Prompt: First Time He Kissed a Boy"

Pairing: Gray x Natsu

The first thing Gray saw when he entered the guild hall was Natsu arm wrestling Elfman, a carefree smile on his face, their table surrounded by other members of their ragtag family. Bets were written on a board, and Cana was collecting jewels, while Gajeel seemed to be awaiting his turn, yelling encouragement to Elfman while trying to psych Natsu out. Happy's cheerful support could be heard loudest of all.

Things had seemingly gone back to normal. If nothing had happened the previous day, Gray would have made his way over, shouting encouragement at Natsu while warning him not to make their team look bad.

And Natsu would have smiled at him and told him he was all fired up, and it was in the bag, or something cocky like that while Gray let the heat from that smile warm his otherwise cold body. But yesterday had happened, and Natsu was avoiding him. Gray didn't want to make things more awkward between them than they already were, so with a heavy heart, he made his way over to the bar to join Loke and Lucy.

"Why don't you kiss him, Elfman?" Gajeel harassed Natsu with a resounding gihi. "He'll just run home like a scared little girl."

"A real man doesn't resort to trickery," Elfman responded, his voice strained as he attempted to overpower Natsu without resorting to one of his beast arm takeovers.

Natsu, however, was not amused. To the dismay of everyone who had bet against him, he promptly defeated Elfman, getting up from his chair with enough force to topple it on its side. Overcome by rage, he headed straight for Gajeel, "You think that's funny, asshole?"

Natsu shoved Gajeel as hard as he could, making the large dragon slayer careen into one of the guild's walls. As soon as Gajeel righted himself, he came at Natsu, both fists at the ready.

"What the hell's your problem, afraid you liked it?" Gajeel taunted, thrilled to have gotten under the Salamander's skin.

That was too much for Natsu, Gray could see the outrage in the eyes he knew so well, how could he not when he'd been reading them since childhood. But he saw something else too, and it startled him. Natsu looked unsure, and that was very unusual.

Natsu managed to exercise restraint, stopping himself from punching Gajeel as he so clearly wanted to do, opting to mutter, "You're not worth it." before exiting the guild with Happy, the door slamming behind them.

Gajeel shouted at Natsu through the door, "Just like a little girl."

Gray was pissed. Great, there went his idea of letting things go back to normal before approaching Natsu. He got up from his bar stool and charged towards Gajeel, "What the hell did you do that for?"

Gajeel sneered at him, "What, now you're going to fight your little boyfriend's battles for him?"

Gray didn't bother to respond with words. Instead, he punched Gajeel in the stomach, causing him to double over. Gajeel straightened up, glaring at Gray while turning his body into iron and approaching him menacingly. "I was just playing with him, it's not my fault he's so sensitive. But if you wanna have a go, I'm ready."

"Dammit Gajeel, this is already hard enough without your bullshit," Gray growled, "Just back the hell off."

"You will both stop this foolishness this instant," Erza scolded, placing herself between the two mages.

"I ain't one of the two fairies, I'm not scared of you," Gajeel snapped.

"Would you like to have a go?" Erza's smile was amused, but there was no doubt as to the seriousness of her challenge. Erza never volunteered to fight in the guild, she was usually the one to put a stop to it.

Gajeel considered her challenge for a moment before quickly backing down. He put his arms up in a mocking gesture of surrender and turned away.

"By the way, Gajeel," Erza waited until Gajeel stopped to look at her and pointed at her guild mark, "We're all fairies." She chuckled at the scowl on Gajeel's face before going off in search of Mira.

"No sense of humor," Gajeel complained before going to ask Elfman if he wanted another match.

Cana had finished distributing all the winnings and came over to where Gray was still standing, nudging him to follow her back to the bar. She put a bunch of jewels in a bag and handed it to him. "Here are Natsu's winnings, why don't you take them to him?"

"I don't think that's a good idea," Gray remarked, "You saw how he reacted, I should probably stay away from him for a while."

"That's a terrible idea," Loke chimed in, ready as always to offer his advice.

"I'm still mad at you, you promised me you'd stay out of it," Gray reminded the Celestial Spirit, "What the hell did you tell him anyway?"

"Do you really want to know?" Loke grinned, waggling his eyebrows.

Gray thought about all the things Loke could have possibly told Natsu and shuddered. He'd been on the receiving end of Loke's conversations enough times to have a pretty good idea. "Nevermind."

They remained in amicable silence until Lucy spoke up. "If anyone should be upset here, it's me. Why wouldn't you tell me?" Lucy looked down at her hands, refusing to let Gray see her expression, "I thought we were friends."

Gray flinched at the sadness in her voice, but he answered her honestly, "Given how you feel about him, I...uhm, didn't think you'd want to know."

"Oh," Lucy replied, her voice small as she admitted. "I didn't think you knew."

Gray didn't have the heart to tell her that everyone in the guild knew how she felt about Natsu, except perhaps for Natsu, and that was only because they'd threatened Happy countless times to keep it to himself.

Gray sighed, "I'm sorry, Lucy. I never really planned on telling him."

"No, don't apologize!" Lucy protested, finally looking up, and despite the tears welling in her eyes, she managed to smile at Gray, "If you love him, he should know."

"Shouldn't you also tell him then?" Gray pointed out, not feeling comfortable with how the conversation was going.

Lucy bit her lip, "I don't think that's a good idea, besides I'm fairly sure he doesn't feel the same way."

"You know Lucy, I'd be more than happy to show you a good time," Loke piped in with a grin.

"Stay away from her!" Gray and Cana exclaimed in unison, making Loke chuckle into his drink.

Cana waited until Lucy left to go talk to Levy, to bring the topic back up, "You really should go talk to him, if you don't do it soon you're just going to end up beating the crap out of each other."

"I don't know...," Gray hedged, realistically he figured that was going to happen anyway, it's how they communicated.

"Tell you what, why don't I do a reading for you?" Cana feigned innocence as she grabbed her cards out of her purse.

Gray snorted, "Riiight, like I'd trust you with those." He took a deep breath, and before he could change his mind, he reached his hand out for the bag of Natsu's winnings.

"That's my boy," Cana cheered, placing the bag in his hand, "Go get your man!"

Gray rolled his eyes at his friend.

"If you want my advice," Loke began, but Gray covered his mouth with a thin sheet of ice.

"Don't finish that sentence," Gray waved obnoxiously at Loke as he tried to talk around the ice. He left the guild in search of Natsu.

Xxx

Natsu had left the guild with no clear direction in mind. He was pissed, he'd been having a good time, had even managed to get his mind off what had happened with the Ice Princess for the first time that day, but Gajeel had to go and ruin it like he ruined everything. Stupid iron freak.

He stopped, trying to decide where he wanted to go, his earlier injuries had been mostly healed, but they were still a bit uncomfortable. He was deep in thought when he felt Happy nudge him.

"Natsu, what's wrong?" Happy was watching him, his eyes big and searching.

"What do you mean?" Natsu had no idea what his Exceed was referring to.

"Back at the guild, it felt like you were overreacting," Happy explained, he knew Natsu had a temper, but he usually didn't act that way with his friends, and even though he and Gajeel didn't always see eye to eye, they were still friends.

"Oh that," Natsu replied sheepishly, "I just have some stuff to think about."

"Wanna talk about it?" Happy's eyes glimmered with hope at the thought of being helpful, and Natsu couldn't help but smile at his partner.

"Not really," Natsu said honestly, but when he saw Happy's crestfallen expression, he was quick to add, "But I still have to, I can't avoid it forever."

"Aye, sir!" Happy agreed, although he still had no idea what was going on.

Natsu looked around to get his bearings and realized he'd unconsciously been walking towards Lucy's apartment. Stupid! Lucy was the last person he should be talking to about this situation, as much as he would appreciate her advice, that would be unfair of him.

The sound of the running water was managing to ease away the remainder of his anger, and he decided to just sit on the edge of the canal for a bit. Happy settled on his lap, staring up at him.

"So, what happened?"

Natsu looked down at his Exceed, touched by his obvious concern. As much as he took care of Happy, it always surprised him how much he got back in return. He hugged Happy to his chest before letting go and thinking about the Exceed's question, what had happened?

"You know that July 7th is a rough day for me," He began, smiling as the Exceed nodded gravely, his eyebrows scrunched in concentration.

"Well, yesterday I didn't feel like being alone, so I decided to go to the guild, I ended up drinking a lot, and then Gray showed up, but he wasn't as big of a prick as usual," Natsu smiled, he'd liked that part.

As much as he enjoyed their little rivalry he'd noticed he really enjoyed the quieter moments they'd been having during jobs as well. Being on the same team with Erza had forced them to pretend to get along and somewhere along the way it had stopped being an act for him.

During their time on Galuna Island, Natsu had gotten a glimpse of a Gray he'd never really gotten a chance to know before. It had surprised him how much Gray had managed to hide from them throughout the years, but it also explained so much about who Gray was.

There might have been some feelings that had started then, feelings he purposefully never thought about, knowing full well their relationship was already complicated enough.

He noticed Happy looking at him impatiently and realized he'd been quiet for a while. What had he been saying? Oh yeah!

"Anyway, we started drinking, and he asked me to tell him some stories about Igneel, so I did," Natsu continued, remembering how much they'd laughed. He tried to visualize what Gray's face had looked like then, if there had been any indication of what was going to happen, but he'd been drunk enough to not have a clear recollection.

"I'm sorry I missed that," Happy piped up earnestly, "I love those stories!"

"I know you do buddy, maybe I'll tell you some later," Natsu petted Happy, still feeling serene.

"I don't get it Natsu, nothing you've said so far is bad."

"I'm not done," Natsu reminded him, Happy nodded, continuing to wait patiently for Natsu to tell his story.

"Anyway, I don't remember what set me off," Natsu scratched the back of his neck, deep in thought, "But we'd kept drinking, and I guess talking about Igneel so much, it made me miss him that much more, and I started to get sad, and Gray...Gray tried to comfort me."

"That was nice of him."

"Yeah it was, but when he tried to comfort me I... I don't know, it felt right? It's been a long time since anyone showed me they cared like that, so I let myself hold on to it, and that's when it happened."

And looking back, if Gray was really in love with him, then Natsu had certainly been sending him mixed signals at that point. His cheeks reddened as he remembered how he'd nuzzled up against Gray.

Why had he done that? Had he wanted something more to happen?

All he knew was it had felt good to just let go, to let Gray make him feel worthy of being loved. To allow Gray's scent to wash over him until he was just as drunk on it as he was on the ridiculous amounts of alcohol he'd ingested. When he'd finally let go, there was something more he'd wanted, he'd looked at Gray with eyes full of it...

"Natsu," Happy whined impatiently, "What happened?"

Natsu shook away the thoughts he'd been having, avoiding Happy's curious gaze, "Gray kissed me."

"GRAY KISSED YOU?" Happy screamed, too shocked to even go into his teasing trademark.

"Not so loud," Natsu hissed, eyes quickly darting to see if anyone had heard.

"Gray kissed you?" Happy whispered comically, immediately covering his mouth afterward.

Natsu rolled his eyes in response to Happy's antics but nodded.

"What did you do, did you punch him?" Happy asked knowingly.

"No, I, uhm sorta kissed him back before pushing him away," Natsu admitted, he could feel it coming, could almost see the internal struggle Happy was facing.

"You looooooooooooooooove him!"

"Shut up, I do not!" Natsu harrumphed noisily as he crossed his arms over his chest.

"I think Happy's right," A soft voice spoke from behind him, and Natsu didn't have to turn around to recognize Lucy. He'd forgotten where he was sitting, and now he didn't know what to do. Water tended to dampen his sense of smell, he'd never sensed her coming.

Lucy sat next to him, watching him for a few minutes as if making her mind up about something. It made Natsu even more uncomfortable than he already was.

"It's okay you know," Lucy surprised him with her words, especially considering the feelings he knew she held for him.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, it's okay to like other guys, even if they are Gray," Lucy tried to inject some levity, but it was too much, she only managed to look slightly pained.

"I don't know," Natsu repeated for the, well he'd lost count really of how many times he'd tried to impress that on others.

"Well, keep going, what happened after the kiss?" Lucy urged him.

"I don't really think that's a great idea considering...," Natsu cursed himself for his stupidity, he shouldn't have said that.

"Considering what? My feelings?" Lucy held his gaze valiantly, but Natsu could only look away.

"You don't have to pretend anymore. It's okay that you don't feel the same way. I think, maybe, I've always known," Lucy said calmly, adding with a sad smile, "But you're still my friend, and I want you to be happy, so let's work this out 'cause let's face it, you're terrible at feelings."

She laughed at her words, and it was a real laugh even if it was quiet, and Natsu could only whisper I'm sorry as he put his arm around her in a half hug.

Lucy closed her eyes, letting herself enjoy Natsu's warmth, it wasn't what she'd hoped for, but she knew his affection for her was real.

She couldn't ask him to fake something he didn't feel just to make her happy. She knew that as unlikely as it seemed, Gray and Natsu were right for each other. They understood each other better than anyone else, and she'd noticed how they'd sought each other out more and more since Galuna, she'd just somehow failed to connect the dots.

Lucy nudged him, "Come on, spill it, what happened after the kiss?"

"I asked him why he'd kissed me, and he told me it was because he was in love with me," Natsu got the words out as quickly as he could, hoping that if he did so, they wouldn't affect him as much. No such luck.

"And you ran away?"

Natsu nodded, knowing there was no point in denying it.

"Why did you run away?"

"I don't know, it was too much to take in, I guess. Yesterday was supposed to be about Igneel, and I wasn't prepared to hear that."

Lucy thought about Natsu's words and felt something was missing, she could almost glimpse it, but it still eluded her.

"I shouldn't have told you like that, it was wrong of me," Yet another voice surprised him from behind. How many times had he been ambushed today?

Damn it, he really needed to stay away from water when he was upset, one of these days it was likely to get him killed.

"Can I sit down?" Gray asked, not wanting to force himself on Natsu again.

Natsu looked up at the reason for all of his confusion and sighed. He was too tired to fight. It had been a long ass emotional day, so instead, he patted the spot on the other side of him.

Gray sat and handed him a bag full of jewels, "Cana wanted me to give these to you."

"Thanks," Nasu replied, setting the bag down next to him. His heart and mind were full of uncertainty as he gazed upon the person he'd spent most of the day avoiding.

Lucy could feel the tension in the air, "Wow, look at the time! Happy, why don't you come home with me?" She grabbed the Exceed before he had a chance to protest, waving goodbye to her teammates before hurrying home.

"Listen," Gray began, looking down at his hands as he flexed his fingers into the patterns he used to strengthen them for his maker magic, "I was drunk and not thinking properly. You're right, yesterday should have been all about you and Igneel, and I shouldn't have made it about me and my feelings. That wasn't fair of me."

"And I want you to know, it's okay if you don't feel the same way or even if you don't know what you feel," Gray assured him in an even voice, "I don't need an answer today, I've had months to think about this. I know I just sprung it on you. "

Natsu watched Gray intently, listening to his every word but also letting himself really look at the man sitting next to him. The fit body he continually sparred against, the mind he loved to share insults with, the deep eyes that always made him wonder what he was thinking.

Except Gray was being open with him for once, no insults, no games, just honesty. He was still talking, but Natsu had stopped listening, too intent on trying to figure himself out.

"Why did you kiss me?" Natsu interrupted suddenly.

"I was drunk, and I wasn't thinking," Gray repeated.

"Don't give me that, I'm the impulsive one, something made you do it."

Gray gazed at the boats that were traveling on the canal as he thought about what had really possessed him to kiss his rival. "It was something in your eyes, It felt like you wanted me to."

Natsu thought about it and came to the conclusion that Gray was right. Maybe it hadn't been a kiss that he'd wanted but the love that came with it. The love Gray had shown him since the moment he'd sat down to drink with him.

Gray had managed to get through to him, and he'd done it on Natsu's worst day. He'd made Natsu believe he was worthy of the kind of love he'd felt with Igneel.

Gray had accepted Natsu as he was from the very beginning. Never attempting to change him, Gray had engaged him time and again, in all the ways Natsu understood best.

The panic Natsu had felt on Galuna when he'd realized what Gray was planning on doing had been like no other feeling he'd ever experienced before, barring waking up to find Igneel had left him behind. It had been the realization that if he let Gray cast Iced Shell, he'd be losing a part of himself that he considered more important than anything else.

And that's when it hit him, the reason he'd been so confused about whether he might be in love with Gray or not was that he'd already been in love with him for a while. He'd just never given a name to it. Natsu was embarrassed to think of all the shameless taunts and fights he'd engaged in just to keep Gray near. He'd acted in ways that were even more obvious than Lucy, and he couldn't help but wonder how many people had figured it out before he did.

"Do it again," Natsu demanded, catching Gray completely off guard.

"What?" Gray answered dumbly, confused by whatever the hell was going on inside Natsu's head.

Screw it!

Natsu ran his fingers through Gray's hair tugging it firmly as he pulled the ice mage towards him. He pressed his lips against Gray's, who was still too confused to respond. Natsu didn't let that bother him, he closed his eyes and nibbled Gray's bottom lip, excited when he felt Gray join the kiss. It was the first time he had kissed a boy, and he found that he really liked it. They separated a moment, the position they were in too uncomfortable to continue for long.

Gray gazed at him, one eyebrow raised as he seemed to be asking what brought that about.

'You were taking too long," Natsu complained.

"Are you sure about this? I told you, I don't need an answer today," Gray reminded him.

"I know, but why wait when I already have one?" Natsu grinned mischievously.

"Let's get out of here," Natsu grabbed his bag of earnings, feeling its weight to see how much money he had. "You hungry?"

Gray nodded,still baffled as to what was happening.

"Let's go," He grabbed Gray's hand and squeezed it, warning him, "I've never done this before, and I'm not great with feelings."

"Neither am I, " Gray replied, returning Natsu's hand squeeze, "But I'd like to try it out."

They began to make their way towards the business sector of town, walking hand in hand but not saying much, both trying to figure out what they were doing and how not to fuck it up.

They walked past a bakery that the girls of the guild loved to frequent, not noticing Cana, Mira, and Erza sitting at their table near the window. Mira and Cana smiled happily at the peaceful look on both men's faces, not noticing that Erza had left their table.

"GRAY!" Erza charged after them.

"Oh, dear," Mira laughed at her girlfriend's antics.

"Should we go stop her?" Cana asked although she wasn't particularly in the mood to chase after them.

"Nah, I've learned it's best not to get in between those three, they understand each other quite well," Mira said as she continued to eat her slice of cake calmly.

Outside, Natsu and Gray finally heard Erza screaming after them, and when Natsu stopped to see what she wanted, Gray tugged at his hand desperately.

"What are you doing?" Gray yelled, "Run, you fool!"

Natsu looked at him uncomprehendingly, so Gray pulled him behind him as he made a run for it.

"Get back here Gray, I told you if you started dating Natsu, we'd have to have a talk!"

Natsu began to laugh, finally understanding what was going on.

"Stop laughing you moron, you're slowing us down!" Gray complained desperately.

But he couldn't help it, so Gray left him behind as Erza charged after him, weapon in hand. Natsu laughed and laughed, watching his friend and boyfriend run through the town.

Yes, he'd lost Igneel, and it had hurt, and he'd most likely never know why. But what he'd gained in Igneel's place wasn't bad. No, it wasn't bad at all!

A/N: This is my last entry for this event.