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Okay, first things first, just to clarify; he honestly doesn't mean to interfere with Juvia's love life.

Honestly.

She's kind of his friend (Okay fine, so she's his best friend/honorary sister/platonic life partner. Whatever.) and as lame as it sounds, they actually tell each other everything. Well, not everything everything obviously, but still. They basically talk enough to know a good deal of shit about each other. Even though he's not the chatty kind of person, they've known each other for a long time and he respects and trusts her enough to actually tell her stuff about himself. They talk about anything that's worth talking about when they have the time—their families, missions, music, the weird-tasting casserole Mira had served the other day. Nothing's basically off limits between them.

Well, that is, except for the subject of relationships and dating.

It's just one of those things that he absolutely does not want to discuss, even with her. Especially with her. He's never really been good with the whole expressing-your-emotions crap and knowing Juvia, he's sure that she's going to take whatever he says about Shrimp the wrong way. Ever since he let it slip that he may have a small, minuscule, very slight(seriously, it's practically non-existent) thing for Levy, Juvia has convinced herself that he actually likes Levy or something.

Which is obviously not true.

Anyways, even though he's made a ban on the whole relationship-discussion-front, it's not as if it has stopped Juvia from talking about Stripper for like, ninety-nine percent of the time—it's always Stripper this, Stripper that. Seriously. It's the most annoying thing ever. It irritates the living fuck out of him but he tolerates it and listens to her anyways, because she's a good friend and she at least deserves the respect of having him actually listen to her and not write her off.

So yeah, he's not completely clueless when it comes to her love life. Still, he tries not to touch that thing with a ten foot pole. He's known Juvia long enough to know that he's better off avoiding all her crazy. Whenever she asks him for advice, he usually brushes her off because 1.) he has no fucking clue how relationships are supposed to work and 2.) she's like a sister to him and discussing "how to pleasure her Gray-sama" is seriously the most uncomfortable thing ever. He cares about her and he supports her and stuff, but it's the one aspect in her life that he has no plans on ever getting involved in.

That is, until Stripper's Gay Brother from that other guild corners him one morning while he is taking a drink from one of his favorite bars. He doesn't even realize that Gay Stripper was following him up until he comes up and surprises Gajeel by coming up from beside him.

"Hello," he smoothly says, as he slips into a seat next to Gajeel.

Gajeel chokes on his beer and tries to catch his bearings as he attempts to wipe away the spilled beer on the front of his shirt. "The fuck?"

"My apologies for startling you," he politely says as he gestures at the barman to give him a tankard of beer.

Gajeel blinks once at him, immediately on guard. He can't exactly remember Gay Stripper's name (Dyon? Byron? Tyon?) but what he does know is that the man comes from a rival guild. He scrunches his brow as he tries to remember more details about Gay Stripper but the only thing he can come up with is that he used to be Stripper's brother and that Juvia mentioned something about him once when she showed him that ridiculously complicated love diagram she had made.

His eyes widen in realization when he remembers the specifics of the diagram and he gruffly says, "Wait. If you're looking for Juvia, she isn't here."

"Actually, while I was in fact looking for Juvia, my true objective was to talk to you," Gay Stripper tells him.

Gajeel suddenly tenses up and he grips the handle of his beer mug tighter. He quickly says, "I'm not interested. I don't swing that way."

It's now Gay Stripper's turn to be poleaxed. He nearly slips off his seat and drops his tankard as his cheeks redden. He indignantly says, "I'm not trying to come on to you."

"Oh," Gajeel says although he's still suspicious. From what he can remember from the love diagram (What? Juvia spent like, thirty minutes yammering to him about it.), Stripper has a thing for his Gay Stripper Brother. Or was it the other way around? "So what the fuck do you want to talk to me about?"

"I need to ask you a favor," Gay Stripper seriously says.

"I already told you. I'm not interested—''

"Not that kind of favor," Gay Stripper exasperatedly says. "It has something to do with Juvia."

"Look, I don't know what crazy love triangle you three are involved in, but I'm not helping you take Juvia out—''

"Why would I even want you to do that?" he sputters, completely flummoxed.

"Wait. Aren't you and Juvia fighting over Stripper—I mean Gray or something?" Gajeel says in confusion.

"No! Me and Gray are fighting over Juvia!" Gay Stripper snaps.

"But...Juvia said..." he trails off and decides not to continue, because knowing Juvia, her crazy-ass imagination probably misinterpreted the entire situation. Fuck. Sometimes he seriously wonders what goes on in that head of hers. "Never mind..."

"Anyways, I wanted to talk to you because I heard from my sources—''

"Sources? You've been stalking me!?" Gajeel demands, suddenly suspicious all over again.

"No, I was stalking—I mean observing Juvia," Gay Stripper defensively protests. "Moving on, I heard from some people that you and Juvia are good friends..."

"Yeah, we're tight I guess," Gajeel nonchalantly replies, unsure of where Gay Stripper is heading with this conversation.

Gay Stripper takes a deep breath and gives him a firm look with his eyes.

"Well, I was wondering, bearing in mind that you and Juvia are 'tight', if you would help me win her over?" he confidently asks.

Gajeel looks at him in complete confusion. "What?"

"I asked you if you could help me win over the love of my life—''

"Hell, no. Go find someone else to drag into your crazy shit," Gajeel says as he dismissively waves his hand.

"But you're the perfect person to help me out! You've known Juvia the longest and you know her best, so you could help me learn about the things she likes or dislikes—''

"I already gave you my answer. Don't make me repeat myself," Gajeel gruffly says, his temper rising.

"—which would give me an edge over Gray! Once she sees how compatible she and I are, she'll finally come to her senses and be with me," Gay Stripper continues, ignoring everything that Gajeel had said.

"So you want me to feed you answers about her interests so that you could manipulate her into going out with you?" Gajeel demands.

"No! Of course not! I'm not asking you to help me manipulate her! I'm merely asking you to help me out!" he responds in offense.

"Forget it. I am not getting myself involved in your crazy." He gives Lyon a curious look when he suddenly remembers something Cana said. "Wait. Didn't you give up on her or something?"

"I know I said that but..." Lyon dramatically places a hand on his chest. "I can never keep away from Juvia-chan."

Gajeel rolls his eyes and looks away. "Still not helping you."

"But...but you are her friend right?"

He lifts his shoulders in a short, irritated shrug. He seriously wants Gay Stripper to leave right now; he has completely ruined Gajeel's beer break.

"So you must care for her?"

He uncomfortably shifts in his place as he makes a small grunt.

"Well, assuming that you are in fact, capable of feeling some sort of emotion for a person who happens to be your closest and oldest friend, then surely you must be tired of seeing her pine away for someone who doesn't return her feelings?" Gay Stripper asks him.

"Well...um...maybe," Gajeel mumbles, trying his very best to remain unaffected.

"Don't you think that she deserves someone better? Someone who doesn't treat her like she doesn't exist?"

"Yeah!" he responds with more conviction than he meant to.

"I mean Juvia-chan...er...Juvia is an amazing woman—she's beautiful and kind and smart and sweet. She deserves to be with someone who actually loves her, not waiting for someone who doesn't even feel the same way about her," Gay Stripper says, his voice becoming more and more impassioned with every word.

"Damn right she does!" Gajeel responds as he slams a fist against the countertop.

"And Gray...that bastard doesn't even know how lucky he is! He's always treating Juvia so coldly. And even though it's obvious that he doesn't like her back, he doesn't even bother giving her a proper answer! It's clear that he's just stringing her along!"

"Yeah! What a prick!" Gajeel hisses. The more he's listening to Gay Stripper, the more the man is actually starting to make sense. Juvia may be a bit high-strung and okay fine, she does do a ton of shit that makes absolutely no sense sometimes but she's an amazing person and she doesn't deserve to waste her time waiting for an asshole who's never going to reciprocate or give her a proper clear-cut answer. For fuck's sake, she's practically giving every single thing she's got to Stripper and the bastard doesn't even spare her a second glance. It makes him really, really angry because she's his friend and even though he doesn't show or say it that much, he actually cares about her.

"But I'm not like that! I love her. And even though, her responses towards my advances may be...lukewarm as of the moment, at least I am clear about what I feel for her!" Gay Stripper says.

Gajeel looks at him in contemplation. So apparently Gay Stripper is not so gay after all, especially if he has the hots for Juvia. Now that he thinks about it, Not So Gay Stripper and Juvia are actually kind of similar; they both wear blue and have that fur collar thing and they're both direct and open with their feelings and kind of really intense. And Not So Gay Stripper is basically Stripper except that he actually likes Juvia back. Maybe, he should help—No.

What the fuck is he thinking?

"My answer's still no," he gruffly says. He'll give it to the Not So Gay Stripper though; the bastard can be pretty sneaky and persuasive. But even though he sort of wishes that Juvia would stop being so hung up on Stripper and actually move on, he respects her feelings. He knows that she really cares about Stripper and not just the shallow, stupid kind of caring either—she full on loves him and shit. He may not agree with her choices but it's still her feelings and her decisions and he doesn't have the right to meddle and tell her that she's got everything all wrong.

Not So Gay Stripper looks thrown. "But...but—''

"Look, I get where you're coming from. I really do. But it's none of my business," he says.

"Just one date. Just please help me get one date with her," Not So Gay Stripper says in a pleading voice.

Gajeel turns away from him and takes a huge gulp from his beer. "Sorry. Can't help you."

Not So Gay Stripper's face twists in disappointment. He slumps against the table and sighs, "It's such a shame though. Because I did have some extra cash to spare and if you had only accepted my offer to assist me, I would have expressed my gratitude by you know...giving you some monetary compensation."

Gajeel stiffens.

"Exactly how much monetary compensation?" Gajeel says, trying to sound casual.

"Oh...about seven thousand jewels," Not So Gay Stripper shrugs.

Seven thousand...Holy fuck. Seven thousand jewels. He can't believe that he's actually considering this but seriously. It's seven thousand jewels. He can do a lot of shit with that kind of money—he can even buy himself a new guitar. And okay fine, he knows that he promised himself that he was never going to interfere with her love life and that it's kind of fucked up that he's basically being paid to be Not So Gay Stripper's wingman. But the more he thinks about it, the more he feels like it's actually the best option.

Not So Gay Stripper will probably treat her like a princess if given the chance (hell, from what Gajeel knows, he treats her like a princess already) and the two of them actually sort of look good together. And this whole thing will probably be good for her since she'll be able to see that Stripper's not the only guy in the world and that there are tons of other people who are attracted to her or who can love or accept her romantically. In the end, that's all that really matters right? He just wants her to be happy and if he feels like hooking her up with Not So Gay Stripper is what it's going to take, then he's going to do it.

Him getting something in return is just a small, really small thing in the grand scheme of things. The seven thousand grand has absolutely nothing to do with anything at all.

Really, he's doing this all for her benefit.

He straightens up and tries to adopt a professional, business-like tone. "Well, now that I think about it, you do seem like a better match for Juvia..."

Not So Gay Stripper gives him a huge smile. "Glad you could see things my way—''

"But if you want my help, you're doing what I'm telling you. No questions, asked," Gajeel cuts him off.

"But—''

"And I just help you out with one date. One. And then you're on your own."

"Fine. But the date has to be successful, otherwise I'm not paying you."

"You're not paying me! You're expressing your gratitude through monetary incentive!" Gajeel says in outrage. It sounds so sleazy and shady when Not So Gay Stripper puts it that way.

"That's basically the same thing!"

"Whatever," he flippantly shrugs. "But if I do get you a date with Juvia, I want half."

"No. You'll get everything if the date ends successfully."

"Half. Or I'm not helping you."

"Fine! Whatever. I'll give you half if she agrees to go on a date with me. But the other half only comes if it ends well."

"Fine with me," Gajeel shrugs. He then narrows his eyes against Not So Gay Stripper's. "But Juvia can't find out about this. She'll kill me."

He nods his head. "Agreed."

A short stretch of silence passes between them as Gajeel internally debates his final decision. If this all goes wrong somehow, then he's pretty sure that Juvia will hate him forever (or for at least three weeks max) and if Pantherlily finds out, he knows that the Exceed will chew him out and never let him hear the end of it. But he figures that he can take the risk; this isn't his first time gambling with high stakes.

"Okay, Byron." Gajeel claps a hand on Lyon's shoulder and says, "You got yourself a deal."

"It's Lyon."

"Of course, I knew that Tyon—''

"Lyon."

Gajeel looks away and tries to hide the smirk on his mouth by taking a gulp from his mug of beer. "Ghihi. That's what I said."

It was close enough, anyways.

He and Lyon meet up the next day in the same pub. He's written down a couple of things that seem relevant on to a scrap piece of paper. He's never usually this responsible but he figures that if he's going to help Lyon get one date with Juvia, he wants to make sure that the bastard actually shows her a good time and not fuck things up. The last thing he needs is Juvia wailing on him about how horrible her date with Lyon was.

Lyon shows up a few minutes later with a notebook and a pen and Gajeel makes a snide comment to him about it. Lyon glares at him and defensively says that he just wants to be prepared. It's sort of lame but at least Gajeel knows that Lyon is dead serious about this whole thing.

"Okay, one, always be nice and polite and shit. Juvia digs that in the guy," Gajeel says, rattling off the first thing on his list.

"I'm always polite to her," Lyon says but he's writing it down anyway.

"Just open doors and pull out the seats for her. All of that gentlemanly stuff. She's the kind of girl who reads all those crazy romance stories so it kind of spills over into how she perceives real life," Gajeel continues. He suddenly remembers that one time Juvia read a book about a couple where the girl dies out of some sort of sickness and she spent one whole week getting check-ups for herself and dragging Stripper along with her. She made Gajeel go to the healers too because he's "her friend and she doesn't want anything to come in between him and Levy." He went but it was mostly just to shut her up.

"I do those things for her without her even asking me to," Lyon says.

"Do you want my help or not?" Gajeel demands. He's really annoyed with this whole I-Know-A-Lot-Shit act. He's practically being hired to dish out info about his friend so the least Lyon can do is to shut up and pay attention to him.

Sensing Gajeel's foul mood, Lyon quickly nods his head and says, "Of course. Of course."

"Okay...next up is...oh right! Music. Here's a list of songs she usually listens to. You can...I don't know...say something like, do you like this band? And she'll get all excited that you actually know who the band is. You having the same taste in music is probably going to win points in your favor." He slides the crinkly paper over to Lyon.

Lyon takes it, his eyes quickly sweeping over every word. "Juvia...certainly has...interesting tastes in music."

"Damn right she does. In fact, she introduced some of the bands to me," Gajeel says in a slightly proud tone.

Lyon's left brow twitches. "Well...er...I just never saw Juvia as a girl who was into this kind of music..."

"So you've never heard of any of the bands I listed down?"

"No, but if Juvia enjoys this kind of music, then I'm going to learn how to enjoy them too," Lyon resolutely declares as he folds the paper up and slips it into his pocket.

Gajeel presses his lips together into a frown and says, "Just make sure you actually...learn the songs well, okay? Juvia's a humongous fangirl so she's going to be able to easily tell if you're just lying to impress her."

He nods his head. "Okay. I'll make sure to study this list with due diligence."

"Great." Gajeel consults his list, his lips curving into a smile when he sees what's next. "Ask her if she plays any instruments. She's a good piano player and she's super proud whenever anyone asks her because it's her one chance to show off without seeming like an obnoxious bitch."

A dreamy look crosses Lyon's face. "Juvia plays the piano? I always knew she was talented."

He starts spacing out much to Gajeel's annoyance.

"Oi! Snap out of it! We still have work to do!" Gajeel barks as he tries to break Lyon out of his dreamy stupor.

"Right," Lyon says quickly snapping back into attention.

"I'm not really sure but I think she speaks French. I heard her talking with Sol once using that language."

"Great! I can speak French!" Lyon excitedly says. He emphatically wrings his hands together. "See? We're practically perfect for each other."

"Yeah, you definitely are," Gajeel mutters. He feels a little like Juvia and Lyon might actually be pretty scary as a couple. They're both intense personalities and he doesn't exactly know if they'll be able to balance each other out once they get together. He then shakes his head because fuck, who cares? If Lyon does manage to pull this off, whatever relationship he'll have with Juvia isn't any of Gajeel's business.

"What's next?" Lyon eagerly asks.

"Don't insult her cooking. She will kill you if you do that. I'm not even joking. Tutu—''

"Tutu?"

"He's our ex-guildmate from Phantom Lord. Anyways, Tutu found out about it. The hard way."

"Oh."

"Right. Be nice to kids. She's a sucker for a guy who likes kids." He remembers this one guy from Phantom Lord who had a supreme crush on her. He was a total loser who always had a perpetually runny nose and who always tripped over his own feet but Juvia agreed to go out to dinner with him anyways because he was really nice to his little brother.

"Got it."

"Don't ever mention the rain or allude to her past in any way whatsoever. That topic makes her all iffy and it'll probably sour the conversation between the two of you."

"Noted."

"Don't mention her pink umbrella because it will inevitably lead to a discussion about her parents. And that will just make her upset."

"I never got to ask...what did happen to her parents?" Lyon asks in curiosity.

Gajeel grunts and shifts in his place. "Not my place to tell you."

"Does Gray know about it?" he demands, looking jealous.

"How the fuck should I know?" Gajeel snaps, feeling slightly irritated. He's a little sick of all these unnecessary questions—he wants to wrap this up as quickly as possible and Lyon playing the twenty fucking questions game with him isn't helping.

He looks down at his list and continues, "And oh, whatever you do, don't order anything with string beans for dinner. She absolutely hates them. She actually sticks her tongue out like a little kid whenever she sees 'em."

"No string beans," Lyon mutters as he hastily scribbles it down.

"And if you're going to get her flowers...get her a bouquet of..." He scrunches his brow as he tries to remember what Juvia's favorite kind of flower is. He remembers her yammering about it once, during White Day. Sunflowers. It's sunflowers. Right. She was hoping that Gray would give her a bouquet of sunflowers. Stripper instead gave her a box of chocolates (after being coerced by Erza) but Juvia was pretty happy just to get something from him anyways. "...sunflowers."

"I'll get her the most expensive bouquet of sunflowers I can find!" Lyon declares. But then, his shoulders sag slightly and he says, "Although I always figured she would be more of a roses kind of girl—''

"Well, she isn't. And don't be too over the top with the flowers. You'd probably be think that she's into grand displays of emotion given the way she...acts. But really, she'll probably just be happy that you thought of giving her something in the first place," Gajeel says.

Lyon gives a solemn nod of his head. "Nothing too fancy. Right."

He then gives another dreamy look before sighing, "I always knew that Juvia was someone who was down to earth."

"Riiight..." Gajeel says, feeling slightly weary with Lyon's tendency to drift out of the conversation. "Anyways, I think that's about it—oh wait. One more thing."

He leans forward and pulls his brows downwards in a threatening scowl. He grabs Lyon by the collar of his shirt and glares at him, his voice gruff and intimidating, "If this somehow works and she does end up liking you...then you better treat her right. Otherwise, you and I will have a very long talk."

Lyon, who's been looking pretty collected, shudders in place. He squelches against the Gajeel's grip before gingerly trying to free himself. "Of course, I will treat her right! You have nothing to worry about!"

Gajeel releases him, feeling mollified. He's just a little worried because Juvia has had a douche of an ex-boyfriend before. His name was Bora and he was a total prick—Gajeel honestly doesn't even know what Juvia saw in him in the first place. But she has the tendency to look at the good things in people, even when there aren't any and sometimes he has to be the one to snap her out of it and make her see that not everyone is nice.

Lyon straightens his back and enthusiastically says, "Great! Do you know where she is now? Because now that I'm well prepared, I can ask her out—''

"Whoa. Hold it," Gajeel gruffly says. "She's way into deep with Strip—I mean Gray. There's no way in hell, she's going to voluntarily agree to go out with you. If you want her to accept your invitation for a date...you're going to have to be a little bit sneakier."

Author's Note: After a rather long hiatus from writing Gruvia, I finally found the time to do so! With all the Gruvia feels in the manga, I couldn't help wrangling this fic out in between studying and writing papers. Now that midterm season is over, I should have more time to write more fics. I actually have a couple of fics lined up. I just need to write them down and materialize them.

A couple of people have been messaging me if I ever plan on writing smut for Gruvia. Honestly, I have written something already but it's really crappy and so not sexy and I don't like posting things until I feel like they're actually good enough. So maybe I'll write smut someday but not now. Some people also messaged me about my tumblr page and if I plan on taking drabble requests. I'm still trying to figure tumblr out (because more than anything I use it to look at posts of my different fandoms) but I have finally figured out how to change the theme and add links and all that stuff. So yes, I think I will be taking drabble requests but I'm still relatively new to tumblr so I might not be able to answer those requests right away.

Anyways, this fic is just shameless ridiculousness. After all the drama in recent chapters, I just thought that I would write something nice and light. This is seven chapters long and in case anyone's wondering, I have already finished it (I never upload things I can't finish). The plot is pointless and will cover the span of one, maybe two nights. This is kind of my take on all the debates between the Lvyia-Gruvia ship. I will be uploading one chapter every Friday night.

I hope you guys enjoy reading this! Please review if you have the time. :)