Makarov noticed something was amiss nearly as soon as he and his grandson had moved in together. After the fight with Alvarez, the guildmaster had been left quite feeble and at times, incapable of taking care of himself. Laxus made it seem like he just didn't want to pay for his own place, but really, he wanted to help his grandfather.

Once they'd settled in together, he noticed there was a strange sense of melancholy in his grandson's eyes that came when he was relaxing and tended to linger, sometimes for days.

Although Makarov was frustrated with his body and annoyed with old age, he considered the time in their relationship to be quite wonderful, and was concerned that his grandson didn't feel as happy as he did. As a child, Laxus brought him so much joy to the point his little grandson's birth was a second lease on life for him. Now as an adult who had matured beyond most of his more fiendish behaviors, they were friends. After everything, he just wanted their lives to be filled with joy.

They drank in silence at night, sometimes out on the patio of their little house, which looked over the lake. Other times, they spoke; about the world of magic, the guild, their friends, and the future.

One warm summer night, over a couple of midnight beers, Makarov studied Laxus as he stared up at the stars.

"Are you sad about something, Laxus?"

Laxus' concentration broke as he looked down. "Sad?"

"Sometimes, you seem to be down about something. I'm worried."

His grandson sighed deeply and looked away. "I don't know. Sometimes I don't feel right. A few years ago, I was just looking for the next victory and the next drink. I've been feeling lately like there's not a big enough fight or a big enough drink."

Makarov asked, "What do you expect those things to do for you, Laxus? Bring you satisfaction?"

"It's not that. I understand now that getting shitfaced and fighting are fun things, but their benefit is short, and it wears off before my body recovers from the bruises and the hangovers that they cost me."

"I see."

"Do you? Because I don't."

The older man said, "You're growing, that's all. Your spirit has had enough liquor and enough violence. The human spirit craves a certain kind of love, something I feel like you've probably never experienced in a meaningful way."

"Are we finally having the talk? It's a little late."

Makarov replied, "You were immune to Larcade Dragneel's spell, so I don't think you've had a close companion."

"Tch! Damn it all. How did you know? You were literally dead when that was going on."

"Someone mentioned it."

Laxus sulked for a moment before saying, "I don't think I like being touched. Or touching. Or talking. Or being around other people. Some people prefer solitude."

"If you were meant to be alone, you'd be content. You aren't. You're lonely for an intimate companion, and there's no shame it that. It's not a weakness. It's part of the human experience. I've had a lot of things I've always wanted to say about this, but I didn't ever feel like it was the right time."

The fact that Laxus didn't immediately curse and walk off indicated to Makarov that his grandson was ready to have an honest conversation about falling in love.

"I'm a big boy now, Gramps. No reason to hold anything back. Life is too short right? Especially for an old geezer like you," he said.

Makarov said, "I wish you'd grown up in a good family, with parents who loved one another and you. The reason that I took you from them was so that I could love you. That was all I could ever offer, and it wasn't enough, but it was all that I had to give. I know if your childhood had been better that your path in life would have been easier. But you found your way and I'm really proud of you."

"We've always been better off by ourselves than when Ivan comes around."

"Have you been in contact with him?" Makarov asked.

"No. He can go to hell, Gramps."

With a nod of quiet agreement, the family patriarch tried to decide how to continue. He thought about maybe approaching the subject later, but Laxus seemed receptive and he was a rather moody creature by nature so it might be awhile before he was receptive.

So Makarov said, "Falling in love is the most magical thing a person can experience. It's something you feel everywhere at once, body, soul, and spirit. Imagine if instead of working for that next drink, or that next fight, you were working to come home to feel a woman's soft body next to yours? You're a complicated man who has had a hard time, your feelings are constantly tied in knots. But there's someone out there with the patience and kindness to untangle and untie you so you can be the person you're meant to be."

Laxus chuckled a bit, a rare sound, and gave Makarov an impish grin that was almost juvenile. "Are you saying I'm uptight because I need to get laid?"

"Well…yes. But there's really more to it than that. I think if you really put the effort into love, you'd experience such great happiness. There are wonders in life that you will never know if you move through the waters of life alone."

"Are these wonders that I can't experience armed with some hand lotion and some tissues?"

His grandfather's eyes became distant as he answered, "The feeling of butterflies as you kiss, the euphoria of a Saturday spent in bed, collecting seashells on the beach while waves splash your feet, hearing her giggle in your ear while you tickle her until she begs for mercy…making promises, making plans, making a baby…"

The last phrase brought Laxus' to a state of clear discomfort. "Yeah, that's not going to happen. I can't think of anything I dislike more than the idea of becoming a father."

"You wouldn't become your father, you know. I know you feel that way, but it is—without any close second—life's greatest miracle. Kindling the fire of life with the person you care about is something incredible. You'd lay in bed for hours, talking with her about all your child might be someday. After a while, you'd get to put your hand on her growing belly and feel like life inside kick. And then, you'd get to watch a new life enter the world, watch your child take their first breaths in this world."

Laxus sipped his beer and said, "I suppose I'd be more moved if I didn't know you. You can speak of the wonder of being a father, but I just think about how you were this way, and what did you make? Ivan. And it doesn't seem like everyone experiences what you did. He obviously didn't."

"You would. You have a lot of love to give."

Laxus grumbled, "Whatever."

Makarov moved on, saying, "Anyway, I think you don't know how to form or build relationships. Don't worry, I've always got your back."

Bringing a palm to his face, he mumbled. "What did you do?"

"I set up a date for you! It's with a real hottie! You'll never guess who it is!"

"If it's a girl at the guild, I'll kill you while you sleep."

The nervous laugh he got in reply only confirmed that Makarov had meddled right in the pool of guild females, and that was the worst. The girls were a more tightly knit group and kept fewer secrets. They spoke about things that didn't need to be spoken about, so there was a mass of frivolous information that they kept. If Makarov disclosed that he was a socially awkward virgin, there was probably zero chance the whole group would eventually find out.

"She's a good girl. Looks like a real fertile myrtle, if you know what I mean," he teased.

"Do you not understand how disgusting you are? Just tell me who it is and I'll cancel tomorrow."

"I'm not telling. I told her she could tell everyone an embarrassing story I told her if you don't show up and behave."

Laxus stood and glared at him. "This conversation is irritating to me. Are you ready to go?"

"Inside? Yes, I'm getting tired."

His grandson placed his hands on the handles of the wheelchair, and instead of going into the house, he steered his grandfather across the small yard.

Makarov asked, "Are you trying to going to push me off the cliff and into the lake? That's not very nice."

"Do you think you don't deserve it?"

"I'm trying to help you lead a wonderful and fulfilling life, my dear sweet grandson. I am trying to help you and how do you thank me? By trying to throw me into a lake? Ungrateful!"

His grandson stopped. "Who is it?"

"I'm not telling, that would ruin the surprise, and give you a chance to prepare a list of awkward and very rude things to blurt out. It's better if you just act natural," he answered.

"Are you able to swim?" Laxus asked, "I figure, in a pinch, you can just make yourself huge to keep your head above water and sit in the lake like some monstrously huge wrinkled monster baby until someone who hasn't had to deal with you as long as I have comes to save you."

Makarov thumbed his nose. "Natsu will save me."

"Yes, but instead of trying to help you out of the water, he'll decide it makes more sense to just boil all the water in the lake off. That sounds fun, doesn't it?"

This caused Makarov to flinch. "Just give it a chance. You might be surprised. Relax, find an outfit without fur, animal print, spikes, and practice smiling. Pretend you're a real boy and not a creature currently occupying the body of one. And cut your hair for crying out loud."

Laxus decided to give up and just leave his grandfather there in the middle of the yard.

When he headed upstairs to his room, the part of his grandfather's talk that wasn't unrepentant trolling did linger in his mind. No matter how much he tried to deny it, he did sort of like the idea of having someone around. He'd considered it occasionally over the past year or so, but really had no idea how to make something like that happen.

After all, in the magic world, one achieved goals through hard physical training and violence. Applying these principles to romance was morally reprehensible and illegal in a civilized society.

It was a Natsu-esque dilemma: what does a dragonslayer do with a problem that can't be properly punched to death? The only difference between Natsu and himself and Gajeel was that Natsu freely admitted he intended to solve every problem with some combination of fire and fists.

Yet, Gajeel made it with a woman.

Laxus tried to think his way around that and quickly quit, because really, it was weird to try and figure out how another male gained access to a woman, or why that woman seemed so affectionate to him. He personally felt Gajeel had zero redeeming qualities outside of music ability and battle stats.

Although he outwardly said his efforts were to appease his old grandfather, he found a decent enough outfit, some dress shoes he'd only worn to a funeral once, and a tie. He tried the outfit on and shrugged at the 'okay enough' vibes it gave and then hung it carefully and moved on to shaving.

He preferred to perpetually have stubble on his face so he was nighttime shaver when he bothered. This annoyed Makarov, and Laxus believed this was probably the only reason that he developed this preference in the first place. It was one of probably hundreds of habits that he could not explain the source of outside of the fact they pissed off his grandfather, yet he continued them all.

After he had completed these tasks, he opened the window and looked out to his grandfather, who was slowly pushing himself back towards the door.

Leaning on the windowsill, he taunted him by shouting, "Just use magic, old geezer! Are you too drunk?"

"You ungrateful, wretched boy! Get down here and help me!"

"When I feel like it. I might leave you down there to work on your biceps and think about how terrible you are."

Makarov yelled back, "Forgive me for trying to keep you from dying alone! By the time I was your age, I'd been with so many women I lost count."

"That doesn't even make sense to me. You're short and kind of a loser."

"Twenty-five-year-old virgin calling someone a loser? That's rich. Don't you have a sock to romance?"

The neighbor's window opened, and a man stuck his head out. "Dammit, can you all just shut the hell up already? Drunk and yelling at each other all the time! You two are ruining our neighborhood."

Laxus said, "Why don't you care about ruining the neighborhood when your horse of a dog is shitting in everyone's yard? I know it was you and you never pick it up."

"As if!"

"It's true. I'm so glad I'm a dragonslayer and have the nose of a mythological beast so I can smell your dog's gigantic turds every morning at exactly 6:22 am. Stop being a bad neighbor, Paul," Laxus sarcastically replied.

Another window opened and an old lady yelled. "Enough, everyone shut up."

"Get fucked, Greta," Laxus answered.

Greta screamed, "Sounds like you're the one who needs that! I have twenty-six grandkids. You probably couldn't raise a potted plant if your life depended on it!"

Makarov waved her off. "Just turn your damn hearing aid off and go to bed!"

"What if there's a fire?"

Laxus answered, "Then you'll burn and I'll tell twenty-six children that you died because you're too nosy."

By this point, most of the people living in a relatively large radius were awake, but they'd learned there was no reason to intervene. Laxus and Makarov were simply going to get drunk and yell at each other several times a week and they had to accept it because there was no way to force them to move out.

Laxus shut the window and let his grandfather continuing the screaming match that consisted of Greta, Paul, and Makarov just yelling at each other to shut the hell up for ten minutes.

When he finally heard the back door open, he looked through one of his drawers for a leather pouch and headed down to meet him.

"Terrible grandson…"

"Hey. I need a haircut. No one does it right but you."

Makarov said, "After what you just did?! I'm going to help you, but only because you need a woman. No one is going to love you with all that hair on your neck. Maybe I should wait until I'm a little sober…"

"It's fine. You do it better when you're wasted. I want some personality in the front."

"Ah, I get it. No personality except in the hair," his grandfather answered as Laxus put him up on the kitchen counter and then sat down in a chair in front of him. "It's a good strategy. Women love a man with thick hair. Going bald ruined my game. Also, having a kid. And that the kid was Ivan."

Makarov opened the leather pouch, took out a pair of scissors, and made rough, drunken cuts all over the place.

It wasn't that he was necessarily better than anyone else, because he wasn't. Laxus just didn't trust strangers to wield sharp objects next to his head. Dreyar hair being what it was, it didn't really matter; as soon as it was cut short it was going to spike up in whatever way it wanted.

"How did we get this drunk? I feel like we just went outside for one beer."

His grandfather answered, "We were wasted before that. I'm so happy we talked about our feelings. You're growing up so good now that we've gotten you past the 'kill everyone in town' phase."

"Whatever."

When Makarov finished, he tousled Laxus' hair. "All this thick hair…you're so handsome and yet have no other redeeming qualities. But don't worry. Grampa is going to help you find a lady."

"I really don't need or want your assistance."

"Don't care. You're getting it anyway, like that time you had an infected sore on your buttcheck because Erza stabbed you in the ass during the S-Class trial."

Laxus stood up and messed with his own hair a bit. "Thanks for bringing that up for the thousandth time. That's always the thing I want to talk about most."

"I can't help it. It makes me laugh and I know you deserved it. You called her a bitch."

"I did not. She had a dream that I did while we were camping and woke up, came to my tent, and stabbed me."

"After that you did."

"She stabbed me while I was asleep. I yelled bad words at someone for sticking a sword in my ass while I was unconscious."

Makarov said, "Well I don't remember it that way."

"You're just an old drunk. No one cares what you think."

"No one cares what you think, you drunk virgin. Now help me get to bed."

Laxus took his grandfather to bed and then headed back to his own room, where he slept until well into the morning. Mirajane had already showed up to take Makarov to the guild, so he had the house to himself. He cleaned up, folded laundry, made a grocery list, and then set out for the guild.

Wendy and Charle were walking down the street a ways down, and seemed to be lost. Wendy had a little slip of paper in her hand and was looking at address numbers as they made their way.

His first instinct was to evade, because he'd nearly very little direct contact with her.

But Wendy spotted him and started running and waving. "Good morning Laxus!"

And then, while running, tripped and would have fallen face-first on the concrete if Laxus didn't rush to her at lightning speed and grab her by the shirt. He put her back on her feet and stared at her.

He roughly gave her two pats on the head. "Hi."

Wendy beamed brightly and asked, "How are you today?"

"Uhhh…normal? Are you also normal?"

"Ummm, yes. Charle and I are definitely normal. We're looking for the cupcake shop. Everyone's been talking about it and I just thought maybe we could try one, but I can't find it."

Laxus said, "They have good coffee. I was going there to get some. You have to follow your nose. This street smells like dog shit and cake early in the morning. You would obviously follow the cake smell."

Wendy nodded. "Right. Cake smell. And not the dog smell. That just leads to our yard anyway."

"You have a dog?"

"Of course not. They're disgusting," he answered, "You can say 'dog shit' if you want. Do you not curse?"

"I'm still young. It's rude to say bad words."

"Doesn't stop Romeo. That boy's got a cannon and it's loaded with f-bombs. Cursing is a good way to blow off steam and remind people you're an adult."

Charle quickly interjected with, "Are you trying to be a bad influence?"

"I don't have conversations with animals, Least Useful Exceed."

She froze. "Excuse me, Least Useful Exceed?"

Wendy contemplated whether to enter this argument and decided against it. Charle could hold her own, and Laxus was naturally extremely antagonistic. Not only did he probably not care, he probably only spoke to Charle to piss her off.

Charle said, "How do you figure I'm less useful than…than Happy?"

"Don't talk shit about Happy, he's a treasure," Laxus answered, turning his trolling up to the max.

"You know what? You're not worth it," the exceed replied.

Wendy said, "I was talking with the other girls. We were thinking of going together to buy a house on this street. How is it?"

"It's fine."

"How are the neighbors?"

"They're okay, no major issues."

When they got to the cupcake shop, Wendy spent some time drooling on front of a display case over all the cupcakes. It was a fancy little shop, so the intricately-decorated treats were quite expensive, but Wendy became unnaturally fixated on one 'Mega-Cupcake,' which was more or less just a regular cake that was shaped like a cupcake.

"Five rainbow layers with four different fruit flavors and sprinkles, with buttercream and cherries," she said, reading the card.

Laxus, meanwhile, got his coffee and sat down by himself not far from Wendy, amazed at her strange preoccupation with the Mega-Cupcake.

Greta came in and got a coffee, made her way to the table where Laxus was sitting and stared him down like an enemy about to hammer him into the ground.

It was so intense that Wendy turned. "I feel anger. It's so intense."

And then, Greta took her cane and swung it at Laxus like a bat, hitting him squarely in the side of the head.

Of course, he could have dodged it, but he chose not to. The metal cane made a hollow popping sound, and he stared at her as if equally bored and annoyed.

Wendy gasped and covered her mouth. "That old woman assaulted Laxus!"

Greta said, "Sounded hollow. Not surprising that head has nothing in it."

"Go sit down before you break a hip or something. I'm busy."

She moved on to sit at her own table, and Laxus finished his coffee only to find Wendy was still obsessing over the Mega-Cupcake.

Laxus loomed over her. "Are you going to eat that whole thing?"

"Porlyusica said I might grow if I increase my calorie intake."

"It worked for Droy," he replied.

Wendy put her hands on the glass. "It's really more than I can afford. I could, but then I'd have less money left for things that are more important."

The lightning wizard said, "That sounds like a real quandary. I'll buy you the Mega-Cupcake on one condition."

"What's that?"

Laxus whispered in her ear to keep Charle from hearing.

Wendy frantically answered, "I can't! I won't! That's not right!"

"You saw what happened. You know the difference between enemies and friends, don't you? Subjecting someone who hurts a friend to momentary discomfort in order to gain something you want is what wizarding is all about."

Charle asked, "What did he ask you to do?"

Wendy covered her mouth. "I can't…it's too horrible!"

"Dirty words are still only words," Laxus added.

The girl looked at the Mega-Cupcake, then at Laxus, and then wordlessly made her way to the old woman.

Wendy's words wouldn't come out at first, and then, because she struggled as much as she did, the old woman started talking to her.

"Such a cute young girl shouldn't hang around with a man like that. He's no good. He'll be a bad influence. I know you're one of those wizards, but you seem like such a cute and innocent girl," she chided.

Now that she'd insulted Laxus, and hit him with her cane, Wendy was able to take a deep breath and shout the words trapped in her throat as she stood there with clenched fists and eyes.

"Get fucked, Greta!" she cried out.

It was so loud everyone else in the busy shop stopped everything they were doing, and silence just hung on the air for several seconds. Charle's mouth gaped open in shock and dismay that it was even possible for Wendy to utter such a thing.

And then, Laxus laughed. Really, laughed, and laughed hard. It was the first time Wendy had ever seen him do this and she actually found it both evil and creepy.

When he finished laughing, which took nearly a minute, he turned to the employee behind the counter and said, "I'll take the Mega-Cupcake please."

Charle said, "You are the most terrible person in this world. Why is that woman even mad?"

"I don't even know," the lightning wizard said as he gave her another awkward pat on the head and they left the shop to head toward the guild. "Wendy, you should roll with the Thunder Legion sometime, I think it would be good for you."

Wendy pointed to herself. "Really, me?"

Charle said, "Absolutely not, especially not after what just happened."

Laxus answered, "Happy never gives Natsu attitude about jobs. Be. More. Like. Happy."

The girl sensed the rage radiating off of Charle and asked, "Laxus, do you enjoy being surrounded by people that are angry at you?"

"Is that not normal?"

"Of course it's not."

He said, "Come on our next job. I have something stupid and pointlessly idiotic to do tonight, but we're leaving in the morning. I have something I'd like to tell you away from the guild, big dragon to little dragon. I think it may help you."

-Reviews Welcome-

Note - as noted in the description, this is long game Laxus/Wendy, nothing weird or gross.