Two weeks after the rebellion, Laxus received a personal summons from the queen.
Natsu had been called upon during the first night because nearly a fourth of Crocus burned amidst fighting between the army and the Magic Council, both against one another and within themselves as Jose Porla's loyalists continued to churn up chaos.
No one seemed to know a lot of details, and there were rumors. Namely, there was a rumor that the king had started the rebellion, and another that he'd been killed by the rebellion, and another that he'd vanished and that caused the rioting.
By the time Laxus got there, the city was starting to rebuild. There was no fighting, and the reorganized army patrolled nearly every block.
Jura had been called back to get the Magic Council in order, that much Laxus knew because he was the one who summoned Natsu. In the city, he overheard Arcadios had been broken out of the dungeon under Mercurius and had taken control of the military again. Jura and Arcadios were the pillars Hisui relied on in the years prior to Pilar, so they were the most integral figures in any recovery.
When he got to Mercurius, Hisui was waiting for him in the throne room.
"Thank you for coming."
Laxus had never been overly formal with her because it wasn't his style and he'd had some casual contact with her through Lucy. "Queen, are you all right?"
Hisui went to the window and stared out over the city. "In one moment, I was sitting down for tea with one of my advisers. Pilar…he said he had information about a plot. Then, there's over a year missing from my memories. I've seen pictures where I seem to be conscious, but I don't remember anything that happened. I suspect I was under a mind control, as far as I can tell, and was released when the caster was killed."
"Jose Porla?"
She nodded. "He died like a dog and that pleases me."
"He's dead?!"
Hisui said, "Yes."
"Are you sure?"
"We have the body."
"How?!"
The queen's lip turned up. "He met an unextraordinary end at the hands of a rather extraordinary young man."
Laxus picked up the scent as someone made the corner behind him.
"I believe you know the Iron Knight."
Sam was wearing an enormous suit of white armor, the kind Arcadios wore that designated him a part of the most elite knights. He had the book in his hands, and approached slowly, offering it to his former guildmaster.
Laxus took the book from him and looked him over carefully. Sam had a lot of bruises healing on his face, but he looked good—maybe better than he had in a year or more. The young wizard's eyes seemed very clear somehow, and he seemed to have lost the perpetual heaviness that he'd been carrying around.
"I'm glad you're okay, Sam," he said, reaching out to scruff Sam's hair until it was a bigger mess than it was naturally. "Armor is a little redundant, don't you think?"
Hisui said, "He was running away, and Porla's wretched loyalists threw me from the high tower. So he caught me and saved me from falling to my death. I was confused. Alone. He fought to keep me alive and safe, broke Arcadios out of the dungeon, even helped me send a messenger to Jura. He saved all of Fiore, especially your guild."
After an extensive period of his life mostly spent causing trouble, Sam felt a little awkward and uncomfortable being praised for anything. He was smart, but he hadn't really done well in school. He was strong, but he hadn't had faith in his own power. He wasn't really a 'nice' boy. He was a sell-out, a traitor, a liar, a disappointment, and now he was literally a white knight in shining armor.
The queen said, "I was going to call you here to ask to overlook his crimes and accept him back into your fold. And then I decided that I like him and I'd rather keep him instead. How's my dear friend, Lucy?"
He wanted to argue with Hisui's claim of ownership of Sam, because Sam was young. With Master Bob's advice still ringing in his ears, he couldn't bring himself to make the argument he knew what was best for Sam. The kid looked good and the queen wasn't a bad person. She was loyal, and maybe needed a dragon to keep close.
Laxus brought the queen up to speed on Lucy's illness, guild matters, current events in the magic world, and whatever else she happened to feel like talking about. Sam kept a quiet vigil, his eyes watchful and alert. The queen was clearly very interested in harnessing all of the potential he had and she didn't mind his mistakes because she knew firsthand what it was like to follow really bad advice and make terrible choices because of it.
Laxus knew fate had finally thrown Sam Redfox a lucky break. He was around people who had a completely different perception of him and people who had faith in him to be a person who made the right choice when it mattered. He seemed comfortable in his own skin for the first time maybe in his life, but Laxus still felt entitled to be himself.
"Sam looks like he's just fine, but I have to warn you he enjoys being a pain in the ass and he eats a lot, so you better tell your accountants to work that into their budget," Laxus answered.
Hisui smiled. "I'll take good care of him. And don't worry about my budget. Last time I checked, it was my face printed on all your money."
Laxus said, "Also, the Iron Knight needs to write home to his mommy and daddy."
"C'mon man…" Sam whined.
"I'll make sure he does. Or he won't eat. That's how children work, right?" Hisui teased.
"Something like that," Laxus answered.
After the meeting with the queen, Sam showed Laxus his new living quarters, a very nice apartment in Mercurius not far from where the queen slept. It had been Arcadios' room, but the queen informed Laxus in the politest terms that she and Arcadios had a clandestine wedding the night before to take care of her very obvious lack of an heir.
He had an enormous bedroom, a kitchen, a living area, sweeping views of the city, and the apartment was quite luxurious. It was hardly the kind of place a guild wizard would be expected to live, especially one his age.
Laxus flopped down on his bed, and groaned at how soft and wonderful it was. "Spoiled brat."
"Don't worry. I didn't keep any secrets from her. She knows everything. The things I did. I told her I always listen to the wrong people. She told me she once let an evil creep who traveled through time trick her into starting the apocalypse. I didn't feel so bad. And I wonder…how have I never heard about that?"
"It's better if you don't ask questions."
Laxus thought about trying to talk Sam into coming back home, and knew he might be successful. It seemed too cruel though, because the minute Sam stepped foot back in Magnolia, he'd be the troubled teen that hurt everybody who gave a damn about him. Being a teenager was hard enough without having to fight shadows, and now that he'd clearly figured out how to think and do what was right, he'd found a new path.
The queen's most elite knights were an important part of the country. If Sam was with them, he'd have discipline, education, and rigid training. He'd befriend his fellow knights and probably have more fun than his parents wanted to think about out in that big city. Different surroundings, different people, and a whole new world of possibilities and opportunities.
Laxus opened one eye when he almost fallen asleep on the soft bed and said, "Sam, you really do need to communicate with your parents. Their house is empty. Especially your mother. She and your dad tried to have more kids when you were little, but it didn't happen. They had one baby bird and he abruptly flew from the nest. I don't think he's coming back."
"I'll write and invite them to come visit. Hisui said they can stay here whenever they want. I just want them to be able to be proud of me."
Laxus pointed to a desk in the apartment. "You can write now and I'll take the letter back. Your parents are worried to death. Write, now, or I can knock you around a little. Your choice."
"Fine, fine. Are you still allowed to give me crap? Geeze, man. Enough with the mommy and daddy stuff," he complained.
Laxus said, "You're going to have to make me stop. Don't get cocky. You're not ready. Maybe when I am a hundred."
"We'll both be old by then."
"And I'll still give you shit whenever I want to. Or I'll be dead."
Sam watched the old wizard kick his shoes off and take a nap on top of his bed while he wrote to his parents. It was quite clear that despite moving away from Magnolia and quitting the guild, he was still connected to the people there. As irritating as it was to have his former guildmaster barge in, order him around, and take a nap, it also made him feel a little bit happy about the future.
When he finished writing and tucked the letter in the envelope, the sound woke Laxus up. He took the letter, and Sam asked, "You're not mad at me for killing him?"
"As an old man to a much younger one, I know some things. I've killed. I've shown mercy. I don't regret either. You shouldn't either. Besides, Jose wasn't some troubled kid with his head on backwards; he was the kind of irredeemably evil you'll only encounter rarely in life. You shouldn't go around and just kill people. But there are times I think mercy is a mistake. My grandfather let Jose live the last time they met," Laxus answered.
Sam nodded in understanding, grateful to still have the patient wisdom and approval of his former guildmaster.
"But anyway, how'd you do it?"
"He hugged me. I ran an iron spike through his heart. I just couldn't take it anymore. I just remember that I didn't care if it cost me everything. It was ugly. There was a lot of blood. He was choking on his blood," he answered, a little uneasy.
Laxus answered, "Death usually is. Don't think about it. You made your decision. You can't go back and change it, and even if you could, would you? I would hope not. You guys are all the same. You're in a real big hurry to grow up, but then you realize it's not all fun. Growing up means making hard decisions and then having to live with them."
The teenager decided it was a good time to change the subject.
"How's Miss Lucy?"
"Stubborn as always. She's going to be ill for a couple of more months at least, but I she'll probably want to visit you when she's on the mend. You should write to her. She'd really like that since she's bored and annoyed at home a lot," he answered.
"And Layla? I umm…"
"She'll be fine."
Sam broke eye contact. "I hate that she's the one I always end up hurting. She cared about me. A lot."
"You know, you're in the big city. Lots of pretty girls you haven't stabbed here. Pretty sure the knight in shining armor routine is a winner. You're starting over here. No reason to bother with that anymore. She'll be fine. You'll be fine. I think it's best you're going separate ways."
Laxus ended up spending most of the day with Sam, who felt relieved in a way he couldn't explain with the fact his former master wasn't angry at him. It really only proved that his friends and family in Magnolia had always genuinely cared about him and the rest of the noise in his head had only been in his head.
When they got ready to separate at the train station, Laxus offered his parting advice.
"You're the only person who has to live with the choices you're going to make so don't blow it. Have fun in the city, but remember your friends and family back home. Don't think you're all grown up, because you're not. You've still got a long way to go. And if you mess up again, I promise I'll hunt you down and kick your ass myself. When you get tired of Crocus, come home."
In his gut, he knew Sam wasn't going to blow it. Leaving him in Crocus felt strange, but he felt a certain peace with it. Dealing with his absence was probably going to be hard for his parents, but he knew that was inevitable for all parents.
The train ride was as terrible as every train ride was to a dragon, and arrived back in Magnolia early in the morning.
On the way home, he tucked the letter from Sam through the mail slot at the Redfox house and saw a light flick on, probably from dragon ears hearing the hinge creak slightly. He knew they'd find the letter and he was tired, so he went home to his own kids.
He checked in on each of them as they slept, then went on to his room. For the time being, he slid the book under his side of the bed, as it would take an act of God to sneak it out from under him while he was sleeping.
After he took a shower, he crawled into bed with his wife, who smiled a little and snuggled up close.
"Welcome back, Honey."
"Missed you, Babe."
"Tell me everything."
Laxus gave her a breakdown of his entire day in the capital city and watched her nearly squeal with glee over Sam.
They felt like an enormous weight had been lifted off of their shoulders. No impending battle, no more worrying about the king sending the Magic Council after them, no more threat to Anna's life.
They'd been saved by the most unlikely of heroes.
This left Laxus free to focus his attention on what mattered most to him, and that was his Lucy.
In some ways, he found her strangely charming in her current state. She'd become extremely thin, she had dark circles under her eyes, her skin was unbelievably pale and almost waxy looking, she had no breasts, and she was bald, and yet, she was still gorgeous to him. All of that drew a strict separation between how Lucy looked and who Lucy was, and she was a beautiful woman.
Lucy's eyes were still bright and her smile was still so powerful and vibrant. She was full of life, and even though she didn't feel well, her treatments were going well. They just had to hang on until the storm passed, and everything would be okay.
He pulled her as close as they could possibly be and still comfortably sleep, and kissed her.
The next morning, the first person awake was Yuri, which was always the case. He'd been an early riser since he was an infant, so he was used to having the quiet house to himself. He shaved and was walking down the hall when he heard Lex calling for him frantically as he held onto the edge of his crib and begged to be taken out.
"Uwwiii! Uwwwiiii!"
Lex was frantic, waving his arms and demanding removal from his crib. He knew that the first person to wake up in the morning was big brother, and therefore his first chance of escape each day was with big brother.
Yuri took him out and changed him. As a teenage boy, he of course attempted to avoid diaper changing whenever possible, but he always woke up first and if he didn't help Lex out, he'd just scream and wake up the parents. Since his mom was sick and their dad was stretched a little thin, he handled his brother in the mornings.
Lex often reminded him of how close he'd come to fatherhood, which always reminded him that he was in no way at all prepared to be a parent.
He wasn't sure if it was that, or his mom, or something else he was going through, but he had this moment where Lilia was at their house talking about moving to Magnolia to be closer to him when the next summer came around, and he just felt like everything was wrong with the world.
Yuri watched his dad constantly, and even though he'd always wanted to be his dad, he'd suddenly become aware of the fact their dad spent his entire life taking care of other people. If there were things he wanted to do that were purely self-indulgent, Yuri was not aware of them. He just watched his father, day after day, running a guild, looking after his half-grown kids, taking care of the baby, and playing nurse to his sick wife and wondered what his dad did for fun or when he got to do it.
Lilia had a strange family situation growing up. Her parents hated each other, her mom dated other guys, and her dad married someone else and had younger kids, so she felt like the only place she belonged was with Yuri.
The weekend before, Yuri went on a job with Petri, and they'd gotten terribly drunk and wandered around in a strange town in the middle of the night doing anything, everything, and nothing. They raced to see who could climb to the top of the water tower when completely drunk, and then got into a scrap on top of it and ended falling.
It was a weird, wild, and wonderful experience and it caused him to realize he actually did want to be a normal teenage boy sometimes. He loved his family, and he loved his girlfriend, but he was nine months from finishing school and there was a part of him that was excited by the idea of taking long jobs really far away—maybe even in other countries. The life of a wizard was supposed to be filled with excitement and adventure, but he'd put himself on a path where his priorities would be different.
A guy in a serious relationship doesn't just go wander the earth in strange lands for undetermined amounts of time.
Bixlow was going to the far north when the next summer came around for a long job and he'd offered to take him and Petri along since they were all batchelors who didn't have anyone to rush home to. Six to nine months in a foreign country was a long time, and during that time, they were going to drink, explore, get into fights, see new things, meet new people…
Yuri wanted that a lot more than he wanted to hang around close to home because he was in a serious relationship. The guys in the guild that were married took shorter jobs, came home more often, and they had obligations.
He dressed his little brother and fed him breakfast, and then went through their daily routine of Yuri spinning him and tossing him in the air and letting him hold onto his hands and pretend he was walking.
His mother was the next one to wake up, and she gripped the rail as she made her way down, feeling awake yet very weak. She saw her sons playing together and smiled at first, then said, "How many times do I have to tell you not to throw that baby around?"
"He likes it, Mom."
She gave her baby son his morning hugs and kisses, but as soon as she put him down, he reached up. "UWWWWIIIII!"
Lucy smiled. "That's so damn cute I can't stand it. It'll be cuter when he learns to say 'Mama.'"
Yuri said, "You're starting to smell different. Better. Are you feeling better?"
"I think I'm not going to feel better even though I'm getting better until I stop taking the treatment helping me. Cancer is a strange thing. You get to see what you would look like as a corpse."
"It's not that bad. You want coffee? I won't tell the girls you're not eating vegetables," he offered.
She accepted his offer, noting how like his father he was. They looked so much alike he was almost a dead ringer for a young Laxus. Even the funny little way he'd help her cheat on her diet reminded her of her husband sneaking her out for ice cream.
When she noticed he seemed tense, she waited patiently for him to pour two cups of coffee and they sat at the table while Lex occupied himself with his toys in the living room.
"What's on your mind?"
Yuri said, "I think I might be an asshole, Mom."
"Language, Thunder Baby. I'm your mother, geeze. Besides, if you are, just remember it runs on your dad's side of the family," she playfully answered, trying to relieve his apparent stress.
It worked, and he couldn't help but feel at ease with his mother. She was always like this; a little catty, but immeasurably lovable to all who knew her.
"Talk to me, son."
He talked to her, and she listened.
Lucy found herself surprised that Yuri had a wild streak in him at all, but he was his father's son and Laxus wasn't always a family man. From his mid-teens to mid-twenties, Laxus was rarely at the guild even when he wasn't expelled and enjoyed about a decade of adventure, fighting, long jobs in strange places, exploring, and more drunken indiscretion than she wanted to think about.
All the parents involved in the Yuri-Lilia relationship thought they were moving too fast, too soon, at an age where they didn't really understand what they were doing. Lucy had always hoped her son would snap out of it and calm down, but now that he had, it was obviously very distressing for him.
When Yuri finished explaining, he said, "So I don't know what to do."
His mother put her hand over his. "You have to be honest about who you are and what you want. You're only going to be young once, trust me. Don't wait your youth is gone to appreciate how important it is."
Yuri had been raised in a house full of women, so he was a little more sensitive than the average guy. All his life he'd tried to take care of everyone else, so doing something that would cause such enormous amounts of harm to Lilia was hard for him to even think about. Yet, he'd been raised well enough and lived just long enough to know sometimes hard decisions had to be made.
He kept trying to think about it from different angles – what if it was one of his sisters? Of course, if a boy slept with one of his sisters, made promises, and then changed his mind, it would be wrong. There would be hell to pay, but then was his problem any different from that?
Lucy knew he'd checked out by the expression on his face and the way he slumped down in the chair.
"Son, I feel like you know what you need to do and you just don't have the nerve to do it," she said.
Yuri nodded. "I don't want to hurt anybody."
Lucy squeezed his hand tightly. "When I first found out I had cancer, for a while I didn't tell anybody, and I just thought about it. I thought about living, and dying, and I remembered when I was about your age and I decided I would run away from home, telling myself I wanted to live a life with no regrets. I don't have any, Yuri. I ran when I wanted to, I went on adventures when I wanted to, I got myself into and out of more trouble than you can imagine, I fell in love when I was damn well ready. I've lived on my own terms, and if I could, I wouldn't change a thing."
She looked over every minute or so into the living room where Lex was currently amusing himself with toys. The little son and big son contrast was always amusing to her, because whatever Lex did, she could remember Yuri doing the same things and he was now a very tall young man. He was strong, kind, smart, and she was so proud of him. As the oldest, their younger kids all looked up to them, and he'd always been a great brother. Willing, kind, responsible.
So maybe it shouldn't have been a big surprise that on the edge of adulthood, he suddenly wanted to be a wild, rowdy teenage boy, his mother decided.
Lucy let him help him back upstairs when she started to feel a little sick, and then Yuri went back down to read the newspaper.
It wasn't usually his habit to care about current events, but the country was in a state of change. Sam's name was in the paper, and he was glad Sam was okay. Everyone who knew Sam had mixed and confused feelings that ranged from disappointment to relief. But his dad said he should always separate a person from their actions. Bad people weren't the only ones who made bad decisions, and sometimes, even the worst did a good thing.
Just a few minutes before he was expecting his sisters to wake up and start getting ready for school, he heard a strange crunching sound and assuming his little brother had found something gross on the floor to put in his mouth, he got up and went to take it from him.
"C'mon. Spit it out. Don't be gross, okay?"
Lex swallowed. "Uwwi!"
And then Yuri saw his mother's pill bottle on the floor, top completely gnawed off and not a pill in sight.
"Oh God…Lex! Tell me you didn't!"
He knelt and pried the baby's mouth open and found it smelled just like his mother's dangerous medicine. Knowing how sick it made her after a regular dose, he was absolutely terrified about what was going to happen to the baby since the whole bottle was empty.
His instincts told him not to scare his mother shitless, but he did run halfway up the stairs.
"Dad!" he shouted.
Laxus was dead asleep when his son yelled, but he was used to children waking him up and he knew Yuri being frantic was generally a bad sign. He threw on pants and a shirt as he ran down, and found Yuri holding the pill bottle and his little brother who was clutching his bottle filled with juice.
"Dad, Lex ate Mom's medicine!"
Laxus was absolutely terrified, as Lex was a normal baby and he had no doubts a half-full bottle of cancer medicine was far more than a deadly dose. "I'm taking him to the hospital right now. Get your mom up."
"Right."
It took very little time to snatch the baby off the floor and lightning form him to the local hospital, where he spread panic to the staff. When he named the medicine, the nurses rushed him back to a doctor, and he was told to wait.
Laxus sat down right outside the exam room and crossed his arms. Never in all their years of raising children had they somehow allowed one of their kids to get into danger like this. He assumed Lucy might have knocked it on the floor, and maybe the lid was loose, or…he really didn't know why it looked like the bottle had been gnawed open.
It only took Lucy about twenty minutes to start throwing up after she took it, so he knew Lex was going to be really sick really soon.
Except that he wasn't.
Lex let out a shriek and Laxus was sure it was just as bad as he imagined, but when he burst into the room, he found a tired and unamused-looking Dr. Chelia Blendy wielding a thermometer.
"Just taking his temperature," she said.
Lex was cranky and grievously annoyed at what had just happened to him, but that seemed to be his only complaint. Once his diaper was back on, he sat up with his juice and glared at her.
Chelia said, "He should have gotten sick the instant the pills started dissolving in his stomach. No way he ate them."
Lucy suddenly burst in, out of breath, her wig a bit lopsided. "Is he okay?"
"He's fine. It looks like he didn't eat them," Laxus said.
His wife exhaled. "Oh thank goodness."
Chelia ran her finger along the gum line to check for any residue or bits that were possibly stuck in his mouth. "Ouch!" she exclaimed as her finger snagged and tore her glove. She examined the gum and said, "Guys, this kid is growing a fang."
"A fang?!" Lucy exclaimed, "that's impossible. That's…I mean, you know he's adopted."
And then, Lex burped and a foamy, purple liquid came from his mouth, dripped on the exam table, and melted it. Then Lex swallowed and sucked on his bottle, which did not melt.
Chelia's jaw gaped a little. "You know, working as a pediatrician in an emergency room, I still never see anything as weird as the stuff your family pulls. I tell people all the time about the crazy family I lived with when I was in school, but this might top the list. I mean, two electric outlet lickers, and a kid who eats deadly prescription medication. Really?"
Lucy took the pill bottle from her husband and noted Lex had chewed it open. "I get it. He's got a fang. So one of his parents has to be a dragonslayer. That's a short list, right? But all these kids that were born to dragonslayers, if they got the dragon genes, they're compelled toward whatever their element is. Poison."
"Poison," Laxus dryly repeated.
As soon as they had that clue, there wasn't a lot of room for doubt. His dark reddish-brown hair and eyes, his tan skin…
Chelia stared at him for a while. She was living with and engaged to a dragonslayer, so she knew the names and abilities of the other dragonslayers. Even though she put the pieces together as well, she didn't say anything.
"I'll just mark down on his chart it was a false alarm. You guys should take him home."
Laxus scooped his son off the table. "Here's to hoping he doesn't drool on the way home."
Lucy signed the paperwork, and they walked back home. Slowly, since Lucy remembered she felt awful as soon as she knew her son was safe.
She leaned in to him.
"Be careful, he might drool or spit up or whatever that was," her husband warned.
She said, "You know this has got to be Cobra's kid."
"…yeah…"
"He died what, eight months before Lex was born? He might not have even known. He was working undercover so he was mixed up with bad people. His mother might be in some dark guild."
Laxus stopped and she looked up at him. "You are his mother. I am his father. I don't care about the rest. We're not going to go looking for anybody. Whoever gave birth to him abandoned him. What if his mother is some terrible person and she tries to take him, or even just confuses him? He doesn't need two moms. The one he has is perfect."
Lucy was almost shocked at how incredibly sensitive and territorial her husband was. He almost looked hurt about the idea that Lucy would even refer to anyone else as his parents. Then again, Laxus had adored the baby from the first time they met him. Adoption had not been a difficult process for anyone in their family.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to hit a sore spot. Of course, I don't want anyone else in his life. Especially not a woman. Just wait until he gets an idea about a girl," she answered.
Lex was still sipping at his juice, as if he had no idea why his parents had taken him on this strange trip.
"I can't stand how casual he's being about scaring the living shit out of me," her husband commented.
His mother sighed. "This kid…how do we even take care of a kid that wants to eat poison? I mean, is it healthy? Does he need it in order to grow? And if so, are some poisons better than others? What if some poisons are actually poisons to him? I mean, do I fill his bottles with the nearest household cleaners? Or do I grow a nice little patch of nightshade in the yard? Good morning, son, here's your arsenic and bleach smoothie?"
"We'll figure it out. We always do."
Lex burped again and Laxus thrust him out at arm's length so the purple foam dripped onto the sidewalk, where it melted all the way through to the soil underneath.
Laxus sighed. "Let's assume it's only that potent because he just ingested enough poison to kill several adults."
"If we're going to feed him poison, we're going to have to figure out a way to keep him from destroying our house or melting someone's face off. I mean, on one hand, he's got frequent projectile vomiting. And on the other, highly acidic poison. That's kind of terrifying," she answered.
When they got home, they found their other kids had not gone to school and were at present getting ready to go to the hospital to check up on Lex.
Laxus glared at them. "School. Now."
"We were worried about Lex," Anna said.
"He's fine. He's just weird like the rest of you," their mother answered.
Mavis added, "We're going to be tardy, so we need a note."
Lucy headed to the kitchen, but Laxus stopped her.
"I can take care of this. Go rest," he insisted.
Writing notes for tardies, absences, and all signing of school paperwork was typically done by Lucy. Hurrying to the hospital left her tired, and she decided to trust her husband. Worst case scenario, he'd just troll the kids anyway.
And he did, writing a note pleading with the recipient to please take his children for a few hours so he could have a little peace.
"Very mature, Dad," Layla grumbled.
Yuri added, "I'm going to leave from school and head to Shirotsume Town. I need to talk to Lilia about something. Mom will tell you because you guys always to each other about everything."
"On a school night?"
"Dad, it's Friday," Anna said.
"I knew that."
"No, you didn't. Dates and times are confusing to you. It's okay. We still love you," Mavis argued.
Laxus narrowed his eyes. "I have chronic sleep deprivation because I have five kids. Now go to school."
He got three quick kisses on the cheek from his girls and one manly nod of acknowledgement from Yuri as they bounced out the front door and down the sidewalk for a quick sprint to school.
When Lucy came down a couple of hours later, there was a pressure cooker on the stove and Laxus was in the kitchen with his bookkeeping. It was her instinct to go over and see what was in the pot, but just as she reached for it, he quickly told her not to open the lid.
"Why not? Is your cooking that bad?"
"The pot is full of poisonous magic mushrooms and leaves from the East Forest. Inhale those fumes and you'll spend the next few hours watching purple monkeys crawl on the ceiling. The kids can barely take it when you get drunk. I can't imagine what they'd do if they came home from school and found you tripping," he warned.
Lucy smiled and sat with him. "Probably accuse you of doing it. Like when I drink too much while I read and they think you got me drunk."
Laxus looked up at her with his reading glasses on. "You smell different. Better. Every day just a little more."
"Yuri said that."
"What's he off to do, anyway? He said you'd blab to me, because that's what we do. I'm not sure if he understands that's the whole point of getting married," he said.
His wife explained Yuri's complicated issue and Laxus seemed relieved but worried.
When the concoction on the stove finished cooking, Laxus took it outside and let it the steam and fumes escape until it had cooled off.
Lucy packed it up in little containers to freeze and then fed her little baby some highly poisonous but apparently quite delicious smashed concoction of random poisonous things her husband had picked in the East Forest.
Lex gobbled it down while squealing for more and holding his mouth open with his arms waving.
"Geeze, he's like a little baby bird. On the upside, we finally found someone who likes your cooking," she teased.
When Lex finished eating, they took him outside and let him spit poison all over the ground.
Body full of magic, his scent was distinctly that of a dragon and the magic sleeping inside of his body started to wake up. He started sniffing everything, touching, and listening, tilting his ear to hear things his father's sharp senses could detect but his mother's could not.
By the time the girls got home from school, Lex and Lucy were taking their somewhat regular afternoon nap together and Laxus had gone on to the guild to take care of business and lock up the accursed book.
Lucy was feeling good, and it was a good night. The girls cooked for their parents and when Laxus got home, had a nice meal together. They laughed, talked, and played cards. Lucy found these types of experiences so important to making it through the moments that weren't as easy.
Yuri was meanwhile about to take a step closer to adulthood as he sat on the edge of Lilia Eucliffe's bed. Pictures of them adorned her room, and somehow, he was finally starting to understand their parents.
Since Lilia was the product of parents who hated each other and lived with a mother who hadn't been much good to her, she'd always clung to him, since they were young. She wasn't like most of the kids were; she wasn't supremely interested in the life of a wizard.
Yuri grew up in a houseful of women. Women wanted things. They had dreams, desires, things that had nothing to do with men. Without his father, his mother would have been just as interesting, busy, and possibly even more well-accomplished than she was. His sisters were focused, strong, and they wanted things for themselves.
They talked for a while, and it was like he could see more clearly how things were just missing. His mom told him maybe Lilia didn't know who she was outside of him, and that was a dangerous and scary thing for a girl.
"Do you ummm…I mean…what are your goals?"
Lilia smiled at him. "You know."
"I mean, besides me."
Lilia shrugged. "I don't know."
He asked, "Do you have things you want to do for yourself? Like, I want to go and see things and do stuff. I want to travel and see the world. Have adventures."
She tensed and sat next to him. "What's wrong?"
"I think you're really the greatest person ever. And I care about you a lot, but…this doesn't feel right to me anymore."
It was normal to hear that girls matured a lot faster than boys did, but he knew then that somehow, somewhere, he'd grown up more than she had and just hadn't realized it until then. Yuri definitely didn't want to hurt her feelings, but he didn't want to go along with a plan that would have probably made them both unhappy in the end.
Then, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't find whatever words he needed to say to help her understand he wasn't breaking up with her because she did anything wrong.
Yuri believed they'd be better off if they lived their own lives long enough to figure themselves out. Even if it was wiser to take this path, it didn't make it any less painful to suddenly change course.
She cried, and then he did, because it was his fault she was sad and he'd spent a great deal of his life trying to make her happy. Some of his earliest memories were of him being preschool age with her and making sure she was never lonely because she was sad when she was little.
Now she was sad again and it was his fault.
The part that he was not prepared for was when she looked up at him and cried, "I gave myself to you."
Truth be told—and he would tell it when he finally got home—he was deeply sorry for sleeping with her. It had been fun, and of course, sex was great. Before they had sex they had a bad case of codependency and puppy love, but afterward things were serious. Sex was largely to blame for how serious their relationship became, and that was what caused them to get ahead of themselves.
Yuri felt like he took something from her and in the end, he couldn't give it back and he was sure she'd probably regret letting him have it in the first place.
All he could say was, "I'm sorry."
He wished he'd always listened to his parents. They warned him about sex, and about getting too serious, and about making plans young, and even about how intensely devoted they were to each other. He and Lilia had ignored all that advice all along under the belief that somehow their parents just didn't understand, but really, their parents knew, and they were the ones that hadn't understood.
"When we get older, in a few years, if we…"
Lilia wiped her face and crossed her arms. "Yuri, don't make me any more promises. You're the nicest guy in the world. You can't even break up with me without crying as much as me. It's not like you're not saying anything my dad doesn't tell me all the time. At some point, no matter how attached to you I am, if everyone who cares about me tells me I'm doing something the wrong way, I have to admit maybe they're right."
"Do you hate me?" he asked.
Lilia looked up at him with puffy eyes. "That's a dumb question to ask a girl who has always loved you. We can be friends, right? I mean, we're going to run into each other sometimes."
"Of course. Even if we're not together, you know if you ever need help or you're in danger or something, I'll help you. You're a really important person to me."
They hugged for a long time and he kissed her hair, and then her lips, and then somehow despite knowing how terribly disastrous it was, he melted onto the bed with her and decided to have one last indiscretion before they parted ways.
It felt strange, like an ending. They laid in her bed afterward, and talked about everything. They talked about all their favorite memories, and laughed about the fun they'd shared as little kids. He told her about the adventures and travel he wanted to have, and she told him she liked staying close to him and she preferred books to brawls.
By the time morning came around, it felt sad but a little bit okay for them to part ways. It was a big moment in both of their lives to just delete all those plans and embark on separate lives, but even Lilia knew it was very important. After laying a lot of plans, suddenly those plans were gone and the future was mysterious again.
Yuri was very sad, but strangely relieved. He felt like he'd grown up a lot, and that he understood life a little bit better. Like anything else in life, they survived, they learned, and they would move on.
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