Fated to Love You


itsy bitsy spider

"Ohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygodohmy—"

Lucy hyperventilated from her vantage point on top of her dining table as she desperately clutched her spatula and stared with teary eyes at the humongous black spider crawling across the window above her kitchen sink. She could smell her food burning on the stove but she was too terrified to even think about that right now.

In fact, the spider had made her so hysterical that she had literally posted an ad on Craigslist begging for someone to come to her apartment and get rid of it before she died of fear. Literally. There was actually a real ad on Craigslist that read: "PLEASE HELP GET RID OF ENORMOUS SPIDER, PRICE NEGOTIABLE." God, she was so fucking stupid and scared out of her mind because she had even gone so far-could she claim temporary insanity?-to post her address online for murderers and rapists and burglars to see.

Fuuuuuck. Well, she was dead either way, then, wasn't she?

Lucy focused back on the horror at hand: "Ew ew ew ew ew ew ew ew ew ew ew-"

All of a sudden, there was a knock and an enthusiastic "Hey!" She turned to see a cute pink-haired man with a long scarf and a carefree grin crouched on her windowsill—damn, she'd forgotten to close it, but how in the world had he gotten up there?—and screamed again, half in surprise, half in fright.

"What the—who the hell are you!?" she screamed, brandishing her oily spatula in his direction.

He jumped down into her living room and fetched a piece of paper out of his back pocket, completely ignoring her. "You, uh, you Lu...Luigi Heart-file-ee-ya?"

"Lucy!" she hissed, not even bothering to try to correct his utter destruction of her last name.

"Gesundheit! So, where the critter at?" He grinned toothily at her and bounced on his feet, and it was then that she noticed the large black backpack.

"Uh, what's in there?"

"Huh?" He twisted his neck to look where she was pointing—mm, his neck muscles, Lucy appraised before blushing and mentally scolding herself for the absolute shamelessness of that thought—and perked up even more (she hadn't thought that was possible, but alas). "Oh, this? Just a few tools to help your unwanted guest out!"

Lucy gaped at him, slack-jawed. "You...you're here because of the ad I posted on Craigslist? Are you serious? What if it was a prank? Why did you come in through the window? No, how did you even get up there? What are you—oh dear lord, that's a lot of lighter fluid. That's—wow. God. Okay, lemme just..."

Lucy pulled out her phone to Google the fastest route to the hospital, because there was no way something wasn't going to go horribly wrong. She couldn't take her eyes off of the man as he continued to shake out his bag and more and more bottles came tumbling out.

"Okay, why in the world would you bring that much? That is literally enough to demolish a small town! What the hell were you thinking?" Lucy yelled, glaring at the small mountain of bottles filled with highly inflammatory liquid piled innocently on her floor.

The man scratched his head, giving her a confused look. "Is it too much? I thought, just in case—"

"In case what? In case you weren't able to burn down the whole building trying to get rid of a spider?"

"I mean, if that's what it takes..."

Lucy groaned—and suddenly, she realized that she had almost completely forgotten about the source of her woe. She whipped her head back to the kitchen and sighed in relief to find the spider exactly where it had been before. She would've freaked the fuck out if it had moved because then she'd have to go and find it, lest it surprise her in the bathroom.

"So, where's the spider?"

She looked back at the man who eagerly scooped up several bottles and pulled out a red lighter from his pocket. She stared at him in disbelief.

"You...you really...oh my god, no! No! No, put all of that away right now! You are not killing this spider!"

He frowned. "I'm not?"

"No!" Lucy sighed in exasperation. "I just want you to get rid of it. Release it back into the wild, I dunno, but not kill it!"

The man paused in the midst of leaning down to pick up his shit and gave her a weird look. It was soft and warm and...weird. It made her feel tingly and she hated (loved) it. He smiled—a real smile this time, wide and sweet, not the mischievous smirks he'd worn earlier—and damn if Lucy didn't feel her cheeks flush and her heart pound in response.

"What?" she practically barked at him, wincing internally at her unintentional harshness, but he just shook his head, still smiling.

"Nah. Just...you're weird."

Immediately, Lucy was on the defensive. "What? No, I'm not! If anything, you're the weird one, you—oh my god, it moved!"

Lucy whimpered as the spider's furry black legs twitched and the man followed her frightened gaze to the kitchen sink. He approached it slowly, picking up a magazine from her counter on the way. When he got right in front of it—Lucy was holding her breath with anticipation now—he opened the magazine and scooped the spider right onto its pages before closing it, but gently so he wouldn't squish it. He then quickly walked back to the open window, making Lucy squeak in fear as he passed by her, and let it loose on the side of the building before slamming the window shut.

"Mission accomplished!" He dropped her magazine on the couch—Lucy watched in disgust, making a mental note to throw out the magazine and deep clean that couch later—and moved to stand in front of her.

She was looking down on him, since she was still standing on top of the table, and he was looking up at her, and his eyes were a really pretty dark green, forest-y, and his skin was tan, and was that a hint of a scar on his neck?

Then he held out a hand to her and chuckled. "Need help getting down?"

She scowled. "I can get down perfectly fine on my own, thank you very much." Except, apparently, she couldn't, because she jumped down, which was clearly a bad idea, and slipped on the wood boards of her floor. Her arms flailed as she tried and failed to regain her balance and she squeezed her eyes shut as she tipped forward.

Straight into his chest.

His arms were quick to steady her, strong hands cupping her waist as he set her on her feet, and her arms automatically landed on his shoulders. He laughed, and Lucy was mesmerized by it until he grinned down at her and teased, "Thought you could get down perfectly fine on your own, Luigi."

Her face burned but she dug her fingers into his shoulder and refused to look away. "My name is Lucy! And I just slipped a little, that's all! I would've been fine!"

His face softened again and he held her gaze firmly. "Right. Lucy."

She held back a shiver. That's when they realized the position they were in and each took a step back, the loss of his hands on her waist forcing her to suppress an even more insistent shudder.

"I'm Natsu, by the way. Natsu Dragneel," he introduced himself.

"Nice to meet you, Natsu." She savored the way his name rolled off her tongue.

The corner of his lips tilted upwards. Then he frowned and his nose twitched. "Is something burning?"

Lucy's eyes widened and she turned back to the kitchen just as her fire alarm started shrieking. "Shit!"


notes: aaaaaand of course then natsu somehow convinced her to cook more food for both of them but mostly him and then when they talked price for her services (heh) he naturally refused all monetary compensation and instead wrangled a not-date out of her ;) i think i like my natsus immature and innocent but not idiotic like he sometimes is in the manga lol xD so basically oc ahahahaha. the au prompt is from dailyau on tumblr btw. also i guess i'm experimenting with the format and tryna figure out where is best to leave my notes. is it better before or after the chapter? before is nice just to get it outta the way but after is also nice because i dont have to worry about spoiling the chapter by making some flippant hilarious comment. idk. any opinions?


© Copyright 2016 by The Siege