The Family We Choose
When Lucy proposed that—that abominable dare, she simply could not control herself anymore. Her pride was on the line, after all. She drew her sword with a flourish, and pointed it right between Gray's eyes.
"Naughty children should be punished," Erza said darkly.
Lucy and Gray kept straight faces for about half a second, before flopping off the table and giggling wildly. Erza glared them into submission. It worked better in her head.
"Oh, yes," Lucy shrieked hysterically, "Punish us, Erza, punish us."
The double meaning was trying to sink in. It really was. She just refused to acknowledge it. Her expression was quickly shifting to Supreme Ice Princess, and she was most definitely, absolutely, not blushing. "I refuse to associate myself with such idiocy," she said, with as much dignity as she could possibly muster, and made her grand exit.
"—Do you think we should tell her that her skirt's tucked into her underwear?"
Erza promptly smashed into the doorframe. Her former best friends again collapsed into heaps of giggles. She mentally blacklisted them and swore to never, ever speak to them again. So long as she may live.
"—Are you paying?" one of the waiters demanded. His eyes strayed somewhere lower than they should have been. Erza very subtly pointed multiple swords at his throat.
God, today sucked.
"Fine," she hissed, and yanked her skirt's hemline down, before fishing through her pockets. What had at first been mere uncertainty quickly grew to outright alarm, as her hands came up empty.
She took a very steadying breath.
Gray and Lucy exchanged smug looks.
"I need to borrow some money," Erza said through her teeth. She was smiling. No, really, she was.
The two of them looked pensive. "Well," Lucy conceded, "I supposed I could help a friend."
Her chest loosened infinitesimally. And then she remembered that she'd eaten Gray's ice-cream last week, and by the look on his face, he seemed to have remembered too.
"On the condition," he added hastily, "That you carry out that dare."
The waiter was looking impatient. Lucy was looking rather giddy. Gray seemed entirely to smug at his self-proclaimed cleverness, and Erza was contemplating a quick, albeit painful death.
"Don't be so dramatic," Lucy rolled her eyes, "It's Natsu, be probably won't even care."
She wasn't sure how to react to that statement, but knew it required some objection, and had just opened her mouth to do so, when the waiter cut in, "Look, if you aren't going to pay, then just get out."
Her jaw set. If there was thing Erza knew, it was responsibility.
"Fine," she hissed, and stomped moodily out, hearing the clatter of gold coins behind her.
She was just going to get it over with. Really. Really, it wasn't such a—
It took her fifteen minutes to find Natsu. It said something about her character, that her furious determination had not ebbed in even the slightest.
"Erza! Fight m—"
"You had better appreciate this," Erza snarled, and yanked her shirt up, did a very fast count of three, and whirled around.
The entire street was gaping, either in lust, or in shock. Her face was trying to match her hair, and Natsu's mouth had fallen slightly open. "Oh." He said, in a rather high pitched voice.
"Did you get the pictures?"
"I won't have to pay rent for a month!" Lucy crowed, and screeched when Gray tried to take the camera from her. Erza simply hid her face in her hands. There was no way. There was just no way.
She was so taken by her own mortification, that she didn't even notice the dull, fleshy smacking noise Natsu's body made when he hit the ground unconscious.