Bicker

Sweet Mavis, they're actually going to do it.

Elbow supporting her weight against the bar, one eyebrow arched in disbelief, Cana Alberona watches the two massive men smirk at each other. They both clutch a shot in each hand, eagerly eying the row of deceptively dainty glasses lined up on the table in front of them. A rowdy crowd rumbles around them, shouting crude encouragement. Mira slips gracefully through the mass, winding her way around the table, collecting bets and handfuls of jewels with a terrifyingly benign smile.

"Laxus!" Gildarts roars, beaming wickedly at the blonde dragonslayer opposite him. "You ready to have your ass handed to you?"

"You wish, old man," Laxus snarls back, grinning widely, "You're going to drop before you can even taste the tequila."

"Bring it, brat. I've been drinking since before you were born."

"That explains the beer belly, bastard!"

"I may be fat, but you're ugly, and I can lose weight!"

"I don't doubt it— you're definitely a loser!"

She sighs, shaking her head. Idiots. Eying the bottle on the bar top expertly, she calculates that they'll both drop within fifteen shots. Lightning, Crash magic, and extreme bullheadedness can only take a man so far against a bottle of blue agave tequila.

"On your mark," Master Makarov carols happily from his seat on the bar, watching Fairy Tail's strongest mage and his grandson face off over a rickety table. "Get set…"

Gildarts raises his eyebrows challengingly at the blonde. "Last chance to back out, Dreyar. Scared yet?"

"Please," Laxus scoffs, leaning forward over the table. "I'd be more scared of Wendy in a kitten costume."

"Go!"

The crowd around them explodes into chaos as Gildarts and Laxus gulp down their first two shots, one after the other. Gildarts' eyes bug out and he chokes briefly. "Dear Mavis, what the hell is this?"

Laxus doesn't look much better, resting a fist against his broad chest. "It feels like I tried to eat Natsu alive." He grabs another shot and pounds it down, pulling a disgusted face afterwards.

Gildarts' face flushes red as he quickly tips back a glass, pitching forward to brace himself against the table. "Whoever made this deserves to die."

The men both cough desperately, grabbing at the shots still lined up. Gildarts puffs himself up like a rooster, grinning madly at Laxus. "Give up yet?"

The smirk Laxus shoots back is nothing less than evil. "Never."

They both lean back over the table for another round.

Twelve shots later finds a very inebriated, very giggly Gildarts and a similarly incoherent Laxus sprawled on the floor under the table, resting their heads in a very amused Cana's lap.

"Is that your face?" Gildarts snorts, flailing his hands in an attempt to smack Laxus on the head. "Or did your neck just throw up?"

"Couldn't help it," Laxus slurs happily, pressing his face further into Cana's thigh. "One look at you and it made me vomit." He pauses in drunken contemplation. "It looks like your face caught on fire, and someone tried to put it out with a fork."

Gildarts tries to send Laxus an offended scowl, but ends up collapsing into giggles as he attempts to craft a reply. "Well, you look like you went bobbing for piranhas in a bucket of shit."

"You look like an ass."

"You are an ass."

"You're stupid."

"Well, you're ugly!"

Cana drops her hands on both men's heads to end the argument before it goes any quicker. Laxus nuzzles her knee like a cat. "Cana, pet me more!"

She almost chokes with laughter. "What?"

The blonde pouts, offering up a pair of surprisingly adorable puppy eyes. "Pleeeeeease?"

"No, Cana-chan, don't do it!" Gildarts mumbles hazily, putting his hands over his face in abject horror. "My little girl, corrupted…"

Laxus elbows the Crash mage sulkily. "I don't corrupt her, she corrupts me."

Gildarts, scowling, jostles Laxus right back. "My baby girl is perfect and sweet and innocent, baka."

Laxus freezes and turns gleeful eyes to Cana, breaking into a sadistic smirk. It amuses her to no end that, even while sloshed, the Lightning dragonslayer still prioritizes pissing off her father over his own safety. "Can I tell him? Please? I can hold this over him forever—"

"No, no— no telling me anything! La la la la," Gildarts howls, clapping his hands over his ears and scrunching his eyes shut.

"Gildarts, there's something I have to tell you!" Laxus yells.

"I'm not listening!"

Cana grins, tilting her head back against the wall and closing her eyes. Her men really are idiots. But as she watches her father poke Laxus' forehead while Laxus ineffectively slaps at the redhead's hands, she can't help but admit that the two really are stupidly adorable. She tells them so.

"'M not adorable," Laxus sniffs. "'M a badass!"

"Yeah, Cana, you can't just call us adorable!" Gildarts complains. He beckons her closer, whispering loudly, "We have repti— repet—"

"Reputations to uphold," Laxus finishes with the beaming pride of the heavily inebriated. "We're badasses!"

"You're certainly something," Cana chuckles, smoothing the hair off of her dragonslayer's forehead. He purrs and rubs his face into her hand.

Gildarts whines unhappily. "Cana, stop touching him!" The two men dissolve again into incoherent bickering, complete with attempts at hair-pulling and a few unfocused blasts of Crash magic. Sparks begin to flicker over the tabletop, quickly extinguished by Makarov's quick reaction with a mug of water.

Cana sits back against the wall contentedly, feeling her own buzz glow through her body. The rest of the guild whirlwinds around them, but they seem to fill up their own little corner, she and her family.

Bickering and all, she muses happily, hell, maybe because of the bickering…

I wouldn't want it any other way.