So…. Mirajane and Laxus as ex art students? Laxus was originally going to be a writer here but he doesn't really seem like a man of angst poetry.

This is gonna be a series of oneshots. I've been neglecting my otp for some time now and I'm properly ashamed. And since all the different story uploads are giving me a headache, I'll just compile Miraxus oneshots here.

1. a thousand and one nights

(art au, rated m, 2,610 words, dec 29 2016)

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When he saw her again, it was nine years later but she was still the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen. Laxus Dreyar knew art: he'd studied Impressionism at length, dabbled with string and wind instruments to the melody of classic geniuses, traveled Europe and southeast Asia to immerse in their culture of art, spent a summer at his friend's family forge to bend metal to his will and could put acrylics on canvass so brilliantly it made his professors weep. But Mirajane, for all the beauty of the world was his Helen with a splendor that was uncontested and a soul that was shelter. Even after so long, he pined for her.

Otherworldly, weary and lithe, she stood like a rose among a pit of thorns. His vision warped until it was only her in the focus and other partygoers blurred into bad bokeh. God, what a sight. Seeing her after all this time was an overload on his sensory. Mirajane Strauss had always been lovely but now that they weren't children anymore, Laxus thought she wore womanhood quite well and paired with an understated apathy, the desire for her became tenfold.

Thinking fast and swallowing caution, Laxus plucked two flutes of champagne from a passing server and made a beeline for the silver-haired woman. Even when he had half the room more to close the distance between them, Mirajane's head craned to the side, her gaze finding him without falter. They'd always been like two magnetic forces, Laxus supposed. Like the needle of a compass attracted to the north, there was a constant pull among them. Laxus saw Mira murmur something to the small crowd she was addressing, nod her apologies and walk away from them all without releasing his stare. As she approached, Laxus was mesmerized by the dress she wore. Midnight blue satin that clung and flowed at the same time, a modest halter in front but with its back dipping scandalously low. The contrast her paleness made against it was maddening. Her lips were the color of old blood, her nails of molten gold. Her eyes were big, blue and bright, seeing right through him.

"So you are here," Mirajane said when she met him halfway. She took the drink he offered and sipped delicately. When her mouth came away, the satin finish of her lip paint left no residue on the rim of the glass. "Erza said you were on the RSVP list but I didn't actually believe you'd have the audacity to show up."

He'd been ready for the sting of her words. He'd had years to prepare for every possibility of them reuniting and if he was being honest with himself, this wasn't the most scathing first remark from her that he'd imagined. Cordially, he nodded and mirrored her when she drank. He wished he'd grabbed for something stronger. "Well, me and my audacity are here. I've been wanting to see your work in person for some time and I'm glad work finally allowed a schedule for it. Do you want me to leave? I don't want to upset you during such a big night." Her first showing in New York after a 2 year hiatus. The tickets had sold out in 2 weeks.

Mirajane's molars ground together, making her already tender head throb with a headache. The tickets to her gallery were eight hundred dollars a head and she couldn't just kick out a patron just because he'd broken her heart once upon a time. She didn't want to give herself the leisure of feeling that way. "You paid a ghastly amount of money to be here so I'm not going to stop you from consuming tiny cheese portions and expensive alcohol."

Laxus' finger tapped against the flute, a nervous tick. "I thought I was here for your art."

"You never had much care for my art, or your own for that matter." she countered. You left me all alone with it because you would rather play into your grandfather's ambition than follow your heart. But what does a French floozy know about the gravity of turning down the chance to lead a corporate empire to sculpt or paint or draw or forge. There was a dare in her eyes when she said, "I don't imagine it would be that hard to walk away now, wouldn't it?"

"That's hardly fair of you to say, Mira. You know I had no choice." He swallowed his bitterness and tamped down on his urge to defend himself. Back then, he would have been quick to snap and yell and rage. Two artists dating had been a terrible maelstrom of bad tempers and passionate loving but since he'd traded in his charcoal stained fingers and oil paints for a grand desk and an executive's salary, he had no such luxuries now. These days his poker face was an incredible thing and it wouldn't fail him now. It wasn't the time to hash out their past, not when there were already less than subtle people already watching their exchange. "I do care for your art. I bought your painting of Scheherazade. It's an excellent piece."

Same as Laxus, Mirajane compressed her emotions into a tiny box and stored it at the back of her mind. There were critics everywhere and someone as rich as Laxus was a favorite of tabloids. She didn't want their spat up for public consumption. "Then I thank you for your patronage." She hooked an arm around his and began to steer him to where the painting was mounted, away from the larger crowd. "Shall we admire your purchase? We can celebrate your acquisition and my sale with some more champagne."

For a while, there was only the sound of her thin heels clicking against the marble floor and the discreet chatter of the rich as sounds between them. Mirajane did not speak as soon as she felt no more stares on them and Laxus had never been one to have the graciousness to fill stillness with inane chatter. So they walked in silence until they reached the fifteen-foot painting with the SOLD placard placed in a pedestal to its side.

"It's a beautiful painting," Laxus said as he appraised the work yet again.

Mirajane nodded. Even with humility she was allowed to be proud of what her hands had been able to do as her heart broke. Copying Laxus, her head tilted up to scrutinize the painting. Scheherazade lay perched on pelts of mink, bear and fox, lounged wearily after a night of disquiet. Even cordoned off in gossamer that hung off her bed's posts, the agony in her large eyes was clear.

Mirajane loved this piece. She'd bled for Scheherazade. She'd done pathetic, desperate things to prolong the inevitable as well, hadn't she? Scheherazade had her stories and Mirajane used the siren call of art to keep her love from leaving. And when that hadn't been enough she'd used her tears, her body, her words and her promises, all of them fruitless since at the end of the year, Laxus took that plane to New York and never contacted her ever again.

Oh, she'd heard about him. Months after he left, she saw his face on The Business Herald under the headline proclaiming him the new COO of Dreyar Corp. And as a rich bachelor was prone to, his affairs had been tabloid fodder. Erza always had a handy rant about the traitor, the fiend, the lowlife Laxus whenever she and Mirajane were watching the morning show and a snippet of Laxus' antics would be broadcasted. Mirajane wouldn't reply, only watching the gossip with an unreadable expression. Soon the media would document his ascend to CEO just tender days after Makarov Dreyar was buried. No more extravagant affairs made the news after that.

"You gave her to me, do you remember?" Ignoring Laxus' inquisitive look, she continued to look at the woman on the canvass. "I had a paper I needed for Humanities and you told me to write about her."

He remembered. The topic had been of the caged nature of humans. Laxus told her of Scheherazade while he stuffed quails for their dinner. Somehow Mirajane focused on the how Scheherazade awaited her captor every night despite the fact that she was trapped by a deranged man. Laxus didn't get it, but it could have been that back then, Mirajane had been reaching for any answers, any signs. He'd told her of his plans to go back home to help with his grandfather's company and she'd been begging for him to stay. It was not the imprisonment that she fixated on, but the desperation. The longing for something. "Yeah, I remember."

"I painted this when you left. I'd broken everything you left behind and burned everything I couldn't shatter. It felt like I was trying to scrub you off my skin but it didn't work. I painted day and night to purge you from my system. I formed clay so I could throw them. But I couldn't finish this painting." Her hand lifted so she could point at the face. "I had everything sketched but not enough to encourage the paint. I could finish her face, her hair, her neck and her shoulders but I blanked when I tried to do anything else. So many years I stared at her unhappy expression and wished to finish."

"And what helped you finish?"

Mirajane shrugged. "Anger. Loneliness. A happy encouragement. I was capable of many other emotions while being miserable for you, you know? Elfman gave me a nephew and Lisanna got married and Erza opened a patisserie. I was happy with second hand motivation from them so I finished. It was like pulling teeth, to be honest, but it was organic, refreshing. I missed painting my sad queen." Now one gold-tipped finger traced the curves of her signature on the bottom right corner. "Good things can come from heartbreak. So in a way, I'm grateful for you. It's kind of funny that you bought this, though, isn't it?"

Too baffled to ask any more questions or beg for more explanation, Laxus nodded. He hadn't known. "I'll treasure this."

Mirajane squeezed his hand and gave him a smile. Gentle warmth bloomed in her chest, a long lost romance stirring but overpowered by a swell of camaraderie. They'd loved each other once and had helped each other grow even thousands of miles apart. Even though she was hurt, she was thankful. "I hope you're happy."

His palms were damp and his chest was tight. His breath felt clogged and he wanted to touch her. So he did. Almost a decade apart from her working his ass off and trying to be a man good enough that she wouldn't see their time away from each other as a crock. His large hand smoothed down the downy curls of her head and cupped her cheek. A pang shot through his heart when she pressed the side of her face into his touch. "I have regrets but they don't seem that important right now." Not when you're here and we're like this. Not when I feel like I have a chance to make it right.

After that, it was hard to remember what went through either of their heads that lead to them ending up in a frumpy maintenance closet. Mirajane sat on a crate of old promotional posters with her head thrown back and her hair shining from the minimal light a tiny window. Laxus' mouth against her skin was hot, a convector of something molten in her veins. When Laxus kissed her, kissed her lips and neck and her chest and the space between her eyes, it was like he was trying to devour the moon beams off her body. It had been so long. Mirajane felt no smaller for admitting how she longed to feel him on her again; that sturdy mass of him making her all sultry, impatient and needy at the same time.

Her hands smoothed over the shoulders of his suit, her fingers meeting jest behind his neck to pull his face closer for her to kiss. Laxus' hand moved again, now moving up the slit of her dress and imprinting heat where he touched. Against his mouth, Mirajane gasped when she felt him against the apex of her thighs. "Yes," she breathed against his cheek.

"What?"

"Do it. I want you to. I've missed you."

The gentle prodding against her underwear became less reluctant. Laxus stroked and pushed in a manner he remembered she liked, back from when he could have her every night and she'd want him right back. Now, he wasn't so sure if this was something sincere or this would end with the rise of the sun. But the way she moaned lowly and the way the muscles of her thighs clenched and unclenched as if mimicking the hectic pulse of her heart was all the encouragement he needed. Later, he thought. There was time for fear later.

Muscle memory encouraged two of his longest fingers to rub slow and firm against the spongy patch of flesh inside her and just like that, Mirajane was squirming, spasming, then shivering weakly against his chest. When Mirajane finally came, she was quiet, direct contrast from how she mewled, groaned and gasped during buildup. Laxus was glad he still knew.

"If you're going to leave me again, I don't want to see you ever again."

The brief quiet was yet again disrupted. Mirajane's voice was strained but not enough to hide the disconsolate tone of it.

"Mira," Laxus began without a clue of how to continue. What could he say to the woman he had betrayed? What did she want to hear?

"Leave if you will and let me heal." Mirajane continued. "But if you're not going to leave, stay and make things right. I'm not someone convenient. I'm not a college affair. I'm not someone to call when your dick is hard and your secretary won't suck it. If you're going to stay, you have to fucking commit or I swear to you, your ugly sculptures and Italian appliances won't be the only things I'll break."

He's struggling for anything to say. He wants to make everything right and make up for all the pain. His thoughts are a mess but prevalent is how he loves her, even after everything. There are tears trapped between her long lashes and just the barest hint of tear tracks on her cheeks. He wants to kis her, he wants to fuck her again, he wants to apologize but none of those things seem sufficient enough to express his guilt and eagerness at the chance she was giving him.

Instead, he bumbled, ever so succinct. "You said those sculptures were amazing."

In a half-assed attempt at being kind, Mirajane wicked her thumb across the sharp protrusion of his cheekbone. "You'd just flunked metal works. I wasn't about to add to your dying self-esteem back then."

"I was thinking of my mother when I did that. It was fucking peonies made of Quartz."

Mirajane laughed at his wounded expression and hugged him close, utterly delighted. "Darling, it was still ugly. Even your mother thought so."

Feeling bliss inflate in him, Laxus hid his grin behind the cloud of her hair. "Well then. We're not gonna invite that lying wench to our wedding."

"Our wedding?" Mirajane's eyes were wide when she pulled away so she could find the jest in his expression. She found none. "I'm afraid I'll have to insist on dinner first."

"I thought you would say that."

note: me doing jazz hands at how awkwardly I end fluff pieces.

Fic title is from Hozier's Work Song. I love Hozier. Listening to him makes me an even bigger queer than I already am. Work Song is absolutely my fave and I think it fits the otp so much. Listen to it if you can be fucked to do so.