Chapter Text
As she lied down on the cool floor of her bathroom, the only warmth she felt was the tears streaming down her face. At that moment they felt never-ending as if her intense emotions would just swallow her whole and if she was honest, that would have been better than living her sick life. Feeling the cool tiles under her only reminder that she was still here and not being sucked down into the depths of her soul. The only comfort she felt was the taste of the salty tears sliding down her face and into her cracked lips. You fucking idiot! You are so pathetic, you just had to go and eat the ice cream, didn't you? You know that's off-limits right, are you not strong enough to hold out for just one day.
The putrid stench of vomit began to fill the room, eating away at all the clean air till it claimed the room as its own. The shameful smell began to be too much for her, and slowly she peeled herself off the floor. Her slimy fingers created a small pool of vomit and salvia. She looked over the toilet and saw what remained of her ice cream. Pathetic. She slammed the seat down with such force it rattled the toilet and angrily flushed.
Lucy laid under her big pile of blankets, enjoying the weight on her body. That was the only weight that didn't send her into a spiral. The weight soothed her, sleepy she wished that he was here instead. But tonight's sleep was not coming, she lay motionless in her bed staring at the ceiling. Everything felt so foggy as if she were trapped inside her own body. Screaming at herself to move, to talk, to feel anything other than the emptiness. Why? She asked herself, why do I have to do this to myself? Why couldn't I have been blessed with Erza or Migrina's body? I can't even fight well, I am always being saved by others, especially by Nastu. He probably thinks I am dead weight and he's not wrong. I just know that he is just too nice to cut me off. I should have cut my dead weight a long time ago. I know I am such a burden to him but I can't bring myself to leave him off, I know it's selfish but I don't want to be alone anymore. I know he doesn't want to be around me, but I can't leave him, just not yet. Just a couple more months then I will leave them alone forever. I promise.
She finally awoke when the sun beamed down on her face, as if the sun was judging her for sleeping in. Look at her she does nothing yet still feels like she's entitled to sleep in, what a worthless little girl. A groan escaped her body as she reached for her clock, 2 p.m. Ugh I wasted the whole day sleeping. She laid back down and pulled the covers over her head to cover herself from the sun's judgment. There isn't a point in showing my face at the guild hall. They all probably already left on a mission without me. It's fine I would probably just slow them down, The pressure of the wasted hours was crushing her. Her arms and legs pinned under the weight of the feeling of failing, not allowing her to move.
Until she heard a loud creaking of the stairs and someone jimmying her door. Before someone leapt into her bed she already knew who had broken into her home. She looked up to see a familiar face looking down at her, with a big toothy grin.
“Heyyy Lucy!!” exclaimed Nastu.
“Ugh, what did I say about barging in on me?! You know you could knock right? That is what my door is for.” She said as she pushed him off her, pulling herself into a sitting position.
“I did knock though,” He said with his fake sad voice. He scrunched his nose in disgust as the smell wafted towards his nose “god lucy what is that stench? You know you should really clean your place more often.”
Her heart rate began to spike and sweat formed on her hands. Shit, I forgot that he has a really good nose. Ugh and yesterday I didn't feel like cleaning the bathroom. Oh my god, he's going to find out. No wait, calm down, Nastu would never suspect that just come up with a good excuse and he will believe it.
Lucy let out a nervous giggle and scratched the back of her head, “Oh sorry last night I ate some bad food and I guess it didn't sit well with me” She let out a big smile, trying to hide the utter panic she felt. He looked at her for a moment too long with an unreadable expression on his face and then laughed “I guess my bad habits are rubbing off on you.” Relief washed over her body and her fists uncleaned without her even realizing how stiff she had become. “So why did you come over? And where Happy?”
“Oh Happy is sucking up to Carla right now,” he said with an annoyed eye roll, “But I came here to check on you, you haven't been at the guild in two days. What's been up with you?”
What's up with me? Well, we went on a 3-day mission and I had to eat three meals a day and gained 2 pounds. But Lucy knew she couldn't say that, so she kept it to herself, as she did with so many other parts of her life. She couldn't thank her father for much growing up, but she could thank him for learning how to be self-sufficient. “I just wanted to work on my novel since I haven't had time these past few weeks.”
Nastu looked dejected and teased her a bit “What about me? Spend some time with me pretty please. We can on a mission just the two of us and eat cool foods from a different town”
“Sorry, I'm not really up for a mission right now, I just want to write right now.”
“But Lucyyy, its been so long since it was a mission just the two of us. Plus I am so bored and everyone else is out on separate missions right now. Come on Lucy!”
Oh so I am the last option, Lucy thought to herself, he's only here because I am the only one left right now. I mean I can't blame him, why would I be anyone's first choice. He probably just needs me to pay for his meals. Deep down Lucy knew that he never thought of her that away and truly cared for her, but she couldn't stop the flood of negative thoughts. “Sorry, no can do Natsu really need to write a couple of chapters by the end of this week. I am swamped. ”
Nastu looked at her with his big eyes filled with sadness. “Fine, I guess I will just be alone all week, all by myself, so alone, so sad” Looking at her hoping his little game would work. But she just looked at him and sighed, “ Fine, I need to finish a couple of chapters, then we can go.” She let out so easily because he had a special way of making her happy. When she was around him her problems seemed to not be as big. She loved when he was near her, those moments of motion sickness were special moments for her. He was always so out of it he wouldn't notice when she played with his hair or started longing at him. Sometimes she would have to stop herself from leaning down and giving him a kiss on the cheek. Omg why am I thinking about this, stop.
A large grin broke across his face knowing he had worn her down “Okay luce I am holding you to that ” he said as he dashed out the front door, probably off to go bother someone else to join him. She pushed herself off the bed heading to the bathroom to clean the mess she had left.
One week later
“Heyo Lucy, where are you?” Natsu exclaimed as he barged through her front door. “Also, guess what time it is? MISSION TIME!”
“I’m in the bathroom” she called out while finishing up brushing her teeth. She leaned down to rinse her mouth out so she could greet him. When she looked back up she saw him leaning on the door frame with his beautiful smile. Her eyes quickly scanned over his body, hes was wearing his usual outfit of harem pants and a sleeveless vest. He always ran hot, so little clothes was needed, not that she was complaining. Oh my god this is to much for the morning. He is just so beautiful. His pink spiky hair looked as if he had just washed it this morning, she could see the little remaining droplets of water clinging to the edge of his hair. As if they knew they did not want to part from him. God that smile is going to kill me one day. All she wanted was his big arms to wrap around her and never let go. I wonder what his lips feel like? STOP! But she knew that would never happen; they were just friends and she was not willing to risk her most important friendship. She could live being his best friend, but could not live without him in her life.
“Sooo what do you think?” He said, interrupting her thoughts.
“Huh” A slight gasp was all she could get out. Did he see her thoughts on her face?
Nastu let out a sigh “Did you even hear a word I said. Mission. The mission Luce.”
“Oh shit sorry” she said, shaking herself out of her thoughts. “Could you repeat it please” she said pleading with puppy dug eyes and flashing him a smile.
He just chuckled in response and continued on, “Okay now that you are listening to me, Erza found a pretty simple mission we could all go on together. Get ready so we can go. We are all meeting at the guild hall in an hour.”
“An hour, so there no choice you already decided I was going ”
“Of course Lucy, why wouldn't you come along with me?”
She hated how he always said exactly what she wanted to hear. How can you say of course like there's no thought of me being by your side and with such sincerity. Stop saying things like this,
“Ugh fine I will be ready now go away. I will meet you guys ate the guild hall” she said as she playfully shoved him out her doorway. But as she finished her sentence he grabbed her hand that had just a moment ago been pushing his chest away. He held by the wrist and looked down into her eyes with a playful grin on his face.
“Leave? You don’t want me around Lucy, that hurts my feelings” he pouted.
“Dont care, go” she said rolling her eyes. She tried to pull her hand away from his grasp but he held on firmly. Even though he held on tight, it wasn't painful just enough for her to not be able to pull away.
“Nah, I am just going to wait here. What are you hiding secrets from me, is that why you want me gone.” He let go of her wrist and plopped down on her couch, closing his eyes. “Just wake me up when you are ready to leave.”
She rolled her eyes at him and shut the door. Once the door had shut, the redness spread across her cheeks
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“Okay mission is simple guys, Lucy will get into the home by posing as his new maid and once she finds the boom she will give the signal for us to move in. All good?” Erza asked, looking around the booth. Gray shrugged his shoulders, Nastu was barely paying attention because he was still trying to recover from his nausea and Happy was flying around Lucy like an annoying fly. Lucy looked up at Happy as he fly around the table with a grin on his face barely hiding his giggling. She rolled her eyes and just decided to ask him what's funny before she gets blindsided by his dumb pranks “What's so funny Happy?”
Happy snickers covering his little face, “Lucyy… I heard that he only likes pretty skinny maids. Lets hope he doesn't kick you out”
Lucy took a deep breath in, so she didn't smack that annoying furball and decided to ignore him. Her mind was already racing due to his comment. What if hes right and the guy kicks me out immediately, this mission is riding on my simple ability to get into the premise. I cant mess this up.
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She patted down her skirt nervously as she walked up to the manor. Sadly all she could think about was the fact that the costume was a little too tight around her stomach and it exposed her large tights. She swallowed down the negative thoughts and tried to focus on the mission at hand.
She was greeted by the head maid and after a short tour, she left Lucy alone to clean. Okay since its his personal notebook its probably in the study. She had been in so many expensive houses like this, all the layouts were similar, as much as they liked to boost that their houses were unique. She approached the study and knocked, nobody answered so she walked in and began searching for the book. She quickly found it in his desk, she stuffed in top and was she turned around she faced the owner of the book. He was an older man, not very tall but with a large stature.
“ I don’t think I have ever seen you around.”
Panic tried to claw its way up her throat, but she pushed it back down. Putting on an innocent smile she replied cheerfully, “ It's my first day sir.”
“ Well I didn't know that we hired such beauties.” he said while his eyes creepily racked all over her body.
Immediately she felt the need to exit the room as quickly as possible. She left out a half hearted laugh. Without warning he took a couple steps to fill the distance between them. She backed up until she hit the wall. His hand found a way to wrap around her waist, as he looked down at her. His breathing got heavy and hot, as it hit her face. Her heart started to race, she wanted to get out of this without using magic he couldn't know she was a wizard.
“You are even prettier up close.” as his hand went down to grab her chin tilting up so there eyes were locked
“Ler me go,” she said flatly
“What a brazen woman, you know I could fire you right.” His hand moved further down cupping her butt.
Alarms went off in her head, she let it get too far. She tried to push him away but he held firm. His hand got tight around her chin with bruising strength.
‘Don't try to defy me,” he whispered into her ear.
She had enough, she didnt care if she blew her cover she was about to call on her spirts. Just then the office door creaked open and he released her to turn and face the head maid.
“She is needed elsewhere sir.”
“ Well ill let you get along them, we will see each other later,” while a smirk stretched across his face
Without a word she followed the head maid, keeping her head down. The woman allowed them to walk in silence. Once she had allowed some distance between her and that man, her heart began to race and her palms began to sweat. How could she let that man do that? She was weak, she swallowed her feelings of disgust. Trying to push this feeling down until after the mission. The woman had led them to the bathroom, she wet a towel and handed it to Lucy. she accepted it with confusion, “ Did you want me to clean this?”
“No honey, it's for your chin.”
She looked into the mirror and noticed a red finger marking her appearing on her chin, her heart raced once again.
Without saying a word the maid grabbed a bottle from below the sink and dapped some on the towel.
“ May I,” she asked, holding her hand back waiting for her to confirm.
She nodded, trying to hold back her tears and failing. The woman went to work and started to clean up. As she finished up she pulled back and looked at Lucy who couldn't help the stream of tears running down her face. She gently took Lucy's hands and enveloped them with her own.
“Its not your fault,” her words were gentle like honey. This quiet but fierce woman reminded her so much of her mother and the dam broke. In a second, the woman wrapped her into a hug and allowed Lucy to cry.
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On the train ride back, Lucy mindlessly thumbed through Natsu's hair. Recounting her memories of the day, she realized she had never gotten the woman's name. She felt a pang in her heart, it felt like a breath of fresh air to be around her. Now all she wanted was her mother, she wanted her to hold her and tell her everything was going to be okay. She felt a hand grip her tight and looked down to see natsu looking up at her. Even through the motion sickness he had noticed her spacing. She smiled down at him and he turned back to face out but his hand stayed as a reminder that he was still there. His touch would never make her feel like that man. So she leaned into his touch and closed her eyes, ready for this day to be over.