"I think it's supposed to be warm."

At 2:53 am in the Dreyar kitchen: Loke, Virgo, a month old baby dragon, a tiger, and refrigerated breast milk.

Celestial spirits did not reproduce, neither did they have parental hormones or urges. What they did have was the desire to allow their master and her husband to sleep, because this creature they created was—at least to Virgo—was fat little monster who made unpleasant noises.

He was currently making that sound that haunted their minds. Being telepathically connected to a woman with a newborn was...punishment.

Loke, who was a much warmer, was trying to snuggle the baby out of his fit, but Thunder Baby was a tough customer.

The word Porlyusica had used to describe him was 'an unreptentant, stubborn screamer.' She also said Laxus had been the same way at birth.

The main issue with Yuri is that while he was somewhat agreeable with his parents most of the time (except at night, when he declared war on them for unknown reasons), he pretty much hated to be held by others. Porylusica said it might have been something with his sense of smell.

Virgo sniffed the breast milk in the cup. "Humans are very strange."

The tiger rubbed on her legs and made a little tiger talk, to which she said, "Cats are also peculiar."

"It's milk. Cats will be cats," Loke answered.

Virgo held out the cup. "Do you want milk too, Lion?"

Loke narrowed his eyes. "That's Lucy's breast milk."

"Does that make you want it more or less?" Virgo asked.

The lion shook his head. "I lost interest when she started having sex with him. It's a taboo that would have gotten me banned from the Celestial Realm again, so it's probably for the best."

"You never had a chance with Princess, big brother."

"You don't know that!"

Virgo smiled mischievously. "Princess has a taste for dragons."

Aquarius appeared through the dripping sink and sat on the edge of the counter as she watched Virgo about to attempt to feed the baby from a cup. "Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Babies drink from bottles."

Raijin the tiger growled and licked her lips and the mermaid swatted her lightly with her tail. "Easy, kitty, and nobody gets hurt."

There was a crash, a roar, and in an instant Loke's arms were empty and Laxus was standing in the middle of them with his son.

His presence brought instant fright because every single one of them had learned that a sleep-deprived Laxus was a terrifying sight indeed. One's chances of being struck by lightning indoors increased exponentially with every hour he went without sleep.

The lightning mage's eyebrow twitched, and the bags under his eyes made him appear considerably older.

Aquarius extended her arms. "Let me have him. Go back to sleep until you stop looking like that."

Laxus shook his head and took the bottle from Virgo. "A wise man once told me, 'Never trust a woman who smells like fish.'"

"If you didn't have that baby, I would drown you in the sewage line," she hissed.

"Don't let that stop you from trying. It's a good day for a fish fry."

Laxus and Aquarius knocked heads frequently, often literally. Which one was nastier? It was a great mystery. Laxus had said something rude to his wife in a somewhat cranky mood a couple of days before and she appeared in the shower with him to headbutt his skull into the wall so hard it broke the tiles.

But Aquarius, for all her nasty, wretched behavior, random appearances in the shower...freaking loved babies. Maybe not even all babies. She loved 'Thunder Baby' (as she referred to him exclusively), and she'd helped Layla Heartfilia care for Lucy as a newborn, so she wasn't as inept as the other spirits were. Yuri loved her also, and she'd hold him in the warm bath so he'd sleep. Both appreciated this.

So he considered his options, and gave her Yuri.

Lyra was an ace with the baby, but she had a limited contract with Lucy. She could put that baby to sleep with her harp in about fifteen seconds.

The only other spirit he trusted to take care of the baby was Aries. The baby simply adored being bounced on a big ball of pink fluff and would eventually go to sleep.

As for the rest?

Loke? Tried hard, kind of missed it somehow.

Virgo? Kind of seemed to not really like babies very much.

Plue? Plue was scared of Thunder Baby because Thunder Baby attempted to suck on his nose like it was a nipple.

Taurus? Lucy had summoned him one time since the birth of the baby and Laxus sent him straight home with a vengeance when he told her a grown bull never loses a taste for milk.

Cancer? Not a bad guy, but a guy who was just very nervous about a 'tiny human.'

Sagittarius? Just no.

Scorpio? Actually really cool with the baby, but he had the attention span of a horny mayfly.

Capricorn? Not into loud noises and therefore, incompatible with their son.

They had tried to use Gemini to trick him into thinking Lucy was holding him while she was actually in the shower, but Thunder Baby didn't buy it and he wasn't amused. It amazed his parents that he could tell the difference between the two. He took his mother very seriously.

Laxus went to bed and awoke four hours later feeling so much more rested he felt like he had a new lease on life. The first thing he saw as his eyes opened was his wife breastfeeding their son, and he gave her soft grin as he stirred and sat up to kiss her on the cheek. "Good morning."

"Morning," she said, turning to demand a kiss on the lips, which he obliged.

Every day, he was sure he fell more in love with her.

The bed was such an important place for a married couple, and since she had become his wife, so many things had happened in this small but soft space where they ended and began each day. A mental collage played in his mind of a thousand little moments that varied from taking an afternoon nap to rough sex to arguing to making up to laughing to tickle wars to belly snuggles to tears to the birth of their son to holding him and watching him sleep.

For the first few days, all they did was lay around with him between them in the bed, aww-ing over every little thing he did. At one month old, Yuri had never slept in his own room, which they had worked so hard on. He usually slept in a bassinet in their room but spent a lot of time in the bed also.

He stretched and sat up. "What's on your schedule?"

"I'm going to work out today. I need to get rid of this baby weight and my stomach looks funny," she said.

Laxus yawned. "You had a baby."

"...I know that..."

Her husband looked down at their son. "You honestly look fine."

"I'm carrying around twenty extra pounds. That's not cute," she argued.

"I honestly do think that it is cute. You're in your twenties. You're a mom. It would be weird for you to have the body of a seventeen-year-old girl. I'd hit it, but I've been on probation for an eternity," he answered.

Lucy handed the baby over to her husband after he finished eating because Laxus was an amazing baby burper. Since he could hear the gas bubbles in his son's stomach, he had an advantage. Based on the way his stomach sounded, Laxus had become skilled in determining if the burp was going to be a clean one or the kind that left foamy breast milk dripping down his shoulder.

"This one is going to be gross," he commented as he reached onto his nightstand for a burp cloth.

While he had the baby, she got in the shower and just stayed there under the hot water for a while. Having a baby was quite the adventure, and she was so glad she was with Laxus. He was always so chill about everything and that had been comforting during the weird moments of pregnancy.

The curtain opened and he got into the shower with her.

"Fell asleep?"

"Scream, eat, burp, sleep. The life of a dragon."

He reached for the shampoo bottle and Lucy sighed happily and leaned against his chest. She loved when he washed her hair more than anything. There were probably moments where she'd take this over sex. The first time it happened, their son was three days old and she was deliriously tired and had greasy hair. Still full of hormones, she ended up crying about how tired she was and how dirty her hair was, so he'd washed it for her and the whole world became perfect.

The eucalyptus shampoo tingled as he worked it into her scalp, alternating between lightly scratching and massaging her scalp as she leaned on his chest, her arms wrapped around him. "I love you soooo much."

"I love you too. It's pretty awesome to have a hot wife and a cute son. Life is good for me now."

"Me too."

Laxus listened to her little moan and continued her relaxing, soapy scalp massage. "I kind of miss you being pregnant. I think it turned me on more than it was supposed to."

Lucy smiled against his chest. "It was fun. Just knowing I had your child growing inside of me. And then that last month...I want to say I'll never do that again but I don't really want Thunder Baby to be an only child. I've noticed since he was born you've gotten silent about your plan to have tons of children."

"That thing he does at night is a bit much. I always feel defeated by the time he actually goes to sleep."

When she tilted her head up, they kissed and he pulled her under the water to rinse the shampoo out. After he conditioned her hair, she decided to return the favor and listened to him purr like a cat while she washed his crazy hair. "I wonder if Thunder Baby's hair is going to be like this when he's grown."

"Probably. I wonder why we even bothered giving our son a name since no one in the world besides me actually uses it. You even have Gramps on Thunder Baby. What happens when he gets older?"

Lucy pushed his head under the water a little abruptly. "Thunder Boy."

"No."

His wife mused, "Maybe I could abbreviate it to TB."

"TB. TB, really? Why don't we just legally change his name to Tuberculosis Dreyar?" he answered in annoyance. "Because that's what TB is. You can't use those initials for anything else."

Lucy answered, "You did say you wanted a name that could be intimidating."

"Do you not like his name? We had extensive conversations about what to name him, and you were agreeable with Yuri."

"Of course I do. Yuri Dreyar is a beautiful name and it suits him, but he's still my little Thunder Baby."

Laxus finally gave in and decided he'd approach this issue again later.

When they got out of the shower and dried off, the baby was still asleep, and, still wrapped in towels, Lucy grabbed his hand. "I have an idea."

Lucy led him down the hall to the nursery, which was painted in bright primary colors. She shut the door, and he was puzzled until she gave him a look and dropped the towel. The baby was sound asleep in their room, and they dare not wake him.

It hadn't been a whole six weeks yet, but Laxus was not going to question this. Wendy had healed her, and wizards naturally healed faster than ordinary people. Plus, they really did need it. The day-to-day stress of having a somewhat disagreeable baby was real, no how much they absolutely adored Yuri.

Laxus looked around the room and his eyes fell on a six-foot-tall stuffed teddy bear Mirajane bought for the nursery and he flipped it over. He swooped Lucy up in his arms and laid her on top of it, and then joined her.

Lucy kissed him, and looked up at the clock. Yuri had an internal timer that would cause him to scream whenever two hours passed between feedings. He would also scream like all hell if he woke up and he could not smell either of his parents.

He'd kissed from her mouth to her neck when he started crying and both parents just sighed.

"We tried," Lucy said.

They put their towels back on and went upstairs to find their son had quieted down in the arms of a stranger that had slipped through the window. They ran to the bathroom to dress, and came out to find their son was still pleased with the house guest.

Natsu and the rest of her team had been on an s-class job with Erza, and having just got home, the fire dragon slayer went straight to the Dreyar house, knowing Lucy should have had her baby already.

Natsu and Yuri were indulging in a practice Lucy scolded Laxus for on a daily basis.

Unlike ordinary human babies, Thunder Baby not only screamed, but he also growled, but only at his father. Laxus growled back, and they both seemed amused to do this. Thunder Baby also now growled at Natsu, who—of course—found this cool and returned the gesture.

"Thunder Baby must know you're a dragon too," Lucy said.

Natsu grinned at the baby. "Hey there, Thunder Baby! Nice to meet you. Last time I saw you, you were in your Mom's tummy."

"Yuri. His name is Yuri," Laxus commented, although he had learned by this point that whatever insanity Lucy practiced, Natsu practiced also.

It actually made sense that Natsu would be good with babies, as soon as Lucy thought about it. He was warm, and crazy, and had good instincts about the people around him.

Lucy watched them growl at one another. "Natsu, you're awfully good and cute with him. Maybe you and Lisanna should have a baby."

"Nope," his monosyllabic answer was fast and without hesitation.

Laxus was going to go downstairs to make breakfast when Natsu pulled out a magazine on the windowsill.

"This issue of Sorcerer Weekly has pictures of you," he said,.

Laxus hadn't been on a job in two months, so he wasn't sure why, but when he took it and flipped through it, he sighed deeply. "Fuck my life."

Natsu and Happy laughed.

The magazine had a collection of pictures of him...

...going to into a childbirth class with his wife...

...talking to her stomach in the park...

...feeding her ice cream...

...cradling his newborn son on the way to a checkup at the doctor...

"Well, my reputation just went up in smoke," he commented as he threw the magazine in the air.

Lucy smiled at him. "I think it's cute. Besides, it's good for people to see a wizard can be a good dad. I don't know if you've noticed this, but wizards tend to suck at real life, Alzack and Bisca excluded."

"Whatever," he sulked.

Natsu's nose twitched and he handed the baby off to his father.

"He pooped."

"Get out."

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