Wednesday morning came around sooner than everyone expected, and as Bickslow slowly and sluggishly made his way towards his class for that morning, he wasn't the least bit surprised to see that the campus wasn't anywhere near as crowded as it usually was, with plenty of people ditching their morning classes to stay in a dark room and sleep away their hangovers.

Bickslow wished he could be one of the lucky ones doing that. His head was pounding and he felt like utter crap following his night, but he hadn't expected anything less. It was Halloween and his twenty-first birthday. There was just no scenario that existed where he wouldn't have ended up completely smashed and stumbling out of Cana's room in the same sorority house as the party he'd been to in the early hours of that morning. The brunette was always fun to mess around with, and when he couldn't be bothered looking for someone else to screw, he always went to Cana, just because she was always willing.

When he'd gotten back to his dorm that morning just to nap, shower, and get changed, the temptation to do exactly what Gajeel was doing was far too strong. Damn the guy and all of his afternoon classes. Granted, Bickslow's classes were all late morning at the very least, but on Wednesdays… Well, not anymore. On Wednesdays, he had another class to go to now, and even when he was hungover, he was going to go.

After Lucy had disappeared back up the stairs, Bickslow hadn't seen her again for the rest of the night. Not even when he'd been leaving that morning. After meeting her though, he'd instantly gone and found Natsu and Gray to find out more about her. It had taken a little bit to get them to stop arguing and actually listen to him, but he'd got through eventually. And when they'd only told him that she was majoring in English and Literature and just happened to be taking a few classes that he knew for certain his mother taught…

Bickslow had quickly realised that he could use that to his advantage.

So that's where Bickslow was going on Wednesday morning. He had dragged himself out of bed, hungover and all, because he needed to go see the sassy blonde, and maybe even ask her out. When he'd told Gajeel that he'd fallen in love with a girl he'd just met but also hadn't, the man had only laughed and said he'd had too much to drink already.

Getting to the English building, he stifled a yawn as he made his way into the corridor and headed towards the lecture theatre his mother had all of her lectures in that year. He'd only been in there once, with all of his lectures and labs being on the opposite side of the campus, but he knew it was definitely a step up from the rooms she'd been using when Bickslow had just started. He was proud of his mother, and even if going from small rooms the size of high school classrooms to full sized lecture theatres wasn't exactly something to be proud of, he was. The only reason Hargeon University was even offering that course was because of her, and it had grown a lot in the years she'd been teaching there.

Finding the room without any difficulty, given that it was right down the end of the main corridor on the first floor – the flashiest and grandest room in the building needed big double doors and a flashy sign that said Lecture Theatre 1 right above the door – he pushed them open and walked into the large room. His mother, the lecturer, wasn't there yet, but he didn't expect otherwise. The class wasn't due to start until nine a.m. as it was, and he still had a few more minutes to go before she would walk in and start getting things ready to teach her class.

He saw the blonde who'd only been on his mind all night and morning sitting just a few rows from the front with a blue haired girl who looked strangely familiar, and a wide grin split his lips as he briskly walked across the front of the theatre and towards the section she was sitting on off on the side, and up the stairs to her row. "Morning, Cosplayer," Bickslow greeted as he took the seat next to her and dropped his laptop and bag on the desk that swung up from the side of each chair.

Lucy turned away from her conversation with Levy and only narrowed her eyes at the blue and black haired man now sitting next to her. She remembered who he was, but in the few months she'd been taking that class, she had never once seen Bickslow in it. And sure, at the start of the semester, there had been a good couple hundred of people sitting in that same lecture theatre with her, but people stopped turning up over time, not surprisingly, and now there were only half that. She still hadn't seen him though, and she could only wonder just what the hell he was doing there that morning.

"Good morning, He Who Shall Not Be Named," she smirked. "How's your hangover?"

"I'm dealing with it, thank you very much," Bickslow responded with a light chuckle as he opened up his laptop. "Did you finish your paper?"

Lucy nodded. "I did actually. Just in time for when Cana decided to bring some boy back into her room. God, they were loud," she muttered. She'd barely been able to get any sleep after about three-thirty in the morning as soon as the sorority's resident drunkard who just happened to have the room right next to hers had stumbled through the door laughing along with some random guy. The worst part though, apart from her roommate, Levy, having an ability to sleep through absolutely anything, was that Cana's bed was up against the same wall that her own was. And all night and early morning, she'd had to listen to the goddamn headboard hitting the wall over and over and one of her sorority sisters moan some guy's name. She hadn't heard what his name was, but it had been pretty obvious he had been completely rocking her world.

And bed.

Bickslow only lifted a hand to rub at the back of his neck. He hadn't thought Cana had been that loud, and he'd literally been right there. But he did feel just a little bad that he'd ruined the blonde's sleep. She seemed like a nice girl and he still really wanted to get to know her, and still ask her out. "Well, I would say sorry, but I mean… Birthday sex is kinda great so…" Can I turn this into asking her out? Nah, probably not. She probably won't take too kindly to finding out I was the reason she was awake all night.

She eyed Bickslow curiously before her eyes went wide as a quiet groan of disgust slipped past her lips. So the Dark Lord was the mystery guy. That was… Something she didn't really need to know. At all. "Ugh. I really didn't need to know that it was you. But seriously, just make sure you and your girlfriend keep it down if it's that late. Levy might be able to sleep through it, but I can't," she said quickly as she opened up her books and got ready for the lecture.

"Wait. Levy?" Bickslow blinked as he leant around the blonde and looked towards the small blue haired woman on the other side of her. That was why she looked familiar. He grinned widely as recognition crossed his face. Levy damn McGarden. He hadn't seen her in years, not since he'd graduated, and who would have thought she'd end up in Hargeon? "Levy! Long time no see, Levs."

"Hello, Bickslow," she said softly with a small smile. "Happy birthday for yesterday, by the way. I heard you enjoyed yourself."

"Thanks, Levmeister. And, I did. I did indeed," he chuckled as he sat back in his chair and folded his arms. Ah, he'd always liked Levy. She had always been a good kid. Always with her nose in a book and keeping it out of places it didn't belong. For a while, he'd joked about how the blue haired girl who was mostly in the library between classes would be the perfect girl for Gajeel, just because she was the complete opposite of him. Bickslow only wished he'd introduced them before they'd graduated. He was sure they'd have hit it off instantly.

But now he has that blue haired bookworm and he doesn't even know her na—holy fucking shit. He turned back to Levy with a wider grin than before, and she only looked back at him with as much confusion as Lucy was. "Holy shit, it's you!" Bickslow said excitedly.

"Excuse me?"

"You're the bookworm," he said a little softer. "You're the one that Gajeel likes." It all made sense. Small, blue haired woman who had a penchant for having her nose in a book. It was Levy fucking McGarden, and it was perfect.

"T-That was… H-Him?" Levy stuttered as her cheeks became dusted with pink and she tried to sink down in her chair. She'd thought the black haired man she'd seen a few times over the last few months had looked familiar, but he'd never learned his name. She hadn't even met him in high school, but she'd seen him with Bickslow around town or between classes many times. But if the strangely cute guy in the class she'd walked into on her first day was the same one that she knew was Bickslow's best friend… Well, she was in for a world of trouble.

Bickslow laughed as he quickly glanced down to the lecturer as she walked in and over to her podium. He still had a few more minutes before she'd be starting the lecture, so he was fine – he would know, after all. Aside from her being his mother, he'd taken that exact class in his first year and passed with flying colours. Turning back to Levy and past the seriously confused blonde, he said, "He's changed a bit, but yeah. Totally called you two being perfect for each other years ago." A haircut and a few piercings getting taken out can make a whole lot of difference, as it turns out.

As Levy only shook her head – she barely knew Gajeel at all, but they most definitely were not perfect for each other – and got her things ready for note taking, her highlighters and books they had been assigned to read all neatly getting laid out in front of her, Lucy could only look between the two with her brows drawn together as she tried to figure out just what was going on.

She knew about Levy's little crush on the unknown man, because she'd teased her about it more than she should have. But she'd only met Bickslow the previous night, and even though Levy had started at the beginning of the year instead of in the second semester like Lucy had, having put off starting university for a little while to spend time with her family after her mother's health started to deteriorate, she'd never once heard Levy talk about Bickslow at all. It was possible they'd met earlier that year and that she just hadn't found it necessary to bring up that she seemed like she was almost friends with someone that everyone in her sorority house had warned her to stay away from, but Lucy didn't think that was the case.

No, she was sure that it was something else, and Lucy wanted to know just what that something was. "Uh… So how exactly do you two know each other?" she asked the two on either side of her.

"We went to high school together," Bickslow answered.

"Huh? You went to school in Magnolia?" She turned to the blue haired woman beside her, silently asking her to explain it, because she was still incredibly confused. She'd gone to Magnolia High after her family had moved to Magnolia to complete her last two years, and it was where she'd met both Gray and Natsu, as well as Levy since she'd quickly become her best friend with their shared interests. But she'd never once seen Bickslow in Magnolia.

Levy sighed. "Bickslow graduated the year before you started. He was in the grade above Natsu and Gray, that's why you wouldn't have met him until… Well, until whenever it was you two actually met," she explained.

"Ah, what a shame. You weren't there to be in our little study group," Bickslow chuckled. "I think you would have fit in perfectly."

Lucy arched a brow as she turned back to the blue and black haired man. "You? In a study group? You don't seem the type to actually study much."

"Hey, don't judge a book by its cover, Cosplayer. You only just met me last night, remember? Plenty of things you've yet to learn… But you'll learn them eventually. It's okay."

Lucy rolled her eyes with a huff of laughter as she finished getting herself ready for the lecture. Sure, she really did know nothing about Bickslow seeing as they really had only met the previous night and there very well possibly could be more to him than just being a womanising ass who slept with too many people, but she couldn't see herself learning about those hidden traits he probably supposedly had. She couldn't even see herself learning his damn last name. "Yeah, sure," she scoffed.

Levy only shook her head at her friend before looking around her and back to Bickslow. They actually did have a little study group – though it had really been more of a study duo – going on between them when they'd been in high school together, only because they were really the only two who were in the library very often. Levy liked the peace and quiet away from Jet and Droy, and Bickslow needed somewhere to study between classes. Just because he was two years older than her and they were definitely not taking the same classes, didn't mean they weren't friends. Once they'd seen each other in the library enough, they'd eventually started talking and just started studying together to keep each other company.

It worked out though. Bickslow had always hated history and absolutely hated studying for tests on it, and Levy was well above her year group when it came to that, so she'd help Bickslow with studying for history. As for Levy though, well she'd always hated all of the sciences in high school. She was forever falling behind in chemistry and biology, and Bickslow had always been near the top of his class, if not at the top in those classes, so Bickslow would help her with her chemistry and biology. The guy had always been a science nerd, and because of Bickslow, she'd actually passed her exams that year, and Bickslow had even managed to pass his ancient history exam with flying colours.

But Levy was still curious as to why Bickslow was in her Literature in History class right then. Aside from it being a first year English course, and she knew for a fact that Bickslow was not in his first year and that the last time she'd checked or come across his profile or seen one of his weird online statuses, he'd been majoring in biomedical sciences to no doubt get him closer to medical school. Which wasn't really all that surprising to Levy, because he'd mentioned how he'd thought about going to med school when he'd been a senior in high school and he'd been nearing his final exams, but he also hadn't been sure what he wanted to do. So for Bickslow to be sitting in that lecture theatre right then, it just made no sense to Levy, even if she knew that the lecturer was also his mother. It was something Bickslow had also mentioned in his senior year, and aside from them sharing the same last name, they did look similar, and it wasn't just a coincidence.

But was she going to tell Lucy that her favourite teacher was also her new friend's mother? No. She wasn't. It wasn't really that relevant to the conversation just yet.

"Hey, Bickslow…" Levy began carefully and quietly as the noise in the room dropped with the lecturer just about ready to begin. "Why exactly are you here?"

He grinned as he paused the cat video he was watching. "To learn," he answered. "Why else, Levmeister?"

"No. I know you're not taking this class. Or even doing an English major," Levy argued. Her mouth turned up into a small smile before she asked, "You do realise this is Literature in History, right? Are you in the wrong building?"

"Oh, I'm definitely not in the wrong building. But if you really want to know why I'm here, then I'll tell you later." Telling Levy that he wanted to ask the blonde between them out as something he'd tell Levy with no problems. The girl knew how to keep a secret. But he definitely wasn't going to tell her then.

For now, he was there to watch cat videos and be a smartass in his mother's class. As far as anyone knew, he wasn't there, so he could get away with sitting up there and doing nothing. Explaining to his mother why he was there though… Bickslow knew that was coming, but that was okay. He'd get to that eventually.

Lucy was close to fuming. Who did Bickslow think he was? Sitting through a lecture for a class he wasn't even taking (Levy was adamant that Bickslow was definitely not taking Literature in History, and Bickslow just kept saying that he was where he needed and wanted to be) and then not even paying attention to a single word that was coming out of the lecturer's mouth.

And then he has the audacity to lean over and tell her that one of her answers in the summary quiz they do at the end of each lecture on the texts and to prepare them for their exams, was wrong. Just who was this guy? And sure, he'd actually ended up giving her the right answer, along with a stupid grin that made her want to shove the assigned reading book in his stupid – thought slightly attractive, if she had to be perfectly honest – face. First he watches stupid videos and doesn't take a single note about the lecture, and then he somehow miraculously corrects her on her own notes.

She hadn't even known the guy for twenty-four hours, and she already hated him. Well, maybe hated was a strong word, because she didn't hate anyone. But she definitely didn't like him. How Levy could have been even close to being friends with him back in high school, she just had no idea, and she was glad that her family hadn't moved to Magnolia the year earlier, because otherwise she would have had the pleasure of knowing Bickslow in his senior year.

When the lecture ended, Bickslow followed behind the two girls and down the stairs, heading towards the exit along with everyone else. He hadn't had the opportunity to ask Lucy out yet, or even talk to her much over the course of the last two hours, and he figured he'd at least need to talk to her a little bit to even think about her getting to say yes. Maybe I'll do it next week. At least if he waited another week to ask her on a date, he'd have a little bit more time to talk to Levy, and then maybe find out a little bit more about Lucy from Levy or Natsu and Gray, assuming he could find them. Not to mention another week would give him some time to come up with something to do for a date. It had been a while since he'd wanted to actually take someone out on a date where his main goal wasn't actually sleeping with them.

"Ah, a moment please."

He looked up at the voice to see his mother beckoning him over from her podium. Turning to quickly look back to the girls in front of him, a satisfied smirk sitting on Lucy's lips for reasons Bickslow had yet to figure out, he cleared his throat as he looked to Levy and said, "I'll come find you later, Levy." Nodding, the blue haired woman only turned once again and followed Lucy back towards the exit, leaving just Bickslow, the lecturer, and the few people who were still packing up their things in the large lecture hall.

Bickslow waited until the room was empty before saying anything, and as soon as the windowless doors leading back into the corridor were swinging closed, he was grinning and being pulled into a tight hug by his mother. Even if it was mostly common knowledge his mother was a lecturer there and he really didn't keep it hidden if it got brought up, there were certain things that he couldn't exactly do in a classroom full of people he didn't know. Like hug is own mother. Because there were always people who got the wrong idea, and that was the last thing he needed.

"Hey, Mum," he said happily.

"Oh, it's good to see you," she replied as she only tried to squeeze her son, despite him being much bigger than her, just a little bit tighter. "What in the world are you doing here, Bicks?"

Bickslow shrugged as he walked around to the podium and leant his elbows on the edge, watching as his mother returned to packing up her things and shutting down the overhead projector and closing the slides. "I don't have any classes on Wednesday mornings, so I thought I'd come by and talk to you."

"Bicks, you were here at nine o'clock in the morning. Not even you would get out of bed when hungover to come and see your dear old mother," she laughed.

"Hey, I would so," Bickslow defended himself with his trademark smirk.

She rolled her eyes at her son. "Sure you would. Did you enjoy your night though?"

"Very much so."

"You didn't get into too much trouble I hope?"

"Just a little bit."

She sighed, and then picked up her bag and stack of papers and held them in her arm. "Well, as long as you continue to focus on your studies and stay out of too much trouble, that's all I wish for." Slowly, she turned and headed for the exit with her son in tow, needing to head off to a meeting with another lecturer, and she continued, "Oh, before I forget. We'll have to skip dinner this weekend, Bicks. I have to head out of town for a few days, so you'll have to wait until next weekend to get your birthday present."

"That's okay," Bickslow smiled. He was used to having to skip the odd dinner with his mother because of her schedule, so he really didn't mind that his weekend was now completely free… Apart from finishing his last paper that was due soon. "You know I don't mind."

"I know, but I still wish I could see you more than once a week for dinner. Or once a fortnight, as it seems."

Bickslow stopped by the doors to quickly lean down and press a kiss to her cheek. "Seriously, it's fine, Mum. Now drop it," he said. "Now I gotta go. Gotta go get something to eat."

She sighed again just before she pushed the door open. "Drink plenty of water too, okay?"

"Yeah, yeah. I know." With another wide grin, he instead pushed the door open and held it open for his mother, then let it swing closed behind him as he followed her out.

So only seeing her once a week and only being able to have quick conversations like that wasn't exactly ideal, but that was how it was those days, and Bickslow really didn't mind. Teaching and lecturing was what made her happy, and that's what made Bickslow happy too. And besides, he was old enough to be able to survive without seeing his mother every day of the week. It had been like that since he'd been a teenager anyway, so he truly was used to it.

Slowly making his back towards the English building's exit, he looked down to his phone in his hand to check some of his notifications. Boring stuff, really, but he had a habit of ignoring his phone for most of the day so he liked to make a point of checking all of his messages and such every few hours. By Bickslow's reasoning, it was perfectly justified for him to not check his phone as much as everyone else did, because really, the only person he actually liked talking to most of the time just happened to sleep in the same room as him.

He looked up from it though when he felt someone coming into stride beside him, and his mouth turned up into a grin when he saw that it was Lucy. "What are you still doing here, Cosplayer?" he asked the blonde at his side as he slipped his phone back into his jeans pocket.

Lucy shrugged. "I wanted to see what you got in trouble for," she answered. She'd only walked out of the room and told Levy she'd catch up with her later for one of their other classes they shared, so instead of heading to the library or finding a nice spot in the rare sun until her next lecture, she'd waited outside for the weird blue-and-black haired man to find out just why he'd had to talk to the lecturer.

"What makes you think I got in trouble?"

"You sat through an entire lecture for a class you're obviously not taking, and then as you're leaving, Professor Alma calls you over," Lucy explained to the surprisingly amused man beside her. "At the very least, she told you off, because she knows all of the students in that class. Well, most of them anyway. But she knows their faces. I know it."

Bickslow could only grin down at her as they made their way outside. Her not knowing his last name was proving to be incredibly entertaining, and he was glad that Levy hadn't brought it up. Bickslow didn't know how long Lucy had been at that university or in that class, but he guessed that it was her first time with his mother as the teacher, because she had an inability to yell at anyone for anything. She didn't tell people off, and even if someone were to quite literally blow up something in the middle of her class and set her on fire (which Bickslow had accidentally sort of done when he had been sixteen and trying to cook her something nice for her birthday, except he only ended up smoking out their house and her sleeve caught on fire when trying to put out the fire on the stove), she still wouldn't even raise her voice that much. She just wasn't that kind of person.

And even if Bickslow didn't doubt her knowing all of her students at least by their faces if not their names, he knew she wouldn't care if someone decided to turn up to her lectures out of the blue without even being enrolled to take it. She loved teaching, and if she could, she'd do it for free. Having the odd student turn up, maybe just to see if her class was worth taking (which Bickslow always thought it was, and he was incredibly proud of the fact that she was one of the highest rated professors on campus and had the classes with the highest attendance), was something she didn't mind in the slightest. And apparently, Lucy didn't realise that.

"So you want me to have gotten in trouble?" Bickslow quipped. That's what it was, wasn't it? It was almost as if Lucy was wanting him to have gotten in trouble for whatever reason.

She nodded. "Yes."

"Why? You like bad boys or something?"

"W-Well, no…" Maybe just a little… But you don't need to know that, Voldemort. She hugged her book to her chest just a little bit tighter when she glanced up to see another cocky grin, then turned back to look to her other side to more trees with their falling leaves as they walked back towards the centre of the university's campus together. "I just want to know what she said, is all."

Why is she so curious? Bickslow could only wonder just why the blonde was so intent on finding out just what his mother had said, but he was sure she'd be just a little disappointed once she found out that he was so far from being in trouble that it wasn't even funny.

He knew that he didn't want to just straight up tell her though, or that her lecturer was actually his mother. Even if it wasn't something he kept from people, he just didn't feel like telling her. She was sure to find out eventually, if Levy didn't tell her. Which, even if he'd been glad she hadn't told her right then, he wouldn't care if she did at a later time.

But still, Bickslow was realising that he could use Lucy's curiosity to his advantage. She wanted to know just why the lecturer, or his mother, had called him over after the class had ended, and Bickslow didn't particularly want to give her the straight up boring answer. He still had yet to ask her out on a date too, so…

Stopping on one of the many paths that crossed the lush lawns, he folded his arms and looked down to the blonde with a mischievous smile when she looked up at him curiously. "Tell you what," Bickslow began, only pausing for a brief moment to return a wave to someone from his microbiology tutorial. Looking back to Lucy, he continued, "Go on a date with me and I'll tell you what she said."

Lucy arched a brow. Is he serious? "Excuse me?"

"Is that a yes?"

Oh my god. He's serious. Who does this guy think he is?! "No, that is not a yes," she answered quickly. The worst part though, was that she couldn't stop herself from blushing, and there was an incredibly tiny part of her that was wanting to say yes, just because she wanted to find out what the lecturer had said. But, even if she knew for a fact she didn't want to go on a date with anyone, much less someone she only just met, it was the first time she'd been asked out since starting classes, and it was just a little flattering. "Besides," she continued as they began to walk again, apparently still heading in the same direction. "Even if I did want to go out with you, which I don't, you're with Cana."

"Nope. I'm not."

"Uh… Last night?"

Bickslow shrugged. "She's not my girlfriend or anything. We just hook up every now and then."

"Charming," Lucy mumbled. She knew it wasn't her place to judge though. What people did in their spare time was none of her business, so she would stay out of it.

Reaching what would become their parting point though, they stopped again just by a still slightly damp bench from the morning's shower. Looking up to Bickslow before he headed towards the centre of the campus where all the cafés and amenities sat, she quietly said, "Well, I'm going to go get some work done in the library, so I guess I'll see you around, maybe. Happy birthday for yesterday too, I guess."

He shoved his hands back into the pockets of his hoodie as he smiled again. "Thanks, Cosplayer. And yeah, maybe. See you around."

So with Lucy only smiling softly before turning, she let out a quiet sigh and headed towards the library that was just ahead of her. She was definitely going to have tell Levy about that (which Bickslow had expected her to do, which saved him a conversation), even if she had said no to going on a date with him. It was just something she needed to talk about with her best friend.

And as Bickslow headed in the opposite direction, he was realising he wasn't even disappointed that she'd said no. He was glad, if anything, because it had only made him want to go out with her just that little bit more. It wasn't fun if things were easy, and Bickslow had quickly realised that Lucy was anything but that. No, she'd make things difficult for him, and that was okay.

Her saying no had only made him like her just that tiny bit more, and now, all he had to do was find a way to get her to go out with him (and actually like him, because it was obvious she didn't in the slightest), because that was what he really wanted her to do, and not because he wanted to sleep with her.

Just another short chapter because I want to keep these ones short, since it's definitely not even close to being one of my main stories (but that doesn't mean I'll abandon this, because I won't. Ever).

Next story update will be for Shattered, for those that are interested. Hope you enjoyed this chapter though! And please remember to review if you can!

Until next time.

- April