Writing a second story, whoaaa how crazy! I kind of thought it would be nice to have a nice modern AU to write on the side while I'm working on my other NaLu story 'Loss'. I hope that you guys enjoy!

I do not own Fairy Tail.

Fairy Tail.

A pretty well-known café, and a place that a certain rose-haired young man practically called home considering how much time he spent there.

Natsu loved Fairy Tail, he loves all the people that he got to work with. He was pretty lucky to have such a great job.

One thing Natsu failed to understand, was why the café had to be open twenty four hours a day.

Sure, he could understand why other places were open that long. But a coffee shop? How did that make any sense? The customers that showed up at night were few and far in between. Most of the time, Natsu was able to just sit in the office and watch funny videos. He'd gone a full hour without a single customer stopping by before. At that point, it felt like they were losing money to the electricity that it took to keep the building lit and all the machines running.

Of course, the boss would never take any of his ideas into consideration. Especially if it had something to do with closing the store down.

"You'd be surprised, Natsu. Some people really need their coffee, who are we to deny those people just because they come a little bit later than most? Fairy Tail is open for everybody." Of course, Natsu could never really come up with anything half decent to say in reply to the old man.

He was right. Natsu just wished that he didn't have to be one of the third shift workers, he'd switch if there was anybody who was to work this kind of shift other than him.

Unfortunately, most people preferred the first and second shifts.

Which left him stuck with a certain droopy eyed bastard most of the time.

"Oi! Natsu, what the hell do you think you're doing?" Came an irritatingly loud voice from the headset that he was wearing, "There is a customer at storefront, you're right there. Take care of it!" Natsu grimaced and bit his tongue to keep from shouting back.

His annoying co-worker was right. There was a customer. The first in nearly thirty minutes, which wasn't really a surprise since it was nearing that 'dead' time of night. It was two o'clock in the morning, so it was too late for the night owls and too early for the morning birds.

The girl had long blonde hair and had a lock of it pulled up into a side-ponytail on the right side of her head, and chocolate brown eyes. the second Natsu saw her he had to force himself to not stare too long.

She was beautiful.

"Yo, what can I get ya?" Natsu asked as he poked at the cash register screen, making it look as though he actually had something else to look at other than her.

"Hello," the girl replied, her voice was surprisingly pleasant to the ear. "I'd just like a small black coffee with a shot of hazelnut please." Already she was pulling out a wallet from her jacket pocket, which drew Natsu's attention to her surprising choice of clothes considering the cool weather. Winter was fast approaching and she donned a shockingly short skirt and a fairly revealing top.

Granted, she did have on some warm looking leg-warmers and a thin denim jacket, though Natsu doubted that they really did much against the cold.

Before she could notice that he was staring, Natsu hastily punched in her order while mumbling her total and accepted the money when it was offered to him. With only a bit of fumbling, Natsu handed back her change and turned to work on her order. He actually had been looking forward to making this cup of coffee, both because it was such a simple request… and it was for such a cute girl.

But of course…

"Here you are," Gray said gruffly as he pushed Natsu aside and carefully placed the hot cup onto the counter so that the girl could grab it when she was ready.

She blinked in surprise before she looked up at Gray, a dazzling smile lit up her face as she laughed. "Wow, you guys are really fast here. I might have to come to this café more often." she waved a little before she turned and walked to one of the booths that was placed beside a window. She slid into it and pulled a pink laptop from the backpack that she'd been carrying.

When he finally stopped watching the customer, he turned a glare onto Gray who was looking at him with a knowing smirk on his face.

"What the hell man," Natsu glared daggers.

"What? Weren't you just complaining to me earlier about how I never help you out on storefront?"

"Yeah, when there is more than one person waiting in line."

Gray shrugged as if to say 'what can you do' before he sauntered off to take an order for the drive-thru when a low beeping sound in their headsets let them know that somebody had pulled up to the speaker outside.

The rest of the shift was surprisingly busy.

Well, not really busy. Though there was a somewhat consistent flow of people that came in wanting coffee.

Finally, six o'clock rolled around and some of the first shift workers were filtering in and getting ready for the morning rush. Though it wasn't until around six-thirty that he was allowed to actually leave, because the supervisor had been late in showing up. So the morning crew had needed him to stay a little bit longer.

The second he handed his headset over to Erza, the supervisor, Natsu happily ripped off his hat and headed towards the back so that he could put on his scarf and jacket.

Walking back towards the front of the store, Natsu punched out and he wasn't sure what made him look up. But when he did, he blinked in surprise.

The blonde from earlier was still there. She was typing away so furiously that Natsu was taken aback.

As if simply looking at her had somehow managed to catch her attention, the young woman glanced over and blinked when she noticed that he was watching her. When she saw that he looked as though he was ready to leave, her head whipped around and she looked closely at the computer.

"Six already?!" She exclaimed incredulously before she slammed her laptop shut and shoved it into her bag.

Natsu blinked, already?

"Geez, you could have said something you know!" The girl said as she approached him.

"H-hey! How was I supposed to know that you would lose track of time like that? You've been here for hours." Natsu said defensively as he shoved his hands into his jacket pockets and struggled to avoid her surprisingly fiery gaze. Although he wound up meeting her eyes anyway. "What were you doing that kept you from noticing the time?"

As though realizing their proximity, the girl's cheeks heated up as she took a few steps backwards. "N-nothing! Uh, bye!" she then ran off before Natsu could even begin to reply. He watched her go with amusement bubbling in his chest.

He had a distinct feeling that his midnight shifts were going to become a little bit more interesting.

x~x~x

By the time his next shift rolled around, Natsu was more agitated with the blonde customer than he was amused.

They had shared so few words, why was it that she was able to wiggle into his mind a couple times throughout the day? Natsu swiftly decided that he didn't like the invasion of his thoughts, so it was easy to decide that the blonde girl was an annoyance.

Despite coming to this decision, Natsu frowned when Gray brushed past him to the storefront when he noticed a somewhat familiar head of blonde hair enter the building.

"Hello again," Gray greeted with a lazy smile in place, "I see you weren't kidding about coming more often."

The girl smiled happily, "I decided that I like Fairy Tail more than I like Lamia Scale," she shrugged, "Lamia Scale isn't twenty-four seven so it really isn't a competition. I kinda like not having to be kicked out every night." She stuck out her tongue before she pulled out her wallet.

Gray's face twisted at the mention of one of their rival café shops, "You're definitely better off here, my brother works at Lamia Scale. He is pretty lame, Lyon Vastia? I'm sure you've seen the punk, he works second shift so he probably would have been one of the people trying to kick you out."

The young woman's eyes widened in surprise and she smiled happily, "Oh! Yeah, Lyon was actually very kind. He's the one who recommended Fairy Tail when I told him that I wished Lamia Scale was open later," she then tilted her head to the side a bit as a perplexed expression crossed her face, "You're brothers?" Her gaze moved to the nametag that was stuck to the right side of his shirt. "Gray? You two don't look anything alike. Though now that you mention it, I do kind of remember him talking about an 'annoying' younger brother..." she trailed off with a finger to her chin and Gray bristled.

"Thankfully we're not blood related, we were both adopted."

Lucy nodded in understanding, "Oh I see! That would certainly explain why he has white hair, and you have black." She laughed again, a musical sound that almost immediately made Natsu's jealousy over Gray's interaction with her double.

Gray laughed along with her, clearly affected by her laughter as well. "Alright, enough about all that. What can I get you…?" He trailed off, loading his first question with a silent second.

The blonde's cheeks heated up and she smiled shyly, "Lucy, my name is Lucy." she then pulled out some money, remembering her total from the day before. "I'd like a small black coffee with a shot of hazelnut, please."

Before the full request even left Lucy's mouth Natsu was moving.

"Its nice to meet you, Lucy." Gray said with a genuine smile on his lips before he put in her order and accepted her money when it became clear to him that she already knew her total. Before he could even put the money into the register, Natsu walked over and placed a cup of coffee onto the counter. An action that seemed to surprise both his co-worker and the customer.

"I remembered," Natsu said with a shrug, as though it wasn't a big deal. Though he felt the tightness in his chest relax a little when Lucy smiled at him.

"Thank you, Natsu." Lucy said happily, not even looking at his nametag. Something that surprised him quite a bit.

When she recognized his shock she winked as she picked up the cup of coffee, "I remembered." She laughed again before moving towards the booth that she'd sat in the night previous.

"Geez, I don't think I've ever seen you make a cup of coffee that quickly." Gray said when Lucy sat down, "If I didn't know any better I'd say that you-" before the blue-eyed young man could finish his sentence, Natsu elbowed him in the stomach. Hard.

"Shut up you asshole," Natsu hissed, through his cheeks burned. It was easy to guess what Gray was going to say. "She seems nice is all."

Gray seemed to be physically having a tough time restraining himself as he patted his slightly tender abdomen. "Yeah, sure. I'm absolutely going to believe that when you usually try and get away with doing as little work as possible." Gray rolled his eyes, though before he could say anything else on the matter, Natsu pushed a button on his headset and began to take the order of somebody who had just pulled up to the drive-thru.

Such a convenient way to get out of a specific conversation topic.

Unfortunately, that day was even busier than the day before. So Natsu didn't really have the chance to check in on Lucy until a couple hours later. It was five in the morning when he finally was given the opening to go and confront the girl.

Praying that a customer wouldn't walk in while he walked around the counter and made his way towards the blonde, Natsu took notice in the way that her fingers flew across the keyboard. Which drew his attention to the keyboard itself.

The keys were so worn that the letters were hardly visible on most of them, some were completely gone.

Clearing his throat, Natsu took silent pleasure in watching her jump. Clearly, she hadn't expected the interruption. She squinted up at him before frowning and leaning back against the back of the booth as she folded her arms across her… endowed chest. "What is it?" she questioned him, her annoyance clear in her tone.

For some reason, the annoyance bothered him and he felt a vein pop out in his forehead.

"What do you mean 'what is it'? You got mad at me earlier for not coming to tell you how late it was, so here I am. Telling you that it's late." He pointed to her computer screen and took notice in the fact that she had some kind of word document pulled up. "It's a little after five, are you sure you still want to be here?"

Lucy blinked before she groaned loudly and shut the laptop before he could get a really good look at what she was doing. "I don't know why I'm like this, thanks for telling me! I really should try and get here earlier so I don't stay so late." She shook her head as she stuffed her things into her bag and it was clear that she was frustrated with herself, "Or maybe I should set an alarm when I get here."

When she stood up, Natsu stepped back to give her more space and she smiled up at him despite her frustrations.

"Thanks for letting me know, sorry if I was a little crabby. I guess I should get a medium tomorrow, will you remember?" Before Natsu could reply, she was running off.

Lucy.

He would definitely remember.

YAY the first chapter of my first modern AU! I hope you guys liked it! Pleaseeee be sure to review and let me know what you think!