Hello, boys and girls. I'd like to tell a story.

This is another one of my quick fics. It was an idea that came to me while feeding my daughter some applesauce. This is a story about fatherhood, specifically fathers of daughters like me. I wanted to write a story about the father/daughter relationship when they are young girls. Now you'll get to read one from the perspective of a father of a young daughter (though she has yet to reach this age) which I think is something that doesn't happen often given that female fic writers outnumber (in my opinion) male fic writers in this category 2 to 1. Perhaps at a later date, I'll write about how they will react to their daughters dating.

For Gruvia fans, we need a bit of fluff to quell the anger that we felt ever since 334 when Gray 'died' and 335 when Urtear pressed the cosmic rewind button taking away all our Gruvia feels and replacing it with this empty feeling (I'm glad that Gray's alive but the way he came back, I'm not sure how I feel.) For GaLe fans, I tend to write GaLe fics more angsty than the other couples so ... yeah.

Fairy Tail does not belong to me. It belongs to Mashima.

And now, our feature presentation.

You Know You Have a Daughter When...

It was a sight to behold. Gray Fullbuster, the normally detached and unruffled ice mage, tried to have a distant look on his face. However the situation he found himself in was so embarrassing that he couldn't help the way his ears turned red. Gajeel Redfox, the normally abrasive and violent Iron Dragon Slayer, couldn't help but feel indignant at the situation that he found himself in. All of the other guild members, including their wives, tried their best to contain their laughter but it was extremely difficult. Why, you may ask?

Gray and Gajeel were both sitting around a children's table. Well, that's too much of a simplification. In actuality, it was a plastic pink Princess table. You know the ones, right? The ones for little girls where they can sit and have tea parties or whatnot with the plastic pink chairs that aren't designed for grown adults to sit in. That one. Gray was slumped against the tiny plastic chair with his legs going under the table. Gajeel's legs, however, were bent up so that his knees were close to his neck. On their side of the table, both Gray and Gajeel had pink plastic cups with a saucer underneath.

Now I know what your question is. Why are they sitting here being humiliated like this? Well, the reason is simple. Gajeel's daughter, four year old Reimi Redfox, wanted to play tea party with her daddy. And the Iron Dragon Slayer, being the softy that he is whenever it comes to his children eventually (I say eventually because it took some extra convincing and bargaining from Levy to get him to subvert his dignity) play Princess Tea Party with his daughter. Gajeel would have suffered in silence while playing with his daughter if, at that moment, Gray, Juvia and nearly five year old Uriel Niji Fullbuster, hadn't arrived in the guild. The long haired mage got a wicked idea. If Gajeel had to suffer the indignity of playing Princess Tea Party, he wanted some company with whom to commiserate. Therefore, with a subtle move on his part, the Iron Dragon Slayer told his daughter to ask Uriel to join her in playing Princess Tea Party.

Now normally Uriel preferred more rough and tumble activities being that she's more of a tomboy than anything. But she loved playing with Reimi because she was the only girl around her age. (Elfman and Evergreen's daughter, Yosei, wasn't yet ready to play with the big girls yet as she was one and a half years old.) So sometimes they would play what Uriel wanted to play and other times they played what Reimi wanted to play. Today Rei-Rei, Ur's nickname for the Redfox daughter, was playing Princess Tea Party with her dad and told Ur to get her dad, Gray, so that they could do stuff. Of course, Ur usually got her way whenever she asked her mother, Juvia, beforehand. Juvia would whisper something in Gray's ear, something that the young girl didn't understand and then the Ice Mage was sold.

It started simply enough. Reimi started pouring the imaginary tea for her father.

"Drink this, daddy." She said in her cute voice which caused a sliver of a smile to creep across Gajeel's face. "It's a super duper luper strong tea that helps you beat up a million, jillion guys.

Gajeel obliged his daughter by taking the plastic cup (which he had to do with his thumb and forefinger since it was so small in his large hands. With a look to his daughter, he started pretending to sip the imaginary tea.

"No, no, daddy." Reimi chided. "You're doing it wrong."

"What, Rei?" Gajeel answered, a little miffed that he was being chastised by a four year old.

"You don't drink tea like that." His daughter replied. "You have to stick out your pinkie, like this." She demonstrated by taking a cup and sipping it with the aforementioned digit out.

Gajeel gave his wife Levy, who was sitting with Juvia, Natsu and Lucy, a look. She smiled back and said nothing. The Iron Dragon Slayer took a deep breath and stuck out his pinkie. Then he sipped the imaginary tea. He could hear the snickers of his fellow guild members as he did so.

"Ummm." Gajeel said atonally. "It's good."

Uriel followed Reimi's example and poured her father some imaginary tea. Gray took it with as much grace as a man who is sitting at a plastic table drinking imaginary tea with his daughter could take. As the cup reached his lips, the youngest Fullbuster gave her dad a look. Gray immediately interpreted that look as "lift your pinkie out" so he did.

After a couple of minutes drinking imaginary tea, Reimi knew it was time to go on to the next stage.

"Okay. Time to make daddy into a scary daddy." The little Redfox announced.

"But I'm already a scary daddy." Gajeel squawked at his daughter.

"Nuh-uh." Reimi rebuked. "You're just a big teddy bear."

It was as if the word teddy bear fell down on Gajeel, suffocating him. At once, the entire guild started laughing at him and calling him a teddy bear. Even his wife was banging her hand on the table as she laughed. Gajeel glowered at his wife, which, of course, did nothing.

"That's why I'm gonna do your hair so you can look even scarier." Reimi told her father. With that, she went to work, messing with her father's hair.

"Please don't touch my hair, Rei." Gajeel pleaded.

Reimi took a deep breath. Then she broke out the greatest weapon in her arsenal, the one she inherited from her mother, puppy dog eyes. "Please, daddy." She whimpered.

Gajeel felt his will crumble at the sight of those eyes. Just like her mother, Levy, those eyes were super effective. He was both happy and irritated that she inherited her mother's eyes.

"Fine." He sighed.

Reimi cheered and back to work on Gajeel's hair.

Uriel looked at the Redfox girl. "What should I do now?" She asked her friend.

Reimi thought for a second. "Oooh, I've got an idea. You can paint your daddy's nails."

Gray turned white at the thought of his daughter painting his nails. "Rainbow, please don't paint daddy's nails." He begged.

His daughter, whose black hair was fixed in the way Juvia's was styled before they met, frowned. When Gray saw the frown on Uriel's face, he felt like a total ass. All she wanted was to play with him and he was saying no. His humiliation was a small price to pay for his daughter's happiness. So he acquiesced to Uriel. The young girl squealed in delight and grabbed some of the nail polish from the center of the table.

So this where the Ice Make Mage and the Iron Dragon Slayer found themselves, being used as human-sized dolls for their daughters while sipping on imaginary tea and sitting at a children's sized pink princess table. Gajeel was getting his hair braided by Reimi while Gray was getting his nail painted by Uriel.

Everyone thought this was the most hilarious thing to happen in the guild in a long time, especially Natsu.

"Oh my god." Natsu bellowed. "You two look so ridiculous. You both look like pretty princesses."

Gray and Gajeel gnashed their teeth in unison. The flamehead would pay later. For now, their daughters would get free rein to do what they wanted.

The two men looked at each other and in that moment, they understood. The ice mage and the Dragon Slayer weren't as close to each other as Gray was to Natsu with their long history or as Gajeel was to Natsu with their Dragon Slayer-hood. They were nakama, sure. Gray wouldn't mind Gajeel having his back in a fight or vice versa. But insofar as their own bond, they weren't as close. However, they had something else by which they could bond... their daughters.

Gray knew just as Gajeel did that their daughters would grow up to be very beautiful women. But to those two men, Uriel and Reimi would always be their little princesses. They held their daughters from the moment they were born. They've fed them, changed them, and bathed them. They've seen their first step, heard their first words, and watched them grow up.

One day, men would be lining up around Magnolia to have the privilege to date them. But Gray and Gajeel knew the simple truth. Neither the richest kings whose wealth could give Uriel and Reimi a life of luxury nor the strongest mage even if he were capable of defeating Acnologia in a single blow nor the most attractive men whose beauty could be captured in marble or even all three of these guys would be acceptable. None of these would ever be worthy of dating their daughters... EVER. And god help those fools who would one day ask to date them. That day, thankfully, is very far away. For now, they were enjoying the time of their daughters innocence, even if it meant subjecting themselves to being no more than a plaything.

Reimi finished playing with Gajeel's long hair. She grabbed her princess mirror and handed it to her father.

"Daddy, do you like the way I did your hair?" She asked with a very pleading tone.

Gajeel took a look in the handheld mirror and beheld what could only be described as an atrocity against the hair gods. His hair was braided so terribly that there were clumps of hair sticking out. Moving his head from side to side pulled at his scalp painfully. And the ends were tied in the same manner as a child tying their shoelaces. Basically, his long hair was a mess. But though internally he was horrified at this monstrosity, externally he was all smiles.

"I love it, Rei." Gajeel said convincingly.

The look on his daughter's face made it all worthwhile. She was happy and that's all that mattered.

"Thank you, thank you daddy for letting me fix your hair." The Redfox girl cheered, hugging her father profusely, such an act made a dopey grin cross Gajeel's face.

At the same time that this was happening, Uriel finished painting Gray's nails. Well, that's not all she painted. Her inexperience at this task left the ice mage's fingers covered in swaths of polish. The polish on the nail itself was uneven. He could see the pink underneath the nail.

Already embarrassed by the fact that his nails were painted in the first place, Gray refused to say anything about the fact that it wasn't done right. But then his daughter looked at him with those same eyes Reimi had for her father, asking for approval. The ice mage smiled and placed a gentle hand on Uriel's head.

"You did good, Rainbow." Gray told his daughter.

Uriel's smile made his day. The indignity he had suffered was all worth it.

"Thanks, daddy." Uriel chirped. "But this is the last time I'm painting nails. It's so silly."

Gray could only laugh at that statement.

If there is one thing that you learn from this story, let it be this. The love for a father for his daughter is great, stronger than any humiliation they could endure.

The End.

Loved it? Hated it? Have no opinion one way or the other? Leave me a review. I'd love to hear from you.

Till next time,

A. Angel