Chapter Text
Exhausted they fall through the open door into Lucy's apartment, legs seemingly too heavy to take another step. Dirt scatters all over the floor where Natsu crashed to his knees. Their job today had all of them completely soaked head to toe in mud.
Looking at the dirt she would absolutely have to clean up on her own and knowing her landlady’s disdain for noisy visitors, Lucy sighs. “Why did you all have to come here with me? Can’t you go home?”
“Too far,” Natsu groans and sounds already so drowsy as if he would just sleep right there on the floor.
Lucy joins in the groan and pulls on his right sleeve. “You stink”, she assesses, “and you are dirty. At least go to the tub to stop dirting everything in my apartment.”
He lets out a sound of disagreement and doesn’t move. “Natsu!” Lucy insists.
“ Fine ,” he pushes himself up, losing more mud in the process. He grabs Happy by the back of his fur and forces his way to Lucy’s bathroom.
Lucy too, forces herself back on her feet and rids herself of the outer layer of her completely muddy clothes. “If you put your clothes to the side, I can wash them”, she says through the door into the bathroom and Natsu replies with a groan, maybe to show that he has in fact heard what she has said and didn’t fall asleep in the hot water.
There is a large shirt at the back of her closet that she puts out for him, something that he can wear over his trousers on his way home. She could always bring him his clothes tomorrow.
The mess on the floor is quickly pushed together with her foot. Lucy decides she is entirely too tired now to take care of this fully.
Natsu takes half an hour to throw his clothes out of the bathroom, implying that he might indeed have fallen asleep in the tub after all. Lucy picks up the muddy fabric and frowns at it. “I have a shirt for you on the bed,” she explains. “It might be a little small, but it will do.”
Happy gives a drowsy “aye” in reply, even though Lucy didn’t speak to him and staggers out of the bathroom with Natsu closely following. He can barely keep his eyes open and Lucy notices his flushed cheeks from the heat and his still damp hair. He has helped himself to one of her favourite towels with her family insignia stitched into it.
Wonderful. She’d never get the stink or the cat hair out of that one.
“You two seem like Zombies,” she says, though she doesn’t feel much different. “Be careful on your way home.”
They reply with an affirmative groan and not much more. Lucy closes the door to the bathroom.
It’s times like these when she appreciates the high rent she is paying, even if that means working hard for it. The bathtub really does fill quickly, and soon Lucy can slip under the water as well. Nothing feels better than to put up your feet in hot water after a really exhausting day and then just let all of your muscles relax there. Today, after all the rain and mud, she also appreciates being able to wash her hair out.
Soon she feels drowsy herself, lulled in by the heat and the comfortable feeling of the water and she suddenly understands how Natsu could have ended up as sleepy as he had been. Hopefully they made it home safely, she thinks and stretches her aching limbs. She doesn’t envy them for their way back into the forest. She can barely imagine making it towards the bed.
It feels like hard work to put on clothes and her way back into the main room of her apartment. Slowly, as if every step is harder than the last, she makes her way back to her bed. On the way she finds the towel Natsu had used for Happy and him crumpled on the floor. “Ah damn,” she murmurs and then “ Tomorrow.” All she wants right now is to lie in her bed.
Unfortunately, when she gets there, she has to realise there is already someone in her bed.
Natsu, all his limbs hanging around him, seemingly in deep sleep is laying in her bed. Happy Is curled up like the cat he is on the pillow, leaving only very little space for her to even consider lying down with them. Lucy groans in dissatisfaction and considers waking both of them up, but feels herself much too tired to argue and send them home now.
So since there is no other option, she crawls into her own bed as if she is a guest and finds a piece of pillow right under Natsu's left arm. He instantly turns, as if he has somehow felt that she joined in, and lays his arm around her shoulder so her head can lie on it instead of the pillow.
Her arm falls over his centre like it is natural.
Maybe if she wasn’t so tired she could have wondered about why that was, but she does not.
It’s just nice to be home, she thinks and falls asleep.
*****
Natsu does not like heavy rain very much. He avoids it as much as he can. Lucy sometimes makes fun of him and calls him a cat for it, but in reality it probably is because rain is so contrarian to the element that defines Natsu so much: fire.
It is pouring and Lucy, Happy and Natsu are playing cards on the floor of Lucy’s apartment. They decided not to head out for another job today because the one the day before had left them so exhausted and though they did go visit the guild, they just went back to the apartment afterwards. It was raining buckets anyway.
Worried look on his face, Natsu throws his hand down and looks out the window: “I don’t think it will get better today,” he says and taps against the window glass.
“Probably not,” Lucy agrees and collects the cards he has so recklessly dropped in front of his feet. “I could lend you an umbrella for your hike back home. Or maybe Happy could fly you too, that would be faster.”
As a reply he lets out a long groan. “If Happy flies me, especially if it’s at his normal speed, I will be fully soaked once we make it back.” Ignoring the “hey!” out of Happy’s direction he continues: “Plus, I don’t have a tub like you do, so I will just freeze all night.”
He sits down from the window and his eyes fall to her bed. Last night he had accidentally slept over and though Lucy had never allowed this before she had not complained in the morning, not more than the fact that he had used her favourite towel without asking. He had never thought about how practical the placement of her apartment was, only a stone throw from the guild building, until he just casually walked over to it in the morning.
She didn’t seem to be bothered that he had stayed over. In fact, it wasn’t the topic at all.
“Lucy,” he says and leans his foot against her writing desk. “Would you mind if I stayed the night one more time?” To drown out Happy’s cries of “Oh, is it love?” he adds quickly: “Just because I might catch a cold if I go home in this rain and don’t get to warm up.”
She lets out a deep sigh and then shrugs her shoulders: “Fine. It’s not like one or two nights make a difference.” She means it too. She doesn't mind if they are over another night, at least then the storm raging outside would not feel quite as frightening.
Now that he has been here overnight before, Natsu finds his way around Lucy’s bathroom much easier, but even though he offers to use a different towel this time, Lucy insists that he use the same one. “Cat hair,” she explains. “Your hair. Every hair. ” As if that is some sort of explanation that he would understand.
This time Lucy takes the bath first and when Natsu and Happy are washing together, she is already in her bed with a book in her hand. When he finally comes, his hair again hangs down in wet streaks. It’s a little odd this time, now that they are both not deliriously tired, but once she moves to the side Natsu easily finds a spot next to her relatively easily.
“You can keep reading,” he insists when she closes her book. “I can sleep even with the lights on, I don’t care.”
“Natsu can fall asleep everywhere and at any point,” Happy agrees.
Lucy lets out a huff: “I noticed yesterday.” She puts the book away anyway. “But I think I should sleep too, so we can do a job again tomorrow.” She slips under the cover.
Natsu turns around so that he has his back showing to Lucy. Her eyes follow the lines of his neck down to his shoulders hidden under the old shirt that she assigned to him and wonders for a moment if she has ever seen him without his scarf, especially this up close.
“Is this ok?” he asks suddenly, ripping her out of her own thoughts. “I mean, if I sleep like this?”
His consideration catches her off guard. Quickly she turns away from him to have her back against his. “Every sleeping position is fine,” she retorts quickly. “Just don’t touch me, you know, like that ..”
“Whatever that means,” Natsu murmurs from behind her. He thinks of how he woke in the morning with Lucy sleeping on his shoulder, with her arm wrapped around his chest and concludes that this is probably not that “ that” - thing she is talking about. It’s not like he cares really, all he wants is a good night's sleep.
She pulls the covers up over both their shoulders and closes her eyes.
Under the blanket their flat feet touch.
******
“This is for the rent,” Natsu says one day, a stern look on his face, and offers Lucy half of the Jewel he just earned for the job they finished.
He crosses his arms in determination as she stares at the money in her hand. “For the rent?” she asks in confusion and Natus offers nothing but an honest nod. “Do you think I can’t cover it by myself?” She is trying not to be offended right away, though the gesture seems like he is taking pity on her.
Natsu narrows his eyes. “No,” he states clearly. “I just felt like I should cover a little, since I have been staying here so much, showering and all included.”
“I see,” Lucy replies and her heart feels a little light all of a sudden. “Thank you, I appreciate the thought.”
Still, it seems like an understatement to say that he has been staying in her apartment a lot in the past weeks. It was more likely that he had not spent a single night in his own house ever since the first night he had stayed over. Neither of them could quite understand it, but one night turned into two, into three and four and five and once a week had passed them sharing a bed had become so usual to each of them, that Natsu didn’t even ask if he could still stay. He just did .
After jobs they’d go back together, Lucy would wash herself first and go to bed and read, while Natsu and Happy would wash after her and then join her in bed. They would talk about their day and their plans for the next one, maybe strategise a job they had already accepted but would head out only after sleeping.
There might have been a time Lucy had been happy to go to her apartment alone and enjoy the quiet after an exhausting day, but after a month of constant noise in her home she is completely used to it. She doesn’t even know how she would feel without Natsu’s declarations and Happy’s complaints, their hair on her clothing and their clothes on her drying rack.
How she would feel is he could no longer feel Natsu’s natural warmth next to her at night.
So she is touched that his way of telling her he also enjoys sticking around is his offer to help her pay for the rent. Sometimes, even after all the time they’ve known each other, he can still take her by surprise after all.
*****
On the way back to the apartment some weeks later, Lucy stops Natsu in front of a store for general supplies. “You need a toothbrush”, she declares and pulls him into the store even though he complains.
They come out with a few more things. Finally Natsu is the owner of his own pillow, toothbrush and both him and Happy now, finally, own their own towels. It has taken Lucy only two months to finally stop complaining about them continuously using her favourite one for her to snap and force him to buy his own.
Recently Natsu has started adding more money to the weekly allowance to pay for his time in their shared room. The little hut he inhabits in the forest was once built by other guild members and belongs to him alone, so he has no money expense now that he isn’t using it. Lucy, however, got her rent raised when her landlady found out he was staying over and though they had both insisted that he wasn’t actually moving in and only there sometimes, she had raised rent.
But then again, Natsu could not remember the last time he had slept in his own bed. It was just more practical to just stay in the city.
To put the towels into the bathroom at home, Lucy has to clear out one of her cupboards for them. She throws the toothbrush into the cub that hers is in next to the bathroom mirror. When she catches her eye in the reflection she is smiling. Two toothbrushes, that feels very domestic somehow.
At night she waits again for Natsu to crawl into her bed as he does every night. Tonight he doesn’t wear the shirt that she gave to him all these weeks ago on their first night, because she had to force him to let her wash it. Since it is summer and the heat is pressing down on both of them so much that not even Natsu is happy with the warmth, he is sleeping shirtless until she can give him his clothes back.
“Isn’t it too warm?” he asks, stretching his neck a little and wiping the sweat away, when he sees that she is turning her back to him. Neither of them can say when it started, but recently they have been sleeping slotted into each other, with Natsu’s arm over Lucy’s hips and their legs pressed against each other. It gives them both more space to stretch and also, miraculously, they sleep better if they do.
Lucy hums with disappointment but says: “You are right of course, it's just too warm.” Then she turns back to him and grins: “You also always make me so warm from your body temperature alone.”
“I’m the son of a dragon, you know,” he replies and shows his pointy corner teeth.
Lucy rolls her eyes a little, but then laughs: “I have noticed.”
Natsu puts his head to the side, watches the way her face moves as she is smiling, the flush on her cheeks from the heat, the little hairs that stand out of her pigtails because of the sweat in her neck. Then he blinks.
“Maybe we could do it like that?” he offers and lies on his back, opening his right arm so she can lie down on it. “Like that time..” After all, both of them had slept perfectly fine like this before.
She looks a little surprised, but then she lies down next to him, her head against his shoulder, her arm draped over him again. It is still warm like this, but with the blanket discarded it is just about bearable.
Lucy’s legs loosely wrap around his thigh as she falls asleep, but Natsu doesn’t mind.
******
The height over summer is slowly creeping into the early days of August when Natsu some evening watches Lucy fix up holes in his clothes. “Go to a tailor,” she had said several times while looking at his coat, but Natsu hated sitting and waiting and the tailor for magical clothing was always busy, so it involved a lot of waiting.
This meant that his coat was now completely broken up.
“I’m tired of looking at this thing,” Lucy said once they made it home. “I will try and fix it up, you go and get yourself new clothes from your hut.”
He couldn’t say how long it had been since he’d been at his place, but once Natsu was done changing and back at the apartment, watching Lucy try to fix up what he had ripped a million times, a thought crossed his mind suddenly.
“Luce- do you think I could just leave some clothes here?”, he asks and taps the closet with his finger.
Lucy frowns: “I don’t think we have space left.” And by we she means herself.
“Well you always say I let my clothes lie around, so if I had a space to put them…” Natsu puts his head to the side. She glances at him from the floor where she is sitting with a look that clearly shows him that he is dead meat.
Still, she eventually shakes her head: “Fine, I will make space. But if that means that I have to clean our apartment even more than I had to before then this decision will be reversed.”
So Natsu makes his way back to the hut a second time that day and once he has packed his backpack with basic necessities he locks it doubled. In his heart he knows that it will be a while until he is back.
Lucy on the other hand finishes her work with Natsu’s coat and it becomes the first item to be folded and put into the closet space she makes for him. It's not nice to have to throw your own clothes out, she thinks, but realistically she can’t wear all she owns anyway. This would make Natsu’s life much easier and would spare him walks to the forest and back before every job. Everything would be a little more efficient.
“Welcome back”, she says once Natsu returns. She doesn’t need to open the door for him anymore, since he has gotten his own key a few weeks back. “Can you roast this for me?”
He drops his backpack where he stands and walks into the kitchen. “I’m back” he announces, and then he produces fire on his fingertips to cook the chicken in front of him in a second. He almost burns the flowers Lucy has put on the windowsill in the kitchen.
“You always overdo it,” she scolds.
Natsu raises a brow: “You make me help with the cooking.”
“Well, you are here too, so you should also do half the work.”
“I already clean the bathroom,” he defends himself. “I also make sure that there are no bugs flying around, which you told me is a vital job to take care of.”
Somehow that makes Lucy laugh. “Right, it is vital.” she says with a little giggle. “Anyway, clean your clothes away, there is dinner soon.”
He steals one of the cooked chicken pieces before she can say anything in protest.
*****
“Alright, we need, uh, meat, apples, uh, cabbage..” Lucy counts with her fingers.
Natsu crosses his arms and makes a face. “I hate cabbage,” he states.
His opposite rolls her eyes: “I know, but it is good for you, I’ve said so a million times.”
“And I’ve said a million and one times that I don’t want to eat it,” Natsu pouts like a child.
Lucy leans back into the bench. “So what do you want to eat for dinner then?”
“Curry,” Natsu says right away, as if he has already thought about that before.
“We did that like two nights ago.” Lucy spins the pen she has been writing the grocery list with between her fingers.
Natsu is not to be deterred: “Duck then.”
“That is done with cabbage as a side dish, idiot,” Lucy says. “Besides, you almost burned down our apartment last time you wanted to make duck.”
Levy, who has followed their conversation like it is a tennis match suddenly raises her eyebrows: “Are you guys-”
“I wasn’t tryin’ to burn it down, i just wanted to make it extra crispy.” Natsu puts his fits on the table. “And I was distracted by the fact that you complained about my clothes on the floor.”
The girl's hand curls into a little fist as Levy silently repeats the words “ my clothes on the floor .”
“I also saw Natsu put a hand into your face tonight, Lucy,” Happy interjects as if he is excited that the both of them are arguing over trivial living-together-matters. “That’s why your nose is so red.”
A light crosses Lucy’s eyes: “I will throw you out of our bed, I swear.”
“Hey, I was sleeping,” Natsu reaches out with his hand to fish Happy out of the air, but the cat flies away just in time for him to miss. Watching Lucy rub her nose he finally concedes his arguing. “Fine, if you want to make cabbage and meat..”
Happy to have won the discussion, Lucy spins the pen under her finger again and continues writing on the grocery list. “Great, so we can go shopping later. You can help me carry it back to our apartment.”
“Aye, sir,” Natsu says in a spot- on impression of his cat companion.
A moment of silence finally gives Levy the opportunity to ask the question that has been burning on her tongue: “Uh, guys, I didn’t know you were living together..?”
Two pairs of eyes look up at her in confusion. “Living together?” Natsu says as if that is a concept he knew nothing about.
“Well, I mean, you say that you are doing groceries together and uh, you know, it seems like Natsu is sleeping at your place Lucy.” Lucy blinks and red immediately appears on her cheeks. “And uh- you repeatedly called it “your” apartment, as in both of you.”
Lucy hasn’t noticed the change in her language or when it appeared, but now that Levy says it she is reminded of it again. Yes, she now regularly refers to her apartment as their apartment. With Natsu always there all the time it seems like the space is shared among them, as opposed to just hers alone.
She averts her eyes from Levy, suddenly too embarrassed to speak. Natsu, however, just shrugs his shoulders and waves dismissively. “We don’t live together,” he states as a fact. “I just sleep over sometimes, because it is closer to the guild. That’s all. It’s nothing important.”
Somehow that answer doesn’t feel right, neither to Lucy’s ears nor on Natsu’s tongue.
When Lucy looks up Levy is looking at her with real pity in her eyes.
****
In the end, Lucy takes Levy grocery shopping instead, leaving Natsu behind in the guild building. The fact that he has been left behind bugs him, but not in a way that he can fully articulate. So he just takes napkins from the bar and sets them on fire, one after the other, until Erza pulls him by the scarf away with a grumbled “You will set the whole place on fire.”
Gray joins him eventually, his feet up on the table with mud still beneath his boots. Lately they have gone on separate missions, as Gray heads out with Wendy and Erza more, sometimes even with Juvia or on his own. Not that Natsu minds. Without the ice-head around life always seems a little easier.
“Congratulations man,” Gray says out of the blue and to Natsu’s surprise he sounds genuine.
The salamander puts his head to the side: “For what the fuck are you congratulating me for?”
“I didn’t know Lucy and you are dating,” Gray shrugs. “That’s great for you.” Natsu stares at him, so he quickly adds: “I mean she could do much better, but it's great for you.”
Natsu suddenly feels very annoyed: “What are you talking about? We aren’t dating.” And then: “And what do you mean she could do better ?!”
“Wait, I was told you are living together,” now Gray seems confused.
“We aren’t”, Natsu repeats what he said before, though it still feels wrong to say. “I just stay over sometimes.”
Gray blinks: “Over night?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have your own bed?”
“No?”
“You sleep in her bed?” Gray sets himself up.
Natsu on the other hand does not understand what the big deal is. “ Yes ,” he replies emphatically. “It’s not a big deal.”
“It’s…” Gray shakes his head. “And you are sure you aren’t dating and you just misunderstand like an idiot?”
“ Fuck you ,” Natsu gets up. “Just because I don’t have someone who follows me around and wants to marry me every minute of my life, doesn’t mean I don’t know what dating is, asshole.”
As always when there is a vague implication of Juvia and her feelings for him Gray blushes slightly with embarrassment, but he shakes it off quickly. “Right,” he continues, “You are just casually sleeping over sometimes.”
Natsu nods.
“Then tell me, when was the last time you were not sleeping at her place?” Gray taps his finger on the table. “Yesterday? Last week? Two weeks ago?”
And that, by all means, is a question Natsu can’t answer. For the best of him, he can’t remember how long it has been. It has felt natural from the moment it started, so much so that he never even missed the privacy the forest had given him.
His face must have given away the answer, because Gray can no longer suppress the smirk of superiority. “Maybe, if you like sleeping in her bed so much, you should at least consider dating her. Otherwise eventually someone will come by who will and then you can’t just “casually” sleep there anymore.”
Natsu lets out a deep breath and little flames lick at the ends of his nose. This fact had never occurred to him, but Gray was right.
If Lucy met someone to date, Natsu would be forced to go back to his hut again to give her space.
And he, somehow, does not like that prospect at all.