A/N: So, considering it's one of my top three ships for FT, I don't write nearly enough CoLu as I feel I should be. But, to be honest, the only reason I don't is because I don't really think I'm good at writing Cobra. To me, he's just… He's one of those characters that I feel like, if you don't get him right, then there's no point of writing him at all. He's a tricky character to write, but god, do I love him. So much.

Anyway. Between working on BixCo Week stories, and the next chapter of Adventures in Step-Parenting, I've been writing a lot of my favourite salty dork lately. And with CoLu Week drawing closer, I got this urge to write some CoLu for a change.

Now, for anyone curious, I won't be participating in CoLu Week. I just… didn't really get anything from the prompt this year, and I also don't really have the time to do it since uni has just gone back and I'm trying really hard to stay on top of things this semester. That being said, I'll admit this little fic is vaguely based on the "Blossom" prompt. But… I didn't really want it to be a CoLu week thing. I don't even know.

Springtime had reached Fiore's shores, and in Crocus, the purple flowers that happened to share the capital's name were blooming in every garden, field, and window planter. It was a sight to behold, and in the last few years, it had brought in thousands of people from all over the continent, just so they could see the famed fields of purple with their own eyes.

In the city, however, it was the cherry trees that were most abundant. In every street, and in the main parks, the scenic trees with the pink and white flowers all started to bloom at once, and with the petals already slowly falling to the paved avenues, Crocus was often the perfect place to holiday with a loved one.

That was why Erik had taken Lucy there that spring. He personally didn't see the appeal in any of it, but he remembered Lucy having said how she'd love to see it in person one day, right after they'd done a poetry piece on it in a literary magazine she'd been subscribed to at the time. The trees hadn't been planted until after the city had been nearly all but destroyed by four-hundred-year-old dragons from the past, and when Lucy had been living there, they'd been all but tiny tree stems in their supportive cages.

They'd only been in Crocus for an hour by the time Lucy had dragged him out of their small motel room and onto one of the main streets running through the city. He'd tried convincing her to just wait until the morning, or at least until after they'd eaten something since it had been such a long trip to get there (and one that Erik had hated every second of), but Lucy had insisted on seeing the trees as soon as possible. 'Sunset is the best time of day to see them,' she'd told him. And Erik just hadn't had a hope in hell of getting her to change her mind.

He hadn't really wanted to, either.

So now here Erik was, with Lucy's fingers intertwined with his as she dragged him through the crowded streets.

When Erik had started thinking about taking Lucy to Crocus to see the cherry trees, he'd expected how horrible it would be for himself to actually go. Crowded places just weren't his thing. He avoided them whenever he could. When he was in Magnolia, which was more often than not those days, he would visit Fairy Tail in search of Lucy as little as possible. But being around people just made him uncomfortable. It was painful a lot of the time, too, especially in big crowds. He could hear everything, and most of the time, Erik couldn't ever shut it off. It was just always like that.

But even on the quiet side-streets, Erik was beginning to realise just how much he'd underestimated how horrible it would be. He could barely hear his own thoughts over everyone else's. Even Lucy's were drowned out.

The throbbing in his head from hearing all there was to hear only grew worse as they got closer to one of the main streets – the one connected to the town square. It was so painful that Erik was almost tempted to pull his hand free and tell Lucy to go without him, and that he'd just wait for her in their room so she could tell him just how beautiful the flowers on the trees looked at that time of day.

But Erik didn't do that. He'd had other motives for taking Lucy to Crocus, other than to just do something nice for her for a change. So, he persevered, only wincing every time a new, loud voice was heard, and doing his best to drown out his own growing inner voice that tried to convince him that Lucy really would understand if he told her he'd wait up for her.

When they finally made it, Erik had seen the awe on Lucy's face when she'd looked up to the pink canopy, the soft yellows and oranges of the sunset peeking through the flowers and casting everything in a warm glow. "It's so beautiful…" Lucy whispered. She'd never seen anything quite like it. Not even the glowing sakura trees in Magnolia were quite as serene as the blossoming trees before her.

Erik still didn't see it. They were just trees to him. But he hadn't gone there for his own benefit. Not really, at least.

Lucy let go of Erik's hand to wander carefully through the busy street. There were lanterns hanging from a single rope running the length of the street, and they flickered softly already, lighting up the pink flowers from below. Erik just followed her silently, only lifting a hand to rub at his nose when it started to each all of a sudden.

"Erik, look at this!" Lucy had found an empty bench to sit on, and she held up a carving knife attached to a chain for Erik to see. It was for tourists to mark their visit; to leave just a little piece of themselves behind for everyone else to see. All of the other benches, and even the wiry tree trunks, were covered in the small carvings. Most were just initials, others were crude messages or drawings. "What do you think?"

Erik sneezed, biting the tip of his tongue, before he could respond. He sniffled before managing in a stuffy voice, "What do you mean?"

"Do you think we should do it?" Lucy asked. Erik only shrugged as he rubbed his nose again – the itch was getting near unbearable. Lucy scoured the woodgrain carefully to find a spot big enough to mark her visit. She found an empty space right where she'd been sitting, and then she was leaning over slightly just so she could get a better grip on the carving tool before beginning to dig it into the soft wood. "What do you want? C or E?"

"…C," Erik answered. He knew Lucy probably would've preferred for him to answer the latter, but it really didn't matter either way.

After a few moments, Lucy sat up again and set the carving tool into the holster attached to the side of the bench. "Come see!" she said excitedly, pointing to her engraving in the middle of a jagged love-heart.

L + C

X801

Erik refrained from cringing. It was so typical of Lucy for her to do something like that, but as disgusting as it was (to him, at least), he still loved it. "That is so fucking lame."

Lucy giggled as she reached up to grab the sleeve of Erik's coat and pull him down to the bench, having him sit down right on top of the engraving. "Yeah, but it's cute and I want someone to know that L and C were here in X801." No one was bound to pay attention to it, but it didn't matter. She only let out a sigh as she sidled up to Erik's side and rested her head on his shoulder, looking back up to the flowers and the hint of the setting sun just above them. "This is really nice though," she whispered. "Thank you for bringing me here, Erik."

The tiny box sitting in one of his coat pockets was beginning to feel a little heavy. He'd had it the entire time, of course, just because he had a habit of losing things and he'd wanted to have just in case he decided it was a good moment to get it out. But, it was a good moment then, and that was the precise reason that Erik had wanted to take Lucy there at all.

The problem was just that he was worried. He would still do what he was planning to do, there was no doubt about that. But the thing with Lucy was that… They just didn't really have a defined kind of relationship. It had always been vague, right from the time they'd started spending time together just as friends once Meredy had started wanting to visit Juvia and then Jellal had sort of started hanging out with Gray (and, really, Erik still had no idea what the fuck was going on there). They'd vaguely started dating at one point, after nearly two years of being friends, although Erik wasn't sure it could be called dating at all because he'd never really liked going out anywhere. And then somewhere along the way, it had turned into what they were then, which, as undefined as it was, was all Erik needed or wanted, and it was all Lucy needed or wanted, too.

He didn't really need to say out loud that he loved her, because Lucy already knew that he did. And even if he didn't say the words, he always said it in other ways – like, telling her to not hurt herself when she went out with her team, or by not threatening to poison her like he did with everyone else whenever she ate the last of his vanilla yogurt.

She was just special to him, and Lucy knew that, just as Erik knew that he was special to her.

Still, as much as Erik didn't really care about moving into something a little (or a lot) more defined, he knew Lucy wouldn't mind it. She'd told him time and time again that it didn't matter to her either, that she was perfectly happy with what they had and that a label was really just for everyone else's benefit anyway… But Erik still knew that deep down, there was a part of her that would like just something tangible to hold onto. Either way, it didn't really change anything between them, because at the end of the day Erik had no intentions of going anywhere else, and Lucy certainly had no plans for leaving him for something more defined (or just a generally better person).

But, Erik still wanted to do it. And it was a good time to do it as well, because Lucy was happy and they were on some kind of weird holiday and… Really, if Erik was going to ask someone to marry him, he kind of wanted it to be a special moment. At least for Lucy.

With Lucy still staring up at the flowers, Erik reached into the pocket of his coat to pull out the small box he'd been hiding in it. But as soon as it was out of the pocket, he sneezed harshly and the box slipped from between his fingers. "Fucking hay fever season," he muttered under his breath. So far his plan wasn't going to… Well, plan.

Lucy pulled a packet of tissues from her purse once Erik picked up the box from the pavement. Oh, how she knew how much Erik hated his seasonal allergies. She found it kind of funny, though. "Here," she said, handing him the tissues and trying not to giggle at how miserable and adorable Erik was right then.

"Thanks…" Erik mumbled. He blew his nose into the tissue and crumpled it up straight away. There were no bins around unfortunately, so he only opted to shove it in a pocket for the time being. Erik hadn't thought much of it when he shifted the small box to his other hand just so he could put the used tissue in his pocket, but Lucy seemed to see it then, and was then reaching down to open up his hand and see what it was he'd been holding. "Shit, wait—"

Lucy couldn't contain her laughter when she realised what Erik had been holding. Actually opening up the lid to see the simple ring with the purple stone only confirmed what Lucy had suspected. "Were you about to propose to me?" she laughed. She turned to see Erik making a point of looking away and his cheeks flushing a shade darker, and Lucy quickly stopped laughing. "Oh… Erik…" she whispered. "Really?"

He shrugged. "Just thought… Y'know, if you wanted to…" he mumbled. He was more uncomfortable than ever right then, and he was just beginning to regret bothering with it at all. He should've expected something like that. "Doesn't matter. Just forget it."

Lucy felt horrible for reacting the way she had once she saw how much it had hurt Erik. But truthfully, it had only because she hadn't been expecting it, not even in the slightest. Marriage, as far as Lucy had been able to tell, just hadn't been Erik's thing. She'd figured that out pretty quickly when she'd asked him nearly five years earlier what they were, and all he'd done was shrug, kiss her softly, and said that they were whatever they wanted to be. Lucy hadn't minded any of that, though. It had hurt just a little bit at first, and she'd worried that Erik had had a different view on things, but over time, Lucy had come to realise that it just hadn't mattered. They'd been exactly what they'd wanted to be. Erik had always given her what she'd needed and that had been more than enough over the years.

But Erik proposing? She hadn't seen that coming at all. She'd wanted it at some point in her life, but she'd realised that it just hadn't been important. Lucy could tell that the only reason Erik was doing it at all was because he thought she wanted something like that. And while it wasn't entirely true, Lucy knew she couldn't actually say no. She didn't want to, either.

Erik didn't do things that he truly didn't want to do. He liked to let everyone think that he was the type of person who just went with whatever happened and rolled his ways, and while it was true to an extent, that just wasn't who he was. He thought about everything he did, at least a little bit. He planned things. He very rarely went into something without some kind of vague idea as to what would happen after.

And if Erik was really proposing… Then it meant he'd thought about it, and decided that it was something that it was something he could deal with. And Lucy couldn't say no when she knew that it was something Erik wanted too – or at least a small part of him did.

Smiling, Lucy only slid closer to Erik just to press a gentle kiss to his cheek. "You know, you could've just asked me to elope and I still would've said yes," she whispered. Granted, being engaged and actually getting to plan some kind of wedding was going to be more than exciting, but she knew how little Erik hated crowds, so eloping somewhere where it was just the two of them would've been more than perfect.

"…I hadn't thought of that," he admitted sheepishly. "But now I get to see you in a pretty dress and you get to plan it perfectly and that's all I care about."

Lucy giggled again as she dropped her head to Erik's shoulder once more, just so she could look back up to the flowering trees and the darkening sky. "Gosh, you're such a sap sometimes."

"Don't you fucking tell anyone that, either."