Mercury expected some sort of burning pain to envelop his whole body as the wave of light crashed over him.

It certainly overwhelmed every sense he had. The brightness immediately had him slamming his eyes shut, worried it would burn out his retinas because of how white and blinding it was, brighter than even the sun in the moment it enveloped the cathedral. His hearing buzzed with Laxus's maniacal laughter (he'd done it, he'd finally done it – Fairy Tail was going to be his now), and even that sixth sense that Mercury had was overwhelmed with the magic in the air.

Something so pure shouldn't have sent his heart racing. The sensation of gentle light caressing his body should have been calming.

And it wasn't painful. At least, not in the way he expected it to be.

When Laxus finished casting Fairy Law, smoke and dust rose into the air, kicked up by the waves of magic so pure that they had almost become a solid force, and it took Mercury exactly one rough, dusty cough for him to realize that his chest had started searing the moment that Fairy Law touched his body.

It was different than what had happened after Phantom Lord. That was a punishment of sorts, stemming from making his body feel like it was returning home to the ocean by submerging himself in the water; it had aggravated whatever Mother had done to him when he was forced out, like a flare up of a chronic disease of some sort.

Then, it was like his heart had been torn in two.

Now, it was like someone had stabbed him with a knife.

He fell back to the floor with a shaky breath, hands gripping once more at where he felt his heart should be, but felt no heartbeat. Something was wrong – there should be something beating there. And it wasn't like he'd just received a shock from Laxus. His heart should be working.

But it wasn't.

And while it hurt something fierce, so much so that when he tried to force breaths in, out, in, out, he felt stunned, Mercury could still function to some degree. His heart wasn't beating, but he was still moving; it was the opposite of what had happened in the wake of the Phantom Lord incident.

It would have to be a question for later. For now, he had a dragon slayer to pummel.

With sweaty hands that were far clammier than they had been mere moments ago, Mercury finally followed through with his intent to grab Laxus's collar and shake the man.

"Are you stupid, Laxus? You want to die or something?"

The water mage felt some mix of hysteria and rage set into his chest, replacing what had been beating there. He felt faint, almost feverish. His hands were cold and tingling, like they'd suddenly lost all blood flow.

"It should have worked – I know I cast it correctly," Laxus mumbled to himself, looking incredibly dazed. It wasn't the first time things hadn't worked out for him in this long chain of increasingly bullheaded plans, but it was the first time where he was well and truly out of options – there was no secondary plan (or, rather, quaternary plan) following this.

His body appeared noticeably weaker now. Those flexing muscles no longer seemed so thick and rippling, Laxus's body no longer tensing with the swell of dragon slayer magic. His shoulders were slumped slightly forward, and he had to stagger his feet in order to remain standing up straight.

Fairy Law had drained him. He hardly had any magic power left to spare.

"It worked, you idiot, but don't you see what this means?" Mercury asked.

Laxus, pointedly, did not answer.

Instead, he threw the water mage off of him, shoving with both hands to get him to release his hold on Laxus's shirt. Mercury fell away easily – too easily. He remembered the grip he'd managed to get on Gajeel's shirt and wondered exactly where all his strength had disappeared to, stumbling backwards.

"You –" Mercury broke into a small fit of coughing. Dust still rose from where it had been kicked up, shattered pews smoking from the power that came from casting Fairy Law. "You do care about Fairy Tail."

"You're lying," Laxus hissed, this time, moving forward to grab Mercury's collar. Mercury hissed as the fabric tightened around his neck, the dragon slayer pulling upwards so he had to stand on the tips of his toes to stop from being choked.

Laxus was in denial that his whole plan had failed. It would take more than a failed spell to get him to understand that this whole idiotic series of events had been based on the false premise that he hated Fairy Tail and all it stood for. The guild was not his enemy, despite what he'd lead himself to believe.

If words wouldn't work, then fists would have to do.

Mercury slugged Laxus across the cheek.

Both of the men were tired; it had been a long day, and they'd already fought themselves nearly to exhaustion earlier. Coupled with one Fairy Tail Great Magic and one whatever-the-fuck happened to Mercury in situations like this, both could hardly stand up straight, let alone fight in the way that mage did.

But that wouldn't stop either of them from trying.

"How many times have I asked today, Laxus? Are you stupid, or what?" Honestly, Mercury felt a bit like Natsu; it was the only thing he could say to describe the incredible idiocy that the lightning dragon slayer had exhibited today.

Because Fairy Law did not lie.

All of this had happened for a guild that Laxus didn't even hate. He loved Fairy Tail; the feeling had just been changed and twisted until it was unrecognizable as a positive emotion, warping into a hate, a toxic love. Laxus loved Fairy Tail so much that he wanted to change it to be like himself, even if, along the way, it meant hurting the people of the guild whom he didn't even recognize to be part of it.

Laxus took a hard step back, cradling the already-bruising cheek with his left hand. His right hand was still deeply purple from blocking at attack earlier, so he had to rely on his non-dominant one to press to his face – which left him vulnerable to Mercury's follow up right hook.

The sensation of fist meeting face was oddly satisfying. It cracked into Laxus's face once more, and this time, Mercury felt the telltale shifting of bones shifting as they broke.

Yes, this time, it wasn't Mercury's hand that was breaking. It was Laxus's nose.

The dragon slayer stumbled back, this time, both hands clutched to his nose as blood immediately started to gush from both nostrils. He cursed loudly, but Mercury held no pity for the man. Everything here had been a result of his own actions, and a broken nose was the least of what he deserved after the chaos he caused.

"I hate Fairy Tail," Laxus still tried to defend. His voice was warbled through the hands held to his face.

He slipped underneath Mercury's extended arm and countered with a roundhouse kick, his foot sparking with whatever electricity he could still manage to summon to course through the limb. It made direct contact with the water mage's side, the pain nothing compared to the punches and slaps that they had exchanged earlier. He didn't even think it would leave a bruise.

"You can lie to yourself, but you can't lie to Fairy Law, Laxus!"

Their fighting was nothing like the flurry of blows that had happened earlier. It was like they were simply two children fighting for dominance, attacks slow and lacking the power that either one should have been able to exhibit, each barely able to dodge or damage the other.

"They're nothing but cowards. I'm tired of it all – of being known only by someone else's name!"

And there were Laxus's true feelings, only coming out now that they were much too tired for anymore masks or pretending. The dragon slayer could no longer ignore the words that bubbled up in his chest now that all of his plans had failed, he'd lost most of his remaining strength, and he was forced to see his own emotions through the use of a spell he'd planned to decimate the town with.

For such a prideful man, Laxus had the emotional intelligence of a teenager. He was tired of being "Makarov's Grandson," but he hadn't realized that it had been a long, long time since anyone had thought of him like that. It was clear from the way people looked at him. With hate, disgust, sometimes, and other times with fear or even envy. None of these would ever be directed at Makarov. He was too beloved by his guild, as well as almost anyone who had met the kindly grandfather-like figure, to have such negative emotions targeting him.

"Nobody sees you as Makarov's grandson anymore, Lax. They hate you, and they love Makarov. Why would they want to associate a shitstain like you with someone that they love more than anything else?"

Laxus was enraged by this statement.

"You don't understand. It's not you who has to deal with it, the stares everywhere I go, the pressure of being the grandson of someone famous. All they see when they look at me is someone else's blood," he shouted, voice thick with emotion as he dodged another fist from Mercury.

"Then prove them wrong," the water mage spat back. He took two steps back to avoid the sparks that erupted from Laxus's fists, but couldn't avoid the way they burned into his skin and clothes. Hot electricity danced on his stomach until the fabric had all but disappeared.

Damn it. He'd have to buy a new one.

"Mer-"

"No, listen, Lax," Mercury cut in. "I can't know how you feel exactly, but believe me when I say you and I aren't all that different. You should know that from what I did tell you. We're both outsiders to our families, but that's a decision you chose to make."

Laxus might not have realized that Fairy Tail and his grandfather were the only family he'd ever had, and he'd rejected them. Called them weaklings, called them useless, but that didn't change the fact that the guild had accepted him long before he'd rejected them; even now, there were people who couldn't see the man as an outsider. Natsu, for one, always saw the good in people – he never thought that Laxus could have gone through with all of this, and even if the lightning dragon slayer had all the intent in the world to destroy everything the guild had worked for, his true feelings had shown through. Even the older members of the guild felt the same. Mercury saw the look on Mira and Bisca's faces when they'd been told about Laxus's actions. It wasn't all anger. They were sad. Laxus's actions were not entirely a surprise, but still came as a betrayal because they felt that, somewhere in his heart, he still held a shred of kindness for his guild.

And they were right. They'd seen a light in Laxus that could only be seen by someone who knew him, had watched him grow up from a loving young man to the power obsessed one who was willing to do anything to make the guild he loved strong and respected.

"What you've done today… Don't expect things to be the same. Not for a long time."

Mercury knew he had no right to judge the dragon slayer for filial piety. He'd done the same as Laxus had in the beginning, outright rejecting attempts at reconciliation when he realized that it wasn't reconciliation at all, but an order for him to change to fit what Mother believed he should be. The difference between them – because it was always differences between the two, despite being so similar that one could have thought them brothers if they looked even remotely similar – was that Laxus had chosen to fight what he thought to be stigmas and reputation following him around, while Mercury had chosen to run away.

It took all of this – a failed attempt at a coup d'etat, a successful use of Fairy Law, and a broken nose – for Laxus to finally start to understand Mercury's feelings, to understand the guild's feelings, because the water mage was absolutely certain that the words bubbling in his chest were shared by the others.

Laxus remained silent.

And while Mercury hated being the one talking about serious things – the feeling of being "preachy" filled him with distaste, reminding him of back home – he kept talking until the words were little more than rambles. His energy was fading quickly, even though Laxus hardly had enough energy himself to continue.

"Fairy Tail… is people's home. Master favors you, and they didn't want some upstart coming to take their home from them, no matter how far it was in the future, so they gave you labels for themselves. You're strong because you're Makrov's grandson, which meant it wasn't your own actions that made you that way. And even you can't deny," Mercury's words slurred as the room started spinning. ".. that part of your power comes from someone else. From Ivan. But it's your power now, so there's no point in… using it for things you don't believe in, like hating Fairy Tail."

Mercury heard the doors to the cathedral fly open with a bang, which would have startled him if it wasn't taking all of his focus to maintain standing upright. Both men had already ceased fighting, Laxus deep in thought as he considered what the water mage said; he looked contemplative, but his face had gone from a scowl to completely blank as the water mage rambled on and on.

Which was probably a bad idea now, considering even Mercury had no idea where his speech was going.

"Laxus, come quickly! Your grandfather's in bad shape! He might – he might not make it!"

Levy's voice was panicked, but also surprisingly far away. Certainly further away than the distance between Mercury and the doorway that had just been slammed open, which, actually, was because the ground was coming up to meet his face at a painfully quick speed.

Just like that, Mercury passed out from exhaustion (?).

When he came to, it was clear that only a few minutes at most had passed. Evening sunlight streamed through the cathedral's stained glass windows, casting long shadows on the people inside.

It was just he and Levy, he realized a moment later. Laxus was nowhere to be seen, nor was Natsu, whom he could have sworn was somewhere nearby.

His second realization was that his face hurt like a motherfucker. He was face down in the debris of the cathedral floor, jagged edges of wood and stone digging into his cheeks from how hard he'd face-planted as soon as Levy entered.

The girl fervently shook him as though trying to force him awake, panic evident in her eyes as she knelt at his side. She was calling his name.

Mercury tried not to cringe at the sensation of the girl's hands on his bare arm. The fabric there had been torn, though from what exactly, he wasn't sure anymore, and her fingers were like sandpaper on his skin. He fought the urge to hastily push her away.

"I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine," he repeated three times even as the room swam around him. The dizziness that had forced his face to the ground still lingered, though at a more manageable level – a more normal level, he thought to himself.

As though any amount of dizziness was normal.

Mercury bit off another cough as the dust that had gotten into his mouth reared its head within his throat, pushing himself up with sweaty hands. Even though his palms were covered in dirt, he wiped the shards of wood from his cheeks.

A small line of blood dribbled down from just under his cheekbone, but the cut that caused it had already healed.

He should have thanked Levy for lingering to make sure he was alright, but instead, he had to ask about that asshole idiot.

"Laxus?"

"He left a couple of minutes ago. Are you okay, Merc? You're awfully pale. I was so scared when you just passed out like that!"

Passing out was becoming too normal for his liking, too.

Mercury swallowed a comment about how he was always pale – Levy wasn't stupid enough to say such a thing if he didn't look really pasty – and tried to politely assure her that yes, he was fine, and no, he didn't need medical attention. Porlusyica would likely already be swamped with the rest of the guild now. He didn't need to add another body to her watch-list. He'd heal on his own soon enough.

It wasn't like he had enough wounds to warrant it, anyway. Where he'd broken his hand had basically already healed, only stiffness remaining, and the burns and bruises he'd sustained while fighting Laxus were already fading into his admittedly very pale skin. While it had always been nearly white – a side effect of coming from a race that lived in the ocean, possibly – it now looked whiter than a sheet of paper, as though there was no blood flowing through it.

It was fine.

(Probably.)

What wasn't fine was the part of his stomach that had been exposed where the sparks had burned away his clothing. If it was any other day, it might have occurred to him that any lower, and it would have been sexual harassment if Levy were to see, but at that moment all he could think about was the ugliness of the scar that lay beneath the tattered clothing.

And of all the things he'd never gotten around to telling Laxus.

He'd have to make do for now, and ignore it. Maybe no one else would notice; there were other things about Mercury's appearance that were startling at that moment, such as the stains of blood on his fist and right sleeve.

Laxus's blood.

Mother, breaking his nose had felt so good, even though he knew it shouldn't have. Mercury felt like his rage at the dragon slayer was gone now, disappeared along with the straightness of Laxus's nose. He felt… oddly at peace, the thoughts he had been harboring all this time having been voiced.

"Is Master okay?" The water mage finally asked when he felt he wouldn't cough any longer. The dust had aggravated his lungs, getting in both his mouth and gills, and his chest ached from all the hacking he'd had to do to get rid of the feeling.

Now he just felt dirty. Like he needed a bath, and to get that awful blood off his hand.

"Porlyusica didn't look like she was very hopeful. We should get back quickly. I don't know what's happened since I left, and I…"

'Don't want to miss my chance to say goodbye if it comes to that,' went unsaid.

With a nod, Mercury followed, the first couple of steps wobbly. He'd needed to put his arm on Levy's shoulder to stand straight up, but he was too tall, so he instead braced his elbow against the top of her head.

Mercury didn't want to make his way back to the guild in silence, so he filled the empty space with chatter. It was entirely unlike him – tiredness still thrummed in his head, along with whispers of the ocean returning in full force the closer they got – but Levy didn't seem to mind. If anything, she was grateful for the distraction.

Both were too worried about Makarov to voice it.

It would be awful if the last thing Makarov had seen of Mercury was him with his broken hand, blood freely dripping down and that twisted, pained look on his face.

"How'd you find where we were, Levy?" Mercury asked instead.

The bookish mage tilted her head. "You couldn't hear it? You two were being awfully loud, you know. I could hear you the moment I left the guild hall."

Mercury was sure their voices hadn't carried that far. Maybe Levy was able to sense magic the way he did, as sound?

(She did also have blue hair, though he refrained from going down the same line of inquiry that he'd had with Juvia.)

He would have to ask about it later.

When they arrived at the guild, it was in chaos. As always. As expected. It didn't feel the way that it would feel if Master was truly on his way out, with relatively cheerful shouts and the clanging of beer bottles signaling that Fairy Tail had already started another party.

It was entirely too loud for Mercury at that moment. He would have joined in if his head wasn't still throbbing. He had a lot to think about, anyway, and the loud jeers were too loud for him to think of anything other than how much his skin ached.

For example, when Porlyusica came out of the guild just as they were entering, took one look at him, and said, "You're not dead yet?", it took him a solid three seconds to register what she'd said before he managed to respond.

"I'm just fine, thank you very much. I don't think I'll die anytime soon," Mercury said with as pleasant a smile as he could manage. He truly appreciated the healer for what she did for the guild, but sometimes she was incredibly grating. She didn't treat him the same way she treated the rest of the guild – her distaste for them came from a distaste for humans, which Mercury was pointedly not – but that didn't mean she was pleasant to be around.

Porlyusica looked him up and down as though to say she thought otherwise, though her mouth remained wisely silent.

"Is Master okay?" Levy asked quietly.

Porlyusica hated humans, but even she couldn't get away from Levy's innocent charm.

"He'll be alright, unfortunately. You go tell that man that if he doesn't retire soon, this will happen again," she said, then added, "... and next time, it will be worse."

The healing lady really did care for Makarov. Even if she was harsher on him than others, it just meant that she liked him that much more, in an odd twist.

Mercury would never understand women like her.

They bid her farewell and safe travels, to which she'd scoffed with an eye roll that wasn't truly as irritated as her voice sounded and headed back to the Western forest where she resided.

Even though his throbbing head wanted to reject it, Mercury followed Levy's lead as she pushed open the guild to the guild hall, more cheers and calls for another round going up as soon as they both entered. A toast to the "Heroes of the Day," someone called it, though the water mage truly believed it to be much to high praise for someone who essentially just broke Laxus's nose in an attempt to get through to him – though the majority of the guild would have likely fought for the chance to be in his position if they knew it was going to happen.

The dragon slayer was clearly not very highly respected anymore – if he'd ever really been in the first place. Respect was one thing; envy and fear were another.

Mercury heard people cursing out his former (?) friend even from the entrance to the building, even above the battle cry that Natsu screeched out the moment he'd fully entered.

And of course, the dragon slayer launched himself at Mercury the moment they made eye contact.

"Merc! Did you fight him?" Natsu said as he latched himself onto Mercury's shoulder. The boy hung off of the water mage's shoulders that now ached and throbbed painfully as though the veins within were shrinking. Even aside from Natsu's rough fingers on the cold skin of his bicep, the touch felt more uncomfortable than normal, though it wasn't as though the boy cared about personal space.

The loudness of it all in front of him overwhelmed Mercury immediately.

He wasn't one to shy away from loud noises. He liked the guild because it was loud, but for some reason, today it seemed to be more than he could handle. The sounds echoed near-painfully. Maybe it was just the stress of today, or perhaps even the way that people were looking at him like some sort of hero when he'd just basically chosen Laxus over all of them.

"Yes."

Mercury hardly had the energy to pretend to be stern to Natsu at that moment. He could imagine the look on his face – weary, pained, uncomfortable. The water mage felt naked, like everyone in the guild was suddenly able to look right through him and see all the ugly bits that he carefully kept hidden.

(Like the fact that he still chose Laxus over them despite being ready to pummel the man just mere hours ago. Or maybe that nasty scar on his stomach that peeked out from torn fabric, a remnant of a past that just wouldn't seem to leave him alone.)

Lucy, always close behind the dragon slayer, seemed to pick up on his discomfort, because she gently pulled Natsu away with expert hands. Mercury could kiss the girl. She immediately took to distracting Natsu with talk of their fight with Bixlow, then pulled Levy, who immediately took the hint, into the conversation to wrest Natsu's attention away from the tired man.

The water mage would have to thank her later. For now, he felt like he had to go check on Master.

"Check on" was probably not the right word for it; he pondered what carried his feet forward as he took each step towards the infirmary where Master was still resting. Something in his chest was hot, heavy. It lingered sternly in his lungs, which felt too shallow to take deep breaths when he turned to face the Master, sitting up in his infirmary bed and staring out the window.

The master looked better. Mercury was glad, though the feeling evaporated into something dangerously close to guilt when the man turned to look at him with hollowed, sad eyes. It was a look that hardly ever appeared on Makarov's face – a look that didn't seem to fit within the shining, slightly drunk smile that usually graced his face.

"Mercury…" Master trailed off.

Mercury sighed, hot guilt coming through his chest.

Master Makarov loved Laxus. It was abundantly clear. Everything that had happened today hadn't changed that, and nothing likely would, but that didn't mean it didn't hurt. It became a competition in Makarov's heart between his grandson and his children, and Mercury hadn't been able to stop it. Hadn't been able to do anything as Master's children had fought each other black and blue, hadn't been able to prevent Laxus from casting a spell that put both himself and the whole town in danger.

"I'm sorry," was the only thing Mercury could think to say.

"You have nothing to apologize for, my boy." Coming from any other person, it might have irritated Mercury to be called a boy, but coming from Makarov, it held a sense of comfort and familiarity. To Makarov, that word was a sign that he saw the water mage as his family; it was more than he deserved, and more than he could ask for.

Mercury sighed deeply at the thought. "I couldn't… Laxus was going to cast Fairy Law, and I didn't stop him."

Not 'couldn't stop him.' Didn't. It was a conscious decision.

Mercury had chosen Laxus over the guild. That much was obvious to him, and yet that throbbing sensation in his chest that could have been determination told him he'd do it again.

He and Master were opposites in that sense.

Makarov took a deep breath, but didn't seem surprised at the mention of Fairy Law. Mercury shouldn't have been surprised, either. Master Makarov always seemed to know everything that went on in Magnolia, especially when it came to his guild.

"That foolish grandson of mine knew exactly what he was doing when he came up with all of this, but he wasn't thinking about the consequences of his actions. From the perspective of his grandfather, you may have saved his life."

It didn't make Mercury feel any better.

"But, I…"

"There is nothing to feel guilty over. You did what felt right in the moment, and that's all I could ask for."

Right then and there, Mercury broke.

He couldn't say he'd cried many times in his life. Only a few times came to mind. When his wife and daughter died. When he escaped back to the beach to find the house razed to the ground. When one of the previous members of Fairy Tail had reached their hands out to a lonely creature who looked and acted to be human, but wasn't.

He was glad that Makarov was the only one in the room to see him shed a tear or two.

The whole day crashed down around him, walls of anger and relief combining into one large wave that made his head feel so heavy that he could hardly hold it up. Hot tears spilled down his face, landing at his feet. When the dam that he'd spent so long building up broke, it broke hard.

It wasn't just that he'd chosen Laxus over the guild; it was that Laxus chose to reject the guild they both had loved. Laxus had chosen to reject him. Even though they'd fought – the echoes of those harsh, scathing words still echoed in his head – and Mercury had hated the man, Laxus was still…

His first friend?

If not that, then his first brother. Not in the sense of blood ties, but if anything else.

And now Laxus was definitely going to have to face the consequences of his actions, whatever those may be. He definitely would not be allowed to remain in the guild. Even if he was, there was no way that any of the guild members would ever be able to trust the dragon slayer around him ever again; not everyone held the same faith in people that Natsu did, and the only one who had seen the result of Fairy Law's truth was Mercury himself.

It was as Mercury had said. Things would not be the same for a long, long time.

Those days of lackadaisically going on whatever jobs seemed interesting, of hanging around the guild on off days to relax the stress of the world away – it was all gone. Had been for a long time, but now, it was well and truly not going to happen again.

The first meeting between Mercury and Laxus hadn't exactly been serendipitous. In fact, it was not long after the former returned to the guild for the first time in almost ten years, so it made sense that no one recognized him at all; Laxus, at least, certainly hadn't. The only familiar face at the time had been Master Makarov – though "familiar" was a stretch at the time. Mercury hardly recognized the only man, and wouldn't have at all if not for the intense, kind eyes that he remembered so strongly.

And like Makarov, Laxus also had the same eyes.

Intense and passionate were two words that could always be used to describe the lightning dragon slayer. No matter what he did, he put his whole effort into doing it – even the smallest of tasks were important because they were his way of proving himself to the elders in the guild.

Of course, the first time that Mercury had seen those eyes, they'd been filled with bristling irritation. Their first conversation had gone a little something like this:

Laxus first asked, "Who the hell is this guy?"

Makarov's response was, "He's a friend of mine," and Mercury's simultaneous answer was, "Aren't you a little young to be an asshole?"

Obviously, Laxus hadn't taken that very well. He'd squared up his shoulders, attempting to stand taller than the water mage, but at the time he had only been fifteen and in the desperate throes of puberty, and Mercury was fully grown. There was little the little lightning dragon slayer could do to be any sort of intimidating.

Other than punching him in the face.

Perhaps that was the obvious conclusion; Laxus at fifteen years old wasn't much different than Laxus now, at twenty two years old. There was no way he was going to take that laying down, especially if it was true. His balled fist hit Mercury straight in the eye.

And he laughed. Mercury couldn't help himself – it was just too… what? Amusing, seeing a kid show such emotion so brazenly? Or perhaps it was just funny because the first human touch he'd felt in almost half a century was getting slugged. Either way, it was too funny to not chuckle a little bit.

Well, Makarov didn't laugh, but that's because he was Laxus's grandchild, and Mercury was technically something like an old friend.

Laxus's fist immediately had Mercury's eye bruising, and it should have been a nasty black eye if not for the fact that it had begun fading soon after it had started turning purple. It was Laxus's first indication that there was something not right with the man in front of him.

Calling them friends after that would have been really pushing it. In some ways, it was mere fascination that drew them together. Mercury was interested in someone who showed such great passion that it nearly burned, and Laxus was interested in what sort of freak it was that his grandfather had dragged in. He even told Mercury as much, many, many times.

But the word didn't hurt when it came from Laxus.

Perhaps Mercury had just grown entirely numb to it, or maybe he just knew, somewhere deep inside, that Laxus didn't mean it. Either way, he stuck around, not quite clinging to the boy yet also not quite letting him go at it alone. Laxus was nothing more than a foul-mouthed brat at that point, but he certainly wasn't malicious. He was just arrogant. And brash. And it wasn't until years later that Mercury learned that was just how teenagers acted, because all of Fairy Tail tended to be at least one of the two.

(The water mage included.)

That was the origin of the Thunder God Tribe.

It wasn't much of a tribe at first. Just Mercury and Laxus, who went on jobs as frequently as possible. The pair became partners in crime. Two of the most chaotic characters that Fairy Tail had ever seen, and that was saying something, because Gildarts was still young and hung around the guild often enough that the property damage was near-constant. Their infamy spread rather far; soon, there were people who could recognize at least the young dragon slayer at first. Mercury, who had no interest in fame and was just following along to appease his long-lived boredom, didn't care if no one knew his name as long as those in Fairy Tail knew him. Even then, there were only a handful of people he actually cared for.

Though… At some point, when he wasn't paying attention, that "handful" became two handfuls, and then three, and suddenly, he cared far too much for people who would be living far shorter lives than he was.

Soon, their duo became a trio – Fried had already been part of the guild by the time Mercury had, and had been tasked by Makarov to try to limit the damage the duo were doing. It failed spectacularly, and Fried was dragged into their crimes; it wasn't too long after he started accompanying them that the Rune mage was starting to rack up debts like it was nobody else's business. That led to the three of them going on even more jobs to try to pay it back.

After Fried was Evergreen, and then quickly after her, they stumbled across Bixlow. Their trio became a group of five, and the "official" name of the Thunder God Tribe started getting tossed around. Dark guilds feared them. The Magic Council dreaded hearing about them. Fairy Tail itself trembled at the idea of their group going out because it meant that they'd soon be even further in debt.

And that was okay. Everything was okay.

They were a happy… well, family certainly wasn't the right word, but it was certainly as close to one as Mercury had felt in a long time.

They went on jobs together. They ate together. Sometimes they even had to do cute little things like camp out together. Mercury learned that Laxus had been implanted with a dragon lacrima by his father, and he was outraged. He learned that Bixlow never had parents growing up, which he could empathize with, to a degree, and that Evergreen's mother spent all their money on drugs, so they'd grown up incredibly poor. Fried, too, had suffered abuse at the hands of his mother's family, finally becoming fed up with it to the point that he'd run away and joined the first guild he'd seen, which happened to be Fairy Tail.

Honestly, the amount Mercury could relate to each and everyone was startling, and it almost made him forget the fact that they were so different for a long time. But he didn't forget, because what if his brothers came looking for him, and he had to flee and leave them behind? What if his brothers asked the Thunder God Tribe for information? They were smart enough to realize that his brothers weren't asking out of good will, but not strong enough to face them in a head on fight. What if his brothers refused to take 'no' for an answer and –

What if.

So Mercury kept them all sparse on the details, telling himself that it was because he was afraid of his brothers and not scared of rejection.

(Because what would Bixlow think of the man who ran away from loving "parents," even if that love was a toxic one? What would Evergreen think of the man who never grew up wanting for anything other than acceptance, and had thrown it all away? What would Fried think of the man who had a family to belong to, who ran and ran and ran away from it until it came back to haunt him?)

(What would Laxus think of the man who was so pathetic that he chose to run from his family, even if it meant it could kill him?)

Mercury told them some things. The fact he wasn't human wasn't exactly an easy thing to hide, and at least Laxus and Fried knew right away, because he'd announced it to the guild during one of their particularly heavy booze binges (he'd thought it would have been funny, and indeed, it was hilarious). He'd also mentioned a little bit of how things used to be. They knew he had a wife. They knew she was dead, but that was easy to guess, anyway.

Other than that, though, he hadn't said much.

It never really seemed to bother anyone. Mercury was just a secretive person, they'd thought, or he just didn't want to talk about it. There were still some tender times where they did talk about things he hadn't wanted to bring up; one time, Mercury got so sick that he could hardly take two steps without vomiting – sometimes, his own regenerative ability could be a detriment, and viruses tended to take him down hard if one could get a proper foothold – so he'd been properly delirious, spitting out whatever thought came to mind.

The Thunder God Tribe stayed by his side at that time. It was nice to be taken care of, but he definitely had said more than a couple of things that ended up being detrimental in the long run.

And then everything had started tumbling down around the time that the S-Class trials started the following year.

It was a cold winter. Mercury hated the cold, so he was already irritated, yet he still let himself be dragged around by Laxus and the Tribe's desire to become stronger and be prompted. The trip itself was fine, but things turned out rather disastrous – mostly for himself, though. And that was fine, because who cared if he got hurt if it meant that the others were fine?

But Laxus got nominated for the S-Class trials that year. Mercury hadn't, because he'd specifically told Master not to; he couldn't cross the ocean even if he wanted to, and even barring that, the water mage had little reason to actually go through with it. Being in the guild was fun and all, but who knew when he'd be struck with the urge to leave again? When Makarov died? When the Thunder God Tribe grew up? When Mercury got overwhelmed with the realization that he wasn't human and didn't belong there?

Laxus knew none of that.

When he asked Mercury to be his partner, and Mercury said no without reason, he was understandably hurt – except Laxus was seventeen at the time, and still had no idea how to funnel his emotions, or even put a name to them. Instead of sadness, Laxus was angry.

So, so angry.

It wasn't their first fight. They'd had plenty before; both boys were obstinate and as stubborn as a bull, so they were bound to clash often. It was just that those past arguments were over such unimportant issues that they were easily dropped after a couple minutes of wrestling or light sparring, regardless of who was wrong and who was bullheaded. Everything quickly went back to a calm normal.

The results of this fight were anything but "light."

In Laxus's eyes, Mercury was abandoning him – the very thing Mercury was afraid that the lightning dragon slayer would do to him. Instead of confronting his own feelings or putting them into words, however, he chose to attempt to inflict the same feeling onto the one who'd wronged him. Laxus couldn't be abandoned if he chose to abandon Mercury first, after all.

Thus, their worst fight ever occurred (or, at least, it would be their worst fight until the events of the Battle of Fairy Tail, six years later).

Fairy Tail later would say it was a fight of the sky against the sea; they'd never seen the hall so wrecked on the inside, even on Gildarts's worst days. Tables were obliterated by bolts of lightning, and the chairs and benches were swept away by waves of water – and that wasn't even mentioning what happened to the people who were inside. There weren't any (serious) injuries, but the scars within the guild hall would not be healed for a long time.

The scars within Mercury and Laxus's hearts would not be healed for even longer.

Laxus wanted to hurt Mercury. It was fairly easy to do so, really. The water mage was a man who bottled and bottled and bottled until he couldn't bottle it up any more, and he'd been bottling for close to half a century at that point. Laxus's words were sharp like barbed wire, straight to the point.

"I bet your wife killed herself after marrying someone who was so pathetic and weak."

Who knew that Laxus was so good at getting to people? It had always been something Mercury found enjoyment in – searching for weaknesses, pointing them out, and getting an enemy riled up. Angry people, of course, were prone to making a lot of mistakes.

If Mercury was able to see this as just a "mistake," as something said in the heat of the moment… perhaps things would have turned out far nicer.

It had been him that struck first. Words were sharp, but they weren't heard by everyone, so it was that first punch – the action that they could all see – that was remembered. Among everything else, the people who had seen the fight start, who had seen that first punch and had heard the yelling, would know that he was the one who had started it.

That was fine, because Mercury didn't want anyone else to hear the words that Laxus had just said. They were so deeply personal, so intentional, that he feared anyone else even knowing what was said.

Mercury put his hands around Laxus's throat with the intent to choke the boy out, squeezing so hard that the veins on his forearms looked like they were going to pop out.. He could talk all he wanted about how the lightning dragon slayer – who, really, was only just a lightning mage at the time, unable to control his strength as he was – was childish, immature, and couldn't control his emotions, but the water mage was hardly any better in that regard.

So, yeah. Mercury struck first, and from there, everything devolved into an all out war.

Lightning flashing; water raging; the cries of those unlucky enough to get trapped within it; the sights and sounds were engraved in Mercury's mind as a moment of his greatest failure – rising to Laxus's bait.

It wasn't over until Master Makarov and Gildarts physically pried them apart. No one else in the building at the time had the strength to do so, and even Gildarts seemed to have a tough time even getting close to the raging maelstrom. That was understandable; Gildarts couldn't destroy what he couldn't touch, and the combination of Mercury and Laxus had always been like a thunderstorm on the open ocean – a literal force of nature.

There was no stopping them without going all out. Mercury remembered it viscerally. Gildarts had subdued Laxus, and Makarov had pressed Mercury into the wall so tightly that he thought his eyes were going to pop out. It had hurt, but not nearly as much as that thing in his chest that should have been a heart.

He and Laxus had been through their fair share of troubles together. There'd been times where their fight against dark guilds had almost been fatal; Mercury had nursed Laxus back to health on more than one occasion, and Laxus had been someone that Mercury trusted his back to for almost a year and a half.

Their fight wasn't just something that hurt. It was a betrayal, because it had been that trust that Laxus had trampled all over.

Mercury's last words to Laxus that day were simply, "I hate you."

… And that was that. Neither party talked to each other unless they were insulting the other, despite both knowing, deep down, that they'd overreacted, and it almost came to blows more than a couple of times. Laxus's attitude got worse. Mercury's patience grew thinner. Neither one wanted to admit defeat, despite the Thunder God Tribe urging both to reconcile.

It never came to be.

That wound that Laxus had given him was just too deep, too raw no matter how much he waited for it to heal. Why open up to others if they were just going to treat him like that? Why allow himself to be vulnerable when it just gave people ammunition to hurt him?

Time passed like that. Too many tiny events happened, piling up on Mercury's back to become what he was now. Romeo was born, Laxus did, in fact, become S-Class – closely followed by Erza, and then Mira the following year. Lisanna died. The guild mourned.

Soon, Lucy joined, and for some reason, that seemed to kick off the never-ending chain of events that the guild had been dragged into recently – of which, Laxus participated in none. Not the Lullaby Incident, nor Phantom Lord. He stayed away from Fairy Tail, believing them to be the same as Mercury himself – weak. Pathetic.

Perhaps they were. Mercury believed all those words that Laxus had said; he was weak and pathetic, and he was a freak, and it was his fault that his wife was gone, but that at the same time…

Did it matter?

Wasn't that the point of family? To share weakness and defeat cowardice; to support each other through thick and thin, no matter the situation?

At least, that's what Fairy Tail had taught him.

But the street went two ways – how could they share his weaknesses if they didn't know what they were? How could they support him if they didn't know the situation?

And so Mercury resolved himself to do the one thing he had been actively avoiding. Bits and pieces of his aloof facade had already been lost long ago, fragments laying forgotten in the hands of the Thunder God Tribe and shards within the hearts of people like Mira, who had been trying to get him to open up. It wasn't fair of Mercury to do that to anyone. It wasn't their job to break him apart to really know him.

He could only think of one person who deserved to know first. He would come full circle, ending at the same spot he first started.

Laxus Dreyar.

A/N

This is so odd, but I finally started reading 100 Year Quest since it's airing right now... Wow. Mercphobia. What an interesting character. I feel like an idiot for coming up with a character that's a) almost named the same as a canon one and b) has a really similar character setting, but I guess that's kind of just how it goes?