Pairing: Gray/Juvia
Title: Was it Something I said
Rating: K+
Prompt: "I planned out this super romantic proposal and you just ruined it by beating me to the whole proposing thing."
Requested by: Anonymous
Author's Note: So, I've been bombarded with tumblr and fanfiction messages requesting for a follow-up to my last guvia fic, Point Me at the Sky. To be honest, I really intended it to be a oneshot because I never expected it to receive this much of a response. But fear not ^^ Kate (the ever so lovely muffindragon) has given me quite a lot of ideas for the fic and I already have half of the draft of the second part. I have no idea where this fic will take me but I will say this: there will definitely be a follow-up whether it's just a twoshot or a separate multi-chaptered fic.

Juvia had the unfortunate habit of saying the wrong things at the wrong time so she had, on several occasions, ruined many of Gray's attempts at being romantic.

Like take for example, that time he bought her a dog. The two of them had just hit the one-year mark and she had been not-so-subtly pestering him about doing something to "advance their relationship." Giving her a key to his apartment was out of the question (because he lived with Natsu and he and Juvia were far too chummy for Gray's liking) and so was bringing up the possibility of living together (it was way too soon). In the end, he settled with buying a dog for the two of them. As far as he knew, Juvia was the kind of girl who loved surprises and cute, cuddly things. He didn't care much for pets himself but Juvia was important to him and he wanted to show her that he was willing to commit to something as big as taking care of a living thing with her.

He bought her a tiny, brown dachshund and carefully placed it in a baby-blue carrier that had a bright bow pinned at the top. He planned on surprising her when he went to pick her up at work. He would place it at the backseat of his car and as she entered, the dog would bark and she would turn around and squeal before reaching out to tackle Gray in a hug, all the while praising him for being so thoughtful and romantic.

But when she got in the car, she barely even noticed the dog. Instead, she was too focused with rambling about Gajeel and his latest drama with his cat.

"Pantherlily scratched Gajeel-kun's couch again and nearly ruined his guitar and now, Gajeel-kun has no idea what to do with him. Honestly, pets are such a hassle," Juvia said.

Gray grimaced and for a moment, had the mad urge to usher Juvia out of the car so he could hide the dog somewhere. But before he could, it gave a little yip. Juvia turned around, eyes widening. Then, she turned back to give him an embarrassed, guilty smile before going on and on about how she actually really loved dogs and how they were completely different from cats and how she was confident that the "great love they had for each other" would surely survive anything—even temperamental pets.

Gray just weakly smiled at her and mumbled something about how the dog was for him and Natsu.

And then, there was that time he tried to surprise her for her birthday. He booked a table by the bay at this swanky new restaurant called Maceo's and paid a huge amount of money for the string quartet to play nothing but Juvia's favorite songs for the whole evening. He also made a bouquet of handmade, paper flowers that had two sheets of apartment listings wedged at the top.

They had been together for nearly two years now and Gray thought that it was high time that the two of them move in together. They had been spending more and more time in each other's apartments—so much so that Gray had an entire cabinet full of Juvia's things in his room while she had one of his things in hers. Natsu and Lucy had also begun talking about getting a place together and he'll be damned if he let Flame Brain get the better of him in that aspect.

He had just turned around the corner, towards the street that led to Maceo's when Juvia's long discussion about Lucy's new evening dress somehow dissolved into a rambling review of Maceo's. "Lucy and Natsu-san went there the other day. She told Juvia that the food was absolutely horrible and the waiters were all stuck-up and snooty and the view isn't even that good because of all the pollution."

Gray stiffened and pressed his foot against the pedal in an attempt to speed past Maceo's.

Except that he had already pulled over at the restaurant's entrance.

Juvia blinked rapidly, her mouth opening and closing.

"This is Maceo's," she finally said.

"Yes," he mumbled.

"This is the restaurant you were talking about this afternoon," she said, still dumbstruck.

"Yes," he said, forcing the word out.

He sounded like a strangled cat.

He was about to suggest that the two of them go eat somewhere else but before he could, Juvia clutched at her cheeks and started wailing and apologizing and rambling on and on about how she thought Lucy was exaggerating and how she was sure that criticisms against the place were just hearsay and how even if they weren't, it wouldn't matter because she loved him and didn't care where they ate; the only thing that mattered to her was that she would be with him.

At Juvia's insistence, they still ended up eating at Maceo's although he did decide to postpone the "let's move in together" conversation for later. The mood had been sufficiently killed and even Juvia's elated little squeal at hearing all her favorite songs being played by the string quartet was not enough to bring it back.

(He asked her the next day, while they were taking a shower together and he ended up dislocating his shoulder and banging his head against the tiles when she tackled him into a hug and screamed, "YES!")

And of course, he could never forget that time he bought the two of them tickets to Ibiza. Juvia was a marine biologist and she usually worked all year round, even on holidays. But she and her team managed to discover a new species of coral and after doing a couple of press releases about it, the company that employed them gave them a month-long break as a reward. Gray had just finished his latest exhibit and thought that it was probably going to be forever before they both had the same free time. There was literally no time more perfect than now for them to go out of the country. He had been thinking about it for some time and just a week ago, Juvia had mentioned that she wanted to go somewhere warm and sunny for the winter.

He decided to bring it up when the two of them were sitting in the couch one night, his head on her lap as she gently ran her fingers through his hair. As he brought the ticket out, a plane zoomed into view on the TV screen in front of them.

Juvia involuntarily shuddered.

"What's wrong?" Gray said, frowning.

"Juvia hates planes. She can't stand being in one. Whenever they need to send someone to our partner organization in America, she always makes sure to have an excuse to not go," she said. She shook her head, mouth twisted into a grimace. "She wouldn't get on one even if her life depended on it."

Gray quickly tried to hide the tickets but it was too late. Juvia had already seen them. She started apologizing and in a quivering voice, explained that she was horrendously afraid of flying, that she had the embarrassing habit of blurting out humiliating things when she was on a plane, that she once screamed for three whole minutes straight and puked on the nice, old lady sitting next to her during a five-hour flight.

Eventually, her apologizing dissolved into crying and Gray spent the whole night consoling her that the tickets really weren't that expensive and that he honestly didn't mind because Ibiza didn't sound that great anyway.

(The two of them ended up road-tripping to Oarai and taking a ferry to Hokkaido where they spent the better part of the week just having sex or lying in bed. Gray wasn't exactly complaining.)

So, when finally he came to the conclusion that he loved her—as in absolutely loved her—and that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her, it was perfectly understandable that he spent forever and ever obsessing over how he would go about proposing to her.

All of his attempts at sweeping her off her feet never went as planned—for some strange reason, Juvia always said something that ruined the whole experience. He only had one shot at proposing to her and he wanted it to be perfect.

He thought of nothing else for the whole week; he kept putting it off as he went over it again and again, tossing it and turning it and picking it apart and putting it back together. Eventually a day passed and then a week, and then a month, until it was nearly a year. He already had the ring but still hadn't come even close to proposing.

At first, he considered taking her out to a restaurant (that was decidedly not Maceo's) and slipping the ring in the champagne glass for her to find. But he immediately vetoed the idea when he remembered that Natsu proposed to Lucy the same way and Lucy nearly ended up choking on the ring. Then, he decided that maybe he should propose at the place where they first met (it was at the building of the company she used to work for, Phantom Lord—he bumped into her and rudely called her a clumsy idiot and she yelled back at him in return and they ended up having a huge fight). But when he googled the place up, he was disappointed to find that in the last three years, it had fallen into disrepair with neglect and abandon and had decidedly become less romantic. He then toyed with the idea of proposing to her by the beach—she loved it there and always told him that all of her happiest childhood moments happened in that place.

It would have been the perfect plan. If it weren't for the fact that Juvia was swamped for the whole week with work and he still had that damned triptych to finish for his exhibit.

In the end, he decided to propose to her at home. He cooked her a nice meal (roast chicken with mashed potatoes and buttered vegetables—her favorite), dimmed the lights and put aromatic candles around their apartment. Rose petals forming the words "Will you marry me?" were carefully arranged on the floor of their living room and soft, dreamy music was playing in the background. It was, quite frankly, the corniest, most ridiculous thing he had ever done. But Juvia was a romantic and he knew that she loved stuff like this.

Plus, it was also simple and quiet.

Which meant that there would be even less chances of Juvia saying anything—like how pets were annoying or how Maceo's was horrible or how she hated flying—that would demolish what little confidence he had when it came to being romantic.

He picked her up from work, the ring growing heavy in his pocket. The whole drive home, he could think of nothing but the proposal—how he would do it, how she would react. He began to craft an entire speech of what he was going to say in his head, only listening to a third of what Juvia was saying.

When they finally reached the building, Gray deliberately walked slowly, wanting to prolong the moment. He didn't even know why he was so nervous. Juvia loved him. He was sure of that. And if she said no, he loved her so much that he would understand and let her go. Or he would fight for her — fight tooth nail and for her to stay. He squared his shoulders and took a deep breath. That was the most important thing—loving her. If he truly loved her then it wouldn't matter if the outcome was good and bad.

They had just arrived by the door and he was just about to open it when Juvia pulled his arm and irritably said, "Gray-sama!"

"What?"

Juvia loudly exhaled. "Of course. Of course, you wouldn't be listening when…when it came to this!"

Gray gave her a guilty look and quickly said, "What are you talking about! Of course, I've been listening."

Juvia gave him a suspicious look.

"What did Juvia say, just now?"

"Er…" He tried hard to recall what she was talking about in the car. Vaguely, he remembered her talking about how long they had been together. He figured she must be talking about their upcoming anniversary. "You were talking about our third anniversary?"

He gave her a weak smile.

Her frown deepened. "No. Juvia wasn't! She was talking about a completely different thing!"

She sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. He opened his mouth to apologize—he did not want the moment to be ruined before it even started. But before he could, Juvia tipped her chin up and gave him a determined look.

"Well, no matter. Juvia is still going to push through with this." She took a deep breath, as if to still herself. Then, she met his eyes. "Gray-sama, how long have we been together?"

"Nearly three years…" he said, confused.

"And in those three years, we've been good together, right?"

"Yes! Of course!"

"There has never been a time where we wanted to leave each other, right? And even if there was, it never really lasted long, right?" she continued.

"…Yes…" He began to panic. Why was she talking about leaving each other? Did she want to break up with him? "Juvia, what is this about—''

"And you can see yourself being with me in the future, right? Juvia means…she's just wondering if you see our relationship as something that is built to last."

"Of course I do!"

"Good." She stuck a hand in her pocket. "As you know, Gray-sama. Juvia is twenty-nine now."

"Yes, of course I know—''

"She's approaching thirty. She's at that stage in her life where she wants stability. Not that she wants it now, per se," she hastily added. "Just the promise that it's going to be there waiting for her, somewhere along the future."

She started to draw the hand that was in her pocket out. In it was a small ring box.

Fuck.

Fuck.

"Gray-sama…Juvia knows that this is a bit unorthodox but—''

"NO!"

Juvia blinked at him in shock.

The two of them stood there in uncomfortable silence for several minutes.

"W-What?" she sputtered.

"No! Don't propose to me!" he yelled.

Juvia's cheeks were suddenly hot with embarrassment.

"Juvia can do what she wants! And just so you know, we live in the modern age! It's perfectly okay for a girl to propose to her boyfriend—''

"No! No! No!" Gray was livid. He thought too hard about his proposal, obsessed over it for several days. He was not going to let her beat him at proposing. "I don't care! Don't propose to me!"

"If you're embarrassed about the ring, it's perfectly masculine!" she yelled back. "Gajeel-kun helped picked it!"

"It's not the ring."

"So, it's just me," Juvia shot back. "You just don't want to marry me. You just don't want to commit."

Immediately, he started regretting saying everything he said to her. Maybe he should have let her propose. He could've laughed, slipped the ring on and said something like "You know, it's a funny coincidence because…" And then, he would swing the door open and she would see all the rose petals and candles and the dinner he's cooked and she'd tackled him into a hug. And years from now, when they would be old and have a bunch of grandchildren, they could all look back and laugh at this moment.

But instead, he went and yelled no at her and now Juvia looked angry and on the verge of tears.

"Juvia, it's not that—''

"Fine! Fine!" She threw the ring box on the ground and turned away from him. "Juvia doesn't care! If you're not going to commit, then Juvia doesn't see any point in wasting her time with someone who's not in it for the long haul!"

She stepped away from him and wrenched her fingers around the doorknob.

"Juvia, wait. That's not what I meant—''

Before he could finish, she swung the door open. Juvia paused her eyes growing wide. She took in the candles, the rose petals, the dimmed lights, the soft, romantic music playing the background.

"Oh. Oh. OH." She turned to look at him, her face beaming with happiness. "OH MY GOD!"

Gray gave her a weak smile and held out the open ring box. It had a dainty silver band in it and a shiny, bright water drop-shaped diamond that twinkled and sparkled like ice.

"Marry me?" he awkwardly mumbled.

Juvia's excited expression immediately became subdued. She gave him a guilty look. "Juvia ruined it again, didn't she?"