A/N: I know I said I wasn't going to do another one-shot anytime soon but I was so pleased with the love I got from my last story (you guys got "Not what I wanted" up to 80 favorites in just a week!) that I decided to do this as well. Thank you so much!
"Beware of Stripping"
By Dark Shining Light
Pairing: Natsu and Lucy
Rated T
Romance/Humor
Summary: one-shot. In which Gray's stripping habit is apparently contagious and now Natsu's caught it. What makes matters worst is that he only seems to strip around Lucy. Weird huh? Nalu
(I do NOT Own Fairy Tail)
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Yesterday had started out so well. The guild was as rowdy as ever. Gray and Natsu were fighting behind Erza's back as said woman ate her strawberry cake. Lucy walked in a few minutes later and sat down with Levy to discuss their favorite books; a certain iron dragon slayer and his cat stalked them from a far. Elfman was fighting the men in the guild as Evergreen tried to get his attention through insults. Wendy was assuring a heartbroken Happy that Carla didn't hate him. Everyone else was doing their usual routine.
"Gray….Natsu…your clothes." Cana advised. Everyone thought the brunette was officially drunk when she said Natsu's name in that phrase. But when they looked back, all jaws dropped. Natsu indeed was missing his clothes.
"What the fuck!" The fire mage shrieked. Lucy and Lisanna blushed deeply while the rest of the guild laughed.
"Who's the pervert now?" Gray taunted while Natsu shook an angry fist at him.
"Damn it snow cone! Your stripping habit IS contagious!"
Lucy opened her eyes; she had a very good night's rest, even after yesterday's events. Everywhere she went with Natsu, the guy somehow always managed to strip and it left both of them frustrated.
Master Makarov suggested that Natsu was unconsciously copying Gray, almost like yawning after seeing someone else do it. So he sent the dragon slayer home, away from the ice mage in hopes that he'll stop that habit. She hoped he did, otherwise she didn't know how much more she could take of it.
She heard surprisingly light snores and realized there was a heavy arm draped over her waist. How did she not notice?
The celestial wizard turned her head back, spotting the pink spikes of her partner. She smiled softly; normally she would have 'Lucy kicked' out the window but after the time she's spent with him, it's weirder if he wasn't sleeping on her bed. And maybe, just maybe, it could also be for the tiny little fact that she had developed feelings for the most destructive member of Fairy Tail.
She nuzzled against her pillow. She was prepared to rest a bit longer when she caught something on the ground. Four feet away from her were Natsu's shirt, pants and sandals.
Lucy's face blushed scarlet red. 'Does that mean he's…'
Her question was answered when she felt himself scoot closer to her, his bare legs rubbed her own and something (that wasn't his leg) pressed against her thigh. She felt like her whole body was on fire.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH" She shrieked, elbowing the sleeping mage in the stomach.
"Ack!" Natsu grunted. He pulled his arm back, clenching onto his injured tummy as the blonde jumped off the bed. "What the hell Lucy?!" He wheezed.
"W-what the hell with you! What are you doing here?!" She yelled, pointing an accusing finger in his direction.
He frowned. "Well that's rude."
"I don't care! I don't want you near me while you strip!"
"When did I," He paused and looked under the covers. "Shit! Stupid ice princess!"
"Get out!" She screamed.
"But Luce! Gramps said I have to be away from Gray, not you!"
"Not while you have this weird stripping habit!"
"Come on Luce, I wouldn't mind if you were stripping!"
There was a moment of silence.
Outside of the apartment complex, the passing residents of Strawberry Street heard a loud "PERVERT!" before seeing a naked pinked haired man fly out a window and land in the canal. A few seconds later, clothes were thrown out that same window. Just another day in Magnolia.
"Stop following me," The female whined as Natsu continued to walk with her. She had been on her way to a new clothing store that just opened when the fire mage decided to follow her.
"But Lucy!" He whined. "I'm bored!"
"Go play with Happy then!"
"He's hanging out with Wendy and Carla today. And I want to play with you!"
Two girls walking by giggled when they heard that phrase. The blonde merely groaned. She felt an arm snake its way across her shoulders, bringing her closer to Fairy Tail's Salamander and his free hand grabbed the hand closest to him. "There we go." He proudly stated.
"What do you think you're doing?" She hissed, her cheeks glowing pink. She tried to pull away but the male didn't let her go.
"If my hands are holding onto something, then I can't strip!" Natsu explained as it was the most obvious thing.
"Let go! This is embarrassing." She muttered, the pink never leaving her cheeks.
"How come? I think it's nice." To make his point, his grip tightened on her shoulders before squeezing her hand.
"Natsu!"
"Fine." He unwillingly removed his hands and crossed his arms. He looked away from her, pouting. She saw his fallen expression and the guilt shot through her instantly. "It's…not bad." She said, unconsciously rubbing one of her forearms. "People will get the wrong idea. They'll think we're together."
"But we are together."
"I meant, you know….like boyfriend and girlfriend." Lucy whispered. It was only because of Natsu's great hearing that he heard her.
"I don't get it. What's wrong with that?" He asked while the blonde stared up at him. "I don't think that's a bad thing, do you?"
Her heart leaped; she looked away, not wanting him to see her flushed face. He didn't mean…could he? She snuck a peak in his direction, seeing that he was still watching her with a serious look. Shyly, she broke eye contact and looked down. The blonde eyes' widened.
"Natsu! Your clothes!"
Said male looked down and saw that he was only in his boxers and scarf.
"Shit!"
As Natsu tried to find his clothes, women of all ages blushed and openly ogled at her companion; their lustful eyes following his well-toned muscular body as he moved around, bending and unconsciously flexing as he continued to search. She would be lying if she said it didn't bother her.
When he finally found his clothes and put them on, Lucy grabbed his scarf and dragged him down the street. Many of those perverted women glared and the blonde made sure to glare at them just as hard.
"Lucy-"
"Shut it Natsu! Obviously you can't walk around here without attracting attention so I'm taking you home."
Unbeknownst to her, the dragon slayer saw the look she was sending those women and he couldn't stop the small satisfied smirk from reaching his face.
They reached Natsu's home in a few minutes; thankfully, the male didn't take off any of his clothes on the way there. She originally had been planning on just leaving him there but the male was persistent and dragged her into his dirty house.
"Natsu! Again? I just cleaned your house last week!" The celestial mage screeched as she carefully avoided stepping on some leftover food.
"No one asked you to." He mumbled. She sent him a glare; he flinched and laughed nervously.
She sighed dramatically. "What am I going to do with you? You know I should just charge you and Happy for the work I do. It's not easy cleaning up this place."
"But you're the one that comes here and cleans our house without telling us you weirdo!" He shouted as he pointed at her.
Lucy was about to throw her own remark when she noticed that the male had no clothes on. Her face burst with color, steam coming out of her ears as she covered eyes so she wouldn't see any more of his private area. "N-Natsu…C-Clothes! NOW!"
Without realizing it, she moved backwards with her eyes closed and tripped on one of his weights. She shrieked and hit her head against the floor.
"Ouch," She muttered.
"Lucy, are you okay?" Her teammate panicked. The blonde opened her eyes and found the pink haired dragon slayer hovering over her; his hands were on either side of her head as his knees pressed against her thighs. His eyes held nothing but pure concern for her. The intensity of his gaze was really giving her stomach butterflies.
"Yeah," She breathed. He looked relieved but continued to stay over her. Her blush remained in place and unconsciously she tilted her head down; her eyes traveled to his waist and saw that he was at least wearing boxers. Thank Mavis.
"Why do you look so tense?" He mumbled; the sound of his voice caused her to look back up at his face.
She let out a humorless laugh. "I don't know. Maybe it's because there's a guy hovering over me practically naked."
"You don't act like this way with Gray." He pointed out.
"No," Lucy agreed. "But you're different. You don't do this all the time."
"What if I'm stuck with this stripping habit forever?"
Her face officially rivaled Erza's hair color. "What, what are you talking about you idiot? You're Natsu Dragneel. You'll break out of it for sure or be known as a pervert forever."
He laughed before brushing his thumb against her cheek. "I'm not a pervert you weirdo. Plus this is kind of fun."
Ignoring his last action, the girl rolled eyes. "Yeah, for you maybe. But not for me."
"Yeah, you should have seen your face when those girls were checking me out. You were jealous." He teased.
"I-I was not!" She denied quickly.
"Was too."
"Was not!"
"Was too."
"WAS NOT!"
The male laughed again while the poor red faced teen pouted. "I wasn't!"
"Sure,"
She looked away, still pouting. "Why would I be jealous?" She huffed.
Natsu hummed before looking back into her eyes. "I don't know. Why would you?"
The brown eyed girl was silent. She refused to make contact with him. She knew why and she was certain he knew as well. So why was he still here? There's no way someone as simple minded as him would ever be into a girl like her. It just wasn't programmed in his child like brain.
So was he here to make fun of her? Was Happy going to pop out of nowhere and yell out "You lllliiikkkkeee him" before the two burst out into laughter?
"I'll try to stop it." He said, breaking her train of thought. "The stripping I mean. Lucy doesn't like being jealous so I'll do my best to make sure it doesn't happen. I don't like seeing you sad…"
He was sweet; thinking about her feelings in a situation like this. Though he didn't always act like it, he did take his friends' feelings into consideration. He was always honest with them, so maybe…she should be honest with him too.
Lucy propped herself up with her elbows and when it looked like he was going to remove himself from her, she wrapped her arms around his neck and covered his lips with her own.
She felt his breathe hitch up and she pulled away embarrassed. She could tell the male was still in shock.
"That's why…" The blonde whispered.
Natsu snapped out of his daze and sent her a confused gaze. "That's why you what?"
Half the shyness she was feeling disappeared; annoyance could clearly be detected in her tone. "That's why I was jealous okay? I like you." She mumbled.
He blinked before he flashed his genuine bright smile. "Why didn't you just say so you weirdo?"
She looked like she was ready to 'Lucy Kick' him so the dragon slayer quickly kissed her, placing one of his hands behind her head to support her. Lucy closed her eyes, letting out a light moan before pulling him onto the floor. He didn't mind.
The celestial mage decided that just this once she was going to let his almost naked body cover her own; that she wasn't going to mind the natural heat that came from his warm body nor did she mind running her hands through the muscles that only reflected a portion of his strength.
She inwardly chuckled. Yeah right, like this was only going to happen once, especially with his new stripping habit.
….
….
(Extending Ending)
Happy flew into the house, gently closing the door behind him. It was late and he didn't want to wake up his adopted father. The blue Exceed spotted the pink haired teen in his hammock with a sleeping blonde lying onto of him.
Natsu lazily opened one of his eyes. "Yo," He welcomed quietly.
Happy flew up to the pair, a mischievous grin on his face. "You liiikkkkkeeee each other."
But Natsu only grinned. "Damn right!"
The small cat gasped, lowering his voice so he wouldn't wake up Lucy. "So it worked?"
"Yeah it did."
Happy giggled. "Lucy's so weird."
The fire dragon slayer chuckled lightly, unconsciously running a hand through her sunshine colored hair before sending a loving gaze in the girl's direction. "Yeah. She thinks I strip now."
Natsu and Happy laughed again. Honestly, like stripping will EVER be contagious. Even these two idiots knew that.
[Please Read]
I've noticed, not only for my stories but for the marvelous works of other authors, that there seems to be this one day rule for writing reviews. I don't know if this is only happening in the Fairy Tail section or it's a times have changed thing but I'm seeing that most reviews are coming in 24 hours from the time the story was posted and then very VERY few people review afterwards.
If you are one of people that does this, please leave a review for the story you've favored. Trust me; authors will appreciate you if you take the time to tell them what you thought of their story. If you do, a lot of times they're motivated to do more work. Just putting this out there.
Thank you to all who has favored/followed me or one my stories. I want to give extra thanks to the people who review because their positive words are what keep me going.
I don't own the image; I googled imaged it and thought it would work for my story. If it's yours let me know and I'll give you credit or if you don't want me using it, send me a PM and I'll take it down right away.
I know this was a lot shorter than my usually one-shots but if you like a stripping Natsu, be sure to tell me in a review below cause I have one more story I can put him in and this time the story will be longer!
I have a lot of story ideas I want to write but unfortunately I only have one week before school begins again. I'll try to upload one more thing by next Saturday.
If you have time, or are simply bored, feel free to check out my other Nalu stories. I uploaded Chapter 2 of "What You Make Me Do" today. I'm pleased to say that all my Nalu one-shots have over 50 favorites and "Not What I wanted" is close to 100 while "The Truth Revealing Cards" has reached 101! You guys rock! Thank you!
I'll say it again, thank you and I hope you liked the story.
Your friend
Dark Shining Light