"Yup, that's the last of it," Happy said as he dumped out the contents of a small brown sack onto their bed. The sack had once been filled with jewels from all the missions they've completed, but now, it stored seven jewels and a piece of hard candy that had hair all over it.
"So…," Natsu trailed off, his eyebrows furrowed as he contemplated what to do next. "We're broke."
"Definitely broke."
"We have nothing?"
"Nothing except these." Happy pointed at the very few jewels and picked up the hairy candy. "We could always trade this for… fish, maybe?"
"Lucy's gonna kill me…," Natsu groaned.
"Why?" Before Natsu could respond, they heard a loud knock on their front door.
"That's why." Natsu said, pointing at the door with his thumb. Lucy bursted through the door, arms folded on her chest.
"Pay up." Was the first thing that came out of her mouth. Natsu scratched his head sheepishly and pointed at the bed covered in dust and what was a poor excuse of a jewel.
"I don't have any money,"
"Why do you need to pay?" Happy asked, flying between Natsu and Lucy.
"It's because this stupid squinty-eyed flamethrower used up all my money for food!" Lucy glared at Natsu. Natsu felt shivers run up his spine, but was cut off when Gray suddenly popped out of nowhere wearing only pants.
"I'm so proud of you, Lucy!" Gray squealed like a little school girl. "I never knew you had the guts to insult Natsu like that! Come here~!"
With that, Gray pulled Lucy into a hug, squeezing the life out of her. "I've taught you so much!"
"Gray, stop it, you are going to kill her." A stern voice that clearly belonged to the one and only red headed female said. Gray obediently let go and patted Lucy's head.
"He li~kes her!" Happy rolled his tongue, flying away before both Gray and Lucy could catch him.
"So, what are you guys doing here?" Gray asked.
"I'm broke." Natsu, Lucy and Erza said in unison. Gray gasped loudly and squealed again in delight.
"I'm broke too!" He started clapping like a seal. "We can be the Broken Four-oh man, we'll get famous!"
"Hey, I'm still here!" Happy said in protest.
Ignoring Gray and Happy, Erza turned to Natsu and Lucy. "Should we take on some jobs?"
"There aren't anymore jobs. Just, you know, normal ones." Lucy explained, having checked the mission board several times already.
"That could work too." Erza nodded in approval. Gray and Happy squeezed into the circle of three.
"We're gonna work?" Gray looked so happy. "I've always wanted to do something like this!"
"You think he's on something?" Lucy quietly asked Natsu as they watched Gray skip around happily.
"He probably took some crack this morning." Natsu shrugged.
~X~
"Mira-chan, do you have all the papers?" Lucy asked as she drank her strawberry smoothie.
"It's right here," Mira said happily, taking out a stack of papers labeled with the word JOB.
"Thank you, Mira," Erza said as she took the stack of papers and dumped it in her suitcase. "This should take us a while to finish."
"Yeah, and the pay's not bad either." Lucy agreed.
"So, what should we start on first?" Natsu asked, searching through the papers in the suitcase. "There's so ma-ooh! I like this one, we should do this one!"
"Calm down, Natsu," Lucy said sternly. Like an obedient puppy, Natsu calmed down and showed her the paper with a wide grin on his face.
"Firefighter?" Lucy asked as she read through the sheet again. "You wanna do this one?"
"Yes!" Lucy sighed and gave the paper to Erza. Natsu froze.
"Do you guys wanna take that one?"
"I see no reason why we shouldn't." Erza shrugged and turned to Natsu. "Come now, Natsu. We've got a job to do."
"No, Lucy, don't do this, please, I beg of you!" Natsu pleaded as he was dragged away by Erza. "You can't make me do it! You can't, Erza! You can't leave me with this demon!"
With that, Erza kicked Natsu on the head, forcing him to go to lala-land. They disappeared out the door.
"Gray!" Lucy called the somehow bubbly ice-make Mage who was still skipping around happily, scaring the crap out of his guild mates. "What should we do?"
"I wanna be a fashion designer!" Gray said in a sing-song manner. Lucy stared at him in horror.
"Who the hell are you and what have you done to Gray?"
"Oh, come on now, Lucy," Mira giggled. "It's not that bad."
"Yeah, Lucy. Let's go be fashion designers!" Gray screamed, dragging Lucy out the door. "Bye everyone!"
"You know, for a guy who rarely wears clothes, he could probably pull off being a fashion designer." Wakaba said, watching the two run (well, Gray run and Lucy be dragged).
"Ah, this'll be fun."
A/N: Hello there~! Just wanted to try something new for a change, and, well, this is what happened. Updates are soon to come (assuming I'm not too lazy to write a new chapter) and please do leave a review! Thanks for reading!