Lucy filled out the last of her hospital paperwork.

'The day' had arrived and it was a little surreal to know that she was going to go to sleep and would then wake up and have twins. No insanely fast birth as with Yuri, or ridiculously slow and painful, as with Layla. Instead, there would be a longer recovery time according to doctors who didn't know the glorious powers of Wendy.

"How did the interview with the Council go?" she asked.

Her husband rolled his eyes. "They used the words 'heavy-handed,' 'unnecessary,' and 'devastating,' but if some dark guild touches my family, I'm going to touch them right back. It was good to see the Raijinshuu are still so incredibly terrible."

"What did they even want?"

"Attention."

The blonde shook her head. "Well, mission accomplished?"

He shrugged.

"Everything at home is ready?"

Laxus said, "I didn't have time to get cribs, so I was thinking we could just let them rough it on the floor tonight. What do you think? The dryer is really cozy too, it'll give them that in-the-womb experience of being warm in a closed up space. If they need to be rocked, we can just put 'em on the fluff cycle."

"I think you're being a nervous idiot right now. Are you going to go in and watch them be born?"

Her husband shook his head. "I don't think I possess the willpower to watch someone cut you open and not rip their head off their shoulders. I'm a dragonslayer. The smell of blood makes me pretty crazy."

His wife briefly imagined the scene of Laxus going batshit crazy in the middle of surgery and decided to agree with his decision.

"Are the kids here?"

He shook his head. "I told Gramps to bring them in the morning since it's going to be late after the surgery. Plus, it'll give us some time."

Three weeks without Lucy at home was sickeningly bothersome to him. Before he'd become guildmaster and they both came and went on jobs, he had simply acclimated himself to it. The era of guildmaster had been such that they were always together at work or at home and they were always in bed together at night unless he went to a meeting or something.

He'd become very dependent on having her around.

Laxus had also allowed the children to sleep in their bed because he didn't particularly like sleeping alone, and he hoped they understood that wasn't a trend to continue. Layla liked to get in bed and as she fought sleep, talk about weird, random things that made no sense. Her brother liked to jump on the bed and wrestle, so in Lucy's absence he'd wrestle his son down and listen to his daughter's incoherent, tired babblings.

She had likewise been going crazy in the hospital. Their lives were busy and she was used to being busy. She missed the guild, and the paperwork, and being with her babies at home.

Two nurses came and to take her, and he bent down to kiss her one last time.

"See you on the other side?"

She grinned and smiled back. "Can't wait."

Laxus went out into the waiting room where he waited, and waited, and waited, and waited more. He caught the scent of her blood more than once and he had to remind himself that she didn't need him to rescue her.

He felt like it took a lifetime, but finally, a nurse came out. "Mr. Dreyar?"

He nodded.

"Surgery went well. Mom and both babies are perfectly healthy. Are you ready to meet your daughters?"

When he followed the nurse back to the room where he'd last seen Lucy, she was cradling a little pink bundle. She seemed groggy, and had a soft, loving smile.

Laxus picked up the other baby from her little bed and sat down next to her. "Wow…"

"Yeah...wow," she answered in awe.

"You're feeling okay?"

She nodded.

Laxus looked from one baby to the other, and the first thing he noticed was that one of them seemed much too small. The baby in Lucy's arms weighed in at barely four pounds, and was considerably smaller than her six pound sister. "She's okay?"

Lucy nodded. "She's perfectly healthy, just small. This is the feisty one. She was born last. I think this one should be Mavis. Fairies in stories always have ears like this."

He looked down at their baby, and found she was the 'tenant' who had made so much trouble for her mother. Mavis had an unstable static electricity field around her, a patch of dragon scales on one cheek, and was so incredibly tiny. She looked just like Yuri did at birth, except her hair was very light and she had Ivan's pointed ears. She had the oh-so-serious Dreyar eyebrows and a thin upper lip. Her hair was growing up and outward like her brother and father's.

The baby in his arms had darker blond hair, and Lucy's soft features. Like all their kids, she had the Dreyar eyes, but the rest was all Lucy. "So this is Anna? God, we make some gorgeous kids. Four beautiful, healthy babies..."

"Don't we?" she said with a grin.

He bent over to kiss her cheek. "Thank you, Babe."

Lucy was so happy she wasn't pregnant anymore she didn't even know how to express her relief. Her first two pregnancies were mostly normal. Maybe she had an ache or a pain, but with twins, everything had been more difficult. It wasn't really a 'fun' pregnancy, but then again, nine months for two babies was a better deal than eighteen months for two. She liked to think of it as bargain shopping.

Lucy grinned when Mavis made a little sound. "So they have different personalities. Mavis seems really cranky, and Anna is more relaxed. Mavis has been making cranky baby sounds since she was pulled out of me. Anna's just a sweet little snuggly baby. She's barely fussed."

They had apparent differences in looks, in personality, in what they seemed to like and dislike. Anna wanted Mavis to sleep close to her in the same bed. Mavis wanted to wriggle and hated to be swaddled. At one point, they were sleeping together, and Mavis started to fuss and her sister stared at her.

"You can tell Anna's getting fed up with Miss Crankypants," Lucy said.

Laxus nodded and removed Mavis from the little baby bed. "This one is going to be our troublemaker."

Lucy nodded. "I've felt that way since she came out of the womb and shocked the doctor. Anna's going to be my little celestial spirit summoner, so keep your ugly dragon magic away from her. Gramps too."

They spent all night watching their youngest two in between short rests, and in the morning, the door flew open and their two older kids rushed in ahead of their great-grandfather.

"Don't jump on the bed," their father commanded, causing both of them to freeze in place.

Laxus lifted them gently to sit on each side of their mother, who was holding Anna, and pulled up another chair next to the bed to sit next to his grandfather with Mavis.

"These are your baby sisters, Anna and Mavis. They're part of our family now and we're going to love them and take good care of them. You guys are going to be a good brother and good sister, right?" Lucy asked.

Both kids nodded eagerly.

Layla reached out a hand to touch her sister. "They were in your tummy?"

"Just like you were," Lucy said.

Yuri seemed to identify other people more often by scent than anything else, so he snuggled up close and sniffed Anna's hair. "She smells like you, Mama."

Layla said, "Hi babies, I love you. I'm your big sister. We can share my toys. But not my dresses. 'Kay?"

"You wouldn't share your clothes with your baby sisters?" Makarov asked, surprised by her declaration as she'd clearly thought it out in advance.

"Not dresses. I would share my socks."

Laxus looked up at his wife. "Still not as bad as our other child who told us not have any more male offspring."

Lucy looked down at their son. "Yuri, are you sad you don't have a little brother?"

"No."

Yuri's short, insistent answers on this subject made it one of the most amusing things about his upbringing so far. Neither of his parents even knew when or how he'd come to the conclusion he needed to be the only boy in their family, but he'd been consistent on the subject. What made it an even more curious point was the fact that he loved to be around other little boys. He just didn't want any in his family.

He was starting to demonstrate possessive tendencies toward the females of the family, including his mother, which was probably due to his dragon blood. Possessive creatures don't really share well, and Lucy secretly believed the reason Yuri didn't want a brother was because he didn't want to 'share' his sisters or mother with another male besides his father.

On the other hand, they had their toddler daughter, who laid down the rules and let her newborn sisters know she'd share practically anything except her dresses. Lucy could come up with no logical rationalization for this. Layla was just being a little girl and although she clearly loved her little sisters, she felt the need to let them know there were going to be some boundaries.

XXX

A week later happened to be the annual meeting of the local guild league, and all the other guildmasters watched in agitation as Laxus' eyelids drooped, as if bored, and then closed. He slept, then drooled, then snored while Goldmine was making a report of local guild issues, including rumors of different dark guilds cropping up here and there.

They were meeting in Magnolia in a private room at a restaurant, which made it easier for Laxus who hadn't really wanted to go all the way to Clover. As luck would have it, Natsu had just come back from a mission in Clover and their usual meeting place was still ashy rubble.

Goldmine threw a pen across the table at him and it hit him squarely on his forehead. "Am I boring you?"

"Sorry, no…" he quickly said as he sat up and rubbed his face.

"Then why are you sleeping?" the old man asked.

Laxus yawned. "Because newborns are noisy and difficult to please."

"Sound like women," Goldmine chuckled

"Tiny women are still women," the dragonslayer answered.

Master Bob perked up, "You had another baby? I heard you had a son a few years ago."

"I have four. A boy and three girls. The youngest two are one-week-old twins."

Bob grinned. "Four kids? Aren't you all grown up! I remember changing your diapers."

"Well, that's the most disturbing thought I've had all day."

These were not only his associates as fellow guildmasters, but these were people he'd grown up knowing and his grandfather's friends. Some of them were also former members of Fairy Tail, and they were far more interested in the Dreyar babies than what they'd come to discuss.

After the meeting, Goldmine and Master Bob more or less followed him home because they supposedly wanted to see Makarov, which made Laxus wonder why the three of them hadn't just arranged to meet. He was really too tired to try to avoid them and if they wanted to annoy his grandfather, he didn't really mind.

"Babe, we've got company," he called upstairs, "Goldmine and Master Bob."

Goldmine asked, "You gotta warn her we're here?"

Laxus nodded. "Haven't you been married like eight times? I kind of assume you should know how a wife operates. You show up with company and they catch her in a nightgown with unkempt hair? End of the world."

"And divorced nine times," Goldmine answered.

"I don't even want to know."

Makarov came sliding down the stair rail with one of the newborns on his shoulder. "Welcome, my old friends. Team Makarov! Look at what cute babies my grandson and his beautiful wife make." He covered his mouth but loudly whispered, "They're cute because they take after their mother. She's a real hottie!"

"Lucy will tear your head off and beat you with it if she sees you slide down the rail with a baby," his grandson warned.

The old man shrugged and went back upstairs for the other baby after he handed Anna off to Goldmine and the old men spent time cooing over the newborns and catching up. Laxus sat with them because they were business associates and because he vaguely remembered having each of them babysit him and was slightly nervous they had his babies.

The back door swung open and the older kids came running through the house ahead of Chelia, and came to a dead stop in the living room because there were strangers there.

Layla ran behind the corner to peek out at them, and Yuri looked from Goldmine to Master Bob and then spent quite a while staring at the latter, as if deeply confused.

Laxus gestured for Layla to come out of hiding and she ran straight to him and jumped in his lap. "These are my older kids. Layla and Yuri. Kids, these are Gams' friends, Master Bob and Goldmine."

Goldmine smiled at Layla. "You are a cute kid."

She responded by hiding her face against her father's chest.

Yuri continued to stare at Master Bob, but cautiously stepped forward and shook hands very properly with each of the men. "Nice to meet you."

Master Bob grabbed him and lifted him off the ground, hugging him tightly. "Oh, he's so handsome and cute I just want to kidnap him and take him home with me and eat him alive. Come sit on my lap."

Yuri was uncomfortable and fidgety, and jumped down immediately.

"Are you a boy?" he bluntly asked.

Laxus pinched the bridge of his nose. "I knew this was going to happen."

Master Bob was quite amused at the boy's confusion. "Your daddy didn't teach you that some boys like to dress like girls?"

"No?"

"Well, it's a lot of fun. It makes me happy, so that's what I do. Haven't you ever wanted to wear Mommy's lipstick?"

Yuri shook his head.

Makarov said, "He's a man's man."

Master Bob whipped out a tube of lipstick. "You want to try?"

Laxus gave him a sharp jolt as a little bolt of lightning melted the lipstick in his hand. "This is how people get hurt."

Yuri walked backwards, slowly, and tapped his sister on the foot. "Let's go play upstairs."

Layla slid off her father's lap and the two ran upstairs, as if escaping from the strangers. Goldmine watched them and asked, "What was that?"

Makarov answered, "Yuri is fiercely protective of his sisters. He thinks Bob is a creep and doesn't want to leave Layla with him."

"What a shame. He'd be an excellent candidate for Blue Pegasus. We like our men handsome, you know," Master Bob said.

"Tough shit, Bob. Yuri's been a member of Fairy Tail since before he could speak," Makarov answered.

"Maky, did you mark him when he was a baby?"

Makarov nodded. "I'd get Layla too, but I don't have the guild stamp anymore. I went looking for it, but for some reason that new asshole that runs the guild hid it."

Laxus answered, "That reason would be you. Besides, you don't do the work."

"I have health problems. I was forced into retirement. It's been hard for me, sleeping in whenever I want, taking afternoon naps, eating food your wife and the nanny cook for me, and playing with my great grandbabies all day. Somehow, I'm surviving."

His grandson rolled his eyes. "I've been had."

"Sad it took you that long to figure it out. Maky is living it up," Goldmine said.

Lucy came downstairs after a few minutes, dressed and freshly showered. Like her husband and every other adult in the house, she was clearly tired.

These were their professional contacts and associates, but as soon as she sat down with them, she realized they were more like awkward family members to Laxus, who treated them the way a person treats their 'weird uncle' at family reunions.

She came wielding books and ledgers. "Let's talk business. I read the agenda for today's meeting, but I wanted to bring a couple of additional subjects to your attention. First and foremost, the Black Fox activity in the northern area of our league's region is very disturbing, but I managed to have some reports sent in and I have a map with some points of interest so…are you holding my newborn daughter with dirt under your fingernails?"

Goldmine was impressed, and then intimidated by her venomous glare as she stole Anna from him.

"Go wash your hands, you gross old geezer."

Laxus smirked a little as the old man withered under her scolding and politely ran to the kitchen to wash his hands.

He came back and Lucy, balancing a newborn on one shoulder, said, "If we take a look at all the points of activity, we can assume their guild is located somewhere in the center. I believe the dark guild is headquartered somewhere around Dandelion."

The baby started to fuss, and she paced back and forth while she delivered her thoughts on their dues and fees, and presented a plan to have training exercises between the guilds three times per year.

Lucy was a smart, ambitious, and well-organized woman, and when she finished talking business, she left Anna with her husband and prepared to leave them to go make dinner.

Master Bob put a hand on his cheek. "What a woman! You look amazing for someone who just had twins too."

The blonde smiled and waved off the compliment. "Oh thanks!"

Laxus grinned at her, and she quickly turned and went on to the kitchen.

Makarov said, "My granddaughter-in-law is the best. She's the most powerful celestial spirit summoner in the world, she can handle all the guild accounting and legal crap, she's a great organizer with fantastic ideas, she's a great cook, she's a perfect mother and a good wife, and she's that good looking. God knows how the hell Laxus scored someone so out of his league."

"Magic. Not just for turning children into giants and putting a huge crack in the side of my new house like I won't notice," Laxus answered.

The old man squirmed a little nervously at the idea his grandson had noticed. "You're no fun."

Mavis started to fuss and Makarov cradled her and said, "Look, look. See this one? She looks more like Daddy than any of the kids. When she gets pissed, she makes the same agitated, constipated, cranky look as her Daddy."

Mavis' thin little lips were turned down into an identical scowl as her father as the men compared them and then started laughing.

"Oh you poor thing, if only you could inherit your mother's temperament," Bob said.

Makarov snorted. "Ha. We'd really be in trouble then. Lucy's a real spitfire. Laxus is the sulky sarcastic type, but his wife...have mercy on your soul when you get on her bad side. She'll let you know real quick when she's pissed."

Goldmine touched her pointed ears. "She's got ears like Ivan. Speaking of which, have you heard anything about him recently?"

Laxus watched his grandfather's expression fall and answered for him. "He died. It was right around the time Gramps retired."

He didn't offer any additional information because his grandfather clearly hadn't shared that information freely with them. It was easy to see it was still a painful subject for Makarov, even over a year later. Then again, the dragon slayer didn't know how long it would take everything to 'be okay' if anything ever happened to one of his kids.

Both of the men offered apologies and condolences.

They had a fairly productive and pleasant dinner together, although Lucy couldn't figure out why her son seemed terrified of Master Bob. Yuri was suspicious of him, and watched his every move. Yuri didn't know whether or not Bob was joking about wanting to kidnap him and eat him.

Once everyone was gone, while Chelia helped Lucy get all the kids cleaned and in bed, Laxus was cleaning up in the kitchen when Makarov came down to help him.

"Do you miss your father at all?" Makarov asked.

His grandson shook his head once. "He wasn't around enough for me to miss."

"Was that all his fault?"

"When I was young, it was his choice. When I grew up, it was mine."

Dishes clattered as he stacked them in the sink, and Virgo appeared.

"The princess asked me to assist." She spun around the room once, and it was sparkling clean and where it belonged. "Anything else?"

Laxus looked around. "Looks good. Thanks."

Virgo bowed politely and excused herself.

Makarov headed up the stairs with him after the doors were locked and lights were turned out. "I always hoped he'd get it together. When you were little, I always told myself I was looking after you until Ivan realized how important and precious his son was. You know, I don't know if he ever did. Even at the end, of course people are sorry for all the stuff they fucked up."

Laxus answered, "I used to tell myself I was only staying with you until my dad came to get me. I'm not sorry he didn't. Things turned out the right way, I think. I don't think he cared about being a father or a son. And I don't think he's worth being down over, Gramps. He made his choices, and we made ours."

When they got upstairs, Lucy was reading the older kids a story, and Chelia was in the nursery but as was the new normal, the twins were giving her fits about sleeping. Laxus showered and put on pajamas, then sent the women to bed and stayed up almost the entire night with the babies. It was a little complicated trying to breastfeed two babies at once, so he tried really hard to keep them content so Lucy could sleep at night since she had the babies most of the day for the time being.

Raising a big family was actually very hard work, especially with all their kids so close in age, but they'd decided it was better this way as they'd all be close enough in age they'd be going through some of the same things at the same time.

He managed to get a short nap in between four and six in the morning, and by then, the twins were sound asleep. Laxus crept downstairs and found his son sitting with Raijin in the living room, eating Cheerios. He had dressed himself in some shorts and a shirt, but was barefoot as he only wore shoes when forced.

He inherited this from his father, who was also barefoot in pajama pants and a muscle shirt.

"Son, one of these days, you're going to get a cut or a scrape and instead of blood coming out, it's going to be Cheerios."

Yuri stood up and followed him to the kitchen. "Good morning, Daddy."

"'Morning, Son. You're up ridiculously early, as always. It amazes me that you wake up at six every morning with no encouragement, but it's like pulling teeth to get your sister out of bed at nine. If I could just combine your sleeping habits, we'd be all right," he said.

Yuri climbed up on the counter while his father made some coffee. "How's the babies?"

"Good."

"How come they cry so much?"

"Because they're babies. You know, you were kind of terrible when you were first born. You screamed constantly and kept your mother and I up all the time."

His son thoughtfully answered, "Maybe I needed you lots and lots."

Laxus ruffled his hair. "Sometimes, your sisters are just going to really need their big brother. You're a really important person to them. They'll look up to you and rely on you, so you have to set a good example and look out for them."

"I'll be a good brother, I promise."

They talked while the coffee brewed and his son asked him questions about the visitors they had the night before. Yuri was relieved to find out that Master Bob actually didn't want to eat him.

"You start school in nine weeks. Are you ready?" Laxus asked as he poured coffee in his cup.

He nodded eagerly. "I can't wait. Can I have coffee now? I'm almost a grownup already."

Laxus offered him the coffee cup and Yuri took a sip and promptly spat it out.

"Ewww! Dad, that's gross!"

He grinned at him. "Coffee is more of a grownup drink."

"Like beer?"

"Beer is definitely a grownup drink," his father answered as he gave his son a little cup of chocolate milk.

Laxus ate some toast while he and his son had their usual early-morning father-son time, and when he'd finished, he said, "Come with me."

They went out in the backyard, and Laxus walked to a grassy patch in the middle of the yard.

"What are we doing, Daddy?"

Laxus said, "Let's stretch first. Do what I do."

Yuri was so excited and curious, because his father seemed excited too. He did his best to follow along and do what his father did, albeit with a little difficulty.

When they finished stretching, Laxus took a fighting stance. "Okay, try to stand like this."

He tried, but Laxus had to correct nearly everything about the way he was standing. And then once he did something else, it was hard to remember exactly how he'd been before. But he was big for his age, and had the benefit of dragon coordination, so he managed eventually to return to the stance.

Yuri had no idea, but his parents had a long and somewhat difficult discussion about this subject. Their kids were in danger because they were the babies of the guildmaster of the most powerful guild in Fiore. They were also in danger because they were all had enormous potential as wizards as the children of two powerful wizards.

They really didn't know what any of them might do as adults. Lucy pointed out one or all of them might choose some other vocation. Maybe Yuri would grow up and decide he did prefer building things than breaking them, but as long as he was their son and he had magic power that was worth abusing, he needed some way to defend himself and ignoring this because it was inconvenient wasn't going to help him at all.

They'd decided to teach all of them how to fight just in case the day ever came when they needed to know. Yuri was at present the only one that had the coordination to start learning, so that's where they started.

And truthfully, Laxus had been looking forward to this day since he found out he was going to have a son. Yuri was excited too because for as long as he could remember, he'd wanted to be like his dad. At the fight in the restaurant, he watched his father fight for the first time and he'd never been so in awe of anything in his life.

His father was tired from babies and work, but getting to teach his son how to fight and use lightning magic was infinitely rewarding. Father and son were both excited about this new chapter in their relationship.

At the end of the lesson, Laxus tickled his son until he collapsed in the grass, laughing.

Yuri's dragon blood had surged during the sparring match, and as he laid there on his back, trying to catch his breath, he experienced a certain dragon phenomena for the first time.

"I'm really hungry."

"You want more cereal?"

"I want meat."

"C'mon little dragon. I'll fix you something."

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