Lessons in Love » NaLu A.U.

chapter » twenty seven

Mistletoe was known for being toxic and deadly to even gods in some cultures, so Lucy had no idea why families like Erza's decided to string it up all around their house in strands of garland and multicolored lights.

Lucy kept on her gloves as she strung up the garland along the ceiling, to combat both the cold in Erza's temporarily heatless apartment and the scratchy texture of the strands. Plus, the eleven previous months of storage had a good bit of dust built up on the holiday decorations.

"I hate mistletoe." Gray announced in his usual pessimistic way. "It's totally tragic."

Lucy looked down at him mockingly. "Totally."

Gray whacked her thigh before feeding her more garland and another thumbtack to keep it up. "I'm serious. It had a history of death tolls."

She could only roll her eyes. "I seriously doubt people would kiss under it ritually if it was so scary. However, I do agree that it can be possibly unhygienic."

"However." Gray mocked her in return. "You know, in Norse mythology the god of love, Balder, was killed because the god of deceit threw a mistletoe dart at him."

Lucy was never much into mythology or theology. "God of deceit?" She stuck a tack in the wall to hang up the garland before moving down off her step ladder, shifting it a few feet to the left, and getting back up again.

"Loki."

She had to give him that look, that Erza-like motherly look. "Loki is the name of the deceitful? How fitting."

Gray snorted, clearly not in the mood to talk love. "Yeah, all because Balder's mom wanted him to be immortal. Except making him immune to mistletoe slipped her mind."

Lucy let a low whistle slip past her lips. "Talk about protective parenting."

Her raven haired friend nodded in agreement. "Also, mistletoe kills animals."

At that point, Lucy gasped and tossed down the rest of the garland to Gray, where he caught it in his arms in a messy heap. "Not the animals." She huffed sarcastically.

Lucy and Gray silently agreed to trade places - especially since Gray's arms were longer and grew tired less quickly. "How do you know all this, anyway?" Lucy handed him a thumbtack, to which Gray saved between his teeth.

Gray shrugged and stuck a loop of garland to the wall. "I'm majoring in history."

Lucy had never thought about what she expected Gray to be. Had she put some thought in to it, her first guesses would've been more along the lines of some physical and hands-on. "Really."

The pale young man pulled the tack from his teeth and stuck it in the garland strand. "I'm not a big fan of reality."

Lucy found herself just smiling up at him. She of all people could understand that. Even with knowing how miserable the past was most of the time, it was still a romantic thought of something other than now. Because now was not always very fun.

"Why again are we slaving to put up decorations for Erza?" Natsu walked up beside Lucy, a tin of homemade cookies in hand.

Without really thinking, Lucy just grabbed a cookie and held it up for Gray. He took it and chomped it between his teeth to keep his hands free for the garland stringing. However the male still had time to roll his eyes at Natsu.