Good Intentions

At The Guild

Disclaimer: All Fairy Tail Characters belong to Hiro Mashima

Chapter 4: At The Guild

When Natsu entered the Fairy Tail guild hall he was already feeling better about his non fight with Gray. Obviously, they had still been tired from all the work they did during their mission and he knew they had both went all out when they raced. It was their nature, neither one of them liked to lose to the other after all. He had gone home, taken a nap, eaten some food and was feeling more like his normal self. He was sure he could goad the ice mage into a fight quickly. The fact that he had recently agreed to not fight the ice mage in the guild hall slipping his mind for the moment, he looked around and spied members of his team already sitting at their table. He stopped to get a drink from Mira and happily went to join them.

"Finally decided to join us, eh Natsu?", Erza greeted him warmly. Gray, who had arrived earlier, had already informed her that they had agreed to her deal. "I look forward to the peace and quiet I expect in the coming days. I am happy that you are willing to give this a try and I will be keeping an eye on your progress. I will now go upstairs to report to the Master." She rose from her seat and headed upstairs to the Master's office, leaving the boys alone at the table with their beverages.

Lucy finished catching up with Levy and sat down at her team's table a mischievous look on her face.

"Oh, hi Lucy! ", both boys greeted their teammate warmly.

"So I heard that you guys agreed to work on your " , at this Lucy put her fingers up in air quotes as she said the next word, "relationship!". She grinned at them cheekily as Gray's drink came sputtering out of his mouth in red faced indignation.

"WHAT? That's not funny, Lucy.", Gray growled at her.

Natsu didn't quite get what she was implying so he just ignored her, still trying to figure out the best way to draw Gray out into a brawl. However, he was quickly noticing that now that he was near his friend he had lost all interest in fighting him. Again. 'What in the holy hell is going on?', he thought to himself. He did not like this at all. He wanted a fight and if he couldn't fight his best friend he would move down the list to his second rival. He got up from the table without saying a word to his friends and headed towards a certain spiky haired, iron eating dragon slayer.

"I thought it was!", Lucy giggled at Gray's quick anger. It was amusing to be able to get such a quick rise out of him. "Relax, I was just teasing you. I know that's not true. I don't think I have ever seen either of you showing interest in anyone, let alone each other."

"I think things will be a lot more fun from now on if you two aren't at each other's throats every waking second.", Lucy said happily, ideas of things they could now do without the ever present fear of the boys' fights destroying everything around them flitting through her head. She also couldn't help but wonder if this would somehow translate into more reward money. Erza was right, this might work out after all.

"I suppose, but to me it seems like they will be less fun.", the ice mage replied a bit gloomily thinking about how things had turned out at the river earlier. He had meant it when he had told Erza that he did not want the nature of his friendship with Natsu to change and he was starting to get a bad feeling that this agreement they had made might do just that. He looked up to look at Natsu and suddenly noticed that the fire mage was no longer there. He looked around the room trying to spy a glimpse of pink hair.