Time Off

At all of five months, the youngest Dreyar wasn't exactly used to lacrimas and their many uses. If she had any real cognitive skills, she might have recalled that one of her daddy's favorite bedtime stories to tell was about how he was a dragon because he had a slayer lacrima and so on. Or the movie lacrima that her mommy would watch as she sat in her lap, trying her hardest just not to topple over, as Mirajane drowned her off days with senseless romance movies.

There was one lacrima though that she knew exactly what did. More or less. Mostly less. All she honestly knew about it was that when it felt like she'd gone a long time without seeing the light haired, grumpy man in awhile, he would sometimes appear on one.

Her mother called it a communication lacrima and, some nights, when her daddy was out, they would curl up on bed and wow! There he was. Scarred eye and all. And he'd be looking right at her as, mostly, she just laid around and waited for it to be bedtime already.

"Lana," the slayer would call out from inside the weird glass ball. It confused her at first, a lot of times, as she didn't really understand what was going on, but hearing his voice was nice. "What are you doing?"

Most of the time? Contemplating pooping. Or crying. Or just wiggling around for the hell of it. And she really, really liked putting her fingers in her mouth and drooling on them. Definitely a top ten part of the day. Very memorable. For, like, a whole minute, so that was definitely something.

One night, actually, he was there, on the lacrima, blabbering on when she made a very, very important discovery that literally blew her entire world up.

She had feet.

No, like, really. And she could grab them and it was amazing. Best day of her five months. Seriously.

"Awe, Lax," Mira interrupted his story on what he'd been doing on his week away, off on a job. "Can you see her?"

"Huh?" He peered harder, on his end of things, where he was in a little hut in some village he was trying to save, neglecting to spend his short amount of time reserved for sleep on resting and rather enjoying time with his daughter. "Hey, Lana, what you got there? Huh? In your hands?"

Uh, try these great things that grew at the bottom of her legs and were very hard to hold onto. Feet, as she'd learn eventually to describe them.

Babbling back to him or, really, anything and everything, her feet slipped back out of her hands. Lana only reached for them again.

Had they always been there? Was this a new development? What was going on?

"I can't believe I'm missin' this," Laxus complained about then as Mirajane only giggled. "I should be there to guide her through the world of feet."

"Should you, dragon?"

"Yes, Mirajane, I definitely should!"

He was right. There was no one that explained things to Lana better than her father.

"Now, Lana," he tried in an attempt to give her some long distance assistance. "I know this is a very trying to time for you."

Very.

"But listen to me; you'll get through this. Feet? They're not even the best part about your body! They're, like, maybe fifth."

Mira blinked. Then she frowned. "Explain."

"Demon, I'm not talking to you."

"No. I want to know what out ranks them. And are they counted as one thing? Or two?"

"Well, Mira, it would just be silly to count them as two. How could you possibly-"

"I'd rank my right hand over my left."

"You're an idiot."

"Laxus!"

"I just want to talk to my baby right now. Look at her. She needs me. Damn it, I should be there."

"Oh, dragon."

"I should."

Lana managed to grab those slippery feet again and, in complete bliss, she even stuck her tongue out.

Gah! Look at all he was missing.

"You better repeat this for me when I get home," he warned Lana. "Else I might get jealous."

"Of what?" Mira asked.

"You."

"Oh, please."

"You're getting all the hits, Mira! You were there when she first started teething and when she started sleeping through the night and-"

"You can take some time off from jobs, you know."

"Yeah, sure."

"You can," she said. "And then I can go into work at the hall more and you can be Daddy Dragon for awhile. Take care of her. Please."

"Please?"

Nodding, Mirajane leaned down to look heavily into the lacrima. "I miss work. I mean, I love Lana and I'll hate not having all that time with her, but I feel so listless here. You though, you like solitude."

"Lanatude."

"Whatever. I just mean that I think you'd be good at staying home with her. I mean, only if you want."

It didn't come about right then, of course. Laxus actually thought about it for some time. The idea of taking a break from working so much was not an unwelcome one, but rather the thought of being Lana's full time giver was rather scary.

Not that he didn't take care of her frequently on his own. Rather, if Mira started working more, then he would be expected to constantly. And, if he'd observed anything from the past few months of watching Mirajane, it wasn't that easy. Sure, he was clearly Lana's favorite and all, but she was still a baby. And he still kinda gagged at times from what she could do to a diaper.

Hmmm. Decisions, decisions.

Eventually, when he did decide to take some time off, it wasn't to be for more than two weeks. A full two weeks at home, with Lana, would be more than enough. And Mira could work as much as she wanted during that time, he told her. Or not. She could do whatever she wanted. He just thought that she deserved a break from only being a mother for awhile.

Lisanna still was staying with them then and, as Mirajane decided to spend her two weeks working, decided to help Laxus out and not take any jobs either.

"Just in case you need me," she insisted. "I'll mostly be in my room, I figure."

"Doing what in your room?"

"I'll invite over Bickslow, of course."

"Yeah, no, gross."

"Laxus-"

"Me and Lana will be fine," he told her simply. "Male dragons are very involved in rearing their young."

This was news to Lisanna who only blinked in response. "Really?"

"Well, I don't know," he snapped. "Two of them raised those yahoos up at the guild, right?"

"I guess so. But I don't think-"

"Don't question me! I'm doing this!"

And he was. And he did. For two whole weeks, Mirajane did as she please and Laxus stayed home with little Lana.

It wasn't so bad, really. Boring at times, but the Thunder Legion was over frequently. Not to mention, Laxus also had Mirajane's two mutts, Raijin and Tenjin, to contend with. They were both rather young and in desperate need of training. He tackled that. And then let it go. Because those dopes were too stupid to learn anything.

"Maybe," Mirajane suggested one day when she came home to find that his attempts to teach them sit had resulted in a very grumpy dragon, "you're just not a good teacher."

"And maybe you should shut u- Oh, demon, I'm just in a bad mood. Don't get upset."

Sigh.

He was in a bad mood a lot at night. Cranky, almost. Not that Laxus ever had such a great disposition, but since Lana's birth, he'd more or less taken a breather and, honestly, been a lot happier. Lana had calmed him down a lot. But spending all day with her seemed to be wearing thin on him.

Mirajane didn't hold it against the slayer; she'd been there. Five months of being there, in fact. And Laxus was not a man of patience. He'd developed some, first for the Thunder Legion, then for the guild, then for Mirajane, and finally her siblings, but most of it too came from the birth of Lana. Still, the man only had so much to give and, taking care of two dogs and a baby all day weren't conjunctive to conservation of it.

But the man tried hard not to get upset with Lana. About anything. And he was pretty good at it in fact. Instead, he took his anger out usually in bouts of yelling at Mirajane's poor pooches, complaining about Lisanna's residence in their home, and, of course, being combative by the time his wife got home.

Lana though? Free pass. Completely. She could make as many dirty diapers as she wanted, only turned her head at those disgusting attempts to give her anything other than her bottle (seriously, why have anything else), and took all the spit up and wails with a wry grin. She was his baby dragon. Tiny demon. It didn't matter what she did. Lana was special that way.

As stressful as her and her daily problems were to Laxus, the two did have a great two weeks together. Yeah, he was tired and grew bored frequently and even felt as if he wasn't providing correctly, but…

Well, when the second week came to an end, he informed Mirajane that she could put herself back on that schedule; he and his baby had some more time that needed to be spent together. And, that very day, Lana rewarded him by spending much of the day interested in her feet, which gave him a great chance to sit around and get out a few things that had been piling up in his mind.

"-thinking about growing out a beard, but I dunno. That would feel too much like I've given up. You know?"

Absolutely. She'd agree to anything. Just so long as at lunch, it was formula only. That disgusting baby food was not going in her mouth, no way, no how.

"On the other hand," he went on as he laid on his back as well, hands folded over his chest, wiggling his toes in contemplation. Laxus was a deep thinker. About beards. "I used to rock one, you know, years and years ago. When Mira and I first started dating. Might bring her back to those days. Those were some great days."

Now that Lana was not incline to agree with. At all. In fact, she disagreed. Mainly because she wasn't in those days and, well, that was just a horrible social injustice.

"Me and the demon, as you may or may not recall-"

Not. Definitely not. She honestly didn't even know who the demon was. She knew who Mommy was, but this demon that he frequently referred to just went over her head. As it should. How could he expect her to keep up with nicknames when regular names were still such a struggle? Huh?

"-had a pretty rocky start there at the beginning." Laxus sighed. "You don't know this, of course, because you've never encountered this side of me, but I can be quite a hard person to get close to."

What? Nah.

"She's real persistent though, you know," he told her. "Your mother. My demon. Mirajane. I mean, I know that I'm a high caliber of man and that a lot of women want me, but Mira? She didn't need me. She's in a caliber all her own. And I was resistant to all her ploys, but… It's a Strauss thing, I guess. One of their weird, creepy things. That's how come it's a good thing you're a Dreyar. I mean, you definitely look more like a Strauss now with your blue eyes and the little white hairs that have been popping up on your head, but it's on the inside that counts, Lana. And on the inside, you're all of me. Hell, you even smell like me. That's how come you smell so good, actually."

No, that was certainly due to the recently changed diaper and the fresh onesie (it had been a pretty messy diaper). But, again, agreement in exchange for no mushy peas. Formula only. Forever.

"But that's not the point, tiny little baby demon." Laxus grinned at the sight of her tugging on her foot. "Just that Mira did get me, even though I'm hard to understand. And that it's for the better. You know, all things considered."

And by all things, he meant her. Mostly. There were other things too, of course, with all sorta mushy thoughts about Mira and their life and their little family, but for the moment, he liked to attribute it all to his baby.

"You just listen to me so well," he complimented Lana as she whined a bit, foot slipping out of her grasp. Kicking for a bit, she made a few noises before she was able to get it back. "Everyone else is always complaining that I don't talk enough or that I hold things inside or why don't I just tell them when I'm upset or happy or sad by something they've done, but no! It's not my fault. They're the ones that won't listen. They wanna have discussions and talk things out. Bleh! You though, you just sit there and listen and don't judge me because sometimes I feel a bit like bashing people's skulls quite literally together because they're all just so aggravating. All of them. Constantly."

Lana could attest to that. They always all wanted to hold her or babble to her and, fine, yes, that was alright sometimes, but when she was sleeping or staring off at something or even when she was busy drooling, it just wasn't cool. People had no decency anymore. Now four months ago, when she was only a month old, they wouldn't try and hold her when she wasn't crying which, really, is the only time it was okay. But now everyone wanted to get all willy-nilly with their picking up habits.

Lunacy. Clearly.

"But me and you, baby dragon, we're really somethin'. That's how come I'm gonna stick around for a bit longer. Maybe even more than another week." Then, slowly, he said, "I kinda like just hangin' out with you all day, everyday. The demon taking care of me for a bit. She should, you know. I mean, I only shelled out a high amount of jewels for the house and one of the dogs and do you know how many diapers you go through, missy? That's a lot too."

Oh, she knew. And, if he gave her another twenty minutes, she might just go through another.

"Maybe… Just two more. A month. I used to take months off. To travel and see the world. It's pretty big, you know."

No, not really, but again, yes please then no peas.

"Mmmm." Laxus got lost in thoughts of days and times passed before glancing over at Lana. And, in that moment, he could have stayed away from jobs forever. Let Mira support him.

Which, eventually, would come more true as around Lana's first birthday, when he would take a few months off, but as it stood, one was enough for then. And, a little past Lana's six month, Laxus took off on more jobs. Staying at home had it's pros and cons and, in six months, he'd side with the pros, but right then he just needed to work. It kept him sane.

Lana, eventually, would fill that spot when, after her first birthday, she would start to develop a bit more of a personality and become better company (yes, it was possible) when caring for her endlessly. She was so much like him (if you squinted) that it was uncanny (to him). And when potty training set in, oh, it was near perfection.

First though, they had to get through those next six months in which Lana got more and more accustomed to the communication lacrima (and her feet and baby food, but that wasn't the point) from which her daddy would explain all of his adventures to her. It would take years, of course, for her to discover that he just wasn't inside the crystal for the heck of it and that he was actually far away, off being the most amazing mage ever, but eventually she did learn to wrap her arms around it and snuggle with the thing, which made Laxus' day.

Only made sense. She already made his life.

In return, she let him eventually teach her to walk, which was great. The whole mystery of feet figured out. Laxus knew so much. That was how come he was the daddy and she was just the tiny little baby dragon. It was a whole thing. The best thing.

Hmmm. Now if he could only explain to her what belly buttons were for. Because, according to Mirajane, they were not for putting cool stuff in that you'd later put in your mouth. Apparently…

Lana and Laxus because it felt like it had been awhile. A new chapter of Accidents and Incidents next, hopefully.