rmadhumita378. I'm rather proud of my Lucy and her care for her Soul Doctor. Freed's personal issues will be addresses. After all he is the only member of Bickslow's team that hasn't been granted a Lucy bonding moment.
Unoyoko94. Thanks! I feel sorry for Bickslow too. Life and Lucy are really not being kind to his poor... self.
MistressKatana, dlynncherry. Thank you! The love of my readers inspires me!
RosesMcKellar. Thank you! So very much! I have plans for Freed. He will be ok. He might get a little dizzy though.
QueenOfWS. We will be talking to Freed relatively soon. I can understand why some people don't like Bickslow. There isn't a lot to him in cannon even when he is a supporting guild member. Lets face it. A lot of what we (the fans) consider as reality concerning a character was created by us. Look at Cobra for instance. How much of what you 'know' about him did you learn directly from Hiro Mashima?
LimC. Sorry. Lucy will be telling a couple of stories to her friends over the course of her girls day out. I'm trying to include new information or look at them from a new angle when I feel that she has to do that. Rereading what I just read five minutes ago irritates me too.
NinjaKitten93. I figure Meredy has a lot of facts but very few personal details. I absolutely adore Freed. He just gets so goofy whenever Laxus is involved. This time Laxus said the wrong thing at the wrong time. We will get into that later.
I have to wonder sometimes. Do you think Hiro Mashima reads fan fiction? Does he ever sit down and think 'I wonder what ridiculously crazy stuff these people are putting my characters through today.'?
XxXxXxXxX
"While your condition is not contagious it does tend to spread once it takes root. Take these and distribute them to the other females in the guild." Porlyusica handed a bag to Evergreen. "It takes 24 hours to be effective and lasts for a month. You come back to me in a month so I can check on you and you can take another dose back then. Now get your stinky human selves out of my house!" All three girls ran out the door as the older woman reached for her broom.
"Well," Lucy linked arms with her shell shocked friend. "It's official."
"You're going to be a mommy!" Meredy was strangling Evergreen's other arm. "Are you excited?"
"I... I think... Oh, Mavis! How do I tell Elfman?"
"Simple." Lucy threw her shoulders back, flexed the arm not attached to Evergreen, and spoke in a deep voice. "Being a father is manly!" Meredy laughed and Evergreen smirked.
"I'll think about it. Maybe I can find a way to bring it up... tomorrow. Today is for the girls!"
"Yeah! We'll have a crowd after lunch. How about we pick up some new nail polish and go back to my apartment for mani-pedi time?"
"And Ice cream! Please? We never get any because Jellal doesn't let us go into town and it doesn't exactly make good travel rations."
"I'm so down with that!"
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"Natsu Dragneel! Get the hell out of my house!"
"Hey, Luce! What are you doing here?"
"I live here you flaming idiot! Now get out!"
"But..."
"Lucy Kick!" Lucy was grateful Natsu had left the window open when he broke in, otherwise she would have had another repair bill to deal with.
"Lucy... does he do that... often?"
"Yeah. The idea of personal space just seems to be beyond Natsu's grasp."
"Don't take this wrong, but... does Bix know?"
"Yeah. We talked about it. It might annoy him but he is ok with it. He understands." Lucy locked the window and clapped her hands together. "So! Do we want bowls or are we eating strait from the carton?"
XxXxXxXxX
Bickslow grinned as Natsu landed practically at his feet. Cobra had called a temporary halt to their run, with a 'flying retard' countdown. Watching his girlfriend punt the fire slayer out her window and three streets over had made him feel a whole lot better about knowing the man had been in her house in the first place.
"Natsu, how many times has Cosplayer literally kicked you out of her house?" *Lucy Kick, so painful, don't you ever learn, seriously.
"Umm. I don't know, but it hurts."
"Then why do you still climb in her window you flaming twat?" Cobra sounded more upset about the whole thing than Bickslow was.
"Because she locks the door." Bickslow face-palmed. What had happened to yesterday's Natsu? The one with more than three brain cells. Cobra mumbled something about heat induced brain damage. "What are you guys doing?"
"Running." *go, go, whee.
"Why?"
"Training." *faster, higher, leapy jumpy.
"Awesome! Can I come?" The two runners shared a grin.
"Bet you can't keep up without breaking something or setting anything on fire." They took off, up the side of a building, without waiting for an answer. The babies laughed hysterically.
XxXxXxXxX
"Of course, Laxus didn't see it that way and lit him up like a Christmas tree." Lucy giggled and waved her sparkling midnight blue nails through the air to help them dry.
"I can see why Bixy messes with him even though it gets him struck by lightning. Can you hand me those two light greens? Yeah, both of them. My toes need leaves. Thanks. He's just so sensative and easy to tease. He acts all tough, but really he's just a sweetheart."
"A sweetheart of an asshole you mean." Evergreen mumbles as she peered at her toes.
""He isn't that bad Evergreen." Meredy spoke up as she put a second coat of shimmering dark purple on her fingers.
"You work with Cobra." Evergreen pointed the brush from her burgundy polish at Meredy. "You have been desensitized to assholeness."
"Just because I work with him doesn't mean I can't tell he is an asshole." Meredy set her purple aside and picked up a bright pink. "I'm just able to see through it now. Like wearing sunglasses."
"Asshole sunglasses?" Lucy pulled her brush from her toes so she wouldn't smear them as she laughed.
"Exactly!" Meredy grinned at them. "Your fingers should be done by the time I'm done with this coat, Ever. Want me to do your gold?"
"Please. Then I can do yours since I know Lucy is the only one who can get hers right."
"Mine are easy to do myself anyway. They are simple enough to do with my nondominant hand. There aren't any curves or swirls like you guys want."
"They are very you though. I think they will look smashing." Evergreen closed her polish and began to blow on her toes.
"I know they will. I just hope I can get the flowers on my toes right. They will probably look more like fireworks than flowers when I'm done. It's hard to make nail polish look fuzzy."
"Then why don't you just paint regular non-fuzzy flowers?"
"Because they weren't."
"What weren't?"
"The flowers on the tree in my garden."
"Umm..." Evergreen looked confused.
"The garden where you grew up, Lucy? I thought you ran away from home and hated that place."
"What it was when I was little, isn't what is was when I left. Does that make sense?"
"Yeah. There. Done with my pink. Ready, Ever?"
"Yep." Meredy pulled the gold polish out and started putting the details on Evergreen's rich green nails. "So what is so special about this tree that you have to paint the flowers just right?"
"My toes are Bickslow's eyes." Meredy's hysterical laughter erupted in a snort and she almost ruined the finger she was working on. Evergreen just gaped at her as if she had lost her mind. "Oh, Mavis, that came out wrong. Umm...ok. Let's start at the beginning. When I was little my mom used to sit with me under this tree and read stories. Even after mom... died I still went back and read under this tree, because I felt... safe there. It was a good place. The light filtered down through the leaves and the red flowers smelled sweet. Like home, I guess. Which sounds weird because I lived in the mansion my whole life, but it was never home after mom died. Anyway. Bickslow's eyes remind me of that tree. The rich, bright red that stands out bold against the soft, spring green light of his magic. They remind me at safety and home." Lucy finished her last toe leaf and looked up to find her companions staring at her in wide eyed awe.
"Wow. That has to be the most romantic thing I have ever heard."
"It's right up there with the thing Bickslow said the night we got here about your heart kissing his soul."
"Umm..." Lucy know she was blushing red as those flowers in her memory. "I... it's true."
"It's beautiful, Lucy. Did you tell Bix that story yet?"
"No...he knows I think his magic looks like spring light though." Lucy dipped a detail stick into the bottle of gold paint sitting between her two friends and started tracing designs on her fingernails.
"You should." Meredy started to paint again as she spoke. "I think knowing he feels like home to you would mean a lot to him."
"Meredy is right, Lucy. People are afraid of his magic. Knowing that it has the opposite effect on you will mean the world to him."
"He knows. A little at least. He's my Soul Doctor." Evergreen gave her a strange look.
"He's your what now?"
"Inside thing." Lucy smiled. "It makes sense to us."
"Whatever makes your wings sparkle I guess."
"Well I think it's sweet."
"Thank you, Meredy."
XxXxXxXxX
"There. Done." Lucy smiled down at her toes. Pale green leaves and bright red firework flowers danced across a clear blue sky. Evergreens burgandy toes were sporting white roses. Silver and hot pink hearts practically glowed from Meredy's toes. Their fingernails had been painted with their after dark plans in mind. They sparkled and simmered and each girl had a different, yet matching, design on their fingers. Meredy had painted golden flowers across the fairy mage's dark green nails, the sensory mage now had a pattern of gold dots and swirls on her rich purple finger of an almost tribal nature. The Fairies had shared a devious look over the similarities between her chosen design and a certain lightning mage's tattoo.
Lucy had done her own fingernails, as the design had to be exact and she was the only one who knew the pattern by memory. In thin gold threads and dots across sparkling midnight blue were the constellations of each of her Zodiac spirits. She had given the brightest star in each constellation points to show it's brilliant light, the two brightest for Gemini. Needless to say she was very proud of her work.
"Those really are amazing, Lucy. I hope you can make them last a long time."
"Thanks for this, Lucy. And for going with me to see the old bat. I had fun. I... don't usually spend a lot of time with other people, outside of my team."
"Me too, Ever. We should do it again sometime." She narrowed her eyes at her toes. "Does Bickslow do the black on his fingers himself?"
"Yeah. And I've bribed him into doing my nails a time or two. He will even do designs if you can get him to sit still that long. The man has remarkably steady hands and an eye for detail." Meredy gaped.
"What kind of bribe does it take to get him to do that? Doesn't Laxus tease him for it?"
"Not much of one honestly. Bix is a sweet person and likes to help." She started grinning. "He only tried to make fun of us once. When he fell asleep that night Bix started on one thumb and I started on the other. We even did his toes. We were gone on a mission when he woke up the next day and we made sure to take all the polish remover with us when we left."
"I would have paid good jewel to see that." Lucy laughed as she started picking up the mess they had created.
"You stthat." Lucy laughed as she started picking up the mess they had created.
"You still can. I got pictures of our work. Think Virgo would like to keep my blackmail collection where it can't be accessed by my team?"
"Abso-flipping-lutely. Now. Mira will start lunch early so she can clean up and leave the bar in less capable hands for this afternoon. You wanna head on over there? I bet the guys are already there."
XxXxXxXxX
To be continued