Ryos and Sting ask Gray and Natsu to help them pick up furniture - from Gray's least favorite store, Ikea. Natsu promises to be on his best behavior, but Gray's not sure sure about that...

Takes place two years after 'some assembly required'  

_____

"Hey, Snowflake?"

Gray leaned around the corner of the kitchen and peered into the living room where Natsu was sitting with his feet up on the coffee table. "Mhmm?" His husband looked up at him with raised eyebrows – a look that always spelled trouble. "Y'know what, on second thought, no."

"I haven't even—"

"Doesn't matter," Gray interrupted, gesturing at Natsu with a spatula. "You're giving me the look, and the last time I agreed to something when you did that, we both ended up with hives and the glitter didn't come out of the carpet for a year." Natsu snorted.

"Okay, but you have to admit it was fun."

"I am admitting nothing," Gray insisted. "And the answer is still—"

"It's not me asking," Natsu insisted, waving his phone in the air. "Sting texted me. Him and Ryos are moving outta the dorms and into a real place, and they wanted to know if we could help them with some furniture."

Gray gave Natsu a suspicious look. That didn't sound like anything particularly dangerous, terrifying or frustrating. "They need the SUV?" Natsu nodded. "So why the lo— see, you're doing it again!" Natsu burst out laughing, burying his face in the couch. Gray blinked. "Wait a minute..."

"Look, don't be mad but I already said yes." Natsu grinned at Gray who glared at him, fingers tightening around the spatula.

"So where exactly are we going to get this furniture?" His words were short and he groaned at the shit-eating expression on Natsu's face. "No. No way. I said I was never setting foot in that goddamn store ever ag—"

"Hon, it's been two years," Natsu said placatingly, still smiling. "And it was pretty funny. I'll be on my best behaviour this time, promise." Gray snorted at that, gesturing to the place where they still didn't have a kitchen table. Natsu giggled and Gray sighed, looking up at the ceiling.

"Fine," he grumbled, glaring at his husband. "I guess we're going back to Ikea."

_____

By the time they walked into the store on Saturday morning, Gray was already exasperated. The parking lot had been hellish, and they'd ended up walking nearly five minutes to get to the doors. Sting and Ryos were standing near the escalator and Gray waved to them.

"Thank you so much," Ryos said as Gray pulled him into a hug. "I know it's a bit of a pain but—"

"Nah, its fine," Natsu said cheerfully, throwing an arm around Sting's shoulders. "This is Gray's favorite store, right?" Gray shot him a look that clearly said keep it up and I will fucking murder you. Natsu stuck out his tongue, then nodded to the escalator. "Shall we go have breakfast?"

Ten minutes later, Gray was staring at Natsu with an expression that somehow managed to combine frustration, incredulousness, and defeat.

"How," he said slowly, looking at the table in front of them, "did you manage to spend thirty-seven dollars on four one-dollar breakfasts?" Instead of the usual small plate of bacon and eggs for each of them, there was nearly three times that between Natsu and Sting.

Natsu gave Gray a pitiful look, reaching for his fork and sighing. Before he could say anything, Gray interrupted him.

"Un-uh," he said, shaking his head. "I know exactly what you're doing. That look might work on Ultear, but you only get to play the 'childhood trauma' card a limited number of times on me, and you've used it all up for this week." Ryos watched the interaction with a raised eyebrow and the hint of a smile on his lips. Sting wasn't paying attention, having already polished off two plates of food.

"What? When were the other times?" Natsu protested. Ryos noted he didn't dispute the fact that he regularly took advantage of other people's pity.

"I need the last Oreo," Gray said, in an eerily accurate imitation of Natsu. "My foster parents never bought me cookies." Ryos tried not to giggle as Gray waved his hands in the air. "I should get to pick the movie, the group home never had Netflix." Natsu burst out laughing, waving his fork at Gray.

"All right, I may have been over-exaggerating," he admitted, digging into his pancake and shoving a piece in his mouth. "But I mean, you can't return food? So you should prob'ly stop lecturing and eat something before it disappears."

Breakfast passed amicably, and Gray wasn't surprised that they managed to polish off all the food, in addition to about three cups of coffee each. Now, standing at the entrance to the actual store, he realized what a terrible idea it had been to let Natsu have that much caffeine.

"Do not touch those," he said, seeing Natsu move to follow Ryos over to the carts. "We are buying nothing." Natsu pouted.

"But we need—"

"We do NOT need," Gray interrupted, grabbing Natsu's arm and guiding him towards the entrance. Natsu pulled half-heartedly against his grip.

"But—"

"Natsu Dubois-Tremblay, we are leaving this store with exactly zero things and that is final." Natsu sighed dramatically. Gray could see Sting and Ryos from the corner of his eyes, and he was fairly certain they were both snickering.

"It's just—" Natsu tried again.

"If I end up," Gray ground out, glaring at his husband, "with one more Swedish kitchen accessory with a name I can't pronounce, I am going to bring you back here and abandon you."

"You wouldn't," Natsu gasped, clutching Gray's arm and laughing. Gray sighed, dragging him through the door. "Waitwaitwait," Natsu said suddenly, perking up. Gray gave him a suspicious look as Natsu grinned and added, "what about bathroom stuff?"

_____

"It's like having toddlers!" Ryos threw up his hands in frustration, watching Sting and Natsu dart between pieces of brightly colored furniture in their race to the next showroom. "They're worse than the girls!" Gray laughed, taking over the cart and following the brightly lit path through the store.

"It doesn't get better," he commented, shaking his head. "At least, I don't think it does. He's just as much of an immature shit now as he was seven years ago."

"But you love him," Ryos replied, giving Gray a sideways look. "How come you hate this store so much?" Gray groaned, closing his eyes.

"I'll tell you when you're older," he muttered, earning an indignant grumble from Ryos.

"I'm twenty-one," Ryos huffed, tugging on the cart to navigate it around a tight turn. There was shouting from ahead of them, and they both looked at each other, rolling their eyes. "So?"

"There was an... incident," Gray said eventually, shaking his head and laughing. "Ask Natsu to tell you about the Ekedalen."

There was another excited shout and they picked up the pace a bit, passing a row of computer chairs that were still spinning. Rounding the corner, they found themselves next to one of the displays, where Natsu was pointing into the bedroom and whispering something to Sting.

"Sting!" The blonde boy's head whipped around and he grinned sheepishly at Ryos, one foot halfway up the bunkbed steps. "Seriously? There are signs that literally say 'do not do the stupid thing you're about to do'."

Natsu turned to them and shrugged, grinning. "Dyslex—"

"Shut the hell up," Gray grumbled, grabbing Natsu's arm and pulling him toward the cart. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but didn't you promise to be on your best behavior today?"

"We just wanted to see if it was comfortable for a grown up!" Sting insisted, taking a peek over the top of the bed before stepping down and rejoining his boyfriend. Ryos gave him a look but didn't argue when Sting kissed him on the cheek.

"Lucky for you two, that's irrelevant," Gray said, passing the cart over to Sting and taking Natsu's hand in his. "'cause you're both children."

"Hey, I resent that," Sting said, letting Ryos wrap an arm around his waist as they continued through the store. "Plus, it was Natsu's idea."

"Way to throw me under the bus," Natsu grumbled, shooting a half-hearted glare at Sting.

"You are the... adult-ier... adult?" Ryos frowned at the wording, then looked back and forth between Sting and Natsu. He shrugged, pulling out his phone and swiping to their shopping list. "Anyway. The only thing we have left to get is a duvet cover and a kitchen table."

_____

"How did we manage to lose them again?" Ryos sighed, peering around the corner and shaking his head. "I'm worried we're going to get kicked out of the store at this point."

Gray laughed, helping Ryos bundle the duvet cover into the cart. "Natsu can be childish, but he's not that immature..." He trailed off, chewing his lip. "I don't think he's that immature, but it seems like the two of them together makes it worse."

"I'd blame Natsu for being a bad influence, but I know Sting is just as terrible," Ryos smiled fondly. "It's nice to see him like this, though." Gray frowned.

"What do you mean?"

"He's... so much more anxious with people he doesn't know," Ryos explained as they passed into the wardrobe section. "Even starting work at the garage with Natsu, he had a panic attack the night before because he just wants people to like him, and he worries they won't."

"Natsu loves him," Gray said emphatically, stopping and turning to look at Ryos. "And I think he's probably said it, but if he needs to hear it from someone else... the first day Sting worked with him Natsu would not shut up about how cool he was for like three days."

"Really?" Ryos' voice was soft and a smile crept onto his face. "That's... I'll tell him that. He just gets... it's all irrational, and he knows it, but he worries that people don't like him. Or that they just... tolerate him." He sighed.

"Well I hope he knows tha—" Gray paused, frowning. "Did you hear that?"

A faint banging sound could be heard from somewhere nearby, and when Gray heard Natsu's voice calling his name, he groaned, dragging a hand over his face.

"What the hell have you done, you little..." he trailed off, moving toward the wardrobe that was the source of the noise. It was closed tightly, but there was muffled thumping and cursing coming from inside.

"Having fun in there?" he asked, knocking on the door. There was another loud thump and a groan.

"Gray, aughh, can you open the door?"

"Can I... what?" Gray looked over at Ryos and grinned. "Sorry, I can't hear you, there's too much noise."

"Fuck you, I know you can hear me, let us ouuuuut." Natsu grunted, and Gray assumed he kicked at the door since it rattled a little. "Please?"

"Please, huh?" Gray leaned against the door, preventing it from opening even if Natsu was able to reach the handle. "I'm not feeling particularly charitable right now, y'know." He could hear his husband groaning. "And, hilariously enough, there's a sign right here. One of the ones Ryos was telling you about earlier. You wanna know what it says?"

"...I hate you."

"It says Please do not climb on the Kvikne." Ryos was full-on laughing now, leaning on the cart as he giggled. "Do you have anything to say for yourselves?"

He thought he could hear Natsu whisper something that sounded suspiciously like appeal to your boyfriend instead.

"Uh, Ryos?" Gray raised an eyebrow at the dark-haired boy as Sting spoke tentatively. "You're the light of my life and I may have accidentally made a terrible decision that I regret?" Ryos shook his head, wiping tears from his eyes as he giggled.

"Yeah, Ryos is not available right now," Gray said, trying to contain his own laughter. "Your combined idiocy has overwhelmed him and he's currently rethinking his life choices." He rapped his knuckles against the door and stood up, shaking his head.

"All right, you made your point you asshole, let us outta here," Natsu grumbled. "I don't wanna die in Ikea and spend my life haunting grumpy jerks like you." There was a pause and then he added, "I'm sorry."

"You two are ridiculous," Gray muttered, tugging the door open and immediately bursting into laughter again at the sight. Natsu and Sting were both crammed into the smallest part of the closet, chest-to-chest, and their faces were uncomfortably close.

"Um, sir?" Gray stood up straight, turning to see a man in a bright yellow shirt smiling uncomfortably at him. "Is there..." He leaned around Gray to see Sting and Natsu packed into the wardrobe, faces inches from each other, and he immediately turned bright red. "Oh, um, sir, this is not... we're going to..."

"Oh gods, no, this isn't what it looks like," Gray said hastily, reaching out and grabbing his husband's sleeve. He yanked on it, pulling Natsu out of the wardrobe so that he fell forward against Gray, and Sting was able to stumble out onto his feet. "They're just..."

"Idiots," Ryos supplied, grabbing his boyfriend's hand and dragging him over to the cart. "They're idiots."

"It was just..." Gray hesitated, uncertain if telling the Ikea employee that his husband and friend were hiding in an armoire to jump out at them was the best idea. "They were..."

"We were gonna jump out at them," Natsu interrupted, cheeks pink with embarrassment as he leaned into his husband. "We, uh, didn't see the sign." The employee looked uncertain. Part of Gray wanted to help Natsu out of this, and another, more vindictive part of him was kind of enjoying the fact that his idiocy was finally coming to its logical conclusion.

"All... right..." The man frowned at Natsu, glancing between him and Sting, then shrugged and gave them a bright smile. "Please let me know if you need any help finding anything!" Then he turned and quickly took off back in the direction he'd came from.

There was a moment of absolute silence where neither Sting nor Natsu would look at their respective partners, but when Natsu finally met Gray's eyes, it was over. They both dissolved into a giggling fit, leaning on each other as they threw their heads back and laughed. It spread quickly to Sting and Ryos, and soon the four of them were laughing hysterically in the aisle.

"We'd better get out of here before he comes back and changes his mind," Ryos said eventually, wiping tears from his eyes and pressing his forehead into Sting's shoulder. "I think we've got everything we need. Let's go before these two cause any more problems."

"I'm with you there," Gray said, smiling fondly at Natsu and gesturing for him to follow Ryos out of the section.

Ryos pressed a kiss to his boyfriend's cheek, then gestured for him to take the cart. "You are staying right here," he added, squeezing Sting's hands. "No more wandering off."

"Hey, if I stick with you can we stop for ice cream?" Natsu asked, wrapping Gray's arm around his shoulders and leaning back for a kiss. Gray rolled his eyes as they made their way to the tills and towards the exit.

"If you were a toddler I'd say absolutely not," Gray replied, tugging Natsu closer to him. Ahead of them, Ryos and Sting appeared to be having a similar conversation.

"Good thing I'm not a toddler then," Natsu replied, sighing contentedly. He wrapped his arm around Gray's waist and drew soft circles over his hipbone. "If I was, you've let me play in Småland."

"Oh my god, you're incorrigible," Gray laughed, shaking his head.

"So that's a yes to the ice cream, then?"