Disclaimer: All Fairy Tail Characters Belong to Hiro Mashima

Chapter 5: Coming Out

Jason's loud exclamations drew the attention of even more people in the club who now surrounded and openly stared at the Fairy Tail mages with interest, trying to figure out who the two boys were. Natsu and Gray stood there aware of the stares but frozen in place by their promise to Makarov to not be destructive. Had they been at their guild they would have punched the reporter and gone on their merry way but they were guests of another guild and in the middle of a mission to boot. Their resolve was quickly loosening though as Jason proceeded to yell out their worst nightmare.

"Fairy Tail's biggest rivals are actually a couple?", Jason screamed looking in general like he had just woken up from the world's best wet dream. He began to scribble madly into his notebook. "So cool!."

His mind was already filled with headlines and copy and he was filled with excitement. This was going to be their best selling issue yet. Who wouldn't want to read about this unlikely development? He would have to get a picture of the two of them for the cover. And an interview!

He immediately began shooting pictures of the two mages who were gazing at the reporter with murderous intent.

Jason had come to Blue Pegasus to do Jenny Realight's naked shoot, a result of her loss to Fairy Tail's Mirajane Strauss at the Grand Magic Games. He had certainly not expected to walk into the biggest scoop of his career.

He continued shooting pictures and Gray turned to Natsu and yelled, "This is all your fault! If you had let me handle this on my own we wouldn't be in this mess."

"My fault?", Natsu replied angrily, "That guy was all over you and you were just standing there letting him!"

"Gray, Natsu!", Erza interrupted them before their bickering could escalate, "A word?"

They began to follow her when she stopped and turned around noticing the reporter had begun to follow them. "Excuse us Jason, we'll be right back."

Lucy took the opportunity to distract him, asking when she could model for the publication again. They began to converse as Lucy tried to buy her teammates some time.

Erza made her way to one of the club's private rooms. Once they had entered she stood in front of her friends, arms crossed in front of her chest. "I'm sorry boys but you're going to have to cooperate with Sorcerer's Weekly."

"What? Why?", Natsu spluttered.

"Hell no, that was not part of the plan.", Gray said stubbornly.

"If you refuse, your cover will be blown and we won't be able to catch the bad guys.", Erza tried to reason with the two.

"Well, if we don't refuse it will follow us til the day we die.", Natsu said

"He's right Erza. Can't you just get rid of him somehow?"

"You're both overreacting. It's Sorcerer Weekly, people will forget all about it when the following week's issue comes out."

"You mean just like they forgot when Master made us do that humiliating cover with Gajeel and Jet for coming in last place in the 24-Hours Endurance Race?", Gray glared at her, "People still bring that up. I still have people come and ask me to sign the damn magazine."

"At least we didn't have to wear the maid outfit.", Natsu smirked remembering how ridiculous Gajeel looked in that outfit. He would never admit it but he actually kept a copy of that magazine. Anytime he needed a pick me up he would look at Gajeel's miserable expression and it would usually cheer him up immensely.

"You were a bunny girl, how is that any better you idiot?", Gray snapped, "I don't even know what the hell I was supposed to be.", Gray shuddered remembering the hideous pink dress he had been forced to wear.

Erza wanted to react to Gray's bunny girl comment but decided to let it go as she saw the panicked expressions on her friends faces. The Master had been right when he had said this job was going to be hard on them. She tried to think of a way out of their current situation. She could understand their reluctance but the fact was that Jason was not going to go away after what he had already seen.

She sighed and said, "Fine. It's been a long day, why don't you go to the hotel and get some sleep. The front desk has your keys but your luggage should already be in your room along with Natsu's new items that Hibiki had delivered. It's only Saturday, I'll get Jason to back off until at least tomorrow. That should still give him enough time to get his issue out on Wednesday. We can figure out how to handle it in the morning."

"There's a back way out of the club.", a voice startled them and they turned to see Master Bob had entered the room.

"I assumed you might want to make a quick exit.", Bob smiled at them kindly, "Erza wait five minutes before you go talk to the reporter, they should be long gone by then. If you would allow me a suggestion?"

Erza nodded respectfully, "Of course."

"It has been my experience that the best way to handle the press is to control the flow of information. Offer Jason an exclusive interview and pictures. He can be annoying but Jason is not a bad guy to deal with. He's a fanboy at heart, he has an honest love of magic and mages and as you can see by his shirt he loves Fairy Tail most of all. He will keep the rest of the press off of you if he has exclusivity."

Master Bob gestured for the boys to follow him and they left the room leaving Erza staring after them thoughtfully. She waited five minutes and made her way back out in search of the Sorcerer Weekly reporter.

Natsu and Gray left the club through a secret door and followed Bob's directions to get to their hotel. They were both tired and not having to deal with Jason for the moment had improved their mood greatly. They quickly got their keys from the front desk and made their way up to their room.They entered and immediately noticed two things: there was only one bed in the room, and there was a small clothing store worth of items in the closet.There was even a note on the closet door forbidding Natsu from wearing his regular clothes for the duration of the mission and informing him that Cancer and Hibiki would be by in the morning.

"You mean I have to do this everyday?", Natsu looked at the contents of the closet in dismay, "Why the hell are they trying to turn me into a girl?"

"It wouldn't hurt for you to take some interest in your appearance, Natsu. No girl is going to want to go out with you the way you normally look. Do you even brush your hair?"

"I wouldn't be interested in anyone that only liked me for how I look."

Gray entered their bathroom to put his toiletries on the counter and yelled, "Holy hell!"

Natsu rushed into the bathroom to see what was the matter. Inside the bathroom, covering every available surface were bottles and tubes of beauty products, he didn't even recognize what half the things were for.

"You really did have a bad day didn't you?", Gray commiserated.

Natsu groaned and walked out of the bathroom in defeat. He changed into some pajama pants and plopped on the bed. "You don't know the half of it. I swear, I think Erza used a wire brush to scrub me down today. This sucks."

Gray joined him after turning out the lights in their room wearing only his boxers to bed. They lay next to each other under the blankets thinking about the day's events like they had for so many other missions where they had been forced to share a bed. Gray was thinking about how his night had gone and there was one thing that was still bugging him. He wasn't concerned about having found Natsu attractive, he was confident enough in himself to be able to appreciate things in others. He was more surprised that Natsu had started sending him those notes in the first place, especially if he had been mad at him.

Natsu on the other hand didn't know what to make of Gray's offhand compliment.

"You look really good like that, Squinty Eyes"

He was not used to getting compliments unless it was about his magic. Mostly he just got yelled at for being brash, insensitive or destructive. He had to admit that it had felt nice even if it had come from his rival. 'Whatever, Gray was probably just messing with me', he thought to himself as he drifted off to sleep.

The following morning they awoke to incessant knocking on their door. They tried to ignore it by hiding their heads under their pillows but when Erza began to threaten to break down the door Gray finally got up and let them in. Erza and Lucy came in followed by Hibiki and several waiters carrying room service breakfast platters and pots of coffee.

"What took you so long?", Erza glowered at Gray.

"Yeah, were we interrupting something ?", Lucy smirked at him.

Gray glared at Lucy not bothering to reply to her innuendo. His teammates all knew from experience that the ice mage was not a morning person and if you valued your life you would wait until he'd had at least two cups of coffee before addressing him in the morning. Natsu for his part was still hiding under the covers trying to make himself invisible but the smell of food was beginning to outweigh his sense of self preservation. Damn it! Why did their friends know them so well? This was a clear attack aimed at their weaknesses. He gave up and got out of bed heading towards the food.

While the two mages ate Hibiki and Lucy poured over the contents of the closet trying to pick Natsu an outfit for the day.

"I'm quite capable of picking out my own clothes.", Natsu groused.

"Natsu, I've seen the clothes you pick out. No offense dude, but a blind person could do a better job.", Hibiki sniped.

Lucy called on Cancer to work on Gray's hair. Natsu was amused to hear Gray discussing different styles with the crab.

"I didn't know you were so into this stuff, Ice Block."

Gray shrugged as Cancer began washing his hair, "Unlike you, I care about how I look."

"Erza, how did it go with Jason last night?", Natsu asked with curiosity.

"Better than expected, actually.", the redhead said as she stole a piece of bacon from Natsu's plate. "He agreed to the exclusive interview and pictures right away. He said he thought he had enough pictures for this week's issue. You are going to be on the cover with a short story inside. He wanted to prepare questions for the interview as well as decide on what shots he wanted so he would be back on Saturday. I have to say I was impressed with how professional he has gotten."

"On the cover?", Natsu whined loudly.

"I'm afraid so.", Erza said.

"All they had to do to get the cover was pretend to date each other?", Lucy complained, "That's so unfair."

"That's it, it's all over.", Gray groaned, "We are going to be the laughingstocks of the magic community. I can just hear Lyon now."

"It won't be so bad. You can always explain later and ask for a retraction", Erza said calmly.

Both boys stared at her, was she serious? No retraction was going to undo the damage. They wisely chose to not complain any further since she had gotten Jason off their backs for a whole week.

"You know, if we catch these people before Saturday then we don't even have to do the interview or the photo shoot.", Gray pointed out.

"That's true!", Natsu agreed cheerfully.

"Did either of you see anyone suspicious last night?", Gray asked hopefully.

"There were too many people, we could barely see the two of you but Hibiki told us that Saturday is one of their busiest night.", Lucy answered.

"We have events every night of the week but Friday and Saturday nights are the busiest. The rest of the week we tend to have smaller crowds. We have a jazz night, a comedy show, karaoke, open mic, poetry readings, burlesque show, etc. The events change every week and we're always looking for new ideas. Tonight's just karaoke.", Hibiki explained.

"Master Bob is waiting for us back at Pegasus. He said he needed to talk to you about something.", he added.

Once Cancer was done with Gray he moved on to Natsu, styling his hair the same way as the night before. They thanked him for his help and he returned to the Celestial World. Natsu and Gray were left alone to finish getting dressed and they met the others downstairs to head out to the club.

When they arrived Master Bob was waiting for them. Bob was standing behind the bar prepping ingredients for the evening but he stopped and considered them thoughtfully.

Bob waved Natsu and Gray towards him and began, "We need to work on your body language around each other. You might have been able to get away with awkward before but now that you are being outed as a couple certain things are expected. For example, not looking like you want to hit the other when you look at each other."

"Let's start basic. Natsu grab Gray's hand and walk with him towards the bar."

Natsu got up and grabbed Gray's hand roughly. He walked towards the bar pulling a struggling Gray behind him.

Bob stared at them for a moment. "What in the hell was that? It looked like you were dragging him to a death match. I don't know whether to laugh or cry."

He muttered under his breath, "This is going to be harder than I thought."

"Let's try this again. Natsu, this is your boyfriend someone you're supposed to like. You want to treat him nicely. Intertwine your fingers with his and walk slowly. You are enjoying spending time together, relax your body."

The second attempt did not go much better. After several more attempts they switched to have Gray take the lead and he did much better, which was good for Bob's sanity but frustrating for Natsu. The pattern continued throughout the day and Natsu was about ready to explode. When they were finally given a break he headed outside. At first Gray gave him some space but when ten minutes had passed and Natsu had still not returned he decided to go after him. He found him sitting on a bench at the back of the club.

"What's the matter?"

"Nothing, just leave me alone.", Natsu replied listlessly.

"Come on, I'm your boyfriend remember.", Gray joked, "I know when something's bothering you."

"Not funny."

"Natsu, will you just tell me what's wrong.", Gray pressed, trying to be patient.

"It's just-, how are you so good at this, while I am so very terrible?", Natsu said, his words twinged with sadness.

Gray sighed and he asked his friend seriously, "Do you remember your parents?"

"You know I don't."

"Well, I didn't have them for very long but I do remember mine", Gray said sadly, "My parents really loved each other. They were alway touching and holding hands and laughing. When Bob asks us to do something I just think about how they were and I try to do the same."

"Oh.", Natsu said his voice sounding small. He thought that he would like to have memories like that but he didn't.

"You were raised by a dragon and while I'm sure Igneel did everything he could for you, I think it would have been hard for him to model human relationships for you.", Gray said , "I can't think of too many relationships at Fairy Tail since we've been there either. There's nothing wrong with you, Natsu, you just haven't been exposed to the things that Bob is asking of us. I don't think it would be any different if I was a girl. If you want I can take the lead for now and when you're comfortable we can share the role."

Natsu nodded and then asked him suspiciously, "Why are you being nice to me all of a sudden?"

Gray sighed, "Because we're stuck in this together. There's no sense in making it harder on ourselves than we have to."

"Ok, you're right.", Natsu said accepting his answer, "I guess we should go back inside."

Gray offered Natsu his hand and the fire mage rolled his eyes but took it. They walked back into the club hand in hand. When they returned inside Bob had heaping plates of food ready for them and Natsu's cheerful exuberance returned as he attacked the food happily.

Gray saw this and smiled with affection. They had all had difficult childhoods but with the way that Natsu usually refused to let anything keep him down sometimes it was easy to forget he had also had it hard.

Bob must have realized that Natsu was nearing the end of his tether because he did not bring up any more lessons for the day and they were allowed to go back to the hotel while the girls stayed to enjoy karaoke and observe the clientele.

The next day Team Natsu walked around the town for awhile exploring the sights and giving the appearance that they were working on a mission before making their way to Pegasus. As soon as they crossed the threshold Gray noticed that all the mages were looking at him and snickering.

"Hey IceMan", Eve winked at Gray on his way out.

'What was that about?', he thought but continued to the bar with his friends. It was a warm day and they were all ready for one of Bob's cold drinks. He sat down and noticed that Hibiki was positively beaming at Natsu who finally caught on to the weirdness in the room. They looked around to see everyone watching them.

Master Bob looked nervous but he put on a smile as he filled their drink orders.

"Master, make sure the IceMan gets a cool drink, we wouldn't want for him to melt.", Jenny smirked, "Oh, and put it on my tab. I owe him one."

"Ok, what's going on?", Gray asked starting to get annoyed, "What's up with this IceMan business."

Master Bob smiled cheerfully, "Oh, apparently it's your new nickname from Sorcerer Weekly. Natsu's the Salamander and you're the IceMan."

"IceMan, huh?", Gray said, "I mean it's a little literal but it's not bad and I've never been given a nickname before. I thought they would come up with something lame like Ice Prince."

"Wait, how do you know that's the nickname I was given.", Gray's eyes narrowed with suspicion.

"Well, uhm, Jason came by earlier to drop off advance copies of this week's issue for you, Natsu and Jenny.", Bob said, "He asked me to remind you that he is coming back Saturday morning for your interview and photo shoot."

Natsu and Gray tensed up as Bob went to retrieve their copies. This was the moment they had been dreading since Saturday night's fiasco. Erza and Lucy were watching them and trying to gauge their reaction. Based on the way Bob was acting it couldn't be very good. Bob returned and silently handed one copy to Gray and Natsu and one to Erza and Lucy and quickly moved back behind the bar..

"I'm going to kill the bastard", Gray screeched, "Where is his office?"

"It's not as bad as all that!", Lucy tried to reassure him, "You look amazing in the cover picture."

She tried to calm the ice mage down but Loke chose that minute to open his gate and immediately grabbed one of the magazines aggravating Gray even further.

The cover of the magazine consisted of a picture of Natsu and Gray standing close to each other looking at the camera, their eyes fierce. They both looked amazingly hot. Natsu in his new outfit and Gray wearing his shirt open so that you could see his guildmark.

Gray had nothing against the picture, that part was fine. He thought Natsu looked positively feral which made him look cool. What he did have a problem with was the headline. He could see exactly why Jason had chosen IceMan as his moniker and he was not amused. Not only was it cheesy and a play on words it was just terrible and now it would forever be associated with him. Had he said he hated Ice Prince? He only wished he had been so lucky.

"I think I would even prefer Ice Princess to this.", Gray grumbled.

"Hell no, Ice Princess is mine, only I get to call you that.", Natsu argued.

"What are you griping about IceMan, you guys look good in that picture.", Loke grinned looking for the other pictures in the pinup section, "Maybe I should pay Fairy Tail a little visit."

"Loke, you don't want to mess with me right now.", Gray warned.

Erza read the article out loud:

The IceMan Cometh -- Out

by Jason

Love is flourishing in Fairy Tail's strongest team but not in the way you would expect. Magnolia should ready itself for another flood alert as Juvia Lockser and women all over Fiore are expected to mourn when they find out that fan favorite Fairy Tail mage Gray Fullbuster has finally been taken off the market. Fullbuster, who has often been voted Most Eligible Bachelor by our readers is dating none other than Fairy Tail's Salamander, the Fire Dragon Slayer Natsu Dragneel, who managed to melt the IceMan's cold heart and claimed him as his own. The new couple has been spotted relaxing at the popular Blue Pegasus club which both mages are using as a home base while working on an undisclosed mission with Team Natsu, which also consists of the imposing Titania Erza Scarlet and Celestial Mage Lucy Heartfilia. While at the club this reporter witnessed Natsu come to his new love's rescue after another man tried to force himself on his ice mage. Amazingly the club is still intact. So cool!

This news is made even more exciting as the two have been considered rivals since their first appearance in this magazine when they first entered Fairy Tail around 14 years ago. They somehow managed to get past their differences to become Fairy Tail's first openly gay couple.Sorcerer Weekly was able to snag an exclusive interview with the usually reserved mages. Look for it as well as more pictures in next week's issue!

We hope the club will still be in one piece by the time they are ready to return to Magnolia as we all know how destructive the Salamander can be. Enjoy more exclusive photos of the new couple in our pinup section.

"Alright team, we need to work really hard to get this mission finished no later than Friday.", Natsu said, "I don't think I can keep Gray from killing Jason if he sees him."