A/N How long has it been? Like four months since I last updated? Whoops. I guess time just slipped away from me...
Disclaimer- Hiro Mashima own Fairy Tail
"Any luck?" asked Lucy.
Natsu growled in frustration and snapped his phone shut, "He is not answering."
"Can you call anyone else?"
There was a long silence.
"Guess not." said Lucy, sighing.
"What do we do now?" asked Natsu.
"Well, we can't stay here forever. " She peered over the candy to look outside. There wasn't anyone on the streets at the moment, but it was only a matter of time before the street filled up. If they were to leave, they needed to do it soon. "My house if about ten minutes away. We can hide out there until you get one of your friends to pick you up,"
Lucy looked back over at Natsu, "We shouldn't run into anyone since the main road is deserted until noon. But, if we do, we just need to act natural and not draw attention to ourselves."
Natsu shot to his feet, "Alright! Let's do this!"
Lucy rolled her eyes and stood up, "Just don't break anything."
She walked over to the rack displaying baseball hats for sale. She ran her fingers down her options for a few minutes before deciding on the cheapest of the bunch; a Yankee's baseball hat. Lucy plucked it off its hook and threw it towards Natsu.
"Put that on." she ordered.
"Huh?"
"To cover your hair."
"Does that mean you know who I am?" asked Natsu as he tucked his stray locks into the hat.
"No." answered Lucy, honestly "Although, we will address that later. For the time being, let's just focus on getting out of here before someone comes in."
Natsu nodded while Lucy searched around near the empty register. She spotted a ballpoint pen and used it to scribbled something on the back of a used candy bar wrapper. When she finished, she set the wrapper on top of the register for an employee to find later.
"My name and phone number." said Lucy, answering Natsu curious stare, "I didn't bring any money with me, so I don't have a way of paying for the hat. If I leave a way for them to contact me, I can pay them later and I won't get fined for stealing."
"I can just pay for it."
"You have money?"
He looked away, "Er...Kinda?"
"How do you kinda have money?"
"Just trust me."
Natsu reached over and snagged the wrapper off the register before taking the ballpoint pen from Lucy and drawing a line through Lucy's information. He flipped the paper over and quickly scribbled a note on the back.
"What are you writing?" Lucy asked, curiously.
Natsu shrugged, "My name."
"And, how is that suppose to pay for the hat?"
"Because people like to buy my writing."
Lucy watched him finish signing his first name before moving under it to sign his last.
Natsu Dr-
Natsu Drago-
"Your name is Natsu Dragneel?" Lucy asked.
"Yeah," he answered, before setting down the pen, folding the wrapper in half, and placing it on the register.
Lucy face crinkled up. Natsu Dragneel. Where had she heard that name before?
"You don't by any chance write supernatural romance novels?" she asked
Natsu's head snapped up, "Why would you think that?!"
Okay, so he wasn't apart of the "Supernatural Romance" theme that had been taking over the writing industry recently.
"No reason. Just thought you might be into that kind of thing." she remarked, walking towards the back exit.
Natsu trailed after her, "You can't be serious."
She just shrugged.
When they made it to the door, Natsu stuck his head out to look around. The exit lead out into a small, damp alleyway with the ground littered with cans and bits of trash. To his right, the alleyway got became darker, but he could make out another brick wall. It was a dead end. On the bright side, Natsu saw a small pyramid made out of some of the empty soup cans leaning against the wall. It was pretty impressive too. Whoever had made it had taken the time to match each row with the same label, so the colors got darker the farther down you went on the pyramid.
Natsu turned his head to the left and saw a small light. He squinted and leaned farther out the door. Yup. Definitely an opening out into the street.
There was a small tap on his shoulder.
Is anyone there?" asked Lucy from behind.
Natsu pulled his head in, but left the door propped open with his foot, "Dead end to the right, but the left leads to the streets."
"Is anyone there?"
He shook his head and opened the door wide enough for her to go through. She walked out into the alleyway and shrieked.
"What happened?!" yelled Natsu, alarmed, as he jumped outside and pushed Lucy behind his back.
Lucy raised a finger and pointed at the pyramid of cans, "I saw these tiny, red eyes looking at me from that can. I think it was a rat."
Sure enough when Natsu took a step towards the cans, there was a high pitched squeak and the pyramid came crashing down. A rodent scampered around in the pile fallen cans before managing to make its escape into a small hole in the neighboring store.
"He's gone."
Natsu felt Lucy shutter, "That is so gross. Don't they ever clean up around here?"
"He was probably living there." answered Natsu looking at the hole where the rat had disappeared.
"Let's just go before we find out he has family."
The pair picked their way through the piles of trash scattered on the concert floor, until they reached the opening out of the alleyway. Lucy paused and peered out. She didn't see anyone.
"We're clear."
Lucy took a step forward when she felt a something run into her leg before falling back from the impact. She looked down to see a shivering, white fuzz ball peering back from the ground.
Lucy gasped, "Plue!"
"Puun Puun!" yapped Plue, happily, as Lucy picked up her lost dog and snuggled him into her arms.
"Who's Plue?"
Natsu leaned over Lucy shoulder to closely inspect the dog in her arms. Lucy rolled her eyes and raised Plue in the air, so Natsu could see him better.
"He is my dog." explained Lucy, before setting him on the ground, "We were on a walk before I met you and we got separated."
Lucy picked up Plue's leash and began walking down the street. They passed through the block without meeting anyone. However, when made the turn onto the main road they were met with a huge crowd of people.
"Crap!" yelled Lucy, grabbing Natsu's hand and dragging him down with her to hid behind a stand selling fresh oranges. Luckily, the seller was too distracted selling orange slices to a group of children to notice the pair taking cover on the other side of his stand.
"I thought it was suppose to be deserted till noon!" said Natsu, looking a the huge crowd of people blocking their route towards Lucy's house.
"It was! The only time it is like this is when-" Lucy slapped her forehead, " it's the Half-Off Sale."
"The Half-Off Sale?"
" 'Come join us this Saturday near Magnolia Town's shopping center for delicious food for half the price! This sale is limited till six o'clock with the starting time of 11 sharp, so don't miss out.' " quoted Lucy in a monotonous voice, "I saw the advertisement in the newspaper. On the bright side, the people here will be distracted by the produce, so we might be able to slip through undetected."
"You think so?"
"It's the best bet we have at the moment." Lucy answered.
The pair stood up and the orange seller beside them jumped in surprise at the sudden appearance of the two teenagers by his stand.
"May I interest you in some oranges?" he asked pleasantly, having recovered from his initial shock and motioned to his oranges, "They are on a limited time sale, half off in fact."
"So, we have heard," muttered Natsu under his breath
Lucy smiled and declined the offer before tugging Natsu away from the stand and towards her apartment. The otherwise five minute trip down the street turned into a thirty minute trek as they were stopped numerous times by vendors. Each time Lucy would smile and decline, and the vendors would on to the next customer.
"Finally," sighed Lucy as she sagged against the door to her apartment; evidently exhausted.
"Cheer up. It wasn't that bad." encouraged Natsu
"Puun Puun!" added Plue
Lucy dug into her pocket for her keys and unlocked the door, holding it open for the two to enter. When they did she followed behind and shut the door behind them.
"If you say so." muttered Lucy as she unclipped Plue from his leash.
The sound of plastic crinkling over her head caused Lucy to look up.
The sound had come Natsu as he searched through a bag Lucy hadn't noticed he had before. The plastic crinkled again as he continued to dig through the bag, completely ignoring Lucy's confused stares.
"Um, Natsu?"
"Huh?"
"Where did you get the bag?"
"Some random girl handed it to me when we were walking over to your apartment." He paused in his searching and looked at the ceiling in thought. "Although, she never told me why."
Lucy's eyebrows rose in disbelief. He had been walking around town without a shirt for the past forty-five minutes and was wondering why girls were giving him free food? Lucy ran her eyes down his torso. Due to the excitement from that day, she hadn't noticed Natsu's appearance. His over sized coat from before had done its job as it had effectively hid his well defined muscles - the result of dedicated training, Lucy concluded.
"Found it!" said Natsu, happily, as he took a bite out of his prize; a emerald apple.
A flash of red drew Lucy's attention to Natsu shoulder as he devoured the apple. Lucy craned her neck to see that the flash of read was a tattoo on his right shoulder. Natsu shifted his shoulder out of the way just as Lucy was about to figure out what the tattoo was. He held the half eaten apple between his teeth as he dug in his pocket to retrieve his now ringing phone.
Natsu flipped it open and brought it to his ear as he took the apple out of his mouth with his other hand.
"So, you finally picked up, Ice Princess." he said, nonchalantly, as he took another bite of his apple.
"ARE YOU AN IDIOT?!" yelled Gray over the receiver, loud enough for Lucy to hear.
"OH! YOU'RE CALLING ME THE IDIOT?!" yelled Natsu back.
Lucy didn't bother to break up there fight, but instead she went to bathroom to change her shirt.
After she did so, Lucy managed to find an over sized T-shirt she had gotten for free - she had never worn it, since it was nowhere near her shirt size - and a pair of old sweats that had been stretched beyond belief.
"Found you some clothing." she told the bickering male and tossed him the clothing.
"At least I don't strip every five seconds!" yelled Natsu as he caught the clothing easily in his hand.
"I'll be in the kitchen if you need me." she told him, even though she was positive he hadn't heard her over Gray's retaliation.
In the kitchen, Lucy heated up some milk for hot chocolate. Her best friend, Levy, had given her the mix as part of her Christmas gift, but she had never found the time to try it.
She had just finished mixing in the mix to Natsu's cup when he came in through the door; having changed into the clothing Lucy gave him.
"Here you go," she said as he handed Natsu his steaming cup.
He glanced down at the cup, "Hot chocolate in the middle of June?"
Lucy shrugged and sipped her own cup, "Why not?"
"Vanilla?" he guessed after having his own taste.
"Missed the Hazel Nut."
An awkward silence fell over them.
"He said he coming in ten minutes." said Natsu, breaking the silence.
"That's good." commented Lucy, looking into her cup.
As another silence fell over the pair, and Lucy grimaced inwardly. They needed something to talk about; an ice breaker.
"Wanna play Twenty Questions?" she asked quickly when the old childhood game hit her.
"Twenty Questions?" repeated Natsu, confused.
"Sure, you ask me a question, I answer it, then I ask you a question, and you answer it. The game continues until we reach twenty, making the game 'Twenty Questions', get it?"
"I guess so." he answered, scratching his head in a distracted manner.
"It'll be fun, I promise. I'll even let you go first."
"Okay." Natsu sipped his drink as he thought, "What is your name?"
Lucy was stunned for a moment. That's right. She hadn't even had time to introduce herself properly.
"My name is Lucy." she answered.
"Lucy." repeated Natsu, playing with her name on his tongue. He repeated it a few more times before grinning, "Your turn."
A/N Oh, just as a side note: I don't abandon my stories. I hate when authors do that. They will receive their endings, I promise!
Another side note being: Have you guys seen the Twix commercials lately? Bravo, Twix.