I would like to start by thanking everyone who took the time to review and comment on the story even though i have been "absent" for quite a long time! You have no idea how happy i was when i read them; it made my day every single time! Especially since i used to be notified of them at the right moment where i was feeling so down and getting deep into depression or anxiety so thank you so much!
Also, i would just love to refrain from saying or uttering any "excuse" for my prolonged hiatus (which i should ask for forgiveness for since i haven't warned anyone about it! Please forgive moi!). Some things happened but hopefully everything should be fine now and i should be able to restart with writing the story :D
Just a little warning thought, i am in my freshman year in university and trust me when i say that time management is one of the most important things at uni and i seem to be lacking A LOT in that domain so yeah... there might - will - be slow updates occurring but i'm crossing my fingers for it to not happen at all!
With that i'll leave you to it and thank you all once again for not abandoning the story even after my long time away from writing!
Disclaimer: The characters and some ideas of the plot do not belong to me but the one and only Hiro Mashima ^_^
Warning: This chapter is long overdue so to be honest i typed it in a rush, i'm not proud of it and I'm convinced that it's boring and full of *cough* shit *ahem* so read to your own discretion!
Sitting on the edge of a surprisingly unscathed table, a pink haired beauty was heatedly glaring at the unusually quiet audience. Natsu would have, undoubtedly, laughed at their hilarious expressions but since the reason behind their side eyes and slacked jaws was his currently un-amusing situation, he stuck with sending them all a glare so dark, Makarov Dreyar himself had not dared utter a single mocking word about the fire mage's demise.
Unfortunately for Natsu, Mirajane was given the task of transforming him into a completely different gender. It being her forte, she did an exceedingly amazing job at it. If it had not been done in front of him, Gray would have had thought the man in disguise was someone else other than his boyfriend. But, knowing they were the same person, he gave himself the permission to stare openly at the gorgeous sight.
Natsu had an extension added to his unruly hair, giving him an even wilder look. His already long eyelashes were shining under the light in such an enticing way that it made the ice mage feel the heat somewhere under his navel. Mirajane must have applied some sort of magic induced make-up for the pink lashes to seem like some sort of very exquisite and expensive silk.
Green orbs shined brightly with the reflection of the light. If he hadn't known any better, Gray would have thought his lover's eyes were shards extracted from the most tropical and invigorating green (with some specks of yellow) gemstone out there. Fortunately for Gray he did know better so he moved his gaze away from the hypnotizing eyes to a lower spot.
A groan made its way out of his lips when he realized that he just caused the weirdly uncomfortable sensation between his legs to intensify the moment his eyes fell on pink, smooth looking, and plump lips.
Gray would have continued eating his other half with his eyes but Erza's knowing smirk stopped his sensual starring. A blush crept on his cheeks and with an embarrassed huff, for being caught, he stomped his way towards the one person that made him feel a tingling sensation all over his body.
Especially down-south...
This was bad, could it be that he was developing some weird fetish related to cross-dressing? He hoped not but more importantly, if he was then he hoped Natsu wouldn't catch on to it!
He took his place next to Natsu on the table after the pink head nudged over for some space. The fire mage refused to turn his head towards the devil slayer even when said slayer tried to poke him for some attention.
Eventually he resigned to his fate and Natsu indulged the ice boy by staring at him from the side while his - somewhat unnatural - lips formed a childish pout.
"What?" He practically yelled. Can you blame him? The pocking was starting to be annoying. Especially since Gray moved his ministrations from his right cheek slowly towards his rib-cage and that was particularly annoying.
"What, what?"
"You know exactly what I meant you friggin' stripper! And would you stop doing that?" Natsu tried to pry off the hand that moved back towards his cheek all the while glaring daggers at the man sitting beside him.
He was also trying so hard not to blush at the bright yet silly grin Gray was sporting on his lips.
Noticing the fire mage's dilemma, the ice mage decided to spare him for the moment. He couldn't promise anything about the rest of the day thought...
For now he contented himself to reply, "What can I say, your beauty was very enchanting my la-"
Before he got the opportunity to finish his words, a loud and somewhat threatening noise was heard from in between his legs. When he cautiously directed his gaze towards the spot, his face blanched at the gaping hole that was mysteriously formed there.
Gray then slowly but deliberately turned his head towards his left side and stared incredulously at the person that was sitting there.
"I would suggest you not finish that sentence darling," an unusual, venomous yet overly-sweet voice crept out of the same lips he was enjoying staring at not too long ago.
"N-Natsu you piece of shit, don't you dare use that tone of voice with me!" Gray tried to show he wasn't affected by the creepiness of the situation, but it was clear as the moon is during a cloudless night that he was actually affected by it and dare he say, he was frightened.
"It was scary," he decided to add as an after-thought and obviously under his breath.
Of course under his breath, there was no way that he would let every freaking single person in the guild hear that Gray, the Gray Fullbuster, was tamed by a mere tone of voice and from his rival to boot!
Not that they were aware of anything different, they hadn't broadcast-ed their change of status with each other to their schoolmates yet (in exception to their tiny, little group of friends).
Anyways, if the guild members knew any better they would have said something resembling the lines of hormonal wife or whatever but obviously Gray didn't know anything about wives, or girlfriends, or whatever since as it can be seen, his companion was a boy, a b-o-y!
Right?
Right.
Besides, if word traveled in the guild that the ice boy was scared of something then he will be infinitely teased about it until death does him apart from this unaccomplished and somewhat amusing life he was going through.
So, duuuuuuuuuuuh!
Of course he said it under his breath.
Apparently fate just loved to play tricks on him, since he apparently forgot that his companion was sitting next to him and that apparently said companion had a good sense of hearing. Which apparently was enhanced by a ton compared to any other fucking person sitting inside if the semi-demolished building. And, apparently that's because he was a god damn dragon-slayer. Yet, Gray had apparently managed to forget about that little - who was he kidding, it was huge - detail and that apparently left him anything but careful, to which it apparently lead to his doom since fucking apparently the somewhat handsome- scratch that- the extremely sexy Natsu Dragneel had heard his last remark and nothing can be said otherwise since the smirk - that looks too good by the way - that crept on the salmon haired mage's lips indicated that he definitely had heard it.
"Remind me again why did I have to leave my warm and apparently safe bed this morning instead of being here?"
Natsu's smirk grew on his face and his legs started swinging on their own accord when he turned to point at a scarlet headed mage sitting not too far from them (no doubt enjoying a strawberry short cake).
"Oh right, I nearly forgot, the devil paid me a visit while I was asleep...," Gray's expression was far from being anything close to normal. He was remembering the untold and inhuman events of that morning and a shiver ran through his spine from the thought alone of what had happened then.
That morning, Gray had been laying on his newly bought mattress (after the last one was ruined to a state of no-return by a PMS-ing Ultear), relaxing and dozing off for an extra couple of minutes before reality would decide to crash over his dream and force him to get up and get ready for school.
Fortunately for him, reality hadn't had the chance to pull him away from in between Morph's gracious arms.
Unfortunately for him, the explosion that sounded from the entrance of his room had found so much pleasure and no regret or a second thought to complete the job instead.
He had startled from his position on the bed while his disoriented mind tried to puzzle out what had happened at the instant.
Still being out of it and before he knew it, Lyon had barged in while stepping on the broken pieces of the wooden door without a care in the world and, out of the blue, carried him like a sack of potato on his shoulders as he went back through the shattered entrance of the room.
What he hadn't known back then was that Lyon was putting on a brave face as the sole of his feet bled profusely from the splinters of wood that deeply penetrated the skin. He also hadn't known that, at that moment, Lyon would have rather been dead than bringing the wrath of Satan over himself.
Back to the point...
Still being in a muddled state of mind, Gray let himself be carried to god knows where and tried to regain the stage of slumber he was in.
Nevertheless, all was in vain when he found himself in front of a red headed demon and out of the house.
He could have sworn that he had heard the white haired ice mage mutter something along the lines of absolutely refusing to sacrifice his sanity for Gray's sake as he went back inside the house as if nothing happened. The only indication that he was ever there was the trail of blood that he left behind with every step he had taken.
As Gray had incredulously starred at the now locked front door, the spawn of Satan had pulled him by his shirt's collar and walked away without any explanations. This had left the ice mage with no other options but to comply and complain about being woken up at such an ungodly hour and about how he was going to beat up to death any and all dipshits that claimed to be the best brother in the whole world but end up stabbing their younger siblings in the back the very second a threat endangers them!
After being manhandled from the second he had stirred to consciousness, Gray was more than happy to sit down when he was ordered to by the one and only Erza Scarlet.
Something must be wrong with him, he's been fooling himself a lot lately...
He was just happy to have been released from the scary monster's clutches. Who wouldn't be when she was smirking (or was it a laugh?) evilly all the way to Fairy Tail High?
Gray had shuddered at his unknown fate and grimaced at the idea alone of what was awaiting him. He just hoped he'll come sane enough out of his friend's plans to eat the ice cream he bought yesterday.
It was mint with chocolate chips flavored ice cream.
He would do anything to come out of this - whatever that may be - unscathed, even if it meant he needed to sacrifice his most valuable thing to alleviate the devil's anger!
Well...
Mostly anything.
He wasn't so cruel as to throw Natsu into the clutches of hell. Natsu may be an annoying brat sometimes but was still too important for him to do that. Even his mother's ice cream cake wouldn't hold a chance against his boyfriend in his heart.
So yup, screw everything to hell except for his adorable and valued (not that he'll ever tell him that) pink headed lover.
Thinking about the fire mage made him direct his gaze back to the disguised mage who was still sitting next to him.
Before meeting with Natsu, Erza had dragged him to a room who-knows-where in the guild and he remembers taking back his words about the mint flavored ice cream and that ice cream cake wasn't worth any of the weird shit that was going on in the room.
A sweetly smiling Mirajane had been pinching a mini (if it can be called that - it was barely a couple of centimeters long) skirt while an anxious Natsu had hid behind a furious looking Laxus.
After seeing that, Gray didn't want to set a single foot inside that room, but obviously the choice was forced upon him without a single word of warning.
Erza had pushed (thrown) him inside, making him look like a dear caught in headlight when the other occupants turned their heads towards him.
Again, he had freaked out back then, but just one look at his boyfriend and he was glad to have been dragged away from his bed.
The train of his thought was broken by a mere shove of his shoulder. Readying himself to shout at whomever supposedly bumped into him, he opened his mouth but froze in mid-shout and let out a long sigh when he saw who it was.
"What?" He mumbled.
"You were spacing out when I was trying to ask you something," replied Natsu as he shrugged his shoulders.
Gray huffed before saying, "I wasn't spacing out, but whatever, what were you trying to say?"
Natsu's calculating gaze told him he didn't believe a single word he had said but didn't try to pry more into it, "I was just wondering if you wanted to head out to Phantom Lord now so we can get it done and over with?"
Gray nodded before hopping off his side of the table. When his feet landed on the floor, he turned around to face the fire mage and stretched his arm towards him.
Natsu raised a questioning brow at the action but only received a wiggle of the fingers in expectation from Gray's hand as a response. That led Natsu to fondly shake his head in exasperation as he gave his hand out for the ice mage to grasp and grin in satisfaction.
"Are you ready princess?"
"I don't know anything about the princess part and I'll make sure to make you pay for that later but, sure," he tilted his head to the side and a matching grin took place on the bottom of his face.
"Ready when you are stripper."
Thank you for reading :) Do tell me your thoughts and what you think i should improve on!
