Paper Moon

Chapter Three

Moonside Inn

Laurel Grove

Fiore

So how did Lucy's infatuation with the lightning dragon slayer start?

There was no real point in denying it, Lucy wasn't going to fight her feelings on this front, she had a crush on Laxus.

To be honest, Lucy had no idea how it even began or how her feelings changed; the old Lucy would have laughed and then probably died of mortification. I wouldn't blame myself either, because really, Laxus? Out of all the eligible men, I pick the one with the worst personality. Unfortunately, her brain hadn't received the memo or she wouldn't have the urge to jump Laxus at every opportunity. The guy was an asshole for Mavis's sake.

Laxus wasn't even in her list of potential boyfriends!

But somewhere along the way he had captured her interest.

If she had to pinpoint the exact moment when she no longer saw Laxus as a cocky jerk and her nakama; but as someone she wanted to be with for better or for worse, it would have to be on Tenrou Island. Just when all hope seemed lost, Laxus in all his glory, arrived and kicked Hades's ass. It was as if time had stood still for Lucy; He had slowly stood up, his whole body crackling with lightning and saved them. Also, he had looked so hot when he landed in the middle of the battle.

The Phantom Lord ordeal was instantly forgiven.

At first, it was pure admiration and respect. Lucy didn't fall for him that quickly. (She did.) She now understood how the Thunder Legion could so devoutly follow someone like Laxus. He really was worth following to the ends of Earthland for. From there, it intensified. Now, Lucy wasn't one to get her head all wrapped up over a guy yet, with every smirk, snarky remark, or glance, she fell further and further down the rabbit hole.

They had gotten closer, they were nakama after all and the newly redeemed Laxus had made it a point to get to know his guild members. He was just as coarse and unrepentant as always, but he was almost nice. On a handful of nights Laxus actually invited Lucy to share a few drinks or play a round of pool, which Lucy discovered, she was terrible at. They didn't talk much during those times, but she found comfort in Laxus's presence.

As attractive as she found him, Lucy hadn't always been the way she was now. Her inability to speak or really be around him started after that cursed snow day, it was so cliche.

It was snowing when she accepted her feelings for the inconvenience they were.

Fairy Tail Guild

(Past)

Everyone in Fairy Tail took advantage of the rare snowfall. No jobs were accepted and the day was spent purely enjoying the snow. It had been a long time since Lucy had seen snow, the last time being on Mt. Hakobe. She shuddered at the awful near death experience. It put her off snow for a bit.

So instead of nearly dying on the death trap of a mountain, Lucy and Plue were cheerfully building a snowman. Kind of. The snow wasn't quite thick enough to mold into a compact circle and Lucy had never built a snowman before, never playing in the snow as a child. So it was a tad bit lopsided. The wood pieces were drooping down towards the ground. It didn't matter to her; she was having the time of her life.

Until Natsu declared a snow fight.

And of course all hell broke loose.

Fairy Tail was competitive by nature, so this was taken just as seriously. And it went overboard, as usual. The guild had split up into different teams, Gray changed the game when he started to infuse the snowballs with ice. Juvia melted the snowballs for her team, so they were pretty evenly matched.

Lucy didn't care, she was going to finish her snowman. She wrapped the scarf Aries had knit for her earlier around the snowman's neck. She even had to dodge a couple of snowballs flying in all directions. It was apparent that the two sides had quickly splintered off into several, smaller factions, siding with friends and a few solo mages.

She ignored the screams and yells in the background, ignored Max when he flew thirty feet back because he made the misfortune of nailing Erza in the face, and looked through the selection of rocks she had picked out for the eyes and mouth. She knew that Erza and Gray were dominating the fight from the screams of terror. There was no way Juvia would remain opposed to Gray.

"What do you think Plue? Should we do black rocks or… black rocks?" Lucy held up the small handful to let the spirit chose. Plue wobbled. "Great choice!"

"Watch out Lucy!" Natsu yelled, sounding far closer than she thought. He nearly fell on her when he tripped on his own feet. If she hadn't shoved him to the side, her snowman would be history.

"Hey! Stay away from my side! I'm not part of this stupid game. Go throw snowballs over there!"

Natsu got up and melted the snow off him, "Don't be such a killjoy," he pouted. "Whoa, is that supposed to be a snowman?" She glared at him darkly. He got the idea and left her area alone.

"Hmmph. Jerk almost ruined Mr. Frosty before I could finish building him." She mumbled and oh-so-carefully placed the rocks to form a smile. Plue handed her two big rocks for the eyes. "Thanks Plue," her tongue swiped at her bottom lip in concentration. "There, what'd think?" She took a step back to look at it in its entirety.

Plue wobbled again.

"You noticed that too huh? It's missing something…" Her hand settled on her chin for a moment. Lightbulb! Lucy rummaged through her bag. "The nose! All snowmen need carrot noses. Luckily for us, I happened to bring one as a snack!"

She pulled it out triumphantly. Before she could bestow Mr. Frosty with his new nose, she was body-checked to the ground by a massive figure. The wind was knocked out of her and she heard a sharp snap. Lucy moaned in sorrow and took a look at who almost killed her, she wanted to groan louder. So typical.

"Uh sorry Blondie. You okay? Did you break something?"

Laxus brushed himself off. He extended his hand to help her up. He hoisted her up and placed his hands on her shoulders to steady her. "What the fuck." Lucy glared at Laxus's astounded face when he heard her phrase. She put her hands on her hip, ready to give the idiot a lashing. No one messed with Mr Frosty.

She gave him her famous death glare, one that could scare Natsu on the best of days. Then he was laughing. And laughing. And laughing.

Her ire increased. "What's so funny?"

"You just fucking said fuck!" He wiped the mirth from the corner of his eye.

"So? You do that all the time!" She was indignant. "Stop laughing."

"Don't be that way Blondie. I've never heard you cuss, that's all. It was almost cute." There was a lilt to his voice. He was mocking her.

Lucy ignored the cute comment and resisted sticking her tongue at him. "I didn't think you'd take part in this-" she gestured broadly, "'snowball' fight."

"Ah, I'm always up for a little friendly competition." Laxus winked at her. Her face was getting hot and she felt bashful suddenly.

Until she remembered her snowman.

And his nose.

"Mr. Frosty!" She rushed over to the lumpy snowman. Laxus looked confused.

He let out a loud snort. "That is the ugliest snowman I have ever seen. Where's its nose?" Her blood boiled. Mr Frosty wasn't ugly! He was just… having a bad day, or a bad existence.

"You broke it! When you slammed into me, I said I didn't want to join." She knew she was being over dramatic, but she had spent the better part of the morning on it.

"Sorry bout that." Laxus rubbed the back of his neck, upset women were not his area of expertise.

Lucy sighed, it really wasn't a big deal and it was an accident. "It's fine, it's really not as big a deal as I make it, I just like to complain." Lucy flashed Laxus a reassuring smile. "Well, as fun as this has been, I'm going to plan my exit, Erza and Gray aren't letting up anytime soon and I'd rather not get dragged in." She decided she was thoroughly done with snow day. She was going to back to the guildhall and get a nice mug of hot chocolate.

Laxus chuckled at her. "You're something else." Lucy couldn't help the blush on her but she could blame it on the cold. "If you wanna avoid Titania and icebrain, I'd go towards the west and around the back, The Thunder Legion built a fort there and won't give you any trouble. Plus, Erza and Gray won't even notice you."

"Thanks Laxus." Lucy waved him goodbye before heading in that direction to the safety of the guild.

Soon other guild members slowly trickled in, warming up the atmosphere with the rhythmic chatting and tapping of silverware. Lucy thanked Mira for her drink and headed towards her usual table, choosing the window seat. She stirred her hot chocolate and absentmindedly looked around. She scanned the room before looking out the window, something catching her eye.

When Lucy looked outside from the guild window, her eyes widened. Lucy saw her snowman, somehow it had been moved to face her window. It had been dressed, somehow had continued where she left off and as a final detail, a carrot as its nose.

She looked around, who could have done that? Her eyes wandered to the second floor as if drawn by some current; he winked at her and took a sip of his beer.

Laxus.

And that was that.

Lucy smiled at the memory and brushed her hair out. Of all the people on Earthland she just had to pick him. Laxus, insufferable asshole and a little pervy; though he had a sweet streak. Lucy figured it wasn't something he wanted to be well known. She sat on her bed, just about ready to head to sleep when she heard the knock at her door.

She sighed and moved to open it. Gray and Laxus stood on the other side. "Hey guys, what's up?"

Gray slipped past Lucy and into her hotel room. He quickly made himself comfortable on her bed. (Despite her protests. And how was he already naked?) "Natsu isn't back yet. I don't think he's found us yet. I'm sure he's fine, but we should probably look for him."

"You really think we need to look for loudmouth?" Laxus asked Gray.

The Ice Mage closed his eyes, "Natsu has a habit of destroying everything. It's better for everyone if we keep an eye on him. So you two should head out."

Laxus wasn't really convinced, but the less destruction occurred, the faster they could get this over with. "Alright, I'll bite. And just what are you going to be doing?"

"I'm going to wait for Natsu here. He might show up."

Laurel Grove Town

Fiore

It was freezing. In perspective, Lucy should have grabbed a jacket instead of walking out in shorts and a tank. She shivered quietly again. "You should have brought a jacket."

She wrapped her arms around herself in a futile attempt to stay warm. "Yeah, thanks for reminding me, I always plan on searching for idiot wizards and their stupid cats in the middle of the night." it was cold enough outside that her breaths were visible. "Why do we send the wizard who doesn't have ice powers outside, while the one who does, stays inside nice and toasty."

Yeah she was bitter.

Laxus was probably all nice and warm in his huge jacket. She was ready to give up on Natsu. He would find them. There was no real need to search for him, he could hold his own in every situation and if he destroyed half the town, so be it. This is what she got for being petty, karma wasn't having any of it.

She grumbled some more until she felt something heavy being placed on her shoulders. It stopped her thoughts of wringing Natsu's neck cold. It couldn't be.

She looked over at Laxus, to her surprise he was looking away from her, and if she wasn't seeing things, there was a blush across his cheeks. Her cheeks hot, she tugged the jacket tighter around her. "Thank you."

Laxus's hands were down his pocket, "Don't mention it, I was getting tired of you shivering and complaining." Lucy looked down at her shoes and smiled.

"Even so, thank you." Comfortable, if a bit awkward, silence fell between them. Neither one of them really knew what to say.

A few minutes of walking around together silently passed. Lucy began to wonder when it would be a good time to call it quits and head back to the hotel, as warm as Laxus's jacket was, it was very long and heavy. She glanced over at said man, he was staring straight ahead with his hands tucked into his pockets. How was he not cold?- Was it her or were the sleeves too long? They were brushing against the ground, she could easily trip. That was not going to happen. She kicked a little more vigorously to avoid tripping because that would be embarrassi- and she did just that.

She internally panicked and flailed her arms around at anything that would brace her fall.

Unfortunately that was Laxus. Lucy had gotten grip of his t-shirt's collar and pulled hard. He was caught unaware and was forced down to the ground. Lucy frowned in pain, not only had she landed on the cold, hard ground, Laxus had fallen on half of her.

She was going to bruise so badly.

It took Laxus a minute to realize that he was crushing her. He was more concerned on how she had managed to catch him off guard and how soft she was. Then she let out a groan of pain and he quickly came to his senses and scampered up to his feet and pulled her up. It was then when Lucy noticed how close they were, she merely would have to step forward on her toes and their noses would touch.

Twin blushes spread across both blondes. Lucy's lips parted slightly and swiped her tongue against her bottom lip out of sheer nerves. Laxus's pupils darkened as his eyes followed the movement. Her eyes widened and her heartbeat sped up. I-is he going to kiss me? Is it just me or is he getting closer?

She closed her eyes in anticipation. She knew she had a thing for Laxus, but she didn't know the extent of his feelings, what if he was only interested in other things but not her? To her disappointment, Laxus didn't kiss her. In fact, he lifted his head and stepped away from her. "Uh, we should get going."

Lucy felt her jaw drop and didn't nothing to hide the fact, her face reflected disappointment and she knew Laxus could see it. That was it? She couldn't help but feel insult to injury, he avoided eye contact with her. "R-right. We should head back, Natsu is probably back at the hotel and it's already late and we need to conserve our energy for tomorrow." She was rambling and she knew it, anything to stop follow up conversation. Laxus was very confrontational and she did not want him to confront her. "In fact, I'm all warm now, so here's your jacket thanks for that." She thrust the thick coat back to Laxus.

"Lucy-"

"Oh would you look at the time? I gotta run!" Before he could blink, she had turned on her heel and ran away, quickly becoming a small dot until he lost sight of her.

"What the fucking hell was that?" Was everyone on Natsu's team a complete and utter weirdo? Gray stripped at any given time, Erza was insane, Natsu was well, Natsu. Laxus had thought Lucy was the normal one. But clearly she was just as crazy.

He made his way back to the hotel, thinking about what had just happened. He had almost kissed her, that's what. He always knew she was hot and commented on it pretty often in the past. He didn't think it was a big deal, but seeing her deer-stuck-in-headlights style made him rethink that it was to her.

Laxus wasn't going to fool himself, he was no good in relationships and Lucy was relationship material. He narrowed his eyes, did she have a thing for him? By the looks of it she might. It was odd too, it was a recent development, seeing her cheeks red and all. Laxus knew that they had a flirty undertone in their past conversations and they got along for the most part. He wasn't going to deny his small soft spot for the celestial mage.

Laxus shook his head.

Tough shit. As much as he wanted to kiss her, he couldn't give her what she wanted, he simply didn't want to. Even if he did, dating was messy, especially since they were in the same guild. He shivered just thinking about all the gossip and how insufferable Mira and the old man would be. That, and her crazy team would be hell bent on saving her honor. It would be a shame to have to destroy them. The Thunder Legion would seriously kick ass and Gramps would not be pleased if the guild turned into a bloodbath again.

Best to avoid all that.

Yeah, I don't want Lucy like that, even if she is kind of amazing and kind and every time I see her my stomach twists.

Laxus wanted to avoid hurting Blondie's feelings, she was genuinely a good person, better than him for sure. Laxus swung open the hotel's door with a loud slam. He gave death glares to the employees at the hotel counter, they got the memo and left him alone.

He had an Ice mage to hunt after all.

He arrived at Gray's room and relentlessly began pounding on the door, if he was asleep, all the better, the little shit deserved a rude awakening. "Hey Dipshit, did you find the other dumbass?" He said when the ice mage finally opened the door.

A fearful look spread across Gray' face and he leaned against the door frame. "Laxus, where were you?" He was far too casual.

His eye twitched. Is he brain dead too? "I was looking for Natsu like you said."

"Yeah, sorry bout that." Gray rubbed his neck somewhat nervously.

"Sorry for what?" Just spit it out already.

"Well, funny story, Natsu was in his room the whole time."

He was going to have an aneurysm. "What was that?" His voice was dangerously low. He could hear Gray gulp.

"Turns out Happy brought him over. Should've checked first huh?"

"You're telling me," he rubbed his head he could feel the headache coming on. "Lucy and I went searching for two hours and fire breath was in his room this whole time?"

Gray started backing up nervously, he lifted his hands in peace. "Please don't kill me."

Laxus chuckled. "No, you're just going to wish for death."