A/N: I'M BACK! Work and personal things have kept me away, but I am BACK NOW! And hopefully this gets me going and it won't take me as long to continue updating. Haha.
This chapter is kind of short, but I wanted to explore a Cana/Natsu dynamic! So here you go.

"So what did she say then?"

Cana sat in her chair backwards, her ankles crossed under her. She looked expectantly at Natsu, who only scoffed in reply. He sat to her right, nearly hidden in the back of the shop. The light tracer was on, and he was bent dangerously close to the new drawing he was working on. Flowers were never his specialty, Cana knew, so this meant he'd needed to trace a good portion of the piece. But that didn't mean she had to sit quietly while he did so.

"Oh come on. You can't just leave out the good part! Tell me what she said. Or," she smiled then, the corner of her mouth pulled up in a lazy grin, "was it that bad? Is your pride too wounded to go on?"

At this, Natsu turned to face her, and Cana's grin only grew as he put his pencil down and gave her a look. His exasperation was apparent, and she knew she had won. She watched as he rolled his eyes, his head tilted to the side in a tired attempt to answer.

"No, Cana. My pride is not wounded, thanks. It all went fine. I just don't feel like sharing details." He turned back to the piece in front of him, shaking his head to himself. Cana leaned backwards, holding on to the backrest of the chair to keep herself from falling. She sat at an angle, leaning her head back to look at Natsu's client behind her.

"That's just another way of saying that they boned."

Cana could see the girl giggle a bit from her upside down view, and she cackled as she heard Natsu choke to her right. A lump began to form in her throat from her position, so she rolled her head to face her friend, who stared at her with an incredulous face.

"Cana! You can't just say things like that! We didn't even do anything!"

"Then why is your face two shades darker than your hair, Fireball?"

Natsu elected to ignore the question, turning (much too quickly, in Cana's opinion) back to the piece he was working on. She saw the tips of his ears turning pink as he bent farther over the paper to hide his face.

Cana straightened herself up and pushed off of the station in front of her. She rolled backwards in the chair, gliding across the floor in the direction of the mini fridge in the back corner of the shop, behind Natsu. She slid to a stop, pulling the door open with her foot. She grabbed a beer from the top shelf, humming along to the music floating throughout the speakers throughout the shop. Today was Cana's turn to choose the music, and she'd spent most of the day singing slightly off key and dancing slightly off kilter to the Pandora station she'd set. Beer in hand, she stood from her chair, moving behind Natsu and leaning onto him as he worked. She watched as he traced, admiring his work.

It was a beautiful piece, really. Full of flowers and colors and script at a level that Cana could only hope to reach one day. Sure, the flower designs weren't his, but she was impressed with the way he could take so many different photos from online and bend them into the exact vision he had in his head. He was a talented artist, and Cana had nothing but respect for him. (Whether or not she'd admit it was another story entirely.)

She brought her elbows up to rest on his shoulders, setting her chin on his head and her beer next to her cheek. It was quiet, save for Cana's humming, and they sat like that for a minute or two until she spoke.

"But joking aside, kid. It went well, right? You didn't get shot down?"

There was a genuine concern in her voice, and Natsu rolled his eyes at her attempt to be serious with him. He sat back as he finished the details on his sketch, and Cana stepped back to let him stand. "Yeah, it went fine. She got really excited and told me that she liked me too. She thought it was sweet that I learned to sign that for her."

Cana dragged her chair behind her as she followed Natsu across the floor to where his client sat. The girl's face lit up as Natsu handed her the picture, and Cana couldn't help but smile. "Make sure this is what you want? If there's anything you want changed let me know."

She practically fell into her chair, pulling herself up to Natsu's work station to watch him set up.

"Well that was pretty smooth, I will admit. Did you kiss her? Tell me you didn't miss out on that sweet opportunity."

Natsu's ears turned pink at the tips. Cana crossed her arms on top of the back of her chair, resting her chin on them as she looked at him, mouth falling open a bit as her eyebrows raised. Her beer hung loosely from her left hand, threatening to drop at any second.

"You totally made out."

"N-no! No. No, Cana, she kissed me on the cheek and left. That's it!"

Cana wiggled her eyebrows as she answered. "Yeah, right. Whatever you say, lover boy. Do you need any advice on how to please a girl, Natsu? I doubt you've had much practice."

The pink from Natsu's ears grew, travelling down his neck and dotting his cheeks.

"Shut up Cana! I've had tons of girlfriends!"

Cana laughed, lifting herself off of her chair for the second time and making her way towards the front of the shop.

"Yeah, right. I don't think kissing Lisanna under the jungle gym when you were 8 counts as 'a ton of girlfriends'." She popped the top of her beer, finally taking a sip. She stared out at the street in front of her, laughing at her own joke, thinking about how funny she was.

Natsu sputtered behind her, muttering about girlfriends and "having more than just one".

"Well anyway, it's about time you found someone. She must be pretty special if she got you to learn something, even if it was a simple sentence. Plus you never seem to shut up about her." Her eyes trailed after a couple across the street from the shop, walking hand in hand. The girl was leaning into the boy as they moved, laughing at something he had probably said. Her cheeks were red and his smile was soft. They looked happy.

Cana sighed.

"I'm happy for you, Fireball." Her voice was low; Natsu barely caught it over the sound from the speakers next to him. "And you know what? I'm pretty sure Igneel would be, too."

A heavy silence fell over the shop. Cana's eyes never left the couple across the street, her chest heavy. Even the music seemed to become softer, or was she just imagining things? She finished her beer in nearly three gulps, crushing the can in her hand and tossing it into the trashcan to her right. She didn't move from her place at the doorway as Natsu spoke.

"She's just... different. You know?"

Cana smiled to herself, rolling her eyes as she tore her gaze from across the street. She moved her attention to the people hailing cabs, and families making their way through the shops across the street. She spoke with her back to Natsu, her sarcastic twinge carefully layered back into her words.

"Yeah, okay every-romance-movie-ever-made."

Natsu snorted behind her. "No, like... Okay, yeah. That was pretty bad. But seriously, she's... She's just different. She's a genuinely interesting person, and she's just so nice. I've never met anyone like her, you know?"

"I don't," Cana shrugged, finally turning away from the street to face Natsu and his client, "to be completely honest. But that doesn't mean I'm not happy that you do."

Natsu said nothing, focusing on putting together his machine, and lining up the colors for his client. The room was quiet, save for the music that seemed to suffocate Cana as she moved further into the shop. She sighed, dropping into the chair by Natsu's station, running her hands through her hair and staring at the ceiling.

"Bacchus and I broke up."

Natsu's movements stilled, and his client shifted awkwardly in her chair. Cana'd never really had problems with discussing things with strangers, though, so she continued.

"There was no real substance there, ya know? We'd just drink and fuck and drink some more." She sighed, shrugging as she lowered her gaze from the ceiling. "Don't get me wrong, he was a good guy. But... There was never any time where I saw a future between us. And that sort of... bothered me."

Natsu hummed in acknowledgement.

"My point is, I think it's time I start thinking about my future. Like, a long term relationship that doesn't piss me off or make me miserable. And part of me, I think, is kind of jealous that it seems like you found that." Her eyes trailed to the floor, and a heavy silence fell over the room. But as quickly as it had come, Cana pushed it away again, sighing too loudly and shrugging her shoulders. "Well, maybe. I mean, it might be too early to tell since you can't even land a real kiss with the girl." Cana smirked, noticing Natsu's relief that the tension in the room had somewhat lifted.

"Yeah, well, it's only been a few weeks since we met. I don't want to just dive into things." He shrugged, his shoulders nearly touching his ears. He began pulling on a pair of latex gloves, stretching his fingers in order to stretch the glove over his hand, snapping it at his wrists. A smirk flashed across his face, eyes glinting as he turned to Cana. "Just because you've never taken things slow before, doesn't mean that others don't."

She responded with a laugh, more a bark than anything else. "I guess that's true."

Natsu laughed, starting up his machine and dipping it into the ink set out in front of him. He looked up at his client, grinning from ear to ear.

"Ready?"