The building lights looked like a sea of stars on that brisk LA night. A lone siren wailed in the distance as stray dogs barked at homeless men and an airplane flew over the city from a distance.
Natsu checked the time on the digital clock on the bookstand by the bed. 4:37am.
The bedroom was lit only by the light pouring in the window from a singular lamppost, where the only view was of the apartment right across from it. The beige curtains gently swayed with the night's breeze. The bedroom smelt faintly of perfume and sweat, although the scent was being incrementally ushered out the window with the wind. Cradled by the inviting warmth underneath the covers, Natsu rolled back over to fall into a blissful lull.
His slumber didn't last long though, when about half an hour later his phone lit up with a buzz, causing both him and the woman in his arms to stir.
Natsu extended his arm to the nightstand to check the reason for the disturbance. The seemingly blinding light emitted from his phone causing him to squint his eyes.
Lucy: Hey Nat, can you pick up some sugar on your way home?
He checked for the time again. 5:12am.
He sighed and rested his hand over his eyes. "I've gotta go..."
As carefully as he could possibly muster, Natsu untangled himself from the woman's arms and got out of the bed in search of his discarded clothes.
A few minutes passed and the woman in the bed finally stirred awake. Noticing the absence of his warmth from beside her she looked up to see him with back turned to her buckling up his pants.
"Well, that was fun," Daphne said, not being able to hide her smile. "I'm really glad you decided to call me back."
Natsu turned to look at her - jet black hair in a disheveled mess, the ghost of bags under her eyes as proof for the lack of sleep she got last night and ample amount of ivory skin being teased from underneath the covers - and smirked. "You and me both."
"Why in such a hurry?" she asked curiously.
"Well my roommates think I'm at work, and they get really weird if I'm not home by a certain time after work - especially Loke," he said as he scoured her bedroom floor for his shirt. "And we agreed not to tell our friends about this, remember?"
His phone buzzed again, lighting up temporarily to signify he got another text.
"I hope that doesn't mean I shouldn't expect anymore late night texts from you..." Daphne said coyly.
The pinkette finally found his shirt that mysteriously made it's way under her bed and bent down to grab it. After he had it, he quickly threw it on over his head and then paused to look at her. He smirked.
"Not a chance," he answered just as coyly. Making sure he had his phone and car keys, he made his way out the door. Before he left, he turned back to her. "Hey, message me anytime you're up for this again."
Daphne's eyes slowly pooled up with lust as there was a silence between them.
"Bye Natsu."
Natsu managed to sneak into the loft before sunrise that morning, but being too tired to make it to his room, he simply collapsed in the couch. Moments later, his rest was disturbed by the jingling of keys and the frantic turning of the front door. He peaked one eye open to see Lucy and Dan making out aggressively as the two clumsily stumbled their way to her bedroom.
"Oh you have got to be..."
Lucy ended up falling asleep at his place after they both sat through a marathon of Christmas musicals, singing along merrily to their favorite songs. Then like a gentleman he drove her home, walked her upstairs to the door and as he was about to leave they shared a goodnight (or rather good morning) kiss, a kiss that very quickly became heated and passionate, passionate enough where they had to take it inside.
Natsu smothered his face with one of the couch pillows in an attempt to block out the noise, to no avail. He could still hear their scattered breaths and Lucy's muffled moans as they travelled through the living room.
'I at least have the common courtesy to keep my after-hours activities outside the loft.' Natsu grumbled in his own mind. He sighed. 'I do not want to see this... or even know that it's happening in here.'
Inside her bedroom, Lucy and Dan stopped kissing for a moment to come up for air. They were on her bed, Dan laid on his back with Lucy on top of him. Their legs were tangled up together and Dan had his arms wrapped securely around her lower back.
"Lucy, wait a minute," he said in between breaths. "Are we really gonna do this?"
After two weeks of seeing each other nonstop (at school, on dates after school and on the weekends) the two of them had yet to consummate their budding affectionate for one another, even after many tries (particularly on Dan's part). Lucy's eagerness to get down to business tonight seemed sudden to him - although not unwelcomed.
"Yes," she said, smiling in between breaths. "Yes! Absolutely!"
Dan nodded his head. "Okay."
Then, Lucy started singing.
"Intercoooooouuuuuuuurse, intercourse," she started singing. She then transitioned to chanting while pumping her fists, making Dan feel like he needed to do it too.
"In-ter-course. In-ter-course. Okay, no sorry, I just made it weird."
Dan chuckled. "No, no, no. It's okay."
"Hey uh... I have to go to the bathroom. I'll be right back."
"Okay."
With that, Lucy hiked herself off of him and quickly made her way to the bathroom, passing by Natsu who was snoring on the living room couch. Once inside, she closed and locked the bathroom door to ensure she had privacy and walked up to the mirror. Her face was flushed and her pulse was quickening alarmingly fast in her chest. She wiped her palms on her green sundress. Her palms were sweaty.
"Okay, tiger," she said to herself in the mirror. "You can do this. It's nothing you haven't done before. Today is the day."
Despite her words, it was clear by the look on her face that she was still panicking. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
"I am having sex tonight," she affirmed to herself. After a few more deep breaths she nodded to herself in the mirror and then stepped out.
Moments later, Dan and Lucy were laying next to each other on the bed half naked. Lucy rolled away from him and covered her chest with her comforter in shame.
"I'm really sorry about this..." she trailed off.
Dan waved off her worries. "No, are you kidding? Don't worry about it. It's fine."
'It's really not fine...' she thought.
"It's just... I haven't had sex with anyone but Sting in six years, and I just get... so nervous at the thought of doing it again."
"Lucy don't worry about it. I'm good. I'm more than good. It's okay."
"No Dan, it isn't. I want to do this with you. I just don't know why I keep chickening out at the last minute."
"Is it me? Is there something I'm doing wrong, or..."
"No! No! It's not you, I promise you're not doing anything wrong."
Dan and Lucy stewed in silence for a while, the atmosphere quickly becoming awkward.
"Hey, you know what?" Lucy perked back up. "Tomorrow night. Let's just go out to dinner and come back and just nail each other. No holds bar. V-bomb on the P-bomb." She pointed at herself first, then pointed at Dan which confused him.
"In this scenario, I would have the... P-bomb, right?"
Bad in Bed
"Yes, I am confirming the appointment," Loke said diplomatically into the phone receiver.
It was a weekday morning, so as per usual, Loke was in the dining room in his suit and tie sipping on a cup of black coffee, along with Lucy in a blue dress, hair in a high ponytail, and her signature glasses resting on the bridge of her nose making a cup of tea. Natsu and Gajeel were dressed more casually, both in t-shirts and jeans, with Gajeel by the kitchen counter chomping on a bowl of cereal whilst Natsu sprawled on the couch sipping coffee as well.
"The name for the appointment? Natsu Dragneel."
Natsu stopped sipping his coffee at Loke's words. "Excuse me?"
"Yeah, sure," Loke ignored him and continued speaking to the phone. "Appointment confirmed? Thank you. Thank you very much."
"Yeah, there's not a chance I'm going to that," Natsu said when Loke was done.
"Can you not do this to yourself? Look at your hair, you look ridiculous. For the past two weeks you've been walking around this apartment looking like a cast member off of 'The Walking Dead' and it's disgraceful! You're coming home late, your clothes are always messed up or dirty and you're developing bags under your eyes like some sort of raccoon! Now your hair's gotten to the point where it looks like the branches of a freaking palm tree instead of the cute little delinquent spikes we've all unfortunately gotten used too."
Natsu felt his pulse suddenly spike. Okay... so people have definitely noticed his sneaking around.
"Blah, blah, blah, okay whatever mom," he said in an effort to play it off.
"I'm serious! You are going to that hair appointment even if I have to take you there myself. It's at 1pm tomorrow."
Natsu's alarms went off. Crap. That was the same time as Daphne's lunch break tomorrow and she told him she wanted him to come over.
He needed to find a way to get out of this.
"I can't go to a barber Loke... I mean, what am I supposed to talk about for an hour?"
Loke narrowed his eyes at his suspiciously vapid excuse, letting the pinkette know he wasn't buying any of it.
"Natsu... It's a haircut."
"No, you're trapped."
"By what, gunpoint?" Gajeel asked, adding to the growing list of suspicious people in the loft.
"You're sitting there, and you can't move, and they're standing behind you with a scissors to your head, and they expect you to just... talk back."
Loke and the others still weren't understanding his reasoning, as the confusion on all of their faces was evident.
"Okay, I tell you what," Gajeel offered, "just come to my place."
"No, I'm not going to a black barbershop, Gajeel. I've seen the movies... I know how fast they talk. I don't need to seem any less cool than I already am."
"Want to go to my sal-on?" Loke offered.
Natsu crinkled his lips in disgust at the very suggestion. He wasn't sure what was worse, the fact that Loke even went to a salon in the first place, the fact that he offered to take Natsu, or the fact that he pronounced salon so egregiously wrong.
"Hey, so guys... just a heads up," Lucy said with a diffident smile. "Dan's coming over tonight. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand I just wanted to tell you all that I'm gonna tap him like a maple tree. That I'm gonna be searching for some syrups... I'm gonna be... I'm gonna be having sex with him," she finished plainly after a while.
Her friends cheered.
"All right!" Loke high-fived her.
"Way to go Blondie," Gajeel said with a sage-like smile, tipping his hat to her.
Except Natsu.
"Why are you telling us this?"
"Cause I want to! And I wanted to give you a heads up."
"You nervous?" Loke asked. "You need tips?"
"No, I'm not nervous. And just so you know, I can drive stick." She chuckled.
"Yeah okay, 'cause it seems like you're freaking out a little bit. With this... whole... activity." Loke gestured to her trying to imitate driving a stick vehicle with her hands... something she was doing completely incorrectly by the way.
"That's not stick sweetheart," Gajeel added with a half smile. "That's automatic."
"But that's not automatic..." Loke said with a raised eyebrow.
"
"Lucy, why are we here?"
Lucy and Cana were perusing different underwear in a Victoria's Secret store at a nearby mall. Women and store attendees fluttered by as 'All I want for Christmas' played through the overhead speakers and a sickengly sweet smell of cotton candy perfume lingered in the air. After fingering the racks of various lingerie, Lucy picked up two different sets on a hanger and put both sets against her body for Cana to give her opinions on.
"You don't understand," Lucy said. "You've never been cheated on before."
Cana raised an eyebrow. "Uh, I haven't?"
"I'm sorry, you have, but for me this was Sting. Sting was my long-term, live-in boyfriend for years and yet I was still cheated on multiple times," Lucy put both sets if underwear back on the racks. "Sometimes I wonder if maybe I'd been... more erotic-"
"Woah, woah, woah, back upHeartfilia," Cana cut her off. "What do you mean you've been cheated on multiple times? You mean to tell me that Yukino wasn't the first time you caught him with another girl in your house?"
"Well I mean, that was the first time I caught him with another girl in my house... but it wasn't the first time I'd caught him cheating."
"What?"
"Okay Cana, don't freak out-
"WHAT? WHAT?-"
People in store started to look at them.
"Please Cana, calm down, it's okay-"
"Wwwwwwwwwwwhy is this the first time I'm hearing about this? I'm calm. I'm calm."
The brunette began to take deep breaths with Lucy's guidance. Once she regained her composure, she turned to her friend and smiled.
"Luuuuuuuuccyyyyy, start explaining yourself now please."
"He's never had another girl in our house before Yukino," Lucy clarified. "But I always used to catch him looking at other girls, or messaging flirty things to other girls, or even let girls get too close to him. And don't get me wrong, I'd bring it up and get angry at him, but he'd always tell me I was overreacting or that I was reading too much into it, or that I was acting 'insecure'."
Cana clutched her heart hearing how her friend had been gaslighted all those years.
"Aw Lucy..."
"He would always win in the end because ultimately... he knew I didn't want to lose him."
"Well now he's given me a good reason to hate his ass because you know I never liked him," Cana started. "I only ever played nice because I thought you were happy. But now? I'll spit on him if I ever see him again. Matter of fact, conseguiré que el tÃo Kirk y mis primos vayan a Lima Heights adyacentes cuando menos lo espere."
'I'll get uncle Kirk and my cousins to go all Lima Heights Adjacent on him when he least expects it.'
"Don't do that Cana..."
"No, but for real Lucy, I cannot stand cheaters! Men who cheat are spineless little boys with no respect for their partner or themselves. Escoria de la tierra."
[Scum of the Earth.]
Lucy sighed.
"I don't know... Sting and I never tried anything new, and looking back on it now, I just I wish a little bit more adventurous."
"Chica," Cana grabbed Lucy's shoulders tightly. "Sting cheated on you because he's a total jerk, not 'cause you're bad in bed."
"What am I going to do about Dan? It's been six years Cece. Everything I know about sex, I learned from Sting."
"Everything okay here ladies?" One of sales attendees approached the two.
"Can I try this on, please?" Lucy asked raising a black teddy that was mostly straps, with a black star in the center. Cana eyed her choice skeptically wondering how her friend was supposed to put it on.
"Oh, the starfish. We're sorry, you can't try that on. Health code."
"I'll take it!"
"Ha! I hope Dan's packing some coral polyps, 'cause this starfish is hungry," she chuckled.
"You know, because starfish eat coral polyps-"
"Just pay the damn lady, Lucy."
Daphne: You coming over or...?
Natsu: Sorry babe, my friends have me tied up with something. Idk when I'll be able to slip away again.
After texting Daphne, Natsu sighed and pressed play on a YouTube video, resting his phone horizontally in front of his sink mirror while picking up the hair sheers and positioning them by his elongated, pink hair.
'So today I'm gonna show you how to cut your own hair. Uh, I consider myself...'
Just then, Gajeel walked in.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa! What the hell are you doing Natsu? It's a haircut! Human 're a bartender, you talk to strangers every single day."
"I don't like when they touch my head, man! I just don't like it."
"Since when?!"
"I haven't had a barber near my head in about four years, and that's because every time, I'd think to go, or try it myself, Lisanna would just volunteer to do it for me," he waved his hands to wave off the tension of talking about his ex. "Look, it's fine, okay? I'm learning how to do it on my own. I'm learning from this video."
He gestured to the video with his scissors and he and Gajeel watched the YouTube barber look at himself in the mirror and took a chop of his hair with the scissors. Unfortunately for him, he seemingly went too close to the sun and blood started squirting from his scalp like water out of a dolphin's blowhole. He started screaming.
'Oh! Oh, my God!'
The Polynesians winced at all the gore.
"I was wondering why it had so many views!" Gajeel cried.
Shortly after the video ended, Natsu and Gajeel shared looks.
"Let's watch it again."
"Okay, I'm gonna go. Why don't we meet here at 8:00?" Lucy asked, her ear was pressed against her shoulder with her phone sandwiched in between. She was currently in her closet, trying to decide between a black and white lava print dress and a red one for her date with Dan.
"Great. Okay. Uh, where's the place?" he asked from the other end.
"Um, I think it's in Korea town. Let me check."
She walked into the living room and opened up the only available laptop on the coffee table and the first thing that Lucy saw was a scene from Loke's "red" folder.
Her jaw dropped.
"Lucy?"
Dan could hear faintly in the background of the call the sound of a woman shrieking, a whip cracking and a man moaning. Lucy barely heard him as she became instantly fixated on what was happening on screen.
"W-what? Oh, um... Sorry, uh... Can I call you back?" she asked before hanging up the phone.
Lucy made herself comfortable on the couch as she continued to watch the content from Loke's forbidden folder. A man and a woman moaned loudly and the woman spoke wantonly in Spanish. Then, there was the sound of a cracking whip.
"Oh..." Lucy moaned slightly. She fixed herself again in the couch and rubbed her thighs together lightly.
The sounds of more whip cracking, a mechanical buzz, and loud moaning filled the apartment as Lucy let the video play on. The man chuckled as another whip cracking sound came from the laptop. Lucy's eyes bulged out of their sockets.
"What?"
The sounds of mechanical buzzing intensified as the woman shrieked. Lucy's jaw dropped again. "What?"
Loke came barging into the room.
"Hey, do you have my comput..." Loke paused when he saw what was open on his laptop, before Lucy slammed the laptop shut and turned to him in a panic.
"Oh...my computer."
"I have your computer..."
"I can see that. Hey, I got to cram for this baby shower. Can I... can I have it back?"
"I've been watching porn," she said monotonously, as if she'd been hypnotized.
"You..." he scratched the back of his neck. "Ha, ha, ha, uh Lucy?"
"I found your red folder."
"How-how long you been doing that for? Are you okay honey?"
"Five... five and a half hours."
Within moments, Gajeel, Natsu and Loke were all seated on the couch loft-meeting style, watching with varying expressions the copious amounts of porn Lucy had just mass consumed, while Lucy sat across from them in a sofa chair with an embarrassed expression listening to the sounds of the video once again.
"Wow. You went deep, Blondie," Gajeel said, not tearing his eyes away from the screen. "Real deep."
Lucy suddenly sprung up.
"Help me, guys!" she said fervently. "I have 15 minutes... teach me how to be good at sex."
The boys all raised their eyebrows at her bold request.
"I just... I have to go on this date right now and I can't do it! I'm freaking out, okay? I need all of you to sit in front of me and tell me what guys like in bed."
"Well what do you want to know?" Gajeel asked, offering his advice.
Natsu was sitting in a position where he was ready to spring forth at a moment's notice. He wasn't comfortable at all. 'If she says even one thing that's cringe worthy, I'm out.'
"Okay. Um, when you're... if you're in the... if you're holding the... I'll start over. Um... when you reach... completion?"
"Yeah, that was it," Natsu groaned as he got up. "Completion? Yeah I can't do this, Lucy."
"No, no, no wait!"
Luckily for Lucy, the guys beckoned him back.
"Come on Dragneel."
"Come back here."
Reluctantly, he sat back down.
"Lucy, guys want to be whisked away," Loke began to explain. "They want to be enchanted, hypnotized even."
"Just take off your clothes Luce."
Although barely, Lucy turned at Natsu's voice, his eyes trained on her. For some reason her mind pictured Natsu saying that in a different setting, and her face reddened slightly at the thought.
"Or at least, that's what I'd say if it were me," Natsu said with a shrug.
"Oh don't try acting all smooth now," Gajeel turned to his cousin in disgust. "This is coming from the same guy who's afraid of the intimacy of a haircut!"
"Look that's different, okay!"
Lucy leaned forward and reached for the laptop, using the mousepad, she rewound the video to a specific part. Turning the screen back around to the guys, she pressed play.
"Do you think that Dan watches stuff like that?"
The guys watched the scene play out again and answered their friend earnestly.
"All the time."
"For sure."
"Probably watching it right now."
"Really?" she asked. "Okay. Well I put this on mute, because this girl's... um, pretty loud. And, um, the main thing that I took away was, gosh, that young lady can really... multitask."
Again, the guys answered without hesitation.
"Super normal."
"She's a pro."
"What she's doing... I don't know if every girl's like that, but she's a pro."
"So I was wondering if there were any like trendy moves?" Lucy continued her line of questioning. "Because I've been doing the same four moves for the last six years, like the..." she clasped her hands together awkwardly. The guys looked confused.
"Uh, and you know, like, uh..." she wriggled her arms and let out a muffled groan which made Natsu begin to question his life. "That one. And I don't know. Do you think that Dan would be into, like, something like that?"
"What, a little light choking?" Loke asked with vested interest. He leaned forward in the couch and his whole body lit up towards her. "I'm willing to bet that Dan is into some pretty dark stuff."
Natsu scoffed.
"Light choking, really? No one's doing that, especially not Dan."
"You know what Dragneel, maybe you're just hooking up with the wrong kind of girl," Loke said smugly.
"No apparently, I'm hooking up with the right kind of girl Loke, because they don't choke me."
Loke scoffed turning back to Lucy. "Natsu is a meat and potatoes kind of guy. You see, Gajeel and I..."
"Don't want to be a part of this," Gajeel interjected.
"...we're sushi kind of men."
"So you two seriously think you're better at sex than me?" Natsu turned to them with furrowed eyebrows. He wasn't ready to drop that subtopic of conversation just yet.
"Yeah."
"Absolutely."
The guys could see in his change of demeanor how offended he was.
"What did you do after you lost your virginity?" Gajeel asked him. "What did you say to me?"
"Oh don't bring that up now, that doesn't count."
"He said to me, "Gajeel, is it okay that I didn't get my pants all the way off?" That's a true story by the way, like that really happened," he said to Lucy.
Natsu was mortified.
"Okay, I was six-teen years old you psychopath! And I've gotten a lot better. Remember back in college, when I had all kinds of women banging on our dorm at night Loke? They were begging for it. Now, I was still with Lisanna so I never let them in of course, but you can't deny that I am good."
Loke rolled his eyes. "Oh please, you used to box and you were quasi famous. I'm sure all the women who told you that you were the best sex they've ever had, would be telling this one that his nose piercings didn't make him look creepy," he said, pointing his thumb at Gajeel.
"Hey!" Gajeel said, touching his nose piercings sensitively.
"I used to listen to you and Lisanna all the time in college," Loke continued. "It was like listening to a rescue crew trying to communicate with a... with a stranded miner. "Are you okay?" "Yeah. Are you okay?" "Yeah."
"Um, guys?" Lucy asked waving her hands. She could feel herself losing control of the flow of conversation. "I don't have much time. Can we get this back on track? I really need to know what to do. So would flicking be, like, a cool thing?"
The answers came swiftly and definitively.
"No."
"No!"
"Absolutely not."
"Okay... how about role play?"
"Do you know any voices?" Loke asked.
"Yes! I can do an old-timey newscaster, like, "Hey there, son, I'm gonna kick you into next Tuesday, see?"
"Okay, Luce, here's what you're gonna do," Gajeel said. "If you've got any questions, just come to me because I'm obviously the best at sex."
Loke gasped turning to him.
"Um no, you are not the best. Lucy," Loke called to her. "Who do you think, out of the three of us, is the best at sex?"
The guys simultaneously turned to her.
"...what?"
"And go with your gut," Loke continued. "Take emotion all the way out of it. Nobody's feelings are gonna get hurt... especially, you know, Natsu and Gajeel's."
"Okay, I am not doing this," Lucy said with a laugh. Unfortunately for her though, the pride of her male counterparts refused to let her off the hook.
"Say a name."
"Go with your gut."
"Yeah," Natsu added. He'd be lying if he said he wasn't intrigued. "Tell us what you think."
Lucy was spared from a knock on the door which the blonde sprinted to go answer.
It was Dan.
"Oh!" She smiled at the sight of her boyfriend in a suit and tie, holding a bouquet of flowers. "Hey! Dan!"
"Hey, goose," he said handing her the flowers.
"Hey, goose," she replied with a smile, before giving the flowers a big sniff. "I'll be right back, I'm gonna go get ready in my room."
"Take your time," Dan said as he walked over to the couch. "I'll just be hanging out with the guys."
"Hey, fellas," he said, finally turning to them. "What's up? What's up?
"What's up, Genzlinger?"
"Oh, I bet you're looking at me like, "whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?" Well I'll tell you. You see, "Goose" is short for "me gusta Lucy.""
There was a long awkward silence.
"Of course," Loke said after a while. "Come here, sit down, man.
"Thank you."
Dan and Lucy walked across a wooden bridge hand-in-hand after a pleasant romantic evening, dining together and enjoying each other's company. The brisk, night air blew through Lucy's blonde tresses as she adjusted her scarf over her nose. The giant full moon left its rippling reflection in the river below, being the only thing the couple could see in the water.
The mood was right, they were alone under the full moon, and Lucy was locked and loaded with the complicated lingerie she bought with Cana earlier.
It was finally time to get this over with.
"So, I'm looking forward to having sex tonight," she said suddenly.
Dan jumped at her abruptness.
"Uh, yeah... me, too. Sex is the bomb," he chuckled. "Sorry. That sounded like a guy from Entourage."
"Do you like porn?" Lucy asked, hardly listening to his ramblings
"No... Do you?"
"I do."
Dan paused. He started to panic.
"I mean, I... Yeah. I do, I do like... pornos. Yeah, you know, when my imagination isn't really working... or I've exhausted, uh, the bullpen."
"I just find it very erotic," the blonde continued. "And then I just love, like... everything that's erotic."
"Yeah! ...the things people say sometimes, I don't really... write it, but I think..."
"Are we going to do this?" Lucy turned to him. Lit up by the light of the moon, her brown eyes were filled with a certain uncertainty that confused him.
"Yes. Definitely."
"Then let's go. Lets do it now."
Lucy's command then was followed by her guiding Dan by the hand from the bridge to make their way to the car.
It was time for take two. Lucy and Dan clumsily stumbled their way through her apartment to her bedroom making out aggressively. Once inside, Lucy closed the door behind them and pushed him off of her and onto her bed.
"Okay," Dan said surprised. "Whoa, wow."
Lucy decided to put on her old-timey newscaster voice as she pointed her finger guns at him. "You are a hot, hot, hot."
"Why thank you."
"Hello, weather service? Oh! There's a heat wave from Portsmouth to Port, Kansas!"
"I don't know, I don't... what is happening."
"We're talking dirty, slim."
"Oh, okay. You want me to do... you're doing a voice. You want me to do a voice?"
She nodded fervently as she slipped her dress over her head to reveal her string lingerie over a regular set of bra and panties.
"Okay, um... Well, I'm so happy to be here!" Dan spoke in a very unclear Jimmy Stewart accent. "You look ravishing in your... uh netting..."
"Thank you very much."
"...contraption."
"Now, why don't you let me see your little caboose?" Lucy continued with her impression.
"Okay, here. Let me go ahead and..." Dan looked around disorientingly, not sure what she meant.
Lucy folded her arms
"Your caboose?"
"Oh, okay."
"Your butt."
"Oh, my butt! Okay. Here's my caboose!" he replied turning around.
Lucy did what she thought was the next logical step and started slapping his butt.
"Oh, happy birthday, me! I... Oh." Dan broke character for a moment after a particularly hard slap on his butt that actually hurt. Noticing his flinch, Lucy leaned forward to apologize.
"Oh, my God, oh, my God. I'm so sorry," she whispered. "Are you okay?"
"No, it was great," Dan whispered back, and then he put on his Jimmy Stewart accent. "I just it felt so good, and sensual! Hey! You want me to wiggle it around?"
"How about you help me get a little more comfortable?" Lucy drawled, referring to her uncomfortable lingerie which she couldn't seem to get off.
"Oh. Oh, all right, dear," he got up and tried untying the back off it which he was having great difficulty doing. "Okay, I just don't know..."
"I'm going to try something different," Lucy whispered in a normal voice.
"Oh. Okay, great."
Now emulating the voice of a cranky old woman, she yelled at him. "Young man!"
He jumped at her sudden volume change.
"Young man, the things I'm gonna do to you!"
Dan did his best to play along.
"Well, I can't wait to..."
"Young man, don't take all day!"
"Well, I-I understand, ma'am, but you're wearing chain mail here."
"I am not getting any younger!"
"It's like an erotic rope course. Okay, I... let me try up here. I think it's... I can't do the voice and get this off at the same time..."
"Okay. Oh. Is that, are you okay?"
"Yes."
"Wow, this is a..." Dan, although struggling, finally managed to get the top half of her outfit off of her. Once it was off she threw him back on the bed. Now putting on a deep voice, Lucy now tried to imitate a lumberjack.
"I'm gonna split you like a log!" She yelled holding an imaginary axe. With that, she let out a battle cry before she jumped on top of him.
"Okay, stop. What are you... wait, hold on. What is that?"
"It's a lumberjack..." Lucy said innocently.
Dan had finally reached his breaking point.
"Hold on one second. Can we just... start over, and just kind of go back to basics for a minute? Just you and me. Okay?"
He pulled her close to him by her hands and Lucy began to feel embarrassed.
"Okay."
"Just our regular voices," he said softly as he embraced her warmly from behind.
Lucy giggled girlishly as her cheeks began to turn pink.
"All right."
"See? So nice," he said as he started to lightly kiss her neck. "So nice..."
The "nice" atmosphere didn't last long as when Dan turned to her face to capture her lips, she decided that now would be an opportune time, to choke him.
"Ah, ah, agh..."
Not being able to say much, he was rapidly losing oxygen.
"Ah, you're hurting me," he rasped.
Realizing this as his face was turning red, Lucy released him.
"Oh, my God! Oh, God. Are you okay?"
He was gasping desperately for air as he held a finger in the air for her to stay back.
"Oh, yeah, I'm good," he gasped. "I'm good!"
"Let me get you some water!"
"No, no thanks..." his breathing was slowly returning to normal as he hurriedly made his way for the door. "I'm gonna get some water at home. I-I have good water at home."
"No, no, no, I have water here!"
"I have a filter," he said, grabbing his shoes, not even bothering to put them on, he scurried out. "It's a special ionized filter... I got at home..."
"Oh, I'm so glad you convinced me to go to your barbershop," Natsu said, admiring himself in the mirror.
"Wow, man. I... it actually looks really good." Gajeel said surprisingly. He was trying his hardest to hold back a laugh.
It was the next day, and after a fit of whining and insults, Gajeel managed to drag Natsu to the local barber shop that he frequented for a much needed haircut. Natsu was especially unhappy when Daphne sent him pictures of her in lingerie to tease him, merely captioning it "You're missing out" with a winking face emoji. Despite all of that, Natsu surprisingly was very happy with the end result when he and Gajeel returned.
"Right? And don't I look good?" the pinkette continued. "Seriously man, this haircut is sexy as hell. Not to mention the fact that I absolutely loved it in there! You think they liked me in there man?"
"I think they loved you in there, man," Gajeel said, again, stifling a snicker.
Flashback
Inside the barber shop, Natsu sat in a client's chair with covering around his outfit while a dark skinned man, snipped away at his hair with a razor and sharp sheers. The shop was small yet filled with clients. A movie was playing on a small television in the top right corner, and casual conversations were being held by all the other patrons and barbers around him.
Meanwhile, Gajeel sat by the window alongside a row of brown skinned elderly men, who usually liked to hang out in the barbershop and sometimes play poker. Gajeel even tried playing them a few times and lost, but it was all in good-natured fun.
"Boy, your haircut look like a high-rise," One of the men said. He, his row of friends, as well as Gajeel and Natsu all laughed in glee. "Where the damn penthouse at?"
The place erupted in more laughter.
Right now, the fun was being had making fun of Natsu's haircut, which Gajeel paid his barber extra to give his cousin a traditionally black haircut that he knew would look ridiculous on him.
"Hey, old man, what, did you steal those pants off of Danny Glover's grandfather?" Natsu asked, deciding to get in on the action. He burst out into a fit of laughter but nobody else did.
"I am Danny Glover's grandfather..." The old man said seriously.
Natsu felt a chill go up his spine at the silence. He immediately went into damage control.
"I'm actually a big fan of his work... He was great in the Lethal Weapons and-"
"No, the hell I ain't Danny Glover's grandfather!" the old man said suddenly, and he as well the rest of barbershop erupted in laughter, including Natsu.
Natsu continued to admire himself in the hand mirror Gajeel gave him
"Honestly, this haircut might even be better than sex!"
Gajeel turned to him sharply.
"What?"
He was spared from having to explain when Lucy came stumbling into the kitchen.
"Hey Luce, so how'd it go?" Natsu asked. "Is he still in there?"
"No more tea. I forgot to buy tea," she said softly. She disappointedly held up an empty box of herbal tea. Ignoring her friends, she slipped back into her room like a ghost. Natsu and Gajeel shared a look with one another before they both got up and followed her to her bedroom.
"What's up, Blondie?"
"You okay, Luce?"
"I messed up," she said solemnly as she sat on her bed. "He ran away. He got scared."
"Why would he be scared?"
"Because I choked him," she admitted shamefully. "I lightly choked him."
Natsu's jaw dropped. Gajeel's eyes bulged. They couldn't believe she actually did it.
"Wow. That's what happens when you listen to Loke," Gajeel shook his head.
"It's just... when I was with Sting, I never had to think about this stuff, you know? It just... happened. He already knew exactly what to do and so did I."
"Okay Luce listen," Natsu said sitting beside her. "Here's the thing. You've got to stop thinking about it. That might be your biggest problem. Just relax, and be yourself. Remember that you're the prize here so he should be the fretting over how to please you. Never forget, you're awesome."
"What do you think, Gajeel?" She said turning to Gajeel unceremoniously.
"Wait, why are you asking him?"
"I'm sorry Nat, but seriously, look at your hair. You don't look like someone who even knows how to have sex, let alone be good at it."
Natsu's jaw dropped... again, while Gajeel couldn't even hold it in anymore and gave in to a fit of boisterous laughter.
"I can't believe you just said that."
"Here's what you do," Gajeel said addressing his female roommate. "You're gonna stop worrying about it. Completely."
"Yeah. That's really good advice," Lucy nodded her head.
"That's literally what I just said-"
"What are you so worried about, anyway? Dan doesn't care what you do. I've seen the way that boy looks at you. And he is crazy about you."
"I agree, I-"
"Shh," Lucy cut Natsu off. "I'm trying to listen to Gajeel."
Their talk was interupted by a knock in the door, which Lucy hopped up to quickly answer.
It was Dan.
"Oh, hi!" He said excitedly.
Lucy's heart jumped in her throat at the unexpected surprise. Gajeel and Natsu wandered in the living room to see who was at the door.
"Hi Dan," she said.
Noticing her roommates, Dan smiled and waved at them too.
"Hey Gajeel! Hey Natsu!"
Gajeel flitted two fingers in the air, while Natsu nodded and turned back down the hallway, leaving him with an "okay" as a response.
"Could I... talk to you for a minute?" he asked Lucy.
"Um, sure," she said as she stepped outside the loft closing the door behind her.
"Um... Hi. Hi. So, last night was, um..."
"No, I am SO sorry."
"No, no, don't, please...
"It was totally unacceptable. I just..."
"Lucy, please," Dan pleaded for her to listen. "I'm really... intimidated by you, Lucy. You're just... so experienced, and look at you, you're gorgeous."
Lucy blushed at his compliment.
"And I've never done any of that stuff, that... S and M style... bondage stuff. It scares me a little, but I... want to do it, because I know that you're into it. Just please be gentle with me at first, okay? I... really like you."
Lucy's eyes lit up at his last sentence.
"Really?"
The dark skinned man stepped forward and held her by her hands. He smiled as he kissed the back of her palm.
"Yes, I do. And nothing else matters... Except, just... no fire, and no handcuffs, please? Please, please, please. Okay? And also, I'm allergic to felt... and most polyurethanes... Okay, well, that's it. And no bugs, too, I don't know if that was..."
He trailed off awkwardly before he started to back away into the elevator.
"Dan wait," she tugged on his shirt sleeve causing him to turn around. "Um... Last night was kind of a... low point for me too. I mean... I'm sorry for rushing things and overthinking and getting all weird..."
"Oh, no, it's okay, it just surprised me a little bit, that's all."
She smiled at him. He smiled back.
"Its just that... it's been burning me up inside that the last guy I had sex with played me like a fiddle and cheated on me, and I guess I just really wanted to erase that from my memory..."
Dan's smile slowly faded.
"Wait, do you mean Sting?"
Lucy's heart began to race. "Uh, no wait- that's not what I..."
He let go of her hands and slowly furrowed his eyebrows.
"No, I think that's exactly what you meant! Is that why you've been so eager to get in bed with me? Because you're in a rush to forget about your ex?"
"Dan, no! It's not like that! I don't care about Sting... I care about you. I just wanted us to get past this milestone, so that we could be... official."
She reached for his hand again but he shied away.
"Daniel..."
"I'm sorry Lucy but I can't... do this right now."
Dan's words sent a sharp pang straight through her heart. Slowly, she felt a well building up behind her eyes.
"And do you want to know what the worst part of this whole thing is?" Dan continued as he walked over to the elevator and pressed the button. "It's the fact that you were willing to go through with this and willingly hurt someone you claim to care about so much."
"I'm so sorry..." she croaked. Two stray tears fell from her eyes and down her face. "I didn't realize what I was doing was wrong... I just... don't want this to be over so soon. I really like you too."
His eyes wavered at her words.
"I don't want this to be over either," he said with tears in his eyes, as the elevator opened. He got inside. "I just need a little time."
And with that, the elevator closed leaving Lucy in the hallway alone. The pain from the moment finally hit her in its entirety, and it broke her down causing her to slide against the wall and crumple up in tears on the ground. The sounds of her sobbing reached the apartment, and Gajeel and Natsu looked worriedly at one another. Natsu quickly got up.
"I've got this."
Gingerly, the apartment door opened and Natsu stepped outside, closing the door behind him and making his way over to his roommate.
"You okay Luce?"
Hearing his voice, Lucy stilled. She took a moment to take in a few ragged breaths and wiped her tears before looking up. She finally faced Natsu.
"Yeah," she snuffled. "I'm fine."
Natsu crouched down next to her.
"Do you know what movies are playing in theaters now?"
Lucy wiped her nose, looking at him confusedly. She shook her head.
Natsu pulled out his phone.
"There's... 'The Hitman's Wife's Cousin's Son's Bodyguard'... the Matrix: Re:Reloaded Reboot version...oh, I see Sing 4-Ever After is in theaters!"
Lucy's curiosity peaked at the last title. "It is?"
She leaned over his shoulder to see the movie title for herself. His lips tugged upward in a smile.
"Lets go catch the evening showing. My treat."
Lucy sniffed. "Really? But I thought you hated musicals?"
"Look are you gonna question me, or are you gonna take my offer - which you know doesn't happen often."
"Oh absolutely," she said getting up.
Her voice was still weak from crying and her face was still streaked with tears but she was in much better shape. Just then, Loke came striding down the hall from the elevator with a necklace made out of baby nipples, a bib around his neck and sour patch kids all over his shirt.
Natsu wasn't even gonna ask.
"Good, you're here," he said to him. The pinkette opened the door to the loft to address Gajeel.
"Yo, we're going to the movies to watch Sing later, wanna come? My treat."
"Your treat?" Gajeel asked incredulously. "That's all you had to say."
With that, he hopped up off the couch grabbed his car keys and skipped out the door. Before he made it far, he stopped cold in his tracks when he saw Loke.
"What the hell happened to you?"
Loke smiled as he walked alongside his pierced friend.
"Two words. Baby. shower."
Gajeel looked at him with an off put expression as he pressed the button for the elevator. "What?"
As Loke explained his wild baby shower escapades to his roommate, Natsu and Lucy trailed behind, with Lucy noticing how frequently her friend was being texted.
Daphne: I bought something new again just for tonight.
Natsu smirked.
Natsu: Oh really? What happened to the fit from earlier?
Daphne: That's for me to know, and you to find out. ;) I missed you.
Natsu: Hey, so I'll be a bit late coming over tonight.
Daphne: ???
Daphne: Again Natsu?
Daphne: Seriously???
Natsu started to panic at her spamming texts as he moved his fingers furiously to text her back with an explanation to appease her. Lucy slyly looked over his shoulders, and while she couldn't see the whole conversation because he was tall, and holding the phone close to his face, she could tell he was being summoned somewhere else.
"Friend of yours?" She asked curiously.
He finally finished typing and sighed before sticking his phone back in his pocket.
"Don't worry about it..."
"Listen Natsu you don't have to do this, you know? I'll be fine. I can go to the movies still with Gajeel and Loke, and you can go to your friend if he needs you right now."
Natsu smiled at her and shook his head.
"Nah," he waved away her suggestion. "I want to do this. Besides, I can always make it up to them later."
Confused, but feeling no need to pry, Lucy decided to let it go as they stepped on the elevator. Once the elevator door closed with the four of them inside, Gajeel and Loke continued to talk to each other about how he ended up with candy on his shirt, when Natsu gently nudged the blonde.
"Hey Luce?" He said softly. "You should just give him some time. He'll come around. I can tell. He cares about you."
She smiled softly at him.
"Thank you Natsu."
Yo! So you may have noticed that this chapter is a lot shorter than the other chapters for this. Well the reason for that is that there was a subplot with Loke and a baby shower that was cool and all on it's own but I felt disturbed the overall theme for this chapter. Anyways, anyone else surprised at how fast this came? I was able to pump out one last chapter before school starts for me again and I'll be more or less disappearing.
On another note... LMAO! XD
I felt SO bad writing this chapter, especially after last chapter when legitimately nobody guessed Natsu, lol. I low-key feel like a troll (and I'm okay with that XD), but I promise that it was supposed to be Natsu from the start
Anyways...
Thank you AJ and Copperreign for the New Year's wishes! Happy New Year to everyone who happens read this! Anneryoko, you wouldn't believe how much I snickered at the fact that you pointed that out in your review, LMHO. Natsu is clearly just a guy who doesn't take long to hate things, and I love it.
Finally, thank you to EVERYONE who reviewed the last chapter! Including those mentioned above, as well as queenuly14 (I always love the thought you put into your reviews) and XAshiaraX! Thank you guys for the warm reception to the last chapter, really, I wasn't expecting it.
Now, I don't remember if I mentioned this last chapter but there is an actual Christmas chapter planned for this story (which is the next chapter) and to that end, I had to make sure that the passage of time made sense. Last chapter was the first week of December, this chapter another week or two have passed, and next chapter will be around actual Christmas time. That's why Gajeel had to keep clarifying that it was only the 3rd or the 4th.
Until next time, The 23rd in which one of the guys dresses up as sexy Santa at a party, another one of them gets introduced to a new business opportunity and we see a glimpse of the home life for a third roommate.
And now, an end credit scene if you will (don't kill me lol)!
As soon as Daphne opened up the door, she slammed her lips against Natsu's, wanting to make up for lost time. He hoisted her up from her bottom and closed the door behind him as she wrapped her legs around him.
"You kept me waiting," she said impatiently as he plopped her on the bed that was full of rose petals. The petals fluttered at her weight.
The dark haired woman was in an opened, purple, silk robe, with a matching lacy, purple bra-lette and a lacy, lilac thong to complete the set. The room was dim with only the light of burning candles, the room permeated with the smell of apple cinnamon. Natsu looked around in awe.
He wouldn't be lying if he told her he was touched.
"All this for me?" he asked as he threw his shirt over his head.
"Yeah," she smiled at him. "But it almost wasn't gonna be if you kept me waiting."
With his pants off, he got on the bed and climbed on top of her, he began to grind his need into hers as his mouth moved from her lips to the line of her jaw where he trailed kisses along it's path.
"Mmmmmm," Daphne hummed, fisting his hair between her fingers. "Natsuuuuu..."
Natsu moved from her jawline to the crook at the top of her neck and underneath her jawline. Daphne moaned softly, struggling to find the air to say her next words due to his continued ministrations.
"Natsu..." she breathed softly. "I need you to promise me... as soon as we're done... that you'll never... get this haircut again."
Natsu suddenly stopped. He hoisted himself up to look at her in confusion.
"What? You aren't feeling the new do?"
"Natsu please, have you looked in a mirror? You look like a gay Sonic the Hedgehog reject."
Natsu touched the top of his head gingerly. "Really? I mean, I think I'm kinda rocking this look honestly.
Daphne sighed and rolled her eyes.
"You're lucky you're so cute," she said blowing out the candle at their bedside, submerging the two in complete darkness.