Laxus' birthday, like everyone else's, came once a year. Always on the same date, too, funnily enough.

He didn't like parties, though. Never had, never will, and that was what he told the Raijinshuu each year when the date marking his unfortunate welcoming into the world drew nearer.

Unfortunately for Laxus that year, his team – aka his best friends, family, unfortunate acquaintances that he was stuck with until his death (or theirs) – had taken it upon themselves to throw him a party anyway. Not a big one involving the entire guild, because if they'd done that then Laxus really might have gone overboard and actually killed them. But just a small one, with just them, so it would kind of be like old times, since they didn't really spend as much time together as they had done when they'd been younger and hadn't had their own families to take care of and spend time with. But a small party, they were sure Laxus wouldn't kill them over.

Maybe.

But of course, with planning their boss's surprise birthday party, the Raijinshuu had gone all out, too. 'How else was one supposed to plan a surprise birthday party?' had been Bickslow's argument when he'd walked into Laxus' empty house that morning (since his wife and kids had been in on the surprise party and had promised to keep the boss man occupied for the whole day) with a giant lightning bolt shaped cake and an entire box full of various alcoholic drinks – mostly wine, too, since they were all sophisticated adults (according to Freed), and they could easily get drunk on that those days anyway. But there was rum, too, of course. And vodka. And tequila.

Lots of tequila. Because you had to go all out and get completely wasted at a surprise party and avoid and ignore all responsibilities for one night.

Evergreen had brought the hundreds of balloons and the helium tanks they'd been using to fill up only some of the balloons, as well as the nice presents. Freed had really just brought all of the food, though. And there was a lot of it, too. So much food. And good food.

But Freed had also brought the photo album from when they'd been younger, and considering they'd all forgotten it had existed until Freed had shown up with it, they were most definitely excited to go through it and be reminded of all their shenanigans from their younger years (plus some of their gross wedding photos that were in there for some reason). Because really, there'd been more than a few, and there was just no better time to take a most likely embarrassing trip down memory lane when completely wasted.

So after spending the day setting up and getting everything reader for their surprise party, they settled themselves in the lounge room and just waited.

Laxus got home right when he'd been expected back, and unbeknownst to him, he wasn't just heading home for a nap, which his wife had told him to do since he'd been grumpy. A nap, he did happen to want though, 'cause he was getting older and birthdays and socialising were tiring. So he fished the keys from his pocket and unlocked the door to pull it open, and only stood there as the balloons spilled out of his house around him – tumbling and bouncing down the steps of his porch or floating up, up and away.

A few of them popped as he waded through his house; the balloons were up to the middle of his chest in that part of the house, and there was a layer of helium-filled ones against the ceiling. Some of them had popped in the door when he'd managed to slam it (no doubt announcing to whoever the hell was in his house that he was back, even though he knew just who was behind it all), others were bursting around him as his magic flared because someone was gonna get electrocuted.

Probably Bickslow. It was always Bickslow.

His lounge room was unsurprisingly filled with just as many balloons – he could see the tops of the fireplace mantel and the book shelves on either side, and some of the paintings, but everything else was mostly obscured by the air or helium-filled rubber balls from clown heaven (or hell).

But then all of a sudden, the three mages that made up his (least) favourite stalkers (that he did love to pieces most of the time) were jumping up from the balloon pit that was his house, right in front of him, and yelling, "Surprise!"

A few more balloons burst around him from his own shock, and he clutched at his chest as he rolled his eyes. "Damn it, you morons," he sighed. "What the hell is this?"

"It's called a surprise party," Bickslow answered proudly.

"Surprise parties don't mean you fill someone's house with a million goddamn balloons."

"There's actually only 582," Freed corrected. Two hundred in the lounge room alone, but they'd left most of his house balloon-free, out of courtesy (although Bickslow had wanted to fill his entire house with balloons, since it had been his idea after all).

Laxus sighed and continued to poke the pop the balloons around him to make his way over to his favourite armchair by the fireplace. There was no way in hell he was cleaning up the mess, either. Huffing as he sat down, only slightly surprised he hadn't sat on anything other than his cushion, he wondered aloud, "And just why the hell are you throwing me a stupid party anyway? Aren't there supposed to be more people, too?" Not that he minded, though…

"Because," Evergreen began, "You're the big four-oh now and we couldn't let you not celebrate it."

He groaned. "You mean you wanted to celebrate it."

They all nodded and shrugged in agreement – hey, it wasn't far from the truth. None of them had reached it yet, either. "And besides," Freed chimed in. "Due to your aversion to all forms of birthday parties, we assumed you'd be more comfortable with it just being us. Spending time together just like we used to when we were all younger."

"And getting drunk, too, of course," Bickslow added, grinning as widely as he could.

Well, Laxus had to admit it was kind of nice. They didn't really just hang out anymore. They took jobs together all the time still, but just spending time together and catching up? Not really. And Laxus missed that… Almost as much as he missed getting drunk with those dorks, too. That was always fun.

So maybe it wasn't the worst thing to happen, the Raijinshuu deciding to throw him a little surprise birthday party. The balloons sucked, sure, but everything else they'd probably come up with, Laxus was pretty confident he wouldn't completely hate. And hey, maybe Bickslow would even go one night without getting himself electrocuted.

"Well, I suppose that would be nice…" Laxus mumbled, because really, he wasn't going to really show much he didn't hate it.

But he was finding himself wanting to change his mind when the Seith mage's smirk grew a little more mischievous, much like Evergreen's and Freed's as they all looked to each other. "Do you think we should do the thing now?" Bickslow asked.

"Now? Yes," Freed answered.

"Now is the perfect time!" Evergreen agreed.

Laxus looked to the three mages standing in front of where the lounge would be under all of the stupid balloons and actually tried to sink into the armchair. He was just a little scared of what was to come. "Wait, what's the—"

Laxus didn't get a chance to even ask what the thing was before all three mages were suddenly launching themselves at him at once and shouting, "GROUP HUG!" And the chair tipped back with all four of the mages' weight, popping the balloons in its way.

Okay, so maybe they'd all be getting electrocuted.