'Fairy Tail' is owned by Hiro Mashima.

Melting The Ice

It was hot.

Gray knew that was an understatement but he couldn't find a word to describe the amount of heat the entire town was suffering from at the moment. He had never been a fan of the heat. Even before becoming an ice mage he disliked it, but now he 'truly' disliked it. But he wasn't about to make himself seem weak because of it. He simply had to much pride. That was one of the reasons that when Erza asked him to go on walk with her that he agreed. The temperature in the guild and in the streets were about the same anyway. At least outside there was a chance of a breeze.

So here he was walking down the side walk with Erza by his side.

She was wearing her usual casual clothes made up of her blue skirt and white blouse, and she couldn't help but smile at the fact that it was one of the rare times when Gray's lack of a shirt was appropriate.

"We might as well go to the plaza, at least there should be something cold to drink there." he explained as he tried to speak confidently.

"Agreed..." Erza responded and they made the necessary right turn. She hadn't spoken much because she was busy thinking. Gray didn't know, but she was on a mission, one she still couldn't believe she was going through with. Eventually they reached the plaza which was busy and crowded. The first thing to catch both of their eyes was an ice cream stand.

"Come on, I'm buying." Gray said and motioned at the stand. He sounded the happiest Erza had heard him all day.

"Yes, thank you"

When they arrived they learned that the vendor was already out of ice cream and only had popsicles left. This didn't matter much to either of them, because as long as it was something cold they couldn't care less. Gray ordered chocolate for himself and he didn't even need to ask to know Erza wanted strawberry. They found a place to sit and Gray eagerly opened his and started to enjoy it.

Erza watched this and laughed softly.

"I'm just hungry, its not like I'm hot or anything!" the young man defended himself as he wiped his forehead with the back of his hand.

"I'm sure..." she said smoothly.

They both went silent and Erza stared down at the small white package in her hand. 'Its now or never I suppose.' she thought to herself. The redhead turned to look at him and he looked at her.

"I-I think it is fairly warm today..." she said in a shaky voice.

The thing she did next shocked Gray almost out of his mind. She reached down and unbuttoned the top two buttons of her blouse and exposed the top of her cleavage. Gray, being a young man with blood in his veins, couldn't help but look for a second or two before having to turn away.

"Uhh...um..." Gray tried to say something but had trouble finding words.

"Sorry, I just needed to cool myself down a little." Erza explained.

"J-just warn me next time" he told her as he turned back. 'where did that come from?' his mind raced. Had Erza acted like this before?

They continued to sit there as Erza opened her popsicle. Gray made sure to continue looking forward so he wouldn't be tempted to take another look. 'I'm not a pervert like everyone says!'

Erza watched the strained look on his face and couldn't help but find it cute, but she wasn't done yet. She lifted the popsicle up to her mouth and started to lick it. With her movement being caught in his sight he couldn't help but look and what he saw shocked him more then before.

Erza had wrapped her tongue around the popsicle and was slowly coiling it back into her mouth, then she repeated the process. She had a blush on her face that nearly matched the color of her hair as well.

Gray sat there unable to speak until finally he whispered. "W-what are you doing?"

Erza stopped,looked at him with a face that said 'who me?', and then laughed softly at the expression on his face. "Let me explain"

She then told him that she had always envied Lucy's ability to flirt with men. Erza had tried many times before but like in many other situations she came across as more angry and demanding. Eventually she asked Lucy for tips and she was taught a few tricks. Lucy then suggested that she try using them on someone she already knew to see if they'd work. Since Lucy explained that trying to flirt with Natsu was like trying to flirt with a tree, that made Gray the next best 'target' for her mission.

"I see...well for starters that wasn't flirting that was...something else." Gray told her once she was done.

"I thought the same but Lucy...kind of insisted..."

Silence fell again and they both looked forward. She felt as though Gray was angry with her and she couldn't blame him.

"I...I'm sorry. I've just never been good at doing 'girly stuff' and I just wanted to give it a try..." she said in a soft almost sad voice.

Gray thought for a second and then said "Its not that people don't think your 'girly' because I know you can be its just..." he paused looking for the right words.

"Your like a sword..." he said finally. "Your beautiful to look at, but at the same time people are afraid to get close because they know you can be dangerous and they don't want to get cut."

He looked at her and she was looking down with her hair covering her eyes.

"Are you one of those people Gray?"

He slowly looked forward then he placed his hand over hers which caused her to look up in surprise.

"Ice is hard to cut."

She continued to look forward and smiled as she held his hand back. They sat there and ate the rest of their popsicles happy and continent .Once they were done Gray turned away and prayed to any god that would hear him that she couldn't see him blush as he asked.

"Do you want me to buy you another?"

The End.

This is another story I wrote for a contest. I struggled with the idea of putting it up here on FF but ultimately decided to. You see the original version of this I started to write was much more detailed and nearly double the length, but for the contest I was in it had to be 1000 words or less. So I started completely over and began writing this version, but once I was done, it was still 200 words more then it needed to be, I had to hack away at it to make it closer to the goal of 1000 but its still a little over. It kind of broke my heart to do it as well, it was like creating this great piece of art only to have to take pieces of it away. I still like the way it turned out though and this story will always have a special place in my heart :)

And this goes out to all the GrayZa fans out there! We're not large in number but GrayZa is awesome, so stay strong!

I like reviews so if you would be so kind as to give me some I'd be very appreciative :D