Here's another!

I don't own Fairy Tail.

~MM~

"We should ask Lucy-san to help us!"

Whipping his head up from the bar top, Natsu threw a glance over his shoulder, trying not to let the fact that he heard her name everywhere bother him. It was all the damn Macao's fault, not that he should let it get to him. Lucy could be going out with someone – married for all he knew. Why was he still worrying about this?

"Droy, are you sure? I mean, the guy is known for being a pervert; we shouldn't subject someone we don't even know to that kind of thing."

"But Levy! It's 200,000 Jewels! That's a nice sized reward – we'd give her a cut, obviously!"

"Maybe...if we ask her...I suppose...eh...NO! We will NOT make her do something like that! Now come on, I need you guys to help me carry my groceries home."

As Team Shadowgear faded out the door, Natsu followed them with his eyes, now thinking about a juicy 200,000J reward hanging off a piece of blonde hair. His scheming was short lived though as a prickle made its way up his arm, alerting him to the presence of something cold and filled with the utmost arrogance.

Gray, for his part, had been watching Natsu since he came in that morning – without a certain blonde trailing in behind him as she'd been for the past couple days. Intrigued as any male with functioning hormones, Gray had obviously seen Lucy and deemed her his type. His only obstacle was her her partner, who was sitting next to him, forlornly watching as Team Shadowgear walked out the door.

"Oi, Natsu, where's Lucy?"

"Hm? Oh, she said something about having something to do this morning somewhere. I got the feeling that she didn't want me around, so I didn't ask any more than that. She's such a weirdo." Gray's eyebrows rose at Natsu's obviously distracted answer. Not one insult? There must be something wrong with his rival.

"Sick of you already, is she, Flame-Brain?" The crooked grin and lazy eye roll Natsu threw his way was enough to satisfy Gray's concern that Natsu had lost anymore neurons than he could afford.

"You wish Ice Princess. But now that you mention it, I probably should go bug her some. Don't want her to get too comfortable with the silence." Mira then popped up, seemingly out of nowhere with a look on her face that made any eligible bachelors and/or bachelorettes want to run for the hills. While Gray's alarms started beating a fast pace in his head and his feet started to twitch with the need to run, though, Natsu seemed perfectly content to smile at the Take Over sibling and greet her with a cheerful smile. Mira gave them both a predatory look before raising her lips turned up in Gray's direction – there was a look there full of meaning and Gray just slumped at the implications.

Mira, it was well known through the guild, liked Lucy. Enough to adopt her as a new pet project and leave Cana alone, much to the brunette's great relief, and Mira's pet projects, everyone knew, always ended with a new couple in Fairy Tail. It wasn't so unusual for Mira to grab a new girl and start throwing ideas at the Fairy Tail men, but she'd never done is so fast – or with only one person. Most of the time, it was with a few suitors in mind so to encourage competition, hardly was it ever only one male and one female. And never was one of the males Natsu Dragneel.

"Rumor has it that Lucy just got a new apartment a couple blocks from the guild. I happen to have a key if you'd like to go check it out, Natsu." He practically lit up at the prospect and Gray quietly felt bad for Fairy Tail's newest addition.

As Natsu got up, Gray was reminded of why he'd sat down next to him in the first place.

"Hey, Natsu! Ask your partner if she'd mind going on some missions with me some time! I'm always here if she ever gets sick of being on a team with you!" There were assorted names hurled back at him.

"She's not my partner, Gray! She's not even on my team! I don't do teams!" The yelled admission garnered a lot of attention and suddenly every eligible man – and some who weren't – were interested in the conversation, all asking that Natsu pass on their names to Lucy. Gray heard a disappointed sigh from Mira; when he looked over at her, she was shaking her head, muttering something that sounded a lot like "gotta remedy that".

Over the din, Natsu's answer exploded, "Dammit guys! Ask her yourselves! I do not want to be caught up in any of this!"

"Why's that Natsu, scared of Little Lucy?" Gray didn't know who said it, but he added his voice to the jeers that followed, only stopping when Natsu's glower rounded on him.

"I'm not scared! Especially not of Lucy! I'm just saying that because none of you would be able to deal with her!" Mira perked up behind Gray and even he had to admit that he was now slightly intrigued. "She's suuuuuper weird and sometimes she get's Erza-angry. How many of you want to deal with that?" There were assorted mummers because, honestly, no one wanted to deal with that. Not even Gray, but he had a duty to make things interesting for his rival so he stood up, shoved his hands in his pockets and affected to most cocky pose he could. Anything to get a rise out of the dragonslayer.

"I'm pretty sure I could deal with her, Natsu. Maybe I'll go ask her to be my partner later today." Natsu's glower was infused with something that Gray couldn't really describe. Something like incredulous, flabbergasted, murderous, and bewildered all at the same time – but by the end of it, Natsu seemed to have reached a conclusion, because he stalked over to the request board, ripped the Everloo mission off of it, and turned to the guild.

"Starting from today, Lucy's my partner! Anyone who has any problems with that can come talk to me!" With the last word, Natsu slammed the guild door behind him, presumably off to ask Lucy to go on a mission with him.

Gray fell backwards into the stool behind him, chuckling at his best friend.

"So, Mira," he glanced over at her with an easy smile on his lips, "when does the betting pool start?" She answered with a beatific smile.

"Not so interested anymore, Gray? What ever changed your mind?"

"She's taken and neither of them know it yet. Besides, if she can make the most idiotic person I know react like that, well, she's cool in my book."

~MM~

Hmmmm. Not sure where this came from. Eh. Whatever.

R&R Please!