Of course it happened when Lucy was out of town.

Layla had been expected; her first period came with discernable PMS. There was crying, slamming of doors, complaints about cramps, and enough drama Laxus was nearly ready to drop her off at the local animal shelter with a nice donation.

He wished he hadn't been so lazy; he asked Lucy to go represent him at the local guildmaster's meeting. She was honestly better at guild administration than he was, and she represented their guild so much better. This left him with the kids and it left him with Mavis' first period.

Mavis was still only eleven, so it was a little sooner than expected and he wasn't really sure if she'd had all the necessary talks with her mother. All he knew was he could hear her crying in the bathroom and he could smell the bloody female scent.

Crying was so rare for Mavis he hated to hear it. Layla cried every time she got pissed off and Anna was just a big crybaby like her mother, but Mavis was the tough one.

He rapped on the door lightly. "Kid, are you okay?"

"Go away!"

"Mavis, it's alright."

"Eww, Dad, you can smell it, can't you?"

"Yep."

"Yuri too?"

"If you can, you know we can. It's not a big deal. It's kind of a smell we're used to."

This only made her cry harder, as she was already on shaky ground when it came to being feminine. She liked to run and fight, and this disgusting thing happening to her body made her feel gross.

Mavis cried, "I want Mom!"

"Mom isn't here."

Yuri came out of his room and stopped briefly when he heard his sister crying. "Mavis is crying? Did she run out of boys to beat up?" His nose twitched once, twice, and then, "...oh. Nevermind. I'm out." He quickly fled as he'd learned this was generally the safest and wisest thing to do. Like all dragons, he could smell the blood, but he'd somehow always had just enough sense to pretend he didn't.

Mavis screamed from the other side of the door, "Has fate really abandoned me to my incompetent father who doesn't even have a vag-"

"Mavis!" he said.

Laxus was trying to be a good and supportive father, but Mavis was not having it. This was an awkward moment in their relationship, and he really had no idea how he would ever get her to come out of the bathroom.

"You can't live in there."

"GO AWAY!"

Yuri, on his flight from the house, happened to run into his oldest sister, Layla, while she was with Sam at the soda shop. As big brother and sister to high-maintenance twins, they were more than accustomed to looking after the younger Dreyars.

Yuri pulled her aside. "You need to go home and help Dad."

"What's going on?"

"Mavis is...ummmm…and then...but after that for a little while…bleugh. That blood..."

Layla spoke Yuri, so she figured it out quickly. "Say no more."

She made a quick stop at the corner store, and then ran straight home where she found her father trying to talk Mavis into not being upset while the girl yelled at him hysterically from the other side of the door.

Layla stopped at her father, gave him a hug and said, "Dad, I got this. Please go away. This is girl stuff and you can't talk about it unless you have a-"

"Fine!"

Mavis heard her big sister's voice. "Layla?"

The door unlocked in an instant and Layla paused only briefly to turn and said, "Oh, and Dad?"

"What?"

"The word vagina is not a bad word. You're being childish."

He made a twisted up face in response to this and said, "I'll leave you two to your...whatever."

Mavis was infinitely grateful to have a big sister, and next to their mother, there weren't any women she looked up to more than Layla. Layla was fearless and smart and beautiful, and like Mavis, had a fairly explosive personality, although she was more likely to throw a fit than start a fight. Yuri and Anna were the calm ones, making peace when possible.

There were different metrics that caused them to connect in different ways. Yuri and Mavis were dragon-blooded. Yuri and Anna were the peacemakers, Mavis and Layla had bad tempers, Layla and Anna were girly-girls, and so forth. They all had different relationships with one another and with their parents, but they were a very close-knit family.

Of course, Lucy had already discussed this topic with Mavis, but it still came as a very unwanted surprise and Mavis was grateful to have her energetic feminist of a sister give her a frank review of the options. Layla came packing wipes, pads, liners, and tampons with plenty of advice.

Laxus decided to leave the girls to this, since Mavis clearly preferred her sister anyway, and he did what he knew best to do. He bought chocolate and left it on her bed and then went to work, assuming the situation was under control.

Unfortunately for Orga J Nanagear the Second, this was the day he chose to make his case to the Dreyar girl he'd been smitten with. To say that Mavis was in a crappy mood by the time she finally left the house en route to the guild would be the understatement of the year. She was practically waiting for someone to push her buttons.

She had cramps and the hormones were enough her other senses felt a little off, and she felt tired and most just really pissed off as this wasn't a milestone she'd been looking forward to at all. Her twin Anna had been anxiously awaiting the day she 'became a woman,' but there was no part of Mavis that had been awaiting this event. She only assumed it happened to her first because the universe had a disgusting and hateful sense of humor.

He was already pretty close when she finally caught his scent, and he emerged from a sidestreet with a grin and flowers. "Good morning, Beautiful! I've come back to make you my girlfriend!"

Lightning struck his flowers and they turned to ash as she glared with her Lucy eyebrow twitch. Her thin little lips twisted in derision, and she emitted a low growl.

"Drop Dead!"

"That's no way to treat a good looking guy that spend two hours on the train just to see you! But guess what! We're so far from the river, you can't throw me in this time!"

As if he'd caught her in some 'aha!' moment, he seemed victorious, but then she turned into lightning and vanished. He'd never seen anyone who could do what she did, and he could sense that the lightning went into the ground and was coming toward him at near instant speed.

There was a clap of thunder, and lightning struck upward from the ground as she reappeared behind him and delivered a single, powerful blow to the back of his skull. All lightning users knew this particular part of the body, if exposed to electrical discharge, left the victim stunned.

He was only vaguely aware as she dragged him by the hand two blocks down the street and to throw him in the river just to communicate that she could put him wherever she wanted to. The townspeople found this wasn't a particularly noteworthy event as Mavis was usually beating up boys.

"She's holding my hand…" he mumbled incoherently.

Mavis nearly trembled in rage and kicked him in the stomach. "I think you might be the first person I actually kill."

When she got to the river, she rolled him over the edge, dusted her hands off, and continued walking along the river while he floated on his back.

He emerged from his stupor and swam to catch up with her. "You could give me a chance."

"You could drop dead."

"I know you think I'm cute."

Mavis turned to him and said, "Didn't your mother teach you better? You are literally the worst guy I have ever met in my entire life."

"My mom died, so no. My dad and I are by ourselves, so of course I'm uncivilized. But you still think I'm cute!"

She stopped at this because it made her feel a little bit of pity for him. "Really?"

"Yeah, a dark mage killer her when I was a baby."

She felt a moment of rare sympathy for him, and was considering having mercy on him when he opened his mouth and said, "I obviously need a female in my life!"

The girl sighed. "Drop dead."

Orga did not see the approach of the big dragon, and said, "Think about it! You can eat my lightning, and I can eat yours."

Mavis cringed. "I don't want anything that comes from your body inside of me. You are not going to be inside of me ever."

And that was the comment Yuri heard as he approached his sister.

There was a context issue to say the least, but Orga really had no idea what was happening when an a hand jerked him out of the water by his soaking wet green mane and held him up.

"What the hell are you saying to my sister, you little punk?" Yuri demanded.

"Who you callin' a punk, Punk?!"

"You wanna fight? I've heard you've been coming around looking for one, but you keep picking on my baby sister. I've been waiting for a chance to knock you in the head."

Testosterone-fueled rage flared and they went at it, explosions of bright and dark lightning as the boys fought.

Mavis giggled as there was little she enjoyed more than seeing Yuri in overprotective big brother mode.

In the end, Yuri put Orga back in the river and said, "I don't like your boyfriend."

"He's not my boyfriend."

"Then why didn't you beat the crap out of him?"

The girl answered, "He's kind of cute, don't you think?"

He rolled his eyes. "Stop acting like you're grown. You know he's an idiot."

"Aren't all guys?"

"I'm a guy too, you know."

"No, you're my brother. You will always be the strongest, best, coolest boy in the world to me. That's why you're going to give me a piggyback ride to the guild."

He sighed and felt her small amount of weight transfer to his. "You're so spoiled."

"I'm the baby. I'm supposed to be. Besides, I don't feel very well today."

Yuri didn't know what to say to this, but as they past a familiar ice cream shop, he found himself contributing to the further spoiling of Mavis May Dreyar, who ate a chocolate ice cream cone he paid for while he carried her on his back to the guild.

At the guild, Laxus was attempting to do paperwork and spy on his middle daughter at the same time. As the father of a son and three girls, he'd developed a secondary career in espionage.

The problem with his kids is that they were so close they'd get together and lie as a unit to their parents, like when they recently left them alone overnight for the first time and came home to find their house smelled like at least thirty people Laxus knew had never been in the house before. Through intense interrogations, he found all their stories were neatly manufactured and fit together so perfectly they'd never been able to get them to admit they'd had a bunch of kids over.

His primary objective though, was to observe how boys acted towards his daughters.

Sam Redfox and Layla had an ammonia and bleach kind of relationship where they bickered and yelled at each other constantly, and yet were always together. Laxus and Lucy had been on the fence about whether the undertone of this relationship was more brother and sister or boy and girl, until one day Sam told another girl she was cute and this essentially started a small war that ended with Sam begging for forgiveness and her not speaking to him for three days.

Iggy Dragneel, probably due to the nonsense that was 'Sam and Layla' fell out of orbit around Layla in early childhood. Over the years, he very slowly started to gravitate toward Anna, her younger sister. It was something that had grown very slowly between two sweet kids. They were shy and a little cute about it for the most part, and Laxus believed they'd never acknowledged they liked each other.

At the moment, they were sitting close in a corner booth drinking from two straws stuck in one shake.

It was a little eerie to see a little fire dragon and a celestial spirit summoner pull together, as if that was always what was supposed to happen.

Between Sam and Iggy, there was a huge difference. Sam was a huge kid, and he was already going through puberty, so his body was further changing and getting stronger. Iggy hadn't grown very quickly, so he actually ended up being shorter than all the girls except Mavis. He still mostly looked like a little boy, and he was nowhere near strong enough to beat Sam up.

Sam bullied him a little at times, but Laxus believed there was going to be a day the little sweet dragon turned the tables on him and beat him into the ground. He was the son of Natsu, after all. And as he sat there with his shy little grin, Laxus believed Iggy was always just one bad day away from turning into a monster.

He sighed and went back in his office once he observed everything was somewhat normal.

Lucy had trained him well, cautioning him that if he interfered too much with the girls when it came to boys, they'd end up not trusting him. The last thing he wanted was for any of their children to not feel comfortable talking about something important. He was determined to choose his battles wisely, and begrudgingly accept the fact that girls liked boys and boys liked girls.

If they had a party and lied about it, he didn't care that much. If they ended up sneaking around with boys, that was a different and much scarier situation.

According to his wife, these crushes were a sign their children were emotionally healthy. By the time their generation had reached this age, they were all warped and emotionally damaged. Most were orphans, set on revenge, psychologically dysfunctional, and harboring abandonment issues. This group of kids had grown up mostly in peace so they acted more like normal kids most of the time.

There was a knock on his door after a while which came as a surprise because the guild was mostly empty other than the kids and Mavis, who had arrived halfway through his paperwork and wanted to fight everybody and Yuri, who sat quietly and watched the mayhem unfold.

"Come in."

Iggy Dragneel entered with a strange expression, clutching the dragonscale scarf his father had given him. "Hi Master."

"Hello, Boy Who Sits One-Quarter of an Inch Closer to My Daughter Every Week and Thinks I Don't Notice."

He looked up over his reading glasses at the boy, who paled at the accusation but then stammered, "C-Can I ask you a question?"

"If the question is about my kid, the answer is no. If it's about taking a job that would almost inevitably end in your death, I approve," he teased.

Iggy knew Master Laxus wasn't being serious and took a deep breath as he sat down in the chair across from the big desk. "So I was wondering...if….you know, we could...I just wanted to ask…"

Laxus put his pen down and took his glasses off. "Out with it already."

"Can Anna be my girlfriend?" he sputtered all at once, as it the entire sentence was one single word.

Laxus always wondered how and when this would happen.

It wasn't as terrible as he imagined it would be and as he sat there pouting at the boy, he could remember watching Iggy grow up with his girls and knew him to be a sincere and loyal boy. He always treated them well and he was especially considerate of Anna, who was a little bit more tender than her sisters.

Laxus sighed. "You're thirteen. She's eleven. What the hell does that even mean?"

"Huh?"

"What does 'being your girlfriend' entail?"

Iggy felt sweat start to form on his brow, and he started to doubt whether this was a good idea. According to his mother, this was the only way to be become closer to Anna without making an enemy out of her father, but he was more than intimidating as he started intensely from across the desk.

He swallowed nervously and asked, "C-Can I ask you a question? What are you thinking about right now?"

"I'm thinking about how fun it would be to pull your spine out of your left nostril, because that's what I'm going to do if I don't like your answer," he calmly replied.

Iggy thought carefully and said, "Well...what do you mean?"

Laxus tapped his fingers on the desk impatiently. "How would anything be different if she is your girlfriend from now?"

The boy squirmed in his chair, tightening his grip on the white scarf. "Umm…."

"Well?"

Iggy considered this carefully and then said, "We could be even better friends, and spend more time together. We always have fun together. We could do stuff."

"Such as…"

Laxus found he enjoyed this more than he thought he would. It wasn't that he didn't get it, because he did. For any male, when it came to the chosen female, there was an innate need to be able to call that person by some possessive. There was a world of difference between 'my friend' and 'my girlfriend.' And as a father, it was his innate need to resist this, as Anna was his little girl, first and foremost, and he really didn't want to share with the white-haired, green-eyed boy staring nervously at him.

There was a tense moment, and he said, "We could hold hands."

"Is that what you want?"

Iggy nodded.

The father tapped his fingers again and said, "When I was thirteen, you know what my main goal in life was?"

"What?"

"I wanted to know what a girl's breast felt like. So now there's a thirteen-year-old boy who wants to date my kid and I think back to that and wonder if that kind of stuff goes on in your little brain," he said.

Iggy's face twisted up a little bit, and he quickly said, "Of course not!"

"Look me in my face and tell me you've never thought about it."

The boy's eyes cut to one side, and Laxus put his glasses back on. "I always love it when you brats act like we don't know what it's like to be your age. It wasn't that long ago."

Iggy didn't know what to say to this, so he didn't say anything.

He asked, "So how long do you want this arrangement to last?"

This was possibly the most confusing question anyone had ever asked Iggy. "Huh?"

"How long do you want her to be your girlfriend? Couples either break up or get married."

"Umm…"

Laxus said, "On one hand, if you are already planning a breakup, I should hurt you for wanting to break my kid's heart. On the other hand, if you are already planning on marrying her, I should probably just kill you now and save everyone the trouble. Either way, you're kind of screwed, so chose your answer wisely."

Iggy's face half-disappeared into the scarf as he considered this 'damned if you do, damned if you don't' proposition. "I don't really have any plans. I want to be strong someday. I want to be happy with my friend."

"I guess I'll let you live for now. Next question."

"Master…"

Laxus smirked, "What is it that you like about her?"

Iggy pulled the scarf all the way up to his eyes. "Umm...well…Anna is really nice and smart. And you know…"

"I know what?"

"...pretty…She's my best friend."

The girl's father decided this was fine and good. If he'd said 'pretty' first, Laxus might have given him a harder time than he already was. It would have been a farce, because he knew the kid appreciated all things Anna.

He asked, "And why should I let you?"

"Nevermind…" Iggy mumbled as he slid off the chair. His resolve had crumbled, and he couldn't take her father anymore.

Laxus signed his name on a form and said, "Sit down, kid. I'm only giving you shit because it's my job."

The boy sat back down and felt knots in his stomach.

"You're a good kid, Iggy. And my wife thinks if I am by some miracle successful in chasing you off, she'll just like some other kid and chances are, he'll be a lot worse than you. So I'm going to let you do this, but I have a couple of rules."

The boy's heart flip-flopped in his chest in relief that bordered on disbelief. Laxus as an overprotective father was practically a running joke in the guild and all the boys were scared. The Dreyar girls were gorgeous and brilliant, but they had a big, mean dragon looming over them at all times.

"Okay…"

Laxus said, "I don't want you guys all over each other. I don't want you kissing on the mouth or touching at all. I can agree to hand-holding, but if I catch those weirdly enormous paws you call hands anywhere else, I'll bite them off and nail them to my door as a warning to others. Understood?"

Iggy nodded as he looked down at his hands.

"Second, you better treat her well. If you hurt her feelings, I'll hurt you. I feel like you already know that. You got all that?"

"Yes, Master."

"That's all. Don't make me regret this, because I know where you live and you can't outrun me."

Iggy beamed at him. "Thanks, Master!"

"Now leave so I can puke."

He grumbled in defeat when the boy zipped out of his office.

It hadn't been as terrible as he'd thought, but it was still bad. He knew his kid was probably gleefully happy and he'd have to hear her gush excitedly about this later that day.

He worked in peace for an hour when the door opened, and Sam Redfox came in.

"Hey, Master. Wassup?"

Laxus looked up and said, "I was just thinking about how annoying thirteen-year-old boys are."

"I got a question. You let Iggy-"

The unamused father narrowed his eyes. "Get out of my office unless you want to live the rest of your life with an embarrassing twitch."

"But-"

"Out!"

Laxus whispered a string of obscenities under his breath. He longed for the days when his sweet little babies just wanted to snuggle and have all his attention, but those days were long gone and he knew they weren't coming back. He was a little alarmed sometimes when he thought that they were beginning the gradual separation and that eventually, they'll leave the nest.

By the time he finished his work, Mavis had completed her reign of terror, Anna was blushing and grinning so hard he was sure it probably hurt her cheeks as she sat with Iggy, Layla and Sam were yelling at each other, and his son looked despondent.

Then again, he remembered, there were times he looked forward to post-kid life.

He collected his offspring, and made them go home with him so he could tend to their assorted issues: Mavis was unhappy with menstruation and felt like if she hit enough people she might feel better, Anna was excited she had a boyfriend, Layla complained about Sam but Laxus knew she wasn't going to stay away from him, and his son had upset his girlfriend for the thousandth time.

Layla cooked dinner while she talked to him, but it was nothing new. She and Sam had been annoying each other since he realized he could keep her attention by agitating her. That hadn't changed since infancy.

"You could just stop hanging around him if he bothers the shit out of you," her father suggested.

The blonde held up a wooden spoon. "I don't want to stop being his friend. I want him to stop being an idiot."

This earned an eyeroll from her father. "Asking a teenage boy to stop being an idiot is like asking you to spend less time looking in the mirror."

"Dad, really?" she incredulously asked.

Yuri came downstairs and sat on the bar stool next to his Dad. "So...today was Lilia's birthday. I forgot."

Laxus looked up at Layla. "See?"

His son said, "She asked me if somebody dropped me on my head when I was a baby. That's kind of mean."

His father thought for a moment and said, "Actually…"

Yuri frowned. "Dad?"

"Well, Son…"

His son indignantly asked, "Oh my God, Dad, did I get dropped on the head?!"

Laxus said, "Yes, actually. Now that you mention it, something like that did happen."

For a second, his son considered this. "How did it happen?"

"The person who was watching you put you on the couch. And then the doorbell rang, and when that person got up to answer the door, you rolled off the edge and landed on your forehead," Laxus explained.

The teenager said, "When you say 'the person,' you mean you, right? You dropped me on my head."

Laxus shrugged. "The downside of being the oldest is that we learned a lot from messing up with you, like how to not drop our other babies on their heads."

"Dad, please tell me you're joking!"

He said, "Ask your mother. She was pretty pissed."

Mavis joined this conversation. "Did I get dropped on my head?"

Yuri said, "Didn't anyone tell you? You were normal sized when you were born, but our clumsy dad dropped you so hard on your head you got squished until you were short."

"I'll fight you. You're big and slow and you'll probably forget we're having a fight before I pop you," she threatened.

Laxus soon had a houseful of yelling, blond-headed, blue-eyed kids shouting at each other. One picking, one yelling threats, one laughing, another trying to make everyone else calm down. He decided to leave them be as long as they didn't destroy the house again, as Lucy wasn't a fan of coming home to 'remodelling projects.'

(She didn't really buy 'I thought the house would look better without a wall there.')

He managed to get his brood fed and in bed, and by the time Lucy got home that night, she found her husband sitting in his study with some whiskey and a bunch of paperwork.

The blonde wrapped her arms around her husband's neck from behind and kissed his cheek. "How did it go?"

"Terrible. Never leave me with these monsters again."

She giggled. "Who was it that wanted a big family?"

He craned his neck to kiss her. "But, Babe, they were so cute when they were little."

"That bad? I left you alone for one day."

Laxus said, "...Mavis started her period, Anna got a boyfriend, Layla got into another argument with Sam, and our son decided he's not as smart as his sisters because I dropped him on his head when he was a baby."

She spun his chair around and bent down. "Laxus, I say this every time I leave you with the kids because every time, something weird or bad happens, but you're a disaster without me."

"Of course I am. Everyone knows I'm shit out of luck without my girl."

Lucy closed his ledger and he kicked back the last bit of his drink before following her down the hall. She stopped to check in on the kids, but they were sleeping soundly. With a grin, she took her husband's hand and let him lead her to their bedroom.

He really was an incredible father.

They had sex, and then laid in bed and talked for an hour. Laxus told her all of the day's adventures, and she laughed as she laid with her head on his arm. There was never a dull moment in their house, and every day brought new excitement and challenges, but it sounded like he'd caught one of the more complicated days.

Lucy was snuggled up to him. "We have a good family. Good kids, who love each other."

"Aren't they? If it ever came down to it, they'd be just fine without us."

"I can't wait to see what kind of people they grow up to be," she said.

Laxus said, "Well, Mavis is going to either take over the world or burn it to the ground. I imagine Anna will probably end up with a lot of celestial spirits and pets. Layla will become the brattiest saint wizard since ever. Yuri...I think he'll end up pretty much like me."

His wife shook her head. "Layla ends up guildmaster, Mavis ends up a saint, Anna takes over the world, and Yuri has fifteen kids."

"You want to make a bet?"

"How about this: Layla takes over the world, Yuri ends up the saint, Anna becomes guildmaster, and Mavis has a dozen kids."

Lucy snorted. "You know what I realized? The twins are eleven. We're probably closer to being grandparents than to the last time we had kids. Think about it. Ten years from now, the twins are twenty-one, Layla is twenty-three, Yuri is twenty-five. It would honestly be kind of weird if we didn't have a grandkid by then."

Laxus occasionally had random stray thoughts like this, but they reminded him he was getting old so he tended to ignore them. He already had a head of mostly silver hair, and some little lines around his eyes. There was a crease at the corner of his mouth from his trollish grin, and when he looked at his wife, well...she still looked amazing.

Sixteen years of marriage and four babies and she just kept getting better.

"I wonder what they'll call us."

"Who."

"The grandkids."

He rolled over to face her. "You're about a thousand miles ahead of me here, Babe."

"How about Grams and Gams?"

"Ugh, that makes us sound so old."

Lucy suggested, "Okay, how about Grams and Fathead?"

"Sounds about as much fun as being someone's Gams."

She grinned at him and gave him a kiss. "Don't be so cranky. I know today was a bit much for you. I'm proud of you for letting Iggy be his cute little self. You're growing up."

Laxus rolled back onto his back. "Thanks, Mommy."

When she giggled again, he closed his eyes. "One more giggle and nobody is sleeping tonight."

"Is that a dare?"

She saw the lights go out and squealed as a familiar weight pinned her down.

Lucy wrestled as he tickled her. "Get off me, you big brute!"

He smiled against her skin and then sank his teeth into her lightly just to hear her gasp in surprise.

Getting old was actually a lot more fun than it looked, he decided.

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Special thanks to yorusorra, boyceashlee, yumeyumi, guest, serenalovesanime, arouraleona, mistysgirl, kurahieiritr JIO, megumiyoung, yed01, sassykitten1701, katiekat2001, fairytailbookworm, Mewhee89, tiernank, thornado, honeyclouds, hi, andy24amk, thealicehuntt, xxshyxx, deltacaraman, pandorababe, ladyallyssa, paname, screeney, kennedydreyar, killer-kelly420, jhdavis1103, helenezahl, theoginger, and lakeya2700 for reviewing!