This is a LaxusxLucy oneshot. Hope you all enjoy the newest story from your Lady Red!
There was a calm over Magnolia, and the leaves on the cherry blossom trees were just sprouting little flower buds of pale pink. But to anyone in Magnolia, they would know that the blossoms that would bloom would be a multitude of colours; all shades of the rainbow. The sky was clouded, and the light was dim despite it being spring. The day before there had been many showers throughout the day so the town was filled with low-laying clouds and not fog. The air was full of thick dew from the day before and the grass was slick and flat with the weight of it. No matter the type of shoe you wore you were going to slip. And still Lucy Heartphilia walked along the waters edge on the slippery rocks with her little pet Plue walking beside her. Like everyday, the boatsmen called out to her and told her to be careful; but unlike the other days they were serious. This time she could fall as there was a risk of her actually doing so.
But she did not fall into the river, or off the ridge.
Because of the weather she was wearing flat shoes that had laces halfway up her calves and look like something Gajeel would wear. She wore thick brown tights and a knee-length navy skirt. She also wore a low-cut green shirt and a brown jacket to keep what heat she had in around her body. She sent Plue back just as soon as she arrived at the Guild Hall, and before she went inside she turned around and looked out at the hills surrounding the town. There would be snow that night, possibly. There were large expanses of dark clouds coming in from the east, and it either meant more rain or snow. Whatever it was, the weather would not be good. It could cause problem for the cherry blossoms if it were either rain or snow, the rain would push the oxygen out of the soil and the cold from the snow would freeze cells. And when it melted cause the same damage as the rain.
When Lucy did finally enter into the Guild Hall she was not at all surprised when there were only a few people left inside the Guild. Many people were away racking up their money stores because of the coming weather warnings; Erza had kindly offered to share he money with Lucy and Lucy had accepted the offer. S-Classed missions brought in a lot more money and Erza was often left without a use for most of it. Lucy had also been taking a little off her food expenses, much to Natsu's disappointment, and had enough saved to last her for a little while. But the money from Erza would most definitely be a welcome. Sitting at the bar Lucy had Virgo bring her her new book, one that was about a princess who becomes a goose girl when her lady-in-waiting overpowers her and tries to kill her.
After a little while Mirajane Strauss came bushelling in from the kitchen with a plate of bacon rolls, which she set in front of Lucy for her to eat. "Thank you Mira." Mirajane nodded back and went back to the kitchen to prepare breakfast for the rest of the people who had ventured to the Guild. Many were like Lucy, in that they had nothing else to do with their free time so felt that they may as well come to the Guild to talk with friends.
Again after a while and Lucy finishing her breakfast Mirajane came out with a large plate that had three medallion beef stakes, chunky chips (fries), two fried eggs, coleslaw and a range of different dipping sauces. Mirajane stopped in front of Lucy who took a little while to look up at her. "Could you take this up to Laxus? I still have a little more work to do in the kitchen." Lucy closed her book with a fold to the top of the page, to keep her place, and picked the plate out of her friends hands once she was standing. "It's the room next to Masters."
Lucy kept silent as she walked upstairs, it was not that she did not like Laxus, or was scared of him; it was that she did not know him as well as the rest of the Guild. Of course she would entrust him with her life if it ever came to that but she still did not know him. After climbing the stairs carefully to avoid spilling the food, then she made her way down the long corridor until she reached Makarov's office, then she knocked on the door next to it. Without waiting for an answer she pushed the door open and began to talk, "Sorry to int-" But stopped short when she realised that he would not have given her an answer, as he was fast asleep face first on the table. In his outstretched hand was his pen and the ink well was under his cheek. "Oh." Lucy raised her hand to her mouth and chuckled for a little bit. The sight was almost cute. Almost.
After searching for a little while Lucy found a heating lacrima amongst the many piles of papers that lined the shelves. Clearing a little space on the side of his desk Lucy set the plate down on the lacrima with the knife and fork. About to leave the room Lucy looked back in and winced, Laxus was obviously not used to this amount of paperwork and it was killing him. Sighing she went back to the window and opening it a little she left the room. Going downstairs she told Mirajane that Laxus was okay and that she would be going home before the weather got any worse. As it had already started to rain quite hard, taking a coat from Virgo Lucy sent her back home with her book and started the climb up to Laxus' office. Once she was inside she closed the window tightly and made sure the door was locked, so that no one would find her inside.
Once she was sure, she set about tidying the room. She put everything into order and into files and made a pile of the things that were incomplete. After a long while she stepped back and looked about, everything was in a much neater order and she was sure that when Laxus woke up he would be fine with understanding that system. Not that someone had been messing about in his office, but still, she would not have to worry about that at the moment. Once she had moved all of the things she was disgusted because she found pieces of chewing-gum and other things growing in what she could only describe as a science experiment children do. Mould was growing on pieces of discarded food, mainly pieces of fruit. Which was not really a surprise to Lucy; he did not seem like the type to snack on fruit.
Once the floor was tidied and she had had Virgo take the rubbish to the dump, she then sorted the 'junk' from the useful stuff, then had Virgo bring that to the dump. Looking at Laxus one last time before she got down to the paperwork she decided it would be best to move him and when she had removed the pen from his hand and the ink pot from under his cheek she braced his shoulder with her own and pushed him back into his leather chair, but when she looked back at him she had to stop herself from laughing; on his face was a black circle that had been caused from laying on his ink pot. Holding her hand out Virgo sent her olive oil and sugar, as well as a cotton ball. Mixing the two food-stuffs together Lucy put it on the cotton ball and rubbed at Laxus' face until the ink was gone.
Making sure his coat was on him and that the plate of food was still warm, Lucy sat in the seat across from him and brought the first piece of paper to the desk in front of her. As Laxus' had already started to fill it out Lucy took his pen and cast a copy spell on it so that it would write in his handwriting without her having to touch it. Setting the pen above the paper she let it go and began to think out what was the be written. And without fail the pen followed and wrote it out. Sometimes the cases would mean she had to look through other files and other cases, but this was no problem as she just got up and looked into the older cases and was able to continue writing without a problem. Other times there would be a need for a letter of some sort to be written and in that case Lucy had Gemini turn into Laxus and write the letter for her. Again, all this was no sweat. But then she saw an interesting note Laxus had made, that said in each one he wanted a letter written by the Tea or person responsible to write a letter explaining what had happened. In these cases she also got Gemini to turn into people to write these letters and attached them to 'Laxus'' letters. She found herself a little embarrassed finding more than a few were directed at her team.
Once Lucy had everything done she piled all of it up, in alphabetical order on the end of Laxus' desk and then organised his drawers. She knew he would probably kill her if he ever found out it was her. Not that he ever would, before Lucy left through the window she had Virgo bring her a spray which would erase her presence from the room. Hopefully this would work, and keep him from knowing she was there. And just before she left, she made sure to unlock the door. Once she was outside she pulled her coat close to her body, and left for home.
Laxus had been having a bad day, because of the intense raining it had caused their to be a lot of mud on the roads and he had ended up having to hold his coat above his head to avoid the rain and the mud. Freed had also taken it upon himself to lay out carpet pieces in front of Laxus for him to stay dry. Laxus had then had the task of calming Freed down once they reached the Guild because he had gotten mud all over his coat; and he had had to listen to Freed screaming that it was not okay to Mirajane because it was a coat given to him by 'Laxus-sama'. Which of course was a lie. Then when he had gotten to his office he had had trouble opening the door because of the piles of rubbish and had had to double back from the awful smell, and no sooner than he had gotten into the room than had his grandfather walked into the room and dumped more paperwork onto his desk.
After spending a lot of his night filling out these papers, and of course leaving aside an hour or so to convince Freed that it was all right for him to be left on his own in the Guild to finish the work that was still piling up. Because his grandfather had a meeting with the other Guild Masters so he had left a whole lot of his work to Laxus. And he expected all of it to be done by the next day when he got back. Makarov had told him that he would rush the meeting because of the bad weather and as Laxus knew, felt a little bad for leaving him with all the paperwork to do. Not that his grandfather really cared. He was happy Laxus was in training to be the next Master, because as part of his 'training' he could offload all his work onto him. Including writing the letters of apology which mainly applied to Team Natsu. How that group of people could cause that much damage was beyond him. But he had to admit that most of the blame landed on Natsu or Gray, sometimes Erza when she got involved. But surprisingly never that blondie. he set all the complaints into one pile and wrote a note on top reminding himself to ask someone to write an answering letter alongside his own.
He worked late into the night and eventually fell asleep at his desk despite trying hard not to he did fall asleep. He had a blank night, where there were no dreams but he only floated in black space. It turned out it was a dream of sorts, a guilty dream in which everyone he had ever hurt came to haunt him. The worst ones were those who had shown up while he was away. They did not say as much as the others, but it was what they did not say was what got him. First came the small blue haired Slayer, she had looked at him while twisting her hands and then she squinted. "I don't think you're as bad as they say..." She seemed to study him for a second before stepping back. "But sometimes I look at you and I just wonder, because it doesn't seem like it could be a lie."
Gajeel stood in her place next, arms crossed and a scar resting large on his forearm. "I was the enemy," He said. The area around him seemed to blend in with him and he did not seem to be all there. "But I was protecting your friends." Images came back of Laxus standing under the blossom trees throwing lightning at Team Shadow Gear while Gajeel stepped in to protect them.
Then came Juvia. She just stared at him. Then lightning coursed through her body. It appeared to be emitted from a replica of a single Thunder Palace lacrima that was placed overhead. When she was laying on the ground purple runes floated around her body until she screamed with pain. Then one of them in particular stood out to him; death. He had watched a little of her fight and knew enough to know that she had thrown herself on the lacrima so that Cana could fight but he had had no idea that Freed had used the particular rune spell. "I always... Loved the Guild." Words like these hurt him, because he had grown up in the Guild and hated it and here was the enemy, who loved the Guild more than he.
The only times he felt at bay was when blondie showed up. She sat across from him in the void and just stared. Like she did not know what to say. Eventually the apparition raised a hand and waved. She tried to open her mouth but instead of a tongue there was a glowing green eye, one Laxus knew well enough to be Bickslow's. Suddenly her body was strung up by strings and she was dancing about like a crazed animal. Then it all stopped and she collapsed. Nothing had been said but it was definitely the one that made Laxus shiver the most. Others had talked, screamed at him and accused him of many things. All had been upset, but not until she fell because of Bickslow had blondie looked at him like he had betrayed her. Then she had exploded into a pile of bugs. Which made no sense to him what so ever.
Laxus jerked a little and fell out of his chair when the sound of a tree branch banging against the window was accompanied by the sound of rolling thunder. It would appear that there would indeed be worse weather. Laxus was assaulted with the smell of steak and chips and eggs, as well as a few assorted flavours. Turning around he spotted the mentioned food stuffs sitting on a heating lacrima. He did not know how long they had been sitting there but he was thankful. It was nearing 9 in the afternoon, and that meant he had slept for nearly 18 hours or more. Pausing from taking the first bite of his meal Laxus sat up straight and looked about his office this caused him to notice in the dim light that his office was surprisingly clean and what looked like a lot of the paperwork was completed as well and smelled of nothing but... The food.
Quickly taking in all his food, Laxus stood from his chair and stalked to the door, upon opening it he found the smell of blondie, but it was faint. When Laxus got downstairs everyone was gone, apart from Mirajane and Makarov who was now back. Setting the plate down in front of her he looked at her. "Why do I smell Blondie upstairs?"
For a second Mirajane looked at him funny and then she seemed to realise who he was asking about. "Oh, I asked Lucy to bring your food up earlier." She paused. "How come you don't know?"
"I just woke up." Laxus looked at his grandfather and then at Mirajane. "And do you know who cleaned my office?" Now they looked at him in worry. "I woke up and someone had tidied up my office; like really organised it." He thought back to what he saw. "And I think they finished my paperwork for me." Makarov jumped down from the counter and ran up the stairs, the other two following behind him. Once they got into his office everything was clean, and the heating lacrima stood still giving off heat. Outside the window they could all see flashes of lightning and the heavy rain that fell. Laxus returned to his seat behind his desk and looked at the pages he had taken from the pile. "And the thing that gets me, is that they are in my handwriting." There was a silence that even thunder could not ruin in the room and then Laxus looked at an apology letter. "Also, there are apology letters here quite similar to my own thought process in my handwriting and others in others handwriting and thought processes but," Laxus leaned back and tapped his chin. "I don't remember writing them, nor asking the others to write theirs."
"This is an interesting situation." Makarov looked at some of the pieces and was surprised to see that was Laxus said was true. They were filled out to an impeccable standard. The likes of which he had never seen. "Mira, do think it could possibly have been Lucy?"
"No," Mirajane thought for a little while before she shook her head. "When I asked Lucy to bring Laxus up his food she came back down almost immediately." She paused for a second. "Then she said she was going to go home because the weather was getting so bad. And before you ask," She looked sharply at them, "She walked away from the Guild. Her house is in the opposite direction of the Guild." Mirajane stayed quite for a few more seconds taking time to look around the room. "If you have a communications lacrima I'm sure we can call her, she should be awake."
Laxus opened the top drawer and sighed, "The drawers have been cleaned as well." He pulled the ball out of the desk and set it down, the other two in the room crowded over by his shoulders to look at the lacrima. After it flashed a couple of times Lucy answered in her house. But instead talking she was frowning at the lacrima. "Hello Blondie." He could not help the smirk that fell onto his face.
"Hello Laxus." Her voice was cautious and tired. "Mira. Master." She nodded at them and positioned herself so that the lacrima was in front of her instead of off to the side. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"
"Did you clean my office?" Laxus watched her blink twice and then twitch her head to the side to show her confusion. "You came into my office today?" She nodded. "And then you left?" Her head bobbed again. "What state was my office in?"
"Like a rubbish tip." Her lip curled and her eyes widened a little as her ears pulled back to show her disgust. "And a pile of rotten apples lying in the corner." She looked back at him. "But I'm not sure what you're getting at."
"Someone came into his office and cleaned it, they also took the liberty of doing all his paperwork my child." Over the time that Makarov was speaking Lucy's eyes narrowed at the lacrima and her head turned a little. "We were just wondering..."
"Yeah, no." The corners of her lips turned down as she shook her head in disagreement. "I have no wish to be electrocuted any time soon." She indicated at something to the side of her, that they could assume was a window. "And that is the reason I've been hauled up inside my house for the past 10 or so hours. No where near Laxus' office." She shrugged, "Sorry, I don't know who it was. But to be honest, your office really needed to be cleaned Laxus." She brought her hand up to rest on her forehead.
"Yes, yes I know." He leaned back and looked at her for a moment, he was almost positive it was in fact her who had done it. But he could not for the life of him figure out how. "Did you know, the paperwork is even in my handwriting." He looked back at the letters, "There are also a few apology letters written by the other Guild members; there are even a few written by you."
Lucy looked at him a little shocked for a moment before looking at the other two for confirmation. "Well, I wonder why type of freak would be able to do that." She frowned, "I have no memory of writing any letters of apology." Her lips tugged into a straight, sombre line for a second. "Not recently, anyway." She made a sound better her teeth and looked behind herself. "Hey, it's getting late. Can we finish this?" Her eyes were beginning to droop, and she had to blink hard to stay awake. "Bye!" Her image faded from the lacrima.
The trio were left in darkness that was only illuminated by the strokes of lightning. Makarov and Mirajane left Laxus in his office and told him to lock up when he was ready to leave. When he could hear that they had left the Guild he stood up and walked over to the personal files of everyone in Fairy Tail. Taking out the blondies file he checked her address and then set out, leaving her file sitting on his desk. Walking through the streets, he did not care that he was getting soaked, but was only interested in how she had managed to pull it off. He knew his grandfather and the bartender had been fooled by her act, but he was still uncertain. When he reached the house, before he could even knock Lucy opened the door and stood to the side. He immediately went to the table where hot chocolate had been placed and Lucy sat opposite him with her own mug. "How did you manage it?" He watched her put her hand out to the side, and saw another form of him appear. "Oh God."
She put her arms out to the sides as if to say 'I know, I know' and she smiled at him. "Ever need any help with paperwork, I'll gladly do it all." She smiled. "It's the life I was bred for." He remembered there was some talk about her being a rich heiress. "Don't tell nobody though. Oh, and Freed has your office bugged." She pulled air in through her teeth. "Only microphones, no cameras." She shrugged her shoulder and drank her chocolate. "But please don't electrocute me." Her eyes held genuine worry when he looked at her. And he barked out laughter. "Now finish that and go home." She threw her own mug into the sink and winked at him before carrying herself off to bed.
Laxus sat there for few more minutes and looked at her. She had the covers pulled up over her chin and to the bottom of her nose, so her eyes were clear and she was looking at him. Her clothing had not been unnoticed by him, she was wearing blue shorts and a grey shirt. No bra. It was then he decided. "The weather isn't good, Blondie." He got up and walked over to her bed. "Wanna share for the night?" Again he hear her suck on her teeth, but she moved back and let him slide into the bed beside her.
From then on Lucy did all of Laxus' paperwork.