Dawn of a New Day
Laxus Dreyar was not the type to get nervous. He never had been. And, due to that, he never rightly got acclimated to times when he was nervous. Forcing through those moments wasn't easy for him and he just wasn't good at playing through his nerves. For a man with such a strong veneer in every other situation, when he was nervous, it all went to mush.
And he wasn't facing a dastardly foe or challenging a whole guild on his own or anything remotely dealing with danger at all. Nope. Those sorts of things? Laxus could deal with those sorts of things.
Rather, it happened to be the day that he and Mirajane's new daughter would be coming home.
It was a pretty big deal. They'd met the girl a few times and she seemed to like Mira enough. And Mirajane loved her already, Laxus could just tell.
He and the girl, however, just hadn't had a moment yet. Not that Laxus was certain what sorta thing he was expecting. He'd never connected in a paternal way with a child before, much less a teenage girl, so he had no idea what that would feel like.
If it felt that way. He wondered if maybe he just wasn't going to click with the kid. Wasn't going to have some sort of great relationship with her. It was a big possibility. He wasn't the most approachable guy in Earth Land. Only the Thunder Legion and Mirajane really got close to him, after all.
Which meant it was all up to him, to work harder to make himself readily available and completely open to bonding.
Again, nerves.
As the first time that she would be spending the night at their house, Laxus and Mirajane had both cleaned the place immaculately as well as stocked the fridge with all sorts of different stuff, not sure what she wanted. Then Mira bathed the dog and Laxus attempted to bathe the cat (he had the scratches to prove it) and they both, together, had designed Lisanna's old bedroom (which had been serving as a guest bedroom) into what they hoped their new daughter liked.
"It's fine if you don't," Mirajane told her on the walk back from the orphanage they'd picked her up from. She was walking between them, a sack of all her things in one hand, and Laxus kinda just wanted to buy her hundreds of things so she'd need hundreds of bags to carry them in and he wouldn't feel so badly about her only having one sack of things for so long.
Was that a parental feeling? He hoped so.
"You can completely redecorate it," his wife went on and Laxus only continued to stare down at the girl nervously. For someone that had been so pumped about the idea of adopting a child, he was suddenly completely petrified by it.
Sure, she wasn't a baby, not by a long shot, but still. What if she didn't like them?
Or worse...what if they didn't like her?
"I figured," Mirajane was going on, as she typically talked too much in situations where she felt overwhelmed, "that we could just go home for now and then, maybe, if you're up for it, go out to eat for dinner? Or not. I don't-"
"Maybe," the teenager mumbled, mostly speaking to her feet. She'd been really talkative to Mirajane, the first time they'd met, but the weight of what was happening seemed to finally be falling on her. Before, when they first met her, it had been the excitement, probably, over the prospect of finally having a real home that had her so chatty; now though, that she was headed there, clearly things had slowed down a bit.
Mira was looking over the girl's head then, staring at Laxus, as if urging him to say something. He only coughed before mumbling something of his own.
"I kinda want ice cream," he said, because kids liked that...right? What if she was lactose intolerant? Or had they gone over that back at the orphanage? He was nearly certain they'd said she wasn't allergic to anything; if not, should they have told him something like that? "If that's what you ladies want."
Oh damn! He said you ladies. Did that make him sound lame? He felt lame. And old. And foolish. And now she was going to think that he was lame and old and foolish and-
"That would be fine," the girl said softly, glancing at him. "If we did that."
Laxus blinked and Mira frowned a bit, muttering something about how they'd planned to head home, but that was okay. Laxus was already speaking again after being rewarded the first time.
"You guys can go home," he said excitedly, shocking both Mira and the girl as they stared. His tone was upbeat, all of a sudden, and he even bounced a bit as he walked. "I'll go get us ice cream. Whatever you want. So what do you want?" When Mira opened her mouth, he frowned at her. "Not you."
He'd more or less put the girl on the spot and she only stuttered, "I-I don't-"
"I'll get you a sundae." Because kids liked that. Right? "A real big one. Okay?" Then to Mirajane, he said, "I'll meet you back at home."
He was off after that, just rushing away, leaving the two standing there. When the girl looked to Mirajane, she only sighed.
"He's really...excited." And then she smiled. "We both are. Really. Laxus just...doesn't do well with being happy, sometimes. It makes him antsy." Then she reached over to gently pat the girl on the shoulder. "Come on. Let's get home, huh?"
It was only once they arrived that Mira stopped talking. She could tell that the girl was more than a little overwhelmed and only showed her to her room, telling her that she'd let her settled in and that, if she needed her, she'd just be right in the living room.
Then she went on the couch and waited as patiently as she could for something to happen.
They'd locked up Ralph, the cat, in their bedroom before they left the house and the dog was still out in the backyard, unaware that there was a new member in the house, waiting to be greeted, as they were unsure if she would be ready to meet their pets just yet.
It seemed, at the moment, as if they were all having a hard enough time getting adjusted to one another, after all.
At the sound, however, of a sharp banging (though it was actually kicking, as the man's hands were full) against the front door, she jumped up to go answer it.
"Wh- Laxus! You're dripping everywhere."
"Well, duh," he grumbled as he came through the door carrying multiple plastic containers full of dripping ice cream. "Help me!"
"Why did you buy so many-"
"Well, I got there and was just going to get her a sundae, right? But what if she didn't like vanilla ice cream? So then I was going to just get chocolate, but what if she didn't like that? I hear kids like cookie dough. Do kids like that? And what about sprinkles? I got some with sprinkles. But what if she thinks that I'm babying her? And then some people like whipped cream and others-"
"You're psychotic."
Growl. "Just help me! We can eat whatever she doesn't want." Then he glanced around. "Where is she, anyways?"
"In her room. She-"
"Great." He shoved some containers off on her. "Figure out which ones are definite noes and then gobble 'em up or stuff 'em through the doggy door for Raid."
"Laxus, we're not feeding the dog melted ice cream."
"Fine! Then stuff it down the sink."
"What's the point of getting them all for her if-"
"I don't want her to think that I'm desperate, Mira!"
"Well, you should have thought of that before you got mint flavored ice cream. Who eats mint flavored anything?"
"I don't know, Mira, that's why I got it!"
They both stopped to huff at one another, just long enough to hear a sound from the hall of the living room.
"Um," came the voice of their new daughter, "I just like regular vanilla. If that's okay."
Both Mirajane and Laxus looked over in shock at the sight of her there, in the hall, staring equally as shocked back out at them. Or, well, him, probably, and his over eagerness to please.
Laxus was quite sticky as he walked into the kitchen, going to set all of the containers down. Just as quickly he was moving to go wash up a bit in the sink. Mirajane giggled as she got them some spoons.
"Here," she sticking them in all of the containers. "We can all have a bit of them all. Except the mint. I mean, honestly, Laxus-"
"I was trying to be thoughtful!"
But they didn't want to fight in front of their new daughter, whether it be in jest or not, and left it at that. Mira started chatting her right up, in that way that she had with people, as if she wasn't racked with the same nerves Laxus was.
Then again, maybe she wasn't.
Huh. He hadn't considered that.
When Laxus was the girl's age, all he thought about was magic, so he'd assumed that was what they'd spend that first day discussing, but Mirajane seemed to be steering away from it quite effectively.
"If she's not interested in magic, Laxus," she'd told him the night before, "then that's fine. Isn't it?"
"Well, yeah, but we asked her, remember? That first time we met? And she said that she was interested in it and-"
"And there's other things, dragon, in life than magic." Then she'd giggled. "Especially at her age."
"Don't know what you're talkin' about." And he probably punched the air or something else to show off in that moment; he couldn't recall. "That's all I thought about back then! I-"
"And being a butt to your grandfather."
He'd deflated at that. "Mirajane-"
"It's the truth."
The conversation must have fallen after that and, well, no more of it was important. Just their usual bickering.
At the moment, however, Mirajane was proving him wrong as she spoke to the girl about everything, but magic. From how she wanted to take her shopping bright and early the next morning, if she was up for it, for anything and everything that she might need to how, when she was ready, Mira had a brother and a sister that she wanted her to meet.
"And my brother, Elfman," she went on, "has been dating this woman for a very long time. Well, sort of. So you'll meet her too, eventually. Evergreen. She's really good friends with Laxus too. Oh, and my sister, Lisanna? She just recently had a daughter, so there's that. And ooh, you have to meet Master."
"M-Master?" the girl repeated to which Mira smiled and apologized.
"It's just what I call him. Incorrectly these days, I suppose. I meant Laxus' grandfather." She smiled brightly. "Master Makarov. He''s not the Master of Fairy Tail any longer, but he was for most of the time I was growing up. I guess I have a hard time letting go of some things."
That was the closest, however, they came to speaking of the guild hall. Mira did make a slight mention to the girl of how she'd taken off from her job as barmaid up at the place for a bit, just so that they could get acclimated to one another, but other than that Fairy Tail, shockingly, seemed to be a scarce topic.
For a place that Mirajane devoted nearly all of her time to, it sounded remarkably absent in her entire being as she discussed topics ranging from their pets to even fashion. She seemed to be hoping that her past in modeling would excite the girl, but, though she paid attention, Laxus could tell that she wasn't that entertained.
"Mira," he said finally as he ate that disgusting mint ice cream because neither of them seemed to be, "you should let her talk some."
"Well, I was just-"
"We can talk about anything you want." And he stared across the table then, at his new daughter, her dark eyes avoiding his shyly. He tried to smile, just for her, but it came out a bit wonky. "And we can do anything you want. I mean, you probably want to get settled and all that, and that's great, but the entire day's up to you. Tomorrow too! I know Mira said you guys would go shopping, but if you wanna do anything else, go anywhere else, that's fine too. I'm not going out on a job for a bit, just like Mirajane. We just want to hang out with you. Wherever you want to do that."
And that made her brown eyes light up, if only slightly. Staring back into his then, she whispered, "Wherever?"
"Wherever." He even nodded a bit. "We can go on a vacation, if you'd like."
"Laxus," Mira started slowly, tone soft. She'd made plans, after all, for what they'd be doing and they didn't involve any sort of adventure. She wanted the girl to get settled, after all, at the house. At her home. "You-"
"When I was your age," Laxus went on, speaking right over Mirajane, "I used to like to travel out to this big bakery, a few towns over, where I'd waste all my reward money. They sell the biggest cakes there! And-"
"You really like eating, huh?" the girl asked softly, making Laxus lose a bit of his steam.
"W-Well-"
"I just thought that mages were more conscious about what they consumed."
"'Well, they are, but-"
"Laxus has a sweet tooth," Mira told her with a slight grin then. "A sweet fang, as it is."
Ignoring his wife, Laxus said, "If you don't want to go-"
"N-No. We can. If you want."
"It's not about what I want," he told her. "It's about what you want. Surely there's somewhere you've always wanted to go. Something you've always wanted to see. Have you ever been to the beach? An amusement park? What about hiking? Do you like hiking? Or-"
"You're coming off a bit strongly, Lax." Mira reached over to lay a hand on his arm. To the girl, she only said, "You can think about it, sweetie. He's just overly eager, is all. We'll have plenty of time to go on vacations. Anywhere you decide."
Things were left like that for a bit, as Mirajane's dog was scratching at the backdoor and, after asking if she was ready, it was decided that it was time for their daughter to meet what Laxus had no doubt his wife would insisting on calling her new siblings.
Bleh.
Things went well, with the dog, but they figured it would. Their dog, Raiden, was rather friendly and the girl claimed to love canines, so things went perfectly on that front.
Ralph, however, was another story.
"So it's your cat?" the girl asked when Laxus came into the living room with the orange feline snuggled up in his arms, hissing whenever the man tried to put him down to go meet her. "Laxus?"
"No." He even shook his head. "It's Mira's. She got it before we even got married, so-"
"He has a cat," Mira informed the girl from where she was next to her, on the floor, both rubbing Raid's tummy. "He just doesn't like to admit it."
The day felt more in motion from there. Mira and Laxus had both requested that their family and friends leave them alone for awhile, so that they could get to know their daughter first, and the agreement was upheld.
For the time being.
Laxus was nearly certain that when the seven day hold he'd set upon the Thunder God Tribe was up, they and the Strauss siblings would be hounding at the door, wanting to meet her.
She and Mirajane spent most of the day talking about different things as Laxus sat around and tried desperately to be involved. He'd always been a loner, at heart, and never felt the need to force a bond with anyone, but his new daughter was another story.
He wanted a connection immediately.
Fearing for this sort of thing, he'd preplanned in a few ways. After finding out that they'd been accepted by the orphanage (it honestly was pretty disheartening to find out how easy it was to acquire a child; it made Laxus wonder how many did so far nefarious purposes), he'd gone out and loaded up on board games and packs of cards and even bought the kid a bike (with the intention of buying himself one eventually and learning how to ride one in private; he'd been busy with other things, back when he was a child).
Laxus would force some damn bonding time if he had to.
Mira went along with him, thankfully, and even excused herself from one of the board games, so she could prepare them lunch. This should have given Laxus time to get close to his daughter, but for some reason, he felt tongue tied.
Luckily, she made up for it.
"You're a Dragon Slayer," she mumbled at one point as they sat there, on the floor of the living room, Ralph in his lap and Raid at her side, a game board between them. "Right? Laxus?"
"Yeah." He even nodded. "I'm a Lightning-"
"I know." She couldn't meet his eyes for some reason. "I have your..."
"My what?"
But she seemed embarrassed then, even blushing, quite deeply. Mira was calling out then though, for Raiden, in the kitchen. She'd probably dropped something on the floor and wanted him to eat it. The girl only ran off with the dog though, into the kitchen, and away from him.
Laxus only sat there dumbly.
What had that been about?
He didn't get a chance to find out, as after lunch, the girl backed off both he and Mirajane and claimed she was rather tired; she wanted to take a nap. Mira only assured her that they'd be there when she woke up and to call if she needed anything at all.
That gave Laxus time to go sit outside and sulk.
What had he done wrong?
No doubt having been nervous herself the night before, the girl probably got next to no sleep, so it was no shock to Mirajane and Laxus when she slept the afternoon away. After sunset, however, the woman finally went to check on her and bring her a sandwich for dinner.
"We could go out to eat, if you'd rather," she said as she cautiously came to sit on the end of the girl's bed, holding out the plate to her. "But I thought you'd just want to stay in. Then again, if it was up to Laxus, he'd have us heading out on some sort of adventure-"
"Thank you." The girl even bowed her head to Mira, as she accepted the plate. Stifling a yawn, she added, "I don't usually sleep so much, but-"
"You're fine." Mira only grinned at her. "I'm just glad that you feel so comfortable around us."
Laxus sat around in the living room, waiting for the girl to come back out, to ask her to play another board game with him, but she only left her room once, to go to the bathroom. Raid was far suaver than Laxus, it seemed, and fit perfectly in with his new housemate. When he followed her from the bathroom to her bedroom, she shut him into the room with her without a second thought.
That left Laxus and his kitten.
"Are you coming to bed?" Mira asked, eventually, as he only laid around on the couch, reading a book, while Ralph chilled on his chest. "Dragon?"
"Maybe later. I just… It's her first night, you know? Somewhere new? I want to be up. In case something happens."
Mira only shook her head and pressed a kiss to his before mumbling something or other about her love of him (or maybe Ralph) and heading off to bed.
So he laid around. And waited. He must have fallen asleep at some point and Mira must have also come to claim the cat, because when he awoke, it was dark, he was Ralph-less, and someone (his wife) had given him a blanket.
Mmmm.
He was hungry.
Rolling off the couch, he took some time to stretch and yawn and scratch at himself because, hey, it was late, before heading off to go investigate just what happened to all that leftover ice cream he'd shoved in the freezer.
It was waiting for him to devour it, so it seemed, as he found it just where he left it.
Perfect.
"Laxus?"
And he about died too, his senses all mixed up from him just waking and his mind only thinking of the ice cream. He'd been so focused in on it that he must have missed the sound of the dog and his new daughter leaving her bedroom and coming into the kitchen.
"Aurora," he whispered as he turned to stare at her, container of ice cream in one hand. "What are you doing up?"
And Raid just rushed right by him, to get to his doggy door (late night peeing waited for no man), leaving the two of them alone.
"The dog had to go to the bathroom," she said simply, pointing after him. "Um..."
"Raiden. His name's-"
"Yeah. He had to go pee, so I just-"
"What's that in your hand?" he cut her off, turning to face her fully then. The light from the still open freezer was the only thing allowing them to see one another. "Aurora?"
"I… I thought you might be up, so I wanted to bring you..."
"What is it?" He took a slow step towards her.
"It's just..." She was holding it out then too, and not looking at him. Laxus only stared hard at it in the darkness before frowning.
"A Sorcerer mag?" He glanced at her. "What-"
"I lied to you, before. You and your wife. Well, more like I didn't tell you the truth." Swallowing, the teen added, "I know who you are. Before I met you, I did. A lot of other kids in the orphanage used to talk about how they wanted to join guilds and we'd talk about the different ones and how we wanted to learn magic and… I always wanted to meet you." She blushed a bit, at that one, before adding quickly, "And your wife too. And I have your magazine interviews or, hers, I mean, because you don't do them, but I have records of your fights and I even have-"
"Aurora." He came closer then, reaching out to gently pat her on the head. "Why would you keep that from us? It's okay." Laxus even laughed, just a bit. "We-"
"I thought that you wouldn't… That you would think that I only wanted to go with you because..."
"I don't care why you came to us. I'm just glad." And he meant that. He could already feel it, deep down, that he would be. When she looked up at him, he added, "If there's anyone in Fairy Tail you want to meet though-"
"W-Well...there is one..."
And he was getting ready to bite his tongue too, as he was nearly certain that she'd say the Salamander, because all the kids liked the damn Salamander, or at least he assumed they did, because he was practically a kid, in spirit, and he-
"Can you introduce me to the cats?"
"The what?" He almost dropped his ice cream.
"The cats," she explained before moving to flip through the old issue of Sorcerer. Then she pointed out a picture to him that had Happy floating around in the corner. "I've seen them before, in these pictures, but… I really want to meet the black one! Someone said that he can grow and fights with a sword and-"
"Yeah." Laxus let out a sigh of relief. "I can introduce you to the cats."
She looked just about ready to walk away and he was going to go back to his ice cream when she suddenly stopped. "And Laxus?"
"Hmmm?" He stared at her. "Need something?"
"Can you..." She seemed most nervous then, even kicking her feet a bit. "Can you teach me magic?"
He tried hard not to smile then, to be serious, but one broke through. "Of course I can. I can sense some in you. All there has to be is a bit. I have such clout down at the guild, kid, I think I might just get you in as a member. Express line."
"R-Really?"
"If that's what you want." Then he frowned. "Err, uh, you should probably shop around though, you know? I don't wanna force you into anything. Fairy Tail's cool and all, but… I mean, you could leave it, later, when you get older anyways, but still I… I don't wanna force ya into-"
"No." She even shook her head then, grinning at him, finally, truly. "I wanna be a part of Fairy Tail."
And Laxus couldn't help, but to grin back. "Great. I… Great."
Raiden was rushing back into the kitchen then and happily went off with Aurora to bed, where Laxus was figuring the mutt would sleep from then on. It was just as well; Ralph hated having to share a bed with the canine anyways.
And when he finally went to bed, Laxus might have done so with a bit of pep in his step, not the least bit upset when he 'accidentally' woke Mira up by bouncing into bed.
"Laxus," she complained. "What-"
"I think," he told her as Ralph jumped up on his chest to slumber some more, "that you better go ahead and conceded, Mirajane."
"What are you talking about?"
"I'm definitely the favorite parent."
"Laxus, are you drunk?"
He only wiggled his toes a bit and said, "Guess who just basically gushed to me about how she thinks I'm the best mage ever and loves Fairy Tail and would be honored if I would bestow upon her the grace of learning magic from me?"
Mira blinked. "I'm assuring you're talking about Aurora, but I'm also nearly certain that it didn't happen that way, so-"
"It doesn't matter how it happened." He gently tapped Ralph on the head. "It just matters that it happened. And that's all."
"I told you not to pressure-"
"I didn't. She came to me." He paused at that, reflecting, before saying, "I think I even recall her saying that she thought Take Over was a shitty magic and that she wanted you to never talk about it to her or try and influence her in any way."
"Now I know you're full of it."
"Just admit defeat, Mirajane. I'm the better parent. Day one goes to Laxus Dreyar." He nuzzled his head against Ralph's. "And expect it from this point forth."
"She and I had plenty of-"
"You bored her with modeling stories all day. I wowed her in the ten minutes that we actually spoke." He turned his head on the side to stare at her. "I won."
Mira only narrowed her eyes though before snuggling back into bed. "There's always tomorrow."
"Yeah." He let out a long breath before whispering, "But I'm planning on taking that too."
It's kinda fun to lay ground work on a new Laxus and Mirajane family/universe. I haven't been able to stop thinking about this one since that one-shot a few days ago and, well, it's just going to be a thing from now on, I think.
I'd kinda touched on the adoption issue in Parenthood, back when Laxus and Mirajane thought about giving up Nathan, but I was pretty vague on it, as I was here. Children in Fairy Tail, when their parents are dead, seem to just be left for dead themselves, but I have to believe with as heavy influence as the Church seems to have and the fact that Fiore is a kingdom that no doubt pays taxes which must get used for something, that in some areas, orphanages do exist. They're just run poorly, probably, and they more or less just give away the children, I figured, more than adopt them out. They probably end up with the unlucky children that don't find Makarovs to take them in under the pretense of them actually doing something for the guild other than running around, wrecking towns, and just annoying the others.
A new chapter of Accidents and Incidents should be up next, however, unless I decide to just go ahead and finish Dinner Party before then. Definitely one or the other though.