A/N: Hello there minna! This is my second Fairy Tail fic and I'm feeling good about this one, ^^. Nothing much to say except please enjoy, and I would love to hear how you thought about it when you're done reading. Also, this is two chapters long so yeah, I hope you enjoy it!~
Have a nice day!~
Slumber Party Madness
Chapter 1: Uninvited!
Lucy Heartfilia woke up with a start. She felt rustling under her sheets and heard crashes sounding from the kitchen. Intruder alert! was the first thought that crossed her mind, but Lucy knew well enough who it was.
She pulled back her bedspread to find Happy the Exceed trying to get comfortable under the sheets and grimaced. Hurrying out of bed and ignoring the dozing cat, she dashed to her kitchen to find her pink-haired fire-breathing friend Natsu Dragneel rummaging through her refrigerator. "Natsu!" she shouted.
Natsu, alarmed, squeezed his head out of the fridge, bumping it as he did, and turned around reluctantly to face Lucy, a chicken leg hanging from his mouth. "Oi Luce!" he called to her, feigning cheeriness when deep down he was shaking nervously.
Lucy scowled. "Natsu, why are you in my fridge again?! I told you last night that I didn't have any more food for you to just take again the moment you woke up!"
"Then you should buy some, Luce," Natsu offered, still with the chicken leg parted between his lips. His hands were stuffed full of ingredients, like mayonnaise and mustard and ketchup. "Hey, do you have any hot sauce?"
A vein popped out of Lucy's forehead as she tried not to lose her temper. This wasn't the first time Natsu had infiltrated her home; for as long as she could remember every night she went to bed she woke up either sleeping next to Happy with Natsu snooping through her fridge or vise versa. If she was being honest, she didn't mind it at all because Natsu and Happy were her best friends in Fairy Tail and because of them she had gotten into the guild. The blonde only wished she didn't have to go grocery shopping every other day.
"Natsu just..." Lucy searched for a response, anything to make him stop. It was only Wednesday and she had already had to go grocery shopping four times that week, spending a little more the fifty thousand jewels each trip. It was bad enough the jobs these days were hard to complete and she had to pay rent every month, but now she had to buy groceries ten or more times a week? "Natsu, it's barely seven in the morning. Can't you just wait until we get to the guild to eat?"
"But Lucy, I'm hungry now," Natsu whined after finally taking a mouthful of chicken in his mouth.
"Me too, Lucy," Happy added as he drowsily flew into the kitchen. "I'm hungry for some mackerel."
Lucy sighed. "You guys are such high maintenance."
"Lucy, what are these?" Natsu asked his blonde friend forty-five minutes later when he entered her room and plopped down on her bed, in his hands many letters that had been sprawled out on her desk.
"What are what, Natsu?" Lucy questioned him as she slipped into her heels after having gotten dressed after a long, relaxing bath. "Oh, those?" She caught sight of the letters he was holding and smiled. "Those are the invitations for tonight's slumber party for the girls in the guild. I made them myself."
"Slumber party?" Natsu looked up at her critically and handed her the letters. "What's that? Can I come?"
"Me too!" Happy called out, sitting down on the bed next to Natsu. "But what is a slumber party?"
"You guys have never heard of a slumber party before?" The pink-haired man and the talking blue cat shook their heads in unison. "A slumber party is where people spend the night at another person's house to have fun and do cool activities. And no, you guys can't come. It's strictly girls only."
"But I want to come, Lucy," Natsu whined. "I've never been to one before so I want to go to this one."
"Well I have nothing to say but too bad. Us girls at the guild barely have any time to ourselves because you boys are always around being your boyish selves and trying to involve us in your boy games. Besides, I want to be able to bond more with the other girls and this slumber party is the perfect way to do so." Lucy planted her hands on her hips and beamed triumphantly.
Natsu crossed his arms over his chest and huffed. "You always have fun without me, Lucy. When will we do something fun together?"
"Yeah, Lucy, you always bail out on us," Happy chimed in.
"I do not! You guys always drag me on jobs with you everyday even when I protest I want to take a break. And don't act like I'm your only friend, you have Gray, too."
"Gray..." Natsu said the name like it was a poison. Happy shuddered. "Nah, it's more fun hanging out with you, Lucy," they both replied.
Lucy giggled and shook her head as she fixed her small ponytail with a blue ribbon. "Since I will be hosting this slumber party and the girls will be spending the night here, you two are not allowed at all under any circumstances to come here tonight to sleep, eat, nap, see me, or anything relating to those things. But eating, that's the most important rule. After I pass out invitations, I'm going shopping for food and games for us all so you two cannot come over here while I'm getting things ready, and even when I'm done don't bother stopping by. Oh, and in the morning I don't want to see any cat hairs or scorching marks in my bed, so that means you can't spend the night. Do you two understand?"
Happy nodded sadly with his head dropped. "Yes Lucy," he answered quietly.
Natsu huffed again. "And why aren't we invited again?"
"Because we need some quality girl time alone from you boys so we can talk about girl stuff while doing girly things in private," Lucy told him, the invitations in hand and her celestial spirits keys attached to the belt around her miniskirt. "Geez, you two act like not seeing me for a day is the end of the world. There are worse things, you know."
Natsu and Happy both glanced at each other and raised an eyebrow, then shared a sneaky look of satisfaction. "Well, Lucy's place sure is the best because we get to eat whenever we want and sleep in her bed and wear her clothes and snoop around the house," Natsu said.
"Yep and she always has that novel she's working on tucked away just in the right place for us to find," Happy added with a smirk to Lucy.
Lucy glowered at him. "So that's why whenever I proofread the pages I write there's always something written that I don't remember writing myself! And you guys try on my clothes?!"
"Have you see Natsu in your pink sundress and white sandals?" Happy burst into laughter. "If I would've had a camera I would've taken a picture."
"Natsu! No wonder when I tried on the dress it seemed like it was stretched out, and those sandals were really sweaty when I put them on!"
Natsu grinned. "You're clothes smell nice, why wouldn't I try them on?"
The trio arrived at the guild almost an hour later after a really harsh lecture from Lucy about wearing her clothes, and the guidelines for not coming over to her house during the time of her slumber party. Then, after having to promise them she would go on a job with them to make up for the time she would be spending with the girls instead of the two of them while she was hosting her slumber party, and after buying a bucket of fish from a street vendor to stop Happy from weeping when she said the slumber party might last more than one night, Lucy began passing out her invitations to the female guild members when she spotted them separately in the guild hall.
BAM! The final invitation sealed with the Fairy Tail crest slammed down on one of the guild tables with a bang in front of the guild's water mage, Juvia Lockser. The aforementioned woman jumped out of her skin until she noticed the familiar hand that held the invitation to the table. "L-Lucy-san?" she said, shaking slightly from the scare.
"You're invited!" Lucy shouted to her, finally handing her the letter and sitting on the bench across from her.
Juvia studied her. "Invited to what exactly?" she questioned as she undid the lid to the letter and opened it. Her eyes scanned the paper as she read Lucy's fine cursive handwriting until she stopped at the last word and looked again to the blonde mage. "A slumber party?"
"Yes!" Lucy exclaimed. "You're invited Juvia, since we are friends and all."
Juvia smiled and tucked the letter away. "I have never been to a slumber party before since Juvia wasn't friends with anyone as a child, so she would love to come! Is Gray-sama invited?"
Lucy's expression dropped instantly. Of course the water mage who was infatuated with the ice mage would ask if he was invited to a slumber party, even though it was strictly for girls. "No, Gray isn't and can't come. The slumber party is only for girls."
Juvia's smile faded in the blink of an eye. "Then Juvia won't go."
"What?"
"If Gray-sama can't go, then Juvia won't go."
Lucy sighed heavily and folded her hands in front of her. "Juvia, you have to come. This is a slumber party for all of us girls, and you have to come so we can spend some quality time together. Even if we are in the same guild, I feel like I don't know you or the other girls that well so I thought this would be a good chance for us to get to know each other better. And since we are friends, you really should come..."
"There's no point in Juvia going if Gray-sama won't be there. Juvia loves him and if he isn't invited then she won't go." The water mage glanced behind her at Gray and Natsu abut to get into an argument, hearts beginning to swirl in her eyes, until daggers ripped them apart. "And Juvia guesses Lucy-san only wants Juvia to go to the slumber party so when no one is looking, she can go see Gray-sama and have him to herself."
Lucy's eyes widened in fear. "No, no, no! Of course not Juvia!" she exclaimed, putting her hands up defensively. "Gray is just my friend. I swear I have no romantic interests in him whatsoever."
"Juvia doesn't believe Lucy-san!"
"I'm serious!" Lucy protested. "I am totally fine with you loving him so I wouldn't dare go after him. And even if you didn't love him, Juvia, I still wouldn't like him in more than a friendly way. He's just a friend and that's all." The blonde was screaming inside for Juvia to believe her.
The blunette raised an eyebrow to survey Lucy's expression until she shrugged. "Then Juvia guesses Lucy-san loves Natsu-san and not Gray-sama?"
Steam rose from the blonde's head as her face burned red. "N-no! I never said that! Why would you assume that out of nowhere, Juvia?"
"Well, Lucy-san said she doesn't love Gray-sama so that must mean she must love Natsu-san...and besides he is always sleeping over at her house and-"
Lucy threw the invitation at Juvia's face and excused herself from the table before she could hear another word.
At noon, after having stuffed his face with plates and piles and heaps of food and arguing with Gray about what the best food in the world was, Natsu came to notice Lucy's disappearance. She had already left far earlier that morning after she had given Juvia the invitation and the latter had so forwardly assumed she loved Natsu, but at the time, Natsu had been too hungry and too interested in food than to care what Lucy had been up to and where she had gone. Her scent often lingered for a little bit in the guild when she had just recently left, but seeing that she had gone over two hours ago, there were so traces left of her scent. And Natsu was upset at this. He knew she had gone probably to make some preparations for the slumber party, and he while he was happy she wanted to have some fun (because in his and Happy's opinion, she was a party pooper), he was also very annoyed and felt left out that he wasn't invited. Natsu wasn't an idiot and he knew the term "girls only" when he heard it, but he was practically Lucy's best friend and it hurt him that she would leave him out of a party. He was Natsu, for Pete's sake. Parties where his specialty after eating, sleeping, and fighting.
He sat at a table away from everyone else with his face in his left hand and his mouth scrunched up in a deep scowl as he stared at nothing in particular. The females of the guild had all gone away to have some quality girl time with shopping, getting manicures and pedicures, and chatting away before they went to Lucy's slumber party so currently, the guild was nearly empty, and the few people that were there were people Natsu didn't even want to be around at the moment. If Laxus was there, to pass the time the Fire Dragon Slayer would challenge the Lightning Dragon Slayer to a fight, but the latter was out on a job and according to Makarov, it was an important job that wouldn't have him returning for about a week longer. This, along with the fact that Erza was out with the girls, Elfman and Nab were busy with arm wrestling, Happy was flirting with Carla, and Gray was present were the many things bugging him, when usually, on any other day, he wouldn't even care.
The pink-haired man was just about to check the Request Board for any good jobs when Gray waltzed up to him and sat down across from him, a glass of water in hand and a questionable look on his face. "Yo, Flame-brain, what's up with you?"
Natsu peeked at him out of the corners of his eyes before he mumbled incoherently and grimaced at his companion.
Gray sipped his water slowly. "Okay...What, did Lucy ban you from sleeping over or something?"
"OH, damn it! Why'd you have to say that?" Natsu suddenly shouted.
Gray was surprised. "So she did? Wow, you must have done something horrible. Usually she doesn't really react to it but if she kicked you out you must've did something wrong."
Another scowl from Natsu. Gray smirked. "Lemme guess, you tried to make the moves on her and she totally caught you and slapped the living crap out of you before kicking you out? Baka."
Natsu's face flamed red. "No, bastard, as if I'd ever touch her like that!"
"Oh, so you're actually smart enough to know what I meant..." Gray slyly took another shot of his water.
"Shut up Ice Princess!" retorted the pink-haired man ferociously. "That's not what happened."
"Well what did?"
Natsu crossed his arms over his chest like a baby, putting and sticking out his bottom lip. "Well...erm...ugh, she's having a slumber party and she didn't invite me because it's girls only so I can't come."
Silence followed his explanation before Gray set his glass down on the table and started laughing hysterically. "Ahahahahahahaha! Flame-brain, baka, really, you're upset over a lousy slumber party?"
"Lousy? I'll have you know they aren't lousy, bastard."
"Oh really? Have you even been to one before?"
Natsu glared daggers at the man before his face softened and he shook his head reluctantly. "Well, no."
Gray wiped away a tear that had formed as a result of his laughter and sighed. "Well I hate to break it to you, but they're lousy."
Natsu clenched his fists and bared his teeth. "Watch it, bastard. It's Lucy's slumber party so it's bound to be good."
"Doesn't matter who hosts it, slumber parties are always lame." Gray shrugged carelessly. "It's basically where people stay up late at a friend's house to chat and play boring games and sometimes confess secrets or something, but like I said, they're lousy so I really don't know or care."
"Well that's your opinion. Apparently Lucy has been planning this for some time, and knowing her, it's bound to be great. I just wish I could go."
Gray rolled his eyes. "I'm starting to think you're falling for her, Flame-brain," he said, picking up his glass to take another long sip. "You never usually care where she is unless we're out on a job and we have to split up and she has to fight some baddies alone and you're worried about seeing if she's okay. Other than that, you never really care about her. What's up?"
Natsu's face burned. "Shut up, bastard! She's my friend so of course I'll be worried about her and everything! I just maybe feel a little left out and neglected that I wasn't invited. I mean, I know it's girls only but still, I'm her best friend in the guild."
"Actually, I think Levy is, baka," Gray added, grinning.
Salamander engulfed his fists in flames and nearly punched Gray in the face. "Shut up! I am, you could even ask her!"
"I still think it's Levy..." Gray hid his mischievous smile behind his water glass as he purposely let his comment hang in the air. "Why do you even care if you're her best friend anyway? Everyone in Fairy Tail is her friend. Hell, she may even consider me to be her best friend."
Natsu had to laugh. "You wish, Ice Princess. Lucy can do better than that."
Gray sent him a dark look. "You just love her," he muttered, bringing the pink-haired man's laughing to a dangerous halt.
"Shut up," Natsu ordered forcefully, slightly startling Gray, but besides getting a few goosebumps, he was unfazed by Salamander's sudden attitude. "She is my nakama and nakama only. Nothing more than that, just like you're nothing more than a stripping ice princess. And since we're talking about you, what's up with you and Juvia?"
Gray blinked at the question before his cheeks began to burn. "W-What? What do you mean, baka?!"
Natsu smirked and crossed his arms behind his head as he relaxed into the table bench. "What do you mean what do I mean? What is going on with you and Juvia?" he repeated much more slowly.
Gray blinked again as he tried to rethink some things. Was this a trick question? These past few days he hadn't even been around her besides the few times when she was stalking him from afar. He had hardly talked to her or even had a nice conversation with her because he had either been busy with jobs, or busy lounging with the other guild members. If Natsu was assuming he was getting dirty with Juvia, the man was nuts.
"Is that a trick question, droopy eyes?" the ice mage questioned with a spark in his eyes.
"Nope, just lately you've been staring at Juvia a lot, slanty eyes," Natsu countered with the same spark in his eyes.
Gray's face dropped immediately. That was definitely not true. He had definitely not been staring at Juvia at all. Besides the few times he saw her creeping around corners, they had barely even made eye contact lately, because again, he was pretty busy. And sure, Juvia was attractive but he had not been staring her down at all or checking her out.
Gray calmed down and gave Natsu one of his deadliest glares, a glare that was slightly scarier than Erza's. His face clouded up in disgust, hatred, and anger and it was so horrible, so petrifying that Natsu was just about to cower in fear and scream like a girl. "Listen you droopy-eyed bastard, I don't know what the hell you tryin' to pull with your little mind games, but lemme make this clear to you, okay? Juvia is just a friend, and unless you want to explain to me why you always sneak to Lucy's house and sneak inside her bed every night to sleep with her then I suggest you shut up about this." Gray leaned across the table and poked Salamander's chest. "Because there's a thing called blackmail and I know how it works. Juvia is just my friend, just like anyone else in this guild is, ya hear?"
"Alright, I get it," Natsu replied after some time. "Sheesh, you know at times you can be scarier than Erza."
Gray finished his water and leaned an arm over the back of the bench while stretching his legs out. "Anyway..."
Natsu glowered at him. "Wait, wait a minute, why the hell did you even come over here to sit by me anyway?"
The ice mage shrugged and smirked. "Well you seemed down so I thought I'd cheer you up. You're welcome."
"You did a horrible job, you stupid slanty-eyed bastard," answered Natsu, and he suddenly pounded his fists hard on the table. "Damn! I wanna go to that slumber party real bad!"
Gray sighed and leaned forward, studying his nakama for a moment before folding his hands in front of him. "Okay Natsu, I think I can help you out with that but you have to answer this question truthfully first. Do you want to go to the slumber party because you've never been to one before and you really want to party or is this just because you miss Lucy and you want to see her?"
"The hell? It's obviously because I want to attend my first slumber party! Why else?"
"Uh-huh. And are you sure this is the real reason why?"
"YES! Why are you asking?"
Gray took a look around to see if anyone was watching or looking and eavesdropping on them before he leaned even closer, signaling for Natsu to come closer as well. "I have an idea, and I know how I'll be able to get you inside that slumber party."
Natsu's face lit up like he was a little kid receiving a gift from Santa Claus. "Really?"
Gray nodded with a smile. "You'll have to come with me, though. We have to go somewhere first and buy some things before I can decide if you can go."
As confused as Natsu was, he nodded and beamed and stood up to follow Gray out of the guild, checking twice to see if anyone was following them or had heard their conversation. When the coast was clear, both men darted out of the guild to the mysterious place Gray had spoken of, disregarding one simple fact.
Gajeel had been listening to their conversation the whole time while he had been standing on the stairway leading to the second floor of the guild, and once the words "slumber party" and "girls only" had crossed his mind, he was sold. The Iron Dragon Slayer chuckled heartily before following after Natsu and Gray, who had no idea he had heard.
And there's part one!
I have to apologize for the slight lateness of this chapter, I had my asthma, allergies, and school bothering me as well as meeting up with distant relatives and such, so I wasn't able to finish this as soon as I had planned. And to be honest, I hadn't put a lot of thought into this (I know right XD) so for a few days I had writer's block because I didn't know what to do with this. Natsu and Gray's whole conversation was just a random thing that I thought should be added to this, and when I got towards the end of their talk I decided to add Gajeel. I hope you liked it anyway, and if you didn't, that's understandable.
I already know what I'm gonna do with chapter two so that should be ready within a week if not a little shorter or longer than that, and I would love to hear a review let it be good or bad. But by the way, I feel like I got the slanty eyes and droopy eyes comments confused. I get confused as to who says what, like does Natsu say droopy eyes to Gray or does he call Gray slanty eyes or vise versa? I'm gonna need some help figuring that out, so whoever knows please tell me in the comments and I'll be super grateful. :)
So next chapter...Ooh, I wonder where Gray is taking Natsu and what they have to buy? And what's this joking and teasing about Natsu and Lucy and Gray and Juvia? Find out next chapter in "Get This Party Started!" (Coming Soon)~