It was night before their son's first birthday party.

Lucy felt a great sense of satisfaction at the different layers of colorful cake as she put them into the oven. She wasn't really a baker, but she loved her little boy and she didn't want anyone else to bake his first birthday cake. It was an accomplishment to make it through the first year, and as she looked back, she couldn't imagine how she ever lived without her little baby boy. Well, toddler, officially in the morning.

Lucy wanted everything to be perfect for his party so their house was filled with yellow and blue balloons and crepe streamers. It was perfectly clean, perfectly decorated, and she was so excited to celebrate this milestone with their precious son.

When she closed the oven, she smiled at her husband, who was licking cake batter off the spoon she'd used for stirring. "I hope it turns out all right. What if it's lopsided or I don't decorate it right or something?"

"It'll be fine. Besides, Yuri doesn't care how food looks at all. He's probably going to demolish it with his bare fists and smear it all over himself like eating cake it is some dragon war ritual," he smeared cake batter on her cheek.

She waved off his awkward invitation for affection, and he grabbed her by the hips and licked the batter off her cheek as she giggled at the sensation. He then she kissed his wife, who was now five months pregnant with their daughter.

Lucy enjoyed his affections for a moment, but quickly turned to the task at hand. She followed a recipe to make icing and due to a mishap where he attempted to tickle her while she was using a beater, powdered sugar ended up all over the kitchen.

With a shake of her head, she said, "You can't stand for me to not pay attention to you, just like our son."

Laxus reached for a bowl of blue icing and she smacked his hand with a spoon. "You never let me have any fun, Mom," he teased.

His wife pointed to her belly. "Let me remind you that due to you and your fun, I'm currently five months pregnant with our second child, Dad."

Like many couples, they were slowly falling into the pattern of referring to one another as 'Mom' and 'Dad' simply because that's what they were within the family. Laxus considered it the highest term of endearment in the world, because it reminded him that he had a family, and he was the dad. She was likewise the mother, and they had babies.

Still...

"Pregnancy is still such a turn on," he purred.

Lucy pointed the spoon at him as if it were a weapon as he approached. "I have a cake in the oven!"

"...not all you got in the oven, Babe," he gestured to her belly.

"Go away. You are such a distraction!"

Laxus pointed to the timer on the oven. "I can make you cum twice before they're done," he purred as he grabbed her by the hips and put her up on the kitchen counter.

"What if Chelia comes out of her room?"

"She won't. Wendy's up there with her."

He hands slid up her little dress to her panties and he pulled them downward and knelt in front of the counter.

Lucy leaned back on her hands as she felt his fingers first, then his tongue. The longer they were together, the more he learned her body, so at this point when he had a mind to make her orgasm, he knew just how to accomplish that. The way he moved his tongue over her clit, two fingers sliding deep into her and angling upwards...her legs jerked at the sudden pleasure.

Laxus rubbed himself through his pants as he worked her over with his mouth. She liked for him to use his teeth a little, especially his fangs on her labia, and let out a moan at the contrast of his sharp tooth scraping on the skin he'd just been sucking and licking. He then zeroed in on her clit and sucked it until she came.

He really was trying to be good, but Lucy really didn't like having sex with her clothes on at all, so when she started to feel the need to have him inside of her, she pulled her shirt over her head. He snatched her from the counter and put her flat on the table, where he made short work of their clothes and grabbed a bowl with remnants of cake batter.

He drizzled it over her stomach and breasts, and while he was licking it off, she giggled at the tickling sensation but was pulled down quickly into moaning as his hands moved over her with practiced ease.

Due to her belly, she ended up on top of him, and he thrust up into her as she leaned back on his legs. He set a pace that suited a ravenously horny pregnant woman and held her hands to help steady her.

Lucy tightened her grip on his hands and her thighs started to tremble slightly, so he picked up the speed and power of his thrusts. It was an art to arrive at the same moment, but one of the most fantastic things about being married is that they were perfect at this particular practice.

They came in the most wonderful and messy sort of way, and for a couple of minutes, they lay resting on the table.

The timer on the oven dinged and Laxus helped her off the table, collected her clothes off the floor, and then let her sit and recover while he removed the cake layers from the oven.

Panting, she did her best to wipe up. "You're so gross, Laxus. I'm sticky from cake batter and..."

He snorted in amusement at this comment and grinned at her. "Baby batter?"

"Ewww...really? You have to ruin cake too?"

"It makes sense if you think about it. Cake batter makes cakes. So what would babies be made from? Besides, depending on how long you've neglected me, they have kind of a similar consistency."

"You are so disgusting," she said with a shake of her head.

Laxus watched as she went about the business of this birthday cake, seemingly like a mad scientist with dyes and all kinds of strange tools and instruments. Her determination was unmatched as it came together slowly. Even though she was tired, she stayed up late until it was perfect, and although he offered to help, they both knew cake decorating just seemed like an activity he'd be bad at.

So he did what he would usually do and sat on the counter so he could antagonize her while she worked.

"You're cute like this," he said.

"Like what?" she absently replied, her attention focused on the cake.

He smiled, knowing he was six seconds from her wrath. "Barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen. I might keep you like this forever," he teased.

But really he did like her like this—in a little skirt, belly swollen, cooking. It appealed to him on a somewhat basic level.

Lucy hit him on the top of the nose with a spatula covered in icing. "NO."

"Why not?"

"Well, let's see. First of all, I have a career. And I'm going back to that career as soon as I push this kid out and get back into shape and maybe weaned and...I don't know, but I'm a wizard. Second, having babies wrecks my body. I had just gotten it back right, and boom, pregnant. And I don't know if you've noticed, but it's a little different this time."

Laxus looked down at her hips, which had seemingly widened during this pregnancy much more and much earlier than the last. "Kind of hard to miss that."

The blonde added, "Third, just...ugh. I can't stand that smug look on your face. I'll deny you out of pure spite and have no regrets."

He scrunched his face up and sighed. "I do kind of want a big family. That's not weird, is it? I know we had a plan where we'd have a kid and jobs and all that nonsense, but in practicality it doesn't work that way. I don't think you really like going out of town on jobs when you have a kid at home."

This was true, but Lucy really didn't want to hear him say that and she really wasn't ready to talk about it. It was alarming and bothersome to realize that after becoming a mother, she didn't enjoy what she'd spent her whole life trying to do. She kept telling herself that as a confident, modern woman she could have both, but wizarding involved being far away. It was dangerous.

She didn't answer him, and he didn't press any further.

Laxus really didn't ever want to take anything from her, but becoming a parent changed life in so many ways that they both had some different priorities. There were some fights he hadn't started because he wanted to make sure his son grew up with his father, for instance.

Lucy was quiet for a while, but eventually refocused herself on the birthday cake, which turned out even better than she imagined. She was supremely pleased with herself, and after a shower, they went to bed.

XXX

At the first sign of light, Yuri was up and trying to climb out of his bed.

Laxus was there waiting in his pajamas (necessary since a teenage girl lived in the house) with his outfit for the day in hand, knowing his little son would wake up earlier than was sensible screaming 'Mama.' It was their habit that when he was home, he would interrupt this process by getting him up keeping him entertained.

"Good morning."

"Dada! Goomomo!"

Yuri was always excited to see him in the morning, as if they'd been apart for a long time. The sheer enthusiasm he felt to be a little boy who loves his parents was enough to make Laxus grin, even if it was 6:03 am.

"You ready to come out of jail?"

Lucy kept telling him to stop referring to the crib as jail, but to him, it had bars and they put Yuri in it to keep him out of trouble, so it basically was a little baby jail. Sometimes when he put the toddler in his crib he acted like he'd just gotten a life sentence.

Laxus got him out of the crib, changed him, put him down on the floor.

Thunder Baby jumped full-force and hugged Raijin the tiger as she slept protectively next to his crib. "Goomomo Waiwai!"

Yuri really hadn't had much of a 'walking' phase. He crawled, and walked for about a week, and then graduated to running everywhere, all the time. Porlyusica believed this was due to his dragon genes. He was actually pretty fast and his parents often found themselves chasing after him. Other parents would see him and remark, "Oh, he's one of those."

He could walk, run, climb, and knew quite a few little words. He knew the names of people he saw every day or close to it, but some he had given nicknames. "Kawi" was Aquarius, "Na-Na" was Natsu, "Chewwy" was Chelia, "Whenny" was Wendy, "Waiwai" was the tiger, "Gams" was Makarov. He also knew a couple of dozen small words for items he came into contact every day.

His favorite word was 'poop.' He learned to say it before 'Dada.' Laxus still had an issue with that.

His newest phase was 'Do Everything Like Daddy.' They already looked just alike, from the eyes to the crazy hair. It was frustrating at times that Yuri went so far as wanting to dress like Laxus, but the rest of it as way too adorable to his father. Laxus could deny him nothing.

He walked with his son to the bathroom as had become their custom and let him observe a grown man's routine.

When he stood in front of the toilet to pee, his son stood next to him. Thunder Baby was nowhere near ready to give up his diaper career, but Laxus felt like this would make it easier later on. Routine, as a whole, as helping their son level off quite a bit and be less complicated. He wetted their hands, and then soaped them up, and they washed their hands together. Laxus put toothpaste on his toothbrush, and baby toothpaste on his son's and sat Yuri up on the bathroom counter.

They brushed their teeth together, and after they had a couple of minutes of self-brushing (during which Yuri mostly just chewed on his toothbrush), Laxus took Yuri's toothbrush and gave him a good brushing. Yuri grabbed his father's toothbrush as it hung from the corner of his mouth and tried to brush his father's teeth, but mostly just almost gagged Laxus instead.

Laxus had his mouthwash, and he had baby mouthwash for his son, who held it in his mouth and waited to spit it out, which typically made a mess. Sometimes he would swallow, but he really did seem to enjoy be allowed to spit everywhere because normally, that pissed his parents off a bit.

His father flossed, and even though the baby's teeth didn't fit close together yet, he did the same for him just so he wouldn't throw a dragon fit when that time came.

Yuri's favorite man thing to do was shave, and Laxus wiped their faces with a wet washcloth, and lathered both with shaving cream, then offered Yuri his little plastic razor.

Laxus tilted his head up to shave his chin, and Yuri did the same.

"It's going to be a while before you start needing to do this. I think I was like eighteen before I started growing chin hair. I really don't have much going on, and I couldn't grow a beard if I tried, but nobody needs to know that. Don't worry though, you'll have a forest in your armpits by the time you turn fourteen and that's not even the strangest place you're going to end up with a lot of hair," he said.

Yuri watched him trim his sideburns and tried to mimic the action.

"Did you just ask why does Gams have a beard and a mustache? I can't even believe you'd play that card. I don't know why everyone compares me to that old geezer anyway. Who cares if Gams can grow a beard? I don't."

Of course, his one-year-old son had said nothing about Laxus' inability to grow a beard. Somehow, he knew his father was going on about something stupid and looked in the mirror so he could focus on 'shaving' his perfectly smooth baby face.

Laxus leaned over him and said, "Maybe it's because all the hair moved from his head to his face. I'd honestly rather be beardless forever than bald."

He ran his finger over his upper lip and looked down at his toddler son. "I bet I could grow a mustache. Mom would be pretty pissed. It would almost be worth it just to see her face. Maybe I'll do that on my next long job. Come home with an ugly mustache all curled up at the ends. She'd probably scream and have Crabby Scissorhands get rid of it."

"Mama?"

Yuri didn't know anything else but that his father had spoken the word above all words.

He broke out into an excited flurry of baby talk at the mention of his mother and at the end of the wildly strung together syllables, squealed, "Mama!" and clapped his hands.

Laxus smiled at his son. "That's how I feel about her too."

After the shaving cream was washed away, Laxus got his son's hair a little wet, added some gel, and combed it up like his, then did the same with his own hair.

They got dressed for the day in button-down shirts and black pants with black shoes and when he tucked Yuri's shirt in, the boy pulled it out immediately and looked at how his father's shirt hung freely. This was a violation of the Be Like Dad trend, and they both knew it.

"No chance in hell your mom is going to let you walk around with an untucked shirt."

He tucked the shirt back in, and again, Yuri yanked it out.

Laxus grumbled a curse word under his breath and tucked his own shirt in for the first time in a long time. Except when wearing a suit or tux, he never, ever did this. But he knew if he didn't, their son was going to keep messing his outfit up and might become so frustrated he took all his clothes off completely.

"The things I do for you..."

XXX

Thunder Baby's first birthday was quite a wonderful day for him. The toddlers he knew from his class were invited, so they played in the front yard while his favorite adults came and went. There was a mountain of cutely wrapped toys and everyone who came was there for him and he knew on some level that he was the center of attention.

Despite the fact he liked to give his parents hell at times, as his parents watched him with the other kids, they saw he really was a nice little boy. He didn't snatch toys and he engage in pointless biting, scratching or hitting. This was probably a good thing because Thunder Baby was quite a lot larger than his peers and most of them were older than he was.

One of the other little boys, however, was kind of a bully and he pushed over a little girl and took her toy, causing her to cry.

Lucy looked around at the parents. "What a little jerk. I wonder if his parents are going to do anything?"

"Doubt it. I always wonder if parents know when their kids are being assholes," Laxus answered.

"Why wouldn't they?"

The other parents were in clusters all across the yard, eating and drinking punch, and there were kids everywhere.

Her husband leaned against the porch where they were standing and said, "I don't think people know when they have ugly babies, so maybe it's the same thing. To them their babies are cute but to us their babies are actually kind of gross looking. Yuri looks like me, so he's handsome. Not every kid is that fortunate."

"Okay, first of all, we do have a very handsome son and he does happen to look like you. But second, as a parent, you can't call another person's baby ugly."

"Not to their face, but really, look at that one."

Lucy slapped his arm. "Laxus!"

The mayhem amongst the toddlers escalated and while the little girl cried, Thunder Baby sat down next to her, seemingly very bothered that she was crying. And then he got up, pushed the bully toddler down, and reclaimed the toy, which ceased the girl's crying.

Lucy leaned forward. "Should we tell him not to do that? Push people down?"

"Let him have his moment, Mom."

For the rest of the afternoon, where Thunder Baby went, the little girl followed. He seemed confused by this, but didn't do anything to end it either.

Once the kids had eaten cake, run around like madmen on a sugar high, and were on the verge of passing out, the parents started to take them home.

Thunder Baby was fighting sleep himself but when it was time for the little girl to go home, she stopped to give him a big hug. His parents watched in wonder as their son stood there as stiff as a board, hands at his sides, looking almost terrified. This was the first time they'd ever seen him look nervous.

It did not help that his Dreyar eyebrows tended to exaggerate his facial expressions somewhat.

Lucy burst out laughing at her son. "The signs of early onset Laxusism..."

"Poor guy," Laxus mumbled, bringing a hand to his face.

The girls disapproving father snatched her up and mumbled something under his breath and for quite a while, Yuri didn't move at all. He just stood there looking confused.

"Bye-bye!" she called.

Lucy collected her son from the front yard and took him in for a bath while Laxus and Virgo began the monstrous task of cleaning up the mess.

Thunder Baby was sitting amongst the bubbles while she sat on the edge of the bathtub when she addressed him.

"So let's talk, son. Let me remind you that one year ago today, I gave birth to you. I carried you in my womb, I breastfed your little fanged self, I stayed up so many nights because when you were born, you were really dead set on making sure we died from sleep deprivation, and now that you're a whole year old...suddenly you're hugging other girls?"

The toddler looked up at her blankly, and then smiled. "Mama!"

She leaned down and gave him a kiss on the forehead. "I knew you'd see things my way."

Please Review!

Special thanks to totalqt91, guest, supercrazyperson, LuthielxXxLight, Goomy, yumeyumi1986, megumiyoung, balerion, angela magic, aryillia, thornado, sidjr100, Misty Shayna, ArouraLeona, xxShyxx, w1n6s-0f-f1r3, aoutre, guest, ladyallyssa, katiekat2001, mewhee89, guest, katieboom, lucyxanyoneshipper, sympathyspathway, and edolevy for reviewing!

AN: So my buddy xxShyxx is sponsoring a LaLu costume contest. There are prizes and it seems really cool, so you can check it out at the Laxus x Lucy deviant art group, tumblr at starts and thunderstorms, or PM for more information.