A grapefruit is a hybrid of an orange and a pomelo. It is a uniquely bitter fruit. The chemical which gives it its signature taste interacts poorly with cholesterol lowering statins…. so anyone on cholesterol medication is allergic to grapefruits.
Lucy woke up feeling much better. The fever seemed to have gone down, and she almost felt normal as she dressed in one of her favorite outfits.
Maybe Levy was wrong, she thought, breathing a sigh of relief. Maybe that stupid stuff wore off in a day.
To test it, she intentionally thought of Natsu. She summoned him in her mind – that firm chest, those washboard abs, that wonderful spiky pink hair…
She felt butterflies in her stomach, but the intense waves of lust from yesterday seemed to be gone.
"All right! I'm feeling lucky today!" Feeling alive and full of energy, she summoned Plue to have him accompany her to the guild. The little celestial spirit landed joyfully in her arms, and she cuddled him for a few moments before she strapped on her sandals and headed out to the guild.
She was ready for a new mission, assuming there was no news about their robber mage yet.
Lucy arrived at the guild to find out, much to her dismay, that there weren't any available missions on the board. It had been picked clean, probably because Fairy Hills rent was going to be due in a few days. With a sigh, Lucy dropped onto one of the benches in the cavernous guild hall, wondering when Natsu would arrive. She scanned around, looking for familiar faces. Cana was on top of the table next to her, sitting cross legged. The older girl had never mastered the art of normal seating.
"Hi Cana," she said, waving to the resident lush of the guild. Cana lifted her enormous beer mug by way of greeting, before lifting it high and chugging down a third of it in one go.
"Heya Lucy," Cana said after she had wiped her mouth and breathed deeply. "How did your mission go yesterday?"
"Terrible," Lucy said, trying not to think about her reaction to Natsu. "Our nose plugs blocked the sleeping magic, but he also had one that entered through our lungs as we breathed." She pursed her lips, pouting. "He got away."
"Awww," Cana said, and took another swig of beer. "Get drunk before you go out next time. Mild poisons prevent sleep potions from working."
"Huh, I didn't know that," Lucy said, filing away that bit of information for the future.
She finally heard Natsu before she saw him. Everyone in the guild turned toward the door as Natsu and Gray made their normal noisy morning entrance.
"Eat a dick, ice pick."
"You shut up, you fire-breathing moron!"
Lucy sighed, but had to smile a bit to herself. Those two would be like that for the rest of their lives, in all likelihood.
She watched Natsu as he approached her table, and all of a sudden the feelings from yesterday came back to her in a rush. The faint tickling in her stomach pooled lower in her belly, and she felt certain girly bits twitch in anticipation. Her heart began thudding in her chest as Natsu plunked down next to her, just a foot away from her, on the bench. Moments later, Happy landed on the table.
Lucy managed to hold in her terrified squeak. It seems Levy was right, and her ordeal would not be over for some time yet.
"Yo, Lucy!" he said, his grin infectious. He gave no indication that he remembered – or was concerned about – what had occurred between them the night before.
"Hi, Natsu," she managed to croak out. He smelled like sunshine and summer campfires, as always. "Hi Happy."
"Poo, poo!" Plue said by way of greeting to their companions.
"Got a mission for us yet?" Natsu asked, looking pointedly at her empty hands.
"There's nothing there to get," she said with a sigh. "Erza probably took half the ones that were available."
"Erza's mean~" Happy said, sounding disappointed. Then he brightened up. "I wonder if she'll buy me a fish."
Lucy couldn't help but smile at the crestfallen Exceed. Natsu and Happy really only needed to do missions for food money, and the occasional new outfit for the dragon slayer. He had a bad tendency to destroy clothes during especially grueling fights, which is why his default wardrobe abruptly changed when he'd torn something beyond repair.
She glanced over at his bared arm, noting the chiseled muscles, and swallowed hard. Without the distraction of a mission, this was going to be tougher than she'd expected.
"Everyone, can I have your attention please?" They all looked toward the bar when they heard the Master's voice calling to them. Makarov was dressed in a nice outfit, and a blushing Bisca sat next to him, Alzac standing beside her with a proud grin holding their precious daughter.
"What is it?" someone called from the back. "Bisca's not expecting again, is she?"
Alzac's eyebrows lifted and he looked down at his wife. Bisca laughed, waving it off in denial.
"Ahem," Makarov said, ignoring the comment. "Bisca has been named the winner of Magnolia's Citizen of the Year, for her work with the local humane society."
Everyone gasped in appreciation, while Bisca blushed prettily.
"This is a very high honor, and it is the first time they have given the award to a member of a mage guild since it was instituted almost thirty years ago."
The entire guild broke into whoops and cheers. Makarov held up his hand to silence them.
"As a result, Fairy Tail is having a holiday today. All missions are suspended, which is why the board is empty. They'll be back tomorrow, don't worry." The hold man lifted one finger toward the sky. "For now, let's party!"
Fairy Tail didn't need much prodding to toss caution to the wind and throw a wild, raucous bash that would soon have the Magnolia police and firefighters on the lookout. The city didn't mind it when they trashed their own guild, but especially crazy parties could spill outdoors, and drunken mages almost always resulted in extra property damage.
Several drinks later, Lucy found herself in a circle with about half the guild, playing some bizarre combination of spin the bottle and truth or dare.
"Ah, it's you, Levy!" Macao said, lifting his sake cup up in joy. "Truth or dare?"
Levy blushed prettily. "Truth," she said, twiddling her thumbs.
Macao's grin turned feral and his eyes narrowed. "Is it true that you and Gajeel were at the beach together last week?"
"Hey!"
"Levy-chan!" Jet and Droy cried together in dismay at the thought.
Levy's blush turned five shades deeper. "Yes," she said in a really small voice, and then hurried to reach over to spin the bottle in order to get the attention away from herself.
The bottle spun only a few times before it wobbled to a stop, pointing directly at Natsu.
"Natsu," Levy said cheerfully, pretending as if the last question had not existed. "Truth or dare?"
The fire dragon slayer was already two drinks deep himself, his face flushed from the alcohol.
"Dare, of course!" he said, as if it was obvious.
Levy's expression morphed into one not unlike the one Macao had worn moments earlier.
"I dare you to spend seven minutes of heaven in the closet with Lucy."
Lucy heard her name and nearly choked on the beer she had been sipping. "Levy!" she cried, horrified at the betrayal.
Levy just winked at her.
Oh Mavis, her best friend thought she was doing her a favor.
She looked at Natsu, who had a sort of blank expression of confusion on his face. He turned to her, and she felt her body absolutely pulse when he did.
Getting into a closet with the dragon slayer was a very bad idea right now.
"Go on, you cindery shithead," Gray said, goading him. Behind him, Juvia was holding her teru-teru bozu doll and praying to whatever rain gods may be that the bottle spun upon her and Gray and she would get a similar turn.
"I'm going, iceberg head."
Might as well get this over with.
She stood up and brushed her skirt off, and then set her drink on the nearest table. She was grateful she hadn't gotten very far – alcohol lowered inhabitations, and that was the last thing she needed in her… condition.
They were gleefully shoved into the closet by their own guild mates.
Natsu sat awkwardly on one of Cana's empty barrels, leaving Lucy a spare bar stool. She perched uneasily, clutching the hem of her skirt.
Her mouth seemed to be alternately between drool and dry as she looked at him.
"So…" she began, really unsure. She pressed her arms together, both painfully shy and painfully aroused. "I've never done seven minutes in heaven before."
"Eh, it just means they shove people in the closet for seven minutes and then tease them for days afterward." He stared at her, his grin gone as his delicate nose quivered. He was smelling her. "You've been acting weird lately, Lucy" he said finally. "And you smell weird. "
"Sorry," she said, trying not to cry. Natsu didn't like her that way after all, her mind wailed in dismay.
"It's like that time when you got into the sake at the inn," he said, referring to the incident where she'd been crazy and downed and entire bottle of sake by herself. It had been Erza's idea, to drink all the booze and leave none for the guys, but it had backfired. She didn't remember much of that night, although vague flashes of trying to feed Natsu eggs still came to mind.
"I've only had two normal sized drinks today," she said, holding up her empty hands.
"I'm just worried about ya, Lucy," her best friend said, and stood up from his barrel to approach her. She almost flinched as his hand touched her forehead. "You haven't been yourself ever since yesterday. Did… our kiss really bother you that much?"
Oh, please, let Earthland just open up beneath her feed and swallow her whole now.
"It didn't bother me," she said, then quickly backtracked. "Well, it didn't bother me as much as it could have."
He tensed. "What could have made it worse?"
She gulped. She had to believe in Natsu. She'd told him so many times that she believed in him, maybe it was time to trust him with her most precious thing of all… her heart.
"If it had been with anyone but you."
She stood up beside him, slid her around his neck, and before he could protest, she kissed him softly.
"Lucy…?"
"I… I like you, Natsu," she said, trying to keep her raging hormones in check. Every cell in her body was on fire, probably because of her contact with him. She felt her body pulse again. "I've been acting weird because the bandit splashed me with a potion that makes me- that is, I'm all turned…"
She just couldn't say it. Natsu was so frigging dense. Even if she spelled it out that she was so damn turned on she couldn't even think, he wouldn't understand. Dragon slayers were stupid machines built for fighting with no understanding of romance, or sex, or-
"Oh, like an aphrodisiac?"
What?!
"How did you-"
"Ah, so that's what I've been smelling! Why didn't you tell me that's what he splashed you with?"
Lucy realized she was still embracing him, and she quickly stepped back, as if she'd been hit with the stuff all over again. Her face felt like it was glowing magenta, she was so embarrassed.
"You don't… that is…"
"Yeah, Erza warned me about that kind of thing, especially when Juvia started messing around with potions. But you're not doing anything of the things she said could happen." He grinned and rubbed the back of his neck nervously, not quite meeting her in the eye.
What the hell had Erza filled his innocent mind with?
"Like, I mean, you're not stripping like Gray, and you're not tackling me to the ground and pinning me down and having your way with me, or anything like that."
"Maybe I want to," she whispered, staring at her feet, but he didn't seem to hear her.
"It'll wear off in a few days, right?" He finally looked at her again, his cheerful face suddenly scowling a little. But the faintest blush betrayed his real emotions.
She loved this man, she really did. He was pretending not to be affected, because he thought she was not herself. But now that he knew the cause, he was trying to put on a brave front for her.
"So if I threw you to the ground so I could have my way with you, would you let me?" she said, only half joking. She touched his coat and traced her fingers along his abdomen, watching the muscles quiver beneath her hand underneath the cloth.
Natsu's faint blushed expanded rapidly. "Now you're saying weird things again."
A loud knocking interrupted them. "Time's up!" the group outside roared together, and the door opened to Natsu and Lucy, inches from each other, her hand on her chest.
"Awww, they're not even kissing, how lame," Cana muttered, and went back to the game. A few embarrassed coughs, and the two escaped the confines of the closet coolly, as if nothing had happened.
As if nothing had happened.
"Plue!" Lucy said, grateful to escape the stifling room. Her little pet leapt into her arms – it was a testament to the control she had over summoning magic that she hadn't accidentally closed the gate during that awkward conversation.
"Lucy and Natsu ~ sitting in a … um… closet," Happy teased in his faint lisp, flying around their heads. Lucy gave him a halfhearted swat, and Natsu just grinned at the little blue Exceed, taking his friend's taunting in stride as always.
"That's not how the rhyme goes, you dumb cat."
"Pue pue!"
"K~I~S~S~I—"
"We didn't kiss in there, cat!"
Happy just giggled and flew off to enjoy the rest of the party.
Hours later, the celebration wound down, and people who had not yet passed out began to leave the guild lest they be roped into helping clean up.
Lucy stifled a yawn and headed toward the door. She'd eventually run out of magic and had to let Plue go. It would be mighty convenient if Happy was a celestial spirit and she could force his gate closed, but the little Exceed was unstoppable. He had giggled and mocked her and Natsu mercilessly for the rest of the party, even though everyone else was of the general opinion that nothing had occurred in the close. (Which it hadn't, Lucy reminded herself. She still wasn't sure if she was pleased or upset about that.)
"Heading out, Lucy?" she heard Natsu say, and her heart began thudding in her chest just from the sound of his voice. Man, she had it bad.
"Yes," she said, feeling the heat rise to her cheeks again. She would like to stop blushing around him constantly already. It was getting old.
"I'll walk you home," he said simply, and smiled at her.
In her lust-addled mind, she could have sworn she saw sparkles erupt from around his head.
"Okay," she choked out, turning away.
"I'm going to stay here for a bit, there's still food left," Happy said, and waved to them. "I'll catch up later."
No!
Happy was her last defense against Natsu. Without the Exceed around to gently rib them, she would begin to feel the lust inside. Happy was annoying, but he was also just distracting enough that she could function.
"See ya!" Natsu said, waving to the flying cat as they left the guild
They walked along the streets of Magnolia, as they had so many times before. Lucy loved the way the city had channeled the river, taming it and turning it into a square of canals. She had learned that it was originally done for flood control, but the lovely river also provided easy transportation of goods to the heart of the city, and had helped Magnolia become one of the stronger commercial hubs of Fiore outside of the capital city of Crocus.
"Hey Natsu," she said, stopping suddenly. "I've never gone on the gondola ride on the river."
"What, do you want to go now?" He also stopped, but he looked confused.
She shook her head. "No, silly. It just occurred to me that I've apparently missed out on one of Magnolia's biggest tourist attractions all this time, and I've lived here for almost a year."
"Oh." He turned to her, blushing again. "It's supposed to be a thing that lovey-dovey couples do. I never really saw the point, myself."
Lucy sighed. "Sometimes I think you don't have a romantic bone in your body." She remembered the time he had brought her a cherry tree in a boat down the river, because she was too sick to go with the guild for the cherry blossom party. Oh, Natsu could be a romantic, all right.
Dammit, she needed to make him reconcile their deep friendship with the long suffering sexual tension they'd been sharing.
She deliberately stepped closer to him. With the river behind him, he was unable to retreat too far.
"Natsu," she breathed, tipping her face up to look at him. His expression quickly turned panicky.
"What?"
She placed her hand on his chest, where she had last left it in the closet. "Maybe we should go down the river together," she purred, inching her face closer.
She could see the faint stubble he diligently shaved off every morning – he didn't have a lot of facial hair (a side effect in men from being so athletic, she had learned from Erza); just enough to prove he was a man, and not a young boy. She wondered if that faint would itch against her cheek the next time they kissed.
"Lucy, you're acting weird again," he warned, gripping her shoulders to hold her away.
They stayed like that for some time, unable to move. Lucy's heart was thudding in her chest. She watched as Natsu's nostrils flared as he breathed.
"Lucy-"
"Oh just kiss her already!"
Lucy saw drunk, raucous pedestrians that looked suspiciously like members of the guild from the corner of her eye before she was shoved unceremoniously into Natsu, and the two of them landed in the canal with a splash.
She bobbed to the surface quickly, sputtering in shock.
Natsu was beside her in an instant, hollering threats and profanity in the general direction of the giggling pedestrians, who had wisely started running away.
He helped push her up the edge of the canal before climbing out himself. She watched, quite jealous, as he set himself on fire to burn away the moisture. A great cloud of steam erupted from him, and then suddenly stopped. He was completely dry.
"Handy trick," she muttered, wringing out her hair. Ugh, her clothes were plastered onto her like a second skin. The cool evening air was making her nipples pebble up worse than they had been before.
"Let's get you home," Natsu said, and to her great surprised, plucked her bodily off the street, bridal style.
"Natsu!" she exclaimed, squirming as the bodily contact exacerbated her little problem.
Once again, Natsu had managed to completely ignore all that sexual tension they'd just been feeling. It's like he was able to pretend it never happened.
Lucy frowned. Maybe she needed to do something to him that he'd never forget.
He set her down just outside her apartment door, rubbing his head shyly in that way she found so endearing.
"Can I come in?" he asked, a hesitating slightly.
"Of course," she said, mildly annoyed. When she didn't want him to come in, he'd climb in her window on his own. When she did want him to come in, he asked politely first.
She fumbled with the key to her apartment for a moment, before she unceremoniously shoved the door in, then reached back outside and grabbed Natsu by his scarf. He yelped in surprise.
She didn't even give him a chance to fight before she shoved him on the couch, pinning him down with her legs.
He stared at her blankly, stunned by her sudden actions. "Is this the part where you try to have your way with me?" he said, his voice cracking in confusion.
"Maybe," she murmured, and reached up to strip off her damp shirt. All she cared about was the fact that she had him right where she wanted him.
The fever had returned, and oh, she was burning for him. For once, she was the one who was all fired up. She reached down, clad only in her bra, to give him a searing kiss. At first he didn't react, much like last night, but as she coaxed him into kissing her back, he became more involved with the action. This was nothing like the forced kiss the robber mage had made them do. He squirmed under her, and they shifted to be more comfortable as they lay together on her couch, separated only by their clothing.
She was, upon reflection, making out with Natsu.
"I… could get used to someone having their way with me," Natsu admitted when they broke for air.
"Only me," Lucy warned in between kisses. "Only I get to have my way with you."
"Can I have my way with you too?"
In answer, she reached behind her back and started to twist off her bra. Natsu watched her, bug eyed, as the stiff fabric loosened and gave way, revealing one of the more stunning pairs of breasts in the guild.
Before he could utter another word, she had pushed her breasts around his neck, so that her cleavage was pressed into his mouth.
"What do I do?" he asked, his voice muffled by the billowy organs.
"Blow into it. Like it was… a horn." She had been about to suggest the sound of a motorboat, to match the phrase she'd read about in one of Levy's romance novels, but Natsu would probably associated motors with vehicles, such as cars and trains, and that was the last thing she needed.
Unsure, he pressed his lips between her breasts, and blew tentatively. After a few seconds, he must have realized he found the sensation enjoyable, and his blowing attempts grew bolder. Before long, he was laughing joyful and rubbing his face back and forth into her boobs, holding the heavy weights in each of his hands.
"Hey, this is kind of fun," he said, and blew again, cackling like a child who had discovered a new toy.
"I can show you much more fun, Natsu," she said breathlessly, and started to creep her hand under his shirt. He was hot to the touch, as always, and she scraped her fingernails into his flesh as Natsu started licking her left breast, apparently exploring the taste of her skin. She didn't stop him even as he suckled hard, biting her lightly with his fanged teeth. Not enough to draw blood, but enough to let her know he was doing it. Her hand crept lower down his stomach, into the waistband of his boxers, seeking a prize of her own. Almost… almost….
It was to this scene that an Exceed flew in the room from the opened window.
"Natsu~ you should have seen what Cana did when Erza sent her into the room with Jet – EEEEK! "
"Happy!?" Lucy and Natsu tried to sit upright at the same time, and ended up knocking their heads together.
"My eyes! My innocent eyes!" the little Exceed cried, covering his eyes with his paws and then not so subtly peeking through his fingers.
Mood killed. Lucy shrieked and grabbed her bra and damp shirt off the back of the couch where she had tossed them, covering up her chest in embarrassment. She fled to her bathroom and slammed the door.
"Both of you go home!" she called out to the main room, mortified.
"Natsu, why were you sucking on Lucy's boobies like a baby?" she heard Happy asked. He seemed genuinely curious.
"I don't know," Natsu answered. "I honestly don't know. It was fun, I guess? It seemed like the right thing to do."
Dumb machine built for fighting, indeed.
"That's gross," Happy complained, likely not understanding the nuances of human anatomy completely.
She couldn't stop shaking. She waited until they left her apartment, and then filled the bathtub with hot water. She needed a cold shower, but the dampness from her dunk in the river had chilled her to the bone. She scrubbed off the remaining gunk and then sank gratefully into the hot water.
She seemed to be slowly awakening the beast within the dragon slayer, but turning on Natsu's dormant sexuality was turning out to be more of a challenge than she'd ever expected.
She glanced down at her left breast, where Natsu had suckled a bit too hard and left a mark.
Well, it was a start.
Not gonna even lie, it is crunch time in graduate school. I'm done in exactly one month! So yeah, I've been writing a user's manual instead of this. (I also have a nasty sinus infection. I love spring, but pollen sucks.)
Two more parts to go. Let's take this NaLu slow… but not too slow.