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She’s halfway through her second book of the evening when keys jingle from the apartment door. Any other night she would have gone to the door to greet her partner, but tonight he’d have to do with a small grunt from the comfy cozy pile of pillows and blankets she’s dumped on the living room floor. The main character in her book was about to have a negotiation talk with the other ruler of the fantasy land and the threat of war against the characters she had spent 246 pages getting to know was more important than the boyfriend she had seen barely six hours ago.
Natsu’s a little perplexed when Lucy isn’t by the door, but a small woof by his feet makes up his welcome party instead, and he grins down at the ball of crazy white fur that is Lucy’s dog Plue from before they moved in together. The dog’s face is a little peculiar, or at least he’s always thought that one of your dog’s eyes is not meant to be 2 centimetres further down than the other. The dog has one of the happiest, if not slightly thought-void, smile that he points at the newcomer.
“Hi Plue.” He grins down at it, moving towards the kitchen counter to put down the bags of groceries he’s brought home for dinner. He calls out his girlfriend’s name, almost cutting himself off as he turned around, immediately spotting her engrossed in her reading zone. There is a sofa that he knows from many a nap spent with her there is far from uncomfortable and it’s only 2 feet behind her. The seat cushions, however, have indented to where she’s demoted it to merely a back rest that she has altogether abandoned at some point to sit hunched over in the perplexing cocoon around her.
She grunts quietly, almost too quiet for him to hear, but he’s always had sensitive hearing and it makes him chuckle out loud. Instead of interrupting her, he busies himself with the dinner, emptying some newly bought mince into the frying pan for some of his special spicy enchiladas.
He’s almost done cooking, adding the final habanero slices to his plate when she emerges from the blankets.
“You want some peppers on yours?” He asks as a joke, expecting the gentle elbow to his side and adamant shake of her head. She moves to grab the cutlery and he puts the plates on the kitchen island, moving around each other to grab the last few essentials for a nice Friday dinner in.
When Natsu sits down first his eyes go to where his girlfriend is in front of him, reaching into the cupboard above for the water glasses that they keep inexplicably just out of her reach. After her easy afternoon inside she’s only wearing one of his t-shirts and then her sleep shorts underneath. It’s oversized on her since she’s barely 5’4” and petite at that competing with a shirt that’s meant to comfortably fit his 5’10” muscle-toned stature. Even so, the fabric has bunched up against the top of her shorts, riding up as she struggles to grab a second glass and despite her slight struggle his attention is fixed on the bare skin of her lower back.
“Shoot.” She spits out quietly as her fingers knock a glass at the wrong angle, hitting it first against the side of the cupboard and then sending it free falling towards the floor.
There’s a quick swoop as Natsu’s out of his seat faster than she could notice, having expected the glass to impact and shatter, but his hand neatly catches it inches above the countertop edge. “You’re okay, I’ve got it.” He lets her know with a small grunt of effort and a hand on her shoulder.
She places the other glass on the counter, turning towards him. “I’d call you my hero but I’m afraid it would just go to your head.” She jokes.
“Too late.” He says with an intentionally arrogant grin. “You’ve said it now. I’m your hero.”
"Shut up,” She laughs. His hand has moved to her waist, pulling her in because he hasn’t kissed Lucy all day and that’s got to be a crime somewhere. “How was your day?” She’s asking, enjoying the warmth that emanates from her always unusually warm boyfriend.
“Good, but the security at the restaurant are complete assholes. I’m gonna have to ask Gramps to put a few of our own on doors if you’re having that meeting there tomorrow.”
Lucy hums, tracing her hand up and down his arm as she thinks. “The CEO of Heart Kreuz has some security, I’m sure he wouldn’t mind them backing you guys up.”
The meeting was actually a small summit of business magnates from West Fiore that were gathering to discuss contracts or trade deals, or something other that was equally as boring. Natsu didn’t often ask the details of it because although he was smart in his own field of things, business talk made his head hurt. He’d only tolerate it if it came from Lucy, and usually that was just so she could talk through something she was trying to wrap her own head around.
She hadn’t intended on a business life, but her father had passed and all the press that she’d never truly managed to escape had turned to her for the next CEO of Heartfilia railways. She had to deal with insurance, economics, and infrastructure all while maintaining the rights of her workers which she truly believed in, but often the men at these business meetings did not share what they considered sentiment. So, she’d packed up her writing career that was just taking off with a book deal and moved back to her hometown.
It hadn’t been all bad though. She hadn’t been happy living in the capital for uni and she’d met some amazing friends in Magnolia, including Natsu when the company he worked for was hired as her bodyguard detail. Being the female heir of one of the biggest companies in Fiore had come with the sort of attention she was used to from her childhood, but Natsu had been an unexpected support with an issue she hadn’t known caused her so much stress. And it came with the added bonus of an inescapable amount of tension between them that had snowballed into a relationship.
“Meh, those guys bunked off two hours early last time to go to the pub.” Natsu hated any slacking when it came to being her bodyguard. Too many threats in the wrong direction had him on edge sometimes, and it was difficult to switch off thinking about it at night when the objective of his work was sleeping on the pillow next to him.
Her fingers bundled delicately against his own t-shirt that he was wearing, and she leaned up to press a kiss to his cheek. “Thank you for taking it so seriously. I really appreciate it.”
“I think you said something similar the first time we slept together.”
“Natsu!” She laughed ashamedly. “I definitely didn’t because the first time we did... that,” He laughed at her embarrassment around the topic. “You didn’t give me a second to talk before you left the room. Or was it a storage closet?”
“It was the first bodyguarding gig Gramps had let me run and I’d just had sex with the client!” He protested, half-hearted as her hands had wound their way around his neck, pressing her forehead to his chest as she bit her lip with amusement.
Natsu’s hands trailed up her back, holding her closer to him. His lips brushed against her hair, down and messy from her reading time. It suddenly dawned on him that the t-shirt she was wearing had been missing from his clothes dresser for weeks. It wasn’t unusual for them to share clothes, but this one had walked off over two wash cycles ago and hadn’t yet made it back to his dresser.
“I thought I’d lost this shirt.” He pointed the observation at her.
“Yeah, um, you had. I found it under my pillow when I was moving them.” She had all the look of someone caught multiple cookie heists in of the cookie jar.
“And why was it under your pillow?” He quirked an eyebrow, loving the red that was blooming around her cheeks.
It took her more than a few seconds to concede, giving in with a little self-conscious huff. “When you went away for that other job Makarov had you on it was the last one you had worn. It felt nice having something of yours to wear while you were gone, I don’t know.”
She shifted on the spot, her bare feet cold against the tiles. “You weirdo.” Natsu shook his head. “You can steal it anytime. Just maybe wash it at some point. That might be a good idea.”
Lucy shifted again but agreed, giving into the hilarity he had taken from her squirrelling away of his clothes and smiling up at her boyfriend. “You can take it off me later if you like?”