A/N: I... I just... at first it was just a brotp. It was just a brotp.
Because I am mentally weak, this will be a Lucy/Laxus slow-burn that will portray how I think the characters would interact with each other in the most canon way possible. This is a 'canon au' and the Tartarus Arc has not transpired (and probably will not transpire, to be honest). Updated weekly on Thursdays. (It was originally updated on Saturdays, but moved to Thursdays)
Rating is T for swearing and for the light sexual content that'll come much later. Also, was it absolutely necessary that I made a cover? You bet your sweet ass it wasn't, but I did it anyway.
Disclaimer: But, of course, I do not own Fairy Tail (or the quotes underneath the chapter titles that you will see). If I did then the biggest plot conflict would be what shoes Lucy would wear every day.
Chapter One: Positive Poolside Promises
'a promise is a promise is a promise'
.
The summer heat bared cruelly down on Magnolia, a beautiful city that was alive with din and visitors from all around Fiore. The cobblestone streets were spotted with vendors and their brightly colored stands that showed off their newest, and slightly overpriced, merchandise to the tourists. Employees with jobs at the ice cream stands that were scattered across the city were all about to undergo a mental breakdown as they were hit with wave after wave of sweating, desperate crowds seeking a chill dessert to cool them off from the sun's harsh rays.
The thriving green park was overfilling with rowdy children and their exhausted parents while teenagers and their friends were running wildly through the street, causing mayhem and making decisions they would undoubtedly regret in a few years to come. Magnolia was absolutely brimming with life. Even a dozen or so pickpockets were making their way through the streets, stealing from anyone naive enough not to safely secure their belongings while visiting a crowded city.
Somewhere in the depths of the city a foolish pickpocket in particular had made the horrific mistake of trying to nab the wallet of an exceptionally small, blue-haired, Fairy Tail mage. The thief's wailing could be heard for a radius of five hundred feet as they were bellowed at and stepped on by an incredibly larger mage with numerous metal piercings. The shouting man had the tiny female's arms wrapped around his waist, yelling at him to not kill the pickpocket as she pitifully attempted to hold him back.
These two mages belonged to city's magnificent and treasured guild, Fairy Tail. Near the outskirts of Magnolia, the guild's main building shone brightly in the sun and loosely resembled a modern stone castle. Tired, yet cheerful, groups of people rested on chairs situated under the umbrellas that dotted the guild's front. They were served drinks and snacks by workers, some of whom were even the mages themselves who were brought in due to the need for extra help. The staff smiled brilliantly and laughed loudly, but were secretly coming up with increasingly vulgar insults for the ruder customers that had no patience and demanded their already busy attention.
In the back of the guild was a indoor pool that, surprisingly enough, had been completely devoid of people until five minutes ago when three members of Fairy Tail had walked up to it.
Slowing dipping her toe into the water of the guild's pool, Lucy Heartfilia almost purred in pleasure when she found the temperature wasn't freezing. She really wasn't in the mood to be cold, and chilly water would definitely not help her already sore and tight muscles. She had just slid in waist-high when her surroundings darkened suspiciously. The Celestial Spirit mage barely had any time to glance up and spot the giant, towering wave of water before it smacked into her face with a whoosh.
She stood there, shocked, for a few moments before her eyelids fluttered rapidly to attempt to squeeze the water from her eyes. Lucy gave herself a second to build up the scream in her throat before she unleashed hell on the culprit, "Natsu!" But her fury raised no response other than a giggle from a certain swimsuit-clad blue cat who soared languidly above the pool in lopsided loops.
The Fire Dragon Slayer, looking ridiculous with his pink hair plastered to his head, grinned lazily and threw himself backwards. Lucy's eyes narrowed and followed him as he began swimming in large ovals around her like some sort of self-satisfied shark. "Ah, come one, Luce," Natsu whined from behind her. He was able to get in another splash at his partner before she could turn around and catch him. "We're in a pool, and what do you do in a pool?"
"Splash Lucy!" Happy cheekily supplied above them. The Exceed made a sudden right turn to avoid the pair of flower-patterned arm floaties that was chucked at him.
Natsu beamed up at Happy. "That's right!" The two shared an overenthusiastic high-five that had the other mage rolling her eyes.
Lucy sighed and reached up to take her hair in her hands and twist it to drain some of the water. She had been hoping to not get it wet to avoid showering later, but honestly what else did she expect when she agreed to let Natsu drag her to the pool. Speaking of being dragged places…
Lucy put a hand on her waist and absentmindedly fingered the ruffles on her bathing suit. Poking out behind the material was a quite spectacular, blooming purple and blue bruise on her hip, and the Celestial Spirit mage grimaced. It was just one of many, and she carefully poked at the bruise, only to draw back with a hiss when the slightest of pressure hurt.
"But don't you think," Lucy stopped her prodding and tried, "now isn't the time to be splashing me? I just came back from a tricky solo mission all bruised up," she gestured to a few bandages that were thankfully made waterproof thanks to a certain Sky Dragon Slayer, "and you guys promised a relaxing afternoon. Drowning doesn't seem like a relaxing afternoon." She knew she was over exaggerating a bit on the drowning part, but Lucy thought she had deserved the right after what had just happened to her that morning.
The grin on both Natsu and Happy's faces twisted down into a concerned frown as they looked over their banged-up partner. It wasn't anything too bad, definitely not bad enough to stop Lucy from being manhandled into the guild's empty pool because Natsu wanted to splash around in it when no one else was there. It was just a few nasty scrapes and bruises from being thrown into a particularly sturdy wall.
Happy swooped down and dropped onto her head, earning him a surprised yip from Lucy, and Natsu waddled closer, his frown slowly turning into a pout. "You wouldn't have gotten hurt if we had gone with you," Natsu grouched like an upset kid, looking away and crossing his arms. "Happy could have picked you up and dropped you behind him so you could get him with your whip while I distracted him or somethin'."
His dark eyes shifted to look at Lucy's face to see if she agreed. If the stubborn look in her eyes said anything, it said that she didn't agree, so he quickly averted his eyes again.
"It's okay, I'm okay," Lucy emphasized with a light voice, and Happy patted her forehead with his paw as if to comfort her. She knew how tough it was to not worry about nakama when they went off on a job by themselves. The blonde always found herself fretting over Juvia or Gray or Erza while they took on a solo mission when Mavis knows she had nothing to fear.
Really, other than her harsh and unexpected greeting with a solid stone wall, the mission had gone just fine. She had even splurged and gotten to spend last night in a fancy inn, and she practically ran into her escaped criminal target when she was walking in the woods searching for his hideout.
"But, I would appreciate it if I could just spend the rest of the day without being tackled, or," her eyebrow twitched, and Happy jumped off her head and flew towards the chairs, "being brainbuster-ed."
"Fine," Natsu elongated the word and sank down into the water up to his nose. The dragon slayer began to sulk, but then he was promptly distracted by Happy. The Exceed had an evil smirk on his face as he dangled Natsu's thick, black bracelet over the water. "What are friends for?" The mage rushed out before jumping after his cackling cat.
As the two messed around and shouted, Lucy could only watch with a fond smile. Natsu repeatedly tried to leap after Happy, but the Exceed was too quick in the air. This continued on for a minute or two, and with one lucky grab, the rosette was able to nab Happy's foot and drag him down into the water.
More yelling and some friendly name-calling were exchanged as Natsu roughly fastened a dainty yellow floatie with kittens on it around Happy's small body, and Lucy swam to the pool's stairs to sit on. Her feet were killing her, and she was really regretting her decision of wearing flats instead of a nice pair of sneakers when she went out chasing her prisoner.
As she swung her feet back and forth in the water, immensely enjoying the feeling of cool water rush in between her toes, the blonde tilted her head and watched her partners splash around. Their laughing was loud enough that it could probably be heard from the other side of the guild. At that thought, Lucy twirled her finger in tiny circles in the water and began thinking about her friends that were most likely overhearing their rambunctious evening.
Sometimes it suddenly hit Lucy that everyone in the guild was her friends. Every last one of them was special to her, and it truly shocked her from time to time. She went from a lonely little girl in a mansion that was too big for her, to a woman with a family she would die for. It made her stomach all toasty, in the good way, just thinking about it. "Isn't it amazing how," Lucy mused out loud, caught up in the warm feeling spreading across her chest, "signing up to join a guild practically means you're signing up to a whole new group of friends and family?"
Natsu and Happy paused in their playing to give her a flat stare. Natsu clutched a squirming, drenched Happy under his chin and deadpanned, "Lucy, you're being weird again."
She bristled. "Am not!" She was being sentimental. If anything, they were weird for not immediately grasping what she was talking about. "But seriously, everyone in the guild would take a fatal blow for each other. In Fairy Tail, everyone's each other's friends!" Lucy clasped her hands together right above her heart and was confident that sparkling stars and hearts were whirling around in her brown eyes. "It's such a romantic idea!"
"How's that romantic?" Natsu questioned at the same time Happy quipped up, "That isn't true for one mage in the guild."
"Huh?" Lucy blinked as she was abruptly ripped out of her own little, mystical world. There was someone in Fairy Tail who wasn't-
"Laxus!" Happy sounded too cheerful, considering the situation.
Did he just say… Laxus? "Laxus," The celestial mage dumbly repeated. Laxus Dreyar?
Lucy hadn't… she really hadn't thought about Laxus. And, embarrassingly enough, that sort of proved the Exceed's point. Lucy unconsciously slid down a step into the pool as she let out a soft 'huh'. Ever since the Grand Magic Games, the Lightning Dragon Slayer had taken it upon himself to be as allusive as possible, so no one really ever got the chance to grow close to him. Now that she was thinking about it, he was either on the second floor doing paperwork while cursing out his grandfather and multiple teams (mostly Team Natsu), or hidden in a darkened corner of the guild with the Raijinshū by his side.
He didn't cause any trouble, he didn't purposely raise attention to himself, and he didn't start up any fights -unlike a certain team member of hers. It was like he had melted into the background of everyone's conscious. Everyone's conscious except for, apparently, Happy's.
Mavis, now Lucy felt horrible. Had she really been disregarding one of her nakama this entire time? Laxus' unsocial, and quite frankly, lonely routine had become a norm for him, but if anyone else started to adapt it, the guild would be worried. So why was it any different for him?
At least she wasn't alone in her surprise. Natsu had released Happy, which the cat immediately took advantage of and swam away, and had that look on his face that meant he was focusing hard on something as he gnawed on his lower lip. That was his thinking face.
"Oh shit," the slayer suddenly groaned. "Happy's right."
Lucy easily ignored the cat's 'of course, I always am' to flinch and twist her pruning hands nervously together. "I've never seen him playfully interact with anyone other than the Raijinshū," Lucy muttered while Natsu began sinking in the water again, almost as if his new-found guilt was physically weighing him down. "Have you ever even heard him laugh loudly? A really big, booming laugh that wasn't because he just annihilated his opponents?"
Was Laxus truly content this way? Lucy knew he was not and would never be a socialite, but the man rarely talked to anybody outside the Raijinshū. After Tenrou Island and the Grand Magic Games, everyone was well aware of the fact that Laxus now saw all of Fairy Tail's members as his nakama, and he always protected them with his life. However, the fellow blonde mage never took it upon himself to get closer to anyone. It was almost like he begrudgingly saw them all as annoying younger siblings, and he wanted to keep it that way.
Lucy wanted to bring her hand up to her mouth and begin nervously biting at her nails. She was starting to get stressed the more she thought about how there was a big possibility that Laxus Dreyar wasn't happy.
"No, I haven't," Natsu confessed, now looking more worried himself. "Spark Plug's always frownin'." After a moment, the mage's face unexpectedly brightened and his body began bobbing enthusiastically. "Maybe… Maybe if I can get him to fight me, I can knock some sense into him!"
Fight him? Natsu wanted to try to fight the S-Class mage again? "Wait a second!" Lucy spluttered from the stairs, but Natsu was already getting excited. Somewhere around them Lucy could hear an eager 'aye!' from Happy.
"I'll deliver an uppercut of friendship to his jaw!" The hothead continued, mimicking the move in the air and laughing cockily. If Lucy looked hard enough, she could see steam rising from his hair. "Then I'll yell something inspiring at his face. Something like, 'we care about you, dumbass!'. We'll make him want to be our friends!"
She could picture the scene in her head, and it definitely would not work out the way Natsu was imagining. She could already hear the sound of cracking bones and Natsu moaning to everyone he could for the next few weeks to spoon-feed him his soup because he couldn't himself with shattered forearms.
"How about instead of violence, someone could fill Laxus' heart and mind with compassion?" The blonde mage offered. Lucy never would have believed she would utter the words 'compassion' and 'Laxus' in the same sentence, and instead of thinking that was funny, it made her strangely sad.
Natsu waved his hand and guffawed. "Pft, fine. That'll work too, I guess."
At least the rosette wouldn't jump the lightning mage the next time he saw him. Lucy sighed in relief as Happy giggled, "But who would be able to become Laxus' friend?"
Lucy opened her mouth, only to close it again. Who would have the correct amount of empathy and determination to take on the task of becoming a close friend of the guild's most withdrawn, and sometimes frightening, S-Class mage? Maybe Wendy? Lucy knew that Laxus was particularly protective of the smallest dragon slayer, everyone was.
Most certainly overthinking this, the celestial mage propped her elbow on her thigh and rested her cheek on the palm of her hand. Laxus obviously cared for Wendy's welfare a bit more than he did for most members of the guild, but did he see the young girl as too much of a little sister to become close companions with her? There was a substantial gap in their ages, too. Laxus wouldn't be able to talk to her about some things, whether because they were inappropriate or heavier, for Wendy was still a teen.
The Fire Dragon Slayer stroked his chin as if he had one of those unsettling, villain goatees. "Who indeed…" Natsu tilted his head side to side before he finally settled on, "Someone nice."
"Someone patient." Lucy nodded.
Natsu pursed his lips in an exaggerated manner, which earned him a distracted snicker from the blonde mage. "Someone who'll tolerate his bullshit," he said rather bluntly.
"Someone who'll bring him fish!" Happy chirped in and threw his tiny paws up in the air.
"Someone emotionally aware to catch certain cues and know whether to back off or pursue forwards," Lucy added as her mind shifted through possibilities. Levy? No. Lisanna? Nah. Juvia? Nope. Jet or Droy? Definitely not. Mira? No, she was already scaring him into going places with her. Erza -no.
Natsu snapped his fingers several times and Lucy could see him biting the inside of his cheek in concentration. "Someone like…" and as if they had practiced this beforehand, Natsu and Happy both exclaimed at the same time, "Someone like Lucy!"
The Celestial Spirit mage jerked back like she had been slapped. "M-Me?" she stuttered out, her head whirling. Her? Laxus didn't see her as anyone other than the blonde he had reluctantly accepted as family, right? Lucy couldn't even recall a time where they had talked for more than forty-five seconds. The most Laxus has ever spoken to her was the time when he was writing apologetic letters to cities and asked her if she remembered if her team had destroyed the public onsen or the konyokuburo in Balsam Village (it was the public onsen).
The other two didn't seem to notice her hesitation, and Natsu came rushing over to take grab her shoulders and lightly shake her. "That's it!" The pink haired mage shouted, a shining smile making its way onto his face. "You could be the one to befriend that giant piece of self-centered shit!"
Happy climbed up Natsu's shoulder, sat on the sopping, pink mop known as the mage's hair, and reached over to press his paws to her forehead. "Aye, sir! Lucy's the nicest person in Fairy Tail! If anyone can befriend Laxus, it'll be Lucy!"
Heat started forming in Lucy's cheeks much to her embarrassment. She glanced back and forth between the two's eager faces. Did they really think that much of her? "Really?" She asked incredibly. Did they have that much faith in her too?
"Yeah, totally!" The rosette nodded, causing Happy to pull away from the blonde and clutch at Natsu's moving head for support so he didn't go flying off. "So, what do you say?"
Well… How could she doubt her partner's words when he said them so honestly and his dark eyes shined so brightly? Lucy huffed out a breath and felt a smile tugging at her own lips. "Yeah," she breathed. She could totally do this. Her eyes snapped up towards the sky and she confidently declared to the world, "Yeah!" She turned away from the two, twisting out of Natsu's grip, and stared with a determined glint in her eyes at the guild's wall in front of her.
"Yeah!" she repeated one last time as she put her hands on her hips. "I'm gonna do it! I'm going to befriend Laxus Dreyar and get him to open up to everyone until he sees every last person in Fairy Tail as not only his nakama, but as close friends! And that is a promise." And when he does that, perhaps the lightning mage could smile more and lose that awkward stiffness in his posture.
"Yosh!" Natsu cheered and fist pumped the air, effectively knocking Happy off his head and causing the cat to fall into the pool with a splash. "I'm all fired up now!"
Lucy swirled back around and shared an aggressive and pumped up high-five with her pink-haired partner. However, their joy and energy collapsed into a crashing heap the moment Happy floated in between them and said idly, "But how will you get Laxus to talk to you?"
"I…" Lucy paused. "Oh." She hadn't thought of that either. Getting to know Laxus meant actually talking to Laxus, who knew? She didn't know how to talk to Laxus. In fact, other than the Raijinshū, did anyone know how to talk to Laxus? Was it even safe to talk to the man? The Lightning Dragon Slayer tended to carry around an aura that screamed, 'if you talk to me I'll either grunt or electrocute you, it's always a toss-up'.
The blonde looked towards her teammate for help, but Natsu just casually shrugged. "Hey, don't look at me, I have no idea."
"How do I get him to talk to me?" Lucy turned her questioning look to the blue cat. "If I just casually walk up to him and start talking about Magnolia's perfect summer weather, he'll think its super weird and be suspicious."
Before Happy could respond, surely with a brilliant way to solve their problems because he was the one who reminded the mages of them, Natsu asked, "Is it bad for him to realize you want to become friends with him?" The slayer looked puzzled, like he just couldn't grasp the concept that a person would turn down someone who made it clear that they wanted to be their friend.
"Well," Lucy's fingers twitched and she began anxiously running them through her wet hair. The confidence she had harbored a minute ago had been nearly drained, and she began conjuring up all the ways things could go wrong. "If he figures out my intentions, then it could put a strain on the blooming relationship. Knowing you have to become friends with someone because they declared it so could make things awkward." She glanced towards the guild. "Or he could think that I have some ulterior motive. Like if I become his friend, I'll get special missions from him. What with him being the guild master in training."
"But that's not true," Natsu protested, and he got a certain, furious glint in his eyes. "No one in Fairy Tail would ever think like that!"
The blonde feverishly nodded, "Of course no one would," she said complacently, trying to calm the rosette down before he could, quite literally, explode. "But Laxus is a very suspicious man. I wouldn't put it past him to think that, or worse." Lucy smiled and brushed some hair that kept falling in her eyes behind her ear. "That means I just have to be subtle and sneaky!"
Happy, who had been suspiciously quiet this entire time, finally decided to grace them with his opinion, "Lucy, you're terrible at being sneaky."
It was an unwanted opinion to say the least, and it the celestial mage's temper momentarily flared when the pink haired slayer started laughing and heartily agreed. But because Lucy was a better person, she swallowed down her shout and relaxed the arm that had been inching upwards to prepare a karate chop the top of her teammates' heads.
"I'll just have to figure out a way to get him to agree to talk with me," she said. That sounded a lot simpler and easier than it really was. "The first step is smooth conversation. If we can easily talk together, then we can get to know each other. I need to get him alone, but how?" She wondered out loud. "When he's not with the Raijinshū, he's always rigidly sitting in the corner of the guild."
Natsu snorted and began throwing a laughing Happy up over his head, catching the cat when he came back down. It vaguely looked like a combination of the move fathers do to their daughters and a trust exercise. "If you want to be alone with him, then you definitely got to get him out of the guild. Someone will always be watching you." The dragon slayer shivered. "Mirajane and Erza see everything."
"Ugh." Lucy ran her hands down her face. "Basically, I have to convince him to go somewhere with me to begin talking to him? He'll never accept that!" the blonde wailed. "I can't just go up to him and say, 'hey, Laxus, let's go on a walk together!'." Her face was heating up again just from envisioning it.
Happy squirmed in Natsu's arms, and the rosette let him go. The blue Exceed swam over to Lucy, who, without thinking, picked the drenched cat up. "Why don't you make it a special playdate then?" Happy asked and practically sat atop of her generous chest. "Or like a secret spy meeting only you two can go to."
Lucy blinked down at him. None of what he said had made sense, but she got some fragments of it. A special day of it? A meeting? A certain idea began forming in her head, becoming more and more concrete the longer she thought of it. Yes, yes, that could possibly work.
Water flew everywhere as Natsu quickly shook his head. "But, Happy, they're not spies-"
The idea became complete and a click that Lucy was sure everyone could hear. "That's genius!" Not just genius, but also perfect. Why hadn't she thought of it sooner? How did a cat figure it out before she did?
"Hah?!" Natsu cried while Happy preened in Lucy's arms. "You're spies?!" The slayer put a hand to his chest and gave them a betrayed look.
Lucy shifted Happy in her arms and waved a hand. "No, no, of course not, don't even pretend to think we were, it's serious time," she chastised, and Natsu dropped the expression, muttering something like 'you're no fun today' as he did.
"It's like Happy said, I need to make a day out of it! A weekly day!" The Celestial Spirit mage was starting to get excited again. With this idea, surely she could at least get the ball rolling in the right direction. "Every week I'll invite Laxus to a cute restaurant for a couple hours, and I'll say it's for some sort of fun meeting. Like… like an exclusive club just for us! You know, like how that one group of teenagers made a cooking club," she tried to explain. "What were they called again?"
"Magnolia's Mouthwatering Assemblage, 'MMA' for short. They meet every Wednesday at one of their houses," Natsu supplied without a moment's hesitation. At the gapes he got from Happy and Lucy, he scratched under his jaw and said casually, "I was walking home alone one day, you and Happy were shopping with Wendy and Carla, when I ran into them being cornered by some baddies."
"Baddies?" The other two repeated simultaneously.
Natsu's grin could have lit her entire street for an hour. "Just some random dudes who were after their bags of fresh ingredients. I took care of them-" Lucy was afraid to ask 'how' "-and in return they told me all about themselves and gave me food!" he sighed dreamily, and Lucy just knew he was remembering the food they gave him. "Good people."
"… Okay, right," Lucy said uncertainly and moved on. "So they're a club of people meeting to explore a mutual interest and passion, correct? Well, Laxus and I will need that." The blonde suddenly deflated. "But that means Laxus and I actually have to have something in common to meet up about. Something that's super specific too, or anyone could join and ruin the plan."
If there were two people in Fairy Tail who were complete opposites, Lucy Heartfilia and Laxus Dreyar had to be one of the top five contenders. Even their magic was in completely different categories. She used holder magic while Laxus' used caster magic.
"Do you guys both like something?" Natsu questioned uneasily, about as much as a loss that Lucy was.
What would just her and Laxus only like? Maybe the Lightning Dragon Slayer would be interested in starting up a weekly meeting knitting club? But when the celestial mage tried to imagine Laxus Dreyar with a pair of knitting needles and a half-made scarf, her mind blanked as if it couldn't even begin conjuring up the image. Lucy didn't notice her grip on Happy tighten, much to the protest of a suffocating Exceed. She also didn't notice Happy escape her arms.
"Laxus doesn't like anything at all!" Happy sang and swam over to the wall of the pool to climb out. He really did have a gift for putting things that were actually depressing in a cheerful light, and the Celestial Spirit mage grudgingly admitted to herself that he had a point. She had never seen Laxus take up a hobby nor partake in any of the guild's activities, and the only physical object he seemed to enjoy was his SoundPod. But even then he seemed to listened to music angrily.
"Well, you both had absent fathers who pressured you into doing something before you both snapped," the dragon slayer offered mercilessly.
Lucy sent a weak glare his way. "The guild is filled with absent fathers who could have done that sort of thing. At least half the guild would show up. Come on, give me something good."
Natsu ignored her glower, instead narrowing his own onyx eyes and studying his teammate. "You both…" his gaze zeroed in on her head. "You both have blonde hair."
Really? Their hair? "That won't…" Lucy paused and actually thought about it. "Hold on, that could actually work." Yes, this was good, this could become something. The guild members who didn't know her super well, like Laxus, already thought she was incredibly vain, so creating a day where she celebrated her own hair color could be believable. Mavis, she was vain, but she wasn't that vain. She could pretend it was important to her and make a big deal of it too.
There was a beat of silence before an excited screech pierced the air. "We both have blonde hair!" Lucy grabbed the strands that had been plastered to her cheek and lifted it up to her eyes. Could something so simple as hair color be the key to getting Laxus to loosen up and laugh more? "Natsu! We both have blonde hair, and no one else in the guild does!" Excluding First, whose astral body was at the moment back on Tenrou Island.
Laughter erupted from Happy, his paws stopping his attempt to push the bulky floatie off him to wipe away the gathering tears of mirth in his eyes. "You're gonna… g-gonna…" the Exceed could barely get anything ineligible out because of his glee. "B-Because you both have yellow hair?!"
Suddenly becoming defensive about her newfound, and now foolproof, plan, Lucy crossed her arms over her chest. Even Natsu looked offended on her behalf. Well, maybe not so much on her behalf as it was his idea that Happy was making fun of.
"Yeah, I am." Lucy harrumphed and slowly got her stiff body out of the pool. She climbed out and nabbed a towel before the cold could nip at her. "And I'm going to call it 'Blonde Day'." It was a start, and she didn't have any other options. "It'll be every, hm, Thursday! Today's Tuesday, right? That means I have a whole other day to convince him. I'll invite Laxus over to that café on the street across from mine, and we'll converse over lunch because it'll be Blonde Day, and the blondes of Fairy Tail need to stick together."
"That was really cheesy," Natsu said from behind her in the pool. The mage made his voice an octave higher, twirled his hair around his finger, and squeaked, "'Oh, Laxus! Don't cha' know we're both blondes, and blondes need to stick together!'." Overall, it was a pretty good impression, but he needed to work on adding twirling sparkles in his eyes.
"Yeah, yeah, I know," Lucy heavily exhaled as she wrapped herself up in the fluffy white towel, being extra careful not to put pressure on her impressive bruises or bandages. The blonde was just hoping that her plan was convincing enough. She side-eyed her teammate and teased, "You're just jealous that there's no one else in Fairy Tail who has pink hair, so you can't have a Pink Day."
"Salmon!" Natsu called out. He grouchily muttered something else, but Lucy didn't hear him through her laughter and Happy's frantic 'where?!'.
That night Lucy was still awake at the ungodly, horrible, wretched hour of three o'clock in the morning. She was on her stomach on the floor of her quiet and dark bedroom with her poofy pink quilt wrapped around her until she resembled an overstuffed burrito. Sprawled out along the floor were papers, each one written on and a few even had giant, blocky x's scratched across them. A spherical lacrima was placed on the ground next to her, shedding a bright glow on the materials below her.
The blonde's eyes were drooping -actually, her entire body was drooping- and she had a rapidly expanding, splotchy red spot on her left forearm from where she kept pinching herself to stay awake. Tired and crusty eyes scanned her newest page to search for imperfections and holes in her logic, and if the frustrated groan that spilled from her lips said anything, it said that she found some.
"It's no use!" Lucy groaned. She spent a few seconds wrangling up some energy before she flipped over onto her back with some noise that sounded like 'oompfhshit'. The mage's eyes burned into the black ceiling, and she could feel her grip on reality slipping through her slender fingers.
For hours, ever since she got back from the pool, she's been hunched over papers, writing out plans and conversation topics she could ask Laxus. Location wise, she had every little detail mapped out. She had listed them in chronological order of pursuance and even separately in alphabetical order. She'd start out with cafes with a comfortable and unrushed atmosphere with no distractions before moving on to more public restaurants. After that the possibility of house-visits could be thrown into the mix, and then, finally, friendly conversing in the guild.
If Lucy could needle her way into Laxus' 'they're pretty okay' section of his heart, then she could strangle small smiles out of him. When everyone in the guild saw the smiles, perhaps they would try a little harder to get to know the Lightning Dragon Slayer too. Before he would know it, Laxus would be surrounded by comrades who could see past that grumpy and harsh exterior of his.
But there was a giant fallen tree in Lucy's friendship path. Though she was set on destinations to take the man, she couldn't come up with any mutual interests to talk about. Nothing. Zip. None. Lucy had a feeling he wasn't caught up in the newest trends of thigh-high leggings or liked to write or even knew enough about celestial spirits to get into a deep and intriguing discussion about them with her.
Much to her annoyance, her eyelids began closing. Lucy sighed and relaxed her body, the ground oddly comfortable. Why hasn't she ever slept on her floor before?
There was so much more preparation and scheduling involved and she hadn't even started the 'befriend grumpy dragon slayer' plan. Not to mention that, realistically, befriending someone took months, even years. Becoming a person's best friend would take even longer. But it was fine, because in the end it would be all worth it. All the frustrations and following late nights would be-
"-for Laxus," Lucy muttered sleepily before drifting off to sleep.
A/N: I spent forty-nine minutes looking up arm floatie patterns.
But yeah, this fic's going to be a long one, like around 100k or more long. I have it all mapped out with notes, and the first six chapters (about 40k) have already been written. So did you like it? I'd love to hear your thoughts, so please please review/follow and all that good stuff.