A/N: What's that you say? It's too late for Christmas-related stuff? Oh well then.
"Natsu!" Lucy called, walking into the guild and looking for her best friend. She was surprised to note that many of the Christmas decorations from the week before were still up, even the tree itself. Red and green ribbons were twined around on the floor, and paper snowflakes had been taken down from their strings from the rafters and played with until they were nearly falling apart.
And no one seemed interested enough to try and clean up, it seemed, Lucy thought with an odd mixture of disgust and amusement
She scanned around the rowdy room, finally finding the dragon slayer standing in front of the board beside Nob. Happy floated in the air next to Natsu's head, and Lucy could hear the sound of his high voice even over the banter, though she couldn't make out any words.
The dragon slayer's sharp ears caught her cry, and he turned toward her with a grin, proudly holding up a job sheet he picked from the board. "Hey Luce! I found us a job!"
She smiled back, sitting down at one of the tables. Natsu soon joined her. "Alright! Then once I've had some lunch, we can head out!"
He nodded agreeably, and soon enough, Mira had brought the two some food (along with some raw fish for Happy). They chowed down while Natsu explained the particulars of the job and Lucy listened intently. Then he told her the reward.
"500,000 jewel!" she exclaimed, staring at him. "For taking down some low-level monster?!"
Natsu shrugged. "I guess. Maybe the townspeople just consider it tough enough to warrant that much, but either way, that's still a lot of jewel for rent money for you, and food money for me and Happy!"
Lucy smiled, standing. "Makes sense. Ready to take off?" He nodded, and he stood as well. They were in the doorway when Mira suddenly called out to them.
"Hey! You two took the monster job for 500,000, right?"
Natsu stopped, a slightly sheepish look on his face. Lucy guessed (rightly, though that wasn't the only issue) that he'd forgotten to tell Mira which job he was taking. Lucy turned back to Mira and gave her a thumbs up.
"Yeah, that's the one!" she called back. Mira nodded, looking down at the ledger of taken jobs she kept. There was a slight smile on her face, but Lucy didn't know why. She turned to look at Natsu, who was beginning to look increasingly uncomfortable.
"Natsu?" she asked, feeling slightly anxious (though she had no clue as to why). "You alright?"
With an awkward chuckle, he pointed to the mistletoe above their heads. Lucy's mouth dropped open in slight surprise. He looked at her apologetically, as if standing under the mistletoe were somehow his fault and he felt bad about it. Lucy reined in her surprise and managed a smile.
"It's alright, Natsu. Let's, uh, let's just get going. Okay?"
He nodded and turned toward the door. Lucy wouldn't be all that great of a friend if she had missed the slightly (okay, more than slightly) disappointed look in his eyes. She instantly felt terrible, wondering if it maybe wasn't too late to take back her words.
Deciding that it wasn't, and it didn't really matter even if it was, Lucy snagged Natsu's hand just before he walked out of reached. She yanked him closer, smiling at the surprise that had replaced the disappointment, and before she could have a chance to change her own mind, Lucy kissed him.
For the first few seconds, Natsu was too stunned to respond. When he came out of his shock, he was quick to return the sweet, passionate kiss with his own. Lucy's lips curled, smiling into a kiss she'd truthfully wanted since the very beginning.
While the two were having their, ahem, moment, Happy flew over to Mira with an accusatory but resigned look on his feline face.
"You did this on purpose, didn't you?" he asked, narrowing his eyes.
Mira giggled, glancing over at Lucy and Natsu. "So what if I did? You said it yourself, Happy: they're in love!"