Pancakes for breakfast.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's a pretty normal thing.

And for a moment, Lucy let herself believe it was a normal thing to make pancakes in the morning before work. But when someone came to stand behind her and peer over her shoulder as she stood at her stove, all of that normal went out the window. She kind of wished she could follow it. It wasn't really that far of a drop.

She went to flip the flat circles of dough when he grasped her arm. "Don't take them out, yet. You gotta wait 'til you see bubbles." There was a tone to his voice that Lucy wanted to slap out. It suggested that she was awfully stupid, and she should just know this information. Lucy yanked her arm away in silent protest.

She gave him the side eye. "You sure do know a lot about human stuff for a demon." It was an off-hand comment, and she wasn't really expecting an answer but when she sensed him stiffen beside her and fall silent, she placed the spatula down. "Did I say something wrong?"

E.N.D didn't say a word. He stared down at the pancakes almost in a trance. It was only when she pressed him with a soft, 'Hey,' that he snapped his eyes to her. "They're ready," he told her.

She nodded and sensed that he didn't want to talk about it, so she plated the pancakes and set the dirty pan in the sink to soak. By the time she had turned around, E.N.D had already settled himself at the breakfast table. He grimaced when she set a plate in front of him. "Where's the ice-cream?"

"I- I don't have ice cream?" Her voice rose a pitch at the end. The sentence served as a summary for all the things she wanted to ask. 'Ice cream? Why would a demon even know what ice cream is, let along need it to top of his pancakes?'

He stared at her for a moment before his features twisted in disgust again, but he picked up his fork and stabbed at the pate nonetheless. His other hand gripped the edge of his seat like he was trying to hold himself in place. "It's always something with you, isn't it?"

She scoffed as she sat down opposite him. "You're welcome."

Sarcasm was a defense tactic for Lucy, just as it had been for the majority of her life. She used sarcasm to fend off embarrassment when she was bullied in high school, she used it when she'd broken her arm as a child, asking the first responders if she looked alright when the ambulance driver asked her if 'aright' was how she felt. She used it when she was struggling through a particularly bad day, and she used it when she was afraid. She thought that was why she uttered the quick quip to E.N.D in response to his ungratefulness. Truth be told, Lucy was still petrified of him, but she cloaked herself in sarcastic humor just like she did with any other inconvenience in her life. She didn't feel the urge to run away anymore, because for some reason, she trusted him when he told her he wouldn't hurt her yet. Yet. Never had three letters felt so heavy before.

Lucy leant forward to take the maple syrup from under E.N.D's nose and hissed when the sleeve of her shirt brushed against the burn that he'd left her with. He noticed.

"You still haven't wrapped your burn?"

"I haven't," she said and picked at her plate with her good arm, thinking it better to choose her battles and settle for plain pancakes. Who needed all that extra sugar, anyway? Her injury was incredibly painful, there's no way she'd have forgotten about it. The slightest movement pulled the surrounding skin and served as a reminder. "I'll go to a doctor after work."

He stood up from the table. "Let me see it."

Lucy's eyes followed him as he moved to stand next to her. She turned her body towards him, refusing to let her guard down and the action wasn't unseen by him. The way her pupils dilated as she looked up at him through wide eyes made his stomach twist. What was that feeling just now? Guilt maybe? It had been so long, he'd forgotten what it felt like. He brushed it aside and knelt down so that her arm was right in front of him. E.N.D watched the skin for a while, before he said, "Still hurts." It wasn't a question.

Lucy went back to her pancakes. "It's fine. Finish your food."

"You still need to cover it. Wrap it or somethin'. It'll get infected if you leave it like that."

"Why do you care?"

He stood up. "I don't," he said, and there was no inflection in his voice. "It's just a fact. You humans are really weak when it comes to stuff like that. You're all soft and squishy. So weak, that a smack on the head will kill you if you're hit in just the right spot." He smiled to himself as if the thought amused him.

Collecting the now empty plates, Lucy shrugged. "Well, since you're the human expert, what do you think we should do?"

"Hmm, should we cut your arm off incase you have an infection and it spreads?"

Although his lips tweaked upwards with the comment, Lucy's walls went up even higher. Now she did turn her back to him, busying herself with the dishes so he wouldn't see the way her brows pulled together. "Um, I don't think that's necessary. We'll just Google it and see what we should do."

"Goggle? What's Goggle?"

"Google," Lucy corrected. "It's a search engine for the internet." When E.N.D fell silent, she decided she'd need to give a brief introduction to the internet, too. When she'd finished, the way the bob of his head didn't match his blank stare lightened her mood if only slightly. Sighing, she concluded, "It just is, alright?"

"I see," he replied with that same empty glare that spoke a thousand words. Not one of them coherent in the least.

Lucy decided that perhaps E.N.D was a visual learner, so she told him to wait while she went to her living room to collect her phone. With a quick search, she found a first aid article and read it to him before handing the phone over so he could see for himself. "It says we should wrap it in cling film. I think we should also use antibiotics, but it doesn't seem as bad as I thought it was last night. It should be okay by itself."

E.N.D wasn't even listening, the screen reflected in his onyx eyes. "Aha! So you are a witch!"

"No, E.N.D, I'm still not a witch. This is all the result of science and research. No magic or demons involved." Although Juvia might disagree with Lucy on that statement. Juvia was ever the conspiracy theorist, and firmly believed a secret society was to blame for internet and television and all sorts of media. According to her, media was a tool for the aforementioned secret society to enslave humanity. She held an outdated phone in order to protect herself from the perils of celebrity influencers and reality T.V. Lucy had tired to tell her that using a phone that couldn't receive an internet signal made her look like a drug dealer, but Juvia insisted that she would take that chance.

Lucy watched him toy with the phone, sliding his fingers across the screen as his eyes widened with every new window. "What else can it do?"

"Well, there's games but I don't really have any. You can download some to keep you company when I go to work, though."

E.N.D's expression morphed into a childlike display of excitement. "You'd let me keep it?"

She nodded. "Just for today. Tomorrow is Saturday and we'll use the free time to work out how to get you back home."

"Thanks' Lucy!"

Lucy smiled at that. She'd almost forgotten the very real fact that he could combust into flames at any given moment and burn down her entire apartment and her along with it. The threat was still there though, so she told him she needed to take a shower and rushed off into the bathroom.

E.N.D sat with his back to the bathroom door and looked up at the ceiling. He didn't know why she wouldn't let him come in with her. A few times he let the thought of just walking in on her roll around in his head, but the way her face beamed almost as red as his flames told him it wasn't a good idea. He's seen his fair share of naked women in his life-time and he couldn't imagine Lucy having anything that he hadn't seen before.

But alas, he'd agreed to give her his word. He wouldn't peek in on her and he'd simply wait for her to finish bathing. Lies were so common that they were almost a language where he came from, but when promises were made, they weren't taken lightly. Still, just because he couldn't see her didn't mean he couldn't talk to her.

"Lucy?" he called.

To his surprise, she'd heard him. "Yeah?"

"What kind of work do you do?"

"I'm an assistant," she replied. Her voice bounced off the tiled walls of her bathroom. E.N.D rubbed his ears. He had particularly sensitive hearing along with a particularly sensitive sense of smell. The way her voice echoed irritated him somewhere deep inside his ears. He didn't really mind the smell, though. Lucy used a shampoo that was fragranced with lavender, jasmine and some other flower he couldn't quite decide on. Either way, he thought it was nice.

"For who?"

"Um… for an editor of a pretty big online news source. Magnolia News." He heard the water stop. "I only graduated with a degree in journalism last year, so I had to settle for an entry job for now."

E.N.D stood up and turned to face the door. He could tell that Lucy was out of the shower. "So what's it like being an assistant?"

"Can this wait until after I'm dressed?"

His tone left no room for argument. "But I'm bored"

He heard her sigh, there was a bang somewhere in there and she muttered a curse. "Well, it's not that exciting, really. It's kind of just office administration stuff."

"Oh."

She opened the door just when E.N.D sensed she was standing on the other side of it. "I do get to do my own articles here and there." Lucy shrugged. "The other week I wrote one about cats. It wasn't big, but it was a start."

He looked down at her, standing there wrapped in a towel. Her blonde hair was secured in a bun atop her head to keep it away from the water, but some strands around her face clung to her skin. She'd dried herself for the most part yet she had a dewy glow to her, and E.N.D saw that her eyelashes clumped together from moisture. Truthfully, he grew tired of hearing about her job, but he continued with his questions simply because it was something to do. Something for him to focus on other than the way her towel was struggling for dear life stretched across her chest. He didn't know what to think of it, but he noticed it. "So, you want to go into journalism?"

Lucy nodded and moved past him into her bedroom. He tried to follow but was met with yet another door closed in his face. He didn't speak this time but chose to simply wait for her. When she emerged, she wore a black blazer, flats and trousers. The only thing that strayed from her midnight themed ensemble was a bright pink tank. Simple. In her hands she held a white T-Shirt. She instructed him to put it on and he didn't think anything of it. It was one of her boyfriend's. Adrian must have forgotten about it because it'd been sitting in her tallboy for weeks and he'd never mentioned it. Lucy was sure it would fit because Adrian was a pretty heavy set guy, earing a lot of his muscle from playing Football back in high school and he worked hard at the gym every afternoon to maintain it. Yet the shirt dwarfed on E.N.D. The fabric was stretched within an inch of its life and the crisp whiteness of it only made his chest musculature bulge out even more.

"I don't like this," was all he said as he twisted around trying to examine himself.

"It's all I've got," she told him. "You need to wear a shirt. What would my boyfriend think if he came by unannounced?"

E.N.D opened his mouth to reply but the smirk dancing on his features told her she'd rather not heed his opinion. She handed him the phone, just as she'd promised, told him to wait for her and realized she was running 10 minutes behind her usual schedule. She didn't even bid E.N.D goodbye.

Lucy left for work in such a rush that she'd barely even ran a brush through her hair. Her workplace wasn't really that far from her residence, but she'd still had to brave a train, just as she did every morning. The building was tall and sterile and she sighed as she stood before it, craning her neck up to take in the place. Usually, she'd hated the sight of it. While she knew she had to work on the bottom for a while because she was fresh out of university, she chose this career simply because she wanted to escape a nine to five office job. She recalled a younger Lucy who wanted to see the world and whose greatest fear was the mundaneness of it all. But her dreams were yet to materialize, and she only hoped that all her hard work would pay off one day. So yes, it wasn't unusual for Lucy to hate the sight of the building, but today she relished in it. Today, it gave her a sense of normalcy that she'd been craving ever since the unexpected turn of events that occurred only a few hours ago.

She stroked a crinkle out of her skirt and went inside. She didn't bother to greet the receptionist, as she'd quickly learnt that she wouldn't receive any acknowledgement in return if she did, and went straight for the elevator where she selected the 14th level.

When Lucy finally found her cubicle, her breath caught in her chest when she found her boss sitting in her seat.

Mr. Bowen was a short man and the same could be said of his temper. He wore extremely expensive suits and the brand of his watch was easily recognizable. Lucy had sometimes pondered on the discrepancy between his professional presentation and his backwards way of speaking. To be quite frank, Mr. Bowen was terribly socially inept and Lucy wondered why his parents hadn't bothered to teach him basic manners.

"Sir," she greeted and tried to will the sweat back into her pores.

"Lucy," he replied and stood. His head barely cleared her shoulders, but his presence was towering despite that. "Late again, I see? This is the third time in the last two weeks."

She almost stumbled over herself as she proceeded to vomit a slew of apologies and explanations. "Sir, forgive me! Life has been so stressful! It's really not my fault, the trains have been lagging lately." It was the truth. Mostly. The trains had been lagging. But for what Lucy's luck was worth, which apparently wasn't much, todays' train had been right on time. Lucy hadn't, thanks to E.N.D, so she'd had to catch the second one.

"Then perhaps look into getting a car?" His eyebrow raised.

'I would if you paid me anything above minimum wage,' she thought. But she didn't voice it. Instead, she said, "Yes sir, that's a good idea."

"You really haven't been doing enough around here for me to excuse this tardiness, have you?"

'Well, you don't really give me much of an opportunity, do you?' she thought as her mind flitted through war flashbacks of filing cabinets. Honestly, if Lucy was doing all of this receptionist work, what even was the real receptionist getting paid for? "Yes Sir, I'll try to do better."

Suddenly, the phone on her desk buzzed. She ducked her head to show her remorse and Mr. Bowen nodded.

"Hello?" Lucy asked.

"Miss Heartfilia?"

"Yes, who is speaking?" The person on the other end informed Lucy that it was the downstairs reception calling and Lucy was surprised because reception had never had a reason to phone her before. "Yes, yes. How can I help you?"

"There's someone downstairs asking for you. He won't give me his name but he's urging that it's an emergency. I can't send him up without verifying him, so would you come down?"

How strange. In all her time working for Magnolia News, she'd never had a visitor. "Yes, right away," she replied and hung up.

Lucy briefly explained the situation to her boss and he told her he would be lenient, but she'd have to make it quick. So Lucy didn't even think when she rushed back to the elevator. It was only when she'd gotten inside and the doors slid closed that the sudden realization dawned on her. A man downstairs asking for her? An emergency? Could it be Adrian? No, Adrian would call her work line directly if it were something so important that it couldn't wait until after she'd finished for the day. Oh God, it couldn't be?

But when the doors finally slid open again on the ground floor, Lucy realized that it very well could be.

No. Not at her workplace.

No, no, no, no.

NO!

There, leaning against the reception desk and glaring at the woman manning it, stood E.N.D. Shirtless, as it would seem he'd shed the T-Shirt she'd given him this morning.

"Lucy!" he yelled when he laid eyes upon her. "I need your help!"

When E.N.D admitted to needing help, Lucy's embarrassment took a backseat for a second. She rushed over to him. "What's wrong?"

He thrust the phone in her face. "Lucy, there's infant dragons trapped in this lacrima. We need to free them!"

"What?"

It was all she could stutter. He pushed closer to her. "Here!"

Lucy took the phone and almost fell over in disbelief. E.N.D had somehow managed to download a game where the objective was to raise and breed dragons. She glanced up at him through thick lashes, then back to the phone. She studied his eyes for any sign of humor, wondering if this was some kind of joke, and then to the purple dragon on her screen, Up again, and back down again.

"We have to get them out, Lucy! The dragons have been extinct for millennials!"

"Sir," asked the receptionist, her neck straining to get her ears into the conversation.

He waved her off. "No now, woman."

"This really isn't the place for you to be, could this maybe wait until Miss Heartfilia is on her break?"

Lucy ignored her and shoulders slumped, she turned away to walk back to the elevator. This was not the time. She'd just barely escaped being chewed out by her boss and she just didn't have the energy to deal with him at the moment.

The receptionist called to him again. "I'm sorry Sir, but you need to leave."

E.N.D turned to the receptionist and his eyes just barely hid the flames of fury that Lucy could just feel were building up inside him. Lucy cleared the floor in two leaps and laid a hand upon his shoulder. "Brad," she began, and the unfamiliarity of the name caught his attention. Or maybe it was because this was the first time she had willingly touched him. She wasn't sure. "It's okay. Just go back home and wait for me there."

And just like that, the rage was back again. "Wait for you? Wait for you?! What exactly do you think this is, Lucy? A game?"

The receptionist interrupted again, and this time that friendly tone to her voice had vanished. "I'm calling security." She picked up the phone and started talking into the mouthpiece, but Lucy couldn't hear what she was saying. All she could do was watch as E.N.D threw her phone to the ground and crushed it under his boot. "E.N.D!" She was distraught, the alias slipped her mind in that moment. "My phone!"

E.N.D's shoulders were squared as he stared down at the pile of broken glass and plastic. He stared for a while, long enough for the elevator behind them to open and reveal two security guards. "Where's the dragons," he asked, not able to tear his eyes away from the phone. "Lucy, what have you done with them?"

Lucy balled her fists at her sides and puffed her cheeks. "There are no dragons! It's an app. They're not real!"

He opened his mouth to reply, but he was startled into silence when the security guards closed in on him. "Let's go, buddy," the taller one started.

E.N.D spun around so fast Lucy was sure he teleported. "And who are you?"

The shorter guard shook his head, dismissing the question. "Doesn't matter," and he gripped E.N.D's wrist. In the next instant, Lucy almost felt sorry for the guard.

Lucy felt the room get hotter, but the temperature dropped as quickly as it had risen. Most likely because E.N.D still retained enough wits to know that showing off his demon abilities in a place with witnesses and security cameras wasn't a good idea. He still had a good old fashioned right hook up his sleeve, though.

The receptionist screamed and dove for cover under her desk. The guard stumbled backwards and fell into the other. He would have gone over if his comrade didn't grip him under the arms and pull him up. Once stable, the guard came back with a vengeance. E.N.D's fists came up in front of his face, but Lucy wrapped a hand around one to stop him. "Brad," she started. "Please don't. If you get arrested, it's going to throw a spanner in the works for us."

He just scoffed and shook her hand off. He went to swing again, but the sound of someone clearing their throat behind them had him putting on the breaks. All four of them turned, distracted.

Mr. Bowen stood in the foyer with his hands to his head.

" !" Lucy squeaked. She hadn't intended to sound like that. "It's not what it looks like."

He stepped forward and instructed he guards to stand down. E.N.D dropped his fists.

"Really, because it looks like your friend here just punched one of my guards."

E.N.D was the first to defend himself. "Well your guards came at me for no reason." He folded his arms across his chest defiantly.

The tiny man ignored him. "Lucy, I can't have this kind of threat around the workplace, you must know that. I'm sorry but you're just not valuable enough to this company for me to turn a blind eye to this."

"But, Sir!"

"No, Lucy. This has been a long time coming, young lady." Lucy cringed at his condescension. "You're fired."

She gripped his hand but he pulled away. "Please! I'll do anything, it's not my fault!"

Tears pooled at the corner of her eyes, threatening to burst through and down her cheeks. She blinked hard to try to keep them at bay. A heavy hand came to rest on her shoulder and startled her out of her hysteria.

"Lucy," said E.N.D, eyes locked with Mr. Bowen. "Begging doesn't suit a Heartfilia."

He had unknowingly become a diversion for her fury. "Shut up! She told him. "Just shut up! This is all your fault."

E.N.D reeled back, placing his hand back at his side. Through her blurry, teared vision she almost thought she saw hurt in his eyes, but he composed himself, his stare off with Mr. Bowen not ceasing. Lucy released a breath and walked away defeated, knowing better than to leave a fire demon in a battle of wills with her ex boss. Mr. Bowen turned, wordlessly, and Lucy was grateful for his cowardice. If the last few hours were anything to go off, E.N.D would have probably stood there until the world crumbled to ash and dust.

"Come on," she said. "Let's go home." Silently, E.N.D followed.

Hey guys! I'm sorry for all my typos. It seems that no matter how many times I proof read, they always slip through. Like in the first chapter, I called a 'contract' a 'contact'. No letter R. How crigey. Eh. Anyway, sorry if this chapter was boring. I need to set things up before I get to the slow burn NaLu stuff. I love me some NaLu.