A/N: It's been, what, three months since I wrote "It's not just a hat" and now I present you a sort of a sequel, "It's not just a present" (I'm not very creative with titles, I know). This time, the story is in Lucy's P.O.V. and I'm kind of nervous because of it, as this is the first time I've seriously written her (so excuse any mistakes - the same goes for Natsu). There's some NaLu and some Gruvia in here, as well as Lucy/Juvia and a bit of Natsu/Juvia BrOTP.
I think it would be the best if you first read "It's not just a hat" so everything would be clearer, but I don't think it's absolutely necessary (it would mean a lot if you read it too, though). Also, in the end there's hints of my other story, "Made in Heaven", which is a Jerza story and I decided to put it in the same AU as the other two.
Aaaand, to mgaa, if you're reading this, I know this is probably not the kind of sequel you wanted but I still hope you'll enjoy it!
Disclaimer: I don't own FT.
Tell her she's exaggerating, but Lucy Heartfillia could swear that was the hundredth time Juvia Lockser sighed during the last hour. The reason was, of course - according to Juvia - the incredibly handsome, smart, and kind Prince Charming called Gray Fullbuster. Ever since the party that had been held around five months ago, the blue haired girl couldn't keep her eyes off of her "savior". Really, it was just a hat. Lucy couldn't understand why it was such a big deal (and if she said that out loud, she'd be in trouble right now). But seriously, the fact that he had retrieved Juvia's hat from that jungle and returned it to her is quite commendable, but it is, by no means, a reason for treating him as some sort of deity. No matter what she said, though, Lucy knew her friend wouldn't listen, and she had learned from her previous fails not to try and convince the blue haired girl of dropping the ball a bit – Juvia was angry at the poor girl for an entire month because she had thought that Lucy was her "love rival".
"Aaah….", Juvia sighed once again, and Lucy found herself at the end of her wits – enough was enough.
"What is it, Juvia? Care to explain?", the blonde asked, and her friend turned around to look at her confusedly, before realizing that she had probably disappeared in one of her imaginations again.
"Juvia is sorry, Lucy-san. It's just that she has been thinking of Gray-sama…", she offered, looking a bit embarrassed, and this time it was Lucy who sighed, but for a different reason.
"I already know who you were thinking about, I'm wondering what you were thinking about.", she said, taking a chip. "I mean, yeah, you think about Gray all the time, but you don't usually sigh so much. So I'm interested in knowing what happened."
Juvia lowered her head for a bit, contemplating should she tell her, but in the end decided that she should, and that Lucy might actually be able to help her. Raising her head, she looked the blonde straight into the eyes, then averted her gaze, then returned it.
"It's, uh, it's about… It's about Gray-sama's birthday! Juvia doesn't know what to give him!", she said, and suddenly started wailing. It might be surprising that Lucy wasn't surprised at all, and instead patted the girl on the head and offered her a cookie.
"Gray's birthday, huh? Well, of course, why didn't I remember…", Lucy mumbled, all the while looking at Juvia, who was now dejectedly munching on her cookie, from the corner of her eye. "You have no ideas at all?"
The other girl swallowed, then started complaining. Lucy grabbed a bag of popcorn and started eating it, expecting some sort of a scene, and sure enough, she wasn't disappointed.
"Juvia has a lot of ideas! Too many, in fact! She can't seem to decide which would be the perfect gift for her Gray-sama! Gray-sama deserves only the best!", she declared passionately, with her fists raised in the air, and her face giving off the determination of a soldier and, of course, the love she had for the raven haired man. Lucy had to calm her down so Juvia wouldn't accidentally break something in her moment of euphoria.
"Juvia, relax a bit. I'm sure Gray would appreciate anything you got him-"
"But Juvia doesn't want Gray-sama to just appreciate it!", she yelled in desperation, and she almost hit Lucy when she started waving her hands everywhere, trying to create a dramatic effect (something she liked doing very often). "She wants Gray-sama to like it, or even better, love it, and then, he'll start thinking about the one who gave him the remarkable gift - which means he'll start thinking about Juvia, of course - and then he'll think about how amazing that person is and then he'll proclaim his undying love for Juvia and Juvia and Gray-sama will get married and have many babies and live happily ever after...!"
Lucy, not at all disturbed by the fact that she was cut in the middle of her sentence, almost punched right in the face, or that her friend went off to her La-La Land again (well, okay, maybe she was disturbed just a little), calmly waited for Juvia to return to Earth, so she could try and help the poor love-struck fool. She, like all of Juvia's other friends, had learned that patience was a virtue, and that sometimes, their over-imaginative friend needed some time to blow her steam off and then return to the real world. Especially when her imaginations revolved around Gray.
"So you see, Lucy-san", Juvia said, after she finally woke up from her daydreams, "if Juvia doesn't find something incredible to give to Gray-sama, Gray-sama and Juvia won't become a loving couple, like they should!"
"The way your brain works is a puzzle to me…", Lucy muttered under her breath, though not with bad feelings, rather, because of honest wonderment (and slight amusement, too), before she started scratching her chin, thinking about the possibilities. "Uh, well, how about you buy him a blouse?"
"Juvia is surprised that Lucy-san even mentioned something like that, she knows Gray-sama doesn't care about his clothes at all.", she said, her face contort in disapproval, and then, after a few moments in which it was obvious some crazy idea popped up in her head, her aura became positively sinister. "Unless, Lucy-san purposely wants Juvia to give him something stupid like that so she could give Gray-sama something hundred times better so that Gray-sama would fall for her! Well, too bad, because Juvia isn't falling for that trick, Love Rival!"
"Oh God, not that again! I told you thousand times already, I'm not interested in Gray! I don't see him that way, he's just a friend!", Lucy hopelessly shouted, truly scared that she would have to go through the exhausting process of reassuring Juvia that she was not in love with Gray again. Really, she loved her friend, but sometimes the girl was such a high maintenance.
"Is Love Rival- , Juvia means, Lucy-san, sure?", the blue haired girl skeptically eyed her blonde companion, although not as angrily as before.
"Yes. Believe me, not even I understand why I suggested something so ridiculous. I must have forgotten about Gray's… unique habit.", Lucy said, honestly confused at the fact that she gave such an illogical suggestion – everyone and their mothers knew that Gray and clothes weren't a positive match, and that the man preferred having as little on him as possible (sometimes even less).
"… Then, Juvia will forgive Lucy-san. But she's still keeping an eye on her!", Juvia said, and with that, the girls stopped their little quarrel an returned to their original tasks. Lucy gave all kinds of suggestions, which Juvia rejected, deeming them "not good enough", or "too plain", or "not likable enough" (and by that, of course, she meant it was not enough for Gray to fall in love with her). Eventually, they spent whole hour thinking without choosing anything, and Lucy was getting very tired.
"Come on, Juvia! You've rejected every single thing I said, and some of them were very decent!", she said, a bit hurt, because Juvia really did reject everything, and sometimes she did it in a very cruel and mean way.
The girl looked at Lucy guiltily, and the blonde regretted her outburst right away because she could see her friend's lips quivering an eyes watering rapidly. Before she could do anything to apologize, though, Juvia already started crying and sobbing.
"Lucy-san is right! Juvia is so sorry! Oh, Juvia doesn't deserve to be Lucy-san's friend! Juvia doesn't deserve to go to Gray-sama's birthday party either! Waah!"
"Wha- , wait, Juvia, calm down! That's not true and you know it, so please, stop crying, oooh damn…", Lucy hugged her friend, comforting her, and brainstorming for ideas because having none is obviously not good at all. Then, as if in a moment of genius, a thought passed through her mind that could possibly lead to the solution of this seemingly unsolvable problem. "Juvia, hey, I just thought of something! C'mon, I've got an idea!"
Juvia first blinked off her tears then wiped the remaining ones with her sleeves, before curiously looking at an excited Lucy, silently giving her the permission to announce her "great idea" that would help them in search for the perfect present.
"Let's call Natsu!", Lucy said, still exited, but Juvia's face visibly fell. "They're close friends, aren't they? They've known each other for longer than we've known them, so Natsu surely knows something about Gray that we don't!", Lucy finished, obviously very proud at herself, but Juvia was still skeptic.
"But… Natsu-san and Gray-sama hate each other! Natsu-san won't help us, for sure!", she said, on the brink of crying again.
"Nonsense! They love each other like brothers, they're just to stubborn to admit it!", Lucy said confidently, already searching for Natsu's number in her phone. "Their fighting is just their way of showing the love!", she happily added, and then dialed their pink haired friend, while Juvia was munching on one of the last cookies left, surrendering to Lucy's idea, because she, too, was tired and they still haven't found the perfect present.
"Yo, it's Natsu!", the voice on the other line said, and then a meowing was heard. "Oy, Happy, get off the phone, I'm talking!" Lucy chuckled a bit at her best male friend's and his cat's shenanigans, and then cleared her throat to get the man's attention.
"Hey Natsu, it's Lucy. Listen, I need some help." She then looked over her shoulder at the dejected Juvia, then sighed and corrected herself. "Well, we need your help."
"What's up? Who's we?", Natsu asked, sounding a bit worried. "Is everything okay, Luce?"
The blonde blushed at the nickname but showed those thoughts away, focusing on making Natsu come as fast as he can, for the sake of her friend that was currently rolled in a ball, Lucy noticed. She shook her head and sat next to Juvia, rubbing her back soothingly, then she continued her conversation.
"Well, yes and no…", she offered, and she could hear the confusion in Natsu's voice. "It's nothing bad per se, but, we kind of have a Gray-related-Juvia-emergency…", she said, and Natsu immediately understood what she was talking about.
"It's about the Ice Popsicle's birthday, right? What d' you need me for?"
"Well, we need your help in picking the present. See, we've been here thinking for an hour, but we couldn't come to the right idea for the special gift Juvia wants to give to Gray…", Lucy said, emphasizing the word special.
"If it's not the best it's no good!", Juvia could be heard yelling from under the sheets (she somehow managed to get under them very fast), and Lucy couldn't help but giggle at her friend's antics.
"You heard her.", she said jokingly. "We would really appreciate some help, you know. And don't try to use an excuse like "I hate the bastard" because we know you guys are close and you can't deny it!", she added, not giving Natsu a chance to complain at all.
"… Fine. Happy and I are comin' in a bit. See ya."
"Bye, bye!", Lucy said chirpily as she hung up, happy that all of this will finally be resolved. "See, Juvia? Everything is going to be okay, so you can get out of those sheets."
…
Fifteen minutes later, Natsu and his cat, Happy, were in Lucy's apartment in the living room, and Juvia's mood lightened up a bit, now that her hope of picking and giving Gray the best present returned. Lucy served her guests some fresh drinks, she refilled the snacks and gave a fish to Happy (the strange colored feline is the only reason she kept any fish in her home – she hated it, but considering that Happy and his owner were her frequent guests, she had to make a small stock of it). As Happy happily meowed while eating his favorite dish, the three humans in the room sipped on their juices or teas and ate the snacks.
"Y' know, Happy and I were busy when you called us, Lucy.", Natsu said slightly accusingly while chewing on a chip.
"Yeah, busy? With what?", Lucy asked with her eyebrow raised, and Juvia mimicked her, giggling at the man's face – he was pouting – and the blonde's reaction to his expression – Lucy probably wasn't even aware that she was blushing. Oh, if only Juvia could somehow take a picture of them…
"With, you know… stuff…", Natsu said and then suddenly grabbed a bunch of chips and stuffed them into his mouth, effectively shutting himself up for a few moments. The blue furred cat looked at his master judgingly, and then shook his head, as if saying that Natsu was a fool. Lucy couldn't agree more.
"Juvia doesn't want to sound mean, but there is an urgent matter we must solve right now and that's why Natsu-san is here in the first place.", she said, growing impatient. They've already lost some precious time and any other wasted second would be unacceptable!
Natsu quickly swallowed the food he previously lazily chewed up, then drank the whole glass of juice in one go, and then wiped his mouth with the sleeves of his blouse, prompting an evil eye from Lucy, who didn't like his sloppiness at all.
"Right, right, the Ice Idiot's present, I know. First tell me what you rejected so I know what not to say.", he said, and took a toothpick and started chewing on it, rather than picking his teeth.
"Uh, well, there were a lot of things…", Lucy said, not knowing where to start. Luckily, Juvia stepped in.
"We ruled out clothes right away because Gray-sama is prone to losing them."
"That's 'cause he's a stripper."
"Natsu!", Lucy reprimanded him.
"Meow!"… And it seemed like Happy agreed with her.
"Gray-sama is not a stripper!", Juvia said, offended on Gray's behalf. "He just has a tendency to take his clothes off once he gets too hot. It's not his fault he was used to the cold so now the warmth bothers him!", she passionately said, and Lucy thought that calling Natsu maybe wasn't such a good idea – Natsu is hotheaded as it is, and if someone starts saying something bad about Gray, Juvia turns into a boiling water, as well.
"Guys, guys. Please?", Lucy tried to calm them down, and Juvia hmpf-ed and turned her head away, and Natsu pouted again.
"Yeah, yeah, whatever. Sorry.", he halfheartedly apologized, and Juvia accepted the apology after only a moment of thinking, because they were wasting the time they did not have yet again. She continued to make a list of the rejected ideas, with Lucy reminding her of a thing or two, and Natsu soon realized why they were in such a trouble of finding anything.
"You rejected almost every single thing I could think of!", he said, both shocked and astonished by the blue haired girl's demands of an ideal present. "Remind me again why d' you need me? You're just gonna reject what I suggest too."
Juvia was a bit offended at the remark but kept quiet, deciding to answer the man's question as politely as she could, for the sake of her Gray-sama and their future love life (that was currently hanging by a thread, thanks to some very unhelpful people).
"Lucy-san said that you might be helpful because you've known Gray-sama for longer than we have, so you should know better what his likes and dislikes are, or what he needs at the moment."
"And I know I'm right, so don't try to deny it.", Lucy said. "Come on, Natsu. Do this for Juvia. She really needs your help. Be a good friend, won't you?", she added, playing the friendship card, the one that always managed to get Natsu to do whatever is asked from him. It seemed to have worked again, because Natsu started fidgeting at the mention of the word "friend", and Lucy smirked. It didn't help that Juvia was looking at him with the puppy-dog eyes, and that Lucy was looking at him with the eyes full of expectation.
"Okay, okay, I get it!", he caved in, and the girls winked at each other before they both thanked him, and Natsu grumbled something they couldn't understand. "Well, if you want it to be so special, I think you should make it yourself. Ice Pants is the kinda guy who appreciates effort and hard work and stuff, y' know.", he said, and Juvia enthusiastically nodded her head and wrote that on her note pad (which she pulled out of nowhere).
"But, if she gives him something handmade, what should it be?", Lucy wondered, and Juvia nodded at this as well, and the three people (plus the cat), scratched their chins thoughtfully, before Natsu's light bulb flashed and he remembered something.
"A scarf! That's what you should make him, a scarf! You're good at those things anyway, aren't cha?", he said and grinned, and Juvia blushed from the praise (while Lucy's cheeks turned slightly red because of the grin). But then Lucy remembered something, and started shaking her head.
"No, no, no. We agreed no clothes, right? He might strip it off in the heat of the moment and forget it somewhere, and we don't want that.", she said, and Juvia energetically shook her head.
"We don't want that, we don't want that!"
"But there's no problem here, believe me!", Natsu assured them. "Gray loses the things around his neck the least – you know that necklace he's always wearing? Never lost it! And even if he's in a suit head to toe, he's gonna end up with only a tie by the end, and he's not gonna lose that!", he said, and Lucy searched through her memories that confirmed what Natsu said – Gray always seemed to miraculously keep the things around his neck while everything else got lost along the way.
"But… But he's never bothered by the cold!", Juvia said, remembering another problem with the current idea.
"Tch, it's not that he's never bothered by it, it's just that he's more… more…", Natsu tried, but couldn't find the word, until Lucy helped him.
"Resistant?", she offered, and Natsu took her up by it.
"Yeah, resistant", he continued, "to cold than most of us are. He gets cold too, and that's when he uses the scarves most often. 'S what I noticed, at least.", Natsu said, and Juvia eagerly wrote it all down.
"Juvia will make the best scarf ever! Oh, she needs to buy the material – and it needs to be one of the finest – and color, oh, what color should she choose for him-"
"Gray", Natsu and Lucy said at the same time, and Happy meowed from his spot in Lucy's lap, agreeing with the two of them.
"Gray, of course, gray! Gray for Gray-sama!", Juvia started shouting, obviously excited, and then abruptly stood up, marched over to Lucy's bedroom and grabbed her purse, coat and hat (she made sure to keep them on visible places ever since the incident at the party), and hastily put everything on, then turned around towards Lucy and Natsu and bowed.
"Juvia thanks you very much for your help! She'll be going now, she needs to start working on Gray-sama's present! Bye!", and with that, she left the apartment, leaving Natsu and Lucy in a slight state of shock, but since they were pretty much used to Juvia's suddenness, they came back to their senses quickly, looked at each other and then started laughing, while Happy was purring as Lucy was petting him.
"You know, there's another reason I suggested Juvia to make a scarf for that idiot.", Natsu said, and went over to the kitchen to grab some more snacks (and Lucy was used to this so she wasn't mad – ever since they met five months ago, Natsu has always acted casual like that and that's probably why he'd become such a close friend to her so quickly). The blonde put Happy down and walked over to where the pink haired man was, taking some snacks for herself as well.
"Really? What's the reason?", Lucy asked genuinely interested, as she didn't expect Natsu to have a secret purpose for something.
"It's his foster mom's death anniversary today.", Natsu said somberly, and Lucy was taken aback by what he had said, because she didn't expect anything like that.
"O-oh. I… I didn't know. I mean, it's… God, I don't know what to say…"
"I know. 'S pretty bad. Kinda understand what he's going through, though.", he said, and Lucy nodded, both thinking about their lost loved ones, and the pain that would always accompany them. "Anyway, he was pretty down the whole week so I and some others – Loke, Elfman and the rest – confronted him about it. We've known him for years, but he's always kept everything bottled up, y' know? So this time, we made him talk and damn, did he talk.", Natsu said and chuckled a bit, and Lucy followed suit. "Later, when it was just the two of us, he told me 'bout this story when he, his mom and his step-brother - Lyon, you haven't met him yet – took a walk outside and it was really cold, and their mom took her scarf off and wrapped it around the two of 'em."
Natsu's smile became gentle and Lucy's heart couldn't do much but do a somersault, and then she, too, smiled in a gentle way, proud of her friend and the way he cared about all of his friends, even if he claimed he hated them.
"He said scarves became his favorite clothing article 'cause of that. 'S why I suggested it to Juvia. Maybe she could help him open up a bit more and all…" He then turned towards Lucy and gave her his trademark grin, and Lucy was sure that if she didn't die of it by now, she wasn't going to die because of it ever.
"Anyway, what are we gonna do now, Luce? Happy's bored."
"Meow!"
…
Gray's birthday party was more of a gathering among friends, and it was in their favorite bar just around twenty minutes away from Lucy's apartment. By the time she got there, she could already see many of their friends – Cana was already at the bar gulping down some alcoholic beverage, Lisanna and her sister Mira were teasing Erza about a certain guy she recently met on a matchmaker party that Mirajane made her go to, Levy was in the corner arguing about something with Gajeel (Lucy didn't miss the pink tint on her cheeks), and right across the room was Natsu with Elfman, and they were heatedly discussing something. She decided to go over to them once she congratulated Gray his birthday, but there was one thing that was strange – Juvia was nowhere to be seen.
Lucy scanned the whole place several times, but there was no sign of her blue haired friend. She believed, though, that there was nothing to worry about, as everyone was still gathering, so she went over to the birthday boy and wished him a happy birthday while giving him her present. She didn't get him anything special, just a shirt (that she's sure he's going to lose somewhere), but she wanted to support Juvia the best she could, so she chose a "stupid gift" (at least stupid to buy for Gray), in order to make Juvia's seem even better. The rest of the group heard about the plan, as well, so they too tried to make their gifts seem less significant (and of course, no one was allowed to buy or make him a scarf).
Not even five minutes after Lucy joined Natsu and some others, Juvia entered the bar, looking beautiful, but also very natural (and Lucy knew those were plus points with Gray, but she's not sure Juvia was aware of it). The love struck girl happily marched over to the raven haired man, and Natsu slightly elbowed Lucy, indicating that they should look. She agreed with him, and they, like most of their friends, turned their attention to the pair.
"Happy Birthday, Gray-sama!", Juvia said, smiling from one ear to other, and Gray mirrored her smile, although it was slightly less wider.
"Thanks, Juvia. Glad you could come.", he said, and Juvia blushed a bit, before giving Gray a nicely wrapped present.
"This, uh, this is Gray-sama's present. Juvia made it herself, but, if Gray-sama doesn't like it, Juvia won't mind, and she can make something else and-"
"Juvia, Juvia, you're blabbering. Calm down, 'kay? Of course I'm not going to make you make something else!", Gray said, and chuckled at the girl in front of him. "You put time and effort into this, I can't just reject it like that, can I?", he gently said, and Juvia couldn't help but become even more nervous than she was, which could be seen when she started stuttering.
"Gra-Gray-sama should open the gift.", Juvia said, and even from the distance, Lucy could notice the nervousness seeping out of her.
"Now?", Gray asked, a bit surprised, but since Juvia eagerly nodded her head, he complied to the girl's wishes and started unwrapping his present. What he pulled out was an extremely carefully made woolen scarf, made out of the softest wool Gray had ever touched, and of course, colored in gray.
"Does… Does Gray-sama like it?", Juvia timidly asked, and Lucy giggled at her friend's shy behavior, and next to her Natsu smirked, recognizing the beginning of a blush on Gray's face (the pink haired man had almost superhuman senses).
"Yeah, uh, I mean yes. Yes, I like it very much. Thanks, Juvia.", Gray said, smiling sincerely, and Juvia blushed, then grinned and suddenly threw her arms around Gray, surprising him – but no one else.
"Juvia is so glad! She hopes Gray-sama will wear this scarf for many more years! Happy Birthday, Gray-sama!", she said, and at that moment realized that it didn't matter Gray didn't fall in love with her when she gave him the gift, because the honest smile on his face was more than Juvia could ask for. Besides, she had plenty of time to make Gray realize her charms.
"You already congratulated me!", the man said, with his cheeks red, holding the scarf in one hand and holding Juvia from falling with the other, while their friends laughed and started dancing to the music that started playing.
"See? I told ya scarf was the best gift!", Natsu bragged, and Lucy laughed at that, happy for her friend and in a genuinely good mood.
"You sure did, Natsu!", she teased, and Natsu grinned at her, and then surprised her by taking a hold of her hand (Lucy's cheeks turned positively red).
"I might have two left feet, but won't you still dance with me?", he asked through the loud music, and he didn't need a vocal response, as Lucy returned his grip on her hand and came closer to him, smiling as she did so.
And that night, the friends partied 'till late as always, having fun and laughing, and when she saw the bright smile on Juvia's face as she danced with an extremely embarrassed Gray, Lucy decided that helping your friend with her love problems might not be so bad. Just as long as she didn't have to do it too often.
A/N: Thanks for reading and I hope you liked the story! :)