A/N: So, here's another 1k+ chapter! I still feel so bad about not posting on Wednesday and Thursday, so I thought I'd make it up to you guys and post two ONE SHOTS (woo for length :3) in a row!
The four members of Team Natsu walk into the empty guild hall after their long mission, glad to finally be home. Their bodies are still battle-tense, their adrenaline still pumping but beginning to slow, and Natsu is the first to notice how bare the guild looks.
"Where is everyone?" He asks rhetorically, and Erza can't decide whether to laugh at the statement or roll her eyes. She does the latter before sitting in the booth across from where Natsu also sat.
"They're all out. Master even had somewhere to be." Everyone jumps when Mirajane speaks, her hands slowly drying a plate with a well-used hand towel in her usual spot behind the bar. "How did your mission go?"
"Good," Lucy answers, sliding into the booth next to Natsu. Erza knows something is going on between them, most likely romantic, but decides not to do anything about it. Besides, she has her own romantic issues at the moment. "We took care of the rumored 'Band of A Hundred Warriors' easily. It just took a while to find them all."
Gray slides into the booth next to Erza and she feels her spine shake from the contact of his clothed thigh against her bare one. She tries to squish her body's cravings, but it doesn't work very well. "Mira, did you get what we talked about before I left with these hooligans?" Gray asks loudly, and Erza tries to place a conversation happening between the Beast Takeover mage and her Ice Mage. Well, the Ice mage. He wasn't actually hers, yet. She wishes he was, though, so in her mind, he'll be her Ice mage.
"I believe so. Are you sure you want to do it now?" Mira asks, and Erza's heart starts to speed up. Her hopes are that he bought her something to make up for the fact that he'd missed her birthday two days earlier, but hadn't had the heart to tell him.
"No one's here to scold us," he replies, sliding out of the booth and approaching the bar. "Four, right?"
Mira smirks at her man, and she feels a boiling jealousy, but reminds herself that it's just Mira and she wouldn't try to steal Gray from her. But, just so everyone's clear, Erza wouldn't be afraid to challenge Mira if she thought about getting fresh with him, just like old times when the slightly-older woman would flirt with him just to make Erza angry. But he'd had Mira buy four of it? What could it be? Gray nods and Mira heads back into the kitchen. "Erza, close your eyes," Mira calls, and expecting some sort of present, she obliges. She hears footsteps, Mira coming back with the surprise, and she practically sees Natsu's suppressed grin. She waits anxiously, hoping that whatever it is, it's a good present. Gray owed her from his last "birthday surprise," which had been blamed on Natsu, even though she knows it had been Gray's idea.
Now that she thinks about it, Natsu is blamed for a lot of things that are essentially Gray's fault. She doesn't blame the ice mage, though, because it's one of his endearing traits. "Open your mouth," Gray whispers softly, huskily; she can feel his warm breath right by her ear, and it sends shivers down her spine. The present had changed in her mind and was food-related, obviously, so she opened her mouth, expecting a piece of cake. Maybe she's so frazzled because of her lack of cake. She hasn't had a nice piece of strawberry cake since before they left.
She is greeted by the sound of something spraying in her mouth by aerosol can and a thin, frothy cream fills her mouth before she can yelp in shock. Laughter fills her head, coming from her whole team and Mira. She locks eyes with Gray, who had ran away and was now laughing on the floor about twenty feet away.
Mira chucks a can at Erza from the bar and she catches it with ease, ripping off the cap and chasing after Gray. She watches Natsu and Lucy catch their cans too and follow her to where Gray has gotten off the floor, his laughter dying out and he is running with an expression of 'oh, shit,' hoping to escape her wrath.
Well, too bad. If you play the "let's tease the almighty Titania" game, you're bound to get burned. Severely. She grinned as he stumbled over his own feet, but she wasn't able to slow down so she didn't ram into Gray.
She rams into his back, her open can squirting white foam all through his hair as he falls face-first into the floor. She giggles at the sight. She rubs the foam through his hair, laying on top of the now-groaning-in-pain Gray Fullbuster. "Get your fat ass off me," he grumbles. She ignores him but straddles his hips allowing him to flip over onto his back. She doesn't want to squish her beautiful boy.
Gray smiles and squirts his can in her face and hair, running his fingers through the strands to mix in the whipped cream. "You're a mess," he acknowledges, and she laughs.
"You are too." She tangles her fingers into his sticky hair before glancing around and finding Natsu chasing a cream-covered Lucy around with a hungry look in his eye.
She watches his hand dig in his pocket to bring out something. "Just in case you aren't wearing your armor and you need something to protect you," he smiles and clasps a warm chain around her neck. The touch at her neck heats her soul. "Happy belated birthday, Erza."
She flushes at the necklace that now dangled from her neck. "Why purple?"
His face becomes slightly redder, and she wants to chuckle at his stutter. "B-because your hair is red and your Fairy Tail mark is blue. It's a mixture of two of the colors that make you who you are."
She grins at him. "Thank you, Gray."
"At least it's better than last year's attempt at a party." Gray smirks. She shudders at the memory of Natsu running around drunkenly with her bra.
"Anything will always be better than that party."
A/N: I also have Erza's Birthday Party written! :D It's actually my longest, at 1776 words! I'm really proud of it. :D