As You Wish…
Laxus was laying in bed when his mom came into the room. She opened the curtains that he'd kept so carefully closed all this week.
"Honey, you have a visitor," she said with a smile.
"I don't want to see anyone," he said with a scowl. "Tell them to go away."
"I could tell him that," she said smiling down at the pale figure in the bed, "But that won't really stop him from coming up to see you."
"Who is it?"
"Grandpa Makarov."
"Awww mom, can't you tell him I'm sick?"
"Tell him you're sick?" she gave him the look he knew meant that there was no way she'd tell that kind of lie for him. "That's why he's here."
" He'll pinch my cheek. I hate that!" he practically whined hoping to get her on his side.
The blond woman sat on the side of her son's bed. "Maybe he won't, this time," she said brightly. He knew he was doomed.
The door burst open suddenly. There, posing in the doorway, was grandpa holding a brightly wrapped package in his hands.
" Heeeeey. How's the sickie? Huh?" he asks as he walked over to the bed.
With one hand he reached out and pinched one of the boy's cheeks between thumb and forefinger. Laxus just looks at his mom in an accusatory way. "See?! I told you he would do this," his eyes seemed to say. His mother just gives a little sigh.
"I think I'll leave you two fellas alone," she says as she heads toward the door. "I'm just downstairs if you need me."
She sees the gray haired gentleman nod an acknowledgement before she closes it and heads to put the kitchen in order.
"I brought you a special present" the old man says with a twinkle in his eye.
" What is it?"
"Open it up." He lays the colorful present in his grandson's lap.
Laxus tears the brightly printed paper off the small rectangular package and stares at the dull, unimpressive object.
"A book?" he asks in obvious disappointment.
"That's right, when I was your age entertainment was called books! And this is a special book. It was the book my father used to read to me when I was sick, and I used to read to YOUR father," he sat in the chair beside the bed as he took the book out of the boy's unresisting hands, "and today I'm going to read it to you."
Laxus looked skeptically at his grandpa. "Has it got any sports in it?" he asks doubtfully.
"Are you kidding?" the old man asks mockingly offended by the question. "Fencing, fighting, torture," he emphasized the word, "revenge, giants, monsters, chases, escapes, true love! Miracles!"
Laxus laid back in the bed, trying not to sound excited, "That doesn't sound too bad," he says as he settled down waiting for the story to begin.
"Thank you, your confidence is overwhelming," Makarov says to the young man lying in the bed with his eyes closed. "The Fairy Tail Bride, by S. Mavis. Chapter 1…"