Chapter 85: The Night Before
Lucy's apartment was dark when she finally pushed open the door. The streetlamps outside cast long shadows across her floor, painting the walls in stripes of orange and grey. She was exhausted. The day had been a disaster from start to finish. The stolen job. The fight in the alley. Laxus and his lightning and Gajeel taking a hit meant for her. She had spent the evening helping Levy calm down, helping Jet ice his bruised knuckles, helping Droy clean the blood off his shirt. She had not eaten. She had not rested. She had not stopped moving since morning.
She kicked off her shoes. She dropped her keys on the table. She walked toward her bed with her eyes half closed and her mind already drifting toward sleep.
The bed was occupied.
Natsu Dragneel lay sprawled across her pillows, his mouth open, his chest rising and falling in the slow rhythm of deep sleep. His scarf was still wrapped around his neck, pristine white against the soot that still clung to his skin. His shirt was gone. His pants were barely hanging on. His arms were wrapped around a pillow that he had pulled against his chest like a child with a stuffed animal.
Happy was curled on Natsu's stomach, rising and falling with each breath, his tiny wings twitching, his tail curled around his nose. He was making a sound that might have been snoring or might have been purring or might have been the noise a cat makes when it has eaten too much fish and is dreaming of more.
Lucy stood at the foot of her bed and stared at them.
This was her bed. Her sheets. Her pillows. Her blanket that she had bought from the market last spring because the blue matched the sky on clear days. And now it was full of dragon slayer and cat.
"Natsu," she said.
He did not move.
"Natsu."
His snoring continued. Happy's tail twitched.
Lucy grabbed the edge of her blanket and yanked it off the bed. Natsu rolled with it, still asleep, his arms still wrapped around the pillow, his body tumbling toward the floor in a slow, graceful arc. Happy woke up halfway through the fall, his wings snapping open, his eyes wide, his mouth forming a scream that did not quite make it out before he hit the ground with a soft thump.
"AYE," Happy said from the floor. "AYE. AYE. LUCY. WHY. WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT. I WAS SLEEPING. I WAS DREAMING ABOUT FISH. BIG FISH. FISH THAT WERE ALMOST MINE."
Lucy pointed at her bed. "This is my bed. My apartment. My sheets. My pillows. My blanket. You have your own house. You have your own beds. You have your own place to sleep that is not here."
Happy sat up, rubbing his head where it had hit the floor. "Natsu wanted to see you. He said he missed you. He said he could not sleep at home because the house smelled like smoke and he was tired of smelling like smoke and he wanted to smell like you instead." He paused. "That is what he said. I am just reporting. I do not know what it means."
Lucy's face went red. She looked at Natsu, who had not moved from the floor, who was still wrapped in her blanket, who was now snoring again despite having just fallen off a bed.
"Natsu," she said again, louder this time.
He opened one eye. "Lucy. Hey. When did you get here?"
"This is my apartment. I live here. I have always lived here. You are the one who is visiting. Uninvited. While I was gone. Without asking."
Natsu sat up slowly, her blanket falling away from his chest. His skin was still raw in places, still healing, still marked by the fire he had been carrying for two weeks. He rubbed his eyes and looked at her with a sleepy grin that made her want to hit him and kiss him in equal measure.
"I missed you," he said.
Lucy's anger faltered. Just a little. Just enough.
"I was gone for a day," she said. "You were gone for two weeks."
"I missed you then too. I miss you all the time. I just did not know how to say it before." He stood up, the blanket pooling at his feet, and walked toward her. "I thought about you in the forest. Every day. Every night. I kept thinking about coming back. About seeing you. About being here."
He stopped in front of her. Close enough to touch. Close enough to kiss. Close enough that she could smell the smoke still clinging to him, the heat that had not quite faded, the fire that was always burning somewhere beneath his skin.
"I am back now," he said.
Happy, who had been watching this exchange with growing discomfort, cleared his throat. "So. The Miss Fairy Tail contest. Big event. Lots of jewel. Five hundred thousand jewel for the winner. That is a lot of jewel. Enough jewel to buy a lot of fish. Enough fish to feed a cat for a very long time. Maybe forever."
Lucy blinked. "What?"
"The contest. Tomorrow. At the guild. Master Makarov announced it today while you were helping Levy. A beauty contest. For the women of Fairy Tail. The winner gets five hundred thousand jewel and a feature in Sorcerer Magazine." Happy's eyes went wide. "Lucy should enter. Lucy could win. Lucy could buy me so much fish. So much fish, Lucy. More fish than I have ever seen."
Lucy stared at him. Then she looked at Natsu. Then she looked at her bed, which was a mess, and her apartment, which was a mess, and her life, which had been a mess since the day she met them both.
"Five hundred thousand jewel," she said.
"Five hundred thousand jewel," Happy confirmed.
"And a feature in Sorcerer Magazine."
"A feature in Sorcerer Magazine. With photographs. Good photographs. Not the kind where you are falling off a stage wearing a bunny costume. Better photographs. Photographs where you look beautiful and elegant and not at all like you want to die."
Lucy considered this. She considered her rent, which was due. She considered her writing, which was not selling. She considered her reputation, which was currently a photograph of her in a bunny costume with tomato seeds in her hair. She considered the chance to stand on a stage, in a beautiful dress, with lights and music and people watching, and show them all who she really was.
"I am going to win," she said.
Happy cheered. Natsu smiled. Lucy looked at her bed again, at the mess they had made, at the night that was still young, at the two weeks of silence that stretched between her and the man standing in front of her.
"Happy," she said. "Go back to the guild. Tell Mirajane I am entering. Tell her I need a dress. Tell her I need the best dress she has."
Happy was already at the window. "AYE. LUCY IS GOING TO WIN. LUCY IS GOING TO BE QUEEN. LUCY IS GOING TO BUY ME SO MUCH FISH."
He flew out into the night, a blue streak against the orange light of the streetlamps, and was gone.
The window closed. The curtains settled. The room was quiet.
Lucy turned to Natsu. He was standing in the middle of her apartment, still shirtless, still covered in soot, still looking at her like she was the only thing in the world that mattered.
"You are filthy," she said.
"I know."
"You are going to get ash all over my floor. You are going to get ash all over my bed."
He stepped closer.
"You smell like smoke. Like a forest fire. Like something that should not be in a building with wooden floors."
He stepped closer again. His hand found her waist. His fingers pressed into the fabric of her shirt, into the skin beneath, into the heat that was building between them. "I missed you, Lucy. I missed you so much."
She looked at him. At his eyes, which were not gold, not slitted, not the eyes of the thing that had screamed in the forest. Just his eyes. Just Natsu.
"I missed you too," she said. "I was so angry. I was so scared. I thought you were never coming back. I thought the dragon took you. I thought I would never see you again."
He pulled her closer. His forehead pressed against hers. His breath was warm on her lips.
"I am here," he said. "I am not going anywhere. Not again. Not without you."
She kissed him. It was not gentle. It was not soft. It was the kiss of two weeks of silence, two weeks of waiting, two weeks of not knowing. His arms wrapped around her, pulling her against him, and she could feel the heat of him through her clothes, the fire that never quite went out, the hunger that had been building since the day he left.
They stumbled toward the bed. Her back hit the mattress. He was on top of her, his weight pressing her into the sheets, his mouth moving from her lips to her jaw to her throat. She gasped. Her hands found his hair, tangled in the wild strands, pulled him closer.
"I missed this," she said. "I missed you. I missed us."
He pulled back just enough to look at her. His eyes were dark. His breath was ragged. His hands were shaking against her sides.
"I thought about this every night," he said. "In the forest. When I was burning. When I could not stop. I kept thinking about coming back. About seeing you. About touching you. About being inside you." His voice was rough, scraped raw by the fire he had been carrying. "I need you, Lucy. I need you so much it hurts."
She reached up and touched his face. His cheek. His jaw. He was hers.
"You should have come back sooner," she said. "You should have let us help you. You should have let me help you. I could have been there. I could have held you. I could have made it better."
He shook his head. "I could not."
"You are an idiot," she said.
"A stupid, reckless, infuriating idiot who leaves for two weeks without a word and comes back looking like he crawled out of a volcano and expects me to be happy about it."
"I know."
She pulled him down and kissed him again. Harder this time. Deeper. She bit his lower lip and he groaned against her mouth and his hips pressed into hers and she could feel how much he wanted her, how much he had been wanting her, how much he had been holding back.
"You are so hard," she whispered.
"I have been hard for two weeks," he said. "Every night. Every time I closed my eyes. I thought about you. I thought about Erza. I thought about the things we did together. The things I wanted to do again. The things I wanted to do for the first time."
She laughed. It was a breathless sound, half joy and half desperation. "Two weeks. You were in the forest, burning yourself alive, and you were thinking about sex."
"I was thinking about you. About us. About coming home and finding you in my bed and not leaving for a very long time."
His hands were under her shirt now, sliding up her sides, over her ribs, across her stomach. She shivered. His fingers were hot, too hot, the heat of him seeping into her skin like sunlight after rain.
"You are so warm," she said.
"I am always warm."
"Not like this. Not this warm. You are burning up."
He pulled his hands away. "I can stop. If it is too much. If you need me to stop."
She grabbed his wrists. She pulled his hands back to her skin. "Do not stop. Do not ever stop. I have been waiting for you for two weeks. I am not waiting anymore."
He kissed her again. His tongue slid against hers, tasted her, claimed her. His hips pressed into her and she could feel him through her clothes, through his pants, through everything that was still between them.
"I want to fuck you," he said. His voice was low, rough, the voice of the fire that had been burning for two weeks and was finally being let out. "I want to fuck you until you forget your own name. Until you forget how to walk. Until you forget that I was ever gone."
She pushed at his pants. He pulled at her shirt. They were tangled together, arms and legs and breath, and she could not tell where she ended and he began.
"What about Erza?" she asked. Her voice was breathless. Her hands were shaking. She was pulling at his belt, at the clasp of his pants, at everything that was keeping them apart.
"She will have her time," he said. His mouth was on her neck, her collarbone, the place where her pulse beat against her skin. "Tonight, I am with you. Tonight, I am yours. Tonight, I am going to show you how much I missed you. How much I need you. How much I want you."
He pulled back and looked at her. His eyes were dark. His hair was wild. His chest was heaving. He was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.
"I am going to fuck you now," he said. "I am going to fuck you until you cannot think. Until you cannot speak. Until you cannot remember what it felt like to be without me."
She pulled him down. Her legs wrapped around his waist. Her arms wrapped around his neck. She pulled him against her, into her, closer than close, deeper than deep.
"Show me," she said. "Show me how much you missed me."
He kissed her. His hands found her hips. His fingers pressed into her skin. His body covered hers, surrounded hers, became hers.
And in the dark of her apartment, with the streetlamps casting shadows across her walls and the night stretching out before them, Lucy Heartfilia let herself be lost.
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Next Time: The Miss Fairy Tail Contest