It was a pretty well known fact among the guild that Mercury was very kind to almost every member of Fairy Tail; someone could spit in his face - it had happened, once upon a time - and he would still treat them the same as any family member the next day.

The key word being 'almost' every member.

It was ALSO a pretty well known fact that the only person he would butt heads with on the regular was Laxus Dreyar.

Once upon a time, they were nearly inseparable; it was also the same period of time in which Mercury could be considered not just an active member of the guild, but also a fairly formidable one. Both lightning and water together caused the downfall of many dark guilds, along with numerous bandits, several cults, and many, many aggressive monsters. The two, along with their "Thunder God Tribe," were taking on as many jobs as they could handle in an effort to chase the promotion to S-Class that had so long been their goal.

Or, at least, it had been Laxus's goal.

When that time finally came around, and both were nominated for the S-Class trial, Laxus had eagerly accepted it, while Mercury did not.

It caused an irreparable rift between the two young men. In Laxus's eyes, it was a sign of weakness. His best friend, his partner, was not bothered enough by his own weakness to pursue a promotion? To him, it was as though Mercury had spit in his face, all over his dreams of becoming the guild master.

As all men do, Mercury had his reasons - it just wasn't one he could, at the time, explain to Laxus. In fact, he wasn't sure he'd be able to explain it to anyone without seeming like a complete weirdo, even for Fairy Tail standards.

(Seriously - who on Earthland was afraid of the ocean, of all things?)

Both Laxus and he himself were insufferable men.

This week been an incredibly long one for Mercury, even for Fairy Tail's chaotic standards. Lucy, though new, had deemed herself to be an incredible catalyst for chaos. She and Natsu - though likely it had mostly been the latter's suggestion - had chosen to take a job, destroyed a mansion, destroyed several underground sewers (leading to at least two cave ins elsewhere), and then, in the end, chose not receive payment for the request because they "didn't really complete it" despite the person who placed the quest's pleas otherwise.

Curse Natsu's good heart. And curse Mercury's bad one.

And any job 'failure,' regardless of whether it truly was failed, required an asinine amount of paperwork, both on the end of the guild and the requester. Mercury, being the wonderful helper he was (and definitely not under any sort of threat by Master), was doing his best to act as the intermediary between the two parties. He filled out the guild's end of the paperwork and traveled all the way to the requestor's location to help him fill out his side, as well as to get him to remove the now-extraneous request.

Ah, how he missed his bed. Even though he had been away from it for less than three days. The hotel just didn't feel right.

And this wasn't even a single page compared to the textbook's worth of paperwork that was going to be swarming the master due to the 'Lullaby Incident' that - surprise surprise - Natsu and his "team" had gotten themselves into immediately afterwards. No, that would be a nightmare for another day.

With the final paperwork for the first issue tucked under his arm for safekeeping, Mercury strode from the train station to the guild hall to finally deliver it to its second to last location before being sent to the Magic Council: Master.

And the moment he stepped in the guild, he suddenly wished he'd been away for just one more day.

As soon as his body broke the plane of the door, entering the building, his skin prickled almost painfully - there was something in the air. It was like a thundercloud had parked itself in the guild hall and chosen to stay there specifically to get on his nerves, and for a man who was already grumpy enough to throw a fist, his mood couldn't possibly get any worse.

What a bastard, that Laxus was.

Mercury's mood soured immediately when he realized that the lightning dragon slayer had returned to the guild earlier than expected. Usually, rather than stick around, Mercury would have turned straight around and fully left Magnolia until he was sure that Laxus was gone, but unfortunately, he had the papers that required Master's signature before they could be sent, and he didn't want to delay the issue any longer. Lucky him.

A skilled mage had the ability to "soak" the air with his magic just by existing. Younger mages tended to do this unknowingly, as they had much less control over their bodies; older, experienced mages could effectively limit this leakage to an almost zero amount. Usually, when magic is used excessively, this isn't any sort of issue because most fights take place outside. More experienced mages could usually either limit the amount they release in situations like fighting, which came with benefits like being able to use magic longer or more efficiently, but on the flip side, they could also release it like a cloud if they wanted to. Unfortunately, the guild had poor circulation. As a result, any residual magic in the air took a bit longer to clear out.

And that meant that Laxus was most definitely doing this on purpose.

Mercury vaguely wondered if Laxus knew he would be back today, or if he had kept this up as long as he had been away in an effort to catch Merc by surprise. The thought left a sour taste in his mouth. He had the urge to walk in, say, 'fuck you,' and leave, but managed to refrain on the notion of his comfy mattress on the floor at home.

Intense magic exposure felt a lot like there was a heaviness in the air, or resting on one's shoulders; it came with a lot of symptoms like anxiety, nausea, and fatigue - and Laxus had been sitting here, stinking it up, for at least the last two days, judging by the feel of it. It laid in the air like lead, immediately soaking into every pore on Mercury's skin and filling his lungs like poison.

But it wasn't like the other members could just not show up; this place was like their second home, so they'd just been here dealing with it while Laxus sat arrogantly up on his throne - the second floor.

It was obvious the moment that Mercury walked in. Laxus's pressure turned itself up to eleven as soon as he realized that his target was here.

Mercury tried to ignore the way that the hairs on his arms spiked straight up. He tried to ignore that it was a challenge. His and Laxus's matchup was either incredibly good or bad; lightning and water could either compliment each other or interfere with each other. But what he couldn't ignore was the way that the less experienced mages swayed, or looked like they were going to be sick.

"You can stop that now," Mercury called up to the second floor. Of course, it wouldn't do anything, because, in Laxus's words, the weak have no right to give orders to the strong, but it wouldn't hurt to try. Mercury wasn't allowed up there, or else he would have made his way up there to smack the shit out of the boy right then and there.

Laxus gave no response for a moment. His lackeys weren't currently in the building, which was good, because Mercury wanted to smack them, too (he had nothing against the Thunder God Tribe, but they were feeding into Laxus's ego too much).

People were whispering among themselves; Merc saw Lucy and Levy huddled together as though the latter was trying to catch the former up to speed.

"Make me," Laxus replied.

Yeah, Mercury would not be doing that.

He'd seen Laxus pull the same trick on Natsu before. Taunt him upwards to the second floor, then wait for Master to smack him back down and knock the kid out without doing anything. Mercury wasn't a genius or anything, but even he wouldn't be falling for that one at this age.

"You gonna rely on your grandpa to stop people from getting up there forever?" Merc asked, though he hated referring to a man he respected as Laxus's grandpa. With Laxus, you had to meet taunts with taunts; the lightning dragon slayer liked to mock people, but had a ridiculously bad temper in return. He loved Laxus, he really did, but right now, he was acting like a little brat who used his grandfather to protect him, and as much as Mercury knew that Laxus hated being referred to as Master's grandson, he knew it would set him off.

The air grew even more charged.

Mercury couldn't see Laxus's face from below the banister, but he could imagine it. Lips pulled back in a sort of half-snarl, half-smile, eyes fiery with rage as his temper flared and he imagined the best way to pull you limb from limb.

Mercury's own probably looked pretty similar at that moment.

His nose was crinkled as though he'd smelled something horrible, which, in a sense, he had. When presented with intense magic, Mercury got a similar sensation as normal people did when they smelled something particularly pungent.

Both young men's eyes would be mirrors of the other at that moment.

"You wanna get your ass kicked?" Laxus asked as though he hadn't started it.

"I'd love to see you try," Mercury replied. Ah, he was getting frustrated, too; he could feel his own magic start to leak into the air, a sensation akin to a turbulent sea on a moonless night. When combined with Laxus's, it felt like an unending thunderstorm, or so he'd been told. His body got tense as though he was about to fight, and the air became so humid that one could almost swim through it.

In the corner, Mira coughed.

Shit.

Mercury took a deep breath to steady himself. It had been a while since Laxus had managed to rile him up to this degree. The lightning dragon slayer hadn't even said much - was Mercury just on edge due to all the paperwork, or was his tolerance to bullshit getting lower? His mind returned to the reason he had come here in the first place: to return the papers to Master, who was surely in his office, completely aware of the whole thing, and unfortunately, Mercury wouldn't be able to get to said office without passing by Laxus.

So, he handed them off to Mira.

She'd know what to do with them, at least. And Laxus probably wouldn't bother her too much, since he'd been crushing on her since they were kids (and he thought Mercury wouldn't notice).

Mira gave him a little half-smile as though she knew exactly what was going through his head. She'd seen this play out more than once before, and this was probably one of the least violent cases that had happened in the last couple of years.

"Huh?" Laxus sneered. "You're just gonna run away again?"

'Again,' he said, as though Mercury was a coward and chose to run. A calculated insult, but sadly for him, Mercury was already on his way out.

No more words were necessary. Just a finger would do.

Thankfully, when Mercury returned to the guild later in the evening, the lightning dragon slayer and his gang had already made themselves scarce. The feeling of his magic in the air, however, lingered at a level almost imperceptible - if one wasn't already sensitive to that sort of thing, as Mercury was.

But, at least the perpetrator had already left. That was more than enough for Mercury to return to at least a somewhat stable mood.

He was glad to see that the guild had returned to its normal, rowdy self. As soon as he walked in, a barstool was thrown near him so hard that it shattered on the wall behind him. Normally, he would have doused the thrower with a jet stream of freezing salt water, but today, he felt as though he could let it go.

The seat he normally sat at - which, thankfully, was not the one that had been thrown at him - beckoned him as though trying to make up for the stress of the last couple of days. Filling out paperwork relating to job cancellations and failures was one thing, but having to deal with the aftermath of the "Lullaby" incident?

Well, Mercury was glad he was only helping Master. If he had to deal with all of the paperwork on his own? Whew. No thank you. It was no wonder the master was so short with how often he had to remain hunched over that desk of his.

To the water-user's pleasant surprise, one of the causes of the aforementioned incident was already at the bar. Lucy was quickly becoming his favorite out of the members of "Team Natsu." She was quiet, cute, and best of all, didn't directly have the power to destroy an entire city - not yet, anyway. Natsu? He leveled several buildings nearly every time he left the guild hall. Gray? Committed public indecency, though unintentionally, and got arrested, only to break himself out of prison - it had happened more times than Mercury wanted to remember. Erza? Yeah, she might be the only one with a modicum of self control, but when she got going, she got going.

Those spirits of Lucy's? Sure, they could do the destroying, but Lucy seemed to have a good enough head on her shoulders to know when to let them run wild and when to rein them in.

Ah, sweet Lucy. Please, never change - Mercury wasn't sure his aching fingers could take much more of this.

It was truly unfortunate that she didn't yet have the power to rein in Natsu. All in good time.

"Oh, Mercury," she said as soon as she noticed his approach. He gave her a light smile, his mood improved now that someone had talked to him.

She stared into her dinner - a plate of mushroom risotto - with the interest of Natsu being forced to study, which was to say, very little. A tragedy, Mercury thought absentmindedly, because he had heard that Mira's cooking was to die for. He wished he was able to try some, but unfortunately, he lacked both the ability to taste and to smell.

"Everything alright?" He inquired. He'd lived with enough women in the past to at least be able to guess at how they were feeling, but he hadn't known Lucy long enough to get a handle on her yet.

Lucy gave a big sigh that felt too heavy for someone her age. How old was she, anyway? Mercury wasn't a great judge when it came to the age of people around him.

"I'm just thinking about everything that happened," Lucy mumbled.

Ah, yeah, that made sense.

Mercury couldn't claim to know everything that had happened in the Lullaby incident. He only got the general gist of it: a demon flute with the power to cause instant death in those who listened to it had been acquired by a dark guild, who then planned to use it to kill the guildmasters at a nearby conference as an act of revenge. If not for Erza, who first heard about it, along with the two she had asked to come with her, Natsu and Gray, the disaster might have happened. In the process, however, the demon flute had been turned into an actual demon with physical form, and it was up to 'Team Natsu' to stop it.

It was really some fantasy novel bullshit.

The property damage was insane. Much, much higher than anything a single member of the guild had been able to do alone (though Mercury could think of a few who were able to get very close).

Afterwards, the Magic Council had proceeded with a fake trial against Erza Scarlet, which Natsu had then crashed and got both of them thrown in prison for the night. As much as Mercury hated the Magic Council, they reacted a little bit more intelligently than he thought they would, and didn't force Natsu to go on trial for the, what, three additional charges that could have been levied against him? Property damage, breaking and entering, attempting to crash an officially sanctioned trial?

(No, there were a lot more than three laws Natsu had broken that day. Mercury just didn't have the energy to think about how much could have gone wrong if the Magic Council was significantly less lenient in this case.)

So it made sense that Lucy might have a lot of thoughts about it, but Mercury wasn't close enough to her to know exactly how she was processing it.

He didn't say anything to let Lucy feel like she could speak.

"I just don't understand how people can be so evil. A lot of people were injured, and a lot of people could have died."

The eternal conundrum. How does one come to terms with the fact that people can do things they find morally reprehensible? How do they realize that people do things they consider bad not because they hate someone, but because they can justify it to themselves?

Mercury himself had thought about this long and hard to try to come to terms with the fact that not all people have the same morals.

He really wasn't in a place to lecture someone else about their innermost feelings, but he could try.

you wanted to know why anyone did something, you'd have to be them," Mercury explained. People didn't do things out of hate, but they did hate because of other negative emotions. Hate was just one big conglomerate term that everything bad got shoved into.

Lucy pondered this.

"And as long as you hold onto your convictions, there will always be people you don't understand, and that's fine. As long as you're you and can bring change based on your convictions, there's always a chance that you can make people see the same way as you."

"You really do sound old, you know?" said Lucy after a minute of thinking.

"I am old," he paused, then reconsidered. "Wait, no, I'm not old, I'm just older than you," Mercury tried to explain, but Lucy was already breaking out into uncontrollable laughter. Well, he guessed it was fine as long as she cheered up.

But wasn't she laughing a bit too hard...?

"Thanks, Merc, you're right," said Lucy when she calmed down. "Besides, I've got Natsu, and he can convince someone to turn their whole life around just by talking to them."

That... was also very true. That kid never stopped amazing people.

Mercury's stomach rumbled loudly, and he was reminded why he came here in the first place. Though he couldn't taste it, Mira's cooking always made him feel a lot less homesick. It was practically the only thing that he ate, because Mercury, despite his talent as a mage, was an abysmal cook.

The sound of his stomach caused Lucy another fit of laughter - at least while he was here, his spirits were lightened and his burdens felt more bearable.