Summary: RWBY Chibi inspired. Natsu, Gray, Gajeel, Jellal, and Elfman are all put out to find out that their children think 'Uncle Laxus' is the coolest.
Pairings: Natsu/Lucy, Gray/Juvia, Gajeel/Levy, Erza/Jellal, parental Gray/Ur, parental Gajeel/Gillian, parental Jellal/Edward, parental Natsu/Nashi, and other family and friendship feels implied.
YouTube Prompt: Wendy in battle tribute to 'The Sky Is a Neighbourhood' by Foo Fighters.
The sight of Laxus smoking a cigar while he played poker was not a horrifying sight. In fact it was quite an ordinary sight and if it was any other day Gajeel, Natsu, Gray, and Jellal would sit down and join in.
No.
What was horrifying was seeing that Laxus' fellow poker players were no other than their precious thirteen year old children.
"WHAT THE HELL?!" Gajeel bellowed. "How the fricking hell is this book club?!"
"Dad!" Gilly squawked as she dropped her cards onto the table in surprise. "What are you doing here?!"
"I've come to fetch you home for dinner," Gajeel said gruffly, "and what do I find? My baby girl playing poker in smoky den of sin!"
"…Dad," Gilly sweat-dropped, "I'm in the guild building."
"I stand by what I said."
"Edward," Jellal said befuddled and hurt, "I don't understand. You said you couldn't spend the afternoon with me because had to practise."
"Yeah!" Natsu said indignantly. "Nashi you and me were supposed to fish and you said you had to babysit!"
"And Ur," Gray scowled, "we were supposed to have some father/son bonding time to get your mother off of our backs."
"C'mon Dad!" Ur whined. "We can do that gross, boring, stuff anytime. Uncle Laxus said he was going to teach us how to play poker. That never happens! Uncle Laxus is usually too busy."
"Yeah Dad," Nashi said sweetly, "we never get to have fun with Uncle Laxus anymore!"
"I am practising," Edward said blandly, "I am practising my poker face so I can face down my enemies."
"…I could have helped you with that," Jellal said sadly, "I managed to convince people that I was my own twin brother. I am an excellent liar."
Edward squired guiltily at that. "Look Dad," he said uncomfortably, "it's not that I don't like spending time with you it's just that…..well….Uncle Laxus is really cool!"
"So cool!" Ur agreed enthusiastically.
"The coolest!" Nashi nodded.
"Please don't take this the wrong way," Gilly pleaded, "but the fact is Dad you're nowhere near as cool as Uncle Laxus."
"Heh," Laxus smirked, "would you look at that. I'm the coolest."
Gajeel, Gray, Natsu, and Jellal all stood there utterly mortified as they felt every fibre of their being freeze over.
They – the heavy metal rock star slash Iron Dragon Slayer, the Ice Demon Slayer, the Fire Dragon Slayer slash Demon slash Prince, and the Vigilante – were not cool.
Their kids didn't think they were cool.
Laxus, the poncy git that did all the paperwork, the guy with his own personal corny cheerleading team consisting of two guys and a woman who literally wants to be a fairy, the guy in the tiger stripped shirt and the big, stupid, fur-trimmed coat that looked like it belonged to a fat middle-aged gangster or a gay hairdresser, THAT GUY, was cooler than them?!
That guy!
Cooler than them.
In the opinion of their very own children.
Their children thought they were uncool in comparison to Laxus. THEM. Their fathers. Uncool compared to Laxus who had no actual relation to them.
They thought Laxus was the coolest of them all.
Their worlds simultaneously shattered at the heartless words of their children….
FTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFT
Ur was simply minding his own business as he walked down the street when it happened.
At first, he hadn't noticed because he was too busy thinking of all the good burns he was going to give Nashi to get her all riled up, but then he noticed a consistent flicker in the corner of his eye. It took a while but he eventually realised that his father was following him down the road on a skateboard.
"God Dad!" Ur moaned in embarrassment as he covered his bright pink face. "There's nothing cool about a forty something old man skateboarding in his underwear!"
"Crap!" his father cursed but he did nothing to change the fact he was half naked as something else caught his attention. "What do you mean forty something old man?! Me?! Old?! I'm way too hip to be hold." Ur groaned loudly at the word hip but was promptly ignored. "I'll show you old! Watch this!"
Ur waited impatiently as his father suddenly shot down the street on the skateboard (that Ur presumed) he had stolen from some nearby kid. He sped up towards a high curb which Ur assumes he was going to use as a platform for his flip or whatever over the top 'cool' trick he had come up with
Instead though the elder Fullbuster suddenly fell backwards and landed, in a humiliatingly over the top manner, on his back with a loud, sickening –
CRACK!
"Ah Jeeze!" Ur muttered as he watched his father's leg and arms flail about as if he was an upturned turtle. An upturned turtle wearing only his underwear… "You know what Dad?" Ur said loudly "You stay here while I'll go get some medical help...from like three towns away!" he added in an embarrassed mutter.
And without a second thought Ur zoomed down the street with his face practically buried in his shirt to hide away any resemblance to his incredibly embarrassing father.
He didn't feel so bad about abandoning said embarrassing father as it only took his mother two seconds to realise something is wrong (her Gray-sama senses were tingling) and she had appeared out of thin air and used her awe-inspiring love induced strength to carry his father down the street to Wendy's medical aid…..this, as you can imagine, did absolutely nothing to ease Ur's embarrassment.
FTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFT
Gajeel, however, had a much better and awesome way to prove his was cooler than Laxus.
He was, after all, a rock star.
It was right there in the title. He was super cool just by breathing but to hammer in the point and remind his precious munchkin of that, Gajeel put on his very best rock star threads. This included the tight leather pants and the matching platform boots and shredded t-shirt as he gave his eyebrow piercings an extra shine, added an additional layer of guy-liner (not eyeliner! It wasn't girly!) under his eyes, and made sure his hair was extra wild and ragged.
He then proudly marched onto the stage that very evening (ignoring the heckling jeers from jealous S. like Salamander and the Icy Prick) and pulled out his electric guitar.
"This one is for my Munchkin," Gajeel announced (deliberately ignoring the sniggers amongst the guild and Gilly's mortified expression), "from the coolest Dad ever."
"In your dreams!" Natsu hollered out. "I'm the coolest Dad ever!"
Gajeel very coolly flipped his finger in Natsu's general direction (and smirked when Lucy hauled Natsu back into his seat when the moron tried to lunge at him) before he suddenly strummed his guitar in the most epic fashion ever.
"YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW!" Gajeel howled into the microphone. This caused everyone in the guild to flinch, wince, or just slap their hands over their ears as they tried to prevent them from bleeding out. "Oh yeah, yeah, yeah," Gajeel sang passionately, "oh yeah, yeah, yeah! Ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooh! Gillian! Yeah, yeah, yeah! Gillian! Yeah, yeah yeah…"
The song carried on in what Gajeel thought was a brilliant entertaining success but what everyone else privately (and loudly) thought as five long minutes of sheer torture.
Gilly cringed, her face bright red, as she slid further and further down in her seat….
FTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFT
Jellal was determined to be considered cool.
He might not be the type to throw himself into childish antics like Natsu or literally be cool like Gray or have a heavy metal rock star persona like Gajeel but Jellal did used to be a vigilante and that was very cool.
Edward was a little closer to Erza than Jellal, mainly because Erza had taken full control over Edward's education and had no problem letting Edward touch the sharp pointy swords. Jellal, however, had worried about the health and safety issue thanks to his public servant side.
Now though that Edward was thirteen, Jellal felt the gap between them keenly and wished to rectify it.
He was going to ensure that Edward saw him as equally cool (if not cooler) as Laxus.
His attempts thought just kept flopping.
Jellal was superbly clever at magic but when it came to weapons (Edward's primary interest) he was utterly useless and had managed to almost impale himself during fencing, actually shot his foot during archery, and unwittingly destroyed their living room wall (plaster flaking all over the carpet) when he tried to entice Edward with maces.
"I think we should leave the weaponry with Mum," Edward said solemnly, "and just do something safe and boring like studying runes together."
"No!" Jellal burst out as his eyes widened in horror. He didn't want to be associated with boring dusty books instead of something cool and awesome. "No," he said more calmly, "I want to do something fun and cool with you, I mean," he added hastily, "something you would enjoy."
Edward stared at him unnervingly with his ark brown eyes that he inherited from his mother before he then sighed heavily.
"Dad you have to face reality," Edward said sternly, "and accept the fact that Mum is the cool parent not you."
Erza nodded sagely in agreement behind their son.
Jellal slumped into such a blue, despairing, depression that mushrooms began to grown around the corner he was huddled in.
FTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFT
Natsu was determined to win back his daughter's admiration again.
First, he excitedly burst into her bedroom and dragged her out of bed like he used to when she was small and then took her out on what would be an excellent adventure. Unfortunately Natsu was quickly learning that thirteen year old Nashi wasn't impressed with a day in the old tree house they had once built together.
Nor was she into playing with dolls anymore.
And that all of his tricks like juggling with fire or making animal shapes out of fire or blowing out balls of fire like an epic dragon no longer merited applause and cheers but yawns and eye rolls.
So he tried eating up a few Vulcans to look super awesome only to turn round and find that Nashi was too busy kicking a Vulcan into a tree to notice his super awesomeness.
"So what do you think of your Dad now, huh?" Natsu said loudly as he punched a Vulcan in the jaw. "I'm cool right."
"Pfft!" Nashi snorted. "Yeah right."
"What?!" Natsu yelped crossly. "Why don't you think I'm cool?! You think Laxus is cool. Laxus! Why not me? I'm your Dad!"
"Exactly!" Nashi cried out. "You're my Dad! Dads aren't cool! They're not meant to be cool! They're all so embarrassing. That doesn't mean I love you less than Uncle Laxus or anything it just means I think he's cooler than you because he isn't this overprotective, cringe-y, Dad figure."
"That doesn't make any sense!" Natsu said irritably. "Are you saying that being a Dad automatically means I'm uncool?!"
"Yes!"
There was a moment of silence as Natsu took this newfound information in and then -
"Lucy!" Natsu cried out as he burst into the kitchen later that evening. "Did you know that being a Dad suddenly makes me uncool?! I'm uncool now! Me!"
Lucy almost laughed in his face as she slipped her arms round his waist. "Only to your children," Lucy said reassuringly, "no child thinks their parents are cool. But if it makes you feel better I think Daddy Natsu is very sexy."
"Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!" Natsu whined childishly. "Lucy, you weirdo! I don't want you as my kid!"
"THAT'S NOT WHAT I MEANT YOU IDIOT!"
Nashi sighed as she walked in, witnessed her parents bickering about embarrassing things in the most childish manner, and immediately turned round and walked back out of the house. Her parents were so embarrassing and uncool!
Oh well, at least she knew that none of the others fared any better.