I had intended for Minerva to hurl more insults at Max in the beginning, but I fell asleep and forgot all the ones I had lined up… I'm pretty sure some of them were good, too. Oh well.
Disclaimer: I do not own Fairy Tail.
Max struggled to say something, anything, to the woman standing in front of him on the other side of the shop's counter. Her haughty glare bored into him while she waited for him to respond.
He must have taken too long, because she snapped, "Aren't you going to answer me?"
A squeak threatened to escape his throat. "Sorry, ma'am!" he replied, falling back on his customer service training to help him out here. Damn, she was scary. Max found his respect for Lucy increasing by the second. How in the world had she managed to keep herself together against this mage? Let alone directly challenge and lecture her while undergoing a tortuous beating.
Torture he had been ordered by the blonde mage to forget.
"Yes, I'm closing up shop early today," Max informed the Sabertooth Mage. "It looks like it's going to storm soon. If you see anything you want, though, just let me know and I'll ring you up." Internally, he pled with her to purchase something. Belligerent customers he could deal with.
Minerva's lip curled at him. "Like I would want any Fairy Tail shit." But her eyes flickered to one wall and back, too fast for Max to determine just what it was she was looking at.
That single, subtle action changed Max's entire view of the woman. No longer was she a terrifying, sadistic monster of a mage. Now? She was indeed, a customer. One that knew what she really wanted, but something was holding her back from actually saying it. He'd dealt with those types before. Granted, they were usually men who wanted plushies, yet instead bought the figurines with removable clothing because that was what was expected of them. Or vice versa, with some women.
It was his duty to deliver to his patrons what they really wanted, their hearts true desires. Max couldn't resist the challenge being presented to him. He would find out what she wanted and convince her to purchase it. She was just someone who, for whatever reason, couldn't admit to herself much less to others what she desired.
So he smiled at her brightly, taking a page from Lucy's playbook. "Alright, Ms. Orlando," he said, displaying the fact that he did know who she was. "I'm going to finish cleaning up – just let me know if you change your mind."
And then, to her shock, he turned his back on her and resumed his prior sweeping.
Max had to hide his smile when he heard her make a small indignant noise at being so readily dismissed. Tiny pricks of terror crawled up his spine as he recalled just who he was dealing with, though. This woman was still a monster – one that had made Lucy suffer.
"So…" he began conversationally, trying to pull the mage into revealing a hint, "what brings you to Magnolia today?" Max knew full well why she was there. The Master had informed them all of the Territory Mage's impending visit – though it had slipped Max's mind that today was the day she was set to arrive. He hadn't been given any details, however. All he knew was that Lucy wanted to talk to her about something.
"None of your damn business."
He had kind of expected that answer. "I guess not," Max agreed.
"Why are you so damn cheerful?" she asked suddenly, surprising him.
Pausing, Max looked at her. "Come again?"
She glared at his inquisitive look. "You were humming. It was annoying."
Whatever it was she wanted, her desire had to be a rather desperate one if she was still sticking around. "Oh, my apologies." Returning to sweeping the already clean floor, he waited some more.
After a few minutes of silence, when he was about to attempt to peer at her from an oblique angle – to see if she was, in fact, still there – she spoke again. "My Guild Master ordered me to come," Minerva said, stressing the 'ordered,' wanting to make it clear that she was not doing this of her own volition.
Success! …Sort of. Having her open up at all was a minor victory.
"I see."
Minerva could not for the life of her figure this Fairy out. And he was a Fairy, she was certain of it now. Despite knowing who she was, and what she had done to his guild mate, he was cheerful and polite to her after his initial wariness. Suddenly, she decided that she didn't like referring to him as just, "the Fairy".
"Aren't you going to introduce yourself?" she sneered at him.
The blonde mage blinked, surprised at her question. "Max," he said. "Max Alors."
Max, huh? Minerva ran the name through her head a few times, mulling it over. Max was interesting, for a Fairy. Other than his first reaction, he wasn't intimidated by her. It could be recklessness, but she sensed it was something else. There was just… something in the way he held himself, a cast to his eyes that felt familiar to her. She was positive she'd never met him before, though. So what was it?
"Why do you sell Fairy Tail themed crap?"
He shrugged. "I like to make it, and people like to buy it. Pretty much it, really."
Odd. This Max Alors hadn't sounded offended that she'd just called his workmanship crap. She wondered if he had made that snowman-dog-thing himself, too. The longer she looked at it, the cuter it became. Kind of like the proprietor. He was an attractive man in a scruffy sort of way. "You made all this?"
Max set aside his cleaning tool with reverence. "Not all of it, but most, yeah. I designed just about everything, though. Even the stuff I can't craft myself." He raised his arms until they were at his chest-height, palms facing the ground. "Excuse me, but I need to polish the floors really quick."
Minerva watched with interest as sand poured out of the mage's hands. The grains whispered against each other, a strange ringing tone arising from the contact with each other and then the tiled floor. "Why didn't you do that first?" she asked as the sand scoured the tiles free of lingering filth and shined the stone.
"I like Broom," the Sand Mage stated, his sand returning to him. He lowered his arms. "It's a member of Fairy Tail, too, so I like giving it a job to do."
Raising an eyebrow, Minerva observed the broom closely. There was, indeed, a Fairy Tail Guild stamp on it just above the bristles. She also found it curious that Max had referred to it as if Broom was its name, rather than what it was. "That thing is a guild member of Fairy Tail? I knew you people let trash join you, but isn't it a bit much to allow the things that clean trash like you in?"
If Max was offended by her insults, he didn't show it or rise to the bait. Her respect increased a couple of notches. "Laki stamped Broom with the Guild Mark during a fit of giggles a couple of years ago." He turned and grinned at her. "And Broom is a well-respected member of our guild. Has to be – after all, Broom has cleaned up all sorts of Fairy Tail messes."
"Oh really?" Minerva scoffed. "I suppose now you'll be saying that it's one of your most prized friends."
"It is."
Performing a double-take, she stared the blonde man. "Seriously?"
He nodded. "Yeah. Everyone in Fairy Tail is friends with each other. Including Broom."
That was just weird. "How can you possibly be friends with everyone in your guild?" The concept was a foreign one to her. Sting and Rogue she might classify as friends, out of gratefulness, but she drew the line at comradery with the others of her guild.
A cruel smile twisted her lips, and she was satisfied at the subsequent wobble of Max's Adam's apple as he gulped. "Prove it," she challenged.
"Come again?"
"I challenge you!" declared Minerva, haughty. "Prove that you're friends with your entire guild."
Max gave her a long, hard stare. "Like how?"
"Don't friends know everything about each other?" she taunted him. "So tell me something I don't know about them."
He shrugged. "Okay. I don't know about everything, but I could tell you at least a little something." Striding over to the edge of the counter, he lifted a divider. "Why don't you come on inside the shop, though? I think it's about to start raining, and this may take a while."
No sooner had he spoken the words than did Minerva feel a fat droplet of cold water on her face. Taking him up on his offer in order to avoid being drenched, she entered the shop.
Dropping the countertop back into place, Max dug out a second chair for his guest to sit upon.
"Okay!" he announced, plopping down into his seat and placing his hands on his knees. Leaning forward, he grinned at the Sabertooth Mage. "I'll start with Natsu. Now you might not know this, but that guy absolutely loves spicy food. In fact, he orders his meals with enough peppers on them to induce digestive problems…"
It was over an hour before Max started slowing down in his elocution about his friends and their idiosyncrasies. Although, it didn't feel nearly that long to either of the two mages. At some point, Minerva had stopped making snarky comments about the Fairy Tail members and Max had let go any remaining reticence on his part.
In fact, she had started to truly enjoy listening to and watching Max talk about his friends. His eyes lit up and sparkled, and he liked to use large, sweeping gestures with his hands and arms to emphasize certain points. She even found herself smiling at the occasional funny anecdote and releasing a short laugh or two.
Minerva didn't even care when he moved on from the Fairy Tail guild to his friends in other guilds as well as some of the locals that regularly came by the shop. Max's every word and gesture was punctuated with his clear, deep, and all-encompassing love for his friends and comrades.
However, Max paused when he got to Sabertooth.
"Oh?" she teased. "Have you finally run out of things to say?"
He huffed indignantly. "Of course not! Just trying to think of something you won't already know about them, since you're a part of the same guild. Now let's start with Sting. Whenever he visits, he sneaks off at some point to go and visit our healer in the forest, Porlyusica. I mentioned her earlier, remember?"
"Scary old woman that likes to hit people with brooms, and hates humans so much that she lives in the forest by herself?" Minerva couldn't stop herself from supplying.
Max beamed at her for remembering. "Yeah, her. Sting – I don't know how – became friends with her at some point and likes to go and bug her whenever he's in the area. He usually comes back laden with goodies."
She'd seen those, now that she thought about it. He passed them out to the rest of the guild and refused to say where he'd gotten them from.
"Rogue… really, really likes chocolate. I mean, seriously loves the stuff. It's all he drinks when he's here, and I think Erza has been slipping him cake on the sly."
"Which is saying something, given her love of cake."
"Right! And Rufus has been playing some sort of mental challenge game with Levy and Freed. Levy might actually be winning, but it's hard to tell. Orga and Gajeel are no longer allowed to perform duets, after they shattered all the glasses and bottles of alcohol in the guild hall with their voices alone. Yukino, when she's drunk, likes recite all of the constellations that she can think of very enthusiastically and at the top of her lungs. And Dobengal… don't even get me started on him. He's the hide and seek master, and Asuka is really fond of him."
Minerva couldn't stop herself from giggling at the antics her guild mates got up to when they visited Fairy Tail. She couldn't even bring herself to be annoyed at her lapse in self-control for letting such an undignified sound escape.
Max smiled at her. "Last but far from least… is you."
She blinked. "Me?"
"Yes, you. We're friends now." He winked. "I bet you didn't know that, yet!"
Her mouth opened and closed in shock, unable to articulate an answer.
"I'm not finished, though!" Max's smile fell from his face and he gazed at her with that look in his eyes that felt so familiar. "You're lonely, aren't you?"
Rage swept through her, and she stood up so fast her chair clattered over. "What the hell are you talking about, Fairy?!" she snarled at him. "What the fuck do you know?!"
"A lot," Max admitted. "I know a lot about loneliness. Please sit back down," he implored. "I may have been finished with Sabertooth, but there are still two people you should hear about before you rush to leave."
Wanting to see her challenge through, not because she cared about what this conniving blonde had to say, Minerva did so.
Max smiled weakly at her in relief. "Thanks."
"Whatever," Minerva grumbled. "Get it over with."
"The second to last person I want to tell you about… is a man named Max Alors. Now this dashing young man came from a home with parents that loved him, but unfortunately had little time to interact with their child. With no siblings of his own, and without friends, this man had grown up rather surly and had trouble talking to other people. And he was lonely. Very lonely. Eventually, this man left home and journeyed to a guild, hoping to meet people and make friends. It was hard, but he accomplished his goal and made a great number of them. He thought loneliness was no more… until one day, many of his friends vanished off the face of Earthland. Max Alors again felt that loneliness. It wasn't forever, luckily, but it was enough to remind him to never take his friends for granted." Max met Minerva's gaze, kindness shining within his eyes. "And so he became able to recognize it in others. You're lonely, Minerva. I can tell. You actually do want to make friends, don't you?"
Max abruptly stood up, and plucked a stuffed toy off a shelf before thrusting it into the startled Territory Mage's arms. "And you want to take this little guy with you, too. His name is Plue, by the way. He's based off of a companion Spirit of Lucy Heartfilia's."
Numbly, Minerva clung to the soft plushy. "How did you…?"
The Sand Mage grinned at her, sitting down once more. "I knew from the beginning that there was something here you wanted! It just took me a while to figure out where you were looking the most."
"But I can't…"
"He's on the house. Just consider it fair payment for putting up with my rant so patiently for so long!" Max leaned over the side of his chair, digging around in a compartment hidden underneath the counter. "Also…" He pulled out a small object and reaching over, placed it in her palms, folding her hands over it. "This is a straight out gift."
When he removed his warm hands from hers, Minerva peered at the item.
It was a small glass orb, filled with black sand. The inside was painted on one side to show a starry night with a full moon. Small strains of paler sand mixed in amongst the black gave it the appearance of moonlight upon the crafted dunes. There was even a tiny cactus made of the same dark grains of sand. The sand had been hardened so it wouldn't shift within the orb.
Minerva thought it was beautiful.
"I named it, 'Dark Sands'." Max laughed loudly and long. "I know, not very creative of me. But I think this belongs with you."
"I can't accept this," Minerva stated firmly, trying to hand the glass orb back to Max. "You could get a lot of money if you sold this."
Max gently pushed her hands and the orb back to her. "No, I couldn't. I don't sell the orbs. I make them for me… with a little help from Natsu or Laxus for the glass molding. I want you to have it, because you're my friend and I think it suits you."
The Sabertooth Mage didn't know what to say. She held onto it for a moment, before blurting out, "But I don't have anything to give you in return!"
He waved off her concern. "That's perfectly fine. This is a gift from me, because I felt like it. You don't need to feel obligated in any way."
Standing again, he stretched. "Why don't you wait outside the shop while I lock up really quick? Then I can go with you to the guild."
Minerva nodded, not trusting her voice to remain steady.
She didn't have long to wait, and soon Max fell into step beside her. With amusement, she observed that she was actually taller than him. Funny how she hadn't noticed until now.
"Where's the stuff?" Max asked, curious about where it had disappeared to.
"I put them in one of my territories."
"Ah, okay."
After a few minutes of walking in companionable silence, Minerva asked, "So who was the final person you needed to say something about?"
"Oh!" Max exclaimed. "I nearly forgot. Lucy Heartfilia is the last one."
Minerva raised an eyebrow at him. "Why save her for last?"
He hummed, thinking. "Seemed right. She's… well…" Max thought hard, before finishing, "She knows about loneliness, too. I can't go into details, because I don't know her feelings about sharing the information, but yeah. She understands it."
Nodding, Minerva accepted the answer.
"If you ask her, I'm sure she'll let you see the original Plue," Max teased lightly.
A minute blush dusted the woman's face. "You're a riot, Max."
Max sat at his normal table with Warren, and clinked his mug of beer together with his longtime friend's. "Cheers!"
Warren repeated the call. "So tell me, Max. Do you know what's up with that?" He pointed towards the bar, where the fearsome Sabertooth woman conversed calmly with the guild's Celestial Mage.
Minerva held a white stuffed plush toy in her lap, and Lucy held onto the real life version of the same.
The Sand Mage shrugged. "They're friends? I guess?"
"Helpful," Warren muttered. "Real helpful. So, did you make any sales, today?"
"Just one," Max admitted.
"Really? Was it even worth opening the store?"
Max threw another glance at the dark woman that had listened to his entire schpeal about his friends.
She caught his gaze for a split second, a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth, before her attention returned to Lucy.
"Yeah, totally worth it."
I'm rather pleased with how this turned out.
Please review, and let me know what you think!