Chapter 1: Innocent Little Crush

"Are you sure about this, Zer?" He asked, not knowing yet that this moment would change his life forever thereafter. Not knowing that agreeing with his brother, taking that step across the threshold, was the one thing that stood between him and the chaos that became his life that evening.

"What could possibly go wrong?" the other replied, his smile kind and innocent as always but a hint of mischief in his voice that made the younger doubt his brother.

"Natsu, Lucy!" Levy was waving at them enthusiastically from her chair, cheery as always, "over here!" Her petite form only recognizable in the thick crowd of the lunchroom, because of the telltale blue mop of hair that defied all the rules of gravity; bouncy and cute, just like the girl herself.

The two addressed looked at each other and smiled, tightening the hold on their trays as they maneuvered through the mass of bodies that were moving every which way and all seemed to have the single goal to keep the blonde and pinkette from their table and their friends.

Lucy used her sweet voice and kind smile to excuse herself and quietly order people to move over with a 'please' and 'thank you' just for formalities, although her voice did lack the venom it could have had had she not been in such a good mood that particular day.

Natsu, on the other hand, used one hand to hold his foodtray high up above his head and used his free hand to push people out of the way creating a path of swearing and cursing students with angry glares directed at the pink haired, who in turn only had eyes for the red and the blue in the distance.

In the defense of the crowd, the lunchbell had only just sounded, which always meant chaos for all the different groups of people that tried to find one another in the huge dining hall, but the chaos always ended rather quickly as well, and even before Natsu and Lucy had reached their table had the masses seemed to have quieted down and settled into seats and onto tables left and right. It was also then that Natsu spotted Gray, which caused him to trip over his own feet and loose his tray anyway, letting it go airborne and fly right into poor Lucy's back.

"Gah!" Natsu said as he stumbled and caught himself on the arm Droy extended towards him, "thanks. Gee, gotta watch my footing!" he looked at the leftovers of his food which were littered all over Lucy's tank top and shorts, "uh, sorry Luce…" He rubbed the back of his head in apology, knowing his blonde best friend was quite the fan of this particular outfit. Damn, and she'd been in such a good mood today, Natsu was already mourning the pleasant person she'd been all morning.

Yet, to his surprise, she started giggling as she turned around, "Natsu, you're such an idiot!" she laughed, not even seeming remotely angry with the pinkette, "look what you did, I love this shirt!" she stood up from her chair and wiped down the sides of her tanktop, which'd had some mashed potatoes on one side, and what looked like orange juice on the other. "Gah," she tutted as she took the napkin from Droy's tray and dabbed at a spot of sauce she found on the back of her tanktop when she pulled the fabric to the front, "I suppose I'll have to go home and change before the party then." She smiled and sat back down, happily munching on her food.

Natsu looked back at the foodline, pouting when the sight confirmed his suspicions that the line had grown about 5 times the size it was when he'd gone to get food with Lucy. He sat down grumbling slightly as his stomach growled automatically.

"You seriously got to get over yourself, Pinkie." Gajeel said from his side, he leaned in a bit in what Natsu assumed was supposed to be attempted subtlety, but with his low base-like voice, the distance didn't really matter because practically everyone at their table could hear them.

"Maybe if you whisper just a little louder Gray will hear and beat my ass." Natsu growled back, annoyed at the raven's loud voice. He knew the guy meant well, and he tried really hard to be friends with all of Levy's friends but truth be told Natsu and Gajeel clashed with each other more often than not.

"Damn sure he will if he hears." Gajeel hissed, his pierced face pulled into a sneer, "he's not the dreamy prince charming you're expecting him to be, Pinkie."

"Fuck you know about my expectations," though he looked away from the tall male in denial, Natsu knew that he was right. He really did know, yet it didn't stop his gaze from travelling over to the male a couple tables over, sitting with what high school movies would dub 'the cool kids'.

As some sort of peace offering, which Natsu greatly appreciated and accepted, Gajeel held out one of the apples he'd scooped from the fruit corner. The punky metal-fan always ate a lot during lunch break and Natsu could only assume it was needed for the amount of muscle on him.

Natsu took the apple and beamed at him, forgive and forget right? Seemed like a fair trade. The apple was joined with half a sandwich Lisanna handed him from across the table, "I hope you like peanut butter."

"Thanks Lis!" contently he munched on the food that wasn't nearly enough to subdue his never ending cravings for food but at least enough to keep him quiet for a little while longer. He smiled happily at one of his closest friends and got a wink in return.

Natsu knew that Lisanna had a little bit of a thing for him still, and even though they dated when they were younger, and Natsu really loved the girl, he had no romantic feelings for her. Not in the same sense, at least. It's not because he was exclusively into guys, because he wasn't, he thought. He'd so far only ever been gay for Gray, and everyone was at least a little bit gay for Gray. It wasn't that big of a deal, yet, and ironically, only Gajeel knew about it. For some reason that ignorant prick had managed to find out, maybe because he was persistent and curious, or maybe because he was sort of friends with Gray and his group and was therefore more observant when it came to Natsu's loving glances in their direction.

No, people in general thought he'd end up with Lucy, which he was pretty sure would not happen. He liked Lucy, sometimes he even thought of her as hot or sexy and he could even imagine himself being with her, if it wasn't for the fact that Natsu knew with a 100% certainty that Lucy was, in fact, a bit of a player. It wasn't a general known fact and Natsu only knew about it because he spent most of his time with the blonde, but her phone was always blowing up with all types of suggestive texts and messages which she would shamelessly reply in the same sense. Sometimes there was one she liked in particular, like this guy Cancer she met at the club a couple weeks back, and then she'd tell the rest of their friends as well, keeping them wisely in the dark about the other 11 guys she was texting at the exact same time.

Sometimes Lucy said she wouldn't mind having Gray slide into her DM's, which Natsu never greatly appreciated, not because he thought Gray was supposed to be all his, and not even because he was jealous of the fact that she would probably have a much better chance at him than Natsu did, but because she was objectifying him; thinking she wanted him only because he was hot –which he was. Natsu, on the other hand, had known Gray since they were little kids and went to preschool together, only until Gray had to switch schools for one reason or another. They hadn't been close friends back then, in fact; they were always fighting when they were little kids. But through those fights Natsu knew that he got to know Gray on a whole other level than all those other kids did. When they met again in high school much had changed and Natsu thought for a while that the raven had forgotten about him altogether. A little into the freshmen year, though, Natsu had been rummaging through his locker and his report card had fallen out, he wouldn't have noticed at all hadn't Gray actually called him by his name and pointed it out to him. In junior year they'd shared a couple of classes and in senior year they shared nothing but Gajeel.

"So, Natsu, will you be there?" Natsu blinked, realizing the platinum haired girl had been talking to him for a bit and hoping that the fact that he hadn't heard a word she'd said wouldn't offend the kind girl too much.

"Natsu," Lucy said, with a roll of her eyes, "she's talking about Mirajane's party. You know it's tonight, I've been telling you about it all morning."

"Oh, right." Natsu sighed, of course; that was why Lucy was in such a great mood. Lisanna's older brother and sister were both part of the in-crowd, for Mirajane was captain of the cheerleading squad and Elfman was your typical jock. Since their parents were on a weekend trip, Mirajane and Elfman had decided that a party would be in order, and since they needed Lisanna on their side, obviously, and they weren't terrible people themselves either, they told Lisanna to invite whoever she wanted. Now their little friend's group wasn't particularly unpopular or anything of the sort, but they weren't really on the invite list for the important people in the school, people like Mirajane Strauss, so this was quite the happening for those of the group that fancied the ideal of popularity. "I'm not sure."

"Ahw come on, Natsu!" Lucy whined, "it won't be a party without your crazy ass there!"

And Lisanna chimed in with a giggle and a nod, "please? For me?"

It was that moment exactly when Erza decided she had to make her presence known from where she'd previously been conversing with Levy, "you should, Natsu. You hardly ever come out of the house in the weekends anymore." Leave it to Scarlet to turn inviting him to a party into an intervention.

Unwillingly, Natsu shot a look at Gajeel, knowing he was still listening to the conversation and also knowing the black haired man would attend.

Gajeel shrugged and snorted, "don't look at me, Pinkie, I sure as fuck don't want you to come. Besides, if it helps your decision…" he looked at Natsu meaningfully as he said, "not everyone's going."

Natsu knew he meant Gray, of course he did. The pink haired sighed and rubbed the palm of his hand against his forehead, "I actually have plans already." He lied.

"Plans? On a Friday night, you?" Erza frowned at him, clearly not believing a word he said.

Natsu nodded thaughtfully, "yeah, I was going to go out with um…" He looked around for ideas, which was stupid because everybody in the whole damn school was going to this party, probably, "Sting!" he wasn't in this school.

"That's odd, Rogue told me to pick them up at Sting's house at 7." Gajeel, the prick, said very unhelpfully.

Natsu shot him a deathglare, and rolled his eyes, of course Gajeel didn't actually have his back, what was he thinking, trusting the guy! "I meant Zeref, Zeref's taking me out tonight."

Erza narrowed her eyes, making sweat break out on Natsu's forehead. "Zeref, huh?" but then a glint in her eye sparkled, which truly gave Natsu goose bumps, "I suppose I'll have to reschedule with him for you then." She took out her phone and scrolled through her contact lists, the phone was ringing even before Natsu could protest to the redhead phoning his brother.

"Erza? Hello." Zeref's usual kind voice said with a hint of amusement, Erza Scarlet didn't normally just call him and if she did it usually meant that Natsu was in trouble; which was always funny to the short man.

"Good afternoon, Zeref, I hope I'm not calling at an inopportune moment, I was just wondering what kind of plans you and your brother have for tonight." Her gaze remained focused on Natsu, showing him that she was not fooled by the lies he spat.

There was a second of silence on the other side of the line before Zeref chuckled, "right, our plans. After a whole lot of nagging I finally got him to agree to come to this awesome club with me tonight. You can come with if you want, I'm not sure it's really your scene, however."

"Oh," Erza blinked before she cleared her throat, "no, that's alright, there was a party tonight and I thought maybe I could convince Natsu to come along but it seems he's already going out then."

"Yes," another one of Zeref's chuckles made Natsu sigh in relief, his brother truly did have his back, "he sure is."

After hanging up, Erza apologized to Natsu and Natsu generously forgave her for ever doubting him. And smug as he was, Natsu enjoyed his lunch all the more because of it, happily eating Lisanna's peanut butter sandwich and reminding himself to thank Zeref later.

The rest of the day went by a lot more quietly, for his excuse marvelously got him out of Lucy's blabbering about the party that night, and even in the class he didn't have with her, his other friends more or less dropped the subject of the party all together with him.

It was after the end-of-day bell that his peace and quiet got disturbed when Gajeel placed both his hands on Natsu's desk, making the sleepy pinkette –math did those kinds of things to him- look up in confusion.

"Listen, Pinkie," his gruff voice hummed as he tried to whisper, not like it mattered much since the class was emptying as quick as it always did at the end of the day. "You know I'm not your friend and honestly I don't really care at all if you get hurt but the shrimp will not forgive me if you got disappointed and I could have helped you, so here's the deal; Gray's not a fun guy, he's not even nice, for the matter. He's not what people expect him to be, he doesn't go out, or party, in fact I don't think I've ever heard of him having plans on a Friday or Saturday evening. I don't know what kind of crooked stick he's got up his ass but I have a feeling he's got more skeletons than you can fit in your cupboard-sized closet. He's a total basket case, Natsu, and I don't think he's good for you, for anyone for that matter."

Natsu's eyes had gone wide at the rambling Gajeel had just done. Despite the disclaimer at the beginning, it almost sounded as though he cared, especially during that very last sentence, which got Natsu curious: "did he… hurt someone you know, Gajeel?"

Knowing he hit right on the mark, Natsu shut his mouth when Gajeel averted his eyes. For him to get shy or hurt, that was uncommon. "Juvia and I used to be best friends, did you know that?"

Juvia was on the cheer squad and was always hanging around the in-crowd, she was quite nice, actually, and really bubbly, in the good sense. It was not a secret that she had a crush on Gray, either – and with crush, Natsu meant crush his bones every morning when she tried to hug or kiss him and every time she tackled him in the hallways. He knew that Juvia and Gajeel were friends, he even knew she was one of his closest friends inside the popular circle, but best friends is a whole other territory, one Natsu didn't even think the buffoon was familiar with.

"Yeah, I don't know why but she got obsessed with him, yet the way he treats makes me wanna…" he growled as he took one of his hands off the table and slammed it back down in a fist. "I'm not gonna tell you what to do and if you get hurt you can't come crying to me but if Lev asks, I warned ya." He didn't dirty any more sympathetic words on the pinkette as he turned on his heels and walked out the room.

Natsu followed him quietly, smiling reassuringly at the teacher that held open the door for them and had been so kind as to let them have their conversation.

AN:

That was kind of an intro-chapter; so Natsu's Natsu, Lucy's Lucy and Gajeel is Gajeel as much as I can get their characters right. More about Zeref and the way Natsu's family works will be in the next chapters, but yes they're brothers and although I'm trying to keep Zeref the least OOC possible, he will be Natsu's brother in the story and they are very close for reasons I'm not willing to tell you yet.

This chapter was rather safe, but lemons will appear in later chapters.