Author's Note: This is a request by BlueRosePup. I usually don't ship this pairing, but as soon as she suggested a Mirajane/Gray story, I got this idea in my head and it just wouldn't go away. Damn plot bunnies. Yeesh. Insistent little buggers, aren't they? Anyway, hope you like it! Oh, and for future reference, I used Fahrenheit because I'm an American and therefore too lazy to calculate Celsius for the rest of the world. It doesn't help that it's 1:30 in the morning as I'm writing this either.
Also, I don't own Fairy Tail or anything affiliated with it. Hiro Mashima does.
Crisis Averted?
by: SmurfLuvsCookies
Dedicated to BlueRosePup
"Today is going to be a disaster," Mirajane predicted hopelessly, collapsing on the bar stool next to her younger sister. Lisanna blinked at her. It wasn't like Mira to be pessimistic. Perhaps it was a side-affect of the ridiculous heat wave besieging Magnolia. The temperature had not dipped below 100 degrees Fahrenheit all week, there was not a cloud in the blue sky to shelter them from the merciless rays of the sun, and the air was constantly pregnant with humidity. It made the guild a stuffy, unpleasant place to be despite the new swimming pool, and yet the guild was packed every day. No one was motivated to do work in this weather.
"Why do you say that, Mira-nee?" Lisanna inquired, fanning the distressed barmaid with the current issue of Wizard Weekly she'd been skimming.
Mirajane sighed. "The ice machine broke."
Lisanna gasped, eyes growing wide. She turned them to the rectangular machine perched behind the bar, white and sleek with a nozzle for cubes of chilly ice. The EZ IceMaker 3.0, capable of satisfying Fairy Tail's demand for ice using a lacrima to instantly freeze the water that Mirajane dumped into it. Like the swimming pool, it was a new addition to the guild. Before the renovations to the guild hall, the only source of ice that Fairy Tail had been a vintage freezer in the back that Gray replenished every day. Master opted to purchase the EZ IceMaker instead of reconstructing the freezer, reasoning that the old room consumed too much space and required too much maintainance.
"When can someone come out and fix it?"
"Not until tomorrow. And people are saying that today is the hottest day of the year! What am I going to do, Lisanna? Everyone's going to go crazy when I tell them we're out of ice."
Lisanna thought on it. Then she snapped her fingers. "I know! What about Gray?"
"Gray?" Mira repeated.
"Yeah. Ask him to work with you today. He can just make ice for everyone until the company repairs the icemaker."
"That's brilliant!" Mirajane cheered. "I'll contact him right now! Thank you, Lisanna!"
"My pleasure," Lisanna said, watching her sister hop off of the stool and swish away to phone Gray on the crystal communication lacrima. She began fanning herself with the magazine, smirking with self-satisfaction.
Crisis averted, she thought smugly.
Gray woke to the sound of his name on Mirajane Strauss's lips. He stirred, thinking that it must have been the lingering remnants of a dream (because, honestly, what male besides Elfman wasn't guilty of dreaming of Mirajane?). Quickly, though, he realized that the more conscious he became, the clearer the voice was.
"Gray, please wake up. It's urgent."
He opened his eyes, squinting in the muted morning light pouring in from his window. A transparent barmaid stood in the middle of his room, biting her lip. A hologram?
"Mira? What...why are you calling me so early?"
"I'm sorry, but it's an emergency," Mirajane said. Her voice echoed strangely, warped by the communication lacrima she was using. "The icemaker at the guild is broken, and the company can't send anyone out to fix it until tomorrow. Today is going to be very hot, so we'll need ice. A lot of ice."
Gray sat up on his elbows, frowning. "I think I know where you're going with this."
"I need you to work with me behind the bar today," Mirajane confirmed with a nod. "I'll even pay you, if you want. Free meals for a month."
"Just for being a human icemaker for a day?"
"Until the real icemaker gets fixed, yes," she amended.
"Okay," Gray said over a powerful yawn. "I'll do it for you. I'll be there in about half an hour."
"Thank you," Mirajane sighed with relief. She averted her eyes as he stood up, the blanket slipping from his body. It was one thing to see Gray's nudity in public, and another to see it in the sanctity of his home. It seemed more intimate, somehow. She looked over her shoulder, catching her lip behind her teeth again. "Please hurry, Gray. People are already starting to get here."
"Will do."
Mira let the connection go, her worried reflection replacing the view of Gray's apartment in the crystal lacrima.
Gray arrived at the guild twenty minutes later in clean clothes (the bare minimum, as the heat was stifling enough in itself), his hair still damp and sticking up in all directions from a cool shower. He felt an eerie aura coming from inside the guild hall. It was...menacing, almost. After a moment's hesitation, he shrugged and strode in casually as usual.
He froze in the threshold as every pair of eyes turned to him. They held something in their gaze that made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. "Uh...hey, guys..."
"There he is," Happy hissed, pointing an accusatory paw at him. "Our ice!"
"Um - "
"I call first dibs!" Lucy exclaimed, raising her tankard high in the air. Max elbowed his way to the front, scowling.
"No way, I've known him longer! I get dibs!"
"I don't think so!" Cana screeched, shoving Max out of the way. "If anyone gets the ice first, it's me! I contribute the most to the bar!"
"You only take from the bar," Wakaba scoffed. "We go oldest to youngest, I say."
"Hey!" Romeo objected.
"Works for me," said Master Makarov.
"Wait, wait, wait," Erza said. "I think that Gray should decide whom he serves first. Gray?"
The ice mage could only give them a blank stare. Natsu trampled his way up to the front, his fists aflame. "He's too slow to chose! I say who ever gets to him first gets ice first."
The stampede that transpired was akin to that of spooked buffalo fleeing a wildfire. Only scarier. Because these buffalo could shoot flames and swords and all other sorts of projectiles. And all the buffalo were heading straight for Gray.
He let out a blood-curdling scream and scrambled away, leaping over furniture, dodging all sorts of magic that his nakama were hurling at him. "Hold still, Gray!" Levy called, whipping out her solid script pen. For a moment he thought he had found refuge, only to have a heavy iron cage nearly decapitate him. He looked up to see Gajeel giving him a predatory smile.
"Hey!" Levy protested. "Back off, Gajeel! The ice is mine!"
The ice? He was reduced to nothing more than the ice?!
"I caught him, shortstuff," Gajeel said, swinging down from the rafters and landing gracefully on top of the cage. Gray realized with a jolt that he was, indeed, trapped like a bird. "I should obviously get ice."
The other mages weren't listening. They crowded around the cage, stuffing their arms through the bars, clawing at him. "Ice..." they moaned, eyes glowing with malice and hunger. "Ice...give us the ice..."
"THAT'S ENOUGH!"
Everyone froze in the presence of the commanding voice. Mirajane stood atop the bar, her hands on her hips, looking outraged. "I can't believe you all, acting like animals! You should be ashamed."
No one looked ashamed, but they were still quiet.
"You will all get ice," Mira promised, "but only if you get in an orderly, single-file line and let Gray walk over here. You will not touch him. Otherwise I will send him back home and you will get no ice at all. Do I make myself clear?"
Begrudingly the mages shuffled into something that could have been a line. Gajeel grumbled and hopped off the cage, tearing off a few bars so Gray could escape and stuffing them in his mouth. He managed to intimidate his way near the front of the line despite the delay.
Gray cowered in the cage for a moment, goosebumps rising on his arms. Was it really safe to go out there? He knew that the longer he took to act, though, the less rational they'd all get. So he cautiously stepped out, preparing for assault. No one made a move, but they all stared at him with uncomfortable intensity.
"Come here, Gray," Mirajane ordered. Even she looked a bit nervous.
Gray half-ran over to her, leaping over the safety of the bar. He let out a breath. "What the hell was that?! You didn't tell me they were possessed!"
"They were getting restless," Mira said.
"Restless? I felt like I was the survivor of a zombie apocalypse! I wouldn't have been surprised if they tore me limb from limb!"
"The longer we stand here, the worse they'll get," Mirajane pointed out, handing him the first tankard (which was Cana's, because even mindless zombie-people weren't stupid enough to get between her and her alcohol). "Fill this."
He did, and then took the next one (Erza's) while Mira poured in the actual beverage. They did that systematically, Gray taking the tankard, filling it, and handing it to Mira, who made the drink and gave it to the lucky customer. Slowly the tension in the room decreased. It took them nearly an hour, but eventually the last tankard (poor Droy, who looked ready to keel over from the heat) was filled. Gray collapsed against the bar, exhausted and sweating like a pig. He didn't think he'd produced so much ice all at once since his daily training with Ur. The chill inside him that had kept him cool all summer was gone.
"Wasn't that a bit overwhelming?" Mira chuckled, tying her long white waves into a knot at the nape of her neck. She observed the crowd, who had transformed from zombies into playful, active people at the pool. The girls flounced in their bikinis, splashing water at each other under the rays of the sun, while men hounded over them from the side lines. Back to normal.
"That is terrifying," Gray decreed, following her gaze. "They're like completely different people."
"It's this heat. It messes up your brain."
"Whatever. I'm just glad it's over with," he sighed.
"Not quite," Mirajane giggled, jabbing a thumb across the bar, where a group was making their way back for more ice. "Get ready, Gray. I'm keeping you busy all day. You're on the clock."
Gray groaned. "Why did I sign up for this?"
Mirajane smirked and turned her attention to Cana, who had joined Macao and Wakaba and was taking her usual place at the bar, boisterously demanding ice. She took the three tankards and shoved them under Gray's nose. "Before you fill these," she said, "you might want to put a shirt on. I'm pretty sure it violates sanitation requirements."
"What the - where does it go?!"
Mira kept true to her word. Gray was on his toes all day, filling tankard after tankard with ice. He was starting to feel sympathy for the broken machine. No wonder it decided to take a little vacation; the amount of ice that Fairy Tail consumed was preposterous. He'd malfunction, too, if he had to produce that much every single day.
Gray tried to remind himself that he was being payed a generous amount (free meals and drink every day for a month was no trivial stipend) but Mirajane certainly knew how to get a bang for her buck. And not the kind of bang that Gray would have likely enjoyed.
He found himself noticing little things about her as they worked side-by-side, like her dancing blue eyes, her marvelously musical voice, and the way her smile immediately put people at ease. Of course, it was no secret that everyone noticed these things about Mirajane. How could you not?
As the day crept on and he became increasingly delirious from heat and exhaustion, his observations strayed from the innocent path. He noticed the sensuous flare of her hips as she glided back and forth behind the bar, the graceful curve of her neck that he hardly ever saw because her hair was always down, the sheen of sweat that dimpled her clavicle and chest. He almost smacked his head on the counter when he caught himself wondering what her sweat-covered skin might taste like. That was certainly not his place to debate. It was forbidden. By what, he wasn't entirely sure, but it had to be defined as a no-no in some rule book or another. It had to be against a moral code or something. Right?
Besides, even if his mind did stray into more-than-platonic territory, it wasn't like he would ever act on it. All men lusted after Mirajane; men she'd never even met wanted her for their own. She was desirable. But to Gray, she was...well, she was Mirajane. Sweet, devious Mirajane who worked behind the bar, who gave helpful advice for juicy gossip, who knew all of their orders by heart, who handled all polls and bets and ships. He'd known Mira for the majority of his life, a privilege that a lot of people didn't get. Gray always knew how beautiful and wonderful Mirajane was, but somehow he'd never considered them together.
And even if he did act on these sudden feelings, which he wouldn't, because this was all just hypothetical, it wouldn't change the fact that she'd probably turn him down. Like he said: all men lusted after Mirajane. Wakaba hit on her on a daily basis, and he'd seen fans swarm to her like bees to honey. She gently rejected all of them. Why should he be any different?
But maybe...
"Gray!" she called, offering some tankards. "Ice, please."
He pushed the thoughts from his mind. It was the heat. The heat was messing with his brain, making him think funny things. Impossible things.
It was well into the night before Mirajane closed the guild. The blissfully cool evening breeze swept the sweltering heat away. People migrated from the pool to the tables, air-dried under the stars, and slowly began the journey home.
Gray looked ready to drop dead by the time the last of the patrons said their goodbyes. Mirajane chuckled at his sorry state. "Bartending is harder than it looks, isn't it?" she teased.
"How do you do it? I could fall asleep right here," Gray wheezed.
"Well, I get a lot of practice," Mira boasted. "And I'm not constantly using my powers, either. I'll tell you what, since you worked so hard today, I'll boost your pay to six weeks of free meals. You earned it."
Gray stood up and stretched. "Thanks, but you don't have to do that. I'm just glad I could help you."
"I want to. I really appreciate it," Mira said. And before she knew what she was doing, she stood up on her tip toes and pecked Gray on the cheek.
He blinked at her, blushing faintly. Mirajane felt the blood rush up to her own face. What a silly thing to do! She didn't even think about whether that crossed some kind of a boundary. As far as she knew, Gray wasn't a touchy-feely person.
She cleared her throat awkwardly, opting to leave their mutual embarrassment unacknowledged. "Well, um, do you want me to give you a call if I need you tomorrow? Or have you had enough?"
Gray considered it, his face screwed up in an expression of compelling concentration. Finally he answered, "I'll never have enough."
Then he lightly grabbed her by the elbows and pressed his mouth against hers.
Mirajane was alarmed. Gray was kissing her?! Was that what was happening?! What should she do?! Her body seemed to instinctively know the answer to that last question before her mind could formulate one, and after a second of rigid hesitation she melted against him like ice under the sun. Gray took this as encouragement and kissed her with more enthusiasm, grabbing her waist and pulling their bodies flush together. His hands were cold, but everything else was very, very warm.
It seemed unreal. Her and Gray? Crazy. It must have been the heat. The heat did funny things to the brain.
But tonight, Mirajane decided to give herself over to the heat.