He's not the kind of man Ultear would normally pursue. He's too loud. Too boisterous. Thinks he's better than everyone else and has just enough intelligence, magic, and muscle mass to argue it. It's a moot point—why the hell should she care what Laxus Dreyar thinks, says, or does?—but his superiority complex makes her want to challenge him. Beat him down a few notches.

She realizes she's staring at him across the pub when he looks up from telling a joke at one of his guildmates' expense and catches her eye. He narrows his gaze. A small electric charge leaps from the metal cup in front of Ultear and into her fingers. It's not enough to hurt, but it's enough to make her yelp. The noise draws the attention of the patrons around her. She glares at them all in turn but saves the worst for Laxus, who is snickering to himself as he lifts a shot of something clear to his mouth. Ultear concentrates on the glass and whittles it down using her magic. It rots, breaks apart, and spills the liquid all over Laxus' front, clinging his shirt to his chest.

He swears and stands. His tablemates stop talking. Some of them look at him in wonder, others in awe, not understanding what's happened, but knowing that he's furious, and when Laxus Dreyar is furious, things go awry.

Ultear remains sitting, smiling a cutthroat smile, daring him to step forward and slice himself on it.

He does step forward seemingly with his usual swagger, but Ultear can see the caution in his movements as he leaves his worshippers behind and moves into the unknown.

He scrapes the chair across from Ultear over the floor and sits. He hunches forward like a boulder, arms crossed on the table, smelling of nice cologne and aftershave and pomade and all manner of vain things that make Ultear's nose twitch. His jaw is hard and straight, and his eyes are the unyielding colour of slate. He has a scar over the right, deep and angry still, though it's long since healed. He looks her over much the same way she looks over him. She likes the challenge she sees in him.

Ultear is the first to break the silence. "Can I help you?"

"What's your name?"

Ultear's first instinct is to lie. Her first instinct is always to lie. Instead, she hears herself telling him her name. It's dangerous. She shouldn't. He might recognize it or somehow equate her with Gray, and she's not ready for that meeting yet. But no recognition sparks in Laxus' eyes.

"Do you know who I am?" he asks.

"Nope. Not sure I care to, either." She smiles as she says it, knowing full well what to expect and isn't disappointed when annoyance flashes through him.

His table makes a commotion. One of his guildmates has picked a fight with another patron and the pub owner is desperately shooing them out with threats of calling the Magic Council.

"Maybe I'll see you around." Ultear stands. She isn't afraid of a pub brawl and is confident she can incapacitate everyone in this room if need be. She has no interest in leaving behind trails for the Magic Council to follow, though. A low profile is needed.

Laxus' frustration over her blasé attitude only mounts. Ultear relishes in it, feeling his eyes tracking her as the pub door swings closed behind her.


It's weeks before she sees him again, exiting the same pub as she's entering it. Just because she hasn't sought him out in person doesn't mean she hasn't been watching him from behind the scenes, though. She knows more about him now than ever before. His most recent dance with infamy has him wiping out a dark guild without the Council's permission and has gotten himself in trouble with his guild master.

His eyes track to her but move away again. She feels the same pang of challenge she did the first night they met. She tries to let it go by entering the pub, ordering food and a drink, watching the members of the Fairy Tail guild Laxus undoubtedly came with sitting in the same corner they occupied weeks before, chatting, laughing tensely as they wonder if they should go after their leader. Ultear tries to listen into their conversation but the chatter around the pub is too noisy.

She finishes her meal, pays, and leaves again. It's cold tonight, as Summer slumps softly against Autumn, decaying around her, smelling like rotting leaves, moist soil, and frost.

Ultear's boots crack against the flagstones and echo off the canal. It'll be drained soon so the ice doesn't damage the locks, but for now, the water reflects the starburst sky, a long line of uninterrupted lights until she reaches the silhouette of a man sitting at the water's edge.

She knows it's Laxus by the broadness of his shoulders. She wars with herself—go over to him or leave him to brood?—even though she's already walking that way.

He doesn't move as she steps over the cobblestones and takes up the spot beside him on the cold concrete. He's smoking and staring into the deep dark. She feels his brooding like a wall of misfortune and pities his grandfather, the source of Laxus' anger.

Tonight, it's Laxus who first breaks the silence. "I didn't ask for company."

"I'm not sure I offered it," Ultear responds. "I only came to see if you would do something stupid with your anger."

He turns his head just enough to look at her from the corner of his eye. "What?"

"It was you that overthrew that dark guild, wasn't it? The Magic Council is in a tizzy."

He snorts. "They're a dark guild. What does it matter?"

"They were a dark guild, sure. But they were legally registered and hadn't openly defied the Council," Ultear says. Which is true enough.

This gets Laxus' full attention. "Are you a council spy? Are you watching me?"

Ultear laughs. "There are better people to watch than Laxus Dreyar."

"Last time we met, you said you didn't know me."

She lifts her shoulder and hears words she wishes were another lie coming from her lips. "Maybe I thought you were worth researching."

Vanity is Laxus' undoing. Some of his suspicions wane. They shouldn't. She has thought about him quite a lot since their first meeting, but mostly it's been about how he can serve her.

"Then you attacked that dark guild, and I decided I was wrong."

Laxus scowls. Ultear laughs.

"I'll let you in on a secret. The only reason the Council is furious is that they have no cohobating evidence," Ultear confides. This part is true enough. "You did the right thing. Your grandfather is foolish to punish you."

Laxus flexes his hands into fists and almost breaks his cigarette. "He's too old to challenge the Council and the dark guilds."

Ultear can't help herself. "Makarov's time is ending and Fairy Tail will need someone in his place. You would make a much better leader."

A jolt moves through Laxus' body. He's never thought of it before. Or at least, he's never heard it spoken aloud. He puts his cigarette back in his mouth and sucks on it hard. "He'd never step down willingly. Pops is the kinda guy you gotta show is weak, and if I do that, I'll be locked up for sure."

"I can help you," Ultear offers. She doesn't know what she's saying. She doesn't know why. She can't help herself, is addicted to this game of manipulation and the power she feels from it. "I can make the Council see things your way."

"Who are you?" Laxus asks again.

Your best friend. Your saboteur. "Someone in an advantageous position," she says with a grin that shows her teeth.


Laxus isn't like other men. He doesn't trust Ultear unequivocally, even though he brings her back to his apartment to plan. He doesn't see her heart-shaped face and unrelenting curves and thinks she's too pretty to be mean. Quite the contrary. He seems to hunt for the meanness in her, his eyes sparking every time they meet in the weeks that follow, and she says something wicked, unprecedented, or conniving. Instead of being pushed away, however, her taciturn behaviour seems to draw him in closer.

Each day, she catches his eyes drifting from her gaze to her lips, and then further. She catches him watching her move, listening to her speak. She's filled with a familiar sense of power, coupled with an intense sense of want. She wants to be worshipped as she promises him all the things she cannot give. She wants him to look at her with longing and admiration and all number of things that make her toxic heart flourish.

"What are you thinking when you look at me like that?" Ultear asks the first day it snows. Laxus' apartment is small and stiflingly warm, neat to the point of obsession, or absence. This is not a place he spends much time. There's dust on the window curtains when Ultear pushes them aside to view the whitening sidewalk. People hurry down the street with their coats clutched to their throats, breath pluming in the air. Some residents have started shovelling their walks already, though there's barely an inch on the ground.

"I think you're a liar," Laxus says blandly. Ultear spins to look at him. He leans against the back of his couch with his arms crossed, mouth flat.

"Oh?"

"I think you can't do all the things you claim you can."

Ultear smiles. "You don't think I'm part of the Magic Council?"

"I know you are. I just think you have your own angle."

"Of course."

Laxus hunts her eyes. "Are you setting me up?"

"Have a little faith," Ultear says. She knows she isn't schooling her face into something benign. She knows this isn't a smile he'll trust.

Laxus straightens and closes the small space between them. Ultear tilts her chin up to look him in the eye. Sometimes, she forgets how tall he is. Sometimes, she forgets how powerful his magic is. She can feel it coming off him in waves that sting her skin and make her shiver.

"That's not an answer." His voice is a low growl.

"I didn't know we were in the business of truth-telling."

He takes her by the hair, pulling it tight and drawing her head back. She's sure it's supposed to be an intimidating show of power on his part but all she feels is the thrill. It leaps from her head to her middle and coils into sweetness. Her gasp peters off into a throaty purr. Laxus pauses for an instant, totally still except for his eyes. Those still hunt Ultear's, looking for something. They widen slightly as Ultear touches him back, putting her hands on his chest and feeling his drumbeat heart, and then move lower. He bends toward her slowly. The fingers in her hair are still tight, but the intent in his touch has changed now. She can feel him getting stiff against her belly. His heart beats harder as she slides her hands down his midsection to his belt.

His kiss is like glacier melt, there's nothing in it but the desire to move from one state into the next—a solid to a liquid, business acquaintances to lovers. It's all very rational and bestial. His want has become a need, and Ultear's surprised to find herself there, too, wondering what things look like on the other side of their tenuous relationship.

Ultear bends into him and allows herself to be swept away by the tide. Clumsy fingers, seeking mouth, frustrated plumes of breath that both cool her to her core and make her hot enough to sweat, but not for the usual things that girls would sweat over in this position. She's used to doing dangerous things. This is taking it to another level, though. This is entanglement. This is involvement. If things go wrong in Laxus' coup to overthrow Fairy Tail, he can use this tryst to implicate her. She could lose her position on the Magic Council. She could lose everything.

This should make her shy.

Ultear yanks at her clothes until she's naked in Laxus' small apartment. Every part of her body is on high alert. She can't help but sob when he touches her, though she hates the noise and how vulnerable and vapid it makes her sound.

For once, Laxus isn't thinking about their contrary positions, though. He takes her by the hips and lifts her up onto the counter at her back. This is cold. Marble. Hard. He pushes her until she's lying flat on her back and spreads her legs wide. He trails kisses, then bites, working his way to her upper thigh, and then to the sweet spot between her legs. She cries out again, this time without reserve. His arms are long enough to loop under her legs and reach her breasts. He pinches her erect nipples while his tongue does things for her that she can't do for herself, dragging her closer and closer to bliss.

He's relentless, never slowing until finally, Ultear bows and cries out in ecstasy as all her tight muscles go limp and relaxed.

Laxus draws away from her. Other men would grin in triumph. He's pleased with himself, she can see, but he's focused, taking off his shirt, and undoing his pants, pushing them down and stepping out of them. He comes to stand beside her head. She turns and opens her mouth for him, guessing his intentions, and he thrusts inside. His hands are back in her hair again, holding as tight as they were before. She opens as wide as she can to accommodate him and lets him be as rough as he wants. He never pushes her too far; he's different from other men in this way, too.

He gets thick. Ultear waits for him to burst across her tongue, but he pulls out, panting and squeezing her breasts. There's a moment she thinks he'll come anyway, but he swallows and seems to get a hold of himself.

"Lean over the counter," he tells her.

Ultear isn't used to being bossed around, but she makes an exception today; she likes the way he's looking at her. She adjusts so she's standing once more and leans over the counter. It's cool on her cheek and fogs with her breath as he spreads her legs apart and positions himself between them. The head of his cock slides over her slickness, and then he pushes his way inside and she can't help but cry out. He holds her by the hip and by the hair and fucks her so hard, she's going to have bruises on her hips. She encourages him. Harder. Faster. Don't stop when it feels like he might. Soon, she has no breath with which to command and she just gasps, at his mercy as he leaves his handprints on her ass and presses her cheek to the countertop.

Ultear comes one final time and then Laxus comes, too. He pulls out and sprays it across her back and in her hair, and as it cools, she shivers.

They stay as they are for a beat, Laxus' cock slowly shrinking against her ass, and Ultear still cheek-down on the countertop, then he pulls away.

"Shower's over here."

She normally wouldn't do this either, shower in a man's home, but she's broken so many of her own rules, she doesn't see the point of holding out on this one. Besides, she's not going to walk through town like this, is she?


Laxus has made coffee by the time Ultear comes out. He's leaning against the counter he fucked her on, sipping the steaming liquid. He wears a grin now, the first she's seen on him in weeks since they started planning his takeover of Fairy Tail.

This is territory he understands, she thinks as she sidles up beside him and pours herself a cup, too. "That's the look of a confident man." She sips the coffee and wishes she'd added cream and sugar. For all the things he's good at, making a decent cup of coffee isn't one of them.

"This is the look of a man that's going to take over the wizarding world," Laxus responds. "One guild at a time."

"I'll drink to that." Ultear lifts her coffee cup and clanks it against his.

The only thing more terrifying than an ambitious man is an ambitious woman standing behind him.