First official Fairy Tail fanfiction! Please give me some reviews as I am new to this whole thing ~
I will appreciate any feed back regarding to the story!
I do not own any of the characters being used- all rights go to amazing author and creator of Fairy Tail- Mashi !

The Social Grace of Tindering

A College Fairy Tail AU

Chapter 1: Finally Convinced

Lucy looked up from her English paper and stared at her housemate for a solid minute before a blank expression took over her face. Did she just hear that correctly?

Levy McGarden, her quiet, timid and adorably sweet best friend, had a date with a guy, whom she had never met before in person, this Friday? What was this world coming to these days? Making plans with boys you had never met before, but had 'chatted' with and seen pictures of on a stupid App you can download for your phone- it all sounded so stupid.

Not to mention impersonal and awkward.

Lucy sighed to herself and saved her paper. She would get back to this later. As of right now, she had to knock some sense into her housemate's suddenly brainless head.

"Levy, what in the world is going on? You just started 'talking to' this guy last week on this stupid App and now you are going out on a date with him?" Lucy shook her head and looked back up at her. "What if he's totally catfishing you and is actually an eighty year old man looking to get one last fix before he bites the dust?"

Levy's cheeks instantly heated up again at Lucy's statement and she looks down at her clenched hands on her knees. Maybe Lucy had a point… maybe she shouldn't be doing this. But Gajeel seemed so nice and different on the App. Plus they already exchanged numbers and snapchats so she has seen him before. At least she was hoping it was him.

"I know Lu-chan but…" Levy started but was interrupted at that moment by their other housemate, Erza Scarlet, walking into the room being followed by her boyfriend (and basically their fifth housemate) Jellal Fernandez. Both of them finally returning from their late night coffee run for the household before the homework session began.

"What is this tense atmosphere I feel?" Erza asked, handing Lucy her coffee and taking a seat on the couch next to Levy. Erza could always feel when things got weird in the house- it was like another sense for her.

Levy seemed to instantly flush again, her cheeks gaining that trademark pink tint once again as she looked down at her lap. "I-I have a date on Friday, with that guy I have been telling you guys about. You know, Gajeel?"

Erza's face suddenly gained that triumphant look she always gets like she had just won the fencing tournament, or received a huge award. She faced Levy instantly, a sparkle in her eyes as she took her hands.

"What is this about you going on a date? When are we meeting him? Are you going to be bringing him home afterwards? What are you going to wear?" Erza continued her questioning, overwhelming Levy as she tried to get Erza to calm down. Lucy just laughed lightly and sat back down in her chair. Leave it to Erza to cut the tension in the room.

"Er-Erza! Give me a chance to answer before asking another question! This is all too much!" At this point, Levy's face was unbelievably red. Almost as red as the hair on top of Erza's head. She snapped her head to behind the couch where Jellal was standing, hearing him chuckle. Levy pouted, giving him a look screaming, 'Help me!' before he finally placed his hands on Erza's shoulders and squeezing gently.

"Erza, don't you think you might be a little too aggressive about all this? It's only the first date." He turned to give Levy a gentle smile. "How did you meet Gajeel again? I thought you were always too busy with school or working to be socializing. Unless of course you met him at the library?"

Levy, thankful for Jellal finally calming down Erza, smiled up at him. "Actually, I haven't really met him yet. I met him throu-" She was suddenly cut off by Lucy slamming her computer shut and looking a little more than upset.

"She met him through that stupid App everyone seems to be using these days to get into each other's pants. What's it called again? Grinder?" Lucy shook her head and leaned back in her chair, but sat back up when a laugh filled the room.

Their fourth housemate finally stumbled into the room a bottle of beer in her hand as she leaned against the doorframe. Cana Alberona laughed loudly as she wiped at her eyes, tears threatening to spill over from her laughter.

"You definitely don't mean Grinder, Lucy. Unless Levy was mistaken for a gay man who's looking to get a nice buttfuck sometime soon." She laughed hoarsely seeing both Levy and Lucy's faces get bright red. Her favorite reaction though was when Erza sat back, her hand on her chin and seemed to be thinking this through thoroughly.

After finally calming down, Cana grinned. "You totally meant Tinder. Tinder is a great site Lucy! You should try it out. I bet your first real man is out there just waiting to match with his next big-tit blonde." Seeing her face flame up again, Cana laughed and sat down on the armrest of the couch.

"It's great for messing around with people too. I strictly go on it just so I can mess with guy's heads. But it's also great for getting me into parties around campus. You can never have too many connections." She chugged the rest of her beer, standing up and stretching her arms over her head. "I'll be back. I'm going to go make a booze run. Any of you loves care to join me?"

Lucy sat there, a bright flush still across her cheeks but she stood up anyway. "Yeah, let me go put on my shoes at least. I can't think about my paper right now anyway."

She walked up the stairs and to the right, walking into her room and quickly slipping on her gym shoes, grabbing a coat as well. It was really starting to get chilly out. Fall seemed to be just around the corner, but Lucy was more than excited for that. Fall was indeed one of the best times to be on campus.

She went to the Magnolia University, which was a fairly large college found within a small town that was literally surrounded on all sides by cornfields. It was a home away from home. Lucy and her other housemates were all juniors in college- each with their varying degrees. Lucy was studying manufacturing and management engineering, with a minor in creative writing. It was always her dream to become a big time writer one day, but her father wanted her to take over the Heartfilia family business and run his railway business when it was finally time for him to retire.

Levy was double majoring in childhood education and Bilingual studies, hoping to become a teacher for grade school children in one of the many languages she knew. Levy was too bright of a student- she knew how to speak English, Spanish, Latin, French and even Japanese. She not only had her schoolwork cut out for her throughout the semester, but also worked at the library. Her favorite pastime was indeed reading- any book she could get her hands on was read within a week.

Erza was a dedicated student to both her major and her athletic life. She was studying to become a physical therapist with a minor in sports management. She also was an athlete on the fencing team here and apart of the swords club. The woman definitely knew her weapons and everything about the medieval times. She could be quite intimidating.

Jellal on the other hand was quite the catch for Erza. He was just studying something in engineering like herself. Lucy could never remember just which one it was. Chemical? Mechanical? One of those probably. Jellal was a bright student and had a good head on his shoulders- something she was thankful for when Erza was in one of her moods.

Cana, now she was an interesting case. Her father owned a huge brewery and alcohol manufacturing company back in hometown. She knew Cana was destined to work alongside him as they both were big fans of the delicacy that is alcohol. Cana was studying business management but her main classes revolved around wine and beer tasting. Who knew college offered these certain classes. Lucy was pretty sure it was just because they knew how to please some students.

After finally walking downstairs, she and Cana set out for the gas station that was right up the street from their adorable house. Every student rented house had a name that was to be displayed on the front of the house. Their house was named Fairy Hills with a black silhouette of a fairy holding her two 'hills' which were conveniently her boobs. All Cana's idea since she seemed to be deeply attached to her breasts (as well as Lucy's and Erza's… poor Levy). It was a great house name though. Made a statement on their street since they did live on Fairy Avenue.

Finally arriving to the store, Lucy walked in to grab a bag of candy and a bottle of wine, knowing she was going to be up late again to finish this paper. Making her way over to the counter, she sweat dropped seeing the amount of beer and liquor Cana was buying. Leave it to her to buy all this alcohol on a Sunday night.

After finally paying for all of their items, they made the trek back to their house, talking causally about their current class schedule and their plans for the weekend already.

Cana, thinking about their class schedule stopped and pointed at Lucy, "You know, we are supposed to get our new TA tomorrow for our chemistry class. Do you remember why he wasn't here for the first few weeks of classes? Aren't they normally students who are still taking classes but were asked to help the teacher to grade things?"

Lucy thought back to that and nodded. "Yeah, you are right. I forgot about that. Looks like we get to see a new face tomorrow."

"I hope he's hot." Cana blurted out of nowhere a few minutes later, causing Lucy to almost trip and fall over her own two feet.

"Cana! Seriously? Is that all you think about these days?" Lucy shook her head, smiling at her friend.

"Yep." As she popped the p extra loudly, "that and alcohol. The essentials in life." Cana grinned, walking into the front door that Lucy had just opened. "Alright, I am going to go drink myself into a drunken slumber. See you princesses tomorrow morning." Cana walked back towards her room- which was the only bedroom on the first floor seeing as she could never really make it up the stairs when she comes home drunk almost every night.

Lucy smiled and sat her stuff down on the table near her computer and began to type her creative writing prompt once again. The walk did her some good at least- cleared her head from the stupid Tinder episode before. She groaned as she opened her bottle of wine and began to furiously type her night away. So much for sleep.

The next morning, Lucy woke up groggily to her alarm going off at eight am. Going to bed at three in the morning would have to stop when she had classes starting at eleven. She liked getting her eight hours of sleep. She sleepily turned off her alarm, going through her morning routine of brushing her teeth, showering, and dressing in something cute but comfy and finally putting on minimal makeup. She looked at herself in the mirror- fall clothing was finally back. Even though it was only mid-September, it was getting chilly out and the leaves were beginning to change colors. She was wearing a pair of black leggings with a simply long sleeved white shirt with a blue scar around her neck loosely tied. Her feet were covered in a pair of brown boots that folded over and showed off the cute blue design they had on the inside. She smiled to herself and with a nod grabbed her backpack and set off for her first class of the day- Chemistry.

Cana and her arrived ten minutes before the start of class, taking their seats towards the middle-front of the large lecture hall. Lucy didn't really mind chemistry, but it was a pain in the butt to study for and actually pay attention while in class. It was important to her major, since she had to take a major science course alongside her engineering major. Cana on the other hand had dropped this class multiple times before due to failing, but she still needed her science credit to graduate.

As the class finally settled in the professor, an older, extremely short man named Professor Makarov, seemed to be looking around for something or someone. Lucy was startled when suddenly the door to the front of the lecture hall opened up to an extremely handsome, young male who was grinning from ear to ear. Lucy couldn't help but stare at him as he walked to the front, talking to the professor like her was an old friend and taking his seat in the front of the class. Just who was this guy? She definitely hadn't seen him in here before.

The said boy was definitely Lucy's type. He was dressed extremely well but seemed to be comfortable in his outfit. Wearing a white collared shirt with black jeans and a white scaled looking scarf around his neck all contributed well to his other features. Tall, muscular (which you could totally see through his rolled up sleeves- just look at those ARMS!), dark olive eyes… but the thing that caught Lucy's attention the most was the color of his hair. Pink. Was it natural? Could it be? She shook her head smiling knowing it was stupid to get worked up over something like that. Besides, both Levy and Jellal's hair was naturally blue.

Professor Makarov smiled sweetly at the class and gathered the class' attention. "Hello again students. As you all know we have our TA finally appearing in class today. Natsu, why don't you introduce yourself?"

Lucy's eyes widened as they took in the pink haired boy standing up and going to the front of the class. "Hey thanks Gramps!" Prof. Makarov seemed to grumble something as the students laughed at his reaction to being called 'gramps' but he didn't correct Natsu. Just who was this guy to be so friendly towards the professor?

"As you all know, I was gone for the first few weeks of class due to a family matter, but I am here now." Natsu grinned and Lucy could feel all of the females within the class attention going straight towards him. She couldn't even look away. Feeling a nudge in her side, she looked over and saw Cana grinning from ear to ear- her eyebrows wiggling.

"See? What did I tell you! Totally hottie we got here for our TA. I'll be sure to visit study hours now." Lucy giggled lightly and let her eyes roam all over Natsu again. He was indeed adorably hot.

"If you need to contact me, here's my email and student hours. I'm a student just like all of you. I am studying bio-engineering and am also on the hockey team here. Hope to get to know each of you well." He smiled one last time and sat down.

Throughout the rest of the class Lucy stole glances at this strange boy who seemed to just grab her attention. She was starting to enjoy chemistry if this was the view she was going to receive each day.

The rest of her day went by in a blur. Lucy finally stepped into her own house, exhausted after her full day of school after only getting five hours of sleep. She collapsed on the couch and laid there for a few minutes before looking up and making eye contact with Levy who was on the chair in the corner of the room, typing away on her phone. Curiously, Lucy laid on her back and faced Levy.

"Typing a book now aren't we?" Lucy grinned as Levy laughed and nodded. "Who are you texting so furiously right now?" She up, intrigued when levy's face gained a slight blush.

"Well, Gajeel actually. He asked what we should do on Friday and I was telling him about all the things I like to do on a Friday night. He seemed generally interested." Levy smiled towards Lucy but let it drop when she saw her raise an eyebrow at her.

"I still don't understand this whole tinder thing." She waved her arms in front of her to express her point. "What do you do exactly that gets people to 'talk' to you or whatever?" She used her fingers to quote around the word talk and looked over at Levy.

Levy smiled, "Why don't you just get one and try it out for a week to see what it's like? I bet you won't think it's that stupid after you use it for a while. Come on, I'll even help you set it up!"

Lucy, giving a critical look towards her best friend sighed. What was the point in arguing? If she didn't like it, all she had to do was delete it anyway. It's not like people can heavily stalk her or something if she joins. "Fiiiine Levy. I'll do it."

Levy squealed as she jumped up from the chair and sat down next to her on the couch. "Alright! Download it off the App site and let's get started!"

After looking through countless photos on her private Facebook page and a whole hour of convincing (more like threatening after Erza found out) her this was the right thing to do, Lucy had finally picked out her favorite pictures to use as her profile. Mostly her images contained her, Levy, Erza and Cana. One had the whole group of their friends and then one was actually a selfie she took. She still blushed at this. This was stupid wasn't it? But here she was about to learn how to actually use this dang site.

"Alright, so now go to the top right corner button, and give it some time to gain an idea where you are located. Then, once the first image of a guy appears, the red X is used to say no, you aren't interested- and the green button is basically a 'hell yes!' like button. But you can also click on their picture to see their profile. So go ahead and start Lu-chan!"

Lucy looked at the excited Levy and smiled. Looking down at her phone she was shocked to see a profile appear that had a burly looking man with a lot of piercings on his face. This was the first guy to appear? She heard Levy let out an 'eep' and turned to face her.

Levy's face a deep scarlet as she looked at Lucy's phone. "Oh um… th-that's Gajeel's profile."

Lucy's eyes widening she took another look and sure enough the name under his picture listed 'Gajeel'. She clicked on his image and saw his profile. His pictures were pretty entertaining. One was of him in an all-white suit with a fedora singing on a stage with a guitar. Another was with a black cat- could you really call that a cat!? It was as big as a panther!- one of him boxing and the last with a group of guys. Her eyes roamed over the image of the group and nodded in approval. He had some good looking friends.

Grinning to herself, she looked over at Levy, seeing her look at her phone over her shoulder. Lucy chuckled and suddenly swiped his image to the right, getting Levy to gasp at her for her action.

"Lu-chan! Why would you swipe right!? You know he and I are talking! You're so mean!" Levy pouted cutely and Lucy just laughed at her before poking her pouting cheek.

"Oh come on Levy, you know I could never steal him away from you. He is the first boy in forever to gain your attention. I couldn't do that to you." Levy instantly perked up at her statement and giggled.

"You're right Lu-chan. Sorry… I just get so flustered when it comes to him. I don't know what it is!" Levy whined sat with her arms crossed over her chest. "He picks on me constantly because he can tell in my pictures how short I am. But he's fun to talk to. I don't know, I really like him even though I haven't even met him yet." She looked over at Lucy to see her looking intensely at the next few profiles. She giggled watching her constantly swiping left to say no to multiple boys. Leave it to Lucy to turn out almost every guy who appears in front of her.

Towards the end of the night, Lucy sighed to herself as she crawled into bed at a decent hour to get some sleep. She didn't have class until 2 the next day, but it was still a long day of three back to back classes, including her chemistry lab. She didn't know what she was expecting, but she really hoped that the TA would be a helper for the chemistry lab as well.

Turning over onto her other side, she pulled up her phone and saw she had a new notification for Tinder. Pulling up the App, she saw that she had a new match. Her first match on Tinder! She sat there suddenly, groaning at herself for getting excited over something as stupid as this. She was going to delete the App within a week anyway… there was no point to something like this.

Looking at her match, her eyes widened as she saw she was matched with Gajeel of all people and he had messaged her too! Getting angry that Gajeel would be doing this to Levy of all people she clicked on the message. Her eyes softened though when she saw he wrote, "You must be housemates with Shrimp." Shrimp obviously referring to Levy. She giggled. What a cute nickname for her! She replied a simple, 'yes I am before going back to her other selections of potential matches and her breath caught in her throat.

Could she be seeing things correctly? Or are her eyes playing tricks on her?

The next profile to appear was the pink haired TA from her chemistry class. She instantly clicked on his image to view the other pictures he had. One of him alone with his dressy class look was his first image much like what he wore to class today. The next she giggled at but also had a deep blush on her face as he and another equally handsome guy were shirtless and flexing. His scarf was tied around his head like a bandana, giving him a goofy but fitting look. The guy next to him was a dark haired guy with dark eyes, a cross chain necklace around his neck and a weird looking tattoo on his right peck. The next image took her breath away as he was bent down smiling at a young girl with black hair and cowboy hat on her head.

Seriously- could he be any cuter?!

The next image was of him with a younger girl, probably his younger sister, smiling sweetly at the camera. And the final one was of him and with an older man with dark red hair. The older gentleman had a kind but strong face, his hand on Natsu's shoulder as he was grinning at the camera. The older man having the exact same grin on his face- definitely father and son.

Lucy grinned to herself and read over his profile stating exactly what she already knew about him – his hair was indeed naturally pink, yes he wore that scarf everywhere, studying bio-chem and went to Magnolia University.

She quickly hesitated before swiping to the right. Her breath caught in her throat as she waited… and waited… and waited until finally groaning and tossing her phone onto her bedside table.

What was she thinking swiping him just like that? He's her TA. Is this even allowed?

She turned back over and closed her eyes. Her phone suddenly lighting up she bolted up and grabbed it- noticing it was a notification for Tinder. She opened up the App and her heart stopped when she noticed that she had a new match.

Easy to say she was looking forward to having this App on her phone for little while longer.

And cue the ending of the first chapter! Please review! Would love to hear feedback on it so far :D