the light will be ours

Erza picked up the leaflet and examined the fine print.

"This sounds like a fair option," she mused. "What do you think, Lucy?"

"Split four ways doesn’t cover my rent," she sheepishly replied.

"Five ways!" Happy chimed in, much to Lucy’s chagrin.

Before Lucy could sink her teeth into the sniggering exceed, Erza interrupted with her pick.

"I picked up a retrieval job—280,000 jewel to clear out a cave of monsters and reclaim a set of gemstones in there," she explained. "High risk, but high reward."

Lucy hummed in soft affirmation, her eyes sparkling at the prospect of such a high reward. Before she could get too carried away, she glanced over at her partner, hanging onto her side.

"What do you think, Natsu?"

Natsu, who had clearly not heard a word come out of Erza’s mouth, simply grunted in response. He seemed much more occupied grazing his lips over the exposed skin of her shoulder. Lucy felt a light blush dust her cheeks when she became aware of what he was doing. Just because she was used to his affections didn’t mean she would ever stop being flustered by them. But seeing as he was doing no harm beyond making her a little flustered, she let him be and tried to draw her attention back to the rest of the table.

"What’d you pick out?" Gray asked, trying to ignore their teammate’s lack of social awareness.

"Well, I- um-" she stuttered out, trying to maintain composure as she became hyper-aware of the sear of his lips on her skin. "This one’s a few towns over, but-" Her breath hitched as she felt him trailing slowly up her skin.

He paused for a moment, seemingly finding purchase in the dip between her shoulder and neck, and Lucy found herself able to relax now that he had stopped his upward trail.

"They’re looking for a group to help them with, ah-!"

She was cut off when she felt Natsu press a light kiss to her shoulder, which made her jolt in surprise. Gray and Erza both regarded them with strange looks that Lucy simply tried to ignore as she gently swatted Natsu away from her. He begrudgingly shifted his attention away and rested his chin on her shoulder.

"Sorry… I, um- what was I…?"

Her hands shook slightly as she glanced back down at the piece of paper that she had torn off the request board. The words were beginning to blur together, and suddenly she felt hot. Sucking in a breath, Lucy glanced up at her teammates faces and saw them looking back with expectant gazes. Natsu wasn’t even doing anything anymore, but the absolute mortification of him doing something like that in public had fully settled in. Determined not to make a scene, however, Lucy tried to quickly move on.

"It’s- um… monsters, or, er- no! Bandits, I think…"

She still couldn’t quite make out the words on the paper, so she simply had to rely on her memory from when she read it the first time—which was slowly beginning to grow hazy on her.

"Do you guys need a room or something?" Gray said, his uncomfortable gaze flicking between her and Natsu, attached to her side.

"No!" Lucy cried out in embarrassment, capturing the attention of the group at the table next to them, to which she offered a sheepish and apologetic smile. "No, we’re- I’m fine."

He looked sceptical, but Lucy was not about to let Natsu’s inappropriate affections come between her and making rent on time this month.

"There’s been a group of bandits targeting a small town, and-" She swallowed thickly as she felt Natsu’s warm breath on the back of her neck. "And they’re looking for a group of wizards who can help th-! Natsu!"

What little composure left in her body was swiftly drained away as she felt her partner press his lips to her neck with no regard for the circumstances or surroundings. Instinctively, Lucy smacked Natsu’s arm in an attempt to swat him away, no longer trying to maintain any subtlety when it became clear that he had none. She could hear his cackling as she buried her face in shame, hiding her cherry-red cheeks from the rest of the team in her mortification.

"If you two need some time alone, we can always reconvene later," Erza awkwardly suggested, averting her gaze from the duo and their one-sided public display of affection.

"No!" Lucy all but shouted. "N-no! We’ll just take the job you picked. Is that okay with everyone?" She asked, her words coming out fast and leaving no time for reply. "Great! I’ll let Mira know!"

With that, Lucy grabbed the flyer off of the table and stormed off in Mira’s direction, gaze down so far that she was practically only seeing her feet in an attempt to maintain any shred of dignity.