AN: Part two should be up tomorrow! Please drop a review at the end and tell me what you think ;)

Deck the Halls, Bitches

Part One: A Dominatrix for Christmas

It's a slow night at the Iron Dragon—which is ironic given the impending holidays. Usually there are more people looking to get wasted before having to visit the relatives and braving snowstorms. Or maybe that's just Lucy—and Gajeel and Lucy are busy wiping down the counter as the clock ticks passed midnight. Well, Gajeel is wiping down the counter. Lucy is sitting on the bar and chatting with Cana and "shirking her responsibilities" says Gajeel.

Lucy rolls her eyes and tosses her right leg over the left, blatantly ignoring her grumbling coworker and continuing to chat with her tipsy friend on the other side of the bar. Cana's the only one left here anyway, so it's not that big of a deal. A slight health code violation, maybe, but unless Cana's been lying to her for three years and is secretly a health inspector, Lucy doesn't think there's anything to worry about.

"So what are you doin' over the holidays?" Cana slurs, wobbling slightly as she leans back on the legs of her stool. Cana's eyes narrow in concentration as she takes another shot of vodka, her tongue poking out slightly as she tries to balance on the back two legs.

Wrinkling her nose, Lucy's lips turn into a frown and she sighs, glaring half-heartedly down at the rag next to her thigh. Her gaze shifts back to Cana, who's looking at her expectantly while still trying to maintain her balance and not face plant onto the bar. Lucy groans. "Please don't remind me of break," she pleads. "I tried to schedule work over Christmas, but Gajeel's dad wouldn't let me." Lucy supposes she's a little bit ungrateful that she actually has the holidays off work. There are plenty of people who would love to go home and visit their families and take a much needed break.

Lucy is not one of these people. She'd rather be stabbed in the leg than go home for Christmas this year, because a) her family is absolutely bonkers, b) someone is probably going to wind up in the hospital like every other year, and c) she doesn't have a date. That last one wouldn't be a problem, except she's kind of spent the last six months telling everyone she was seeing someone, if only to get her dad off her back.

Fat lot of luck that turned out to be. She'd completely forgotten about that white lie until her father called her in the middle of a shift and Lucy kind of, maybe, accidentally promised that her nonexistent date would be coming home for Christmas. Oops.

Behind her, Gajeel mumbles something unintelligible, but before Lucy can politely demand that he not mumble, Cana lets out an indignant squawk. The bar stool slams back onto all four legs and Cana's palms slap down on the bar on either side of Lucy's legs.

"What do you mean you tried to schedule shifts over break," Cana demands more so than asks. "Are you telling me you want to continue working twelve hour nights shifts during the most hellish time of the year?" Cana looks about ready to leap across the bar and throttle her—which wouldn't be impossible. Cana's a very coordinated drunk. Though that probably isn't something to brag about.

"Of course I don't," Lucy huffs, crossing her arms and sending Cana a nasty look, which the brunette promptly ignores. "I would love to take time off. I just don't want to go home for Christmas." And scheduling shifts at that time was the only way to get out of doing so. Unfortunately, Gajeel's dad had to be a nice person and give her time off. Bummer.

Cana looks at her like she's just sprouted a second head. "Why the hell not?" Cana snaps, eyes narrowing in confusion. She mirrors Lucy's position, crossing her arms over her chest and glaring.

Lucy huffs, eyes rolling as she slips her legs underneath her to sit cross-legged. She really doesn't feel the need to explain herself to Cana. They're friends and all, but Lucy thought they were passed the questioning stage. Then again, it's probably only fair that Lucy share her family story, since Cana did tell her about the whole Gildarts thing.

She sighs, relenting, and Cana leans forward expectantly. "I don't want to go home because half of my family is batshit insane and the other half has a stick up their ass," she says simply, wincing at the onslaught of horrors from Christmas past. Behind her, Gajeel snorts loudly, so Lucy lifts the rag at her side and whips it at him blindly, smirking when she hits her mark.

Cana isn't as impressed. "And?" she prompts, waving her hands slightly and dragging out the word ever so slowly.

"And what?" Lucy questions, shrugging slightly. That's all there is to it really. Bad things happen at Christmas when both sides of her family collide. It's not so bad when they're kept apart, but when the Heartfilia and Dreyer sides of the family mix all Hell breaks loose and usually there's fire involved.

To this day, she still finds glitter around her apartment from the Christmas disaster of twenty-eleven.

And this year is going to be the worst one yet, because her Grandfather Makarov, bless him, not only decided to invite the entire family to his home, but also included a plus one in the invitation. As such, everyone and their mother will be bringing a date.

Awesome.

Cana huffs, drawing Lucy's attention back to her disgruntled friend. "Well, there has to be something else," Cana stresses, playing with her empty shot glass with a frown. Gajeel had cut her off about five minutes earlier and Cana is, apparently, still sulking about it. "Everyone's family is a little bit crazy. I don't see why yours is so special." She shrugs, rolling the glass in between her fingers.

Lucy resists rolling her eyes once more and uncrosses her arms, fingers drumming against the countertop. "My mother's side of the family is a special breed of crazy," Lucy explains after several seconds. "And my father's side of the family is about as much fun as a doing taxes." Lucy's fingers continue to tap. "And when you put them together bad things happen."

"What kind of bad things," Cana whispers, as if it's some kind of secret. Lucy thinks that's kind of ridiculous. The only other person in the room is Gajeel and his only friends are the two of them and Levy, so it's not like he's going to go spill the beans about Lucy's wacky family.

It's takes Lucy exactly eight seconds to realize Cana means bad as in "illegal" and not "detrimental to Lucy's health"

Lucy closes her eyes and shakes her head, far too tired to deal with Cana's odd fascination with Lucy's criminal history—not that she has one. Yet. After this Christmas she might. "The last time we all got together, someone lit the tree on fire and I ended up with a sprained knee. The two weren't related and that makes it so much worse," she tells Cana, pursing her lips. "Plus, I kind of told my father I was bringing a date," she tacks on hurriedly, lips twisting into a grimace.

Admittedly, not the smartest move on her part, but it did get her dad off her back, so that's a plus. The downside? She doesn't actually have a date and, not only will her father be disappointed and try to set her up with some rich snob, Loke and Laxus will be complete assholes and mock her for lying about it. Those jerks.

Cana blinks at her. "Why would you do that?" she sighs, looking at Lucy as if she's the most exhausting person she's ever had to deal with. Lucy rolls her eyes. As if Cana's one to talk about exhausting people after all the shit she pulled throughout college.

Behind the girls, Gajeel makes a sound of agreement before hopping the bar and dropping onto the stool next to Cana. Both of them stare at Lucy expectantly.

"Because last year he tried to set me up with his colleague," Lucy says in disgust, a shiver crawling up her spine as she remembers that particular incident.

Cana, apparently, doesn't notice this. "Was he cute?" she asks curiously, wiggling her eyebrows at Lucy suggestively.

Lucy blanches, lips curving back in repulsion. "He was old enough to be my father," she tells Cana, glancing between her two friends. Gajeel looks about as disgusted as Lucy feels, and that makes her feel a little bit better about lying to her entire family. Just a little. Yeah, okay, lying probably wasn't the best solution, but it was better than the alternative at the time. It still is, only, now Lucy's without a date and her family is going to know she's a total liar.

A beat of silence.

"So… not cute?"

Yeah, stabbing herself is beginning to sound very tempting.

Gajeel merely rolls his eyes at Cana's remark, meanwhile Lucy fights back the urge to strangle her tipsy friend. She loves Cana, she really does, but sometimes she wants to knock her out and leave her in the trunk of a car as it slowly submerges itself in water. Is that too violent? Probably. "Cana!" Lucy snaps at her friend, who's begun to giggle obnoxiously at her own comment. "I have a real problem here!" she says in frustration, running a tired hand down the side of her face. "If I don't show up with a date, my dad is going to arrange my marriage in fear that my prime birthing years are waning," she whines, dropping her head into her hands.

Gajeel chokes on his spit at her words, a strange gargling sound leaving him as he begins to turn red. Lucy rolls her eyes, not bothering to make sure he's still breathing. He'll be fine, most likely.

Cana hums in thought tapping her chin as her brows furrow, a look of contemplation flitting across her face. "Well, he's not wrong," she tells Lucy, shrugging slightly. "You are in your prime birthing years."

Lucy's hands drop to her sides, staring at her friend in shock. "Cana!" she gasps, scandalized. How dare Cana agree with her father—he's the enemy! What ever happened to hoes before bros? Not that Lucy and Cana are hoes. Or that her father is a bro, because no bro would ever try to set her up with a forty year old man wearing a bad toupee.

It's official. Jude Heartfilia is not a bro.

"Can you be serious for once," Lucy pleads, staring down at Cana from where she's seated on the bar.

Cana just shrugs. "Craiglist that thing, bitch," she tells Lucy. For a moment, Lucy thinks it might be a joke, but there's an eerily sober look on Cana's face that Lucy has never seen before. It's almost surreal how dunk Cana is more helpful than sober Cana. Lucy thinks it's also a little sad, but she's desperate, so she'll take what she can get. "That's how I solve all of my problems."

Somehow that doesn't surprise her.

Shrugging to herself, Lucy pulls out her phone and opens the Craigslist app that Cana installed several months back. Lucy has never had a reason to use it before, but hey! What better time than the present!

"Do you really think looking for a date on Craigslist is a good idea?" Gajeel asks, bemusement creeping into his words as he glances between the two girls. Lucy doesn't look at him, far too concerned with choosing the category to find a date on Craigslist that won't end in her being drugged and tied up in a basement. She settles on the miscellaneous encounters category, immediately scrolling passed what looks like an ad for a dominatrix.

Huh. Lucy wonders how her father would feel if she brought home a dominatrix for Christmas.

Cana scoffs, crossing her arms as she shoots Gajeel a scathing look. "Oh, come on," she huffs, rolling her eyes. "What's the worst that can happen?" Cana asks.

Lucy scrolls passed another ad, this one asking for someone to "release their frustrations onto." Yeah, no thanks.

Gajeel glares right back at Cana, not impressed with her blasé response. "Kidnapping," he spits at Cana, crossing his own arms. "Murder," he snarls as Lucy continues to scroll.

"Don't be such a killjoy, Gajeel," Cana tells him, waving him off. Lucy clicks on a promising ad, blatantly ignoring her bickering friends. It's really not worth getting involved in.

There's a shuffling sound as Lucy continues to read the ad, a slight smile creeping its way across her face as Gajeel practically growls at Cana. "Better a killjoy than a drunk that gives shitty advice," he snaps back, all too unimpressed with her killjoy comment. Lucy doesn't know why he's so sensitive about people thinking he's not a fun person, but she has a feeling that it has something to do with him not having a lot of friends. Though, that's mainly because Gajeel is kind of an asshole, not because he's a boring, stick in the mud.

And she wouldn't have him any other way.

Cana slams a closed fist down onto the bar. "I give great advice!" she shrieks at Gajeel, looking about two seconds away from leaping off her stool and tackling the man to the floor. "You take that back!" she snarls.

Lucy figures this is the part where she cuts in and keeps them from murdering each other. Tis the season to inflict bodily harm on your friends, apparently. "I found one!" Lucy chirps, shoving her phone in Cana's face before she can pounce on Gajeel and do something stupid, like strangle him. Honestly though, Cana could probably get away with murder if she really wanted to and that scares Lucy more than a little bit.

"Wait seriously?" Cana gasps, ripping the phone out of Lucy's hand and pressing it absurdly close to her face, squinting to read the words. Gajeel looks less pleased by this announcement, but Lucy pretends not to notice this as she grins at Cana.

"Yup!" she claps her hands in excitement. "It says he's our age, requires no payment beyond me feeding him at least twice a day, lives in town, and he's a convicted felon, which my dad will absolutely hate!" This guy is practically perfect for spurning her father. His list of things he can do upon request are brilliant, from instigating political discussions, to fake proposing, to starting an actually fist fight on the lawn. He's everything her father's side of the family hates (save for Grandma Ida, who's actually a pretty cool old lady), and she kind of wants to piss them off and ruin Christmas. Just a little bit.

Lucy thinks she's found the one.

"Absolutely not," Gajeel snorts, as if reading her thoughts. Lucy blinks back at him as Gajeel's expression twists into a glare. For as long as Lucy has known him, Gajeel has had something like resting bitch face times ten. Something about his permanent scowl makes her think that someone spit in his drink at a vey young age and it make him lose his faith in humanity. Basically, Gajeel just looks like a very angry, threatening man, even if he is a big softy at heart. It doesn't help that he dresses like a punk and looks like he could bench both Lucy and Cana at the same time.

It still doesn't change the fact that he's actually a huge teddy bear that just wants to look out for his friends.

"I didn't ask you, Gajeel," Lucy snaps back, bristling slightly at his tone. She absolutely despises men telling her what to do, and Gajeel knows that. One she finished high school she was done letting people—especially her father—boss her around.

Gajeel's teeth grind together and his jaw pops in frustration, but this time when he speaks it's less demanding and more openly concerned. "Is this really necessary?" he asks her, sighing heavily when she nods enthusiastically. Lucy's legs uncross and begin to swing back and forth wildly, knocking against Gajeel's knee none too gently. "Why?" he groans, sending her what she thinks might be a pleading look.

Lucy shrugs and snags her phone back from Cana, who's too busy grinning like the Cheshire Cat to notice the action. "It's either I find a date or stab myself in the leg to avoid my relatives," she explains bitterly, glancing back at the screen and debating the whether she should send the guy an email response or just go with stabbing herself, because going home alone is definitely out of the question. On one hand, potentially becoming a missing person. On the other hand, self-mutilation. Personally she'd go with the former. Cana probably has a tracking device on her phone anyway. "I'm merely choosing the less self-destructive option," she tells him, batting her eyelashes at her stoic friend.

"But does it have to be a stranger?" is Gajeel's response, his expression not shifting. She understands where he's coming from, she really does, but this is really no different than a blind date and Gajeel needs to tone back on the over-protectiveness.

Lucy rolls her eyes. "Well do you want to go home with me over break?" she asks mockingly, opening her email and beginning to type out a quick message.

"I'm going home with Levy," Gajeel reminds her, crossing his arms and pouting. Lucy kind of wants to laugh. This will be Gajeel's first time meeting Levy's parents and she can tell that he's nervous about it. Hell, she probably would be too, if she was in his situation.

"Than yes, it is necessary for me to take a stranger home," she quips, squinting down at her phone. Besides, Cana's done that before and she's not dead yet.

"I'll go home with you," Cana volunteers suddenly, raising her hand so fast she nearly punches Gajeel in the face. He sends the tipsy girl a sour look, but then turns back to Lucy and begins to nod slowly, a look that's clearly telling her to take Cana home with her for the holidays crossing his face.

Lucy's lips purse as she looks at Cana, fingers freezing as her eyes narrow in thought. "Don't you have a girlfriend?" Lucy asks slowly, leveling Cana with a disapproving stare.

Cana shrugs. "She'll understand," she says, waving the question off.

Yeah, Lucy thinks with a roll of her eyes. Cana's girlfriend will definitely not thinking anything of her new girlfriend heading home with someone else over the break. Because that's not suspicious at all. Then again, if Cana's new girlfriend gets all huffy about it, maybe she's not the right one for Cana. "Besides, isn't Gildarts taking the day off to have lunch with you?" Lucy reminds her friend.

"I could ditch 'im for you," Cana tells her with no hesitation, sitting up straighter on the stool. Cana's eyes are beginning to look all too bright, and Lucy's fairly certain that she won't remember most of this in the morning. Drunk Cana makes a lot of promises that sober Cana can't keep. "You know I would," Cana coos, reaching out and patting Lucy's knee affectionately, causing her stool to wobbly.

Lucy giggles and pats Cana's hand in return. "Oh, I don't doubt that," she jokes, winking at her friend. Gajeel looks between them, a confused expression on his face, but he doesn't say anything.

"I don't hear a no," Cana sings, poking at Lucy's bare thigh and wiggling her eyebrows.

"I'm sending him an email," Lucy decides, tapping out a quick message that basically introduces herself and asks him if he'd like to help her ruin Christmas and give her father an aneurism. Just the usual date request.

Gajeel sighs, shaking his head slowly. "Lucy," he growls at her, eyes narrowing as his lips press into a tight line. "This is a bad idea."

She scoffs. "It's not a bad idea," she argues. She doesn't see what the problem is. It's just a ploy to trick her family into thinking she's in a relationship. What's the worst that could happen? Nothing can go more wrong that in did last year. Or the year before that.

"You want to bring a stranger into your house," Gajeel deadpans.

"It's not that bad," she replies. And really, it isn't. She's pretty sure her crazy slightly homicidal relatives can deal with a stranger in their home. Laxus could probably crush the guy like a bug if he really wanted to, and Mira has a mean right-hook. Lucy isn't worried.

"He's a convicted felon," Gajeel hisses through clenched teeth.

Okay, so maybe it's not the best idea, but it's not like she has any other options. At least, not options she's willing to take. "Well when you say it like that…" she trails off sarcastically, blinking up at Gajeel innocently.

"Lucy!" he barks, glaring.

"Too late!" she shouts back, pressing the send button with more force than necessary.

Gajeel rubs a tired hand down the side of his face and sighs, shooting Lucy a dark look. "For the love of god, please tell me you're kidding," he growls, baring his teeth when Lucy barely spares him a glance before going back to her phone.

Lucy glances up briefly, a pout forming on her lips. "Gajeel," she whines, sending him what she hopes is a pleading look, "I'm desperate!" Okay, so she may or may not be a little drunk herself now that she thinks about it. She probably shouldn't have taken those shots with Cana earlier, she's really starting to feel the affects of them. Hopefully this doesn't blow up in her face in the morning.

Cana snorts as well, waving off Gajeel. "Yeah, calm down, Iron Maiden, the guy probably won't even respond," she says confidently, patting Gajeel on the arm in mock comfort, though this doesn't seem to placate Gajeel, who sends Cana a steely look in return.

Lucy's phone vibrates as her email refreshes.

Cana and Gajeel look at Lucy with varying degrees of contempt.

Lucy clears her throat, smiling at her two friends a little bit too brightly. "He responded," she chirps cheerfully, reading his short response which merely consists of an agreement to help and a tentative meeting place for the next day. This is going a lot better than she thought it would. Excellent!

Cana blinks in surprise. "Well fuck me," she says before breaking out into loud giggles and nearly falling off her stool.

Gajeel groans. "At least let me come with you when you go to meet this guy," he begs, sending her a stern look.

Lucy pretends to ponder his request for a moment, if only to make him squirm. It's not like she's going to say no. If she did, Gajeel would probably just follow her anyway. After several seconds she holds out her hand for him to shake, grinning. "Deal."

Despite her initial excitement for the situation, Cana ends up joining Gajeel and Lucy for the meet up with this Natsu character (who she learned through email is a regular at the Iron Dragon and a former student at the college Lucy graduated from back in the spring). When she'd told the two of them of her plan to meet the guy at a local coffee shop, her friend nearly spit out her drink, having apparently forgotten about the previous night at the bar or just assumed Lucy was joking. Cana insisted that she come with Lucy and Gajeel to the meeting, to "protect her from skeazy guys who want to axe-murder pretty, unassuming blondes." Cana's words, not hers.

After her initial response, the man sent her a quick reply, asking a little about her family and a tentative schedule of what the week would entail. She emailed him back a complete schedule of the typical disaster Christmas—which is less of a schedule and more of a stumble though the day and try not to light anything on fire!—as well as a complete essay on her family history: who everyone was, who to avoid, who to pick fist fights with, and so forth.

And that's how they ended up outside a quaint little coffee shop at ten in the morning, the three of them squished into Gajeel's truck as they run through their game plan one last time before heading inside.

"Are you nervous," Cana babbles suddenly, cutting off another one of Gajeel's stern warning. "I'm nervous," she tells them, face practically pressed against the window as she stares out at the coffee shop. Her fingers drum against the door frame, leg jiggling wildly.

Lucy sighs, running a hand through her hair in frustration. "Cana," she says slowly, sending her friend an equally frustrated look, "calm down. You don't even have to meet this guy," she tells her worried friend, shifting uncomfortably from where's she's pressed between her good friends, suppressing a groan. As much as she loves them, this is not where she wants to be at the moment.

Cana scoffs, flipping her hair over her shoulder as best she can in the tight space, successfully slapping Lucy across the face with it. Lucy vaguely notes that Cana's hair smells like cucumber. "Yeah," Cana agrees, "but my best friend does! He could be an axe murderer for all we know!"

Lucy doesn't have it in her to argue that the guy probably isn't an axe murderer. If he was, he would probably be in jail. Besides, she'd take an axe murderer over a fifty year old man any day of the week. "You know you were the one that suggested this," she reminds the frantic brunette, who merely levels her with a glare in return. Lucy throws her hands up in surrender.

"That was drunk Cana!" she hisses back, smacking Lucy across the shoulder. "Drunk Cana makes bad choices!"

Lucy doesn't have the heart to agree with her, even if it is insanely true. Drunk Cana was a constant source of pain in Lucy's college years, constantly getting the two of them in trouble every time they went out for the weekend. Drunk Cana is the reason Lucy almost got arrested in her junior year. To this day, she still doesn't know how Cana got a llama in their apartment, and frankly she doesn't want to know.

Gajeel isn't as tactful. "You've got that right," he grumbles, cutting the engine and swinging his door open in one fluid motion.

Cana snarls at him. "Shut up, Gajeel!" she spits. "You were supposed to be the sober responsible one," she shouts after him, scrambling to shove open her own door as Lucy slips out though the driver's side behind Gajeel, slamming the door shut behind her. Cana curses loudly as she throws open the door and pulls her scarf tighter around her neck, presumably glaring at Gajeel from behind her sunglasses. It's hard to tell.

Gajeel shrugs as he starts towards coffee shop. "Yeah, but Lucy doesn't listen to me," he grumbles, shooting Lucy a quick look as she struggles to keep up with his much longer legs. Cana lags behind them, making faces at the back of Gajeel's head. "Remind me again why you need to bring a date," Gajeel says, peering down at her and blatantly ignoring Cana.

Lucy blinks up at him. 'Because if I don't, my dad will try to marry me off to a stranger that's twice my age," she says slowly, watching in silent satisfaction as Gajeel's eyebrows shoot comically towards his hair line, his eyebrow piercing glinting in the sunlight.

Gajeel seems to mull this over, lips pressing into a thin line as he shoves his hands into his pockets. "Fine," he concedes, not necessarily happy about the plan, but at least now he'll probably stop bitching about it. "But if you wind up missing or worse, I'm going to track this guy down and rip his testicles off through his mouth," he tells her casually, sending her a pointed look.

Lucy can't say she was expecting anything different. Cana, apparently, wasn't quite as prepared for Gajeel's crass statement, despite the fact that she's been spouting far worse all morning. The brunette pulls a face and mumbles something like "that's gross" before pulling her scarf up over her mouth.

Gajeel ignores her once more. "And if he's skeazy, give me a signal and I'll storm over and beat him up," he says, rubbing the back of his head and refusing to make eye contact with her. Lucy thinks it's kind of sweet, in a way. Gajeel only threatens to beat people up when he really cares about someone. She honestly kind of touched by how much Gajeel cares, even if he would never admit it.

On the other hand, she also thinks he's being incredibly dramatic and needs to take a chill pill, or something.

"What kind of signal?" she asks him, mostly joking. She highly doubts they're going to need a signal. They'll be like ten feet away from each other at most. If Lucy really needs help, she can just, you know, scream for help. Or she could always throw hot coffee in the guys face. That's never failed her before.

"Bird calls!" Cana shouts from behind them, her voice slightly muffled by the fabric pulled over her. Lucy rolls her eyes and Cana starts to make loud bird sounds behind them, cackling every so often. A man passes by them and stares before scrambling away when Gajeel shoots him a nasty look.

Lucy sighs, already feeling a headache coming on. Why did she agree to bring these two along again? Right, because they insisted and wouldn't leave her alone until she agreed. "Guys," she huffs, cutting off Cana's noises, "just sit at the next table and listen to us talk okay?" She glances between them, but they both stare at her blankly. "Then you guys can do your creepy eavesdropping thing and not seem like complete freaks."

Gajeel makes a noncommittal grunt in reply and Cana frowns, crossing her arms. "Fine," she huffs. "You're buying me a frappe though."

"Here's ten bucks go wild," Lucy says, handing Cana the bill. "And buy me hot chocolate while you're at it!" she calls after Cana, who takes off as soon as the bill is in her possession, nearly hitting a man in the face as she shoves open the doors to the coffee shop.

Gajeel sighs. "Do you really think she needs coffee right now?" he asks her rhetorically, sarcasm biting at his words. Cana is already wired as is. She's kind of like a small, yappy dog, but without the yappy part most of the time.

Lucy grins. "Nope, but she's your problem now."

Gajeel blanches and the next five minutes are a blur. Cana practically shoves a hot chocolate in Lucy's hands, then shoves her onto one of the chairs in the shop, before plopping down at the table next to her and pulling out a bag of gummy worms. Yeah, Lucy has no idea where she got those. They then proceed to stare directly at her, because that's not suspicious at all. Cana also hasn't taken off her sunglasses, she notices offhandedly.

Awesome.

She should have just come alone.

Lucy sighs and pretends not to see them, instead focusing on her drink. Luckily, the wait isn't long.

The bell above the door chimes as someone steps into the shop, and she doesn't need to look to know that Cana and Gajeel have already zeroed in on the new arrival. It's quiet for a moment, and then Cana and Gajeel start whispering to each other at the next table, to quietly for Lucy to make out what they're saying.

She's paying so much attention to her friends, that she doesn't notice the figure standing across from her until he speaks. "Lucy?" a male voice asks gently, startling her out of her staring. Her head whips around and she comes face to face with a smiling man.

Stunningly green eyes meet hers questioningly, hoping he's confronting the right person. Messy, pink hair falls into the man's eyes, but he pushes the strands away absentmindedly as he blinks at her, drawing her attention to his left ear and the two silver hoops towards the top of his cartilage and below that, a black cuff. She briefly notices a lip piercing and the edge of a tattoo peeking out from under the sleeve of his sweater, but what she's really drawn to is the slight upturn of his lips that says rebel with a cause—which she swears she's seen somewhere before.

Lucy realizes two things in that few seconds she spends staring at him. One, her dad is definitely going to hate him, and two, he's fucking perfect.

She always has had a thing for the bad boy type.

Realizing she's been staring for longer than what's typically considered appropriate, Lucy smiles and stands up, reaching a hand across the table for him to shake. "Hi," she greets, smiling wider when he takes her hand, "you must be Natsu!"

His smile grows as well, and for a moment she thinks something like recognition flits across his face, but it's gone as soon as it's there. "Yeah, nice to meet you," he tells her, sounding genuinely happy to be meeting someone new. He must be a people person, which is all the better for her. She wants her father to hate him, not her entire family.

So maybe she's being a little bit spiteful about all of this, but spite has never failed her in the past. Spite is the only reason she passed her awful biology course back in college—the one where her professor hated her and was just looking for an excuse to fail her.

Yeah, she hopes Jose Porla is still kept awake at night by the one time she verbally beat him down during a class debate—absolutely smashed him. That was a good time. She had gone out for drinks with Cana and Gajeel the night before and was in no mood for playing nice when he started badgering her in class. Hell hath no fury like a hung-over Lucy, apparently.

"Likewise," she responds, releasing his hand and dropping back into her seat. Though, he's a bit less of a stranger than she was expecting. She recognizes him from a few of her college classes, though she can't recall which, and remembers him coming to the bar a few times during her shift. If anything, he's more of a friend of a friend than a complete stranger. She can recall him hanging out with Gray, Juvia's boyfriend.

Natsu wets his lips, a hand running through his hair nervously as he does the same. "So what's the game plan?" he asks her, head cocking to the side curiously as he peers at her. There's humor swimming in his eyes and she wonders if he's excited about helping her ruin Christmas for her father.

Lucy sighs, deflating slightly. This would be so much easier if they just had to go up for Christmas Eve, eat some food, drop off some presents, and leave, but somehow she got roped into heading down early and socializing, which isn't the greatest situation considering her date is fake. "As much as I would enjoy the get in get out approach," she tells him, huffing slightly as she shakes her head, "I, and subsequently you, have been voluntold to head down early on Thursday and help set up the place." She sends him an apologetic smile. "I hope that doesn't cause any problems for you. I completely forgot that I was supposed to drive down early when I emailed you," she promises. And really, it did just slip her mind. Though, that's probably due to her being semi-drunk at the time and still debating if she should stab herself.

Which is never a good combination.

Natsu just shrugs, as if the prospect of being stuck with her and her family for two extra days isn't that big of a deal. Damn, she wishes she was that positive. This guy is just rolling with it and she was contemplating the pros and cons of stabbing herself in the leg. He's goals, Lucy decides, and in more ways than one. "I'm cool with that," Natsu tells her, oblivious to her slightly hung-over thoughts. "I have all week off of work, so time isn't an issue."

Is it bad that she's known him personally for all of five minutes and wants to climb him like a tree?

Lucy laughs, but she isn't sure if it's because of her thoughts, or the utter relief that comes with him being on vacation all week. "All right, that's good," she sighs, shoulders relaxing just the slightest, "that means I don't have to feel bad about dragging you into all of this," she tells him, only half joking. She kind of wants to let him know what he's getting into, but she also doesn't want to scare him off and send him running for the hills.

Her family tends to do that to people.

Natsu seems to take it as a joke, throwing his head back in laughter before smiling at her, amusement clear on his face. She hopes he's still laughing when he actually meets her family. "You make it sound like it's some kind of a warzone," he teases, eyes crinkling at the edges. He has a nice smile.

Lucy opens her mouth without thinking about it. "Well, with the amount of casualties we have every year, it might as well be" she tells him absentmindedly, shoving a lock of hair behind her ear and taking a long drink of hot chocolate, attempting to avoid the inevitable "my family is crazy" talk.

He chokes on his spit, laugh turning into a cough almost immediately. He sends her a bewildered look, his eyes furrowing in confusion as he stares at her, blinking rapidly. If Lucy didn't know any better she would assume she just sprouted wings and told him they were going to fly to her family's place. "Excuse me?" he sputters, a look of genuine concern flitting across his face as he stares at her.

"My family's kind of crazy," she tells him simply, shrugging halfheartedly. She's given up on tying to apologize for their weird behavior or sugarcoat their insanity to her friends. "Separately, they're usually fine, but when they all get together bad things tend to happen," she says honestly, setting down her drink with a sigh and waiting for him to bolt. She wouldn't blame him if he did.

Instead, he leans forward just the slightest, and whispers, "what kind of bad things?" as if it's some kind of secret.

She's kind of surprised—okay, really surprised, but she tries not to think too much of it. "Mostly house fires," she says, faking cheer. Some people have annual traditions of baking cookies or going caroling. Lucy's family inevitably lights something on fire every year. Everyone has their own traditions, she supposes, they just got stuck with the one that continues to take years off her life every time she goes home.

Natsu shrugs, a wicked smile crawling across his face. "I'm okay with that," he tells her, sending her a quick wink. Lucy merely blinks back, beginning to wonder if this is a bad idea. Either this guy has a death wish, or he's just as batshit as the rest of her family. Well, at least he'll fit in either way! "Anything I should know in particular?" he asks her after a beat.

Lucy shakes her head, waving off the question. The long answer is yes, there's a lot of other things he should probably know. The short answer is—"I'll explain more about my family later," she promises, pulling the sleeves of her sweater down over her hands. "The most important thing you need to know is that I need to make this look as convincing as possible in front of my father," she stresses, leveling him with a stern, if not frantic, look. "He won't be there until Christmas eve, though, so we have time." You know, to practice the whole handholding in public thing and come up with disgusting pet names for each other.

Just normal couply things.

Natsu is quiet for a moment, staring down at the drink Lucy didn't realize he had until just now. A frazzled Lucy is not the most observant, apparently. "Can I ask why?" he says gently, glancing up at her. Something in his eyes makes her think he understands family issues—he probably has some himself, considering he would rather go home with a stranger than see his own family over the holidays.

Lucy decides to let sleeping dogs lie and doesn't ask.

She clears her throat, suddenly feeling a lot less awkward about telling all of this to a stranger. For a moment, she mulls over exactly how to say it without making her father sound archaic—which he kind of is, but still. "He's been trying to arrange my marriage to a man twice my age," she settles on telling it like it is, not bothering to sugarcoat it or swallow back her contempt.

Her father actually wants to marry her off to some fifty year old man and she would gladly gouge her own eyes out with spoons before she lets that happen.

Natsu stiffens in surprise, eyes widening just the slightest, but otherwise doesn't react. It's basically the same reaction she had when she was first informed of her father's plan. Somehow, the though amuses her just the slightest.

"Oh," he murmurs after several long seconds, simply staring at her. "Would you like me to propose to you?" he asks suddenly, as if it's the most logical solution to her problem.

Immediately, Lucy's first instinct is to decline—it would only add an extra layer of chaos to an already bad plan, and she doesn't think she could fake being engaged all too convincingly. Sure, she's spent enough time watching Laxus and Mira act sickeningly in love with each other since he first proposed six years ago, but that doesn't mean she could pull that off herself. Maybe if it was Gajeel or Cana she could, but a complete stranger seems like a stretch.

She pauses before she says this, a pensive expression crossing her face. On the other hand, it would really piss off her father if she was proposed to by a man he didn't even know right in front of him. That would certainly make Christmas a lot more interesting as well. Of course, then she would have to stage an even bigger break up and things would get messy.

But it would really make her father mad.

"I'll get back to you on that," she tells him after a few seconds of debate, sending him a soft smile. "And… thanks," she says as sincerely as she can manage, "for all of this, it means a lot," she tells him. "There's just one other thing." Lucy bites her lower lip, sending him a slightly nervous look, which he returns with one of confusion. She decides to just spit it out. "The ad said you have a criminal record. I don't mean to pry but…" she trails off, waving her hands slightly.

She just really doesn't want to invite an axe murderer into her house. Safety first, she thinks bitterly, imagining what her family is going to light on fire this year.

Natsu just waves her off. "No, I understand," he tells her. "I would want to know too." He clears his throat and looks away from her, a flush creeping up his neck. It takes Lucy a moment to realize he's embarrassed. "Arson," he says suddenly.

Lucy blinks. "What." Did she seriously invite another goddamn arsonist into her house?

He shuffles awkwardly in place, a sheepish smile on his lips. "Arson," he repeats. "And public indecency." Well this sounds like an interesting story. "Back in early college, I got drunk with a friend and we lit baseball bats on fire and ran streaking across campus," he tells her. shrugging slightly in an attempt to hide his embarrassment.

Lucy giggles, partly out of relief and hears Cana choke on her drink from the next table over. Serves her right. At least he's not an axe murder though.

She doesn't respond, so Natsu clears his throat and nods in Cana and Gajeel's direction. "So are they friends of yours?" he asks, voice slightly higher than before. She can understand why.

The question takes her off guard, but not by much. She figures it's sort of hard not to notice the two people staring at you with varying degrees of amusement and homicidal intent. One guess on which is which. "That obvious?" she asks, laughing. Cana at least has the decency to look away from the two of them, suddenly finding her drink very interesting. Gajeel, on the other hand, either doesn't have the tact or just doesn't care enough to look embarrassed. Good for him.

Natsu laughs again, and she realizes she kind of likes the sound. "Well, they've been staring at me since I sat down. I figured they must be your backup. Or just really dedicated people watchers," he adds as an afterthought, sending her a goofy smile.

Lucy nods in understanding. "Cana's a little bit of both," she tells him, jerking a thumb in the brunette's direction. "I think Gajeel is just waiting for the signal so he can come beat you up," she laughs, sobering when her friend sends her a nasty look. "Oh, and Gajeel wanted me to tell you that if I wind up missing, he's going to track you down and do something to you that I don't feel comfortable stating in public," she says cheerfully, batting her eyes at Natsu, who just laughs in response.

"Sounds reasonable," he tells her.

"Hey, Gajeel, Cana! Why don't you two come over here and introduce yourselves instead of being creepy?" she calls to her friends, waving them over.

AN: Again part two will be up Tomorrow! Please drop a review if you have the time! I would really appreciate it! Happy holidays everyone!