A/N: Hey all. I've gotten multiple requests for it, so here's some light-hearted Gruvia.
It was a pleasant day in Magnolia, and Gray strolled through the streets with so particular purpose in mind. He'd just returned from a mission with the rest of Team Erza (he refused to call it Team Natsu, though for some reason everyone else in the guild did) and they'd all agreed to take a few days to relax.
As he passed a newsstand, something caught his eye and he paused.
"Hey, can I get that copy of Sorcerer's Weekly?" He asked, rummaging around for a few jewels. He noted that his shirt was missing, but luckily he still had his pants.
The man running the stand grunted and tossed the magazine on the counter. Gray flipped open to the middle. "Oh shit!" Roughly grabbing the magazine in his hands, he took off toward the guild as fast as he could.
"Is…Juvia…here?" He panted as he burst through the doors, causing several people to turn in alarm.
"Gray!" Natsu shouted. "Fight me!" He came at him, but Gray evaded him.
"Not now," Gray gasped, still out of breath from his sprint. "I need…to know…if Juvia is here!"
"She's not…" Erza said, looking at him with a mingled look of concern and amusement. "Why?"
Gray came up to where Lucy, Erza and Happy were sitting and slammed his magazine down on the table.
"Gray Fullbuster – Fiore's number one mage bachelor?" Lucy read. Natsu peered over he shoulder and burst out laughing.
"What a joke!" He jeered.
Gray glared at him. "There's nothing funny about this, flamebrain!"
"What's the problem?" Lucy asked, staring at him. "I'd kill for this kind of publicity."
He shook his head emphatically. "I don't give two shits about publicity."
"Okay…" Erza said. "But that's no reason to be so upset."
"Of course I'm upset!" Gray roared, causing other members of the guild to stare. "Juvia's going to freak!"
Lucy, Erza and Happy all looked at each other with horror-stricken faces.
"My god, I can't believe I didn't think of that!" Lucy said.
"The whole guild is going to be underwater!" Happy said sadly.
"Pft," Natsu said. "And you call me a moron…"
Gray glared at him. "What do you mean?"
"Well isn't there an easy way to fix this?" he said.
Gray resisted the urge to punch him. "I'm listening," he said through gritted teeth.
Natsu grinned. "Let's just burn all the copies of Sorcerer's Weekly!"
Then Gray did punch him. "What kind of moronic plan is that?"
"Jackass!" Natsu said, dodging the punch and trying to kick him back. "Do you have a better idea?"
Gray turned to the others at the table, but they all shrugged. "Maybe Juvia will only be a little upset…" Lucy tried to comfort him.
Erza crossed her legs and shook her head. "No, Gray's correct in his prediction," she said. "We have to take action immediately."
"What should we do?" Lucy asked. Everyone turned to Erza expectantly.
She didn't answer right away, but closed her eyes and seemed to be in deep thought. After a moment she opened them. "There's only one course of action I can think of," she said, her face completely serious.
"Which is…" Gray prompted as he removed his pants out of nervousness.
She looked at the others with strong resolve in her eyes. "Destroy all the copies of Sorcerer's Weekly before Juvia sees them."
Lucy, Gray and Happy all fell over as Natsu whooped happily.
Getting up and dusting herself off, Lucy asked "Are you sure that's the only solution?"
Erza looked at Gray and opened her mouth as though she was going to say something but thought better of it. "It's the only solution that can be accomplished as we are now," she said cryptically.
Natsu was jumping up and down with unbridled excitement. "This is right up my alley," he said, punching his fists together and causing sparks to fly everywhere. Lucy jumped to avoid catching fire. "Let's do this!" He grabbed Lucy's wrist and dragged her toward the door before she could say anything. Happy waved to Erza and Gray and flew after them.
Gray looked into Erza's eyes. "Are you going to explain that comment?" he asked her.
She smiled faintly. "You won't like it."
He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "Will I like it better than running through the city destroying magazines?"
She stood up and put a hand on his shoulder. "Since you didn't come up with it yourself, I think you'd better start destroying the magazines." She smiled. "Don't worry, Natsu, Lucy and I will back you up."
He rubbed his temples. "There's no way we'll be able to find every copy."
"Then we better get started." She let her hand slip off his shoulder and she headed out the door.
Mentally cursing his bad luck (and wondering how the hell Sorcerer's Weekly got so many pictures of him naked), Gray headed out the door. He saw smoke rising from the east and assumed Natsu had already started his destructive rampage over there, so he turned west instead.
At one point Gray ran into Lucy and Cancer, who was dutifully cutting up magazines (and also chasing after women with long hair begging to style it). He admired Lucy's direct style, which minimized damage to anything else. At another point Gray looked up and saw huge pillars of black smoke and heard screaming. He didn't bother to head toward it, knowing it was Natsu's doing and wanting to avoid getting blamed for it. But later he was unable to escape getting wrapped into Erza's massive tornado of swords, which were destroying newsstands with disturbing accuracy and viciousness.
It took several hours, but Gray was pleasantly surprised to discover that between the four of them (and Happy's scouting) they seemed to have wiped out any trace of the magazine (and they were only issued four citations, which was a record low). Humming, he wandered back to the guild with Happy and waited for the others to get back.
"Mission accomplished," Lucy said with a grin as she slid into a seat next to him.
"Yeah, let's just hope she doesn't pick it up somewhere else," Gray said.
"That's not likely," Erza said, joining them. "Natsu and I hit the suburbs as well, just to be on the safe side.
Gray made a face, imaging the chaos they'd created with flame and sword. Imagines of medieval war came to mind. He shook the thought out of his head before he started feeling guilty.
Natsu walked in last, laughing hysterically. "Those soldiers are so slow," he chortled. Erza raised her eyebrows at him.
"I hope you didn't cause too much trouble…" she began.
"Oh by the way, I smell Juvia heading this way," Natsu said.
Gray felt himself tense. He was fairly certain they'd accomplished their purpose, but until he saw Juvia's face he wouldn't be sure. The last thing he wanted was for her to burst into jealous.
"You know, it's kind of sweet that you were so worried about Juvia's feelings," Lucy said offhandedly.
"Yes, in the past you would just ignore her or leave the guild if something like this happened," Erza said. "You've really matured, Gray."
"Thanks…I guess.." Gray said. He heard the guild hall doors open and turned to see trademark blue hair under a hat walking in.
"Gray-sama!" Juvia called out. She sounded happy, and Gray released a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding.
"Hey Juvia," he said, sliding over on the bench so she could sit down. "What's up?"
"Hey Gray!" Elfman appeared out of nowhere and slapped the ice make mage on the back. "You're a real man!"
Gray glanced up at the takeover mage in annoyance. "What are you talking about?"
"This, obviously," Evergreen said in her haughty voice. She dropped a magazine on the table. At once, Gray, Erza, Lucy and even Natsu dove for it, conking heads as they piled up.
"Uh…what's with you guys?" Evergreen raised one eyebrow at the four of them splayed across the table. Erza had moved the fastest, followed by Gray, with Natsu and Lucy wriggling on top.
"Get off me Natsu," Lucy squealed, trying to wiggle out from under him. This caused her breasts to rub against Gray's back, which didn't go unnoticed by Juvia.
"Nothing's up at all," Gray said, trying to disentangle himself without revealing the magazine. At the same moment Erza attempted to roll out, causing them to fall face to face, Erza's arm still covering the magazine. Juvia's lip quivered.
"We're playing pig pile, obviously," Natsu said. "And I win!" Lucy finally got her arm free and pushed the laughing dragonslayer off her. This left Gray sandwiched between Lucy and Erza.
"Gray-sama…" Juvia said. Gray shuddered – it was a dangerous tone. "Are you cheating on Juvia?!"
"What? No!" Gray said, shoving Lucy off him with so much force she hit the floor with a resounding boom. "And we're not even dating!"
"Jeez Luce, you're sure heavy," Natsu commented as he helped her up. The blonde didn't look amused and shot Gray an angry look as she rubbed her tailbone.
Juvia sniffed a bit but seemed to calm down. Elfman and Evergreen were still watching the scene with great confusion.
"What are you doing to my magazine?" Evergreen asked as Erza pushed Gray off and hastily rolled the magazine up.
"Magazines are trash," Erza said, trying to cover. "You shouldn't waste your time on something like this."
This offended Evergreen. "It's just Sorcerer's Weekly! You've done multiple interviews with them!"
Erza didn't seem to have an answer for that.
"You guys are acting really weird," Elfman said.
"Is there something in the magazine you don't want Juvia to see?" Juvia asked. This caused Erza to tense up, Happy to snort, Natsu and Lucy to fall over, and Gray to turn pale.
"Why would you say that?" He asked, his voice unnaturally high.
Fate was not on his side, for at that moment Levy walked in with Jet and Droy. "Congrats on your spread in Sorcerer's Weekly, Gray," the script mage said, having no idea the hell she was about to unleash.
Juvia's eyes sparkled like a child at Christmas. "Gray-sama has a spread in Sorcerer's Weekly?!" She asked excitedly. Gray smacked himself in the forehead.
Erza sighed in defeat. "I guess we should just show you.." She slowly urolled the magazine and handed it to Juvia.
She, Gray, Lucy and Natsu all watched Juvia apprehensively while everyone else looked confused. Juvia scanned the cover, then quickly flipped to the article in question. Everyone was afraid to breathe.
After a moment, she turned to Gray with a pout on her face. He covered his head, prepared for an onslaught of tears. "Don't worry," she said seriously. "Juvia will protect Gray-sama from all the girls that will be coming after him." Her eyes shined and Gray was suddenly reminded of Erza. "Yes, Juvia will take care of them all…" she said before drifting off into what Gray assumed was a violent daydream.
Natsu said what everyone else what thinking. "That's it?"
Lucy tentatively poked Juvia, but the water mage was deep in dreamland. She turned to the others. "I think that's it…"
Evergreen rolled her eyes. "You guys are ridiculous," she said as she took her magazine back from Erza. "Come on Elfman."
Elfman shrugged at them and followed her. Natsu walked away, mumbling about wasting time on the snowfairy, and Lucy and Happy followed, waving at Erza and Gray. Gray dropped onto the bench, totally exhausted (and totally naked).
Erza looked down at him, one eye covered with her long hair. "Juvia's gotten much better at controlling herself," she praised the girl.
"I guess so," he said. He looked up at her. "Hey…what was your other solution to the problem, anyway?"
Erza pursed her lips and smiled at the same time. "Are you sure you want to know?"
"Yeah, I'm curious," he said.
She leaned over and whispered in his ear. His eyes widened. "That would have been so much easier! Why didn't you say anything?"
Erza laughed. "I didn't think you'd be willing. You've grown more than I expected."
Gray nodded. "Okay, fair enough."
Erza glanced at a clock on the guild wall. "I have some things to do. Maybe you should think about trying my suggestion anyway…" she winked at him as she walked away.
Gray blushed. He glanced at Juvia, who was still spacing out. Tentatively, he leaned in toward her. "Hey Juvia," he said loudly.
She immediately snapped out of her imagination. "Yes Gray-sama?"
He wondered if he was going to regret this decision, but he knew Erza generally gave very good advice. "Wanna go get some ice cream or something?"
Juvia beamed. "Juvia would love to!" She looked down at him and blushed. "But shouldn't Gray-sama put some pants on first?"
Gray looked down. "Dammit!"