A/N: hey guys, this is a super long chapter that is very dialogue heavy and has lots of character development. I would love any constructive criticism you're willing to give. I hope you're enjoying this series as much as I am.
Anyways, as always, Read, Review and Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I do not own Fairy Tail
Day 19
It was the first time Laxus had shown up for work and genuinely dreaded the night to come. Sure, each night had its own challenge, but when he got home he could generally laugh it off.
Tonight was not going to be one of those nights.
Guildarts had called him earlier in the day to inform him that tonight was in fact Natsu Dragneel's (a regular at the club and one of Cana's friends) birthday, and judging from last year's spectacle, the club would be packed with even more idiots than the legion Mira summoned about a week ago. He considered bringing in back up but there wasn't enough time to organise it, but thankfully Clive decided to bring in extra cleaning crew- there was nothing he hated more than some drunk vomiting all over him- even a hot one.
He nodded a greeting to his team as he made his way over to his corner, surprised to find Cana helping Mira carry boxes of alcohol to the bar.
"Need a hand?" he asked, taking Cana by surprise at his proximity as she hadn't noticed him arrive, but none the less greeted him with her signature mischievous grin. Mira pointed to the store room where he found the quiet Kinana scribbling on her clip board seriously. He cleared his throat, willing himself not to smirk as she visibly jumped in shock. "Can I help with anything?" he asked, giving her a reassuring smile that made her blush- how did this girl survive behind the bar? Most likely Mira's hawkish supervision.
"Mira and Cana have taken most of it out already, all that's left is the backup spirits in that box." She said, pointing to the one adjacent his foot. "If you could take them outside I'm sure Mira can show you where to put them." she said quietly, quickly darting out of the room to attend to something else. Laxus carefully carried the fragile box, being sure not to knock the glass bottles against anything before setting it down where Mira had pointed. He didn't have time to brace himself before Cana let out an excited squeal and jumped rather haphazardly onto his back.
"Tonight is going to be so good!" she squealed, swaying as Laxus tried to dislodge her. "Aren't you excited?!" she asked, finally letting go to spin him to face her, eyes beaming. Laxus tried to shrug her off with a roll of his eyes and began walking towards his corner but she blocked his way, hands on her hips demanding an answer.
"It's just another night of work… the only difference is that tonight everyone is some kind of insane." He muttered, but instead of retreating to his corner like he usually did when she had decided he would do something, he was forced to the dance floor where all of the staff where in a tight huddle, orchestrated by Guildarts himself.
"Alright everybody, tonight is going to test all of us." He said, which Laxus thought was the understatement of the year. "The biggest issue is going to be fights. This crowd gets heated and cools off quickly, but it only takes one too many people to get involved and it becomes an all-out brawl with everyone going to the cop shop in paddy wagons, Fairy Tail Club plastered all over the news- we don't need a repeat of the Halloween catastrophe, or the Australia Day bash." He said, looking at each of the staff meaningfully. With a short clap he dismissed them. "Good luck everyone!"
Laxus knew he was going to need it.
OOO
"What's got you so hyped about tonight anyway?" Laxus asked, quickly tiring of her energetic flitting around him, spurting off random phrases which he assumed were meant to be inspirational but just made the dread build in his stomach. Cana stood in front of him, hands on her hips and a familiar expression- disappointment at his failure to grasp to obvious.
"I cancelled work tomorrow- which means I can finally let loose!" Cana exclaimed, not so patiently waiting for him to understand.
"And coming here every night and getting plastered between grinding with strangers isn't letting loose?" Laxus asked with mock confusion, which he expected to result in her typical pursed lipped glare but instead she grinned like he'd said a hilarious joke.
"I guess Mira hasn't given you 'the speech' yet, huh?" she asked, returning to her excited flitting, this time the irritating part was how he knew she was laughing at him, he just didn't know why.
"There are so many, I'm not sure which one you're talking about." He said, wishing he was joking as memories of Mira's threatening finger being waved in his face surfaced. Cana chuckled, remembering her own fair share of Mira speeches.
"Well, this one is kinda memorable…" Cana probed but when she was met with no response she dismissed him with a flick of her hair. "I wouldn't worry about it, you'll work it out for yourself soon enough." Cana said with a chuckle. Cana turned, distracted by the swarm of friends that just entered, hollering and hooting, grappling with each other. "Sorry, my people need me." She said with a dramatic air, her familiar grin getting harder and harder not to return. "I'll come find you later." She said before sprinting off into the crowd which swallowed her with squeals of delight and deep laughter.
"Alright team," Laxus said into his radio, "let the onslaught begin!"
OOO
"Dear God!" Laxus cursed silently, "Is this what hell looks like?" he thought solemnly as he pulled Dragneel and Fullbuster apart as they drunkenly punched each other for what seemed like the hundredth time. Just as he thought he'd finally finished with them, Fullbuster's blue haired girlfriend jumped on his back, yelling right in his ear some ridiculous drivel about how he had to unhand her precious blah blah blah… Now half deaf, he resisted the urge to violently throw her off his back and shrugged her off, retreating back to the sanctuary of his corner and hoping it would be a while before he had to once again infiltrate the maddening crowd.
Now able to hide behind the guise of having to remain outside the action to give concise orders (a lie Ever Green would later call him out on) he could once again search for Cana. Part of his job was to watch Cana, make sure nothing too out of hand happened which was generally pretty easy as she either stayed by the bar or danced with friends. However he discovered exactly what 'letting loose' in Cana's eyes translated to. Over the course of the night he had seen her drink close to over double her usual amount which was already incomprehensible, and that was only the drinks he had seen. She danced, long hair swaying around her, body rhythmically rocking to the beat. But as the total amount of standard drinks began to quickly add up Cana found herself with partner after partner; grinding, groping and grooving. At one point things got so heated that Bixlow found himself making a comment.
"If they grind any harder, their clothes are going to disintegrate." Bixlow murmured into his radio, there being no confusion about who he was talking about.
To Laxus' dismay, Cana stayed with the man Mira informed him to be Loke, an old childhood friend, gyrating intensifying which eventually lead to some very sloppy and very public kissing. The price of staying in his corner (which he willingly paid) was listening to Mira complain about how Cana had a habit of picking unavailable men, the list a mile long. To be quite frank, Laxus couldn't care less if Cana wanted a commitment or not- right now all he was concerned about were Clive's words ordering her to leave the club alone which meant somehow convincing Cana to keep it in her pants long enough to ditch Casanova and get her home.
He breathed a sigh of relief as he watched Cana disentangle herself from whatever his name was and make her way towards the bar. But he soon realised that she wasn't making her way towards the bar, but him. With a grin and a flirtatious swagger, she pulled up what they both now referred to as the 'Cana's stool' (though he never gave her the satisfaction of saying it out loud), stepping up so they were now at the same eye level. He wrapped a wary arm around her waist as she wobbled dangerously, grasping his arm in order to unsuccessfully balance herself. When he finally stopped worrying she was going to fall from the wooden stool and break something vital he realised she hadn't spoken which was uncharacteristic for her, he followed her line of sight and found whatever his name was kissing another girl and regretted it. What was he supposed to say? Console her? But then again he couldn't encourage her to pursue him…
His thoughts were cut off by Cana leaning all her weight against his side, making him lurch before quickly rebalancing so as not to let her fall. He glared up at her but his expression quickly softened when he saw her pained face which she quickly hid behind a grin.
"Don't sweat about Loke, he's always like that." Cana said, breaking eye contact to avoid his worried eyes that he didn't realise were showing. "There are plenty more guys where he came from, probably with less diseases." She said with a chuckle, eyes darting around the room, focussing on anything but Loke. "How about one of them?" she asked, pointing out towards a pair of men, one blonde and one with stark black hair.
"You came all the way over here to ask my opinion on which guy you should bone?" he asked, both wary and unimpressed of the turn in the conversation. Cana laughed, the vibrations seeping into his torso where she clung to him.
"Actually I came over here to ask you to dance." She said, her grin this time seeming genuine. "I know you have a no dancing on the job rule," she said, he remembered the phony rules he'd made up along the way to get her to lay off, he knew somewhere along the line she'd picked up that it was all crap but she never let on. "but I figured it was worth a shot." She said, jumping off the chair and landing on her feet smoothly despite the heels revealing she wasn't nearly as drunk as she pretended to be. Before he could object she grabbed his hands, swaying her body side to side in an awkward kind of dance, pulling his arms in an attempt to force him to dance. Rather than pull away and invent some kind of disturbance that he had to sort out like usual, he gave in and let her take control of his arms, watching her sway in the shadows.
"As far as I could see you were doing more dry humping than dancing." He said, chuckling at the flush in her cheeks- so she could act like that in front of a club full of people but she was embarrassed by being called out on it.
"It had the desired effect." Cana said, pulling his arms uncomfortably out of sync as she playfully glared at him.
"So what's the point of this?" he asked, raising his arms slightly before letting them flop back into her control. She smirked, pausing for a moment to consider the question.
"To see if you've got the moves to go with all those muscles." She said seriously, cocking an eyebrow before breaking into a fit of laughter, the alcohol taking effect. Laxus waited until the giggling subsided to make his move. Taking her by surprise he pulled her in close and proceeded to spin her on her heels before pulling her back, all of which happened within the warm confines of his arms. He smirked at her shocked expression but before she could come up with a witty come back or over the top flirtation he cut her off. "Sorry, gotta work, those idiots are brawling again." He said, smirk still planted firmly on his lips as he walked out into the crowd, making sure the blue haired woman was preoccupied before pulling the two idiots apart.
As he wandered back and saw that Cana had disappeared back into the crowd, he deliberated as to whether he had crossed a line that Cana was always pushing. But all his fears were erased when he saw her returning to him with two drinks, one of which she always offered to him before downing both.
"Do you want one? It's Vodka and coke." She said, offering it with a grin and the familiar mischievous glint.
"Nah, you better drink 'em."
OOO
"Fuuuuuck!" Laxus groaned, unaware he had done so out loud let alone clearly heard by his team through their radios.
"What's wrong Laxus?" Freed's anxious voice asked through the radio making him take pause but before he could come up with a good answer Bixlow answered for him.
"Because now he has to pry Cana off that guy-" Bixlow said before being cut off by Laxus, not wanting an audience to what was most likely going to be an ugly and degrading affair.
"Yes, I think we all get the idea Bixlow." He snapped, hoping to watch from a distance until the last possible moment to intervene, but to his relief after one last unpleasantly long kiss Cana and whoever the new guy was parted ways and she drunkenly sauntered towards him, having to stop a couple of times to balance herself on nearby objects and people.
"Let's go muscle man!" Cana slurred, pumping her fist in the air in an attempt to inspire excitement but almost unbalanced herself and stumbled forward, the crown of her head connecting with Laxus' stomach. With a sigh Laxus once again wrapped an arm around her waist and helped her stumble towards the door. While she was too drunk to take in anything much more than Laxus holding her up and the street beneath her feet, Laxus was left with all the awkward farewells and concerned glances. Slowly, little by little they made it towards her apartment, each step arduous. Laxus knew that it would be much faster and much less uncomfortable for both of them if he just picked her up and carried her home, but after their little dance he didn't want to make things any more questionable.
"We better pick up the pace or I'm not going to be able to meet Max at my apartment." Cana said, taking a deep breath as she plunged forward only to be stopped by Laxus, his muscular arms easily keeping her stationary in her state.
"What do you mean meet some guy at your apartment- you can't seriously be thinking of screwing anyone in your state!?" he snapped, exasperated- so she was sober enough to organise a late night booty call but not be able to walk home without support. But none of his objections phased Cana in the least, pushing him away she stood on shaky legs to tell him exactly where it stopped being his business.
"Look, your job is to get me home, not judge whether or not I'm sober enough to perform in the bedroom so I suggest you do your job and take me home!" She snapped, and when he didn't immediately come to her aid she staggered on by herself and to his amazement each step sobered her up slightly until, while still slightly wobbly, she walked upright. It was the first time he'd seen her like this- so unapologetically determined. There was no joking smile or smug grin as she walked on, just the determination to get what she wanted, that in her drunken state he doubted she even knew what that was. There was no way he could leave her like this in good conscience, no matter how sober she thought she was. He quickly raced forward and clutched her arm, forcing her to a stop and despite her unbridled disdain there was little she could physically do but listen to what he had to say.
"Now you better listen to me because this isn't up for argument- from the time you enter the club you are my responsibility." He said forcefully, his intense stare leaving her unable to raise a defence. "Tonight, you had way more booze than you should have and if there were any inspectors there tonight both Mira and I would have gotten fired, no matter what Guildarts had to say." he said, now gripping her on each side at her shoulders to keep her attention solely on him. "Now if you go home and do something stupid and injure yourself, or get raped because you're too drunk to know what's going on, that's on me." He finished, looking deep into her eyes to try to make her understand. Cana frowned, opened her mouth as if to launch a counter argument but thought better of it and looked away in defeat.
"Fine… let go of me…" she said quietly, but instead of trying to pull away she simply waited for him release her and continued stumbling on, rejecting his attempts to help her. As the silence lengthened Laxus began to feel guilt swell up inside him, perhaps he had pushed too far? Going over his words he couldn't think of anything that was overly hurtful. Luckily he didn't have to ponder it for long as Cana turned to walk up the stairs of her fake apartment building. He reached out to grasp her arm but didn't want to make whatever he had done wrong worse and let it drop.
"That's not you're apartment building." Laxus said, hoping she would realise her mistake and quietly stumble back towards him but of course she did none of that. Instead, she turned to face him from her place half way up the small flight of stairs with a confused expression.
"I know that, I'm not that drunk." She said with disdain before a look of realisation came over her face, softening her features before continuing her laboured speech. "Sorry, I forgot that I hadn't shown you the roof." She said before turning and walking back up the stairs towards the elevator, with a flick of her hand she beckoned him to follow her. It wasn't until they were slowly but steadily rising through the floors in the ancient elevator that Laxus dared speak.
"The roof?" he asked, hoping that this meant their silence could remain broken.
"You wanted to know where I go when I go in the elevator- you can see it for yourself." She said, leaning against him lightly before righting herself. Laxus remembered the conversation from the first time he had been inside her apartment which seemed like so long ago now but in reality was only a few weeks. Since, he had been to her place many times for tea and coffee, sometimes Mira came along and they watched TV for a while and played one of Cana's many drinking games except with non-alcoholic substitutes- his favourite was sour worms dipped in Nutella which sounded disgusting but wasn't all that awful once you had a few. He glanced at her as she tied her hair up in a bun, twisting the hair around haphazardly before snapping the elastic home as the elevator doors opened to a small dingy room that's only items of note were a large metal container and a bulky security door.
"Is it ok for us to be up here?" he asked, stepping out of the elevator to crouch down in front of the box with her. When she opened it with a metallic screech, the dull light did little to illuminate its contents until Cana reached in with familiarity and grasped a torch which she turned on with a click. Instantly he could see an umbrella, an assortment of cushions and rugs, a range of half empty bottles of cheap booze in a cracked esky, assorted nick knacks and a bag which concealed whatever was inside.
"Well seeing as I own the place so I'd like to think so." Cana said, little humour in her voice.
"What are we doing up here?" Laxus asked quietly as she began rifling through the box, pulling out random objects but thankfully didn't touch the booze.
"Well, I'm going to have to deal with the mother of all hang overs tomorrow, and seeing as I've been banned from anything fun involving a bedroom I'd rather spend the last of my buzz up here." She said, pushing the heavier items into his hands. "I'd tell you to go home but I doubt you trust me not to 'do something stupid and injure myself' so you may as well make yourself useful." She said, pulling at the long thin almost invisible chain around her neck that held three keys.
"I trust you…" Laxus said in defence but couldn't think of a way to end the sentence so he just let it hang between them. Thankfully Laxus assumed Cana hadn't heard him due to her lack of response as she pried the door open. Laxus fought a gasp as he slowly walked forward, taking in the extraordinary sight around him. Cana trudged forward, not even looking up before dumping her few things on the floor in a familiar spot near a large tatty couch covered with an old tarp which she quickly through off while Laxus stood, stunned. The roof was covered with an intricate system of pots that housed what seemed to be an infinite variety of plants, each specifically placed, but the most stunning feature was the assortment of lights that while invisible from below, but from above would shine more beautifully than anything around for miles. After a few moments he collected himself and made his way over to Cana. First she took the stuff he was carrying and nodded for him to sit at the edge of the couch. Cana became absorbed in ordering the stuff they'd brought out and Laxus became content watching her move in the conflicting light. She opened the mysterious bag to reveal an assortment of food which she dumped in a neat pile in front of them. She lit an ancient looking citronella candle that's wax was pooled over the tiny table beside the couch and finally dumped the blankets at the end opposite to Laxus on the couch. She tiredly sat on the couch, looking at the lights that while she had become used to over her perpetual visits, they were still stunning to look at.
"Did you do all this?" he asked, still in awe. Cana chuckled, leaning forward to grab an already opened bag of lolly snakes and began chewing on them.
"Nah, I could never do anything this amazing." Cana said, finishing chewing before explaining. "Bacchus used to live in this building when we first started out and there was this lovely old lady that had been a landscape designer, apparently she was the director of some big garden but she lost all her money because of some family drama." Cana said, glancing up at him to make sure he was paying attention. "Anyway, she used to let us come up here when we wanted as long as we helped her out here and there, even after Bacchus moved out. But she got cancer and died pretty much a month after finding out which was really sad." She said, taking a deep breath before continuing. "Not long after that the owners of this building wanted to sell it to developers and it would have been knocked down so Bacchus and I pretty much just worked non-stop for about a week until we had enough cash to top the developers offer, they wanted to fight us on it but Bacchus can be pretty convincing when he wants to be." She said, a faint smile on her lips before once again diving into the story. "We hired her daughter to look after it though I think she'd do it for free if we didn't force her to take the money." She said with a deep heave in of breath before leaning against him to curl up on the couch, her head resting on his lap. Usually Laxus would have shrugged her off as the contact being unprofessional or made up some phony rule, but in that intimate moment, surrounded by beauty and the revelation that once again Cana was more than she seemed he let it be, the heat of her cheek resting against his thigh somehow soothing.
"It's beautiful here," he offered. "I understand why you were so desperate to save it." He said, feeling her shiver as the chilling wind brushed against them. He reached over, gently pulling one of the blankets up over her exposed legs.
"Thanks.." she said sleepily but when he looked down he saw her eyes were wide open, staring out at the different coloured lights surrounding them. "Ask me a question." She said, like she had done many times when it was too silent for her to bear. Laxus considered trying to spin it back on her, disliking being forced to take control of the conversation but was lulled by the atmosphere.
"I don't know what to ask." He lied, running a hand through his short cropped hair.
"Ask me anything…" she requested, her voice trailing off but her eyes still wide open. Laxus reached down and tucked a stray piece of hair behind her ear but as soon as he realised what he had done he froze, waiting for her rebuff but when it didn't come he let his arm sit atop the couch like it had done before.
"Are you in love with Bacchus?" he asked, feeling he would regret it later but surprisingly she didn't react in her typical smug fashion. It was a question that had been bugging him for a while, from what he could gather they had been inseparable for the last eight years or so and she was constantly telling him stories with Bacchus painted as either her best friend or some kind of hero. But the biggest oddity was Mira's silence whenever he came up- Mira seemed to have an opinion on everything, and he had heard all of them, even the one about the quality of toilet paper in the staff bathroom, but she was shut up tighter than a clam when it came to the mystery man. He considered asking her directly but he knew he didn't want to have to be subjected to her probing.
"No, it's… complicated." She said, shifting her weight uncomfortably on the couch.
"You asked me-" he said but was cut off by her curt tone.
"I know… I just have never been asked that before…" she said, uncomfortable but unwilling to give in and let the conversation die because she knew full well that Laxus could sit in silence for what seemed to her to be extraordinarily long periods.
"So he never asked you if you love him?" he said, confused as to how two people could be so close for so long and that never even register.
"Not exactly that bluntly, we did try dating for a while but it didn't work out." She said, choosing her words carefully.
"Why-" he began to ask but once again was cut off by Cana's stern voice.
"Just give me a minute to think!" she snapped, shifting her head so she was looking up at the stars, giving Laxus a full view of her face as her hair splayed out across his lap.
"And here I thought you wanted me to ask you a question." He said, smirk slowly erased by Cana's irritated glaring. "Fine, fine, I'll shut up." He muttered, looking away from her, out into the lights. After a long while she began to speak, but at an uncharacteristically slow pace, each of her words hand-picked.
"When I was 6 my mum died, and so DOC's found my Dad's family but he was always travelling on business so I told them I didn't want to live with him. For a long time I lived in different orphanages until I was a bit older and one of my Dad's friends found me and took me in." She explained, always staring straight up at the stars. Laxus was speechless while at the same time brimming with so many questions but he wouldn't dare interrupt her now.
"When I got accepted to Uni I decided to tell my Dad who I was and he was great. He was super supportive, over affectionate, everything I'd dreamed having a Dad would be like. But he couldn't stay in one place for too long and soon he was travelling again. He called all the time and sent me stuff but it wasn't the same." She continued, taking a deep breath inward. "It was like I'd had my mum and then lost her, then I had my foster family but with Uni I didn't have time or space in my life for them anymore, and then I finally found my Dad and then he was gone. And that's when I found Bacchus." She said, chancing a quick glance at Laxus to find him staring intently at her face before looking away into the garden, a troubled look on his face but she dare not ask him about it or she would never finish.
"He was this amazing post grad who was the only person I'd met who could out drink me. We started seeing each other at all the same bars and then eventually we started planning which bar to go to and over drinks he told me about this company he wanted to start." She said, finally smiling again, although it was rather faint. "So I showed him what I could do and after a while he agreed to make me a partner and he took care of getting clients while I was doing Uni full time and putting in hours at the firm. It was really hard but it was totally worth it, and through everything Bacchus was always there, helping me with exams, dealing with my family, managing everything and through most of it we were sleeping together between relationships until we eventually tried out dating but it just didn't work, we were both stressed and we'd fight and it got to the point where we were both staying at friends and avoiding each other at work which nearly cost a client their savings…" she said with regret but it was clear the story wasn't over yet. "So we both decided to call it in. And shortly after that I started dating this guy called Mest… which is a story for another time… but it's safe to say that it ended horribly with a lot of money gone missing and through all of it he had my back." She said, reaching up to fiddle with the keys around her neck as she turned back to Laxus' now unreadable face. "So yes I love Bacchus but I'm not in love with him…" she said, thinking back to what she'd said, her feelings that were so complicated before now sounded simple in her concise words. Laxus said nothing, he felt ashamed for ever thinking that she was just some rich Daddy's party girl. How did he ever mistake her for something so shallow? Was she as good at hiding as he was? But then…
"Why did you tell me all that?" he asked, breaking the long tense silence. Cana for a second time that night lay there in silent thought and Laxus knew better than to interrupt her.
"Because I'm too drunk to think of a reason not to tell you, I probably wouldn't tell you any of this if I was sober, or maybe I would, it's so hard to work out when I'm drunk and when I'm sober or if that even makes a difference…" she muttered to herself, and his guilt increased as he realised that he had unknowingly taken advantage of her. "But I think it's mostly because you asked," she said, her face scrunching up in concentration. "hanging out with you is easy, like with Bacchus but not… you're a lot more…" she said, the crease between her brows deepening until Laxus tried to smooth it out with his finger to distract her before she said anything too honest for comfort.
"Don't think too hard, you'll hurt yourself." He said with a chuckle while she glared at him but he knew she wasn't really angry with him unlike earlier. He considered asking why she had been so upset but there was already too much honesty for one night. "Pass me that jar of Nutella." He said, gesturing to the unopened plastic jar on the floor near her arm. She unthinkingly reached out and was about to pass it to him when she paused, stopping him from taking it from her grasp.
"How are you going to eat that?" she asked as he hadn't asked for anything else.
"With my finger." He replied as if it was the most obvious answer in the world. Cana's mouth opened in shock and she slowly but surely sat up, shaking her head in disgust.
"That's so gross!" she exclaimed, rifling through the pile of goodies until her hand closed around a bag of sour worms. When Laxus saw what was in her hand he laughed, taking the Nutella from her and popping it open before offering it to her. "That's better!" she said with approval, swirling a sour worm around before handing him the bag so he could do the same.
"How do I rate compared to your other jobs?" she asked, mouth full of worms. Laxus put a finger to his chin in mock concentration before stuffing a bunch of Nutella covered sour worms in his mouth.
"Definitely in the top ten." He said with a nod, leading over her to get the snakes she had discarded earlier.
"That's good."
OOO
Laxus could hear someone calling his name, then he noticed who he guessed to be the same person urgently tapping on his face and finally he noticed the uncomfortable crick in his neck.
"Laxus! Wake up or you can forget about breakfast because I'm going back to bed!" Cana snapped, her tapping growing less patient.
"What?" Laxus groaned into what he thought was his pillow but was actually her couch arm rest.
"Get up!" she snapped, but all he wanted to do was tell her to fuck off and go back to sleep but before he could muster the strength she grabbed his shoulder and rolled him off the couch, making him wake with a start.
"Fuck!" he yelled, sitting up in a heartbeat and trying to orientate himself. While this place looked different in the light of day it was definitely Cana's apartment. Why was he at Cana's apartment? When had they left the roof? Oh, that's right, when it looked like the sun was going to come up he carried her home and she offered her couch which he was too tired to refuse. He ignored Cana, reaching around blindly for his phone until Cana produced it from some corner of the room. He clicked the on button a few times until it clicked that it must be dead, and before he could even muster a groan Cana had a charger shoved in his face.
"This should work on your phone." She said, waiting patiently for him to take it which he eventually did, giving her a smile of victory.
"What time is it?" he asked, his voice raspy, most likely brought on by his odd sleeping arrangements. Cana glanced at one of her cupboards which he assumed held a clock but couldn't be bothered checking for himself.
"It's about one…" she said, cut off by Laxus groaning rather loudly as he realised that he had missed a meeting, and he was supposed to take his grandfather to the doctors (which was code for the race course). "Had plans huh?" she asked, her genuine concern strange to the Cana he was used to bantering with.
"Yeah, I'm pretty much fucked." Laxus said, trying to unsuccessfully jam the charger into the port before Cana wordlessly took both from him, expertly fit them together and plugged the charger into the outlet.
"Sorry about all this." She announced awkwardly, not making eye contact as she turned to the breakfast she was managing on the stove. Laxus stopped himself from replying with a snide comment long enough to try and remember exactly what had happened, and that's when it hit him- Cana had bared her soul to him and now here she stood, making him breakfast. He stood and made his way over to the bench where he noticed she had prepared a range for breakfast foods- how long had she been cooking while he had been asleep?
"Don't worry about it, you're still in the top ten." He said, reaching out to grab a plate with a mountain of crispy bacon. Cana smiled, taking a piece of bacon for herself before watching him eat the rest faster than she thought possible.
"How do I get into the top five?" she asked, more as a joke than an actual question.
"Get me some more of that bacon and you can be number one."
OOO
Laxus had his hand on the door knob, ready to turn it and finally put this event to an end when he felt the knob move on its own as the door was plunged inward, almost hitting him in the face which would have just been the icing on the cake, he thought to himself. That was until he realised it was Mira, blue eyes wide, who opened the door.
"I ah.. I came to check on Cana." Mira stuttered, Laxus could practically see her thoughts on her face.
"Don't worry, she didn't die of alcohol poisoning, she's sleeping." He said as he tried to shuffle past her but after the shock past a look of accusation passed between them, Mira blocking his way out.
"Why are you here at two in the afternoon? In the same clothes as you were in yesterday?" Mira asked, pressing him up against the wall of Cana's small hallway, which would have been erotic if Mira didn't look so homicidal.
"Look, I was worried about Cana so we watched some TV until late and she let me crash on her couch, that's it." Laxus lied, he wasn't ready to share that memory with anyone just yet, certainly not Mira.
"Mira?" Cana asked sleepily, her presence going unnoticed by the two until she spoke. "What's going on?" she asked, confused until she recognised the threatening look on Mira's face.
"Mira, don't worry about Laxus." She said with a dismissive flick of her hand but when Mira didn't entirely back down due to Cana's habit of understating how bad things really were, she put her hand's on her hips, tilting them to one side like he had seen her do at the bar so many times.
"If you kill my new fiancé how are we ever going to get married?" Cana exclaimed very seriously, even Laxus was almost convinced.
"Married?!" Mira exclaimed in shock, taking a step backward to brace herself against the wall, giving Laxus just enough time to make an escape. Laxus chuckled as he sprinted down the stairs, not wanting to get caught up in the fight about to break out, that was until he realised that tonight he would be put square in the middle of it.
"Shit…"
