Summary: It has occurred to me while Gray is good at stripping, he wouldn't actually make a good professional stripper.
Pairings: Some implied one-sided fans/Fairy Tail members, Natsu/Cana friendship, some general other friendship feels, and Gray/Juvia.
Author's Note: Thank you so much for giving me over SIXTY EIGHT HUNDRED reviews! As always I'm glad that you're enjoying it.
Fairy Tail has seen, in the past, many requests for a member to act as a stripper. Unsurprisingly these were mostly aimed at the very popular female members for Stag Nights and were usually ripped apart, stomped on, and burnt to ashes long before they made it to the request board.
This one, however, wasn't, and since the request was for a good-looking guy to attend to a Hen Night, and Gray was incredibly low on money, the job vanished from the request board very quickly.
After all, Gray was good-looking and he had experience in stripping.
So Gray arrived with the greatest expectations of having the easiest job and making lots of money without even thinking about it.
He did not expect the insanity he was welcome with in the backstage. There were people shouting orders to one another, people bumping into each other while wearing the wackiest costumes Gray had ever seen, people spraying stuff all over the place, and everyone coughed and spluttered before they carried on applying weird stuff onto them.
"You're Gray Fullbuster?" a woman with a clipboard approached him.
"Yeah," Gray said hesitatingly, "that's me."
"Hmm…" the woman harrumphed, "I do hope that you have some clothes with you. It'll be a disappointing show if the stripper is already naked before it really began."
"Crap!" Gray swore. "I didn't even notice! Erm…" he grinned sheepishly as the woman raised an unimpressed eyebrow. "It's all right," he said as confidently as possible, "I have a spare set of clothes in my bag and will be able to put on a show."
"If you say so," the woman shrugged, "now hair and make-up are just round that corner, you can help yourself to the body glitter and oil-"
"Wait, what?" Gray blinked. "Why would I need glitter and oil?"
"To make yourself look sexy, of course," the woman said as if Gray was a moron.
"I'M ALREADY SEXY!"
"If you say so," the woman said unimpressed, "personally I think you're a bit too pasty but each to their own." Gray spluttered indignantly but it was ignored. "Now then, you're rather late – you're due on in ten minutes – so there's no time to rehearse-"
"Why would I need to rehearse?" Gray scoffed. "It's just stripping."
Several people glared at him for that for reasons unknown. The woman in front of him looked even more unimpressed and merely told him to get ready and enter on stage left. Gray hurriedly got dressed and waited where he was told, it was uncomfortably hot in the backstage with so many people rushing around and the heating on full, Gray tugged uncomfortably at his turtle neck and hoped that this would be over soon.
"AND NOW," a voice boomed through the sound system, "THE MOMENT YOU LADIES HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR. HE IS THE MOST DANGEROUSLY SEXY MAN IN FIORE, THE ONE, THE ONLY – GRAY FULLBUSTER!"
The cheers and screams were deafening and Gray couldn't help but smirk as he stepped onto the stage, the music started up, Gray took a bow at the cheers and –
"WHAT THE FUCK?!" A woman squawked loudly. "What sort of strip tease is that?! The bloke is already naked, talk about a disappointing show."
"What?!" Gray ducked his head down and was confronted by smooth, pale, and very much naked, skin. "Fuck!" he swore as he spotted an unimpressed technician wearing his boxers on their head. "I am so sorry," he apologised to the crowd, "that happens a lot, hold on one minute."
"Never been to a strip show where the stripper has to put clothes on," another woman grumbled.
"This sucks!"
"They should have hired someone else," another moaned loudly, "like that Gajeel guy, he's fit."
"Or Laxus!"
"Or Elfman," another one drooled, "he could bench-press me any day."
Gray shuddered and tried to block out the many female voices who were now bickering over which Fairy Tail mage was hotter (can you believe some even suggested Natsu? Urgh, there was no such thing as taste anymore) as he got dressed for the eighteenth time that day (his clothes kept wandering off while he was on the train).
He signalled at the technician and once again the music started up again, Gray stepped back out on the stage, and ever so slowly he began to take his coat off.
"OH COME ON!" the first woman squawked again. "Are you a sexy man or a robot? Because it's hard to tell the difference."
"Come on, handsome!" another shouted. "Dance for us!"
Gray hated dancing.
He really, really, really hated dancing.
He would much rather spend the night handcuffed to Natsu after the flaming moron had eaten too much chilli and was burping flames, that was how much he hated dancing.
With a fake smile firmly fixed on his face, Gray pushed his pelvis back and forth and waved his arms about.
"Oh dear God!"
"How is that supposed to be sexy?!"
"On second thoughts – don't dance!"
Gray stopped and immediately tripped over his trousers, which apparently he unbuckled and pushed down his knees sometime during the dancing, and staggered about with his bum in the air.
"BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
"GET OFF THE STAGE!"
"BRING ON AN ACTUAL STRIPPER! THIS ONE IS USELESS!"
"WE WANT SOMETHING SEXY!"
"BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
Gray threw himself off the stage and into the safety of the backstage area just as the drunken, abusive, audience had taken to throwing whatever they could get hold off at his head. Unfortunately since he was in the bar that only meant peanuts and actual glasses.
He was in hell.
Pure, unadulterated, hell…..
"….and that," Gray finished as he drained his eighth drink since arriving home, "is why I have peanuts and shards of glass in my hair."
"…"
"…"
"…"
"….Pfft!" Natsu and Cana snorted in unison. "Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaahahahahhahahahahaahhahaha!" they cackled in unison, Natsu leaned on Cana as he bent over with hysterical laughter, and Cana was laughing so hard that her hand shook and splashed beer all over the counter. "Oh God!" Cana wheezed. "That's priceless!"
"Brilliant!" Natsu agreed. "The Snowflake is even more useless than I thought!"
This set them off again, well that and Gray's indignant expression which seemed to amuse them all the more. "Aren't you going to stop them?" he asked Mira furiously.
Mira pulled the rag out of her mouth. "Sorry," she giggled, "so sorry, but they have a point," she laughed more loudly, "You, who have stripped for half of your life, are a terrible stripper. That's so hilariously ironic!"
Gray slumped over the bar and groaned, so much for finding sympathy in his friends.
"There, there, Gray-sama," Juvia said softly as she patted Gray's back, "you will always be the best stripper in Juvia's eyes."
Gray lifted his head up enough to smile at Juvia, "Thank you Juvia," he said, "at least I can count on you having my back."
"Juvia will always have Gray-sama's back."
"….can you please get your hand off of my arse?"
"Juvia is sorry," Juvia lied, "Juvia's hand slipped."