Flames and Steel
"Tryouts are this Friday, don't forget!" Yelled the captain of the basketball team, Max, as everyone who signed up walked away. Lyon walked outside of the gym with them and then said his good byes. Both Natsu and Gray walked towards the parking lot, where their car was parked. The guys had texted the girls to meet them there instead, so that they could drive to where they were going.
They saw the girls standing around the car, talking as they waited. Natsu saw Erza look over towards him and Gray, and waved. Erza waved back and the girls turned towards them.
"So, where are we going to hang out?" Gray asked as Natsu and him walked up to the girls, with Gray going to stand next to Juvia and Natsu next to Erza, creating a half moon shape. Lucy was the one to answer.
"Where everyone goes to hang out, the Magnolia mall!" Natsu sighed, as he has always hated going to the mall. In his opinion, it was always too crowded. Erza glanced in his direction with a raised eyebrow.
"Is that a problem, Natsu?"
Natsu shook his head "No, its just always so crowded at the mall. Me and crowds don't really mix well, since I always seem to get mobbed by one."
Erza face lit up with realization. "Oh yeah, I had forgotten that you are famous!" Both Lucy and Juvia nodded in agreement, their faces also having a look of realization on them.
Natsu face palmed, and Gray laughed while rubbing the back of his head. "Yeah, Natsu and I have never really done well with crowds because of that." Then he looked at Erza with a grin on his face. "But I guess Erza could always just scare them off, hell she could do that without even trying, just a look at her face would have them running."
Erza glared at Gray, and when Natsu gave a bark of laughter a second later, she quickly turned on him and laid him flat with a solid punch to the face.
Natsu got up slowly, rubbing his face "Shit! Ow! What the hell Erza, I wasn't even the one to insult you!"
Erza looked away with a huff "Yeah but you laughed, and you were closer to me than Gray." Natsu look at her in disbelief, and would have continued arguing with her, if not for the glare from Erza that promised another punch to the face if he didn't shut up.
Natsu grumbled, but made the smart move and closed his mouth, instead deciding to glare at Gray. "I'm going to make you pay later, freeze brain." Gray shrugged off his threat, and looked at Lucy and Juvia.
"So anyways, are we going to do anything specific there?"
"We are going to see a movie, but we don't know which one to watch yet." Juvia replied.
Natsu face lit up in excitement "I saw a few days ago that the new horror film, Rise of the Dead, just came out in theatres. Lets watch that!" Gray looked at Natsu, and then started to nod excitedly in agreement. He looked over at the girls "That cool with you guys?"
Lucy and Juvia nodded, with Lucy grinning "Hell yes we are, horror films are the best!" Natsu looked at Erza, who hadn't said anything.
"That good with you Erza?" Erza looked at Natsu, and nodded slowly, though Natsu could see that she was a little hesitant about agreeing.
Gray quickly pulled out his phone, and looked up movie times. He saw that there was a showing in a half and hour, and fist pumped into the air. "Sweet! There is a showing in 30 minutes, lets hurry before the run out of tickets. I'm driving!" With that he unlocked the car, and got into the drivers seat.
"I call shotgun!" shouted Lucy as she ran around the car and got into the passengers seat. Juvia got into the back seat, and as Natsu and Erza walked behind the car, Natsu grabbed Erza's arm and stopped her.
Natsu looked at Erza with concern on his face "You didn't look too sure about seeing the movie, are you really okay with watching it?"
Erza looked at Natsu for a second, then gave him a smile. "Yeah, its just that I haven't really watched that many horror films before, because my Dad brought me to one when I was younger. Ever since then I've never really liked horror films, because of the bad experience. But with you guys there, it should be fine."
Natsu looked at Erza, and then smiled and nodded back. As they walked to the car door, Natsu thought about how cute Erza looked when she smiled. Over the times they were friends, Natsu had found himself starting to like Erza as more then a friend. He had decided not to say anything about it, thinking that it was just a tiny crush and didn't want to make things awkward between them with a confession.
They got into the car, Natsu started to wonder what it would be like if Erza and him were more then friends, but quickly shook his head to clear his mind of those thoughts. He was perfectly content with how things currently were, so why risk ruining that? He looked out the front window, thinking about that as Gray turned the car on and pulled out of the parking spot, than driving on towards the mall.
Luckily they hit all the green lights, and the traffic wasn't too bad, so they got there in around 15 minutes. They got out of the car, and hurried towards the movie theatre, hoping that the tickets weren't already sold out.
As they walked into the mall and towards the movie theatre, Gray and Natsu did their best to hide their faces, so that they wouldn't be recognized by anyone. They succeeded, as there was no commotion on their way to the ticket booth. They reached the ticket booth, and Lucy bought the tickets with the money Gray had given her.
At first the girls had refused the offer for the boys to pay for their tickets, saying they were "perfectly able to buy their own tickets, just because they weren't rich didn't mean they were poor". Natsu and Gray were able to change their minds, saying that it was "the gentlemanly thing to do" which was true; their father had raised them with the strict belief that a man should try his best to always be a gentleman to a women.
With their newly bought tickets, they walked up the stairs leading to where the movie theaters were, and then took a detour. The reason for this was that Natsu's eyes had lit up at the sight of the snack counter, causing him to veer off in the direction of the snack counter. The girls and Gray sweat dropped as they stared after Natsu then followed him to the counter.
The lady behind the counter smiled at Natsu. "What can I get for you?"
Natsu looked at the selection with a serious and concentrated face, looking for his type of candy. Erza looked at Natsu curiously, and then leaned over to Gray.
"Why does he look so serious?" Gray glanced at her, and then gave a smirk.
"Natsu's greatest weakness, food. Bribe him with the right type and amount of food, and you could convince him to be your servant for the day." He gave a small laugh, causing Natsu to glance at him, but shrug it off and continue with the browsing of food.
Gray leaned in to talk to Erza again, only this time he whispered. "Out of all the food, candy has to be up there on his weakness. I swear we could be here 15 minutes before he is able to make his choice."
Erza sighed, "I'll get him to order fast then." With that said, she leveled a glare at Natsu which sent shivers down his spine. He quickly looked up and around, and met Erza's eyes. Natsu gulped as the message, to hurry his ass up, was received fully by him through the glare, and quickly looked back at the selection.
In four seconds flat, Natsu had ordered some candy and popcorn, with a Slurpee. Gray was staring open-mouthed at what had just happened, and glanced over at Erza. Erza looked at him, and gave a self-satisfied smile, and led the way towards the theatre. Gray shook his head, and followed after.
They walked into the theatre, with Natsu's hands being full with the food that he purchased. They quickly did a scan for open seats, and found to their amazement and happiness that there were 5 open seats in two of the rows, that were placed right in the middle of the theatre.
They rushed towards the seats, with Gray, Juvia, and Lucy taking the three seats on the bottom row, and Natsu and Erza taking the two seats on the upper row. Right as they settled in, the movie trailers started.
Natsu leaned over to Erza "Just in the nick of time, eh?" he whispered.
Erza gave a tiny, quiet laugh, and whispered back. "Yeah, but you almost made us late with your damn indecision."
Natsu smiled sheepishly "Yeah, sorry about that."
Erza waved it off "Not a problem, just learn to make quicker decisions."
Natsu pouted and raised his voice a little. "It's harder then it looks! There are so many kinds of candy! Salty, sweet, and it also depen-" he was cut off from a loud shush from the person behind them.
Natsu and Erza both looked back with an apologetic smile. "Sorry!" With that Natsu and Erza looked back towards the screen, not wanting to disrupt any one anymore.
The movie started, much to the excitement of the group, except for one of them. Erza was good at hiding it, so she didn't show any outward apprehension towards watching the movie before they got in there. As she sat there and the movie started though, she couldn't help but start to feel that it was a bad idea to have agreed to this.
Erza was not one to be afraid of a lot of things, but horror films were definitely something that scared her. She hoped that being with her friends would help her get over this fear she has had ever since a kid, but she started doubting and regretting that decision as the movie went through the intro, with the credits rolling.
The movie had been going for about a half an hour, and was finally starting to get to the good parts. His food and drinks had been devoured already, with everyone else in the group stealing from him. At first he growled at them and tried his best to keep his food away from them, but as the movie went on he was engrossed in it, missing the thieving hands of his friends.
Natsu was staring at the screen in excitement, as he could feel that the scene was building up to the scare point, and couldn't wait. This was the reason why he enjoyed horror movies so much, the thrill of the suspense as you waited for that moment to be scared shitless. The first ever horror movie saw had gotten him hooked onto the genre, and he had soon gotten his brother hooked on the genre too.
The scene was building up the tension, with the main character and his cousin slowly walking down the hallway of an abandoned house, after hearing a moaning noise coming from the other room. They were doing the cliché horror movie character thing and walking towards the noise, but with the music slowly building up, and the moaning getting loader as they walked towards the room, the tension in the theatre had grown so much everyone could feel it.
Natsu suddenly felt something touching his hand, and he looked over to see someone had grabbed his hand. He followed the arm up to see it was Erza, who looked like she was about to scream at any second, but didn't realize that she had grabbed his hand. She felt Natsu gaze on her and glanced over, and at the questioning look from Natsu looked down at their hands.
Her eyes widened, and she quickly looked up at Natsu with an embarrassed and apologetic look on her face. She looked like she was about to move her hand away, but Natsu shook his head and smiled, to say that it was fine. Erza looked at him for a moment, then smiled and gave him a thankful look before they both looked back to the screen.
The music had reached the peak, and with one swift movement the main character pushed open the door. Everyone gasped in anticipation for the scare, but it didn't come as the music stopped with the moaning, causing the characters in the movie and everyone in the theatre to relax. Then that's when the scare hit.
With a loud screeching noise, a monster came out of the shadows behind the cousin. The cousin fell to the ground, yelling and screaming in pain as the monster started to tear into him. The main character screamed, and ran as fast as he could away from the monster, abandoning his cousin. He could hear his cousin screaming in pain and calling for him to help as he bolted through the house looking for an exit.
With the loud screeching attack from the monster in the movie, the whole theatre seemed the shriek in unison. Natsu was about to start laughing at how loud he had yelled, but was surprised when he felt a bump on his shoulder and a weight behind him.
He glanced back behind him to find out what it was, only to see scarlet hair hiding behind him. To say he was surprised would have been an understatement; he was completely stunned. Sure, he knew that Erza didn't like horror movies, but he had never expected her to react that way.
One thing was going through his head as he looked at her. 'C-cute….' But he was brought out of that when he realized that Erza was looking up at him, with a face that had mixed emotions on it. There was still a hint of the fear from the movie, but there was also shock at her own reaction, and embarrassment from her reaction, but it was the look she was giving him that he fixated on, the look from her was silently asking him if he was okay with it.
Natsu immediately gained a smile on his face, and nodded. He meant it as a friend, of course he wouldn't mind helping out a fellow friend. To him though, he also knew he was doing it because of the "tiny crush" he had gained for her. He was happy that he could do something like this for her.
So with that they went back to watching the movie, Erza using Natsu and a personal "hiding screen" when ever the movie threw the scare at them. He almost missed it, but saw Gray glance back at them during one of the scare scenes, and when they made eye contact Gray gave him a grin that Natsu had taken to calling his "shit-eating grin" which meant bad news for Natsu.
Natsu sighed and gave Gray a glare that promised pain if he said anything or gave him shit, which Gray just looked away from with the grin still plastered to his face. Natsu glared at the back of his head for a full thirty seconds, making sure Gray got the idea, before looking back at the movie.
The movie ended, and the group got up and started filing through the isles and out the exit. Gray, Juvia, and Lucy went out the left exit with Natsu and Erza going out the right exit. As they exited the theatre, they saw that Gray and Lucy were talking excitedly about the movie, with Juvia standing by them smiling and nodding.
Natsu was about to go and join them, but felt a hand pulling on his arm, and looked over to see Erza standing with her hand on his arm. She gestured for him to follow her, and he starting following her while looking over at Gray, who was staring questioningly after them. He mouthed "One minute" to him and turned back to continue following Erza.
They went to a corner, and Erza turned around to speak to Natsu.
"Thank you." A surprised look grew on Natsu's face, so Erza quickly continued to explain herself.
"Thanks for what you did back in there, it really helped out a lot. It probably would have been worse for me without that, so thanks."
Natsu tried the best to hide it, but he was now beyond shocked. Here was the great Erza, standing before him with a look that made him think of her as a regular high school girl instead of the hard women he usually saw Erza as. "Uh… yeah, no problem…. your welcome…" He stumbled over his words a little, giving away a little of his shock.
Then he saw a familiar look come to Erza's face, it was a hard look that made Natsu feel cold. "If I catch you telling anyone about this, anyone, I will personally make your life a living hell until the day you die. Understand?"
Natsu eyes widened, and a shiver ran up his spine as he thought of his life if that were to happen. He quickly nodded his head, with "of course" and "yeah" being repeated over and over again. Erza gave a quick smile, although it was a smile with a hint of a promise of pain, and gave him a pat on the shoulder as she walked past him to rejoin the group.
Natsu turned and watched her walk away, and thought about what happened in the theatre. It was a side of Erza he had never seen before, and he found that he liked that side of her. He found that he wanted to find out more about her, and see her other sides, but shook his head of those thoughts as he walked back towards the group. Like before, he thought that there was no point in making it awkward between them with those thoughts.
Although he said that to himself, as Natsu laid down on his bed that night he couldn't get the theatre out of his head. He fell asleep thinking of Erza, with scarlet hair filling his dreams.
(A/N) And there's chapter 4. Couldn't think of a way to end this chapter for a while, hopefully the ending wasn't too cheesy. Also, I'm looking for someone to beta this story, so anyone that has spare time and feels like betaing this story just PM me.
Anyways yeah, Natsu feelings start to grow; I wonder how this is going to play out?!... Just kidding, I know exactly how this is going to play out, I just have to type it out :P Also thanks to everyone who has reviewed, it really helps give me motivation to continue writing! So I say again, thanks.
Peace!
-Infallible
