Becoming Father

Fumie gripped Laxus's forehead as the pair ran around in circles in the rain, Fumie perched on Laxus's shoulders. Freed was watching from the cover of the trees, smiling at their antics in the storm.

Laxus could bring down lightning wherever and whenever he wanted, but this was for Fumie's benefit, and she wasn't that powerful yet. She was starving, with a voracious appetite no one could keep up with, so Laxus was teaching her how to sense exactly where lightning would strike.

When Laxus paused and turned, Freed could see Fumie pointing back down the hill, and Laxus galloped back, the pair of them stopping and staring up in unison as the charge in the air grew.

Lightning flashed down.

Freed only flinched a little seeing their child lit up. Laxus was holding her tight and there was no way she could get hurt—this was her element, after all. And Laxus would deal with any extra charge.

Fulmie had her mouth open, and she appeared to be gulping down every drop of electricity she could. When the light vanished, she actually looked bigger around the middle, patting her stomach and saying something to Laxus that had them both laughing loud enough for Freed to hear.

Laxus put her down and the pair walked back.

"My turn," Laxus said, turning to Fumie. "Don't shock him."

Giggling, she came to Freed's side while Laxus strode a little ways away, gave the sky a raised-eyebrow look, and ate as lightning poured down.

Freed crouched at Fumie's side.

"Do you feel like pranking him?" he asked Fumie. "I've been thinking about some new spells…"

She grinned excitedly. "Okay!"

By the time Laxus returned, the pair were watching an extremely long worm squiggle over the grass.

"Papa, look!" She exclaimed, grabbing Laxus's hand. "She's longer than my arm."

"Damn."

"We have to protect her from birds," Fumie explained. "When she goes back underground, we can leave."

Freed watched Laxus suppress some emotion—humor, or pride, or affection. Possibly all three.

His own throat had closed when she said the word, 'Papa.' He was glad the pair was looking down, not at him. The air was too wet for them to smell him crying.

She only called Laxus that title, and only very, very occasionally. It slipped out when she was having too much fun to remain reserved—when the fear she'd been carrying ever since she transformed herself, hell, ever since they met her, fell away. Freed might feel a twinge of jealousy on occasion, but he knew Laxus was the one who was good with kids. Laxus had always wanted to be a parent. And Fumie did love and trust Freed in her own way.

She hadn't been able to sleep alone since becoming a Dragon Slayer. Sometimes she crawled in with Laxus and Freed, and sometimes Freed sat with her in her own room, trying to make it less scary by telling funny stories as she fell asleep. He never slept much those nights, but it didn't matter, because he got to hold her for hours and just be.

Fumie was part of him now. He could no more imagine life without her than he could imagine life without Laxus.

The worm had apparently slipped back into the earth, because the pair of Dragon Slayers straightened.

"Ready?" Fumie asked, smiling at Freed in apparent innocence—she was good.

"Let's go home," Laxus said, leaning over casually to kiss Freed.

Right before their lips touched, a shock of electricity passed between them. Freed yelped.

"Sorry," Laxus said, startled, while Freed rubbed his mouth.

"And you told me not to shock him," Fumie said, crossing her small arms in disapproval.

"Guess I didn't follow my own advice," Laxus said. "Sorry, love. Do-over?"

Freed leaned in, smiling—and the same thing happened.

"Ow," Freed said. "Was there something weird about that lightning you two ate?"

"No," Fumie said. "It tasted normal."

Laxus was frowning down at his hand, reaching toward Freed and drawing back when they all heard the telltale buzz.

"Damn. That's more than a little static."

"Fumie, is it the same with you?" Freed asked, holding out his palm.

She grabbed his hand, Freed clasping her fingers and unable to contain his happiness at this affection.

"We're fine," Fumie said, looking up at Laxus in confusion and a hint of fear.

"It's okay," Laxus told her quickly. "It's just…a little mystery. Freed, did you touch anything weird maybe?"

"Like something covered in static?" Freed asked. "Not besides our girl, and she has her lightning contained better than you."

The teasing tone and Freed's smirk made Laxus laugh.

"Guess you are better than me, kid," he said. "Hey, let's see if…"

He held out his hand to Fumie too, and Fumie went to take it without question.

Until lightning cracked the air between their hands. They leapt apart amid a small clap of thunder.

"Shit!" Laxus exclaimed. "That's never happened before."

"But…I want to hold your hand," Fumie whined.

"Alright, it's okay; give me a second," Laxus soothed, crouching by her and dropping off as he closed his eyes. Freed felt a subtle shift in magic and Laxus glowed for a few seconds. "Try that…"

Lightning cracked between them again.

"Dammit! I've never had this happen before. I have it all contained; there shouldn't be anything ambient even in the air…"

Fumie stuck her lip out, looking close to tears.

"It's okay," Laxus soothed, reaching to hug her before realizing he couldn't. "Fuck."

Laxus broke off as Fumie and Freed glanced at each other and started laughing.

"I think we've upset him enough." Freed erased their runes with a swipe of his hand.

"Seriously?" Laxus said.

Freed grinned and pulled him in for a kiss.

"I'm almost tempted to shock you for real," Laxus grumbled. Instead he kissed Freed for an extra long time, warm and happy, before swooping down and whisking Fumie off her feet.

"Was that your idea?" he asked.

"No," she laughed. "I just copied."

Laxus raised his eyebrows as he set her down again.

"Really? You're completely—" he tickled her, "innocent?"

Fumie burst into delighted, high-pitched laughter, trying to tickle him back. With longer arms, Laxus quickly won that battle, Fumie dropping to the ground and squealing happily while she rolled in the mud.

"Wait," she finally gasped, out of breath, and Laxus pulled back immediately.

"You're a mess," he grinned.

Her reply was a mud-spattered smile. With her sitting in the dirt, Laxus crouching in front of her, the pair of them looking so happy… Freed wanting to collect that image in his memory forever.

Laxus's lips moved as if whispering, and Freed narrowed his eyes. Especially when Fumie's expression shifted to mischief and she looked Freed's way.

"Hey, guess what—" she began, then launched herself at Freed in a full-body hug, wrapping her arms around his legs.

Freed, not expecting a this, tried to catch his balance without trampling on her, but fell instead, landing in the mud beside her.

"What?" he sputtered.

"Got you!" she grinned.

"You are a little mud demon, aren't you?" he said, grabbing her. He was already covered in mud at this point, after all, so giving her a real hug couldn't make it much worse. Until a muddy hand came up and patted his mouth.

He blinked at her.

"Got you again."

Spitting to the side, Freed shook his head. He was smiling, and he didn't even know why, because being dirty from head to toe had never been his definition of fun before. But with Fumie, even the mundane became exciting.

"You're incorrigible," he told her, rising and holding out a hand to pull her up. "Shall we head home?"

"In…corr…" Fumie muttered, sounding like she was trying to memorize the word. " 'Kay."

Freed looked at Laxus and gave him a muddy grin. "Feel like kissing me again?"

"No," Laxus laughed. "But I'll hold your very dirty hand."

"How generous of you."

They beamed at each other for a moment, then the three of them started toward home.

They tried to wipe off as much mud as possible before going in the door, but Fumie still looked like a small terror arising from the earth, and Freed had a feeling he didn't look much better.

"I think we need a bath."

"You two do, at least," Laxus said, helping Fumie get her coat off and leaving it in a dripping pile by the door to deal with later. "Go ahead. I'll make tea."

Fumie's excitement from the day still hadn't burned out when they got in the bath—Freed wondered if lightning had manic effects. Either that or she was just in a really good mood because she wasn't hungry for once.

He finished scrubbing himself off while Fumie did more splashing than washing, then turned to her.

"Alright, time to do your hair."

When she obediently turned her back toward him, Freed burst out laughing.

"Your hair is stuck together in one giant tangle," he said. "Oh dear."

"Be gentle," she requested, though Freed always tried to be.

"Do you want to cut it short?" he asked, beginning on the lowest knots. "It wouldn't get in the way as much."

"No."

"You like it like this?"

"It's fun when you tie it up."

He chuckled. "I can still tie it back if it's shorter."

"But then it wouldn't look like yours."

Freed combed the mud out of another section of green hair. The bathwater was starting to turn murky.

"You like that we look similar?" he asked carefully.

"Yeah. People ask questions when it's just Papa and me."

"I see."

He scooped some water over her hair, Fumie patiently bending her head forward to make it easier. Cleaning her hair was one thing that was definitely Freed's job: Laxus always lost patience halfway through.

"I wish I had things I could tell you about your birth family," he said after a minute. "Or a picture. I'm sorry we don't know anything about them."

Fumie said nothing. Freed picked a twig out of her hair.

"It's okay if you're sad," he said. "Or angry. Or if you don't care, or don't know how you feel. It's all okay; and you don't have to tell me, either."

"I don't know how I feel," she said after a moment.

"Fumie, if you like, when Laxus and I get off our next spate of jobs, we can go looking for information about your roots. We know where you came from and your name, and we know you got your green hair from somewhere." He smiled. "We might be able to find information about your family. It could be worth trying."

Fumie sniffed. Startled, Freed combed his fingers against her scalp, trying to look around and catch her expression.

"But you're my family," she murmured, turning to stare at him with sad eyes. "Right?"

"Yes." Freed framed her face with his hands. "Always. We love you, and nothing will ever change that. No matter what you decide to do about your birth family: if you want to know or not, if you change your mind. No matter who that birth family is. No matter what you do or the choices you make in life, ever, we will always love you. I promise."

Fumie was sniffling now, tears slipping down her cheeks.

Freed leaned in and kissed her head, brushing bangs out of her eyes.

"Really?" she asked.

"You already call Laxus 'Papa' sometimes," he reminded her. "If that's not family, I don't know what is."

Her eyes widened and she sniffed hard.

"I'm sorry."

"Why? He loves it when you call him that."

Laxus had always wanted children. Now he had one. And Freed…

"I'm supposed to be careful and wait," she said, biting her lip and still looking sorry. "He said you wouldn't want me calling you that. He said it's hard for you because you don't like your own papa."

Freed blinked.

"He did?"

"Yeah. When I first called him papa, he said he wanted to be my father but that we had to wait for you to feel okay before we could say it all the time."

Freed inhaled. As his breath shuddered, his eyes overflowed, pain and affection and jealousy clashing in a warm collision he couldn't contain inside his body.

"You're crying," Fumie said in fear, reaching out to touch his cheek.

"It's okay," he said, smiling through his tears. "Crying is good. And in this case, I'm crying because I love you."

"That makes you sad?"

"No," he laughed, "exactly the opposite. You may call me papa, Fumie. That is one-hundred-percent okay."

Her eyes lit up. "Really?"

"Yes. These are my happy tears. Thank you for waiting for me to be okay."

"Was your father really bad?" she asked soberly.

"Not the same as Laxus's father," Freed said, and Fumie nodded. She had gotten the child-appropriate version of why Makarov, and not Ivan, was whom she called grandfather. "My father didn't hurt me. But he was never around much, and he didn't care about me. Both of my parents were very busy, and I had a lot of siblings, and people in my family didn't get along the way people in our big Fairy Tail family do. They got angry at each other a lot."

"Did your family not love you?"

"I don't believe so," Freed said sadly. "They didn't really know me. Because nobody was paying attention, a couple of my siblings and people outside my family were able to hurt me, and I spent a long time being afraid before I came to Fairy Tail."

"You were scared?" she asked, eyes wide.

"Yes. Everybody gets scared: Laxus gets scared, too. I was scared because the people who hurt me used words that hurt my soul. They told me I wasn't a good person, and I believed them for a very long time."

"But not anymore."

"Nope." He grinned. "Now I have lots of people who love me, and I know I'm a good, strong person. Just like you are. Just like Laxus is."

"So," she said slowly, "it's okay if I call you papa? Because…you're not like your papa. I want us to be like us."

"Yes. We're going to use the words 'father' and 'daughter' the right way. We're going to use them for what they actually mean: people who love each other no matter what. Right?"

She smiled. "Right."

"Well, your hair's all clean and this water is lukewarm. Was there anything else you wanted to say before we get out? Are you doing okay?"

Her grin was genuine as she nodded.

"Yeah. Papa."

Freed's heart burst into fireworks in his chest.

"I can hear that," she said as he climbed out.

"Yeah, and what does my racing heart mean this time?"

"It means you're happy," she said. "It beats differently when you're happy or when you're angry."

"Probably differently when I'm anxious, too."

"Huh."

Fumie looked like she was processing this as he dried her off, then started toweling his own hair. He loved her scientific mind. He would never, ever tire of seeing the wondering, awe-filled, questioning expressions on her face when she was thinking.

Wrapping a towel around his waist, he opened the door.

"Time to get dressed," he said, chivvying her forward. "I bet Laxus has tea waiting for us."

She turned around and embraced him in a sudden, tight hug.

"I love you," she whispered.

Freed squeezed her tighter. "I love you back."

When they made it out to the main room dressed and clean, Laxus looked up from his book. Before he could open his mouth, Fumie had launched herself at him and hugged him.

"I love you, Papa," she whispered.

"I love you too," Laxus said, holding her.

When Laxus looked at Freed in confusion, Freed smiled enigmatically.

"Your tea got cold, so I reheated it," Laxus said once she'd let go. "I guess you guys were really dirty."

Fumie ran to the table and exclaimed over the cookies sitting there.

"Thought you might be hungry again," Laxus told her. "I started dinner."

"I am hungry," she said, scrunching her face. "I hate that part of being a dragon. I can't even fly."

"I bet you could learn flight magic from Ever," Laxus said.

Ignoring this (a sign something big was up), Fumie stuffed a cookie in her mouth, looked at him intensely, and said, "Guess what?"

"What?" Laxus asked, brows drawing down.

"I can call Freed papa now. He said it was okay. Which means we can be a family."

Laxus blinked rapidly.

"We already are a family…" he muttered. He turned to his partner. "F-Freed? Really?"

Freed nodded.

"Since when?"

"Since…now. Since watching you two. If I'm being honest, I was getting a little jealous."

Fumie gasped in indignation and ran back around the table to give him another hug. She was giving out so many hugs today. That would never have happened a year ago. Freed would never have dreamed they'd be here a year ago.

"Freed…" Laxus rose and hugged Freed too, arms shaking. "I know what this means to you."

Freed rubbed Laxus's back and held him tightly.

"I want to be a family, Laxus. A real one."

"You said we already were," Fumie accused.

"I mean legally," Freed said.

Fumie and Laxus both blinked at him.

"Really?" Laxus breathed.

He didn't give Freed a chance to do more than nod when he was kissing the rune mage with every bit of energy in his body—which, considering he just ate lightning, was a lot. Freed felt himself surrounded, overwhelmed by the power of this affection. Gods, he loved Laxus.

Fumie was laughing at them and tugging on their arms.

"What does that mean?" she asked.

Laxus stared in wet-eyed awe at Freed for another moment before crouching down.

"You know how we have a piece of paper saying we get to take care of you?"

She nodded.

"This would be even better than that. We'd be adopting you. It means they wouldn't be able to take you away from us no matter what. You'd belong with us forever. You'd even get to share our surnames if you want."

Fumie stared between them wide-eyed.

Then she burst into tears and flung herself at Laxus.

"Do you like that, Fumie?" Freed asked gently, crouching on her other side and making it a three-way embrace. "You can think about it."

Fumie shook her head against Laxus's neck. Freed caught mumbled words.

Laxus laughed.

"We can't do it tonight," he said, "but we can get to work on papers first thing tomorrow. Means we'll have to cancel our job, but I think this is worth it."

He and Freed grinned at each other.

Fumie bobbed her head eagerly, looking back and forth between them while she wiped her face.

"Hey, don't wipe snot onto your clean clothes," Freed chided, reaching into a pocket. "This is what kerchiefs are for."

They were a boisterous, happy mess in the kitchen, making a racket, practically tripping over each other as they made dinner, which Fumie insisted on helping with (an excuse to eat as she went).

They were up past Fumie's usual bedtime, cuddling on the sofa and talking. Her energy seemed inexhaustible, until suddenly she curled up in Freed's lap, quieted down, and within minutes had fallen asleep.

"I like that she runs out of energy so quickly," Freed murmured. "No more grumpy tantrums."

"It's because she's conserving," Laxus said. "I've been teaching her to hold in her lightning so she's not quite so hungry all the time. Otherwise she just leaks magical energy everywhere."

He smiled down at her and rubbed her back.

"Is that also why she stopped drawing runes on every surface?" Freed asked.

"I think that was because you asked," Laxus pointed out. "And she really likes imitating you, too. And making you happy."

They got her upstairs and into her bed without waking her, Freed plaiting the end of her hair so it wouldn't snarl while she slept.

"Should one of us stay…?"

"I think we can sleep in our own bed tonight," Laxus said, putting an arm around his waist. "She knows where to find us."

Once in their room, Freed moved through the dark toward the light switch, but Laxus closed the door and grabbed his hand.

"Wait…" he rumbled.

Freed saw a flash of runes as Laxus wrote the all-important spell for silence, and next thing he knew, Laxus was sliding his hands into Freed's pants, untucking Freed's shirt, blindly fumbling at the buttons. Panting, Freed helped him and let Laxus lead him to the bed.

"Happy?" Freed asked with a smile, in between fervent, eager kisses that got his pulse increasing for a totally other reason than the ones Fumie knew about.

"So happy," Laxus grunted, licking and sucking at Freed's neck. "You want… You actually want…"

"I want you," Freed whispered. "I want to have a family with you. I want to never have to find someone else to share my life with."

Gasping, Laxus stared at him in the dark, then pushed on his shoulders so Freed went tumbling down onto the bed. Laxus followed after him, pulling off his own trousers and leaving them behind.

"Do you love me?" Freed asked, slipping the rest of his clothes off and staring up at Laxus above him.

"Yes," Laxus said, voice husky.

"Show me."