Lucy decided against going into the guild for the morning. She was almost finished with her memoir novel, almost ready to send it to an editor and publishing house, and she might actually have the courage to declare it good enough if she added that last bit of foreshadowing to chapter three. Just had to dry her hair by the fire first.
Baths didn't necessarily ease the pain of being separated from the celestial world, but the physical comfort and relaxation of it distracted her and made the pain of existing far more tolerable.
Her house was nice, and lovely, and entirely— "What are you doing here!"
"Yo Lucy!" Natsu said. Happy said something too, but his mouth was too full of fish, and bits of it spewed across her apartment.
With a swinging kick, she crushed both cat and dragon slayer against her wall. Not enough to damage her precious home, but enough to leave a mark on the boys. "What the hell are you doing here Natsu!"
He rubbed her footprint off his face with a sad pout, "We just wanted to check out where you lived. Do you treat all your guests this way?"
"Only the uninvited ones," she hissed. "Leave and don't touch anything. This is breaking and entering you pervs!"
She retreated and dressed as quickly as possible, knowing full well that that wasn't going to be enough to get Natsu to leave.
Natsu was still sitting in her living room when she came out.
"Do I really have to get the police?" she asked, folding her arms, "I wasn't dressed. I know you know better than to peek on a girl when she's like that."
"Aw come on," Natsu wheedled, "We were just trying to be friendly."
"Friends don't invade their friends' privacy," she declared, more confident than she actually was. Lucy hadn't made that many friends over the years. And her friends from Before weren't big on privacy either, truth be told. But it was a human concept Lucy had embraced whole heartedly. It was the reason she had this place on Strawberry Street instead of the girls' dorms at Fairy Hills.
"But it's so nice here, why don't you have people over more often?" Happy asked, running his claws over her walls.
Lucy yanked him by the scruff and shook him. He was cat enough to know to be ashamed.
"Hey, what's this? That's a lot of pages!"
Lucy dropped Happy, grabbed her manuscript, and kicked Natsu in the face. "Don't touch that!"
Maybe she wasn't as ready to finish her manuscript as she thought.
"It's nothing," she told his prone body.
"I think you knocked him out," Happy said, poking Natsu in the side.
Lucy scoffed, "I didn't use magic, he'll be fine in a sec."
"Ouch, what's so important you gotta hit me like that?"
"Nothing," she snarled, holding it closer. It held all her secrets. People weren't allowed to see them yet! Not until she was dead, and gone, and if Natsu paid more attention to her than she realized, even he would be able to see the truth. And it wasn't done!
What if he found a spelling error?
"You kicked me in the face over nothing?" Natsu pouted.
"Exactly," she cried, "Now please go home!"
Natsu smiled, "But your place is way more exciting, I can't believe you've been in the guild two years and I've never been here."
She liked Natsu well enough, his heart and his magic were wild and full of spirit. Fairy Tail was his family, and that fact gave him more pride than anything else. They hadn't crossed paths too much, aside from guild events like the endurance run or Sorcerer Weekly days. Then he'd gone after Macao, and she followed for backup, and apparently she was now 'come-in-unannounced' level friends with him.
She wasn't even that level of friends with Levy!
"Why me?" she cried.
"Because you're so fun!" Natsu said.
Standing up, she started pointing fingers, "Fine, you're here, and I'm fun, and you two are going to clean up this mess, I'll make us all some tea, we'll arrange another time for you to come visit, and you leave. Clear?"
"Aye sir!" Happy said, snapping a salute. Lucy nodded and marched to the kitchen. She waited a moment, until she heard Natsu picking things up, then went to hide her manuscript somewhere else.
Back with tea, her apartment wasn't as clean as it was before they showed up, but it wasn't littered with debris anymore, so she'd take it.
"Okay, I'm not ready to have guests today, so why don't you drink your tea and leave."
She didn't have much hope.
"Wow, you're so cold-hearted," Natsu said.
Happy nodded, "Like an Iceberg. Even Gray wouldn't touch that."
"Breaking and entering," Lucy reminded them, eyebrow twitching.
"I know, why don't you show us more of your magic?" Natsu asked, "What was that cool light thing you did? It didn't feel like fire."
"I'm a holder type wizard," Lucy lied. "I have a set of bracelets and anklets that use light magic to power up my hand to hand combat. And I have a whip for when I want to keep some distance. I also carry a light pen with me. I'm nowhere near Levy or Freed, but I have a couple of useful spells with rune magic. Nothing special. Certainly nothing as rare as Dragon Slayer magic."
"Can you make some for me to eat?" Natsu asked, starting to bounce in his seat.
"Like, can I separate it from myself? Sure, but you really shouldn't eat magic not your element," Lucy said, giving a small demonstration with a ball of light, making it hover between them. The idiot tried to touch it and shook out his hand from the burn.
"Light magic huh? Sure burns a lot for something that's not fire," he complained.
"Think of it like the difference between water magic and ice magic, if that helps," Lucy said, dissolving her light, "Physically, water and ice are made up of the same stuff in this realm, ice is just cold water, but the magic particles that come when a wizard summons them are completely different and they have different effects on the world around them. Fire makes light in this world, they're mostly made up of the same stuff, they're related, but at a magic particle level they're different types. Now, I know you guys didn't come here for a magic lesson. Why don't you get to the point?"
Natsu and Happy looked at each other, then nodded at the same time. "Well Lucy, want to be on a team together?" Natsu asked.
"But you guys don't team with anyone."
"Yeah, but you're nice and fun to be with. So do you want to team up with us?" Natsu said, smiling.
Lucy had occasionally teamed up with Cana, but it was a very casual, rare team, compared to the normal teams in the guild.
Teaming up with someone was a kind of contract. A commitment. And Lucy had already proven her worth at keeping those.
But they wanted her on their team because they liked her. What better reason to team up was there? And if she could keep her secret around the sybil Cana (luckily Cana thought the Star in her tarot deck was metaphorical), Lucy could surely keep her secret from Natsu.
"Okay," Lucy said with a small smile that grew wider, "Okay, yeah, it should be fun. Wow, it's been a while since I've done this."
Natsu hopped to his feet with a cheer, and a secret handshake came out of nowhere, but it was easily one of the coolest moments ever.
"So you're really gonna work with us?"
"You have my word," she said. There wasn't the puzzle piece sliding in place feeling she used to get from making a contract, but it felt a different kind of good. A different kind of binding. She was smiling back, just as wide.
"I already found a job for us," Natsu said, handing her the job flyer.
It was a curious flyer she hadn't seen before, it must have just come in. Steal a book back that some Duke owned. Located in Shirastume. J200,000 was a large price tag, for such a simple task.
"Hang on…" she said, looking more closely at the fine print, "Please note Everlue is a dirty old man who is currently looking for maids with blonde hair? WHAT!"
She turned to look at Natsu, who was nodding along with Happy, "Hey, we know a girl like that, don't we Happy?"
"Aye, and I bet we can find her a maid's uniform!"
Lucy's mouth dropped open. She'd been had! By her own guildmates! Worse, by Natsu and Happy, whose idea of a good prank was to put a bucket of water over the doorway to fall on Gray. Gray! Who never wore clothes or got cold anyway! "You sneaky little, ahhhh!"
Lucy sank to her knees.
Hundreds of years of experience.
Strongest of her kind.
Duped, by Numskull 1 and Numbskull 2. Mountains and seas, no wonder the heavens had kicked her out. Hopefully the next Leo would be born with sense.
"That's not fair," she whined.
"It's a good thing Lucy already gave us her word to work with us, huh Happy?"
"Aye Sir, and partners don't leave each other hanging."
They didn't even know the half of it. She broke her word once and was cast out of heaven and cursed to prolonged days of exquisite agony ended only by death. The universe wouldn't be so kind the second time the leader of the celestial spirits broke her word.
"But you tricked me!" Lucy cried.
"Aww, don't look so sad," Natsu teased, "It's just one job. Now, try to get into character by addressing Happy as 'Master'."
"One fish please!"
Lucy groaned and fell forward in a slump.
Lucy was going to be blonde jailbait (she still looked that young, as far as anyone was concerned), and there was nothing she could do about it. At least she'd get some revenge by making Natsu take a carriage to Shirastume. If the horses meandered more than necessary, well, maybe he'd think next time before offering her as distraction fodder to a pervert.
The situation was a little easier to swallow when she heard that the job changed to destroying the book for 2 million jewel. That was S class quest money! Easy enough to destroy a book, their guild excelled at destruction and Natsu was one of the best.
It wasn't adding up though, why do so much to destroy a book? She'd have to keep an eye out, even if Natsu and Happy were blinded by zeroes.
Not that she'd turn down the reward herself. Her entire savings account was going to go to charity on her death, and that much money would help a lot of people. And she'd never have to worry about rent. It would easily cover a year's worth, and there was no way she was living longer than that.
Though, she'd been saying that for the past three years, so maybe she should invest in a long-term plan. Possibly by taking her share of the 2 mil?
Natsu and Happy went to eat, and Lucy went to subject herself to the mortification of buying a maid's uniform.
The boys were easy enough to find again, stuffing their faces outside a food stall.
"Make sure to save the fatty stuff for Lucy," Natsu said.
Happy nodded, "Yeah, from the looks of her, that's her favorite part."
"Excuse me? Even you two know better than to comment on a lady's weight," Lucy said, hands on her hips.
Happy and Natsu swallowed, and their mouths dropped open. Not gonna lie, it was a nice ego boost. "So, think I got the beautiful maid part down?" she asked, starting to pose. "Allow me to get that for you, Master. Anything you wish, Master. Is it time for you to punish me, Master?"
Shoot, she didn't mean to say that last one. It had been ages since she shared a wizard with Virgo, why did she say that?
Natsu and Happy turned in their chairs, backs to her, and Natsu whispered "We were just kidding about the maid uniform, but she took it seriously, what do we do?"
"It's not our fault! We didn't know she'd be such a perverted weirdo and actually want to dress up like that."
"It's probably best just to go along with it, we'd just embarrass her if we told her it was a joke now," Natsu said.
"You know I can hear you," Lucy growled. Did they think her word was a joke? Aggh, she hated boys. Did they think she was mad at them yesterday over a joke? Obviously she thought they were serious. People seduced their way into high security places all the time in books!
The boys snickered.
"We saved you some food," Natsu said, offering her a plate. It was all fatty slices of meat.
"For the record, my favorite food is salad or yogurt," she said. Earth food anyway. It all tasted like ash in her mouth right now, but the cool textures of those made it more bearable. "I'll eat later."
"Do you like Melon? Because the client might give us some, because that's his name!" Happy said cheerfully.
"That make no sense," she said, putting a hand on her head. Though his name did tug at her. Was he some kind of local celebrity? She'd only heard the name since being stuck on earthland, she was sure. Another warning sign about this job, be cautious.
A/N: Hello folks! Was just testing formatting and messing around before, here's the real thing (with that so crucial second to last paragraph that was missing the first time). I have 54 chapters already up on Ao3, and I post weekly updates over there. But one very nice ffn user asked me on tumblr to upload this to ffn, so here it is! I'm just going to upload this as I do a readthrough and edits of the story already posted on Ao3. So expect them to come pretty rapidly.
Warning. This is one of the slowest burns possible. It's a faster burn than the source material, lol, but the romance is woven in to the plot.
Okay, I think that's it. Leave a review if you liked something in the story you'd like to chat about.
Stay safe,
thecagedsong