Just a few quick things...I posted this story before but I wasnt happy with it so I took it down and am in the process of editing it and changing some things

And I obviously don't own Fairy Tail

Thanks for reading! I hope you like it and I love to hear feedback!

Not My Blondie

The Fairy Tail guild had been through so much pain and loss in the last seven...err..fourteen years; that damned time loss always messed him up. And as much as he regretted it, some of that pain was directly caused by him. When he thought back on that day, he still couldn't actually believe he'd let it get so out of control. The Thunder Palace? Fucking Fairy Law?! He could have called it off at any point, saved everyone the pain he caused. He supposed though, that if any good came out of it at all, it was that he'd been kicked out of the guild, excommunicated. It had been for the best, he knew that. It had changed him in a lot of ways, gave him new perspectives and made him a better man. But Gods, he hated that he'd lost it like that; it ate at him nearly everyday for the last fourteen years. Out of all of the reasons he regretted it though, he hated most that she had seen him lose his shit, that her first impression of him had been of a power hungry, self absorbed dick, but that's what he had been. She had been right in the middle of it all, had been so new to the guild, but fought like she'd always been there and had been hurt because of him, because of his arrogance. That sunspot of a beautiful, curvaceous woman. His Blondie.

'No, not my Blondie', he internally corrected, 'she'll never be mine. No matter how much I want her'.

He quickly shoved those thoughts and feelings back into the box he kept them in just like he always did when they reared their heads. He didn't deserve her light and he knew that, not many people did. It didn't matter how many times she had told him he was forgiven long ago, by herself and by everyone else, a part of him just couldn't believe her. Aside from that year at Fantasia, she had been through so many horrible situations and battles. Problems always seemed to go looking for her, but she always managed to come out of her battles shining like the light of the guild she was deemed to be. Even if some of them took more time to recover from than others. He wasn't sure there was anybody who truly deserved a woman like Lucy, but as far as he was convinced, he had lost all rights to be with her from the very beginning; when Phantom Lord attacked the guild and he'd said the only way he'd help was if Lucy became "his".

He couldn't help but physically cringe every time that thought arose. Besides, she always reeked of the fucking Salamander and they were fucking glued at the hip, arm, back, and fucking funny-bone. They were ALWAYS together and despite Lucy denying their relationship was anything more than a platonic partnership or best friends to anyone who asked, there had to be something else going on because he couldn't understand why, in the five years since the guild had re-banded, she had only gone on a handful dates.

'Which all ended pretty disastrously', he thought in dark satisfaction.

He didn't deserve the loyalty of his team either, but he knew hell would sooner freeze over before he would be able to convince them of that; but, he wasn't going any further down this hole of pity he found himself in this morning. This type of wallowing was reserved for late nights at bars around Magnolia while he drowned himself in ale and sought after a warm body to take out his sexual frustrations on. So with another sigh, he came back to reality and continued on with his day.

He sat at their self-appointed table on the second floor of the building watching the daily run-arounds of his fellow guild mates, bored out of his mind all the while his agitation grew by leaps and bounds.

He may have had his sound pods on and his music cranked all the way up, but seeing as he was a Dragon Slayer, he could still hear Bixslow cackling while his babies annoyed the piss out of Evergreen and as her screeching got louder his temper grew shorter.

He loved those idiots, he may almost never say it, but he really did. However, despite his affection towards them, if they didn't knock it the fuck off in the next thirty seconds he was going to run so much lightning through them that they would be unconscious for the next two days. And just as he was about to make good on that promise, shimmering purple runes appeared plastered across their mouths without a single word uttered from their caster and there was silence. Beautiful, blissful silence. Thank the fucking gods for Freed. Apparently, he was already done with their shit this early in the day, too. He gave Ever and Bix a stern and cold look when the newly made mimes had begun to protest at the loss of their voices and promptly returned to reading the huge tome spread out on the table in front of him. Laxus smirked at the trio before he closed his eyes and turned down his music to focus on the sounds of the guild.

He wasn't worried about the two idiots who sat across from him. He knew that the runes would disappear when they had calmed down from their stupid bickering, they always did.

He was, however, a bit surprised that the guild was almost peaceful. Well, as peaceful as Fairy Tail could actually be. There had only been two brawls this morning and they were both less than eventful. One between the speed freak and the fat plant magic dude over something to do with the little blue haired bookworm, Levy. He still wasn't too sure on their names. It had only lasted for a couple of minutes before said bookworm came back from the library carrying a new stack of books and they promptly shut the hell up to dote on her. And the other was just a friendly brawl between Elfman and his little sister, who was fed up with his proclamations of manliness.

The rest of the guild seemed normal, but something was missing. Cana was sat in her usual seat at the bar hugging her barrel of booze as she all but chugged it. Mira was cleaning while humming to herself happily, his gramps had been away on council business for the past week, and everyone else was either on a job or hanging around socializing. He racked his brain for the reason it was so quiet today and it only dawned on him when he picked up a few familiar scents. A combination of steel and sugar, frost and mint, campfires, and fish started to grow stronger around the outside of the guild as the minutes ticked by.

'Ah..Team Natsu's just getting back from their mission. That explains a lot.', he scoffed, 'just great. More goddamned damage reports for me to fill out for the old geezer.'

He internally groaned at that thought. He didn't understand how they could break so many things at once. Maybe he'd fry Natsu a little bit for payment, later. He stood up and, deciding that now was as good a time as ever to go get started on the days paperwork, started walking towards his office with a goodbye nod to his teammates. Blondie would be up a little later anyways to clue him in on the full extent of her team's most recent demolition.

With that thought, he froze mid-reach for the door knob outside his office. He couldn't smell strawberries. If he could smell the other idiots he should have been able to smell Lucy's strong and delicious scent of warm strawberries.. He took another sniff of the air just to double check and sure enough, there was nothing.

'Where the hell is she? Did she get hurt on the job? Did some fucking Dark Guild abduct her again? Why does that happen so often?! What if she's in the hospital and-LAXUS!', he mentally scolded himself, 'she's fucking fine and you know it, you moron! She probably just went home for a damn bath!'

Almost as if on cue, the guild doors slammed opened to reveal the red-headed amazon, the flame-brain, the ice freak, and that annoying blue cat. He heard the tell-tale shouts of the guild welcoming home their returning nakama and offering congratulations on another job completed. He heard the four idiots shuffle to the bar and order their usuals from Mira, acting perfectly normal and with that he continued his way into his office, dropped down into his chair, and let out a groan as he all but slammed his head down onto his desk; stacks of papers trembling under the force of it.

'This has got to fucking stop, man', he internally chastised himself, 'Your obsession with Blondie is way the fuck out of line. Why the fuck did you let yourself get so attached to her!? She just helps you with the guild paperwork that the old man shoves off on you. You're friends and guildmates. It's not like she's even remotely interested in you and even if she was, you can't have her.'

And that's what he'd been telling himself for almost two years now.

The first year back since the guild had be rebuilt and they had all begun to come together again little by little, had been insanely chaotic. Even by Fairy Tail standards. The council had been destroyed in the battle with Tartaros and as much as they were a huge pain in everyone's asses, they were needed to enforce order and laws. Without their presence, dark guilds had begun to pop up around Fiore like weeds and even years later there were still many that existed. So, Fairy Tail along with a few other guilds spent a majority of that year establishing a new council that would hopefully work just a little bit better than the last one.

The paperwork and forms had been a special kind of hell and because his gramps had only agreed to return to the guild as it's master so that he could train Laxus for the position himself, that meant Laxus was stuck doing the bulk of said paperwork.

By the end of the year, there were more forms and file cabinets than office space; that's when Lucy had decided to take pity on him and thank Mavis she did. He hadn't seen much of her that year because her, Natsu, and Erza had been gone for long stretches of time searching for Gray to drag is sorry ass home. But, when they found him and they were all back for good Lucy started to notice the ever growing stacks of papers that would even sometimes reach out of his office.

One day he decided that he desperately needed a break and took the first week-long mission he saw off of the request board. He came back to the guild 4 days later with the job already completed and he was pissed off that it hadn't taken as long as he'd thought. He thought about picking another one and just leaving again but he knew that he had responsibilities to take care of. He was still tense and wanted to do anything but the paperwork he knew would be in his office, but all of that tension left his body when he'd opened his office door and had been overwhelmed by the sweet scent that was Lucy. His eyes widened in shock when he saw that the stacks of papers had not only been reduced by half, but they were all organized by type of form and in the order that they needed to be completed. He could have broken into fucking song at what she'd done, he was so tickled. He had promptly found out from the guild's files where she lived and marched over to her little cottage on the outskirts of Magnolia to profusely thank her. She'd been really surprised to see him there, but once she recovered from her shock, she told him that it really wasn't a big deal and that being raised the heiress of the massive company her father had managed, she had learned to do legal paperwork from a young age.

He growled in annoyance at his idiocy and could have slapped himself for overlooking something that would have made the last year of his life so much easier. She then proceeded to tell him that she would be more than willing to help him with it whenever he needed and before he even thought about it, he took her up on the offer on the spot without hesitation. He remembered she'd giggled at that and shot him her signature heart melting smile before they parted ways.

The next two years had been great for Laxus. He had grown much better at filling out the counsel's paperwork thanks to Lucy's teachings and organizing. The only thing he really still struggled with was the finance side of it all, but she had taken the majority of the reigns on that because, one, he was terrible at it and two, she said she enjoyed it.

'What a freak', he chuckled to himself as he remembered.

It wasn't until those two years had come and gone that he'd realized with every brilliant smile, angelic giggle, feathery touch, and kind gesture she'd shown to him during their hours locked in his office, that he'd fallen in love with the beautiful and kind celestial maiden.

She was so sweet and pure of heart that it was almost sickening at times, but he lived for the moments she would let her feisty nature shine through her walls unchecked.

It didn't really work anymore, but he still called her 'Blondie' just to get a rise out of her so she would push back at him; and while she may still blush at some of his cruder comments she usually retorted back with something almost just as crass and there were a few occasions where she'd actually managed to make him blush with her own sharp tongue, not that he'd ever admit it. Oh no, he'd take that to the grave.

From the day that he realized that was head over heels for her and up until today, two years later, he had watched over her and comforted her when she was upset at her team, her past, or more often than not, herself.

He'd find his mind straying at the possibility that she might feel the same way sometimes when she would look at him a certain way or do something for him that was just a little bit outside of the usual, and especially the times when her touch lingered just a little too long, but then the pain he'd caused would resurface in his mind and he new that could never be the case.

His inner dragon was never very pleased with his revelation and Laxus was convinced that said beast wanted Lucy more than even he did. It had found a suitable mate in her and was very adamant about claiming her before someone else came along and got her, like the Salamander.

He was quite certain the Flaim Brain's inner beast also saw Lucy as a likely mate and that pissed both him and his dragon off.

Needless to say, the first time he had actually heard the beast in the back of his mind he promptly freaked the fuck out and that was years before he had even met Lucy. He tried not to run down to the guild library when he realized it had something to do with being a dragon slayer. Books had always been his solace ever since weird things attributed to dragon slaying magic had begun to happen to him as a kid after his old man had shoved the damn lacrima into his skull. After all, he wasn't raised by a dragon like the other slayers in the guild, so he would take what he could get.

It was in the guilds library that he had found a pretty extensive collection of books on dragon slayers and their magic, courtesy of Levy when Natsu had joined the guild. He'd taken all the ones he hadn't read before and went home. He remembered spending a week locked up in his house reading and learning about dragons, their mating rituals, and how that affected the dragon slayers.

It turns out that it's actually pretty fucking complicated. Yeah, he could've asked Freed to help him and he knew the man would have jump at the opportunity, but that would also mean that Laxus would've had to swallow his pride and he wasn't very good at that.

So with much effort on his part he learned that dragons don't have a particular season in which they mate, unlike most animals. They're more like humans in the way that once they reach a certain age they become sexually active as they begin to search for another to spend their lives with. However unlike humans, dragons actively and consciously search out a mate and rarely rest until they find and claim one. They also truly do mate for life and they do so magically. Their magics and, inadvertently, their life-forces intertwine together so that one mate won't ever be forced to live when the other has died.

But that's just the dragons.

Dragon Slayer mating was just a little more complicated. But being simply stated both the human and dragon portions of the slayer must come to an agreement on an individual in order to make them their mate. The human side often seeks out a partner that can bring them happiness in life, in whatever form that happiness happens to come to the human. However, the dragon portion of the slayer seeks out a mate that would be able to put them in their place in both aspects of magic and behavior; not to mention the dragon must deem them suitable to bare and care for future offspring.

But it's a multi-step process that requires the effort of both mates so of course, a mate bond can't be created if the proclaimed mate doesn't want it. So with that information he obtained almost two decades ago, Laxus came to the conclusion that he would probably always be alone.

The only two women he'd ever met at that point that could even come close to besting him in battle were The Demon-Mirajane and The Titania Erza Scarlet; and while at one point his dragon was clearly interested in Mira because she was undeniably strong and also had the potential to be a good mother, he was very against it due to the fact the he was pretty sure Mira was actually insane and had a few too many demons to talk to in her pretty little head. Luckily both him and the dragon could agree that they weren't going to touch Scarlet with sixty foot pole. It would truly take a fearsome creature to tame that beast and it sure as hell wasn't going to be them.

But all of that changed years later at the first Grand Magic Games the Fairies attended after coming home from Tenrou. When Lucy began that spell against the red haired bitch in his father's guild during their match, his dragon practically began to purr from the amount of magic she truly possessed and wielded. Laxus himself, who had only noticed her nice figure, was surprised at just how beautiful she looked while she quite literally glowed and he was amazed that she not only had the power to open a passageway to another realm but she was able to open one big enough to send through planets to attack her opponents all the while holding out one of the Zodiacs to assist her.

She was amazing.

He couldn't understand why her team didn't talk about her magical abilities while the stories of their missions were recounted when a guild mate asked. But that was probably just because it was Natsu usually doing the storytelling and he was pretty centered around himself when it came to battles.

Over the next few years, he was disappointed that he could only find basic information on Celestial Magic and this time he caved and asked Freed if he had any books or knew of anything Laxus didn't; but Freed wasn't able to supply him with anything either because Celestial Magic had come to be considered a lost one and there was very little information on it that still remained.

Freed instead took some of the books Laxus had managed to find that he hadn't. He had let his curiosity be known to her on several occasions while they worked on paperwork but after the war with Tartaros, she would always manage to politely steer conversations about her magic to other topics; something that he was pretty sure she didn't do before then from what he had heard others in the guild say.

By the time he was finished with the amount of paperwork he had set out to complete for the day it was already dark outside. 'Blondie didn't show up today', he thought; just the slightest bit annoyed and a maybe a little worried.

Deciding that he'd had enough of the walls of his office, he made his way home taking his usual route, even though it was the longer one. Taking this way he would be able to hear if Lucy was home as he passed by her house. He just needed to make sure she really was okay and if he knew she was at home, then he would be at ease. Otherwise, the damn dragon who had become more active and harder to control as of late wouldn't let him sleep; not that he would be able to anyways. There were too many nightmares his sleep could claim from missions and battles gone sour, and memories he didn't want to relive.

When he got to her humble little cottage he stopped walking so he could hear down the cobbled road that led to her voice. His ears twitched slightly as he heard her talking to someone. He thought about not listening and continuing on his trek home but his curiosity won out as he tuned into her conversation.

"I'm fine, honestly!", he heard her complain, "It's just a couple of scratches, you don't have to do all this. The only cut that needed dressing was taken care of before we even came home; and by you I might add!", she tacked on sounding annoyed.

"No Princess," the voice, he could now identify as her maid spirit, started, "If I don't dress them properly you could end up with scars and I won't let that happen if I can prevent it.", she ended sternly.

Laxus heard Lucy exaggerate a sigh, "Alright Virgo, you win. But only because I really just want eat and then pass out." Laxus chuckled at her defeat before he resumed his walking.

He didn't like that she was hurt or that she was so exhausted, but she was all-in-all okay and that was enough to put him and the dragon at ease for the evening. So he walked home, took a shower, and dropped into bed to attempt sleeping.

The next morning Laxus woke up with a killer hangover and in some stranger's bed. He tried to remember how he got here and was rewarded a painful throb behind his eyes for his effort.

He remembered waking up from a nightmare a few hours after he got home. He'd been drenched in sweat and trembling. From then, he promptly got up to go shower, threw on one of his old purple dress shirts, a pair of black slacks, completed the look with his signature coat, and went to the closest bar to drown himself in hard liquor. But after a couple bottles of whiskey he couldn't remember a damn thing.

As he sat up in the foreign bed, he remembered what usually happened when he would go out drinking after having a nightmare. So he looked over to his right and sure as shit, there she was. Some nameless and unimportant woman with blonde hair was laid next him, stark naked. Every time he'd get blackout drunk, he'd wake up in the morning with a blonde haired woman next to him. And it was never the one he wanted it to be. He knew what drunk him was doing and he really didn't appreciate it. He could definitely admire that this one had a few good curves and she was attractive enough but she couldn't hold a candle to the radiant star Lucy was.

He could hear the woman's breathing begin to change and saw she was beginning to stir awake so he grabbed his clothes that were strewn around the bedroom, found his coat delicately propped over a chair in the kitchen and left the apartment to try and find his way back home.

It was just a little past noon when he staggered up the path towards to guild doors and at the ever present smell of alcohol, his stomach churned a little; but, he continued walking, fully intent on just going up to his office to sleep this off on his couch.

He'd taken to wearing his sound pods less over the years and he usually just kept them in his office for when he needed a break from working, but right about now, he wished he had them because the guild was in full swing and that was the last thing his hangover needed. As he pushed open the guild doors he caught a wooden mug that would have otherwise hit him in the head and his attention was immediately drawn to Lucy as she sat at the bar. She was talking animatedly to Mira as she sipped the strawberry smoothie she ordered everyday. He was happy she was home, everything felt whole when she was.

'How did any of us ever live without her before?', Laxus thought, 'She's such a big part of everyone's life at the guild...she really is our light.'

It wasn't the first time he had thought that and he knew it wouldn't be the last. He made his way over to the bar and sat down with two empty seats between him and Lucy. He threw the mug he caught on the way in, into the dirty dishes bin and he folded his arms down onto the counter, placing his face into the crook of his elbow.

"Oi Mira", he grunted simply, "hangover." He glanced up from his elbow to see her smirking at him before she disappeared into the kitchen to fill his indirect order.

When Lucy got up from her stool to close the distance between them, his dragon purred to itself.

"Geeze Sparky", she giggled as she placed the back of her hand to his forehead, feeling his temperature and he relished in the innocent touch, "you look like a fate worse than death. Did you drink a liquor store again?", she teased.

"Don't start with me Blondie", he emphasized, "its way too damn early to deal with all the sunshine that comes out of your ass."

"Alright then, you grumpy dragon.", she said as she retracted her hand and smiled, "I'm gonna go sit with my team, you should probably go sleep it off in your office after you finish Mira's mystery drink because you're burning up. Plus," she continued, sounding apologetic, "Master called Mira this morning to say he would be back home before tonight."

He audibly groaned at what she was implying which earned him another adorable giggle before she left to go sit with her destructive partners. He knew that once his gramps got back from his time with the council he would want to complain about it to him and want to know what exactly he'd been up to in the week he was gone. He never looked forward to it.

Mira came back and sat the horrible smelling drink in front of him. He didn't know what was in it, nobody but Mira did, but nobody ever questioned it because it was the best cure to ever be found for a hangover. He was convinced that she had gotten the recipe from one of the demons that she took over and the one time he had actually asked her, her face cracked and she sent him an evil smile that sent a shiver straight up his spine before returning to her usual sugar sweet composure.

He'd never ask again and before the contents of his mug literally moved again, he downed the glass in two gulps. He gave the demon a 'thank you' grunt before he made his way up the stairs to his office.

It was times like that with Lucy that made him appreciate her so much. He may act like a loner but he really did want the affection of his family and she was the best at that. She knew exactly what buttons to push, could recognize when he wasn't in the mood or was at his limit, and knew just how much space to give him.

His last thought before he passed out on the couch in his office with his arm thrown over his eyes was, 'I'll never find another like her'.