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They say that when you lose your vision, your other senses become heightened to compensate. Lucy thinks that’s true enough. She’s nowhere near Natsu’s level, but with her new reliance on her ears, she’s become adept at differentiating her guildmates based on their pace, their footsteps, their breathing.
Her improved hearing is certainly helpful, but she finds that touch is the easiest way to navigate the new world she’s found herself in. Natsu refuses to let her out of his sight for the first few months, acting as her guide, but as much as she loves him, she yearns for independence, and she’s not about to let a little lack of sight get in the way of that. She uses a cane to get around for the most part, but her hands provide her with a little more precision in situations where she needs it.
Relying on her hands so much in her new everyday life gives her a new perspective. She notices things that she wouldn’t have given much mind to when she could still see, because now it’s one of the only ways she can visualise the world around her. She notices just how plush her blankets are, her fingers running over the soft pile of the fabric, relishing in the feeling of it against her fingertips. She values the tactile elements of some of her books—the indents of the title on the cover, the raised bump of the spine, the texture of the leather binding it together. She can’t read the words held within it anymore, but it still brings her comfort to be able to differentiate and recognise them on her shelf by touch when she picks one out for Natsu to read to her.
Finding comfort in the tactile is not something she limits to her possessions and collections. The last thing she wants to do is forget the world around her, and one way she tries to prevent it is to examine it through the new lens of her fingertips.
“You’ve been using my moisturiser again,” she says.
She almost wants it to be a reprimand, but it comes out more as a statement than anything. Natsu’s face is unusually soft under her touch, but she doesn’t really mind it.
“It makes my face feel nice,” he replies, and she cannot contest.
Her hands gently cradle his jaw as she connects the shapes she feels under her palms with the image she holds of Natsu in her mind. Tan skin, strong jawline, and newly soft skin. He’s got a little bit of stubble, but not much—he thinks he looks silly with facial hair. Lucy says he looks handsome; he reminds her that she can’t even see what it looks like. She tells him that she doesn’t need to see it to know it’s true.
She brings her fingers up to his hairline, where she realises his hair is down. The corners of her lips quirk up in a smile, and she takes it as an excuse to run them through his hair. He practically purrs as she lightly drags her nails across his scalp, and it elicits a soft laugh from her.
“Is it getting longer?” She asks, noting how it seems to take longer for her to reach the tips of his hair than before.
“Yeah,” he hums in affirmation. “You think I should cut it?”
She holds pause for a moment as she tries to imagine what he looks like, his spiky, rosy hair now grown into shaggy locks.
“No, I don’t think so.”
She lightly drags her hands down until her thumbs rest on the space just below his eye. His eyes flutter closed, which she can feel in his lashes brushing against her fingers, tickling her slightly, and she takes the chance to gently run the pads of her thumbs over his eyelids. Each dip and crease is burned into her memory, pieced together to form the puzzle that is her Natsu.
She hopes that they will be together long enough that she can begin to feel each wrinkle and smile line permanently form on his face. Part of her resents the fact that she will never see him grow old, but she tries to bury that feeling by running her thumb down the bridge of his nose until she reaches the tip. Leaning forward, she places her lips against it, and she feels him scrunch his nose up in response. She knows he’s just doing it to be a pain, but even his faux-disgust elicits a laugh anyway. It’s nice being able to envision the expression he’s making from touch alone.
Fingers trailing down his face, her thumb trails down his cupids bow before resting it on his lips. He turns his head so they rest in her palm, and she feels him pucker them to press a kiss into the soft skin. She feels her face heat up in a blush, and even though she can’t see it, she can feel the corner of his lips quirk up into a smirk against her hand. Natsu’s not much of a traditional romantic, but then he does stuff like this—things that are so distinctly Natsu that she can’t help the way her heart flutters in her chest.
He brings his own hands up to cradle her face, and she leans into the warmth of his touch. His thumbs rub gentle circles on the apples of her cheeks, and she smiles into it. He’s always been an affectionate type of guy, but this intimate sort of face touching is reciprocal—something he wouldn’t have done had it not been for her initiating. There’s no real reason for him to do it when he can see every dip and crease in her face, but it’s nice to feel it, to know he’s there, to experience the same feeling he does when she does it to him. It makes her feel less alone in it all.
It’s not long before she feels his warm breath against her lips, and she knows to pucker up before feeling his against them. She doesn’t need to see to kiss him, so she just relishes in the taste of his lips and the feeling of them melding against hers. They’re a little bit chapped, but they always have been, so she doesn’t mind too much. When he finally pulls away, he rests his forehead against hers, and she’s certain that he can feel the warmth radiating from her cheeks.
“You’re blushing,” he says in observation, confirming her suspicion. He says it with a teasing tone underlying his words, and it only serves to make her flush brighter, which she suspects is his intention.
She can feel him pull away and estimate his position by the feeling of his breath against her face. Unfortunately, not even that prepares her for the ruin of their tender moment when she feels his tongue drag over her cheek and hears the proceeding cackle he lets out.
“Natsu!” She yells out. “That’s so gross!”
She wipes her cheek with her hand, her face scrunched up in disgust as he howls with laughter, and as gross as it is, the familiarity of it brings her a sense of comfort.
At least some things never change.