A/N: Nalu? Nalu!
Disclaimer: Fairy Tail and the characters in this work belong to Hiro Mashima-sensei.
of last-minute cramming and considerate boyfriends
...
strawhatmikans
"The normal, Luce?"
"Yes, please. Thanks, Loke," Lucy smiled tiredly as she dug through her bag for the dollar bills she could have sworn were there yesterday.
"Bad day?" Loke asked as he prepared her green tea latte.
"It's only 9am," She huffed, finally pulling out the crumpled dollar bills stuffed in her coat pocket (after thoroughly scouring the empty pockets of her comfy, lazy-day sweatpants and hoodie).
"Right, right. Bad morning, then?"
"Ya think?" Lucy muttered irritably, thinking of the exam in exactly two hours and thirty two minutes. The amount of studying already done was currently zero. Nada. Zilch.
"Well aren't you just a ray of sunshine this fine morning."
She rolled her eyes, snatched her latte, and stormed off to her usual spot in the small, quiet coffee shop.
"You're welcome, sunshine!" Loke called after her.
Throwing one last dirty look at the grinning barista and long-time friend, Lucy pulled out her books and laptop, preparing herself for yet another one of her painful, last-minute cram sessions.
Ping.
She almost growled as she yanked out her phone, ready to inform whichever imbecile who dared text her to shut the fuck up (she's seen better days).
Levy: lucyluCY where did you go? i can't find the peanut butter ;-;
And of course it's her dearest roommate and best friend interrupting her very important cram session for peanut butter.
Lucy: ASDUHSODFUBSDFOSDBFHSODFHSDOFH
Levy: ...
Levy: let me guess. you, being the genius that you are, completely forgot about the test this afternoon.
Lucy: i did not FORGET! i just had other stuff to do.
Levy: like staying up all night to finish writing your fanfiction?
Lucy: it was important ok
Levy: yup. more important than the exam you should've studied for weeks ago?
Lucy: um yes
Levy: you're officially hopeless
Lucy: :(((
Levy: no
Lucy: :((((((((
Levy: okay fine i'll email you my study guide YOU OWE ME
Lucy: YES OMG THANK YOU YOU'RE THE BEST MY SAVIOROSFDBF
Levy: yeah yeah i know. as much as i love being showered in praise, WHERE IS MY PEANUT BUTTER
Right. Peanut butter. She winced.
Lucy: oh um about that i might have finished it?
Levy: you're kidding
Lucy: sorry? :)) pls don't kill me i'll buy you peanut butter later i swear
Levy: damn you i want peanut butter and i want it now
Lucy: go to gajeel's dorm or something
Levy: but he's in class
Lucy: well juvia should be there so you can ask her? she doesn't have class till noon and unless she's out with gray or something she's probably still in the dorm
Levy: *sigh* fine, but you still owe me peanut butter
Lucy: anything for the goddess who gave me her study guide :)
Levy: flattery doesn't work on me, dear. now go do your cramming thing unless you want to fail out of FT academy
Lucy: yes mom!
Lucy grinned. She was saved (again) by Levy McGarden and her scarily efficient studying habits. Taking a celebratory sip of her latte, Lucy logged onto her email and downloaded Levy's study guide. Time to hit the books! (hit the laptop?)
...
One hour and two green tea lattes later, Lucy was yawning continuously and furiously cursing out a certain evil science teacher. Levy's study guides may be detailed and thorough, but boy were they long. Lucy wasn't even a third through the study material yet and the letters were already blurring together, forming incomprehensible lines of black.
Ping.
Damn Levy. What did she want now?
Natsu: oi luce you awake yet? can i come over?
Lucy promptly slammed her forehead against the table with a resounding thunk.
Lucy: it's 10am of course i'm awake what do you think i am
Natsu: remember that time i walked in at 3pm and you were snoring on the floor of your bathroom :D you were rocking the smudged eye makeup look and there was throwup in the toilet ;) i still have the pictures
Lucy: shutup
Natsu: the only reason you would be up this early is if you're cramming for a test amirite
Lucy: ughsidudb this sucks :(
Natsu: okay change of plans where are you? the little coffee shop where loke works?
Lucy: yeah
Natsu: expect reinforcement soon!
Lucy: what
Raising an eyebrow, Lucy stared at her phone. After a moment, she shrugged and returned to poring over pages of black text... Until she realized what Natsu meant by 'reinforcement'.
Lucy: natsu wait
Lucy: you're coming over here aren't you
Lucy: pls don't i need to study
Lucy: you're going to distract me
Lucy: NATSU
Lucy: pls tell me you're not bringing other people
Lucy: i'm gonna fail
Lucy: and then i'm gonna violently rearrange your face
Lucy: dammit natsu
Sighing for what seemed to be the hundredth time that day, Lucy gave up and rubbed her eyes blearily. She'd only gotten an hour or two of sleep due to her determination to finish writing her fanfiction last night, and now she wants to kick herself for her stupidity. The science teacher already had something against her and she didn't need another less-than-satisfactory grade on her record. She did just fine in most other subjects and excelled particularly in English, but one more complaint from the science teacher and her father will be pulling her out of Fairy Tail Academy boarding school faster than Gray can strip. She'd fought tooth and nail to be allowed to attend FT Academy and she wasn't about to get thrown back into the hellhole of high society and prissy, super-exclusive private schools just because of her incompetence in chemistry.
So she gritted her teeth, pulled her blonde hair into a messy bun, blinked away her tiredness, put on her glasses, and faced the horrors of chemistry head-on.
And that was exactly how Natsu found her, fifteen minutes later-muttering incoherently, hair falling out of her bun, eyelids drooping, glasses slipping down her nose, and the newly highlighter streaked study guide looking a little worse for wear (Loke had taken pity on her when he'd noticed her squinting at the bright laptop screen, and printed out the study guide for her).
"Um, hey."
"Alkenes, or Olefins, are unsaturated hydrocarbons that contain one or more-what even are unsaturated hydrocarbons fuck fuck fuck what is going on-"
"Uh, Luce?"
"Unsaturated hydrocarbons are hydrocarbons that have double or triple covalent-"
"Lucy!"
She jumped in her seat, glasses falling off and hitting the table with a clang. Natsu, sitting himself down in the seat opposite Lucy, bit his lip in a halfhearted attempt to remain calm and not dissolve into hysterics.
Then Lucy's hair tie decided to slip out of her hair, allowing mussed yellow locks to tumble comically into her surprised face, and Natsu lost it.
When he'd finally regained his composure, he was met with Lucy's Death Glare of Doom. Unfortunately for her, it's not very scary when she's surrounded by papers and her hair is all over the place. He snickered.
Moaning, Lucy buried her face into her palms and ranted just like any self-respecting lady would. "Great, now that you're here I won't be able to focus and then I'm going to fail and I'm going to kill you and I'm going to get kicked out so I won't be able to see you anymore but then you would be dead so I guess that's a moot point but-oh my god I would regret killing you so much and then I would spiral into depression-"
"Luce, calm down."
"Calm dOWN?! I AM PERFECTLY CALM."
"...Right, of course you are."
Lucy managed to maintain her glare for a steady minute before groaning and letting her face fall into her palms once again.
"I'm seriously going to fail this one, Natsu. My dad is going to put me right back into that horrible private school and I won't be able to see you or Levy or Erza or Gray or Mira or Cana or Juvia or Gajeel or Wendy or everyone else anymore. What am I going to do?"
Hearing the rustle of plastic bags, she looked up curiously.
"It'll be okay," said Natsu, grinning. "First, you're going to eat. I'm pretty sure you barely ate last night and I know you haven't had any breakfast yet. Green tea lattes don't count." He slid a foil-wrapped sandwich and a cup of hot coffee across the table. "After you eat everything, and I mean everything, I'll help you study. I can test you or whatever, just tell me what you need me to do and I'll do it."
Lucy glanced from the breakfast to her study guide to her boyfriend's smiling face, surprised and touched. Cracking a smile, she reluctantly piled up her study material and moved it to the side.
Natsu's grin only grew when she finally relented and reached for the sandwich. "After the chem test, you won't have class until 1:30, right? How 'bout this: after you get it over with, I'll treat you to lunch-whatever you want."
"When did you get so considerate and gentlemanly?" She teased.
"The transformation happened overnight, of course," he quipped back dryly, grin not fading a bit.
Lucy laughed, grinning back at him. "Thanks. For everything."
"Hey, it's all in the job description."
Lucy's smile stubbornly remained on her face for the rest of the day, and she kissed Natsu rather fiercely and very publicly after making it through the chemistry exam more or less unscathed.
He really should do this stuff more often, Natsu thought (a little dazedly and with a happy grin), as the two walked, hand-in-hand, to lunch together.
A/N: sorry for the abrupt awkward ending! this is really short wow... I might continue this as a series of FT Modern AU drabbles, but we'll see :) Thanks for reading and let me know what you think!
Updated 6/25/15: a few minor edits here and there.