Birthday present for Justice Tokidoki! :D Her request was to have a story with two characters that speak different languages becoming friends. While I did struggle to find a good compromise for this request since I've never done this type of story before (languages are annoying for me to deal with in story-writing), I think I found one!

(So this is another Natsu/Gray brotp story 'cause I feel like doing another one yeahhhh *shot*)

Okay, I hope you guys enjoy!

Deadweight

Gray yawned hugely as he walked down the school hallway toward the main office. Geez; why'd the principal had to call him right as he'd been on the verge of a nap? He didn't even care if he'd gotten in trouble or not (though he didn't remember breaking any rules…recently, anyway); he just wanted this to be over with quickly so that he could get back to business…and that business was sleep.

He finally reached the doors to the principal's office and yanked it open with a weary grunt—and he was met with two more people than he'd been expecting to see. Aside from the principal, a dwarf of an old man the students knew as Mr. Makarov Dreyar, sitting behind his desk as per usual, there were two other people sitting across from him.

One of them he recognized—Lucy Heartfilia, one of Gray's classmates and one of the top students (both academically and aesthetically) in the school. He had to quickly avert his eyes because that girl was seriously dangerous to the eyes of any guy. He'd even seen a couple pass out at the sight of her flowing blond hair and doe-like brown eyes alone, not even beginning to mention her outstanding figure and immaculate fashion sense on top of that. She was practically a monster out for all teenage males everywhere.

"Gray?" Lucy noted, sounding surprised. "What are you doing here?"

Trying to avoid a stroke, he bit his lip and focused on the second person. Sitting to her right was a person he'd never seen before—a guy that looked about his age, his messy salmon-pink hair and vacant gaze being the first features that caught Gray's eye. He was wearing a high-collared black sports jacket with a pair of worn-out jeans also, but that detail had nearly escaped him just from seeing his face. The guy wasn't even paying any attention to Gray, like he wasn't worth acknowledging.

For some reason, that really pissed him off.

"Ah, hello there!" the principal greeted him with a smile. "Gray Fullbuster, I take it? Sure took your sweet time getting here, I'd say."

Gray started before turning his attention to the old man in front of him. "Well, it's a big campus," he said bluntly. "It takes forever getting anywhere. I'm still getting used to it."

"Yes, yes; of course." The principal indicated the seat next to the new guy. "Well, have a seat. We have a lot to discuss."

Gray sighed heavily and dropped into the chair. The guy next to him finally seemed to notice him, but he didn't say anything—he just stared at him in surprise as if he was thinking, Hold on, has this guy always been here? Gray had to fight off the irrational urge to clock him around the head.

"Why'd you call me here, old timer?" he said instead to avoid losing his temper.

"Well, as you can see," the principal continued, "we have a new student joining our school today." He indicated the boy next to him. "This young man is Natsu Dragneel. He'll be studying with us for the next semester."

Gray hadn't expected that information. "Hold on; he's a transfer student?" Gray took another look at the guy—the principal had said his name was Natsu—and tried to size him up. This kid was a transfer student? He didn't look like anyone special, which confused Gray—as far as he knew, it was really difficult getting transferred to this particular school. Was there something special about him?

"Not exactly," Lucy cut in then to fill me in. "Like Mr. Dreyar is saying, he's only staying one semester before transferring to another school. This is sort of an intermittent stage for him—he's only going to study here until everything is ready for his proper transfer."

Hearing that knocked down any sort of friendliness that Gray had built up for the guy in the past three seconds. God, this guy was only going to attend this school because there was nothing better for him to do while waiting for the transfer process to another school to be done? How smart was he, anyway?

"Okay, then," Gray said, unable to keep the irritation out of his voice this time, "so explain to me what's going on here." He briefly tossed her a glare and looked away before she could have any effect on him. "First, why are you even here, Lucy? I don't remember hearing your name over the intercom."

"Me?" Lucy giggled. "I'm just here as your translator."

This got Gray confused enough to shoot Lucy a puzzled look. "What? Is he a foreign exchange student?"

The laughter in her tone still remained as she went on. "Of course not, you dummy," she said. "Natsu's deaf. He can't exactly talk like we can, so he uses sign language to communicate."

That didn't dispel any of Gray's confusion—if anything, he was even more lost than before. So this Natsu guy was deaf? "Uh…okay, so why am I here, then? I don't see how I'm related to what's going on."

"'Course you are," she said, "because you're going to be in charge of him for the next four months while he attends class here."

"Wh-what?!" Gray exclaimed, bolting to his feet in protest. "Why do I have to—?!"

"Young man, I can't exactly say that your student record is spotless," Mr. Dreyar cut in. "This is your chance to clean up your act. Do your job correctly, and I may waive some of your violations."

Gray couldn't believe this was what he was called here for. He almost would've preferred to be put in detention rather than be subject to this!

"What the hell, geezer!" he snapped. "I don't even know sign language! How the heck am I supposed to watch this guy I don't know for four whole months?!"

"Don't you worry about that, Mr. Fullbuster," the principal said amiably, completely unfazed by his harsh language. "Lucy will act as your translator, as she's already established. The rest is up to you."

Throughout this entire exchange, Natsu was staring at Gray with an apprehensive look on his face. At the end of Gray's rant, he turned to Lucy, his nervous expression intact, and started making strange motions with his hands. After a moment, Lucy giggled before making some signs of her own in response. Natsu's expression changed from nervousness to disbelief at whatever she'd just told him before sparing a mildly irritated glance at Gray. He signed something else to Lucy with a disgruntled look, who sighed.

Seeing the two of them communicate in a way that totally alienated him made Gray want to punch something, but he managed to hold himself in check. "Lucy," he said in a controlled voice, "what did you two just talk about?"

Lucy crossed her arms with a disappointed look in her eyes as she replied, "He just asked me why he has to be stuck with a scary person like you while he's here. And I told him that you're not scary, and that you're really a good guy—you're just short-tempered and impulsive…and kind of an idiot." She sighed without even giving Gray a chance to get mad as Natsu reclined into his chair with a low huff as she continued, "He doesn't think you're worth his time. He'd rather have me as his guide for the semester than you."

Okay, that did it. Gray was used to being dissed—he wasn't exactly the most popular guy in school for obvious reasons, and he normally didn't care what the other students thought of him—but his pride was on the line now. This deaf and mute know-it-all was basically calling him useless and stupid—and while he'd been called those things before, seeing a disabled student-to-be acting this condescending towards him like that seriously rubbed him the wrong way.

"…All right, then; fine," Gray said, trying harder to keep his tone somewhat polite, "Tell him this for the record." Gray jabbed a finger right at Natsu's face, and the latter flinched backward at the sudden movement and stared up at Gray in shock. "You know something? I've been called an idiot before, but it never pissed me off as much as it did when you said it. I'm gonna be straight with you, pinkie—I've only known you for five minutes, and I already hate your guts. But if you really think that I'm not worth your time, then I'm going to love seeing the mortified look on your face once I prove you wrong!"

Natsu looked confused for a moment before he turned back to Lucy, who then made a flurry of signs, apparently translating Gray's challenge to him as best as she could. Once she was done, a look of disbelief passed over his face briefly before he turned back to Gray with an inquisitive expression, as if trying to see him in a different light. A couple seconds passed without him giving any sort of obvious response, but then he smirked and gave Gray a sign that needed no translation—he crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow.

I'd like to see you try, Natsu seemed to be telling him.

Gray found himself grinning back in response. He took back every complaint he'd thrown at his senior-citizen principal about being stuck into this predicament that had nothing to do with him—this semester was promising to be an interesting one, at the very least.

Natsu proved to be someone that Gray could only just barely handle.

It wasn't just his grating attitude; virtually every single thing that he did annoyed Gray to some extent. Other than being mute and only able to communicate through sign language, he seemed completely normal, though someone had to be near him at all times so that he would always know what was going on around him or in case of an emergency. When the principal had said that Gray had to watch him at school, he hadn't realized that it meant constant supervision through every single one of his classes. His grades were seriously dipping thanks to him.

Still, Gray was determined to do his job well—not out of obligation for the principal or the chance of him having a cleaner student record, but just to show up this smart aleck's remarks about him and prove him wrong. At least Lucy was with him at all times, so he wasn't left out of a conversation and wouldn't look like an idiot by standing there with a blank expression whenever Natsu was "saying" something to him, which made it somewhat easier for him to tolerate the job.

But the things Natsu were saying to him were only upping the irritation.

While they were going over the school rules and policies—"I'm sure you had plenty of times to memorize all this in detention."

During classes—"What kind of mistake did you make to get stuck in a class this low-level?"

Hell, even during lunch breaks—"You could use this time to study and get bumped up into at least one intermediate class. Also, your food looks disgusting."

"Seriously, just knock it off, already!" Gray finally snapped at him at the end of the fourth week during their lunch break, his eyes and words livid. "Dude, do you say things just to piss people off?! I'm trying to be nice here and tolerate you; try and cooperate a little, would ya?!"

Lucy, with an extremely weary expression (she'd had to deal with their constant bickering, being their translator and everything), translated his words to him. In response, Natsu just turned and stared at Gray for a bit before smiling in an abashed manner, which confused him. Then he started to move his hands again, more slowly and deliberately. Lucy's apathy seemed to wear off at the sight of it

"'I'm sorry,'" Lucy translated slowly as Natsu made the motions."'This is the first time another boy my age tried to be friendly with me. I didn't realize you were trying to be nice to me.'"

This blew some wind out of Gray's sails. "Whoa, hold on." He turned his attention to Lucy, feeling the incredulity on his own face as he asked, "Is he being serious?"

Lucy grinned in a knowing way at Natsu before answering him. "Well, Natsu's a lot of things," she said, "but he's not a liar."

"That doesn't really explain much," Gray protested. "He's our age, but he hasn't had a single guy friend before? That makes no sense."

"Well, to be fair," Lucy mused, making half-hearted motions so that Natsu could keep up with their conversation as she spoke, "it's not all that easy relating to a deaf person, you know? They can't talk out loud, and the way they communicate isn't exactly conventional. Natsu usually comes off as weird and creepy to other people his age because of that—that's why most of his peers never really gave him the time of day. They didn't think he was worth the effort."

Gray narrowed his eyes in confusion. "You seem to know a lot about this."

"Of course I do. Natsu and I have been friends since we were kids. You just never knew him since he had to go to a different school than I did."

Gray was stunned. "Wait, you—?"

She smiled sadly. "Honestly, though; I was the only real friend he ever really had, so he doesn't really know how to get along with other boys his age. That's why he was being so rude to you this past month—he didn't really know what to make of you, since you're the first boy to give him any sort of special attention."

Gray wasn't sure what to say to that. "Umm…oh," was all he could manage before he felt a light tug on his sleeve. He turned to Natsu again, who had started to say something else with a much lighter expression than before. Lucy gasped at whatever he seemed to be saying, and Gray—for the first time since he'd known Natsu—wanted more than anything to know what it was.

"Lucy," he said urgently. "Translate please?"

"'I'm glad that you were the person chosen to help me adjust to this school,'" Lucy deciphered for him in a whisper. "'I'm sorry about my past actions. I didn't mean to be rude. Will you let me be your friend?'" She looked to Gray with overwhelming gratitude shining in her eyes. "Gray, you're the first boy his age that he wants to be friends with! He's never wanted that before!"

This was seriously moving way too far from Gray's comfort zone. "H-hold on a minute; this is coming at me too fast," he protested, recoiling in spite of himself and looking at Natsu in disbelief. "Seriously? You want to be friends with a guy like me?"

His expression must've given away everything he was feeling and more, because Natsu didn't wait for Lucy's translation this time, grinning and nodding once before extending a hand to shake.

Yes, I do, he was saying.

Gray had no idea how he was supposed to respond to this—he was still ridiculously confused. In the span of a scant ten minutes, Natsu—the stuck-up know-it-all that had insulted him relentlessly the past four weeks—was now asking him to be his friend. That wasn't normal, was it?

Still, he found himself reaching out and accepting the handshake with a smile of his own.

"You got yourself a deal, man," Gray said out loud, even though he knew Natsu couldn't hear what he was saying. "Hope you know what you're getting yourself into!"

Again, Natsu didn't look to Lucy to translate for him. With that grin still intact, he raised his free hand and lightly touched the tip of his fingers to his lips before moving his hand down at a slight angle. This was one of the few signs that Gray could now recognize without Lucy's help—he had seen Natsu do it countless times to every one of his instructors and every adult he met over the past month—but this was the first time he'd ever directed it at Gray. The moment Gray saw him make this sign, he realized that their relationship had completely changed in that brief span of seconds.

Thank you.

Yes. I am a cheater. *shot'n'stabbed* Ahem, in all seriousness, though.

I could have taken a more straightforward route with this story given that—for those of you who don't know—I'm bilingual (I speak English and Korean), but that felt way too easy, and Korean is kind of annoying to romanize into English. Also, none of these characters look Asian (except maybe Gray), so it wouldn't have worked in this story's context anyway. I'll be the first to admit that I don't know a thing about American Sign Language other than what I've shown here (and I mean no offense to anybody), which is why I gloss over the specifics. So yeah, there's my reasoning. Hope you still enjoyed it, anyhow.

Justice Tokidoki: First of all, Happy Birthday! :D I hope you liked it! I don't know if this is what you were expecting, so I hope it wasn't too weird for someone who knows at least some sign language (it might've been painful for you to read through…maybe. ^^;). I wanted to make this better, but I didn't know how beyond basic editing, and this seemed like a good place to stop…so yeah, this is all I've got for you. Still, hope you have an amazing and epic birthday today, and thanks for being an all-around awesome person and friend for the last almost-three years! Love you!