Hello! Here is the next chapter! Enjoy! (Or at least I hope you do :3)

And I probably don't even have to say this, but...
Please leave a review! I am dying to know what you guys think about the story!

Hiro Mashima owns Fairy Tail and I'm just playing with the characters.


Lucy sat on the edge of their bathtub brushing her teeth. She watched almost hypnotized as Laxus shaved his face. Every time it was the same pattern. First he would spread the shaving cream, obviously, and then in would come the razor. Right cheeck, left cheeks, under the chin and lastly the area around the mouth. That was the pattern. And no matter how many times she had seen it, she just never got tired watching it. Maybe it had something to do with her silent wish.

"Why wouldn't you let it grow out a little?" She blurted out suddenly, finally giving a voice to said wish.

"And look like Gramps. No thanks." Laxus scoffed, the razor in his hand gliding over a cheekbone, removing any facial hair with dedication.

"I don't know," Lucy walked to the sink to spit the toothpaste foam from her mouth. "Small stubble could be sexy." She suggested, before picking up a glass of water and taking a sip from it.

The razor halted on its track and Laxus glanced down at her with are-you-serious look. "Am I the only one who remembers the time I came home with a 'small stubble' and the reaction I got from my girlfriend back then?"

Lucy lifted her finger up, telling the man to wait as she rinsed her mouth. Done with it, she spat the water out and immediately started her counter attack. "Let's make few things clear. First, that wasn't a 'small stubble', it was a full-ass beard. And second, yes, I admit, I was slightly taken back back then. But! you can't blame me. I had hardly seen a single hair on your face before and then you suddenly showed up with a bush growing from your face."

'Slightly taken back' might have been understatement from her part this time. Like yesterday, Lucy could still remember the day she learned that, like any other man, Laxus was very much capable of growing out his facial hair.

It was about half a year into their relationship. They had just moved together and Laxus had been send to a month long mission. Even back then she knew that the man shaved regularly, but for some reason she never connected the dots in her head that maybe shaving meant that he really had something to shave off. In fact, at that point, she had never even considered the fact that Laxus could grow a beard.

So, you can only image how startled she had been, when one night, while she had been sleeping alone in their shared bed, she had stirred up to the movement of the mattress. Thinking, of course, that it was Laxus, who had finally come back home, she had started fumble through the dark. And like she had predicted, her hand indeed found his. Their fingers were intervened and she had felt him closing in for a kiss.

Without doubing the person's identity, she let him place his lips against hers. It was a kiss she had been waiting for a month, but something had felt amiss. There had been this odd tickling all around her mouth. Confused, but refusing to brake off the kiss, she had lifted her free hand to caress her boyfriend's cheek. And the moment her palm had brushed against the coarse hair instead of the familiar smooth skin...

She had never been scared so badly. Her heart had jumped up her throath and she had leaked a spoonful in her panties.

With a scream, she had pushed her kisser away. She had ended up using so much force that along with the man she had managed to push herself off the bed. She must have hit her head as the couple seconds after that were slightly hazy. All she could recall was the feeling of her panicking heart hammering against her rib cage and the many threats that had flied out of her mouth, some of them even meantioning Laxus himself.

She had never been so scared in her life, but all it took to calm her down and dissolve the fear was the sound of his familiar voice.

"What the fuck, Lucy?" had come from the darkness, just second before the light on the nightstand had been turned on. And there he was leaning against their bed with a confused scowl, looking exactly like she remembered. With a small exception, of course. The beard, which covered the lower half of his face.

And she had burst in to laugh. She had known that it wasn't the best way - or moment - to unwind the stress build-up, but she couldn't help herself. The whole situation had been just so absurd. Laxus, on the other hand, was far from amused and her laughter only made it worse.

Thanks to that, that day had been the first and the last time she had seen the man with a beard of any length. Which was a kinda sad, because she had actually liked the look quite a bit. She just had missed the opportunity to tell him that then.

"Slightly taken back, my ass..." Laxus mumbled as he turned his left cheek for shaving. He was still bitter about the case, it seemed.

"Heyyyy," Lucy slide herself between the sink and her boyfriend's big build. Hands around his waist, chin against his chest and eyes on a full puppy-mode. "You did look hot back then. You gotta believe me."

Laxus stopped to look down at her. She blinked her eyes innocently and smiled. The longer he stared at her, the more she started to believe that she was finally getting through to the man, that he might actually consider growing his beard out a little.

It was futile hope.

Without a warning the man scooped some of the foamed shaving cream from his face and wiped it across hers. "Yeah, right." He snorted. "I might consider growing one when I turn 50, if you just let me shave in peace now."

Lucy, who had been ready to slash at the man for the nasty stunt he pulled, halted. It didn't take long for her to register what he had just said. A smile, reaching from ear to ear, formed on her face. "That's a promise!" She exclaimed. "Can't take it back now!"

And to make sure he couldn't, she quickly washed her face, dried it with a hand towel and hurried out of the bathroom. She stopped by the door to say one last thing to Laxus. She wanted to make sure he knew precisely what kind of a trouble he just got himself in to. "You better be ready to be stuck with me for the next 17 years, because you will not get rid off me before I have seen that beard on your face." She declared.

"Only 17 years?" Laxus glanced over his shoulder with a smirk. "I thought you could handle my ass at least double the time."

Lucy blinked couple of times, eyes wide. Then broke into confident smile. "You're on!" She was positive that even after 100 years she would still be very much in love with this man.