Chapter Text
Things between Lucy and Natsu had always worked in a strange way.
Even when they barely knew each other, they had already shown a connection that sometimes years-long friendships couldn’t build.
And let’s talk about the inappropriate advances.
How long into a relationship do people usually start sharing a bed? Seeing each other as naked as the day they were born? Touching each other in intimate places?
Take away the comfort and ulterior motives, and the celestial mage and the dragon slayer had already found themselves in such situations before they even reached their first six months together.
Okay, Lucy had given up on looking for any romantic aspect in these interactions. But the fact remained that they still spent most of their time together. Having him invade her apartment had become comfortable enough that she didn’t mind walking around in a towel or even bothering to kick him out of her bed when he sneaked onto her mattress in the middle of the night.
The hotel rooms they shared? They had long since started automatically requesting one room without even considering paying for two. What was the point of spending on an extra room when they had already seen so much of each other anyway?
So, yes, the expectation of romance between Natsu and Lucy had drastically dropped among their teammates and guild members in general. Everyone was finally confident that it was just their nature to be weirdly close like that. Even though, in their first few months of knowing each other, they had already reached a level of intimacy and inappropriate situations that Lucy was sure Erza and Jellal, so close to their wedding date, and Gray and Juvia, engaged for a few months, had only surpassed long after officially starting their respective relationships.
In fact, no matter how close those two couples were to legitimizing their unions, in the end, it was Natsu and Lucy, who weren’t even dating or in any romantic relationship, who ended up living together first.
The situation happened in an absurdly natural way, like everything else between them.
One night, shortly after Lucy returned to Magnolia following the completion of the hundred-year quest, she was surprised by a visit from her landlady. Well, it wasn’t exactly the visit from the notoriously nosy woman that surprised her, but rather the eviction notice she handed her at that moment.
It wasn’t like Lucy had never considered the possibility of having to move. She lived in a rented room, after all.
Still, she couldn’t help the immense sadness of having to leave what had been her first home after leaving the Heartfilia mansion. The first place she had sustained with her own hard work.
Stunned, Lucy descended the stairs of the old orange house by the river right after receiving the news, with Natsu and Happy trailing behind her. It wasn’t strange for them to be there, given the constant presence they always maintained in her apartment. The unusual part was that they were also upset enough to finally use the front door, when they normally would have taken the shortcut through the window.
Another pang struck her chest as she realized she would never again step inside only to find it taken over by her teammates.
Well, there was nothing to be done. Things changed. Just like Erza and Jellal had decided to get married—skipping the whole dating phase—right after the hundred-year quest, and Gray and Juvia had gotten engaged somewhere along the way, Lucy had to move forward.
“Well, I’ll head to Fairy Hills and see if there’s a room available for me,” she announced and immediately started walking, anxious about the short time the landlady had given her to vacate the property, which, in the woman’s words, was legally possible thanks to the countless times Lucy had violated the rental agreement with her numerous late rent payments.
At least, she was internally satisfied that she finally had the confidence to afford the rent at Fairy Tail’s female dormitory, which was considerably higher than the room she had lived in until then.
In the end, it could be fun, right? The place was great, with its amazing bathtub and, most importantly, her guildmates.
“Okay,” Natsu agreed, automatically starting to follow her.
Lucy stopped, staring at him incredulously.
“What do you think you’re doing?” she asked.
The dragon slayer didn’t even hesitate before answering, as if it were the most natural thing in the world:
“You said you’re going to Fairy Hills.”
“Yes, I am,” the blonde continued, emphasizing the pronoun. “You can’t go. Men aren’t allowed there,” she reminded him.
“Actually, I’m a cat, so I’m always there,” Happy pointed out, oblivious to Natsu’s wide-eyed stare.
Something clicked in the boy’s mind.
“What? If you move there, how am I supposed to invade your room if I can’t even enter?” he exclaimed.
“Actually, the concept of invasion involves you entering a place where your presence isn’t permitted or authorized,” Lucy quipped, almost immediately regretting it. “Wait, you shouldn’t be invading my new room to begin with! Just like you shouldn’t have invaded the old one, but who cares about that?” she added sarcastically. “So I don’t see what would stop you.”
“Your old room didn’t have Erza just a few meters away,” the fire mage argued.
“Ah, yes, I see now,” the blonde was forced to agree. Although Erza had no qualms about participating in the invasions of Lucy’s apartment, she was quite strict about enforcing the rules of Fairy Tail and Fairy Hills. Call it hypocrisy or inconsistency, but that’s how it was, which meant Natsu wouldn’t have an easy time getting in.
“You need to find another place,” Natsu decided, pulling her by the wrist in the opposite direction.
“Natsu!” Lucy called, failing to plant her feet firmly on the ground to avoid being dragged. “I won’t be able to find another place so quickly!” she argued. “At the very least, I need to check if I can stay there until I find another apartment,” she added.
“Well, you can stay with us in the meantime,” the dragon slayer shrugged, barely noticing the way the blonde’s face flushed at the invitation.
“A-are you sure?” she stammered. After all this time, Lucy had only visited Natsu’s house a handful of times, mainly because he was always around her. There simply hadn’t been a need for it.
Still, something about being under his roof made her nervous.
Even though, in her opinion, there was nothing remotely romantic about the relationship they had.
“It’s good that you’ll save on rent,” Happy argued. “And we have plenty of floor space anyway,” he joked.
“Hey!” Lucy protested, but she didn’t resist any further, recognizing the merit of the idea of saving the money that would have gone toward rent.
Besides, she didn’t own any furniture anyway, since everything in her current room belonged to the landlady, which meant she could probably fit all her belongings in her friends’ house, even if they had to stay packed up for a while.
Unfortunately, her satisfaction only lasted until moving day. Specifically, it ended the moment she walked through the door and was confronted with the chaos that was the cluttered mess in the small forest house, pierced by a tree.
Lucy swallowed hard and stepped inside, motivated by the thought of the money she could save if she could endure this.
Feeling a little strange, she noticed how the fire mage and the exceed tossed their things aside and immediately settled into the hammock, not bothered by the accumulated dust.
Lucy wasn’t so lucky.
After a sleepless night due to constant sneezing, she did what she had done before: tidied up the place, making it spotless. The task took the entire day, but it was worth it, as she thought while admiring the relics and mementos Natsu had collected from his past missions. With affection, the blonde noticed that the dragon slayer had already added a few from the hundred-year quest they had completed.
It didn’t take more than a few hours to discover that the fire mage and the blue cat didn’t have much regard for maintaining the organization she had fought to achieve, but a few threats were enough to make them put in the effort to keep the place decent.
Thus, the living arrangement worked better than she had anticipated. Of course, there were inconveniences.
The sofa served as a temporary bed, but within a few days, the back pain forced Lucy to get a futon, which she laid out between the couch and Natsu and Happy’s hammock.
The first night she spent this way, the blonde tried to convince herself that it was silly to feel embarrassed about sleeping next to the fire mage. After all, the only real difference was that they were in his house, since so many times before, during missions, they had slept side by side, whether in twin futons, the same tent, or even the same bed. At least now, she argued to herself, she could be sure her bed wouldn’t be invaded, since Natsu and Happy were used to sleeping in the hammock when they were home. That logic led Lucy to wonder why, the next morning, the dragon slayer and the exceed were occupying the futon beneath her thick blanket, while somehow, she had ended up on the floor.
The recurring situation forced Lucy to buy another futon. And no, she didn’t lay them out separately, nor was she about to stress over it. Especially since the two troublemakers kept ending up in her bed, despite the extra mattress.
The lack of privacy was another point that brought some discomfort in sharing the house, but only slightly. After putting up with years of invasions of her apartment, fridge, bedroom, and bathroom, even while she was showering, there was no reason to make a big fuss about it now.
Okay, Natsu walked into the bathroom a few times and found her changing? Manageable. He was probably still getting used to not living alone anymore.
Of course, there were situations the celestial mage simply wasn’t willing to tolerate, like the summer night when Natsu’s heat turned the futon into a sauna, forcing her to take a cold shower in the middle of the night. On that occasion, the boy walked into the bathroom half-asleep, apparently unaware that the blonde was lying in the bathtub, and did what he had to do. Lucy still shuddered every time she remembered how, stunned, she barely reacted during the time he stood there in front of the toilet. Life returned to her body only when he flushed, at which point she hurled a shampoo bottle at his pink hair and finally kicked him out, yelling. After the incident, Natsu finally installed a lock on the bathroom door.
The showers became more peaceful after that, but it wasn’t like the dragon slayer had been completely banished from the bathroom during those times. After all, it wasn’t unreasonable to think that someone capable of heating their own water with their magical powers wouldn’t have a water heater at home. Whenever he wanted a hot shower, Natsu simply warmed up the water in the bathtub with his abilities. Unfortunately for Lucy, sometimes she’d remember this too late, after already dipping her feet into the water. At some point, she simply gave up on drying off and getting dressed again, and started meeting the fire mage in the bathroom in just a towel so he could heat the water. After all, it wasn’t a big deal, considering he had already seen and touched much less when she wore a lot less.
The only unsolvable problem was the lack of space for her things. Most of Lucy’s books remained boxed up, and there simply wasn’t room for a desk, forcing her to resort to the guild’s library whenever she needed to write for long periods. Of course, she tried not to mind, reminding herself that her stay there was temporary anyway.
It was around this time that she realized she had already been living in Natsu’s house for six months.
The realization surprised her, though it definitely shouldn’t have.
Should she feel guilty? Was she taking advantage of her friends’ hospitality? The latter part made her laugh. In terms of hospitality, she had credit with Natsu, considering all the invasions she had tolerated in her old apartment. And it wasn’t like she wasn’t looking. Lucy always read the classifieds in the newspaper in the morning and had asked her guildmates and various shopkeepers to let her know if they heard of any places.
That’s exactly why, a couple of days later, while accompanying Erza to the bakery to discuss the orders for her wedding with Jellal, she learned from the shop owner that a great apartment was available.
Ignoring the growing discomfort in her chest, the blonde and the redhead visited the property that same afternoon.
That night, Lucy came home with the news. The apartment was perfect. Bigger than the old one, closer to the guild, also by the river, and, best of all, it cost less than the rent at Fairy Hills.
"The only problem is that it’s not furnished, but with the reward from the hundred-year quest and the money I’ve saved over the past few months, I can buy some things. Laki also promised she’d help me with the wooden furniture," she said, as they ate.
That night, the group decided to have dinner at home. Although they usually preferred to eat at the guild, once Lucy took over the kitchen while living with them, meals at the small forest house became much more frequent.
“So you’re leaving?” To Lucy’s surprise, the exceed’s voice sounded tearful as he asked. She had expected a “finally” or a chorus of hallelujahs, though she knew if the little cat had said that, it would have been out of his habit of joking about everything, not because he didn’t want her around.
“Well, we always knew my stay here was temporary. There’s simply not enough space for all of us here. I don’t want you to live uncomfortably because of me,” she argued calmly.
“But the house will feel much less spacious when you’re gone, since the mess will pile up again,” the exceed pointed out, sniffling.
“Well, you could keep the house organized for a change,” Lucy replied, though she felt a vein pulsing in her forehead. Out of respect for the little blue cat’s feelings, she kept the sarcasm out of her tone.
“Wouldn’t it be easier if you just stayed and took care of it like you always do?” Happy finally managed to mask his sadness with a more playful tone.
Seeing the celestial mage clench her fists, the cat was about to call for help when Natsu’s question caught both their attention.
“What if we built a room?”
Both the blonde and the cat blinked, staring at the dragon slayer.
“You mean…” she began.
“A room for you,” Natsu replied. “I know you’ve been going to the guild to write because there’s no space for a desk here, and some of your things are still packed. An extra room would solve that,” he concluded.
“Natsu…” Though she understood her friend’s suggestion, given the seriousness of the situation, Lucy preferred to make things crystal clear: “Are you inviting me to live with you?”
“At this point, I thought you were already living with us,” he said with the simplicity and informality that made him so straightforward.
“I meant permanently,” the blonde insisted.
“So did I,” the fire mage retorted.
The celestial mage took a deep breath. She had imagined this moment many times—she could deny it to everyone else, but there was no point lying to herself and saying she had never thought about taking her relationship with the dragon slayer further—but obviously, not like this. It was an important step forward in any couple’s life.
Except they weren’t a couple.
Once again, an act with no hint of romance.
It might seem like progress to anyone else, but Lucy couldn’t help feeling like she was moving backward, getting further and further away from the romance she had once idealized.
Involuntarily, she smiled sadly.
“Are you okay, Lucy?” Natsu asked, his obsidian eyes staring at her with concern. The boy might be indifferent to romantic feelings in general, but he was good at reading people’s mood changes.
“Yes,” Lucy replied, shaking her head slightly to dispel the fog of sadness. “It would be great to live here. I’m just worried things might get weird when…” She didn’t want to finish the thought and say, “when I get a boyfriend,” because the idea made her feel sad and miserable. “Someday,” she simply said.
“Why would they get weird?” Obviously, the vague comment didn’t help the dragon slayer.
Maybe it was better to be direct.
“Because one day we might meet other people.” Or semi-direct. Though she had the courtesy to phrase it in the plural, by now she fervently doubted the dragon slayer would ever get into a romantic relationship with anyone else. No one hated themselves enough to keep running into an insurmountable wall, and honestly, though she was more or less in that situation, she had the good sense not to expect anything beyond the deep friendship they already had. Frankly, sometimes she was extremely curious to know at what point Lisanna had given up. If she had the courage to ask, maybe she could follow her example.
“And why would meeting other people make things weird?” the fire mage, in his innocence, continued to ask.
Lucy noticed a glimmer of understanding in the exceed’s eyes, and he even opened his mouth to give the dragon slayer a didactic explanation, but it wasn’t something she wanted to witness, so she decided to cut in:
“It wouldn’t,” the blonde assured. “Don’t worry, I’m just being silly and insecure,” she justified, mainly because, by now, she wasn’t sure if there would ever be someone else to consider.
Because a boyfriend certainly wouldn’t like the idea of her sharing a house with her best friend. And if the hypothetical boyfriend could get over that, he definitely couldn’t accept the depth of the closeness they shared, with so much physical contact, occasional nudity, and, of course, the enormous amount of time they spent together. Unlikely as it was, if all that could be overlooked and she decided to commit to a more serious level, she knew part of the special relationship she had with the fire dragon slayer would have to be sacrificed for it to work.
Lucy loved, more than anything, being with Natsu, whether in the repeated adventures they got into, the coziness of their homes, or the hustle and bustle of the guild. And she couldn’t stand the idea of that contact being diminished, even for a minute, because of the addition of a romantic relationship in her life.
She would rather have Natsu and Happy invading her bed unpretentiously for the rest of her life and be able to snuggle up to them with the excuse of chasing away the cold than banish them from her mattress to make room for someone else.
Even if it meant giving up some things she really wanted.
“Don’t worry, it’s just fear that this new living arrangement won’t work out,” she continued, ignoring the painful thoughts.
“Why wouldn’t it work?” Natsu’s tone remained casual, as always. “Didn’t I say we’d be together forever? It was only a matter of time before you came to live with us,” he added.
Lucy might have widened her eyes at those words, and Happy might have studied the fire mage more carefully to see if he could detect anything beneath his friendly tone.
But he remained as indifferent as all the times he had made other equally important declarations without even realizing it. Natsu just had a knack for expressing his desires—which usually translated what he felt, even if his emotions weren’t that complex—with ease.
To prove the point, he barely finished speaking before simply getting up from the dinner table and flopping into the hammock, immediately closing his eyes.
“Well, then that day has come. I’m going to live with you permanently,” the moved celestial mage announced.
Natsu didn’t even open his eyes, but he smiled anyway, satisfied with the blonde’s decision and infected by the excited “aye” Happy shouted.
Lucy also smiled. Her first genuine smile since the conversation had started.
Somehow, she felt that things between them would never change. And as bittersweet as her feelings about that were, one sensation stood out: security.
After all, Lucy was determined to be with Natsu forever, no matter what she had to give up to keep their peculiar relationship intact.