Summary: A litany of firsts for Lucy. (Modern day AU Nalu in a bar)

Author's Notes: Falls squarely on the NSFW range of the fic spectrum, so you've been warned. Modern day AU ficlet. I'm not sure I have anything to really say about this. Hopefully it's okay. Was written for the 2014 Nalu Lovefest on Tumblr.

It had been a great week right up until Friday. Her students had behaved, turned in their homework and even gotten really excited about 'Edgar Allen Poe day.' She'd especially loved the paper mache raven that had been turned in scrawled with an, admittedly pretty terrible, poem for the assignment.

Still, A+ for creativity and effort, Sean.

And then the end of the work week arrived. The all staff meeting let them know their budget was being cut (again), and that the supplies that she'd requested for the special Shakespeare week had been denied (again). Furthermore, the librarian was reducing her hours because she'd broken her foot when a book cart had gotten knocked over by some jocks rough housing in the stacks (again), so Lucy's plans for holding library classes would have to be put on hold. Again.

Somehow it almost didn't surprise her when lunch time came along and another piece of bad news dropped right into her lap. There she was, sitting in the staff lunchroom with her bologna and cheese sandwich half in her mouth, watching the 24 hour news channel playout the gory dissolution of her father's company on the grainy, ancient little television in the corner.

Heartfilia Konzern and Railways was bankrupt with Jude ousted as CEO in a hostile takeover. And she'd had to learn it from some puffed up news anchor positing hyperbole backed theories rather than a proper phone call from her own father. Lucy figured the chances of her actually hearing from him any time soon were pretty slim.

The end of the day dragged, leaving her exhausted by the time she climbed out of her car at her apartment building. She had no idea what made her think to do it, but she paused to thumb through the notifications on her sad little not-so-smartphone and stared at the email laid out there.

Standing in the parking lot, leaning on her 14 year old jetta with the dent the fender that was there when she bought it, she read the casual "It's not working out, please sent back the ring as soon as you can kthnx" from her fiance and felt absolutely nothing for a full minute.

The fact that her much older than her fiance that she'd only hooked up with because her father insisted on it broke up with her by email was actually more galling than him calling the engagement off at all. Honestly, she should've expected that he'd dump her the second she saw that her family was very publicly no longer rich.

A million feelings suddenly boiled through her at that moment, but the most prevalent and puzzling was plain old relief. It occurred to her that she was now finally and fully free. Free from her father's obligations, free from her pudgy, frankly boring fiance, and free from work for the weekend.

It wasn't time to wallow in self-pity. It was time to party.

She'd walked down to the bus stop without even bothering to change out of her work clothes, headed downtown, and stepped into the first bar that didn't make her concerned about food safety ratings. This turned out to be just the right thing to do as it was surprisingly filled to the brim with handsome, single people like herself, and very quickly she attracted a crowd of men trying to buy her drinks.

Lucy was more than happy to oblige them. It didn't take long for her to get just that wonderful range of tipsy where she truly stopped giving a shit what sort of dumb things had happened in her day, but it also put her in the position that she decided the men surrounding her were being just too needy and honestly kind of predictable.

Maybe that was why he caught her attention, sitting quietly at the end of the bar being aggressively hit on by girls that he was politely putting off. Maybe it was that soft, worn flash of a smile he offered them when he declined whatever they were offering only to drop his gaze back into his glass of whisky. Or maybe it was that amazing pink head of hair.

Either way, she rose up off her stool, marched down to where he sat, and dropped down on the just vacated seat next to him. She stared until he brought up his eyes, mouth opening to undoubtedly tell her he wasn't interested, before she beat him to the punch.

"How can you tell if there's an elephant hiding in your refrigerator?"

He stared at her blankly, and shook his head. "Uh… wha-?"

"You can see his footprints in the butter." His blank stare continued, jaw hanging loose. "What's gray and goes around and around?" she plunged on, making a looping gesture with her finger for emphasis.

"I honestly have no idea." The corner of his mouth quirked up just slightly.

"An elephant in a washing machine." By the fourth terrible joke, he was laughing out loud, and she discovered that he had the most amazing grin she'd ever seen in her life.

He introduced himself as Natsu, told her he was celebrating his promotion at work and the acceptance of his little sister into the medical school of her choice, and then confessed that he'd forgotten he hated going to bars and having women throw themselves at him.

She bought him a drink, told him she was Lucy, and said she was celebrating the fact that she was free from all the expectations her father had heaped on her throughout her life and her awful fiance that she had never really loved. He pointed out she was still wearing the ring, and she pried it off to drop in her appletini only to fish it right back out because the damn thing was really expensive, and she'd never be able to pay Sawarr back if it really got lost.

They exchanged more bad jokes, laughed until their faces and sides hurt, and drank just enough too much for Lucy to ask him to come home with her when they both decided to ditch the noisy, crowded bar. She'd never done such a thing, never even considered taking a virtual stranger back to her apartment. He could be a serial killer or a creep. He might snore. He could be anything. Anything.

Natsu had just gazed down at her with dark, warm eyes and simply said, "Let's go."

The minute she'd gotten the door closed, she threw herself at him, overjoyed when he'd easily lifted her up and made out with her enthusiastically against the wall. His muscles were just ridiculous, and he acted like she weighed nothing at all. The mouth that roved her body felt like a furnace, and the way he'd eagerly squeezed her breasts and told her they were the most amazing boobs he'd ever seen didn't hurt either.

She'd laughed when he playfully tossed her on the bed, making her bounce when she landed, and then he apologized since he didn't want to damage her furniture. It was apparently something that happened to him frequently.

Lucy didn't care at that point because he was already taking off her skirt and panties to stick his face between her legs. She'd only ever had sex a few times with her fiance and one other guy, neither of whom had worried all that much about whether she enjoyed herself as much as they did. Meanwhile, Natsu just dove in with such wild excitement, lapping and sucking and moaning about how good she tasted while she trembled against his hand and mouth, wailing in pleasure.

The first orgasm she'd ever gotten from someone other than herself pretty much blew her mind.

Lucy quickly offered to return the favor, though he told her that just looking at her beautiful body was more than enough. They'd almost gotten into a very weird argument that degenerated into him repeatedly asking her if she was sure she wanted to go through with this while the rest of their clothes ended up on the floor. She'd won by pushing him over on the bed and riding him like she meant it.

She'd never gotten to be on top before, and she really kinda liked it.

When she slowed down after blowing through her reserves of energy in her frenzy, his hands had grabbed her thighs, taking over as he panted and groaned about how amazing and funny and smart she was. She didn't mind at all when he flipped her over and pounded her into the mattress. In fact, she'd encouraged him by clawing at his back, screaming his name, and wrapping her legs around his waist as tight as she could until she broke into a thousand pieces.

That second orgasm was even better, especially when he came right after and held her close, stroking her hair and peppering her skin with soft kisses, instead of just getting up and leaving or falling asleep.

Laying there in a tangled heap, they talked more, discovering that they were both quite sober by now and getting hungry. She'd made them scrambled eggs, he'd complimented her cooking as he devoured them as fast as she could get them on his plate, and then he'd had his dessert on the kitchen counter. She hooked her ankles around his knees and let out throaty moans while he worked that scalding mouth over her throat and rocked against her with shallow, shattering thrusts.

It was the first time she'd ever had sex somewhere other than a bed.

Natsu turned out to be pretty much insatiable, but not inexhaustible. By the time he had her on her hands and knees, fingers fisting in the sheets back in her room, he had slowed down considerably. He rolled his hard hips against her languidly, hands grasping at her breasts (seriously, best boobs ever, he reaffirmed) and working diligently between her legs.

She couldn't even fathom how he managed to strum those chords of tension in her stomach so expertly, but it was really marvelous. His scorching lips trailed leisurely along her neck, firm chest pressed to her sweaty back, and he whispered that she was strong and incredible even while she whined and sobbed in ecstasy.

This was definitely the only time she'd ever made love instead of just having sex.

Morning had her waking to lazy, watery light streaming in her windows and warm, strong arms wrapped around her securely. The fact she was in bed with a stranger probably should have alarmed her, but really, after last night, she didn't want him to be a stranger anymore. She supposed that would have to be up to him to decide.

Lucy slipped out of bed, smiling at the sleepy, pouty face Natsu made before burrowing into her pillow, and she headed to the kitchen after tugging on one of her large t-shirts she used for sleeping. Dishes from last night were still strewn around, so she cleaned those and worked on the batter for some pancakes. They'd both been celebrating at that bar, and she wasn't of a mind to give up on her party mood just yet.

She was most of the way through making breakfast when she turned around to nearly plow right into the obscenely toned (really, the guy had to work out constantly) chest.

His nose crinkled as he sniffed the food with interest lighting his eyes. "Damn, that smells good! Flapjacks and bacon!"

"And it's just about done. Have a seat." She gestured to one of the bar height stools that lived on the other side of her kitchen counter, trying not to drool when his glorious boxer clad self dropped into the chair and started scarfing down the food.

"Thish ish amashing," he proclaimed around several mouthful worths.

"It's not going anywhere, so take your time." She stopped then, feeling a little curl of apprehension in her gut. "U-unless you're in a hurry…" Damn it. She really didn't want to sound so needy. It wasn't fair to put her own hang ups on him.

Natsu looked up at her, chewing stopped for a second. He swallowed hard. "No… Do you want me to go?"

"No!" Lucy blushed at her own outburst. "I… This was really nice, and I… like you. Thank you." It sounded kind of lame and didn't cover the gratitude she felt for what he'd given her last night. He'd been the first man to make her feel like more than her body, like a person worth something. It almost seemed absurd, but mostly sad, that she'd only just met him.

After a careful study of her face, he nodded, grinned and kept right on eating. "I feel like I should thank you. If you hadn't sat with me, I pro'ly would've just gone home to my cat and felt sorry for myself."

"I can't figure what you'd have to feel sorry for," Lucy murmured, nibbling on a slice of bacon. "A guy who looks like you could pretty much go home with whatever girl he wants." She cringed then, realizing that what she'd said was the same words that had been tossed at her so often. It wasn't really much comfort.

He was silent for a long moment, polishing off the rest of his food to the point where he scraped up the leftover syrup with the side of his finger. "I never really found any of those girls all that interesting. You're the first one I thought was cool."

The woman smiled softly, glad she hadn't offended him after all. "You might be the least shallow guy I've ever met."

"Maybe that's why you're the only one I've ever slept with." The crooked smile on his face told her he was trying to joke, but it jolted something inside her.

"Oh, God… You were a virgin? I'm so sorry!" Her hand came up to hide her grimacing face. He had said he was a year older than her, so she'd just assumed. A foolish thing to do under any circumstance, she knew. "Your first time should've been with someone you really cared about, not some dumb, desperate blonde from a bar -"

"Hey," he grabbed her wrist, prying it away so he could look her in the eyes. "It was my choice, and you're definitely not dumb. Maybe I don't know you that well just yet, but I can tell you're a pretty awesome person. The way you talked about your students and how you didn't let all the bad stuff that happened yesterday keep you down says a lot about you."

She allowed herself a smile, warmth bubbling up from her belly at the gentleness in those coal dark eyes. He was turning out to be pretty incredible himself, and she was craving the chance to learn more about him. "Yet… You said you don't know me well 'yet'?"

Natsu's face flushed a bit, dusting the apples of his tanned cheeks with pink. "Uh, yeah. I mean, if you're okay with that. I'd really like to see you again."

Her heart curled up into a happy, fuzzy little ball in her chest that fluttered against her ribs. "Yeah… I think I'd like that too. I think… this could be just the start."