Chapter Text
The sun is filling up the room, and I can hear you dreaming
Do you feel the way I do, right now?
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It’s happened so many times at this point, that even before her eyes are privy to the early-morning light, Lucy knows he’s there. The gentle (if not slightly unnatural) body heat radiating from her side, the smell of charcoal and hearth, the barely audible grumbles that no doubt made sense within whatever fantastical adventure he was dreaming up in that hard head of his, and the tickle of the tassels of his scarf on her skin tell her that once again, Natsu has snuck in through the window while she was sleeping.
Of course, the 17-year-old Lucy who was new to Fairy Tail and was renting a space that she could finally call her own would have been furious and immediately thrown him out of her bed and demanded he leave, but now, years later, she doesn’t get angry, and can’t remember the last time she did get mad at him for sneaking in. She could probably even say she honestly didn’t mind waking up to her partner’s sleepy grin and his strong, toasty arms that she would toss and turn right into (she always slept soundly once she did).
She’s unable to pinpoint an exact moment when frustration became fulfillment, because there isn’t one; as time has gone on, they’ve gotten older and wiser, and they’ve gotten closer and more comfortable with each other, so it would stand to reason that she’d feel more comfortable cuddling with her friend in her bed. It’s a totally normal thing to do, cuddle your platonic male friends.
…right?
Being physically close to Natsu was as natural as breathing to her, and given everything that they’d been through together, it would be weird if they DIDN’T cuddle each other occasionally (though recently, “occasionally” could be stretching it. She felt like she woke up to a face full of pink hair more often than she woke up alone these days. And somehow, she’s completely okay with that).
A thought strikes her suddenly, stopping the hand that had found its way to the rose-colored fluff atop his head.
Would she do this with her other male friends?
She contemplates this as she conjures up a list of male friends in the guild. She wouldn’t do this with Gray, and even if he wasn’t committed to her other best friend, the thought of doing this with Gajeel weirded her out. She thinks about possibly doing it with Loke, but quickly banishes the thought of being physically intimate with him.
Lucy slowly opens her eyes to the world for the first time that morning.
Intimate?
Was this intimacy? Did their innocuous displays of platonic affection to one another mirror that of lovers? She thinks of the way she and Natsu behave around each other on a daily basis, thinks of how often they each invade the other’s personal space, and realizes the concept of 'personal space' is not something that exists between them. She then thinks of the copious amounts of romance novels she’s read (or even attempted to write in her more formative years), and reaches a conclusion.
To anyone who didn’t know them, or even to those who did know them, they probably definitely looked like a couple.
Lucy was almost bothered by how unbothered she was by that knowledge.
She glances at the clock on her desk.
It was much too early in the morning for any sort of grand, earth-shattering revelation, and much too early for her to be waking just yet, so she snuggled back into Natsu’s arms and let his abating heat lull her back to sleep.