The third Fairy she meets must have some kind of mental disorder.
Honestly. There is no other explanation as to why Natsu Dragneel is incapable of remembering her name. She is willing to forgive the initial mistakes because they have only just been introduced, her name is pretty unusual, and his focus is probably on the high-stakes situation they are in.
But twenty-three Gooby's, Booby's, and Nooby's later, her patience is dropping to dangerously low levels.
Despite these minor grievances, Juvia actually quite likes Natsu Dragneel — he reminds her of Gajeel, if Gajeel had pink hair, a severe case of ADHD and the unquenchable thirst to get beaten up by opponents ten times stronger than him.
Okay, so he's not that much like Gajeel, but it's the sentiment that counts, right?
It's the smiles that really confound her. Barely a moment passes without a flash of his canines. So Juvia watches him carefully, studiously, because she might as well face it: she's a mess of a girl, a pile of ashy ruins and broken glass and bitter memories; but somehow he's not, and he can laugh and smile like he just knows how to be happy on instinct, like it's a quality so intrinsically woven into his nature you can't not associate joy with Natsu. And she wants to learn, too.
The first thing he does is demand to fight her.
Juvia politely declines, as they are on a godforsaken island in an evil tower surrounded by potential enemies—but she leans over and whispers as soft, "Later," in his ear. He flashes that grin again with his pointy teeth—
(Why are his teeth so pointy? This has always puzzled her.
Ever the faithful best friend, she smugly notes that his teeth are not as pointy as her Dragonslayer's.)
—and phantoms and ghosts, she almost, almost finds herself smiling back.
Almost.
Looking at him bickering with Gray, Juvia's mind drifts, just like it always does nowadays, to Gajeel. Oh, Gajeel. Foul-mouthed, grumpy ironhead that he is, she misses the big dolt. About a month has past since she last saw him, and the frustration of not knowing how he is gnaws at her. But he needs some time alone, anyways. They both have stuff to work through, and he made it crystal clear that he didn't want to share his struggle with her.
It's okay. He's scared. They are alone, guildless, pitted against a world that loathes them. She understands.
She made him a promise four weeks ago: "When Juvia comes back, she will have found a new guild, do you understand? She will pick a good one, Gajeel-kun, and Gajeel-kun can join with Juvia. We can be...happy this time around. Juvia knows that all guilds cannot be like Phantom."
He'd just stared at her, mouth full of iron scraps.
"Juvia would appreciate some company on the road. Will you come with her?"
His answer was a door slammed sharply on her face.
She gets it.
"What was the name of your Fire Dragon?"
Natsu, who had been slumped and clutching his belly just a few seconds before, shoots up straight and gives her a wide-eyed look. "My dragon? Igneel. His name's Igneel. Why?"
"Oh, um...it's nothing. Don't worry about it."
"I'm gonna find him one day," Natsu says automatically, as if by rote.
She nods as if this is a given. "Juvia knows you will."
"Is this about that Gajeel guy's dragon? Metal Cuckoo or something?"
Juvia can't help but smile at that; she can only imagine Gajeel's reaction if he found out his precious Iron Dragon is being was being referred to as a Metal Cuckoo. "Metallicana. And perhaps you could say that, yes. Juvia is...inquiring for a friend."
Natsu puts down his torch. There is a fierce, focused look on his face that surprises her, because he doesn't look like someone who could concentrate on something so intensely. "Did Gajeel find something about the dragons? Anything?"
Regretfully, she shakes her head. He sags a little, just barely, but she catches it with a practiced eye. If Juvia understands anything, it's disappointment.
Natsu takes a huge bite of his fire and gnaws on it like a hungry dog.
"After the dragons disappeared—"
"—but they're coming back," he insists.
"While you wait for him to come back, does Fairy Tail help with the loneliness?"
As if by some sort of magic his grin is back, and he says, "Heck yes. They're like my family now. Even idiots like Frosty and Elfman."
Silence settles over the two. This Tower of Heaven atrocity that Jellal built, it seems suited for silence.
Juvia's head is sent spinning at that word: family. The idea of family is a foreign one to her — she thinks it has something to do with joy, or acceptance, or all of those other beautiful, empty words that she knows the meaning of, but she doesn't know what they really mean. Gajeel always rolled his eyes at the way the Fairies repeated those family-nakama speeches like a broken record, and now she wonders if that's because hearing someone say it — family — reminded him too much of the one he lost, or if it hurt him so badly he waged war on a guild he hated for having something he never could. Family hurts her, too, when she thinks about it. So when she was at Phantom Lord, she just...didn't think about it. Didn't think about anything.
She's thinking about it now. Natsu knows she has to be.
"Join my guild," he says suddenly.
Juvia blinks.
"Come on, Gooby, you just gotta! I'm tellin' ya, Fairy Tail is number one! Sure, we're weird, but you're really weird, too, (no offense) so you'll fit right in!"
"Juvia was—"
"Seriously, if you got any complaints against us, I'm gonna hear 'em," he demands. "I figured after the way those Phantom jerks used you, you kinda need a guild like ours. We don't do that kind of crap in Fairy Tail, all right?'"
"Phantom Lord...used Juvia?" she repeats faintly.
"'Course they did. Like I said, jerks. Any group of wizards who would make their own friends do that kind of stuff don't deserve to call themselves a guild," he snarls.
She'd never thought of it as being...used. In the end, it is her magic that ends their life, and it is always her rain that is mixed with their blood, while the Master hovers behind the scenes, totally untouchable while being protected by his army of pawns, laughing at the bloodshed and clapping his hands and sending them on another mission, and then another...
He was using Juvia all this time, she realizes. Wielding her like a sword. Staining her. Ruining her, and she let him.
How did this Salamander know?
"Juvia is unsure if Fairy Tail would want to accept her," she says uncertainly, biting her lip. "You don't understand, Natsu, after the disbanding of Phantom Lord, all of it's wizards were completely shunned. Word has spread from tip to tail of her guild's disgrace, and now all the doors are closed for Juvia. Phantom's name...it is uttered as only a curse, a bitter one, and you haven't seen the look on a guild master's face, the way they sneer at ex-Phantom mages seeking work... Juvia will not — cannot — bring the same shame to Gray-sama's guild."
He shrugs like she's being stupid. "Look, Gooby—"
"It's Juvia."
"Whatever. Look, shame is no big deal. Just think about it. Our master's a dwarf, we destroy shit every five minutes, our strongest wizard (besides me, I can kick Gildart's ass anytime I want) can't keep it in his pants, we got a creepy perverted stripping snowcone on our team —"
"—Gray-sama is perfect!" Juvia objects.
"—and my best friend's a flying cat," he finishes. "Point is, we're crazy. We make more mistakes than probably any other guild in the country, and a couple bad moves don't make you a bad person, y'know? I ain't sayin' that they're all gonna love you at once, but you seem pretty damn serious about it, and our guild is all about second chances."
Second chances.
Juvia likes the sound of that.
She scrawls a quick note, corks it in a bottle and tosses it into the water, trusting the sea to deliver it — a message to Gajeel, telling him she found them a new home.
A/N: Wouldn't Natsu and Juvia just be total bros? I mean, really?