

The stranger's face lights up. "So you can lead me back?" he asks.

Lucy takes a moment to weigh her options. Should she deal with him when he seems really, really weird? What if he's a murderer? What if he's a thief?

Finally, she huffs out a breath. If he's going to be her neighbor now, they might as well be on good terms. "Sure," she tells him. "It's not very far from here."

She had just been walking back from the grocery store around the corner, so she has her bags with her. The stranger takes her grocery bags and grins brightly. "Thanks. I'm Natsu Dragneel, nice to meet ya."

Lucy blinks in surprise. He's carrying her groceries. She didn't really take him for the gentleman type…

(No guy has ever taken her bags before, aside from Loke and Capricorn. But they were required to.)

She smiles tentatively, a little afraid to give information away, but to hell with it. He's going to be her neighbor (unless he's lying, but she chooses to ignore that). He's going to learn a lot more about her soon, anyways.

"I'm Lucy," she says. "Apartment 642. It's nice to meet you, neighbor."

A/N: And then they fall in love very quickly - in like one week - and then Lisanna comes in and Lucy's jealous and then there's relationship drama and then Lucy confesses and Natsu kisses her and then they're in a relationship after like three weeks or so. End of fic.

But not really. At least, I hope not.

Anyways, Natsu's ringtone is from the 2nd OVA opening, "Blow Away." His actual voice actor sings it, which is super cool! It's a duet of him and Gray's voice actor, from Natsu and Gray's POV.