Normal P.O.V.
The council called Lucy and Cobra in for another talk at 10am. It lasted for two hours, and then they sent Lucy and Cobra to another room to fill out more forms. Cobra sat there bored, and tried to restrain himself from throwing scrunched up pieces of paper at Lucy. Tried and failed. He flicked another piece of paper at Lucy, whose eye twitched in anger.
-flick-
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"Will you stop that!" Lucy yelled at the bored dragon slayer. Cobra shrugged and looked away and Lucy went back to the enormous pile of paperwork. She was starting to understand how Master Makarov felt when Natsu went and destroyed everything on a mission and he had to fill out a ton of paperwork. It was hideous. Lucy felt like she never wanted to see a pen again, and she was only half way through! She was also ridiculously hungry. It was now almost 3pm, and Lucy hadn't had time for lunch before starting on the paperwork. She now had another three hours of paperwork left and had no idea how she was supposed to complete it when she was so hungry. Lucy worked for another half hour before throwing her pen at the wall.
"Oh screw this! I'll do it tomorrow." Lucy said as she pushed her chair backwards and stood up. "I need something to eat!" Erick nodded his head and stood up too, then the pair of them walked out, leaving the other two and a half hours of paperwork unfinished. They would probably just give her another ton of the damn stuff tomorrow anyway.
"Where are we headed?" Erik asked, Lucy rolled her eyes at him.
"To get food, duh!" Lucy said as they snuck through the hallways of the council.
"Why are we sneaking out?" Erik whispered.
If they find us, they'll send me back to do more paperwork, and I'm damn well not doing it! Lucy shouted in her mind, making sure to drop her mental barrier so that Erik could hear her. Erik nodded his understanding, he knew he wouldn't have been able to get through half as much paperwork as Lucy had.
The two of them finally made it down into the city, and looked around for some place to eat. Lucy wanted pasta, but all the restaurants in the vicinity were the kind that sold pretty much everything other than pasta. Using Erik's nose, they soon located a quaint little restaurant that sold pasta. Lucy couldn't be happier with the find. She loved pasta, maybe not as much as Erza loved cake, but she still loved it. The two of them stepped into the restaurant, and a waiter came to lead them to a table. They were seated in a booth near the back, with a clear view of the door, which meant that Lucy would be able to escape easily. It had become a habit of hers to always look for escape routes, especially when she was with Fairy Tail mages, they tended to cause trouble.
Erik and Lucy were soon enjoying their delicious pasta. Though Erik did seem slightly annoyed at the noise in the place, which Lucy thought was understandable. Having sensitive ears like him must be very bothersome at times, but then again, it would be rewarding at others. After they ate, Lucy payed for their food, and the two left, looking for something to entertain them before they had to head back to the council headquarters. They wandered around aimlessly chatting about the random things they saw. The two of them ended up back in the park they had been to the other night, and there, they saw a familiar face.
Former council member and Fairy Tail mage, now chef, Yajima sat on one of the benches facing them as they entered the park. Yajima waved to the pair as they drew closer to him, and Lucy waved back.
"Hello Yajima-san it's been a while." Lucy called out happily to the wizened old mage.
"Hello Lucy, and who is your friend?" Yajima asked the blonde girl.
"Yajima-san this is Erik, Erik this is Yajima-san." Lucy introduced the two males.
"Nice to meet you young man," Yajima stated.
"Nice to meet you too," Erik replied.
"Now, answer me this. How do the council members spell trouble?" Yajima asked a very confused Erik.
"T-R-O-U-B-L-E?" He spelled it out with a frown on his face. Erik had no idea where this was going, as he couldn't read the old man's thoughts.
"I see. Well, you two take care now. And give my regards to Makarov." Yajima said as he jumped down from the bench waving to the duo.
"Goodbye Yajima-san. I'll be sure to tell Master." Lucy replied waving to the chef. Lucy and Erik wandered around a while more, before returning to the council headquarters to have a decent sleep.
Lucy P.O.V.
Lahar wasn't very impressed with me today. He had a good rant about how paperwork was important, and blah, blah, blah, blah. Apparently there was still a huge amount of paperwork left. Doranbolt finally managed to shut Lahar up, and I was able to get on with the rest of the paperwork. It was our last day in Era, we would be heading back to Magnolia on the 8am train tomorrow. And I honestly couldn't wait to get home.
Lahar oversaw my filling out of the paperwork so that I couldn't sneak out like I had the previous few days. I sighed softly as I continued to write and I could hear Erik slouching about. You wouldn't think that I would be able to hear him, but the chair kept creaking as he moved around in it.
"Hey Lucy?" Erik asked me. I flicked a look in his direction before continuing writing.
"Hmmm?" I acknowledged him.
"I was wondering why Yajima-san seemed disappointed with my response a few nights back." I stopped writing at his question and straightened my posture. Looking around the room I saw that Lahar and Doranbolt were still here watching us.
"Ne, Doranbolt?" I asked, not answering Erik.
"Yes?" Doranbolt said.
"How do you spell trouble?" I asked him. He, Erik and Lahar blinked at me before Doranbolt an understanding look flashed through his eyes.
"With a capital F," Doranbolt stated with a smirk. I could see Lahar and Erik's confused looks.
"A" I said.
"I" Doranbolt said.
"R" I chirruped.
"Y" Doranbolt declared.
"T" I smirked.
"A" Doranbolt winked.
"I" I yelled.
"L" Doranbolt yelled too, laughter colouring his voice. Lahar looked miffed and Erik sat there slightly shocked.
"I swear you've been rehearsing that." I heard Erik mutter. I laughed and continued on with my paperwork, wanting nothing more to finish the damn stuff. Several hours later and I was finally finished the paperwork. Huzzah! Lahar and Doranbolt allowed us out of the room where we were completing the paperwork. Erik and I hastily left council headquarters, not wanting to hang around in case they found me more paperwork to do.
-shudder-
I felt so sorry for Master Makarov, he probably had to do even more than that every week. Poor guy.
It was only 4pm so we decided to just wander around for a while; there was nothing better to do anyway. We ended up in a magic shop and I looked around for a while.
"Excuse me ma'am, do you have any celestial gate keys?" I asked the Lady behind the counter.
"I'm sorry dear, but we don't." She said.
"Oh, I see, well, bye then," I said, my disappointment obvious, Erik and I then left the shop.
We continued to walk around the city. Just enjoying being out and not stuffed into a cramped cubical full of paperwork. The walk seemed peaceful and quiet to me, but to Erik it was probably a different story. It would have to be annoying hearing as much as he did. Everyone's voices must be so loud if he can hear thoughts.
"Ne Erik, does it get annoying?" I asked him.
"What?" Oh right, he can't hear my thoughts.
"Hearing everything, people's thoughts and all that. Doesn't it get annoying?" Erik was silent for a while as we walked, considering the question.
"Yes, it does get annoying sometimes. But I'm used to it." He replied. I nodded my head in understanding; he was 24 so he had definitely had time to get used to it.
My mind started to wander back to seven years ago, when I had first met Erik. Met probably wasn't the right word, it was more, being attacked by him and the other Oracion Seis members. I remember thinking that he was kind of cute, and that it was a pity that he was from a dark guild. Glancing at him from the corner of my eye, I noticed that he still had that same charm that had first made me consider him as cute. And the scar across his eye, made him look even more handsome. I had an overwhelming urge to touch the scar tissue of his eyelid, but I held myself back. It seemed a little bit too personal to do something like that when I didn't really know him.
I was yanked out of my thoughts by the sound of Erik growling in anger, and at first I thought he had heard my thoughts and was annoyed at me. But then I noticed that he had stopped and was staring at a group of about five males. I looked at him confused, not knowing what they had done to anger the poison dragon slayer. His low growl sounded again and I noticed that he had clenched his fists. He seemed to by trying hard not the punch the shit out of them. What is it Erik? I asked him in my thoughts, allowing my mental barrier down for a while. Erik shook his head and started walking again, trying to ignore the males, however he continued to clench and unclench his fist.
Erik's eye was narrowed, as we continued to walk towards the males on our way past them, and he made sure that he was between me and them. I could only assume that whatever that had said or thought was not complimentary. The group of males pushed themselves away from the wall that they had been lounging on as we drew closer. A warning growl slid up Erik's throat, and I could honestly say that I was glad it wasn't directed at me. Another growl followed the first, though this one was louder and rumbled in his chest more.
The situation we were in was very fragile. I couldn't allow Erik to fight the males, or the council would retract Erik's freedom, and he would probably be put under house arrest. I could fight them myself, with the help of my spirits, but if they were mages, I would be in an even worse situation. All I could hope for was that we wouldn't end up in a confrontation with them.
"Hey look, it's the little spirit slut." One of the men called out, his voice a drunken slur even though it was only 5pm. An angry growl ripped its way out of Erik's throat, and he cocked back his fist and slugged the guy in the face. It was a nose breaker, and an instant K.O. Well shit. The councils not going to be happy about this. One of the other guys leaped at Erik from his right side, hoping to get in a hit on his blind side. Erik spun round to meet him, as his hearing told him what he needed to know, and punched him in the gut. The guy doubled over, winded, and stumbled back as I threw a 'Lucy kick' at him.
The other three males took a step back, seeing how easily their two friends had been defeated. Two of them scrabbled forward to grab their fallen friends and leg it, whist the other stupid one tried to punch me. I leaned to the side out of the way of his punch, and delivered a 'Lucy kick' into his side. He yelled a lot of colourful swear words at me, which were drowned out by his howl of pain as Erik punched him in the face. The guy stumbled back and landed on his ass, then awkwardly scrabbled away from the two of us.
I sighed heavily and checked to see if Erik was okay. Both of us were fine, which was good, because it would have been hell to explain that we got in a fight to the council. We both agreed not to mention it, and if the council found out, I'd say it was just me. Even though Erik didn't agree with me telling them that it was only me, he knew that if the council found out he was starting fights he would most likely end up back in prison. We decided to head back to the council, not wishing to run into any more drunks. Even doing paperwork was better than fighting drunks. Not that I would ever admit that out loud.
"Why am I always a magnet for trouble?" I sighed, asking nobody in particular.
"Because you're a Fairy Tail mage?" Erik said in a questioning tone.
"That sounds about right." I replied as we trudged tiredly up the hill to the council. Well I trudged tiredly anyway; Erik didn't seem tired at all, which made sense really, because it was only 6pm, and he hadn't really done much today compared to me.
After navigating the corridors, we finally made it back to our room. I flopped onto my bed and lay there unmoving. Erik bustled around in the kitchen, cooking up some food for us. It was starting to smell really delicious, but sleep claimed me before I could eat.
AN: I was meant to have this up yesterday, but I have been so busy looking after my friends kids, and I didn't have time to finish it. I was also baking cookies! yay ^_^
Remember to vote for which oneshot pairings you would like! the poll closes at the end of the month!
I'll try and update my other stories soon, but no promises!
