Lucy's POV
I sit at the bar, drinking my chocolate shake, I'm waiting for Gray, Natsu, Happy, and Erza to arrive so we can go on a mission. I picked one from the board a while ago and just began waiting after that. The rent for my apartment is going to be due next week, so I need all the money I can get.
"Hey Mira, do you know where Erza is? She is usually here by now." I ask the silver haired Mage.
"Yeah, she should be here soon, she went to go get Natsu and Happy." Mira responded with a sweet smile. Just then, the door bursts open and the rest of my team walks in.
"Guys! What took you so long?" I ask and run up to them.
"Natsu and Happy were still asleep." Gray says and jabs his thumb in the direction of the two. Both of them look like they just crawled out of bed.
"Of course, well I already picked a job." I say and hand it over to Gray, how scans it over and then hands it to Erza. Erza reads it and then says, "Alright looks good, I'm already packed, so whenever you all want to go we can."
Magnolia station
Erza and Gray are getting our tickets, Natsu, Happy, and I are all waiting nearby on a bench. As we wait Natsu starts to complain about riding the train, "Why can't we just walk?" He whines
"Because it'd take to long" I sigh the reply " we go over this every time." I add.
Happy is laying on my lap and sleeping, I absently stroke his fur while we wait. A couple minutes pass, when Gray and Erza finally come back, holding five tickets.
"Here you go." Erza says as she hands me my ticket.
When the train pulls into the station we all climb aboard, finding it completely packed. Natsu, Gray, and Happy are all sitting together with two other people that they don't know, Erza and I are sitting together with just one other person. The other person is an elderly lady and she seems really nice, but after talking for a bit she fell asleep.
"Whew, she finally fell asleep!" Erza says quietly, I giggle in response.
A few hours later
When I wake up, Erza is out of her armor and in some everyday clothes, my head is resting on her shoulder, she is stroking my hair and resting her head on my head. Blood fills my cheeks but I stay in the same position so she doesn't know I'm awake. I nestle in closer and lay there, a few minutes later the train stops and I hear people around us starting to get up and move around. Erza smoothly removes her arm from around my shoulders and gently shakes me, I open my eyes and stretch.
"You were out for a while." She says as she requips into her armor. She stands up and offers me her hand, I take it and she pulls me to my feet. We head off the train meeting Natsu, Gray, and Happy.
"How was your ride? Mine consisted of Natsu almost throwing up and two guys snoring." Gray says,
"It was great where we were, no noise, puking, annoying people, it was quite peaceful." Erza replies with a happy grin.
"Your lucky then" Happy says looking a little grumpy.
I pull out the job request again and read over it, it says:
Name: Take out the thief lord and retrieve the stolen arts
Description: The Thief Lord is a tall, 6'2", male who is identifiable only by the black and gold Venetian styled mask that he wears over his is known to travel with a veritable horde of thieves who fall under his reign or join with him and the number rises and falls on a whim. But, he always has five thieves with him who are high ranking magic users and are essentially his bodyguards.
Issuer: There are several people who have banded together (rich collectors of famous artworks) to make this request for him to be taken out.
Area: Around Dawn City
Reward: 85,000 Jewels, per person (as was mentioned before, many rich collectors have pooled together to request this and have also pooled their resources/jewels)
Power level required: This is considered a High Level job, someone who is almost at the level of an S Class member should take the job, or the team should have an S Class member with them before taking the job.
"Okay well we are in the right place," I say, "We should probably go to the hotel and drop off the luggage." I look at the mountain if stuff that Erza brings and everyone agrees. We begin walking to the hotel, looking at all the shops and restaurants.
"I'm starving!" Natsu exclaims,
"Aye" Happy agrees,
"We'll get something in a little while." Gray says and continues walking forward towards the hotel, Erza and I trail after him, while Natsu and Happy drool on a window.
The hotel
We arrive at the hotel, I go up to the front desk with Erza, "I need two rooms." She says in a semi demanding voice, I gently touch her arm to make her aware of it.
"Yes ma'am right away," The desk worker says looking a little scared, "That will be $1500 per night for both rooms." Erza hands over the correct amount for tonight and then the man gives her two sets of keys.
"Natsu, Gray, and Happy, you guys will share a room, and Lucy and I will share a room." She says and hands Gray the keys, knowing that he is more responsible than Natsu.
"Now let's go eat dinner!" I say and Natsu and Happy cheer.
"You guys go ahead, I'm going to hang out in my room." Erza says and heads towards the elevator.
"Erza are you sure?" I ask as I run to catch up to her,
"Yeah, I'm just a little tired." She replies and gets into the elevator.
"Do you want me to bring you something to eat?" I ask,
"No, I'll be fine." She says and the elevator closes.
Hmm that's weird, I'll make sure she is okay later, but for now I'll go eat!
At a restaurant
I read over the menu trying to figure out what I want, I decide to just order a burger and fries, Natsu and Happy order a lot of different types of food, and Gray orders half of a pizza. We laugh, talk, and just altogether goof around until we finish our food. The waiter comes back over and asks if we would like to order dessert, and of course Natsu does so we all look over the dessert menu. My eyes wander around the page until they land on Strawberry Cake, I decide to get that for Erza and get nothing for myself because I had just spent all my money earlier that day.
We head back to the hotel, when we get there I head up to my room. I knock in the door and wait for Erza to answer, when she does it looks as if she had a fight with a hurricane.
"Are you okay? What happened?" I ask in a worried tone,
"What?" She asks in a sleepy and confused voice. I then realize that she had been asleep,
"Oh, never mind I understand" I say and giggle a little. I walk into the room and put the bag that contains the Strawberry Cake on the table, I open up the bag and give the container to Erza. She gives me a confused look and says,
"I told you I didn't need anything."
"I know, but when I saw it on the menu I just had to get it for you!" I reply. She opens up the box revealing the cake, her eyes light up, she digs threw the bag and finds the plastic fork that I put in there. She stuffs a piece of the cake into her mouth, and then another one and another one, she was about halfway through the cake when she looked up. Erza looked at me then at the bag,
"Where's your cake?" She asks after swallowing a piece that she put in her mouth,
"Oh, I kind of ran out of money… But I'm good, I'm already stuffed." I reply with a grin and rub the back of my head.
"You spent the last of you money on this cake?" She asks, with a mixture of happiness and anger in her eyes.
"Yeah…" I say. She uses her fork and cuts a piece of the cake again, she puts the fork close to mouth mouth, when I refuse to open my mouth she says,
"If you don't eat it willingly, I will force you to eat it." I debate whether or not she means it, deciding that she doesn't, I keep my mouth closed. She draws the fork away and shoved the piece of cake in her mouth.
"I knew you were just joking" I say with a smile on my face. She steps closer to me, and closer, she has her fork with more cake on it. I raise an eyebrow, she steps closer. We are just inches away,
"You have two choices, either you eat the cake willingly, or I will put it in your mouth myself." She says, chuckling a little. A huge blush forms on my face because I realize how beautiful she is, stunning really. I freeze and just stare, she takes it as me refusing again. Before she could do anything I say very quietly,
"You are so beautiful…" My blush deepens, Crap! Why'd I say that out loud! Erza also now has a blush on her face, extending from her cheeks to her ears.
"W-what?" She asks, still holding the fork. The only thing I could think of was to eat the cake, and so I did. Which confused her even more.
"Wow, that's really good!" I say, and turn around trying to hide my blood red face. Erza grabs my wrists and turns me around.
"What did you just say?" She commands,
" 'Wow that's really good'?" I say, even though I know what she means.
"What'd you say before that?" Once again in a commanding voice, but a lot softer than before. Just as I was about to answer there was a knock on the door. I walk over and check through the peep hole, seeing that it was Gray, Natsu, and Happy, I open it, thankful for the distraction.
"Hey! We got bored, so we came over here" Natsu exclaims,
"Hey, yeah we weren't doing anything either." I say and turn around to look at Erza, who is turned away from everyone else.
"Well come on in I guess." I say and step aside so that they can come in.
For the next two hours we play games and hang out together, when they decide that they should go to sleep, it was around 12:00 pm.
"Night guys, sleep well!" I say as I close the door. Erza is already in bed, I go to the bathroom and change into my night clothes. When I come back out, it seems that Erza is already asleep on the only bed. I head over to the couch and just as I am about to lay down, she says,
" You can sleep on the bed with me." Knowing that I won't be able to refuse this, I head over to the bed.
"Are you sure?" I ask, not knowing if she was just joking earlier or if she meant it.
"Yeah, lay down." She replies and scoots over so that I have a place to lay down at.
"Are you going to tell me what you said earlier?" She asks,
"Do you really want to know that bad?" I ask her,
"Yes, I do."
I sigh and say, "I said… I said that your… That your really beautiful."
"Okay, thank you." She says and turns so that her back is facing me. Did I say something wrong? Or is she just used to getting compliments?
"Goodnight Erza" I say and turn my back to her,
"Thank you Lucy, it means a lot that you think that of me." She replies, I turn my head to look at her, she had a few tears streaking her cheeks, which were a bright pink color. I wrap my arms around her, she turns back towards me and puts her head in my chest. My heart is pounding and I now have another blush on my face.
"Goodnight Lucy." I hear her say right before I fell asleep.