Lucy entered the room with Jello legs and a somewhat dumb grin, giving him one last look before she closed the door. She memorized the sight of him standing there with that 'I just kissed you' smirk, lip gloss smeared on his lips. And God, if there had ever been anything so wonderful to look at, she couldn't think of what it might be.

Once the door was closed, she unzipped the dress and headed to the bathroom to shower. The scent of perspiration and her perfume were mixed with his scent, although considering how close they'd been throughout the night, it wasn't surprising his scent was left on her. She decided to leave her hair intact, and after she was clean, she put on a pair of pajamas, brushed her teeth, and flopped down on her bed.

So what if I just had the best night of my life with the biggest jerk in Fairy Tail?

Lucy wanted to consider all the possible implications or what it might mean for the future, but two glasses of champagne and a night of vigorous ballroom dancing had sucked all the energy out of her and she ended up face-down in the bed snoring within three minutes.

When she awoke, it was already noon, and her stomach demanded sustenance immediately. The hotel had a buffet brunch until one o'clock, so she quickly unpinned her hair, which fell into big, pretty curls, threw on some clothes, and got ready for her day. She ran downstairs and went about the grand buffet, grabbing this and that, and then looked around for a place to sit in the large, busy dining room.

She found a small, unoccupied table and was about to sit when the hair on the back of her neck stood on end—a familiar feeling of static electricity rising around her.

He's here!

The blonde scanned the dining room once, twice, and bit her bottom lip. She couldn't see him, but she could feel that he was close. Laxus kicked it up a little bit, not enough to cause any real sensation, but enough that the electricity caused a strange excitement as it coursed through her.

This was a fun game for him.

Closing her eyes, she tried to sense his presence and her body turned to a curved booth in the far corner, where there was a man holding a newspaper up in front of him with giant hands.

Laxus lowered it as she approached and peered at her over the top. "Hey."

She laughed at his usual, monosyllabic greeting. "Hey. You...uhhhh...mind if I sit here?"

"I promise I'll make a terrible scene if you don't."

Laxus slid over and tilted his head to indicate he wanted her right next to him, and she took a seat there beside him. He folded up the newspaper and took a sip of his coffee, a plate of half-eaten eggs and various meats before him. "Did you sleep well?"

"Slept like a baby."

"I've never heard a baby snore that loud," he teased.

Damn dragon slayer hearing, she thought. "Whatever. I'm sure you have the most angelic sleeping habits."

Laxus decided to lessen her embarrassment by putting his own little personal sleeping issue on the table. "I have been told I growl in my sleep."

"That's not surprising to me for some reason," she answered.

Laxus looked at her plate, which contained egg white scramble, fruit, and a piece of wheat toast. This was what she chose from a buffet of every delicious breakfast food imaginable. Pancakes! Bacon! Cheese omelets! "It's not breakfast without bacon," he commented.

The blonde sighed and took a bite of fruit. "I'm on a diet plan my spirit Capricorn put me on."

One eyebrow rose in question. "Why are you on a diet?"

She seemed a little embarrassed when she answered, "People are always telling me I weigh too much. Happy tells me that every time he has to carry me. And Capricorn. I think it might help in battle."

The lightning dragon slayer drummed his fingers on the table, seemingly annoyed by this. "This goes along with what I've said to you. You need to stop caring what people think about you, but I have both a professional and personal opinion if you would like to hear them. It would be a shame for you to live your life according to what Happy thinks."

Lucy swallowed the kiwi in her mouth and nodded, because it really did seem stupid when he phrased it like that. "Professional first."

Laxus sipped his black coffee and explained, "At your current weight, your center of gravity is between your hips, the strongest part of your body. If you were to lose, say ten pounds, it would move higher and you'd end up being less balanced. Erza's center of gravity is high like that, and if you think back, you'll see when she's in combat, her upper body—which is weaker—takes more of the force than her lower body. She has to defend with her arms and abdomen instead of her hips and thighs. It's a huge disadvantage she has to compensate for with sheer strength."

This actually made sense, and Lucy was inclined to believe Laxus over pretty much everyone else when it came to combat because he was so elite when it came to fighting.

"And personal?"

He smirked. "Those curves are perfect. That's the most polite thing I have to say about your body. I could go into more detail if you'd like."

Lucy blushed and watched as he scraped bacon and eggs onto her plate. "So, Laxus...us."

"Us," he repeated the word.

There was a long silence wherein she nibbled the bacon and they cycled through looking at one another and looking down. It was she who finally blurted out, "I like you, Laxus. I like being here, with you. And talking, with you. And dancing all night, with you. And kissing you. It felt right to me."

Lucy felt like hell had frozen over when the pink tinged his cheeks, and she wondered if she'd been too forward. Then, she realized that she'd gone out with him just because she wanted to, and it was Laxus that encouraged her to make her own decisions according to her own feelings.

Felt right?

Laxus could call it the best night of his life, and it hadn't even ended in sex. "I like those things too, so let's keep doing them."

Lucy gasped a little as he put an arm around her and moved in to kiss her. "Stop, my breath smells like bacon."

Could this woman be any cuter?

Laxus kissed her anyway, then said, "I like kissing you and I like bacon. It's a win-win for me."

She felt so at ease with him now, and there was a level of trust she felt for him. He liked her. He liked her body. It was okay for her to be her, and she decided he must have felt the same way. "You're kind of classy in a way, you know."

"Me? Classy?" he pointed at himself in question. "I don't think anyone has ever accused me of that ever, not even by mistake."

Lucy swallowed some juice and looked up at him. "We spent all night together, and you didn't say or do anything...dirty. I danced with three people, and you were the least grabby."

Laxus tilted his head toward her and said, "There's a lot of attraction and chemistry between us. If we start touching a certain way too much or talking about certain things or looking at one another a certain kind of way...it'll happen."

"What'll happen?" Lucy asked.

"We'll end up in bed."

She blushed deeply at this comment and he sipped his coffee as she considered what he was saying. It was true that she felt a certain kind of way when he put his hands on her, and when she thought about it, he'd maintained physical contact with her through a large part of the night. She held his arm, took his hand, allowed him to swoop her down for the stage kiss, and dancing was purely physical and they'd done that for hours. When she thought about it, she hadn't felt embarrassed or annoyed or anything—it just felt right for him to touch her. And then he didn't take advantage of or press her in any kind of way that caused her to notice he had this power over her.

"I'm not ready for that. I know you probably...you know...a lot..." she was uneasy as she looked up, "...right?"

Laxus nodded. "I'll cut it out since we are going to be dating. I won't die if I don't have sex for awhile."

Her cheeks reddened even more. "But if we keep dating...then...eventually, you want to..."

"Don't think about it too much. That will also make it happen before it should."

Lucy quickly redirected her thoughts to her breakfast and they finished eating. Laxus looked over the newspaper as he ate, careful to hide the front page from her, and then something very clearly captured his attention.

"What is it? An interesting story?"

Laxus held up the paper. "The Crocus Zoo has a giraffe."

Lucy was so confused by the fact that he was interested in this because she could find no relation between lightning and giraffes. "Umm..."

"Have you ever seen a giraffe in person?" he asked.

The blonde shook her head.

"Do you want to?"

This was how she discovered one of his greatest loves in life: animals. The concept of going to the zoo stirred up an almost childlike excitement in him, and when she thought about it, the zoo was a fun place adults rarely visited. She hadn't been to a zoo since before she ran away from home, but she had memories of going with her father as a young girl.

Laxus ditched his jacket in his room so he had his black tank and purple pants, and she had on a white top and blue skirt for this, their second date.

They walked to the zoo from the hotel and once inside, they walked across a bridge that curved high over a pond that served as the alligator exhibit. He hung over the rail and watched them for a moment, then hung over a little further.

"H-Hey! Be careful! You might fall in," she warned as she tried to pull him back a little.

Instead, he pulled her up to sit on the railing with him, and she gripped the metal bars frantically. "KYAA! Laxus!"

He very seriously asked her, "What if I do fall in?"

The blonde narrowed her eyes. "What if I fall in?"

"Relax. They're just alligators," he answered.

The blonde could do no more than shake her head. "Only Fairy Tail..."

At that point, an employee from the zoo approached them. "Sir, Ma'am, you can't sit...hey, it's Laxus and Lucy! You guys are on the front page of the paper!"

Lucy wanted the person—who turned out to be the manager of the zoo—to tell Laxus he had to follow the rules of the zoo, but instead, the manager gave him free reign to do whatever he wanted since there was nothing in the zoo that could actually cause him harm.

And, as it turned out, a picture of her spinning into his arms adorned the front page of the Crocus Chronicle, so people steadily stared at them and pointed.

Once the manager was gone, Laxus leaned even further over the water. "They're such amazing hunters. Still and silent for hours, waiting for the moment..." And at that very moment, a bird landed on a lily pad in the water and one of the reptiles snatched it in one bite.

They moved on from there and Lucy noticed something peculiar. The animals seemed to be drawn to him naturally. "Laxus, why do they come to you? Natsu is like that too. Animals and all kinds of other creatures come to him. I wonder if it has something to do with being able to understand Plue. I don't think it's a dragon slayer thing, since Gajeel and Wendy can't talk to Plue."

Laxus, who was carelessly hanging over the protective rail at the rhinoceros exhibit, answered, "Natsu and I are on a different level. We inherit different traits as we progress. I was the first one to get motion sick."

"Why would a dragon need to be able to attract animals?"

"Food. How is a rhinoceros an animal and not a demon?" he asked.

Lucy considered the creature before her and the absurd question her boyfriend had raised concerning it. "Have you ever heard of the Rhinoceros of the Book of Zeref?"

"I heard that Zeref thought the name of the book too long so he renamed it to E.N.D."

Lucy couldn't help but break out into a giggle.

When they came to the lions, Laxus—of course—sat on top of the railing and watched the the lion roar in the face of the lioness. "Come sit up here with me."

"Absolutely not." She did, however, come stand next to where he was sitting. "I love lions too."

The lioness slapped the lion in the face with her paw and Laxus commented, "They are having a domestic dispute. She hit him first, but she will call the authorities if he hits her back. Speaking of which, you owe me a slap, remember?"

She rolled her eyes at him as as the lions continued their 'dispute' for a few minutes, growling and swatting at each other. A tour group moved to the exhibit, and the guide could be heard in the background uttering different facts about lions, but Laxus and Lucy remained entertained by the fight.

"Loke is a lion spirit."

"Lions are master predators and fantastic hunters. Loke acts nothing like one. He is a guy with orange hair. Nothing more, nothing less."

As if he'd been called, Loke emerged from his gate. "I beg to differ with you. I have many things in common with a real lion with my hair."

Suddenly, and without any warning, the male lion mounted the female lion and began mating with her.

"Makeup sex. Or maybe hate sex if he's going about it like that," Laxus uttered as he turned to leave the exhibit with a now embarrassed Lucy.

The female let out a loud shriek of a roar, and the tour guide could be heard saying, "...the reason the female roars while she's mounted is that the male lion's penis is covered in what are called penile spines, which rake the inside of the lioness as they mate to stimulate ovulation..."

Loke counted this as the most humiliating moment of his extremely long eternal life. Lucy and Laxus stood there, staring at him. He kept his head down, and didn't make eye contact. "I swear I don't-"

Laxus put a his hands over Lucy's ears. "Seriously?"

"Of course not!" Loke defensively answered. "Is yours covered in scales?"

"Not your concern," Laxus answered.

The lion spirit brought his palm to his face as he confessed, "Okay, look. They're small. And soft."

"KYAAAAAAA! I CAN STILL HEAR!"

Lucy threw his hands off of her and took a few steps back. A blush crawled from her cheeks to her ears, and then her chest as she stood unable to form words to express her feelings. "You two...I don't need to know about...Loke...you...and you, Laxus...both of you! Loke...go back. Laxus, I would vanish you too if I could!"

Loke disappeared and Lucy started to stomp away from Laxus.

He followed her and came to her side. "Lucy."

"Don't 'Lucy' me, Mister!"

Laxus saw the blush continuing to spread. "Why does it bother you? You got a thing for Loke?"

"That's not the issue," she hissed.

"Then what is the issue?"

She stopped and fisted her hands as she looked up at him, and then away from him. There was a question in her eyes, and when he saw it, and he comprehended the cause of her debilitating bewilderment, he laughed.

The blonde made good on the slap she owed him. "Stop laughing! You don't even understand!"

Laxus smugly looked down at her. "You're wondering about the question he asked me. And now you're curious, but you're terrified to ask. Ah, the quandaries of a virgin at the zoo."

He hit the bulls-eye and she only became more frustrated with him.

She was paralyzed by embarrassment, so he asked, "Do you want to know?"

"OF COURSE NOT!"

But I do.

"I really just don't."

But I'm going to wonder about it.

The lightning mage gave her a pat on the head. "Good girl. Let's get some ice cream and stop talking about dicks."

"You have a way with words, you know," she sarcastically answered.

They sat at a bench with their ice cream and Lucy noticed that the sky was already started to turn orange, indicating the day was pretty much over. Somehow, she felt like time went by in fast motion when they were together, and she'd never felt that way before.

Despite all that had happened at the infamous lion exhibit, she was comfortable with him, and she could tell he was comfortable with her too. His love for animals was some detail of him she knew most people never saw, so to be with him meant that he was sharing some part of himself with her that usually stayed hidden.

In all things, Laxus was still Laxus: a jerk, inclined toward danger yet unbothered by it, a little vulgar, brutish, playful, but attracted almost helplessly to the way she engaged him in conversation.

And he noted that Lucy was still Lucy: kind, a little awkward, overly dramatic, prone to fits, laughing at jokes so inappropriate she would never make them, and magnetized to the challenge his presence brought her.

She looked up from her ice cream to find him watching her. "Remember when Phantom
Lord attacked and you said you'd only help if I became your girlfriend?"

There was a flash of shame in his eyes. "Yeah..."

"Have you been attracted to me since then?"

Laxus kind of suspected this would come up eventually. "I was more of an asshole then, but I wasn't blind. You've always been very attractive."

He chomped down on the last of his ice cream cone and said, "If another guild tried to kidnap you now? God have mercy on them, because I will not, and He's the next one they'll see after me."

Lucy had no doubts about this.

They continued their exploration of the zoo and arrived at the giraffes, which predictably gravitated toward Laxus. As they approached, the two hung their heads over and Laxus reached into his pocket for a camera lacrima.

"Selfie with a giraffe?" he asked.

Lucy nodded. "It's somehow one of the least crazy things that's happened today."

She stood next to him and he was next to one of the giraffes and he put his arm around her and pulled her close, kissing her on the cheek when he hit the button. At that moment, the giraffe licked his face, which made the picture actually quite funny. Laxus kissing Lucy, while getting a kiss from as giraffe.

This was their first picture together.

After they left the zoo, it was just about dark, and instead of going back to the hotel, Laxus bought them food at a little stand and they ate it as they headed toward downtown.

They saw Elfman and Evergreen together, hand-in-hand.

"They're really together?"

Laxus looked down at her. "Of course. They've been together since before Tenrou. I almost had to kill him about a month ago."

"Why?"

"He cooked for Evergreen and she got sick."

Lucy was puzzled. "Why would you kill him for that?"

The lightning wizard explained, "The nausea caused Evergreen to think she might be pregnant. She didn't want to tell him, so she showed up at my house crying. I went to go buy a pregnancy test because I didn't know what to do, and while I was at the store, I ran into Gramps. You can't imagine how awkward of a conversation we had. Once everything was straight, I went out and found Elfman. Then I buried him in a crater."

The blonde could see it playing out in her head, and it was just as comically horrible as a story as it probably was in progress. Those was also one of those things that could only happen at Fairy Tail.

They walked down the river walk, and all through downtown, looking at and doing various little activities. The couple sampled different kinds of food, and then they came to a boat ride.

"Can we?" she asked.

Laxus scowled at her. "That's transportation," he stated, emphasizing the second word as if it was poison. 'Transportation' was practically a curse word at Fairy Tail.

"Oh! Right. Sorry."

Lucy was turning away from the boat ride when her foot caught on a loose brick in the cobblestone walkway next to the river. She yelped, and then stumbled forward and sideways.

He tried to catch her, but the next thing Lucy knew, they were both in the river, which was flowing a little faster than normal due to runoff from the mountains.

Laxus swam to her and held her against him.

"I can swim," she said as she choked out the small amount of water she swallowed and pushed away from them.

His eyes were so narrowed in annoyance they were hardly open. "...Yet you can't walk?"

Once she tried to swim on her own, she yelped in pain and sank, at which point he pulled her back to him. "My ankle!"

He swam against the strong current to the edge and pulled both of them out.

Lucy coughed a little more and felt him take her right foot in his hand.

Laxus took her white sneaker off and the sock, and felt the foot and ankle, which had already started to swell. The blonde winced as he palpated the injury, rotating her foot and moving her toes. From his vantage point, he got a little distracted when he lifted her leg because he could see her white panties, but he quickly refocused his attention on the injury."It's sprained. I wonder if Wendy went back earlier."

"She left at noon with Erza and a few other people," she answered.

Laxus pulled his shirt over his head and tore it into long strips, which he tied around her ankle with practiced ease. "Grab my neck, we need to get back."

Lucy did so and found herself piggyback on the bare-chested dragon slayer's back. "Can't you teleport us?"

"You know about lightning and water, right?" he asked.

She sighed as she held onto his neck. "I didn't think of that."

Laxus felt her hovering next to his left ear and his eyes cut to that side when she kissed him on the cheek. His heart flip-flopped in his chest, and in that moment, he knew.

He was falling in love. He was already too far gone to stop it, and he really didn't want to.

When they got back to the hotel, Lucy's spirit Virgo came to tend to her master, collecting her clothes so she could shower and change. Laxus went to his own room to shower and wash the river off of himself, and returned with a bucket full of ice just as Lucy emerged from the shower in her pajamas.

Laxus tied up some ice in a towel and sat next to her on the sofa, pulling the ankle into his lap as she turned to face him. He re-wrapped it in bandages he kept packed due to the disastrous nature of his job. "Does it hurt?"

"Y-Yeah..." she hissed as the ice made contact with the swelling ankle.

"How about a distraction to take your mind off your ankle?" he asked, raising a brow in question.

Lucy nodded.

He shifted closer to her and cupped her face kissing her gently on the lips. The kiss was soft, sweet, and seemed to last forever, but when he broke it, she turned her body to face him completely, forgetting about the wounded ankle currently draped around his hip.

The next kiss came with a little spark, and before she knew it, she was sinking into the sofa on her back, his body above her. Their bodies moved to find the perfect position, and the Lucy almost subconsciously opened her mouth when he kissed her again.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, she realized she was making out with Laxus Dreyar.

She suddenly felt his tongue barely brush against hers, and she felt like she'd been struck by lightning. Whether it was a natural response to his touch or not she wasn't sure, but the spark coursed through her so hard her entire body shuddered.

Instinctively, her body knew how to move and she didn't stop her hands from running through his damp hair or down his back. She felt completely lost, but like she had no desire to be found. It was like time had stopped, and there was just her and Laxus and it was so amazing. "Laxus..." she moaned.

He made a noise that was something like a growl and a purr combined and broke the kiss. Panting, he pressed his forehead against hers. "Does your ankle still hurt?"

She reached up and touched his cheek. "No. Can we stay like this a while?"

Laxus kissed her forehead. "You have your legs wrapped around me. There's no staying like this. We can either sit up and behave or I'm going to throw you on that bed and have you and you're not ready for that."

Lucy really hadn't realized that they had moved into that position, so she didn't protest when he sat up and reclaimed her ankle, putting the ice pack back on it. "My body kind of moved on its own. Sorry."

She moved her foot and accidentally kicked the painfully tight bulge in his pants with her heel.

He winced and removed her foot from his lap, bending over in pain.

"Laxus! What happened? Are you injured?"

With a groan, he said, "You kicked me in the erection."

"E-E..." she couldn't even say the word. "Why did you have one?!"

He said, "I was just on top of you for an hour."

"That long! It felt like...five minutes!"

When she looked up at the clock, she saw an hour actually had passed.

It was then that she realized that her sense of time was completely screwed up when she was with him. Laxus was keenly aware of what was going on around them at all times, but she was generally unaware. Being with him was like being pulled into a vortex in which nothing else existed existed except bacon and giraffes and tongue-kissing.

"S-Sorry. Will it be okay?" she mumbled.

And that was how they arrived at that moment, where the virgin Lucy Heartfilia was asking him if his penis was going to be okay after causing it to become erect and then smashing it with her foot.

Only Fairy Tail, he thought.

All things considered, he felt like he'd been quite the gentleman.

Until now.

"Want to kiss it and make it better?" he asked with an absolutely devilish smirk.

The blonde turned fifteen shades of red and broke eye contact. "Gross, Laxus. I'll kick it again if you want."

Laxus made one more attempt at caring for her ankle, and as he held the ice on it, he seemed pensive. Like he suddenly had a thought and it was important.

"What?"

Hey boyfriend met her eyes. "Get on birth control, okay?"

Lucy was going to ask why, but that was a stupid question for a girl who just had him laying between her legs. If she was honest with herself, she really wanted to go a little further and in that moment, if he'd asked to have it all, she might have let him. On some level, she found it hilarious that he'd warned her at breakfast about touching too much and then ended up on top of her the same day, but that showed where his level of self-control was and highlighted why she probably needed to take his advice.

"Okay."

She ended up sleeping in the bed an he slept on that sofa because he refused to leave her in the room alone when she was injured, even if she could call on her spirits and some of them could simply come if she was in trouble.

He kissed her goodnight, and she dreamed of lightning.

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Special thanks to yumeyumi1986, sdjr100, guest, boboboing, darkfae7, and DoesAnyoneWantaCookie for reviewing!