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NaLu Lovefest Prompt #3: Comfort
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If Only For Tonight
By AbsentAngel
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He doesn't know what to do.
With Lucy he never really does, but he had never really let it stop him until this moment. He knows she is awake – even though she is hiding beneath a mountain of covers, he can smell the steady stream of salt from her tears. He wishes she had told him that she hurt so much but knows that if she had he would likely be in the same position he is in now... Lost.
This isn't what he is good at. This isn't what he does. Lucy does this – she does the comforting and the understanding and all those other things because he sucks at it. He always has. The fact never bothered him, but it does now. It bothers him a lot.
"Luce?" The blankets do not stir, but he thinks he hears a small intake of breath muffled in the cotton fibers. "You ok?" He still doesn't receive an answer and he knows that she is likely hoping that he'll think she's sleeping and leave. He knows better.
Even though he's half convinced he's going to screw everything up, he has to try.
Hesitantly, he steps forward. The moment he goes through the threshold of her bedroom door he feels like he is invading her space – that he doesn't belong. It is strange, because he has broken into her house countless times. He's helped himself to the food in her fridge and even the pillow that she's currently crying into, and he has never felt like an intruder. He calls he name again, a little louder this time, but it still takes her more than a few seconds to respond.
"Please, just leave me alone."
The way her voice cracks, as if she is forcing the words out between dampened sobs, just about breaks his heart, but he can't leave. Even if he thought for a second it was what she really wanted, he still doesn't think he could force himself to step away from her. "I ain't going anywhere." It is more of a promise than a statement. Lucy must pick up on it because she doesn't argue. Instead she just curls tighter into her comforter as Natsu sits on the empty spot of mattress at her back.
He sits for what feels like forever. Silently, because even though she has given him all the time in the world to string some words together, nothing seems right.
"He was just a boy," she whispers, so quietly that even he has to strain his ears to hear her. "He was just a boy. He couldn't have been more than seven..." She gives a stuttering gasp, a futile effort to keep the tears at bay and her voice even. "I wasn't ready. I should have never –"
Natsu pulls the covers down and away from her face, forcing her out of hiding so he can look at her face. The rims of her eyes are swollen and red, her cheeks pale under the dampness of her tears. She doesn't look at him, only curls body in tighter and stares straight ahead at the blank space on her bedroom wall. He grips her shoulders, forcing her to face him. He doesn't know if it's the right thing to do – doesn't know if he is stepping over any invisible boundaries – but to touch her is instinctual. Action is his language, and he knows he can convey so much more by doing than by saying. She still refuses to meet his eyes, but the fact that she isn't pulling away gives him courage. "Luce, you saved fifteen kids." There is no question that her first solo S-Class mission was a success, no doubt that she did everything that could be done.
"But I couldn't save him," she croaks. The way she hides her face behind her hands makes him angry – she has nothing to be ashamed of. He knows she did her very best – she always does. Because of her, there is still an orphanage standing at the outskirts of Crocus instead of a pile of dust.
"We can't save everyone," he murmurs, flinching even as the words leave his lips. He hates saying it – the truth of it tastes bitter, like acid, on his tongue. He wishes they could, but the death of his father had taught him many lessons. Sometimes even your best isn't good enough. Sometimes people – loved ones even – die. As much as it makes him sick, he knows that even children aren't an exception to the rule.
Fresh tears stream her cheeks and her body quivers under his hands. Her arms wrap tightly around herself as if they are the only thing keeping her from falling apart. When she finally looks up at him her eyes are so haunted, so broken, that his heart stutters painfully. "If it was you or Erza – even Gray – he'd be alive," she whispers; a dark confession. The words hover between them – a grim ghost that he can't see, but he can feel its presence all the same.
He wants to deny it, to tell her that she is being stupid, but it would be a lie. Lucy is so strong in so many ways, but she doesn't measure up to the sheer amount of power her other teammates hold. Physically, they are stronger; but none of them could hold a candle to her spiritually. She overcomes every obstacle with a grace and dignity that put the rest of them to shame. When she lost Aquarius, she stood strong despite the pain. She endured.
Natsu had ran.
It was with the intention to get stronger, to be able to protect those close to him, but he knows better than to lie to himself. He was running away when he left; running from the pain, from the truth. Even if there had been an option to acquire more power right here in Magnolia, he knows he would have still left. He was too much of a coward to face the pain of seeing a broken city and letting it remind him of what he had lost. Lucy wasn't. Lucy stayed. Which is why seeing her break down now – hearing the echo of those haunting words escape her lips – didn't just piss him off. It terrified him.
He doesn't know what to do, only that he needs to do something – anything – to kill that dark shadow in her eyes. To stop the terrible, heart breaking things emerging from her lips. He is lost and scared, and probably a little more than irrational, so it's really no surprise that he reacts without thinking.
He kisses her.
Harder, and more desperate than he means to. It's definitely not anything close to what he had imagined their first kiss would be like, but even though it is nothing more than the reckless, almost violent, pressing of lips – even though she tastes like salt and heartache – she still makes his pulse jump. Hiding behind the tears is a sweetness that is all Lucy. A flutter of hope stirs in his chest, because he knows that beneath her suffering she is still there. He hasn't lost her. Not yet.
Then he realizes that beneath his hands, his lips, she has not stirred. She sits frozen and unresponsive. He staggers back, pulling himself away from her as if burned. Rejection puts pressure on his chest, makes every breath a painful wheeze, as he realizes exactly what he has done – what he has risked in making such a bold move.
"Fuck – shit, I–" he curses, scrambling to apologize, but he barely makes it three words in before she is threading her fingers through the short hair at the base of his neck and covering his mouth in a searing kiss. There is no hesitation in the way her lips devour him, no shyness in the way her tongue snakes past his surprised lips to trace his teeth. Her knees sink into the mattress on either side of his hips, her creamy thighs – exposed and barely covered by her nightgown – caging him. For a long moment he is stunned, but then he is surging against her; hungry and full of desperation. His hands don't know where to travel, so they go everywhere. They skim her thighs, tangle in her hair, fist in the silky fabric bunching at her hips.
He is so caught up in the feel of her, so entranced by her scent and taste, that it takes the slow, firm grinding of her hips to pull him from the depths of blissful pleasure and back to cold reality. He freezes, swallowing a moan as her teeth drag across the corded muscle of his neck and stopping the slow decent of her hands with his own. His blood is boiling, and she is pressed so deliciously close that he knows she must feel it. He is quickly losing himself in her and, as she peppers kisses along his jaw, he recognizes that they are heading into something that only one of them is ready for. Someday, hopefully soon, Lucy will be Lucy again – she will heal – but she needs time.
"Luce," he chokes out, his hands gripping her shoulder in a tortured effort to keep her at a distance. He wants her – fuck does he want her – but he wants her forever and not just tonight. If he succumbs to those treacherous little fingers, if he allows himself to drown in her, will she hate him for it in the morning? Worse, would she hate herself?
She pushes against him, unwilling to let her mouth leave his for long. When he hesitates, her nails leave half mooned scars on his wrists. "Please," she whimpers, a breathy plea against his mouth, "Help me forget. I just want to forget."
He knows he can't, knows that these kinds of wounds run too deep to ever be completely forgotten. He wants to though– more than anything. He would take every ounce of pain from her – even if it meant taking it onto himself. He can't do what she is asking, but he can't tell her 'no' either. Not now – probably not ever.
Right now he is a willing slave to her every whim, and as her teeth drag against his bottom lip, he feels every last bit of resolve crumble at their feet. He knows he can't take away her nightmares but, maybe, he could smother her with so much love that he can soothe the pain.
His hands bury in her hair, his mouth slanting across hers with a ferocity that startles them both. It isn't long till her hands are pulling at his shirt and dragging it over his head, those feverish fingers exploring every inch of exposed skin, and he is falling, falling, falling.
When he tries to kiss her sweetly, she responds by nipping at his lower lip. It takes a few times, but eventually he gets the message. The way she sucks at his skin, how her nails bite into his back, leaves no room for tenderness. There is desperation in the way she grinds her hips into his, a plea in every breathy moan. She doesn't want sweet, maybe not even passion. Every move she makes is an attempt to goad him, to convince him to hold her so tightly that she bruises, to kiss her so roughly that her lips swell. She seeks comfort in the form of punishment – to let herself feel so much of him that she will be numb to everything else.
It is wrong. Them coming together should be about love; it should be sweet confessions in the dark and soft, tender touches. It should be about them. This, what is happening between them now, is fueled by desperation and ignited by guilt. It is wrong, but he doesn't know what else to do. Lucy is the one he looks to for answers, the one he trusts to do the right thing. He can't deny her – not now, possibly not ever.
He crashes into her, no longer searching for affection in her touch. His fingers make imprints in the undersides of her thighs, his teeth drag down the column of her neck and his lips suck roughly at the pert nipple pushing against the thin fabric of her pajamas. He is a firestorm; building and consuming without mercy and devouring the very air around them until he feels like he is suffocating. Doubt and fear cloud his lungs like smoke, but he pushes through it - uses it to fuel his flames.
Tomorrow will bring change and, more than likely, pain. He knows this, but tonight it is about Lucy, and he plans on giving her his all, his everything, until there is nothing left.
Because he would rather be lost within her than lost without her.
AN: Meh, I have mixed feelings about this one. I feel like Natsu goes a bit out of character at some points. Blah.