"You know what I wanted to be when I was a little kid? A little troll."

Mirajane, who was hardly awake, behind the bar, as she counted out the register for the night, lifted her head in surprise at that. "What did you say? Dragon?"

The man, at the moment, was seated up at the bar with her, drinking a beer. It was long after close and the slayer was waiting for his girlfriend to finish closing up for the night.

"I wanted to be a troll." Laxus stared at her with equally as bloodshot eyes, but they were for vastly different reasons. "You know. Little gnarly freak? Took money from people?"

Nodding a bit, Mirajane glanced down at the jewels in front of her, frowning when she realized she'd lost track of them, before just starting over. To her boyfriend, she said, "Like on a road or-"

"Fuck no."

"Dragon-"

"I meant just regular no." Even drunk, he knew the rules. Clearing his throat, he leaned more heavily against the bar before saying, "I would be a bridge troll."

"What difference-"

"Those road trolls? Whores. All of 'em."

"Whore isn't a good word either."

Heh.

"Yeah, well," the man grumbled, "it's appl...appla… Apple?"

"Applicable?"

He nodded. "Yeah. That."

"I don't understand."

Huffing, as this annoyed the inebriated man for some reason, Laxus began. "Bridge trolls aren't jerks who just make you pay for minding your own business! Road trolls, now they wanna nickle and dime you for walking down a road that they have no right to! But a bridge troll, he lives there! He might have built the bridge! How dare you-"

"Why are you yelling?"

He wasn't sure. The time felt as if it called for it, however.

"And that's not what I didn't understand," Mirajane said as she rolled her eyes. "I mean, yeah, sure, I don't understand whatever it is you're going on about-"

"Road trolls are a bunch of little-"

"I meant I don't understand why you would want to be that."

"Oh." Laxus had sat up, in his irritability over road trolls and all their clearly evil ways, and moved to lean against the bar once more. "Because I had this little book when I was a kid and Ivan would read it to me. About this bridge troll that would pop out and scare people and take their money. I loved that book."

"Surely," Mirajane said with a slight frown, "eventually someone came around and stopped the troll."

That got a snort from the slayer. "Yeah, they fucking did. I hated the ending! The troll worked hard on his bridge! He deserved to charge anything he wanted to-"

"Laxus, most of the time the trolls didn't build the bridges."

"The hell you smoking?"

"Excuse me?"

He coughed. Then looked off. Softly, he asked, "What do you mean?"

"I mean what I said," Mirajane said as, once more, she lost her place and had to restart counting the jewels from the register. "The trolls don't build the bridges."

"This is malarkey."

"Now you're just making up words."

"Am not." Was he? "And take that back! They do build the bridges!"

"They most certainly do not."

"You're full of it."

"You're about to get kicked out."

Glaring at her then, Laxus said, "Then who builds the bridges?"

"The city or government, Lax." She made a face. "Are you serious? You really thought-"

"I was a child."

"You're not anymore," she pointed out. "And you clearly still thought that."

He snorted. Then, glaring off, the man grumbled, "Well...then… Someone has to pay for the bridge, Mira!"

"That's what taxes are for."

"Then why does the troll take a toll?"

"Because he's a bully, Laxus. Come on. He was a villain."

"A misguided hero."

"You're killing me."

"But when Ivan would read the story to me," Laxus carped, "the troll sounded like the coolest thing ever."

"He was a bandit."

"Bite your thong."

"My what?"

"Your tongue." He coughed again. "Bite your tongue."

"Then I'll leave my thong for you."

"Mira-"

"Trolls weren't even good bandits," she went right on. "They were lazy ones. They'd just sit around and wait for their victims to come to them. They wouldn't search them out."

"That's a sound business model."

She regarded him with suspicion then, asking, "Are you even really drunk? Or are you just pretending?"

"I ain't drunk. Whore."

"L-Laxus-"

"Give me another beer." He slid his mug towards her. "And are you even actually closing? Or are we just going to hang out here for no reason?"

"I'm working on it," she said with a frown before snatching up the mug and turning to go refill it once more. "You don't have to be here, you know."

"Do too."

"Why? To insult me?"

"How is whore an insult? That's a solid business model too."

She clanked his mug down in front of him. "Am I dating Laxus Dreyar the Dragon Slayer? Or Laxus Dreyar, Super Villain and Pimp Extraordinaire?"

"Laxus Dreyar the Dragon Slayer." He hummed as he downed at least half the mug in one gulp. Setting it back down, he said, "I like that."

"What?"

"The rhyming thing."

"Have you never noticed that?"

"Have you?"

Mira frowned. Then she thought. Then her eyes widened, "No. That's so… No, that's weird. Isn't it weird?" Not waiting for him to answer, she shrugged a bit before saying, "Well, no more weird than you wanting to be a troll-"

"Solid business module."

"Model."

"My sexy model." He misconstrued her, perhaps on purpose, and grinned at her. "My sexy model girlfriend-"

"You called me a whore."

"Solid business model!"

"Laxus-"

"You just have sex and you get money. The hell is wrong with that?"

"Ignoring the appearance of most of the men who would come to you with such request-"

"Babe, you'd be surprised about just what kind of men frequent such estab...uh… That go see those people."

Mira stopped then, frowning rather heavily. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"What?"

"Are you telling me that you-"

"No!"

"Laxus-"

"Get back to your points. I liked your points. Ignore mine."

She raised an eyebrow before saying, "I just mean that even without thinking about clientele and all the diseases involved- Which, by the way, Laxus, we're going to be going over in full later since you've been exposed to them-"

"I have not. Sheesh, Mira."

Going on, she said, "You still have to add in the fact that it's demoralizing."

"How?"

"Laxus, are you serious?"

"I'm just saying if you own it, then it's not so bad."

"You're an idiot."

"Like trolls." He sat up again. "You think that it's easy? Huh? Being a creepy little freak that lives under a bridge? No! You've gone through all this work to put together a bridge, bring ease of convenience to people-"

"You are way too articulate to be drunk."

"-and what do you get? Huh? People like you, you sexy model who I hope forgives me by the end of the night, considering I've faithfully sat up here and waited for you all night and maybe, possibly, lulls me off to sleep with a song or two on the guitar-"

"I'll think about it."

That was all he asked for.

"But all you get for all that hard work and dedication to your bridge and craft-"

"The craft is literally just stealing jewels from innocent people."

"-only for people like you to discredit them." Laxus glared at her once more. "I mean, seriously, Mira, what did trolls ever do to you?"

"Uh, for one, Lax, they're not real."

"You're not real."

"Okay." Rolling her eyes, she went back to the jewels. "Anyways-"

"No. No. We're not off this."

"Considering this has morphed about a hundred times now-"

"There's nothing wrong with trolls. Just say it."

"Laxus-"

"Say it!"

"I'm cutting you off."

He downed the rest of his beer before she could snatch it from him. "Maybe I'm cuttin' you off."

"Of what?"

"My body."

"Please, don't tease me."

Leering then, Laxus said, "Fine. Then you can't touch me anymore. Ever."

"Evergreen can't touch you anymore?"

"What? No. I-"

"She'll be pretty upset, dragon."

"That's not what I- And hey! Why would you be mixin' up my words unless you wanted to touch me?" He snorted. "Well, guess what, woman, I've decided to take a page out of my favorite business model-"

"If you're about to tell me you're going to live under a bridge, then believe me, I won't be touching you again, ever, at all."

"-and now you have to pay to touch me." Laxus sounded so absolute about it too. "In any form. Even holding hands has a base pay."

"You're so full of it."

"It's the truth. And you don't even know what it costs you for a kiss-"

"I won't be paying for any of that."

"Ah. You're saving up from the big package, eh?"

"Well, as someone who's had the big package, I think you should re-brand it as small. False advertising and all."

Laxus slumped against the counter again, glaring across it at her. "You know, you've been a pretty shitty girlfriend tonight."

"Oh, what, Laxus? I'm supposed to encourage your nonsense about trolls and wanting to be a whore?"

"I never wanted to be one. I called you one."

"Even better."

And somehow, a conversation that had been based entirely in jokes and heavy flirting turned into the two of them not even being able to look at one another, pissed about something or other. Laxus' reasoning could be explained away simply by him being drunk, but he didn't understand why Mira was so upset when, clearly, the entire thing had just been a gag.

He'd never call her a whore or anything of the sort in any other situation.

Still though, the lack of conversation allowed Mira to get the money all balanced and stowed away in the safe in the back office which, finally, brought an end to her closing duties.

They left in silence. Mira locked up for the night and Laxus, of course, waited on her. His coat was hanging from her shoulders though, rather than his own, but that had less to do with them being angry or not angry with one another; it belonged on her far more than it did him, feelings be damned.

It wasn't a far walk, to the apartment, but Laxus was rather wobbly on the way. Mirajane, though still mighty mad at the man, only made him toss his arm over her shoulders, to keep him steady. And he was peeved too about...trolls or something, Mira wasn't really sure, but did mumble out his graciousness to her more than once.

Laxus went to bed first, as Mirajane went to shut herself away in the bathroom for a bit, taking off her makeup and just decompressing. As a man, Laxus felt lucky, since he just stripped down and dove between the covers, no maintenance necessary.

He was passed out when Mira got to him, finally ready for bed. She rolled her eyes too at the sight before snuggling up in her half of the bed and drifting off.

For awhile anyways.

Because when drunk Laxus woke her up as he was trying to get to the bathroom, Mira rushed to help him. The last thing she wanted was for him to piss in bed or something.

Literally the last thing.

Other than, maybe, finding him dead or something.

Maybe.

And as they fell back into bed after that ordeal, Laxus was in that weird state where he was completely and utterly in love with her (like he was always, duh) and also wanted to tell her about it constantly.

"Just love you, demon. And you're not a bore."

"Whore."

"Tha' neither." He burped, lying there on his back, head turned to the side to face her. Mira had her back to him though and only frowned. "You're a good woman. My good woman." Then he let out a loud groan. "I'm troll! You deserve more!"

"Lax, hush."

"I just love you." More moans. "A lot. Mine. You're mine. I'm yours. Yours and mine. Ours. Mmmm. Mmmm. Mirajane."

"Oh, dragon. Please go back to sleep."

"I don't wanna fight. I don't like to fight. I just joke and you get mad."

"I know. I forgive you. It was all my fault. Just please-"

"Ivan said I could be a troll if I wanna." He shifted on the bed then, but stayed on his back. Mira glanced over her shoulder, watching him. "But you say I can't."

"That's because you're not five anymore." Rolling over to face him, Mira took to breathing through her mouth, preparing for him belching again, before moving to cuddle up against his chest, rubbing at his tummy gently. "I like when you tell me things, dragon."

"Mmmm."

"Ivan wasn't a complete jerk, was he?"

"No. He'd read to me. 'bout trolls. I love trolls."

"You're so silly. Now hush. Go to sleep. We can talk in the morning."

"Buildin' bridges."

"Mmmhmm."

"Takin' tolls."

"Tolls for trolls," she sighed and, finally, Laxus let out one last belch before, thankfully, drifting off.

Mirajane pressed a kiss to his clammy cheek when she was certain he was passed out once more. Against it, she mumbled her love because, hey, she loved him when he was being an idiot and when he was drunk, before turning away from him to fall back asleep herself.

The next morning, through a hangover, Laxus listened to Mira berate him for all his views ranging from prostitute (the hell were they talking about that for) to the way he respected bandits (and why would he ever bring that up) as well as, for some reason, talking to him about sexual diseases and things that he just didn't think he ever wanted to talk about with her.

"This all could have been resolved," he grumbled around a cup of coffee and plate of eggs she was making him eat (but no bacon or sausage because he was a bad dragon), "if you hadn't asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up."

"I never asked you that, Laxus," she said as she sat down with her own breakfast at the tiny table in their kitchen. "Not once. And might I point out, you are grown. And I thought you were what you wanted too be when you grew up!"

"Don't yell at me." He took a long swig of the blackest coffee in the world before saying, "And I did wanna be a mage. A mage that would hide under the bridge and collect a toll for it."

"You're so...you," Mirajane gave in. "You're just you."

He stabbed at the yoke of one of his eggs, the way it burst and oozed about making him gag. Staring up at his girlfriend, he said simply, "You know that you love it."

Unfortunately, certainly. She just did.

Which was fine, considering he loved her too. It was kinda why he was willing to sit up with her at the bar that she definitely spent too much time looking after, long after hours, drinking his life away while watching her works hers.

Because they'd spend whatever time together that they could get. Even it was just to talk about trolls and whores and how much of an idiot he could be, just for her.

And, of course, the perfect business models.

It was just how they connected. Neither would trade it for a single thing.

Bleh, I didn't like this. I haven't really liked anything I've been trying to write for Laxus and Mirajane recently (hence the lack of updates). I can't seem to keep them in character anymore (or at least the way I want them to be) and have scrapped a few different fics as well as my attempts at the next chapter of Accidents and Incidents. I think I'm just going to re-read Accidents and Incidents from the beginning to the end and try to get back into it which will (hopefully) lead to a new chapter.

I haven't been feeling Fairy Tail recently. I'm still feeling Mirajane and Laxus, and the rest of the Thunder Legion/Strauss siblings, but it's kinda hard to keep coming up with new material when you've let go of the source material. Hopefully I'll get back into the swing of things soon.