I feel light, lighter than air. I feel as if one small breeze could blow me across the ocean. But the air in here is stifling and I can feel my makeup start to slide down my cheeks. Hot breath on the back of my neck makes hair stick to skin in hot clumps. Hands around my waist dig into my hips as the song speeds into a climax and hips against my ass as the room swells with the music as one. My head swims in the humid air and muscles sliding along my back ignites a heat in me rivaling the dim nightclub.

I reach up and grab impulsively for the head hovering behind my own and pull it down so that I could speak in their ear. "Outside." I manage before the next song breaks the muffled lull. Looking back, I catch my first glimpse of the man I had been dancing with for the last three songs. Gelled hair, limp with sweat hang in dark, violently dilated eyes. Pulsing light dances over him, making his hair seem purple, then blue, then pink.

A slow, wicked smile spreads across his lips as what I mean takes root in his head. One extremely toned, bare arm reaches out and and encircles my own. Our sweat mingles in the crook of our elbows in a way that makes my head spin and my cheeks glow. Outside the night air hits me like a wall, but has little effect on the thick cloud over my thoughts.

Tall and lean, he turns on me like a dime and I'm pinned against the wall. Lips and calloused hands hold me where I am until the mutual need for air dragged us apart. This goes on until I'm itching and irritated in a way I can't articulate. Instead, I shove him off me and grab his hand which seems to ingulf mine as he get's the message and follows me down the midnight street.

Less than a block away from home a neon sign distracts me from my single-minded mission and I stop dead. Rock hard and hungry slams into me and I tumble forward off my spindly heels (something that I had been anticipating all night). Before I hit the ground, his arm is around me and I find myself staring at a small chalk drawing of an alien in the sidewalk, his eyes disfigured by stale gum.

Hauled back onto my feet, I look back and smile. He wobbles a bit and smiles dolefully back. "Tattoo parlor?" He asks. "I think I'm interested in something new tonight." I notice the large red tattoo on his upper arm and wonder what it is. Before I can decide, he's got my hand and is now the one dragging me across the street and into warm air and the smell of ink."

Piercing white light shines through my eyelids, making me see red. I blink the blur from my gaze to find a starkly dyed pink head of hair sticking out from the sheets around my middle. A death-grip around my waist makes the alcohol turn sour in my stomach and I know that if he doesn't let go soon, his hair won't be pink for much longer.

"Umm. . ." I say, shaking his shoulder softly at first, then with more and more urgency. Finally I realize there's not a moment left and I do the only thing I can think of. I roll off the bed-boy, sheets, and all-and vomit into my bedside trashcan. The first few thoughts to float across my throbbing mind are that I'm grateful to be in my own home (despite the unnamed guest) and that I didn't stain my white carpet with last night's mai tai.

The sudden jolt sent Mr. Damn Fine flying into a sitting position. "Eeeaaahhhh!" He screams, rolling over to reveal a large bandage covering the better half of his right butt cheek. Pulling away from the trashcan to see what had gotten my bed buddy so upset, I sit up and experience first-hand what he had been complaining about. In a blind panic to relieve the pain, I launch myself forward and hit the ground face-first. The pain of my headache taking over the one in my ass, I open my eyes to dick.

King Salmon lounges in a position, leaving his right cheek in the air so as not to agitate the clearly injured skin, but also wonderfully displaying his scepter and the royal jewels. I scramble backwards, careful not to rest my chapped heiney on the ground, and grab a sheet, far too late to return to decorum. By the time I'm satisfied with my impromptu toga, Naked Boy is examining what lay under the bandage.

Flames lick up his cheeks . . . and his cheeks, his entire body seeming to turn pink enough to match his hair in embarrassment. "Oh. My God." He says slowly, looking me not quite in the eyes. Curiously, I crawl forward to inspect his ass cheek for myself (for what was probably the second time if our state of undress was any indication) only to see my own face reflecting back at me.

Horror and dismay flood my system as I quickly abandon my sheet and rip off my own bandage to find (a quite stunning watercolor rendition, actually) of the equally horrified man crouching in front of me.

"Well," I say. "So what's your name?"

Natsu gingerly get's dressed and I walk him to the door. "So, It was a pleasure." I say, looking at his hair rather than in the eyes. "We should do it. . . again. . . sometime. . ."

OhmygodIdidn't.

Natsu doubles over in laughter and doesn't resurface until I am thoroughly embarrassed and ready to crawl under a rock for the rest of my life. "Yeah, Lucy. Next time we can tattoo someone else onto our asses. We still have a free cheek, right?.

Before I can properly respond (beyond "em. . . uh. . .er. . .I"), he's gone down the walk and disappeared in the crowd of passerby's, which I find truly impressive considering the pastel shade of his hair.

Turning away from the door, I'm already absorbed in potential laser removal costs and cinnamon, a scent that comes in fading waves from my skin. I don't remember buying any perfume like it. . .

A week passes and my friends still pester me about who I left with and why I wont sit down. "Did he get you that bad?" Levy says. The small woman's eyes light up with what was probably a series of graphically disturbing images.

I dig around in my purse for my keys and unlock the door. "I've told you, and Erza, AND Cana that nothing happened. We realized what we were doing about halfway home and went out separate ways, probably the better for it. I mean we really didn't know each other and you never know what could have happened!"

"Yeah, like you could've ended up with his face tattooed on you ass! How embarrassing would that have been, right?" Natsu says, getting up from the couch and sauntering over. He holds his hand out to a blushing Levy. "Hi, I'm Natsu. It's nice to meet you. You must be Lucy's friend."

"Levy." She said, checking him out. "Well, Luce, I'll text you later, okay? It seems like you have a prior engagement."

"No, I-."

"Thanks Levy! We'll see you later!" Natsu smiles a heart-twinging smile and throws his arm around my shoulder it what looks like a familiar and practiced way.

At the door Levy turned around and mouths at me, "Tell me everything!" With a quick mime of a phone to her ear, she's gone and I'm alone with the man who's on my ass. Surprise tuns to anger as I turn on him. "Never mind what THAT was all about! How did you get IN here?!"

"Eh? He says, walking over to my bowl of fake fruit on the table and picking up an apple. "You left your window unlocked, it wasn't hard."

Before I could tell him not to, he had a mouthful of wax and was spitting it all over the floor. "Gross! Who puts out food that isn't food!" He looks at me with a disgusted glare as if to demand some sort of explanation.

I ignore him and walk into the kitchen to fin the mini vacuum cleaner to get rid of the soggy wax all over my tile. "I just want to know what you're doing in my house after everything that happened. I thought that 'next time' was pretty hypothetical."

He watches me vacuum with a sharp eye and feigned disinterest (only later did I realize my shirt had fallen low as I crouched). "Yeah, yeah. So did I. But, like. . . you're face is on my ass, right? So every time I get out of the shower I see you. And every time I sit down I remember that it's your face that's the pain in my ass. Literally speaking, of course!" He said, throwing his hands up in surrender at my glare.

"Anyway, it's kind of hard to forget you and so I was thinking we should be friends! I mean, I've already seen all there is to see."

That was NOT helping his case. Getting up, I return the vacuum to it's charger and walk back to him, anger leaking away like sand through fingers and his eager face. He seemed so innocent, but the slowly recovering memories from that night all begged to the contrary. "Look," I said. "I'm fairly new here and I'm trying to keep my head above water. The other night. . . my new friends made me go out and I got really drunk and. . ." my voice fades away at the look on his face.

"Sure!" I say, unable to stop myself. "Let's be friends!"

Soon, being with Natsu happened as often and as easily as breathing. We haven't return to that night's activities, but neither of us has forgotten it. Every once in a while I'll catch him staring at my chest, his eyes glazed over as if thinking of another time. And though we didn't have sex after that, it didn't become strange like so many relationships that start out with sex do. He got me a job at a respectable company (the man has connections, despite his laid-back, pseudo-punk appearance) and without even realizing it, he had become my best friend.

I would go to his house after work and cuddle with his Russian Blue, Happy and he would come over to my house at all hours and hop in my bed uninvited ("but Lucy! You're bed is so much comfier than mine! If you want, I could- ouch!")

I smile at the memories as I check my hair in the mirror, that dork has gotten me into so much shit! Like the time he beat up those construction workers who were cat-calling me. Or the time he threw up on the train to the beach.

I think about how my life would have been if I hadn't gone out that night, foregoing the club to curl up in my bed with a good book and shudder. I love books, but out of alcohol and a couple REALLY bad decisions I got the best friend I've ever had.

"Lu!" A familiar voice startles me out of my thoughts. "Are you ready?"

"Yup!" I smile at the petite woman poking her head around the door. I turn back to the mirror and swipe a finger under each eye to make sure no makeup had escaped. Walking out, I find my friends and we head down the hall together and I watch them disappear through the doors one-by-one until I'm the only one left.

Having already thrown caution to the wind, I take a page from my own book and throw tradition to the wind and throw open the doors, making my way to the end of the room alone. At the end I find my best friend and his cat facing me with a smile that I've grown desperately dependent on.

"I believe the bride and groom would like to say their own vows?" The oddly angular priest prompts.

After a speech that bared my soul in every way and left the whole group in tears, attention shifts to Natsu, who clears his throat. "I remember the night we met so clearly I can still smell the vanilla perfume you were wearing," He begins, dark eyes focused on me in a rare moment of seriousness. My mind screams and I try to tell him with my eyes that there are better stories to tell than the first one. It would be easy to think that he just doesn't get the message, but I catch the corners of his mouth twitch just slightly in amusement.

"Lucy and I found each other on the dance floor of a night club and it only took three songs and five drinks to decide that we were meant to be together and that we needed to be together RIGHT THEN."

Natsu pauses for the laughter to die out before continuing. "I'm not sure whether it was the alcohol or from being drunk on her company that lead me to think getting her face tattooed on my ass was the best idea I ever had, but it happened and just like Lucy, she saw me making a bad mistake and knew that I wasn't about to be dissuaded, so she did the logical Lucy thing to do. She made it with me! At first it seemed like I had finally hit rock bottom. Having lost my father when I was young, I was forced to live a transient life, but it was Lucy who managed to both ground me, and give me wings. I will never be able to repay her for that. . . or the cost of the tattoo that night."

More laughter echoes through the hall before he finishes. "But I get to spend every day for the rest of my life trying to repay everything she's given me, and I can't imagine a more exciting adventure!"

As Natsu has always done, he ignores the timing and makes his own. Grabbing me by the shoulders, he leans me back into a ridiculous dip and kisses me in such a way that even Laxus turns pink. After pulling apart he squeezes the cheek with his face on it and whispers. "I'll always be with you, Lucy."

*SMACK*