"I need your help, boss."
"You can help yourself to the door," was all Laxus grumbled as he continued to glare down at his beer. "I'm busy."
Bickslow frowned, staring hard at the man. "Busy doing what?"
"Contemplating how hard it would be to shove your head in this glass and drown ya."
"W-Well, pretty hard, I'd think, considering the my head is bigger than the-"
"Piss off, Bickslow," the slayer growled that time, looking up with a heavy glare. "I'm warnin' ya."
"But I need help." And, with the lack of caution only a complete moron could have, the seith took his seat at the table with the man. "It's important, yeah?"
"What?" So long as his eyes were up anyways, Laxus took a good look around, taking stock of the fact that Mirajane Strauss was, at the moment, only tables away from his when she'd no doubt be around to ask if he needed anything. He wanted the seith long gone by that time. "Make it quick."
"It's advice, actually, the deep intellectual kind that only you and I could have together, you know? Freed and Ever, they don't get us. Me and you. Dark knights. Cast aside! In a world of-"
"I don't have time for this."
"Neither do I!" Bickslow was glad they were on the same page. As his dolls, used to his tricks of misdirection, began cackling, the seith only continued. "That's why I thought it was time, you know? That I found something else to be. A new, fresher backstory. A new year is upon us, boss. It's time for a new Bickslow. A fresher Bickslow. Or what? What's that? More return to form? No, not this form. My first form. Just how many forms do I have? I don't know, boss. I just don't-"
"Hi, Laxus. Bickslow. Do you guys need anything?"
"Actually, yes, Mirajane," the latter man began as she appeared then, at the side of their table, a serving tray tucked under one arm. "I need you to be more courteous of others. I was in the middle of a monologue, here, with the boss, and you just trampled all over- Ow! Laxus, what the fuck? Why did you-"
"Shut up, Bickslow," the slayer growled truly then at his faithful follower. Beneath the table, he'd kicked the man so hard in the shins that Bickslow thought about defecting from the cult of Laxus. The abuse was growing rampant. New year, new idol, the way things were heading.
Mira only stood there, titling her head slightly at the two men. They were acting erratically in a normal setting, but in the confines of Fairy Tail's guildhall, they hardly seemed out of sorts. Giggling some, she only remarked, "Well, if you don't need anything- Well, other than not to be interrupted-"
"He was joking." Laxus, who's eyes had become transfixed on the woman, turned hard and cold back to one of his closest of buddies. "Tell her that you were joking, Bickslow. Now."
"I was joking!" His voice even jumped an octave or so, it seemed, cracking just a bit as the seith desperately wanted to save his other shin from being fractured. "Mira. Interrupt all you want!"
The woman only shook her head a bit though as she remarked, "I'm almost done for the day, actually. Lisanna'll take over for me."
"I know."
Both Bickslow and Mira frowned as that happened out of the slayer's mouth. Even he frowned, once it was out, before turning to glare back down at his beer once more. He coughed. Once. Twice. Three times.
Then Mira lost interest in whatever game the two had going on and went back to finishing up with her tables. Bickslow watched her walk away, but Laxus only went back to glaring at his beer and refused to look up.
"Boss, what the fuck was that, huh?" The seith whistled then, his babies immediately attempting the same feat. "You got a hard on for Mirajane or something?"
"Shut up, idiot."
"Is that why you've been hanging around the guild so much recently? Hoping to get it in with the she-devil, eh?" Bickslow couldn't help it then. The whole thing was so entertaining to him that he just about choked on his tongue as his snickers lead to near convulsions. "How filthy, boss. How disgusting. How much like something I would definitely do. Had the same thoughts, actually, boss. In fact, do you think after you, uh, finally get it in and all, I can- Ow, boss! That was my last good shin!"
He glared, the slayer did, across the table at the seith. So heavily that Bickslow was fearful for more than two bruised shins by the time their little meeting was over.
"Keep," Laxus growled at him, "your filthy thoughts to yourself."
"I's only messin' around, boss. I mean, it's alright, yeah? I dunno if you noticed, but most everyone around here wants to fuck Mirajane. You're not exactly special or nothin'. Nothin' to get all bashful about."
"Listen, you half-wit." And he was rising then, from his seat, the slayer was. "If I hear even so much as a peep outta ya for the rest of the day, or just one in general, about all this, ever again, I'll give ya a new identity alright. How easy will it be, eh? Bickslow? To be a new person when I rearrange your face into an all new one?"
"Pretty easy, I'd guess, boss."
"Was that a peep?"
"Ah, no, boss, leave me alone!"
He ran then, Bickslow did, fled though Laxus didn't give chase. His own problems of loss of new persona was gone though as the man rested with his back up against one of the walls of the guildhalls front, heartbeat jumping out of his chest. Clearly, the man hadn't liked his teasing. At all. Which could only mean that, well, that the slayer wanted to bone the demon.
A perfectly good choice.
Gosh, Laxus sure knew how to pick 'em.
Under a normal circumstance, Bickslow probably wouldda just slunk on back to he and Freed's apartment, bitched and moaned about how the boss was mad at him and new year, new him, so he would just defect, from their cult, and then Freed would inform him not only is it not a cult, but if he was itching for someone to beg him to stay, he was barking up the wrong tree.
But this was no ordinary fight he and his idol had just had. No. This was something much deeper. A problem, even, that Bickslow could solve for the man! A perfect way to skip all that bitchin' and moanin'. The boss was crushin', hard, on the Strauss woman and, well, it just so happened that Bickslow had an in with the Strausses.
"I do not have an...in with the Strausses, Bickslow, and I resent the implication."
"Ever, I can see him, right there, behind you," the seith griped a bit as he stood in the doorway of Evergreen's apartment. The door was only opened a crack though and she was not allowing him to see the very obvious overgrown Strauss sibling snoozing on her living room couch. "You're not hiding it very well."
"Piss off, Bickslow."
Well, fine. He didn't have an in with the Strausses then.
"Fancy meetin' ya here, Lisanna."
"Well, I mean, I'm working right now, at my normal shift, so I don't know, really, how surprising that can be."
Bickslow beamed though as the woman bent over a table, busing it. It was right before the dinner rush and, while Kinana manned the bar, Lisanna wanted to get the place back in order before that happened. Just so everyone could screw the place up all over again. She really didn't understand how her older sister loved it so much, the utter chaos that happened up at the hall. Well, she did understand, because she liked it too, when she was on the side of the chaotic. But when she was one of the ones having to clean up after, suddenly, the antics of her friends were a lot less fun and a lot more obnoxious.
Still, the seith was undeterred with her obvious lack of enthusiasm over, literally, just seeing him. A normal guild mate.
"I have a proposition for you."
"Does it involve actually tipping me? Because if not- Ow! Bickslow, what was that?"
"A coin." He'd nicked her right in the ear. "A tip. For your troubles."
"You know what-"
"Oi, I don't got time for this, kid."
"Well, I don't have time for you either, right now, so unless you're placing an order-"
"It's got to do with your sister, yeah?" He glanced about then, the seith did, but it was the middle of the afternoon and most everyone who wasn't a drunk or job avoider was out until dinner time. "And the boss."
"Master Makarov?"
"Not your boss. My boss. The boss?"
"I don't know what that means."
"You know, Lisanna, I'm really itchin' to throw another coin at ya."
"You're the one bothering me!"
Oh, yeah, right. Heh.
"Lisanna," his dolls began to complain then as she was quickly moving on to the next table. "Help Papa!"
"With," she griped, actually speaking to his dolls and oh, wow, Bickslow was honored, "what?"
"I got a super secret plan, yeah?" He glanced all about once more. "Well, and idea, actually, instead. No plan. Yet. But I need an insider to help out with whatever it is. And, you know, actually come up with the plan for me. And who's more of an insider to your sister than you, Lisanna? Well," he stopped to snicker, "hopefully the boss after all this, but-"
"Who," she griped as she finally slammed down her busing tray just to turn and face him, "is the boss? Bickslow? And what are you going on about?"
He took steps forwards then, towards her, and though she wanted to run, Lisanna stood still as he leaned down to whisper in her ear a few things. As her eyes could only widen, the woman took to nodding as he eventually withdrew, standing before her with a serious look.
"I'm in," she said with a grin. "This- Oh man, yeah, I'm in."
"'cause you want the boss to be happy. Great! A new cultist. Word to the wise, watch out for Evergreen. She ain't too keen on other women."
"No," she said slowly with a shake of his head. "I really don't care about La- The boss." She caught herself, just in case of listening ears. Drunks and job avoiders they might be, but to keep them from being plan ruiners was the most important task Lisanna and Bickslow had at the moment. "Or his happiness."
"Then the happiness your sister will get from being with the greatest mage to ever walk the planet. Ah. Nice thinking. If I had a sister, I'd offer her up to the boss."
"That's a pretty weird thing to say."
"I'm a pretty weird guy."
She had to give him that.
"I don't really care about that either though," Lisanna said as she held her head higher, refusing to look at him. "I'll keep my secrets and you keep yours."
"I have none. I just want the boss to be happy. And I get to bone a lotta the women he's tossed aside, all used up and broken. I'm really bankin' on that one."
She narrowed her eyes that time and, from behind his visor, Bickslow did the same. They studied one another and he thought, maybe, he'd finally gone too far. She'd go runnin' off to her sister or the boss and that was that. A wrap.
Instead, she only held out a hand, which he easily returned, gripping hers tightly as he shook it erratically.
"Partners?" he asked with a tongue wag as his babies began to float about both their heads.
"Partners," she agreed to the cheer of the dolls and the smirk of the seith.
Short little five chapter story. I'll actually finish this one guys. Swear.
