balk, v.

He offered her his help to prepare for her sixth (and hopefully last) S-class exam. And he was still saying it when he already considered the consequences if she would fail for some crazy reason. He had seen the list of candidates and with the exception of Gajeel and Natsu, she should be able to defeat everyone in the group of eight. He found consolation in the fact that if she would fail once more, the state of her injuries would probably a far bigger problem than the question whether he could have prepared her better.

He did not exhale, however, until she came back – victorious at least.

(Gajeel and Natsu had knocked each other out and had been disqualified in the first round.)

banal, adj.

Sometimes, late at night in his empty apartment, he wondered why he had fallen in love with her. Looking back, he realised that it had been probably the small things in their relationship that had made it grow – such as their shared favourite colour, their love for the book called 'Stormy Sea' – and probably also the way she had screamed at him with her cheeks in the most beautiful shade of crimson when he had nearly gotten himself killed on an S-class job.

Needless to say, he came up with far more reasons when alcohol was involved and seeing that he was dating Cana, it usually was.

barfly, n.

She had the gift of being able to chat with everyone at the guild – a gift he did not have and so he often watched her from his place in the corner of the room while she chatted easily with Natsu and Lisanna before she switched tables and sat with Levy and Gray for a moment. He often wondered if it would be easier for him if he were able to talk to other people and at the same time, he wanted for her to sit down on the free chair next to him.

"He, Laxus," her voice suddenly reached his ear. "Is that chair taken?"

He shook his head and she plopped down on it, exhaling slowly and sighing deeply.

"Are you okay?" he inquired as he scrutinised her for a moment.

"Give me a moment and I will be," she replied and the cheerful tune left her voice. Her happy smile vanished as well and for a moment, she looked simply exhausted. Then, she carefully rearranged her facial expression and smiled again. "There," she said. "Cheerful Cana is back."

He closed his eyes for a moment. "Don't hide who you really are," he whispered.

basis, n.

There had been a moment when she had wondered whether she loved him or the feeling of being loved, of being appreciated after all the abandonment she had faced. This moment had passed a few minutes later when she had remembered that he had been there for a very long time. He had been the first friend she had made in her childhood, even before Gray because he had been there before Gray had joined the guild. And if this was not enough reason to love Laxus, she got no clue what would be a decent reason.

She was in love, after all.

beguile, v.

The moment she removed her jacket, just before she was going to strike that stupid MPF-thing, Laxus Dreyar realised that he was irrevocably in love with Cana Alberona. This realisation came so surprisingly easy to him that he realised that it had been there, just waiting to surface for a very long time. Sure, they had been dating again since their return from Tenrou-Island and while he had known that he liked her more than any other living being since she had been seventeen, he had never quite realised how much he loved the enigma known as Cana Alberona.

She had caught him in her web – and he would never even try to escape.

belittle v.

Laxus was seconds from being killed. His girlfriend was fuming and seeing that she had managed to get her cards, it might end up very painful for him. For a short moment, he was wondered what he had done to deserve her fury but then, he remembered that he had just tried to talk her out of the job she and Juvia wanted to take on together. In all the months he had spent away, he had completely forgotten that Cana did not appreciate his comments on her decisions.

"Laxus – I am not a child anymore," she said, pocketing her cards. "Please stop acting like I might get hurt the very second I step out the guild."

He sighed and kissed her forehead after ensuring that she would not throw her cards at him. "I am sorry," he said, "but I kinda promised your father that I would keep an eye on you."

"The two of you really have to stop this overprotective attitude," she huffed, slightly insulted.

beware, v.

Technically, she had warned him. She had told him that her father had spotted the ring on her finger when they had met for lunch and therefore, he should have been prepared. Sadly, there was no such thing as 'being prepared' when Gildarts was involved someone. Thus, the Lightening Dragon Slayer, second strongest mage of Fairy Tail, flew backwards and straight through a wall when the fist of the number one mage connected with his chin. Erza and Mira came running but even Satan Soul Sitri would not be enough to separate the both fighting S-class mages.

"Dad and Laxus!" Cana screamed as she appeared in the new door in the guild building. "Stop this at once! You will destroy the whole building if you keep doing this! Stop, I said!"

"Yes, a battle!" Natsu announced as he lifted his fist – only to feel how his wrist was grabbed by Mira who was not amused by the current situation. And Mira was one scary lady.

"Gildarts, Laxus – what is going on?" Makarov inquired as he arrived.

"Cana – is that a new ring on your finger?" Juvia asked in all innocence but this was when everyone but Natsu understood why the both S-class mages had been fighting.

blemish, m.

Her fingers traced his scar on his face before they slowly danced down before they followed the extended lines of his tattoo. Her eyes were closed because she knew all the scars and lines by heart and she did not have to see them. At the moment, she was incapable of seeing anyway because the last job had ended in a small fiasco as she had looked straight into a light ray spell which had messed up her eyes. As a Card Mage, she needed to be able to see her target in order to aim properly and therefore, she had no choice but to take the medicine Porlyusica had given her – and she had to protect her eyes from the light. She used this time wisely, training to rely on her remaining senses and Laxus who had announced that he would stay with her while she was recovering was her current book because all the scars and other traces of a life of won and lost battles told her such an interesting story that even her favourite book had a hard time to compete.

bolster, v.

When he realised that the anniversary of her mother's death was approaching, he was especially careful with her and her emotions. She had shared the story about her mother's death on that S-class mission more than twenty years a few months after she had joined the guild and he knew that she sometimes had to speak about what had happened back then. Since she could not speak with Gildarts for various reasons (for once, he hurt enough about his late wife's death in her opinion) Laxus was always the one who heard the stories about Cornelia Alberona.

But until she was ready to speak with him about the pain inside her chest, he would always give her the time and space to figure out how she felt about it because this often changed.

breach, n. fig.

She did not care much about the reasons why he had done it or what he had thought when he had made his decisions. And most importantly, she did not want to hear that he had never meant to hurt her, that it had been an accident and that she had been collateral damage because according to him, she had not even supposed to be in town and that it was therefore her own fault that she had been there and gotten injured. The only thing she cared about was that he had hurt her trust in him as if it had never meant anything to him – and this hurt more than anything else.

breathing, n.

Makarov knew that his grandson had had asthma as a child but when Ivan – who was hopefully rotting in some prison right now had – had implanted the Lightening Dragon Lacrima into his son, the asthma had disappeared mysteriously. It did seem, however, like Laxus was having trouble with the easiest of tasks at the moment and for a moment, the old man feared that Laxus might relapse into the days when he had been hardly able to play outside because his asthma had been triggered by pollen of many kinds and there were many flowers around him right now.

But when he followed his grandson's gaze, he saw his granddaughter-in-law and seeing that Juvia and Erza did one hell of a good job with the wedding dress, Laxus' sudden inability to breathe was explained and the old man could relax a little bit,

breathtaking, adj.

She had always hated how easily his stupid, arrogant smirk could take her breath away but she hated it more when he was no longer there to smirk. Sure, they had argued and it had gotten from an argument to a physical fight (which was the reason why she was currently staying at her father's place – thankfully, Gildarts was on out a job but their apartment was completely destroyed) but she had not expected him to slam the door shut behind him.

Stupid Laxus.

She did not even know why she bothered with him anyway. Everything he had ever done had resulted in pain and/or injuries on her behalf and she was better off without him anyway. She huffed as she left the apartment to buy some wine. She was currently pouting after all and being seen in the guildhall was nothing she wanted right now. Three steps into the hallway, she collided with something warm and firm, a person who wore a coat just like Laxus.

She cancelled the thought as she tried to sidestep the person but there was no avail.

"Hey there, Cana," Laxus said as he bent down to kiss her. "I got something for you."

He then proceeded to take her breath away once more.