Downstairs and Dead

Chapter 6

What Cannot Be Avoided

He wanted to run. He wanted to call every bit of his power to him and transport himself out of that stupidly large house – why a businessman needed a house nearly as big as a king – to somewhere deep in the wilderness where there were no people. No weaknesses. No one who could be hurt. No one he could fail to protect.

Her simple statement was the only thing that kept his two feet on the floor.

"That's in two days," his voice sounded strange. What do we do now?"

There was a pause. She was gathering her thoughts. He expected her to pull away, but she didn't. If anything she drew herself closer. Her breathing was settling, but there was still a hitch every five or six, and her heartbeat was erratic. She trembled, and her skin was hot, though that could be because she was absorbing his body heat.

"We rest," was her final answer. "Tonight at dinner we can learn who was here so early, and why, but until then, we have no real reason to leave our rooms. Unless you want to tour the grounds, but neither of us look up to that, right now. That would require bathing and a full costume change, which we're going to have to do for dinner. I suggest resting."

Since lightning travel would be noticed by literally everyone on site, resting was probably the best option. He agreed.

It took some effort, but he straightened his spine and backed away from her. She'd asked him to come along because he was strong, for fuck's sake, and here he was crying on her shoulder like a baby. Just like she said before. Damn. Damn.

He flexed his feet, settling in a wider stance and his hands still holding her upper arms in case she was in need of support, but she was … not fine, but she was standing on her own. She made him ashamed of himself.

Not that he thought of her as weak or that he resented her strength, but … damn, he was supposed to be stronger than this! The whole point of going away after Tartarus was to get stronger! To protect the things that were precious to him. And, sure, he might not have known that girl... but, shit, what did that matter? He'd taken the job to stop the killings, and she'd died. That was on his head.

It was a failure. And it couldn't happen again. It wouldn't happen again.

"Never say never, Laxus," her whisper was loud in the quiet stillness. "Nineteen could so easily become twenty. I hope... but I have to also be rational. Look at us... we weren't even here, and he's breaking us... we'll fight him, and we won't accept defeat. But he's the one who murdered that girl, Laxus. Not you. You would have given your life for her, if you could have done so. I know you would have, because you almost did before. If there were any way you could have stopped it from happening, you would have. I believe in you."

"No."

"But I do. And you can't stop me."

Her dresses were going to have to be long-sleeved because his hands were so tight on her arms that there was no question he was leaving behind massive bruises. What she was telling him... what she was telling him was that there were going to be more... that there were probably going to be more, and that he shouldn't blame himself?

Impossible.

"I know," she leaned forward so that her face once again rested on his chest. "I know. I think it's bullshit, too, but it's the only way we're going to make it. What I said at the castle was true, every bit of it. I really don't want to do this. I don't like balls. I don't get along with the people of this world. The whole notion of this serial killer terrifies me. These girls break my heart. But someone has to stop it, Laxus."

"And you think we're it."

"I do."

"Fuck. All right, then," he pulled her to the small couch and did not let go of her even after they sat. "Talk to me about tonight..."

Laxus couldn't say if the moment helped or hurt him. He hadn't meant to lose himself. He'd expected all along to see another death, maybe even two. He saw himself comforting Lucy. Which is what he thought he was doing, but when he touched her heartbreak, he opened himself up to his own feeling of failure.

And he was filled with poison, all over again.

Together they ate and then actually parted for a few hours of time alone before dinner began. She was the one who suggested it, but from the tone of her voice and the softness in her eyes, he suspected it was all for him.

He appreciated it.

Though he wasn't usually a bathtub man, he chose to spend the time stretched out in the Mason Mansion suite's very large tub, letting the hot water relax the knotted muscles in his hips and back. Trying to work out a plan of attack; he wanted to be more than just Lucy's bodyguard and escort. He wanted to catch the guy before another girl was hurt.

"Laxus?! You need to get out so I can wash up! Loke's laid out your clothes on your bed so-"

He cut her off by opening the door. "All yours."

"Ooooh," she smirked, "a towel. Why so dressed up, good sir?"

He shrugged, "Guess the house got to me, but you're right; if I'm good enough for the castle, I'm sure as shit good enough for this gaudy stack of bricks."

He let go of the towel, and she choked on a laugh as he walked to his room in bare comfort.

Laid out on the bed were clothes he'd never choose to wear, if given the option. Too damn fancy. Slacks and a button-down, all he needed. This? One suit, only one, but it covered his bed. And Lucy said the Celestial clothing was simpler. Once again, he found himself baffled by the people they were spying on. He'd wanted power, once – still did, just of a different sort, and for different reasons – but he could never imagine that with said power he would decide to waste his time on this.

"Come on, Laxus," Loke said from beside him. "It's far and away better than that ugly animal print shirt you used to wear. What an absolute fashion disaster that was. This might be complicated, but it'll look good on you, and Lucy picked it out herself specifically for that reason."

Laxus looked at the Lion spirit who he remembered vaguely from his time at the guild, but who seemed much changed by his return to the spirit world. "I thought the maid chick picked it."

"Virgo offered Lucy a variety of choices, Lucy decided on this for you. It's cut to enhance, she said, the broadness of your shoulders and the narrowness of your waist, two things many men tonight will lack. The deep blue of the jacket will compliment your coloring. She said things about the pants, as well, but I feel no need to repeat them." He was smiling with the smug satisfaction only possible in cats.

Laxus' dislike of the clothing had dropped just slightly. And he filed away a few questions for after-dinner 'team' conversation.

Piece by piece, Laxus put on the clothing, careful not to tear the fabric that at first seemed so fine and fragile. But, upon closer inspection, he could tell the stuff was much stronger than it appeared. In fact, he was fairly certain it would work as armor.

"If I got it right," Lucy said from the doorway, "it should help conduct your lightning. Hold some of the excess to your body unless you want it dispelled, instead of zipping away in littler fingers of power, wasted. Not sure if it will work, though. But Virgo did what she could."

He slipped on the jacket, and turned to look at her equally fancy clothing that would look absurdly out of place where they belonged. The dress, as he predicted, was long sleeved, though that might have as much to do with the season as the likely bruising. It was layered heavily, each layer cut at different lengths and angles, and at least two of the top layers having sheer fabric. It was blue and white and silver and a soft gold that looked more like moonlight than metal.

"And what does that do for your magic?" he asked as something to say.

"Gives me a place to keep my keys," she laughed, pushing aside several oddly cut layers to show a small hole, through which he could see the glitter of keys and the pale, softer texture of skin.

He nodded. "Good. Don't want you going in there unarmed."

"Me, either."

The bell began to ring.

Five minutes to seven.

The call to dinner. The call to begin.

Or, so it should have been, if death hadn't preempted the main event.

"The house isn't going to want a bigger scandal than four years of murder," Lucy assured him as she straightened various bits of his clothing, before taking his arm and pulling him out of the door. "They won't seat you next to anyone who will try to start trouble. You'll be fine."

"Worried about me?"

"Maybe a little."

"Don't. You're right. I'll be fine."

"Just get them talking. The more you can learn the better. No matter what it is, it could help."

"You've said all of this before. Lots of times."

"Yes, well." She sighed, stretched, and slapped her cheeks, "Okay. Okay, Laxus. Let's do this."

Her smile was a big, bright lie, but it was a well delivered forgery. Probably no one would be able to tel. Except him. Him and the other absent Fairies, so here it was only him. And he saw, He saw her lie, and it gave him some measure of hope. She could do this. He could do this. They were safe. She was safe, despite the killer.

0000

"Your performance in the games was masterful," the young man seated across from him proclaimed. Praise was boring, but easy to handle. The boy was eighteen years old, but with the energy and maturity of one a decade younger. "When you delivered that uppercut to Jura – BAM!" he mimed a similar movement, "I lost my shit-" all of the young women surrounding them huffed. Laxus suspected it was less in outrage over the curse and more in jealousy that the boy commanded the full attention of their section of the table. He was entirely too energetic.

For all that Laxus had been the boy's topic of discussion since the first course was laid, Laxus himself had yet to get in more than the odd grunt. If he didn't miss his guess, he thought the girl on the boy's left was about to stab him with her fruit fork to shut him up.

Laxus approved of this. His ego didn't need the praise of a childish aristocrat, especially when it kept him from doing his job.

Lucy was having what seemed to be less luck at the far end of the table. She was placed exactly as she expected with older men and a few hard-faced women. The women, for the most part, ignored her. The men, when she talked, watched her with gazes angled too low to meet her eyes or watch her mouth.

Breaking them, Laxus reminded himself, would get them nowhere. Lucy had planned for this, expected it, needed it even. No, breaking them, beating them would get them nowhere, but the way they looked with that air of right so close to ownership reminded him that any of these men could be their killer. And that if Lucy were not so famous and powerful, were she not in public, everyone one of those men would force the issue.

So was their killer one of those old rich bastards looking at these young rich girls that they'd have to, according to Lucy, spend months – maybe years – in negotiation for before they can get their hands on them? Frustrated spending hours with what he couldn't have, he'd go downstairs and take what he could.

Would make a sick sort of sense.

Would also put even more burden on Lucy.

"What do you think, Laxus?" the boy asked him, though he hadn't been paying any attention.

A quick glance for the women around them showed their glazed eyes and lack of attention had also missed the question.

Great.

"I couldn't say," he answered, hoping it would fit, and thinking it probably would. None of what the boy had said thus far was really about him, but about the boy's feelings and the boy's opinions. Likely he just wanted reinforcement, but Laxus wasn't about to agree to something he didn't hear.

"Huh," the boy deflated. "You were my last hope."

Laxus blinked. "Why?"

"I asked all the others, like I said."

"Ah, well then."

Laxus was starting to think very positively about the idea of dancing. He'd complained to Lucy about dancing more than dinner, but it didn't occur to him that there might be safety in dancing. No one would make him dance with the annoying boy.

Maybe he'd encourage Lucy to, as payback. For something. Being here in the first place? Sure. That worked.

"You didn't come for the hunting this morning, Mr. Dreyar?" the oldest woman – he guessed around mid-twenties – seated at their section of the table leaned forward to ask. She did so, he assumed, to show off her chest. In a different setting he might have told her it was a waste of time. Most of the women Laxus grew up with had a better rack before they hit eighteen.

"I'm not much of a sport hunter," he told her instead. Since insulting a woman's breasts (or calling out her blatant flaunting of said underwhelming breasts) was probably not on Lucy's list of acceptable dinner conversation topics.

"Really?!" the boy butted in, practically shoving the woman, who had only barely managed to get one single sentence in, out of the conversation. "I'd think you'd be excellent at it!"

"Maybe. But I make my living hunting dark mages. After you hunt evil, what sport is there in hunting meat?"

He almost snorted at the boy's wide-eyed stare. Bullshit, of course. Laxus did more body guarding and … other jobs ... recently than he did dark-guild hunting, and he often hunted for his own food, but the kid didn't need to know either of those things.

"Why are you here?" the boy asked, which perked up the many bored listeners. He suspected that was the awkward, not exactly polite question they were all hoping the little brat would ask.

Servants were taking away the remains of the some sort of salad that had followed what he had to admit was really good – really good – lamb, and replacing it with serving dishes covered in all kinds of cheese.

He saw that Lucy was still eating. He was actually starting to feel the effects of the food, how someone as small as her or all these girls in or just out of their teens could totally-not-eagerly dive into yet another round of food was beyond him.

He did as they did, and answered the question between bites of – again, admittedly very good – food.

"Lucy wanted to come. She'd been invited by someone, but didn't want to make a pest of herself traveling with them. And she doesn't really like traveling alone. Not always safe, and she's not exactly built for strength and self-defense. She messaged a few of us Fairies for an escort, I was free, so here I am. Easy as that."

He'd noticed early on in the meal that several of his seat mates, not only the women, seemed unfond of Lucy. As she expected. He thought the occasional drop of casual criticism of her might go far to earning him some trust, or at least more open honesty when slightly drunk.

Lucy wouldn't mind him calling her a pest. She'd laugh it off. Or kick him. Both, maybe. Probably. These folks didn't know that.

"Are you liking your first big house party, then Laxus?" the much more endowed, very much younger girl on his left asked. He'd managed so far to ignore this one as being slightly creepy. She reminded him too much of those stories Lucy told of marrying girl-children off to old men.

"This one just started. I don't make judgments on so little." The girl, who couldn't be much older than Wendy, which made him want to hurl his very-good-cheese and his very-good-wine into his very-expensive-plate, shivered at his expression. He softened it and looked up to the others. "You all do this every year? Is it always the same?"

They seemed happy to tell him of parties past. He was happy to let them. Nothing they said really felt important, but it meant he didn't have to talk, and small blessings were big blessings in some situations.

0000

She was trapped in a corner by an old man. He was drunk. She wasn't surprised. There was etiquette to an after-dinner brandy that the man seemed uninterested in following. One of those was in the amount of brandy consumed. He had far exceeded that amount.

As drunk as he was, as close as he was, as heavy as he was breathing in her face, she would be drunk before she managed to break away. He was a waste of her time. Neither he nor his offspring had made the tour the previous year. They had been abroad, spreading their (wife/mother's) business to the Empire.

But, as long as he was acting in such a shameful manner, the rest of the guests would avoid them. Leaving her to suffer. She was in this alone, and it could not be solved with a simple knee to the groin. No matter how much she might wish for that.

She was about to laugh and go for the charming blow off, when some of his inebriated rambling caught her attention.

"-your mother. Always liked her." A wet chuckle that smelled like barrel rot. "That golden hair, glowing like it did. Those tits! Shame she was stuck with that old stick."

Blinking at the oddly poetic followed by the more commonly lecherous, Lucy successfully managed not to break the troll disguised as a human man. Knowing she'd thought worse things of her father, Lucy kept her temper in check. "Well, as a bit of a brittle log, yourself, sir, I'm not sure how you would have been the better option."

"I," he huffed, "never lost my fortune."

"My father," she laughed the way glass shattered, sharp and fast, "lost his fortune to grief. And regained it in less than seven years. He worked his way into wealth as great if not greater than yours twice. In his own lifetime. You're a second son who married into wealth. If you must, though, continue to lie and attempt to convince yourself that you – lazy, entitled, worthless – are better than a hard-working man, who so loved his wife that he was changed, shadowed so completely by her death."

As he struggled to process her smiling hiss, she curtsied and slipped around his bulk to freedom. Questionable freedom, but better than the corner of hell he occupied. Looking for safety in numbers, she worked her way around the secluded areas of the room, where she had been trapped, going for the delicacy table, where she expected to find Laxus hiding. She thought she might take a brief respite with him, who was likely suffer... sufferin...

Suuuu... what the fuck?

Maybe she had gotten second-hand drunk from that old alcoholic. Otherwise Lucy could see, not so clearly, but she could see Laxus seated in an alcove, shadowed by night and dim lighting, next to a young woman. A Domino, if she wasn't mistaken. Wealth shifted year-to-year depending on trade and other market factors, but the Domino family was always among the top three wealthiest in Fiore. For the last five or six generations.

So yes, there Laxus was. Sitting with a young Domino daughter. But that wasn't what shocked Lucy into stopping. He was supposed to talk to women. The look on her face? Amilia Domino's apparent sparkling adoration? That wasn't a shock either. Lucy'd seen that many times before in the eyes of women surrounding her old guild-mate. She expected that, desired that of all women near Laxus. Seeing it would have made her rub her hands together and chuckle in calculating glee... if not for the shock.

It was Laxus who shocked her. The softness in his shoulders. The way he leaned toward her, but slightly. Only slightly. Subtle.

He whispered something that trembled on his lips. As if he hesitated. Uncertain. Nervous. And Amilia's milk-white hand rose to cover her throat as she blushed. Lucy, not even having heard him, not even being near him, found that for some stupid reason she was also blushing! What the hell?!

He stood to leave, and Amilia reached for him. He smiled, ran a single finger over the inside of her wrist, causing her eyes to flutter closed, and then fled around the corner and away, while Miss Amilia Domino was still mid-swoon.

Lucy's jaw was on the floor.

Seriously. What the hell was that?

Gruff. Brooding. Aloof and slightly scary. The scar. Those shoulders! That's what she was selling him on! What the hell was up with those lips, huh?! And that whole wrist thing? What was that? What the hell was he doing?

Her first impulse was to follow him, but there were other old, alcoholic men she had planned to talk to... damn him.

She turned away from Laxus' escape route and the sight of Amilia (yet to recover from … whatever it was he had done to her), back to that crowd. Those numbers. Something about safety.

...what the heck. How did she used to do things like this?

0000

She managed, by virtue of being far less popular than him, to beat Laxus to their rooms at the end of the evening. She undressed, bathed, and slid into their not-as-glorious-as-the-castle's bed with a sigh just as he walked in the door and began tossing off clothes left and right.

"Learn anything?" she asked from the safe confines of her pillow. Trying not to sound as snarky as she felt. She needed to sneak up on him. She needed him not to guess that she saw what she saw.

"There was a hunting party this morning. Other than that? Not a damn thing," he growled. "You?"

"Maybe. No one was willing to talk about it of course-"

"You actually brought it up?!" he exclaimed from the bathroom, his words muffled by what she guessed was a toothbrush.

"Vaguely. I tried to talk about what I might be able to do for them. As in money making propositions, which they would understand. Reminding them I was a mage, in a roundabout way, used to hard work."

"And?"

Her body temperature raised and her heart thudded. Embarrassment, Laxus suspected, and anger.

Ah.

"They can't have been too, uh, vulger about it at dinner."

"Not at dinner," she said, "but I was cornered a few times after. During brandy."

He walked into the bedroom in all his nude glory, and she remembered to look the other direction. Not that he cared. More than likely, he was amused by her reaction, but he had been right that first morning. She was, in a lot of ways, forcing herself. But she had been right, too. She truly didn't care that he was naked, even if she suspected he was doing it now just to tease her, as long as he was there.

"Sorry. I didn't see."

She didn't snort, but she wanted to. How could he have seen her? He, after all, had his own job to do. Which he was doing absurdly well... she held her tongue.

"Not your fault. It was expected. Wanted, even. I was able to get a few out to a point where I could ask enough questions and Crux could get enough information from them that I can rule out all the men I sat with tonight and three others besides. That's six out of the 53 men still on my list at dinner tonight. So 47."

"Two I was with are too young," Laxus added.

"Fourty-five." She touched the keys on the nightstand, "-the Southern Cross, Crux." A floating cross, with a mustache appeared. "How many men can we rule out, excluding those Laxus and I already have to age and absence that you know of?"

"Thirteen, Miss Lucy, from the party, which limits your larger list. It seems that many wealthy Fiore families declined to attend this year."

"Thirty-four," Laxus muttered. "Didn't come because of the killings?"

"I couldn't speak to their motivations, Master Laxus, only that many whole families have not accepted invitations the last two years."

"Or stayed only briefly," Lucy said. "Some of the men told me their married sons came for that hunting party you mentioned, but declined to stay for dinner or the ball, preferring to take their pleasures – and to room – in town."

"Their wives?"

"Some stayed home with children; some are still here."

He just looked at her, and she sighed.

"Yes, yes, I know."

"I didn't say anything."

"You didn't have to. And rich men are hardly the only ones to cheat on their wives. Or wives on their husbands as there are probably a few ladies happy to have their husbands away. These are arranged marriages, remember?"

"Trust me," he drawled, "I remember."

"Any guesses at this point?"

"I'd say one of the younger guys. I thought older, first, but it's just all so sloppy for men of wealth to risk that wealth on the territory of another."

She thought of the drunk asshole. "A young son, however, who hasn't had to work for it... Yeah, I had a similar thought. And with the murders being so recent..."

"Right. You think you know who?"

She glanced up at him, then back down. "The boy you were seated with, his name is Hanrae. His elder brother, Brath, entered society the year before the murders started. His behavior tonight was … odd. He doesn't match as someone I'd dance with, age or rank, but I'll work him in."

"I'll try to actually pay attention to the brother," Laxus grumbled.

She laughed. "I noticed you were struggling. A fan?"

"That's one way to put it."

"I thought you'd be used to that. You've got a team of fans."

"Not the same."

"True." She turned on her pillow to look at him. His eyes were closed and he looked very near to sleep. She found him to be more open in bed, the closer he was to unconsciousness. This was the time to ask. "Did you discover anything else?"

"Eh?" his eyes cracked open slightly before closing again. "Nah."

"During brandy? You didn't talk to anyone? Anyone sweet, young, longing for you?" she was grinning at him when he realized her point and tensed.

"No."

"Liar."

He glared, but there was enough sleepiness in it to soften its harshness, even if she were afraid of him. And she most certainly was not.

"I sense I'm missing part of a story, here, and I hate that."

"Well," he smirked, "sounds like you're going to have a rough night, then."

She leaned in close. He could hear her whisper from the other room, if he so chose, so a whisper at his ear would be a scream, and she would enjoy it. "I can make your life hell, Laxus. I can influence who dances with you. I choose the clothes you wear. I can provide mailing and other contact information to your little fanboy to contact you when the season has ended." He was still smirking; she frowned. "What did you do to Amilia Domino?"

He pushed her back into her own pillow half smothering her before letting her go.

"Men have their secrets."

She looked at him. Looked at him, and pulled away.

"...no. No. No...! Ichiya!?"

He laughed, and she thought she might find herself as weak to him as Amilia Domino had. Which was absurd, since she knew better.

He laughed louder. She slapped his absurdly large shoulder, which he probably didn't even feel.

"I thought you knew where I'd been."

"I knew how to find you. I knew how to get in touch with you! No one said you signed up to be one of Ichiya's harem!"

"Now, hold up, that's not what happened." The laughter had completely stilled, and he was almost cold with fear. She could see the ice in his eyes, and it pleased her.

"Is it not? Because, thinking back now, your performance was very Tri-men-esque." She tried not to grin too much. Tried not to smirk. Tried not to show how much she was enjoying his discomfort.

But she was very much enjoying his discomfort.

"We just decided to hang at Blue Pegasus after Gramps left. They've got a solid guild-"

"-and lots of lovely ladies that hang around the guild all of the time, eager to be plucked up by all the men so carefully trained by Ichiya-san or -sama or -sensei, whatever... You don't have to explain Laxus," she made her voice sweet and smooth, "I understand completely. And this makes you an even better choice than I first thought! So many roles you can fill. It boggles the mind! It's good that you were part of Ichiya's harem in this case," she tried to hide her inflection on the word, but saw his eyebrow twitch.

Damn.

"Entertainer. Not part of a fucking harem, you damn pest. The guild calls them entertainers."

She blinked at him no small number of times, completely unable to tell if he was teasing her with this or trying to be serious. "Lots of people call them entertainers, Laxus. And, hey, if innuendo is your thing, that'll work well here. Bluntness..."

She thought she might die laughing when he pushed her off of the bed onto her ass. It's not like she wanted to be cruel to him, but it was just so funny. She could imagine him as the Ichiya for his own set of Trimen (Bi-Men, Plus Evergreen... HA! Bi-men, she killed herself...), and it fit so perfectly that she pulled a muscle in her side trying to breathe through the hiccuping insanity that imagination had made of her.

Eventually, she felt him pull her back up on the bed. "You need to shut the hell up before I zap you into a coma."

"Oh, oh god! Ha! The vulnerable bad boy... I mean you are, but I never thought you'd play it out in public like that. And so beautifully. Granted, Amilia didn't take much, but still! To see it from you, like that? Ah, ah, what a wonderful little gift on such a terrible day." She wiped tears from her eyes and coughed to try and clear away the last of her small bout of mania. "But, really," she reached up and tugged on his forelock, "well done, Laxus. I knew you were the right choice."

"Me or Gajeel, right. I remember."

"Well, if his singing was any better... maybe we should send him to Blue Pegasus for a bit, eh?"

He snorted. Rolled over. Rolled back. Looked at her. "It's not really worth shit, but seeing it from this side, it's good you called me out."

"Oh, is it?"

"Yes."

"And why would that be? I mean, besides the Ichiya training, which wouldn't be new information for you."

"You were right about Freed not being the right kind of person for it, or none of the others. I got what you were saying before, about the ego, but I got it even more tonight."

"Images of your past coming back to haunt you over and over and over again," she suggested.

"Something like that."

"Join the pity party, bub." Lucy turned onto her back and looked at the ceiling. "You know, I'm pretty sure I've been in this room before. Maybe the season before I ran."

"Your room? Or is this you trying to tell me another guard in the garden story I absolutely do not want to hear?"

"Oh, Laxus, you know you enjoyed that story."

"Bullshit."

"You even asked about it later. All sweet and caring like. It was very, very charming! I must say, I will certainly be paying Blue Pegasus a visit after this. Normally I'd avoid it like the plague because... well, I'm sure you know the because, but! Just look at what it's done for you! Miracle workers."

"Hahaha. You're hilarious, Lucy. Look at me laugh."

"I don't think laughing or that form of sarcasm fits your character type, Laxus. Ichiya-sensei would be disappointed."

"Do you want me to kick you out of bed again?"

She reached out to latch on to his wrist. "Won't happen. If I go, you go."

She was still looking at the ceiling, but she could hear the grin in his voice, and it gave her chills. "You think I can't pry your hand off of me?"

"Mmm, no, I know you can, but I don't think you will."

"And why is that?"

"Because you don't want to."

"How do you figure?"

She yawned, "Well, you're here, aren't you. Or I am. Because you want me here, or you want to let me be here. Something like that. Please stop flirting with me, now. I'm not a professional like you. I'm too tired to keep it up."

"...so many things I could say in response, but I'll let you off the hook this time." She felt him pull the comforter up higher, and resettling her pillow. "Let go of my wrist, Lucy."

"Nah," she flexed her fingers slightly adjusting her grip while snuggling into the comfort of the nest he'd built up for her, "I think I'll stay like I am. Don't want you getting' any ideas and tossin' me out on my ass on a whim or nothin'."

He might have responded, in fact, she was fairly certain he did, but she couldn't decipher it. The sounds into words into meaning. All it was to her was safety and peace.

And she slept.

0000X0000

Author's Note: So, I do my international travel, I get back, and sometime around then, Gajeel's all "Let's get Team B back together". And I'm going, awesome! Let's see where Laxus has ACTUALLY been during this year, while I've got him helping to solve a serial murder case... and then there was islands and boats and Empires and fighting and I'm like FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, GAJEEL FIND LAXUS ALREA-

And then there he is. With Blue Pegasus.

You should have heard the laughter coming from me. It can't quite be classified as evil. No. Calculating, certainly. (If you read Akatsuki No Yona, you know how Hak laughs anytime Yona talks about how important he is? All dark and snaky and 'hehhehheh's rolling out of his mouth like a dark cloud? Like that.) "Thank you. Oh, oh, thank you, thank you, thank you!" I said. I actually said. Out loud. Probably to my cats, I can't remember. I was rather delirious with joy at that point. Because OH MY can I use that. He wouldn't want Lucy to know about his little Blue Pegasus ways, because wow, embarrassing, but slipping a bit in here and there for the job... well. One does what one must.

I IMMEDIATELY began re-writing EVERYTHING I had post-chapter 5, including basically this entire chapter. Holy damn, I'm going to have so much fun with him, now. And I was having a lot of fun with him already. THANKS, HIRO!

So... sorry for taking so long. Part of it WAS some meh writer feeling, and serious depression (which you can thank Gajeel's "It ain't a sin to fall in love with someone" line for clearing up...), but a lot of it was waiting to see if I'd get something fun out of real Laxus. Thanks for all the encouragement while I was away! Try not to take so long this time!

Happy September!