Levy and Juvia had been happily dancing to the tune of the dance song blasting throughout every corner of the bar when an arm suddenly slung around Levy's shoulder. She instantly tensed at the sudden contact, but relaxed when she saw Cana beaming beside her.
"Hey Cana!" Levy greeted her. "This is our friend Juvia!" She shouted over the music, gesturing to her fellow blunette friend who waved and grinned at Cana after being introduced. "Juvia, this is the birthday girl!"
"Happy Birthday! This is a great party," Juvia stuck a hand out to shake Cana's hand, but the brunette merely stared at it for a second before grabbing it and pulling the unsuspecting girl into a hug.
"Nice to meet ya Juvia!"
After a moment of recovery from the initial shock of the sudden action Juvia gleefully returned the embrace before both pulled away with matching bright smiles.
"You guys wanna meet my friends?" Cana asked them, her eyes lighting up instantly at the mention of her companions.
"Sure!" Both girls giggled at Cana's enthusiasm. The brunette's grin doubled in size as she looked around the nearby crowd, hand reaching out to wave at someone behind the two girls.
"Well right now I only know where one of them is, but no doubt you'll meet the others while you're here!" She gestured for the person behind the two to come over to her before she suddenly looked at them with a slightly confused frown. "Where's Lucy?"
"She got tired and left," Levy shrugged, recalling the text she'd received from the blonde a few minutes ago. "She had a good time though!"
"Oh okay!" Cana's smile returned. Her attention shifted back to their surroundings and she scanned the nearby crowd. Spotting a white shirt behind the girls, she grinned wider.
Cana cupped both hands around her mouth and yelled as loud as she could to get him to hear her, "Gray! Over here!"
Before Juvia or Levy could contemplate the familiarity of the name the brunette was reaching around Juvia, her arm returning to her side with another person's arm in her grip. Gray stumbled a little at the force of her tug, regaining balance after a moment before standing up straight.
"What's up Cana?"
"These are my new friends!" She yelled giddily, gesturing to the two girls and neglecting to notice their jaws dropping to the floor.
Gray, who had been facing Cana this whole time, turned in the direction of her gesture with a bright smile before his own eyes widened into saucers and all words of greeting died in his throat.
"G-G—" Juvia tried to speak, but words seemed to fail her as well.
Cana however was too drunk to realize anything was off and spoke normally, smiling brightly at the girls. "This is-"
"Gray?!" Levy yelled incredulously.
Cana's brows furrowed in confusion for the second time that night. "You guys met already? Cool!"
The mention of his name mixed with the fact that he was currently standing before her in real life flooded Juvia's brain with her suppressed fangirl memories, one of them being his video.
Her face turned beet red as she remembered his "shout out".
Nope. She couldn't handle this. She needed to escape immediately before she turned into a puddle on the dance floor.
"Uh- Er-" Juvia stammered hastily. She suddenly grabbed Levy's arm, "Sorry! Gotta go!"
She moved as fast as her wobbly legs could take her, poor Levy being dragged through the still-packed crowd for the second time that night. As soon as she pushed through the exit doors Juvia let out a huge breath she hadn't even known she'd been holding and began trying her hardest to regain her composure.
"Okay, what the hell just happened?" Levy spoke normally, no longer needing to scream in order to be heard.
Juvia was also attempting to add up the last few moments into something that made sense herself. Had they seriously just run into Gray of Fairy Tail, of all people at this party in Hargeon at the time where she was coincidentally visiting her internet friends for the week?
"I think we just saw Gray," she stated dumbly.
There was no way for her to keep her cool while also knowing she was in the same room as him. She damn near almost melted every time he smiled in his videos.
"Ok good, so I wasn't just hallucinating it. Why is he here!?" Levy asked excitedly, grabbing the taller bluenette's shoulders and shaking slightly. "And why did we run away?! Isn't he your favorite YouTuber?"
"I panicked," Juvia admitted sheepishly. "There's no way I would've been able to talk to him!" She cried, covering her flustered face with her hands. "That was fun, but we need to go. There's no way I'm going back in there!"
Levy merely stared in confusion at her, but her eyes lit up nonetheless at the mention of going back home. As fun as the party was, it didn't beat the fun of staying home with a good book. She would feel kind of bad leaving Cana so suddenly like that, though she doubted the brunette cared at all. Levy didn't really watch much Fairy Tail at all anyway. But would she be doing Juvia a disservice by not taking this opportunity to meet Gray when he was this close?
She released her friend's shoulders. "You sure don't wanna go back and meet Gray?"
"Absolutely not!" Juvia cried almost immediately. "I will actually die if I face him again," she clarified, face still buried in her hands.
Well that was that.
Levy chuckled and shook her head at her friend's ridiculousness, gently nudging her in the direction of the apartment as they began to walk home. "I have no idea how we just found Gray of all people at this party, but what I do know for sure is that you're gonna regret this later," she deadpanned.
"I can't meet him yet Levy! I'm not mentally prepared!" Juvia looked up at the stars dreamily. "The timing isn't right yet, I need to be ready for it!"
"Lucy's gonna flip when she hears about this."
Both had been too caught up in their conversation to notice a certain pink-haired male sulk past them as they made their way back home.
"And that's what you missed."
…
"There's no way that happened," Lucy laughed after a moment at the end of Levy's summation of their night.
Lucy refused to believe that Juvia and Levy just happened to run into Gray at a party in Hargeon, and he happened to be good friends with the drunk girl they had happened to coincidentally meet and befriend a couple weeks ago.
Not to mention this happened right after she left, apparently.
"It did sort of seem like a dream," Juvia muttered, resulting in an amused eye roll from Levy on the other side of the table.
"How much did you guys drink last night?" Lucy asked suspiciously.
"We didn't- well whatever." Levy let out an exasperated sigh. "We met Gray, and rather than approach him, we ran away. That's the part I find hard to believe."
"I told you! I would've died," Juvia exclaimed, shoving a piece of toast in her mouth.
Lucy giggled at the dramatic blunette. "Well, I believe that."
"Oh God what if he thinks we're total freaks after that?!" Juvia cried, realizing that they had probably looked so strange running away like that last night.
Levy ignored her outburst to voice a thought she'd been pondering for the past few moments. "Doesn't Cana live right down the hall?"
"I think so, why?" Lucy asked with a brow raised.
"What if he's there right now?!" Juvia cried, as if reading Levy's mind.
"What if it's not just him? Everyone in Fairy Tail could be a few feet away from us at this very moment," Levy piped excitedly, imagining both Lucy's and Juvia's reactions to meeting their long-time favorite YouTubers face-to-face. It would be gold.
"You guys are taking this joke way too far," Lucy deadpanned, struggling to believe Fairy Tail would ever step foot in this town.
Then again, there was that guy who looked suspiciously like Natsu at the party yesterday…
She shook her head at the thought. There was no way.
But she also thought she saw someone who looked like Gray…
"Shall we go to Cana's right now?" Levy suggested, though immediately had second thoughts after. She was curious, but she wasn't sure she was initiate-social-interaction curious.
"What— Right now?!"
Juvia nearly choked. "We can't! W-what if Gray's there?!"
"Then Lucy will believe us," Levy said simply, internally scolding herself at the end of her sentence. Dammit Levy stop talking! Curse her desire to see her friends happy at her expense. "And we can meet them. Isn't that exciting?"
Lucy's heart had skipped a beat at the thought of knocking on Cana's door and being greeted by Natsu. Not that that would ever happen.
There was just no way.
"Well, shall we go?" Levy eyed the blonde.
"We can't just—" Before Lucy could wave off the request as nonsense and opt to stay where she was, the sound of the doorbell rang throughout the apartment, effectively catching the attention of all occupants.
"I'll get it!" Lucy shot up from her seat, saving herself from answering at all. She made her way into the living room and swung open the front door.
Natsu, who had finally awakened from sleep about an hour ago was slouched on Cana's couch scrolling through Twitter as he waited for Gray and Cana to stop talking so they could go back to the hotel and actually get ready for the day. Gajeel got bored and left earlier than them last night, and way more sober. The rest of them decided to keep partying with Cana until the early hours of the morning, and ultimately ended up crashing in her living room at the end of the night.
He kind of remembered what happened when he returned to the party after nearly chasing Lucy down the street like a straight-up weirdo. Gray was freaking out like an idiot over running into Juvia at the party (which he wouldn't have believed if it weren't for the fact that he had just nearly met Lucy freaking Heartfilia). He told him what had just happened to him with Lucy, at which point they both simultaneously turned to focus their attention on Cana, who seemed to be completely clueless as to what was going on and merely giggled at how in sync their head turn was.
They explained everything to Cana, who told them that Lucy went to the same school as her, something Natsu had known by now after seeing her I.D. Card, and that Juvia was a friend that was visiting.
The whole thing was so laughably coincidental that several shots later, they had truly believed the last hour had just been part of some dream.
"Oh this is great," Natsu's thoughts were interrupted by Cana's voice to his left. "I can introduce you guys, if you want. I think they live down the hall!"
"Er- Thats—" Gray began to stammer nervously.
Saving Gray from sputtering more nonsense, Natsu was suddenly sitting straight up on the couch, curious about the topic of conversation. "Uh, who lives down the hall?" he asked, having a fairly clear idea of who they were talking about.
"Your future girlfriends!" Cana grinned at her guest.
"Wh-" Upon hearing the implication, Natsu suddenly sat up even more, remembering the plastic card he'd found yesterday.
"Uh, actually, I forgot to tell you," he started, taking Lucy's I.D. out of his pocket and walking over to Cana to show it to her. "Lucy dropped this yesterday. Could you give it back to her?"
Cana looked at the card for a moment and began to nod before she stopped suddenly and an evil smirk graced her features, eyes locking with Natsu's. "She lives two doors down. Give it to her yourself."
"W-why me? Doesn't she know you?" Okay yes, Natsu wanted to meet her, but not until he was freshly showered and not sluggishly hungover. And preferably not at her doorstep unannounced like some kind of creep.
"Well she knows you too, doesn't she?" Cana winked. "And you should go with him, Gray. Juvia's probably there too."
Before Natsu or Gray could make any decisions though, he took notice of the absences in the room and thanked the gods for a distraction. "Uh, where's Erza and Wendy?" He asked, effectively curving the subject but genuinely curious.
"Wendy's still asleep I think. The poor girl can't handle her alcohol," Cana chuckled. "Erza left a little while ago. Said something about enjoying the Hargeon scenery. That was totally a lie though."
"Why do you say that?" Gray asked, flopping down on a nearby sofa chair.
"'Cause our old buddy Jellal lives not 20 minutes away from here," She replied easily. "I bet they met up or something last night. Kinda hard to believe she'd still want anything to do with him though."
"Why not? Aren't they dating or something?" Natsu didn't really know much about Erza's past before she came to Magnolia, but she did mention a Jellal guy once or twice when she talked about her childhood. The way she talked about him combined with the blush and sad smile that would take over her face had everyone convinced Jellal had to have been her boyfriend.
"I honestly don't know, but she told me they had some problems before she left Hargeon. That Jellal was somethin' else back then," Cana clarified. "But if she's sneaking out to hang with him they probably worked it out." She shrugged.
"Huh. Well good for her."
"Yup. Now go give Lucy her card. That thing's important, ya know. It should be returned asap," Cana smirked, successfully bringing the conversation right back to where it was before. "Bring Gray with you. Moral support or whatever."
Natsu sighed in defeat. "Even if I did go, I can't bring Gray with me. He'd just make them run away like he did last night," he snickered.
Before Gray could shoot back with a snarky remark Cana grabbed a clueless arm and began dragging a stumbling Natsu across the living room to her front door.
"H-hey!" She swung the door open with her free hand, and with a strong swing from her other hand Natsu was successfully out of the apartment despite his questioning and lame protests, Lucy's I.D. card in hand.
"Go by yourself then. Two doors down, apartment 2C." Cana winked at him with an evil smirk. "Go get 'er, dragon," she finished with a grin.
"Wh—!" Natsu couldn't even get a word out before the door was closed in front of his face. He could vaguely hear Gray laughing his ass off from behind the door, and he suddenly wanted nothing more than to bust in and punch the grin right off his face. Though the click he heard right after probably meant Cana had locked the door, and while it did seem worth the possible property damage to hit Gray, the fact that Cana was physically able to drag him out of her home made him think it wouldn't really be a great idea to piss her off. Why were all their female friends so damn tough?
"Assholes!" Natsu yelled futilely at the locked door. No response, of course. It was probably useless to try and get back in while he still had this damn card. He sighed heavily in defeat and began to try and steel himself for this unexpected encounter. He stepped back from the door and turned to look down the hallway, eyes instantly locking on the "2C" sign engraved on a small square of metal attached to a door a couple feet away. Celestial's front door. He hesitantly made his way over, stopping when he found himself face-to-face with Lucy Heartfilia's door. He raised a hand, ready to ring the bell, but stopped short right when he was about to make contact to whip out his phone and open the camera app, suddenly feeling very self-conscious. He looked at the screen, using it as a mirror as he began attempting to fix his messy locks and look presentable.
Natsu suddenly paused and ran a hand through his hair, questioning his life decisions. Since when did he actually care about how he looked?! He shook his head at his actions and put his phone back in the pocket of his jeans. And why was he nervous? He was Natsu Dragneel goddammit, he wasn't afraid of anything! Raising his hand to the door once more, he steeled himself again and pressed the doorbell before he could think twice about it.
… Then he quickly bent down, slid the card under the door, and rounded the corner of the hallway as fast as his legs could take him.
So much for fearless Natsu.
He heard a door open from where he stood, followed by a pause. "Hello?" A familiar voice echoed throughout the hallway, reaching his ears and making his stomach drop even further. There was another moment of silence before he heard the sound of a door closing, at which point he let out a huge breath he hadn't even known he'd been holding. You're so lame, he scolded himself before turning back into the hallway to make his way back to Cana's room.
His smooth escape back into Cana's apartment was going extremely well, that is, until Lucy's door swung open again just as he was about to pass by it. A blonde head stepped out and looked down the hallway, first in the direction of Cana's door, before turning the other way and freezing when she locked eyes with an equally shell-shocked Natsu Dragneel.
Silence ensued.
"Uh, hey?"