Laxus boots crunched under the snow and he regarded the same as he did every year, a slight snarl on his lips as he spied not only the accumulation, but the godawful snowmen that people liked to roll up in their front lawns. It was all he'd been welcomed to, the second he stepped off the train at the city station, as well as annoying kids pelting one another with snowballs or adults skidding around as they tried to navigate the hellscape that was wintertime in Magnolia.

"You're a downer," Mirajane told him more than once when this yearly attitude of his whipped up, a sentiment that was echoed bravely by her siblings now, knowing that now counted among his siblings as well (at least by marriage), they were above reproach. "And one day you're going to regret that."

"What you gonna do?" he'd retort back, not only in those instances, but when the woman complained about his attitude in similar situations. While there were many things she loved her dragon for, his inability to not easily play into a situation was not one of them. "Curse me, demon?"

"Maybe," she toy back and if he wasn't really feeling so lowly, just annoyed or purposely up playing his attitude, he might give her a grin back for that one, but during the winter?

Under these situations?

No fucking way.

"You're a realist," Freed offered him more than once. And he said it in such an admiring way. With a sharp nod and such honest insistence that it was hard to combat him. "You have difficulty placating the easily amused. Your interests are not swayed by the fanciful and bright. It is not a blight; rather a mark of a true, serious mage. If you are not that, then what are you?"

A sourpuss. Crank. Hardass.

"A jerk," Lisanna offered him, in a way only she could, as though he hated it so much, maybe she was his younger sister now, poking at his cheek one night when she was drunk and so was he. She pressed her finger deeply into his cheek, leaning over the table they were at to do so, much to the wide eyes of the nearby (and sober) Lucy and excitement of Natsu. But Lisanna held none of the fear or exhilaration of her friends, rather sneering in the guildhall she'd grown up, at the man who knew it still much better than she, "You're a jerk, Laxus Dreyar."

This was hardly a revelation.

He'd been one his entire life.

Save the few short years in the beginning there, perhaps the crux of why he, in the end, did become a flat out jerk, Laxus had pretty always encompassed that stigma. His family name bared heavy weight and he shoulder it best he could, but that meant sacrificing a huge part of himself in the process. He liked to think of himself as a mostly changed man now, but his stick in the mud, aversion to (others) nonsense had followed him into his later years and now, a fully grown married man, he found it too hard to shake.

It was his shtick, maybe, his placement in his family and friend groups, and it hardly bothered him most of the time. A sense of pride. Like Freed had insisted to him. He was a serious man and there was something to be said for that. The rune mage himself could be classified as one at times.

And yet, Freed also knew when to turn it off.

He could don a silly costume for the Fantasia Parade. Drink coco and reminisce towards the end of the year, trade gifts on sentimental holidays. Turn it on. When he needed to. In a way that Laxus had never learned to.

They all could. All of them. In the hall. Even the gruffest among them, with the most tragic and horrific of backstories, could squash their traumas and beefs for their friends and guild in the rare times of true kinship. Celebrations of the important things in life, holy events observed by even outsiders to their intended recipients, they could all get a teary eye out of the most seasoned wizard.

Laxus though, he always found these emotions too far out of his grasp. He'd done well to wiggle away from his natural aggravation toward these events, hoping for anything more from the man was shitting away desires. He never had those hopes for himself and, for the most part, others didn't have them for him either.

The demon though…

She was always and optimist.

Or at least she was now.

She'd gone through her own trials and tribulations, only to come out not a buried person, but rather a different one. And Laxus respected that. Fuck, he loved that. He loved her. But sometimes...he just couldn't indulge her in the way she wanted.

And that was fine. Maybe. Other than throwing around threats of curses or humorous jabs, Mira mostly left him alone in his misery. It was what Makarov instructed her to do, that first Winter Festival that she was dating his grandson and had come to him, dismayed over his lack of interest in the festivities.

"Master told me all about it, Laxus," she'd come to him, all weepy and shit, launching herself at him the second he opened his apartment door to her urgent knocking. Sniffling as she nuzzled her head into his chest and the man just tried to figure out what the hell was going on, Mira said, "About your father and mother and how they treated you, you know, during that terrible winter when they were getting a divorce and I just-"

"Mira," he complained, patting awkwardly at her head. "Why the hell were you talking about that with Gramps?"

"Because you're miserable, Laxus." Blinking back her tears, she stared up at him then with her bright blue eyes uncharacteristically clouded with concern. "I always thought you were just distant around this time because you didn't have someone in your life to force you to be better. And then I thought I was failing or something, at making you happy. But now I know that you're just sad and hurt and-"

"My parents were fucking shit all the time, Mira."

"L-Laxus." She frowned then, pulling away from him some. "Don't be vulgar."

"They're my parents," he pointed out. Shrugging some as he only moved to pull the woman further into the apartment, he questioned, "What'd the old man tell you, huh? 'bout the time my mom locked me outta the house? In the snow? And Gramps was outta town and I sat outside the locked house cryin', all fuckin' nigh, in the snow? Or no, I bet he told you 'bout the time that my father decided to fuck with me, because I was a shitty little kid, and used his magic to trick me into thinking the snowman I built came to life? Attacked me? That was fucked up. Or how about the Winter Festival where they-"

"Laxus-"

"Let's talk about the Fantasia Parade. All the times they promised to be in it, to be there, even, just fucking be there, for the Harvest Festival, but never showing up. Never being around. Or oh, you wanna get into birthdays, demon?"

"I-I mean if you need to-"

"I don't." And he told her this flatly, frowning as he spoke. "And you don't need to go and talk to Makarov about it. About me. To find out why I'm the way I am. I just fucking am. Just like you just fucking are the way you are. And I don't ever want to have this fucking conversation again, alright?"

Mira nodded then, in agreement, but he didn't rightly mean it as much as he thought he did, after only a few months of dating. As the years waged on and the relationship deepened, it was his grandfather telling all of his darkest secrets, but rather the man mentioning them, either in passing or bearing his soul, openly, whenever they lounged together.

It was a lot.

Sometimes.

The things that made his shoulders tense all these years or his jaw clench so heavily, sometimes, when he got to thinking too much, got too quiet, and she knew how to get it out of him. Or she learned. Eventually.

She was able to drag most things from her dragon, the demon was, and yet…

He just wasn't someone who had the spirit. For the season. For any season. Time was elusive to the traveling mage and he was around more now, a married man, settled down all he could, but that didn't mean that he'd adjusted fully. Given up fully.

But...if it meant so much to her, he'd be around. For the important things. Maybe not enjoying them, but he'd be there. He came to the parades and the festivals when he could, always around for the demon's birthday and his own, if only because she seemed to enjoy it so much more, when it was about him. He spent time with her family and brought them into the fold with his own, Gramps and the Thunder Legion.

Holidays had meaning again. In a weird way.

Just not enough for him to get over his...hangups.

So no.

Laxus wasn't in a jolly mood, as he walked through the city that afternoon, observing in passing the sights and sounds of the approaching Winter Festival, thoughts of his own drifting to the presents he'd have to get and even dreading, perhaps more, the ones he'd receive in return. The long parade and the huge jobs he'd be passing over, just to stay at home.

All while dealing with the frigid temperatures, threat of blizzards, and, every fucking year, snowmen.

Fucking snowmen.

The years had been kind to the S-Class wizard and it wasn't a tiny apartment anymore, that he had eventually asked the demon to move into him with, but rather a rather nice home they owned together, he liked to think, with a big tree in the yard for climbing and a nice front porch for a dog to lounge.

A home of an S-Class wizard.

"Papa!"

But also a family.

Laxus smiled some, as he came up the shoveled walk of his home, being greeted by a loud call of his name as well as someone rushing right over to toss their arms around his waist and he was still getting used to it. The feeling. His daughter was only three and was growing every single day. While the warmth of her hug was something he was accustomed to, it was still refreshing, every time he was away for a week or more, to see how her speech had grown or notice she'd grown a bit a more.

And she had a lot to tell him that day, as Laxus ruffled her white locks, the little girl abandoning the piles of snow she'd been pushing together, as she tugged at his hand to finish tugging him up to the house.

Mirajane was with her, of course, as well as Lisanna, both giggling at the girl's action, but following all the same, the old dog up on the porch, who did find that he loved to lounge there, stretching before rushing to get in just as the door to the house closed.

Everyone told Laxus that he took to being a father better than they thought he would.

This was something that was mostly said in pretend awe, but he could tell it was actually absolute mystification. People that he'd known in his former life, the one before he settled, had never pictured him as more, he imagined, than his stupid deadbeat father and hey, he'd fucking give it to them.

There was still time.

He'd always taken it for fucking granted. How easy it must be. To fucking leave your kid behind. Just walk out the door. Forget about them. Put them away. Like he did all his memories or the people that used to work in the bar, used to be a part of the guild, when he was a kid. His fucking parents both walked out at him, at different points, his mother before he knew what it him, when he was still cute and lovable, his father when he had a chance to know him, really know him, and hate him.

Laxus couldn't imagine either now though.

He thought, sometimes, when he was drunk and reflective, that his father had it easiest. He knew his son was a shithead and took off. Okay. But other times, when he was sad and remorseful, he thought about how his mother must've had it the easiest, right? She must've. Because she could still keep him there, he figured she still kept him there, wherever she was all these decades later, imaging him as whatever she needed, whenever she needed, and he was still a kid probably, in her mind. A little boy waiting for her. Sitting up for her. Thinking of her often.

He didn't imagine either of them slept well, when they thought of him, but then, he didn't imagine either did often enough for it to give them any real problems.

But it was so fucking weird.

So fucking weird.

The first time he looked down at his daughter, all covered in gunk from birth, a disgusting, distorted version of a little human, an aliens, really, that was breathing and crying and...his.

None of it made sense any more.

And it made even less as time went on.

He'd been able to rationalize his childhood, all of it, as just something that happened. His life in the guildhall was filled with kids who had parents that just didn't given enough of a fuck about them. It was a tale as old as time. He'd normalized this type of thing so easily due to his upbringing and yet…

Yet…

It killed him to go away on jobs, knowing he was coming back, that he was certainly, without a doubt coming back. And one day, he imagined, when she was strong enough to keep up on her own, when she had her own magic, he wouldn't be without her.

She'd be out there with him.

On jobs.

Probably.

He liked to think anyways.

"I think someone missed you," Mira giggled to him as they all ditched their snowy coats and boots by the door, Lisanna bending down to help her niece out of her own. "Dragon."

"Yeah, well," he grumbled a bit as he looked over his wife, taking in how she'd changed too, even just in that a few days, her form had changed, just a bit, as she edged deeper into her second pregnancy. "Maybe I missed someone too."

He was down for the month, at least, as they cycled through the ceremonial events of the Winter Festival and it's accompanying celebrations. Laxus was welcomed to all that coco drinking and reminiscing, but now with his daughter as they traded her usual bedtime stories in for winter themed ones, him even donning the matching set of pajama pants that his demon had purchased, to go along with hers and the girl's.

Family time was all he had time for, it seemed, as the Thunder Legion was around most days, alternating ones they weren't with Mira's siblings, and Laxus bared it all with ease.

He'd had a few years now of learning to do so.

The morning of the Winter Festival, Mira had to get down to the bar to prep for things there and Laxus made a big breakfast for his daughter, back at home, as she dreamed so heavily then, so close then, of the gifts her aunts and uncles would be presenting her with, for being so good all year long. He played along, even playing coy as to what he and her mother had gotten her.

"What do you think you got?" she asked him over their food, staring at him with the same deep, blue eyes of her mother. "Papa?"

"Mmm," he hummed, "I dunno."

She giggled at that, as she had the past few days, when she asked the same thing, and he imagined she'd gotten him something nice. Err, well, that her mother had and she knew about it. That was how it had been, after all, the other two years. Mira was such a sap, when she'd get him something, she'd put the baby's name as well and last year, even, she'd drawn a little picture on his card.

It was cute.

He was a father now, he could admit when things should be classified in such a way.

Mira was busy all festival. She was for all of them. They saw her at the parade, at least, and their daughter clung in her arms until it started before being sat on her father's shoulder, and it snowed that night.

Something that his wife thought made it special, as it hadn't on that specific night in years, and Laxus was glad to leave everyone else behind at the bar that night, him carrying the gifts his daughter had scored, while she stayed snuggled up in her mother's arms, nearly asleep by the time they arrived home.

"I'd almost just wanna put her to bed," Mira remarked softly as their faithful mutt didn't even rise to greet them, as they entered their home, "but still need to give her-"

"Wanna give Papa his present," came a soft, muffled protest from Mira's shoulder where the girl's head was still pressed, but her eyes were open now, bleary and tired. "Mama."

"Well-"

"Here, let's do it then, huh?" Laxus dropped her other little trinkets and toys by the couch before going to snag his daughter from Mira's arm. Helping her out of her coat, he said, "Let's all trade our gifts. You won't believe what I got ya, demon."

Considering with her strong snooping skills, this was probably false, he knew, as she had a tendency to spoil such things for herself long before the suspenseful date. As she feigned surprise at the earrings that her husband and daughter had gifted her (because fine, Laxus was a sap too and signed her name as well), his wasn't so put on as he found himself presented with not one, but two gifts.

Mira had gotten him some nice, new boots she'd seen him eye for a long time, but would never justify buying, but while he was thankful for them, it wasn't what would capture his full attention that night.

"You bought this for me?" he asked his daughter from his chair as, when she presented him with a wrapped gift, it was with bright eyes and a snuggle, when he pulled her into his lap. "Huh?"

Shaking her sleepy head, she only yawned some as she informed her father, "Made it."

"You?" He nuzzled his head into hers as she yawned, heavily, and nodded.

"Me," she assured him. "Papa."

"How did I know," Mira was musing over at the mirror in the hall, where she was looking over where her earrings now were placed, in her lobes, "to wear this exact dress? To match these? Must have been meant to be."

"Yeah, must've," Laxus retorted with a roll of his eyes, but he was busy then, ripping at the haphazard wrapping job his daughter had done, still uncertain as to what he was expecting to find.

It was strange.

Laxus didn't particularly like gifts. Even things he needed or wanted. There was something false about it, to him, a disconnect. Saving up something for someone for some specific date that only had as much meaning as you could manage to give it. And, as mentioned previously, he struggled to scrounge much up at all. He went along because other people did and that was good and well, but…

"Wow," he whispered as he was presented with children's construction paper, stapled together neatly (no doubt by her mother) to form a little book with a title of 'Me and Papa' written, also, in her mother's handwriting, and this would be true of the other few sentences he'd find inside. But the pictures were the main draw. "You drew all of these?"

"Yep!" And she was forcing some excitement then, fighting back a yawn as he flipped very slowly through the pages. "Me!"

It wasn't like it was a story or anything. Just pictures that she'd drawn, hard to decipher to an untrained eye, but Laxus was becoming well-versed in the world of toddler art. And...Mira's sentences helped a bit. They described the scene, in most cases.

They were drawings of things they'd done. Him and his daughter. Together. Going to get ice cream. Going to the store. Playing with the dog. Reading books. Drinking coco. Nothing special. He'd gotten drawings from her before, frequently, her scribbling going to something (only slightly) more substantial recently, and while he treasured them in one sense, he knew that it really didn't mean much.

But this…

It wasn't about the little book, which Laxus would now carry with him, when he traveled out on jobs, placing it in the waterproof pocket of his pack, to look over when he was far from home and missing his baby. It was about something much greater. Something he thought he was void of. Hadn't experienced in a long time.

She'd been young.

The first winter. Oblivious. And the last, though she was old enough to at least some what enjoy it, there was still a bit distance in this.

Now was different. Not really one that she'd remember, necessarily, but certainly part of the beginning of her memories. A piece of understanding. A start.

For the entire day, Laxus had had this...bubbling in his stomach, like when he was a little kid, seeing it all again. The parade and the games. The party at the hall. And now, at home, trading gifts, her actively doing so with him…

He laughed, shoulder dropping as he openly smiled down at his grinning daughter. She leaned up to kiss him and his smiled brighter, if it was possible, his clear joy causing Mira to come over finally. It wasn't lost on the slayer either, as she leaned over his chair, that by this time next year, he'd be able to start the process all over again, only with more knowledge this time.

"It's cute," Mira agreed, thinking his interest was mainly in the gift itself and while Laxus could agree, it was something much more that was causing him to nod his head as he beamed down at his daughter.

"Yeah," he agreed. "It is."