Fairies and Figurines

"I did something bad."

Mirajane only stood there, a bar between her and her panicked brother. Slowly, she sat the mug she'd been cleaning down before saying, "That's not good."

"Mira-"

"What'd you do, Elf?" Lisanna, who was seated at the bar as well, asked.

"What'd you do?" Bickslow's dolls asked as they circled around. Since she'd begun dating their master, they always liked to be around Lisanna. "Elf?"

He glanced around at the dolls before frowning and looking at his younger sister. "Where's-"

"Bathroom," she said, shrugging slightly. "So what'd you do?"

"I broke one of Ever's little…things."

"Hmmm." Mira picked the mug back up and got back to cleaning it. "That's really not good."

"I know that, Mirajane," he told her with a frown. "I came to you for help."

"What sort of thingy is it?" Lisanna asked him. Again, he glanced at her.

"You know," he said, gesturing. "One of those little figurines that she keeps around the apartment."

"What do you want Mira to do about it?"

"Do about it?" the dolls mimicked Lisanna. She grinned at that, as she always liked when they treated her like Bickslow. It made her feel special to them.

"I don't know. You're both women." He reached into his pocket then and dropped some pieces of something on the bar top. "Can you guys find me something that looks exactly like this?"

Mira made a face at him, just staring at the object. "It'd be really helpful if we just had Ultear at our beck and call. She'd just move the pieces through time and boom. All better."

"Mirajane," Elfman groaned. "Ever's out on a solo mission and should get back tonight. If she gets there and this guy is broken-"

"These aren't very many pieces. It's a tiny thing, huh?" Lisanna shrugged. "I'll doubt she'll notice. I mean, she has so many around the apart-"

"Doubt that she'll notice?" Elfman didn't even blink. "Lisanna, the woman makes me go to all sorts of out there shops, in towns I haven't even heard of, to look for these damn things. And never, not once, has she ever bought a duplicate. She knows where each one goes and why he goes there. Which match to the same set. I live in an apartment with these damn things overflowing on every bookshelf and dresser around! She will notice that-"

"Elfman," Mirajane scolded as Lisanna only shrank back some, staring at him. His eyes were wide and he had taken to yelling. "It's us."

A breath escaped his lips then and he looked Lisanna in those mirrored blue irises.

"Sorry, baby sis," he told her, sounding completely sincere. Because he was. He didn't get upset with Mira and Lisanna. Ever. They were on pedestals that one couldn't even dream of ever reaching, no matter how pure. "I'm just… You know that Ever's really high strung. And she just….she gets to me in ways that no one can. And if she finds out that broke this thing here-"

"Oh, shit. You broke one of her little toys?"

They all looked up then as they were joined by Laxus. Mirajane only leaned over the bar until he gave her a kiss, quickly moving to take a seat right after.

"What?" Elfman glanced at his brother-in-law. "You've done it before?"

"Nope," he said as Mirajane sat a mug of beer in front of him without prompting. "I ain't a complete dumbass."

"Laxus," Mira warned, giving him a look while she was at it. "Behave."

Grunt. Then he said, "We were on a job once. And on the way back, Evergreen bought one of those things. But on the train right back, Bickslow sat on it and it broke. He-"

"I was pulling damn shards of whatever those thingies are made out of from my ass and the woman starts attacking me," Bickslow grumbled as he appeared then, apparently finished with the bathroom. Taking the seat next to Lisanna, he said, "Bitch turned me to stone!"

"Bickslow," Lisanna said as Elfman gave him a dark look. "Honestly."

"Hey, you try being turned to stone over something stupid," he said, making a face right back at Elfman, though his eyes were hidden behind his visor.

"Believe me, been there done that," Mira said, making a face at Laxus then. He only gave her a grin back though, as he was certain no one else was looking.

"That was important," he assured her. "And I'dda turned you back, the second I was master. Made you my slave or something."

"Behave."

Elfman only growled some more. "Would someone help me out here?"

"Elf, calm down," Lisanna sighed as the babies moved closer to Bickslow, as if for protection. "We'll find another stupid figurine."

"It can't just be another figurine, Lisanna," he kept up. "It has to be this figurine. This exact one. Or else it'll be a waste."

"And there ain't no way to glue it back together?" Bickslow glanced at the tiny pieces on the bar and shook his head. "Never mind."

"Well, do you remember what it looked like?" Mirajane asked.

"Yeah. Crystal clear up here." He tapped his head. "I just gotta find one that looks like. I know you collect stupid things, Mira. You got any of these?"

"No," she said, shaking her head. "I don't collect any of the stuff she does. All her figurines are different kinds of fairies and dwarfs."

"They're not dwarfs." Lisanna giggled. "They're elves."

Elfman sent her a look as she and Bickslow laughed hard at that one, his babies joining in. Laxus only made a face though.

"I'd hardly call what you do collecting, Mirajane. More like hording excessive amounts of things that we don't need, but you still waste money on."

She gave him a look. "What do you think collecting is, Laxus? And beside, Lisanna, it's not that funny. I collect these cute little trinkets of dragons too, whenever I find them. That's just something you do."

"Yeah, Lissy." Bickslow's tongue tumbled out of his mouth then as he grinned at her. "What are you going to collect of me, huh?"

"Huh?" the babies asked.

"Mmmm… Oh! Duh! I'll collect tons of little knight figurines," she said then. Bickslow nodded approvingly.

"Just so long as we don't get left out," he said. "And I'll nag you about it, but don't ever stop buying them. Apparently, this is a couple thing."

"Okay," she giggled as Laxus only rolled his eyes. Elfman was gather up the pieces once more though and pocketing them.

"I have to go then, I guess," he sighed. "I'll look around the shops for one that mimics him. Maybe I can fool her."

"Nah," Bickslow said. "You're dead, bro. Drink! Find a whore! Do something. 'cause when Ever gets back, it won't matter anyway."

With that in mind, Elfman headed out. Lisanna and Bickslow, for some reason, decided to tag along.

"In case he, like, you know, tries to off himself," was Bickslow's excuse to Mirajane and Laxus. They were too busy arguing over whether she was collecting or hording and only ignored him.

Lisanna and Bickslow more or less made a date of it, going around, hand in hand, as they watched Elfman about lose his mind. They even did a little shopping of their own as he scoured Magnolia for a figurine that look at least similar to the one that he broke.

"Ooh, Bickslow, look." Lisanna was standing in the cramped resell shop, standing over the little shelf next to her brother as his eyes fell over each statuette, fruitless in his search as he had been since the beginning. "This one's a little knight. Do you like him?"

"I love him! He's ours now, baby."

"Papa?" his babies circling close overhead asked. He made them stay super close, so that they didn't run into anything breakable. Many of them had that tendency.

"You guys can't break 'im, either," Bickslow told them. "Understand?"

"Understand," they all mimicked though Lisanna knew that was a flat-out lie. Besides, if they didn't break it, she was sure her boyfriend would. "Understand."

Elfman only groaned as he, once again, couldn't find something even remotely resembling the tiny ceramic elf he'd broken. Evergreen was going to have his head. He was going to have to buy her a million other ones, just to make up for breaking that one. She was a lunatic.

"Cheer up, big brother Elf," Lisanna said as at one point, they decided to take a break and grab some lunch. The large man was only sitting there though, staring miserably down at his food. "You know that Evergreen's anger is, like, completely fleeting. She'll be over this in no time. Bet."

"Nah," Bickslow said, mouth full as his chowed down. "You're stone, bro. Told you to go ahead and get a whore for the night."

"Stop saying that," Lisanna said, frowning at him. "Seriously."

"Sorry, Lissy," he said, grinning at her then, even pausing his eating to do so.

"Sorry, Lissy," his babies mimicked. "Sorry."

Elfman only hung his head. "Maybe…maybe I can move some of the little thingies around, huh? And then buy some time. Get out of town for a few days to look for one."

"It's whatever you want, bro," Bickslow said as he got back to eating. "Me and Lissy'll go too."

"We will?" she asked.

"Uh, yeah, Lisanna. Or do you not wanna find more knight figurines?"

"I dunno. It just seems kinda…you know, like a lot of work?"

He gave her a look of disbelief. "Do you or do you not wanna be as in love as your sister and Laxus? As Ever and your brother? I mean, Lissy, I'm beginning to doubt your commitment to the cause."

Elfman only growled. "Would you two be serious for a minute?"

"When you're not even being serious?" Lisanna asked. "I mean, fine, you broke something of Ever's. So what? You guys live there together. That means it was your stuff too. If you wanna break it you can break it."

"I really don't think it works that way," Bickslow told her softly as Elfman only hid his head in his hands.

After lunch, Elfman was planning on going home and perhaps succumbing to his fate while Lisanna and Bickslow were going to continue their date by going to the park with the babies. Not that they seemed to care anything for him. He was going to go home, see one more time if maybe he could glue together the figurine, before just going to sleep and they didn't even offer to help him out or anything. Jerks.

He was on his way there though, almost back home, when Lisanna and Bickslow turned to walk off and he started to go a different way…and sort of tripped over a rock or something on the sidewalk and went spiraling downward to the ground.

"At least there was no one in front of him," Bickslow said as he and Lisanna rushed to his side. "All that muscle would have killed a child, had he fallen down on 'em. Crushed the poor kid."

"Oh, Elf." Lisanna was quick to help him up, Bickslow moving to do so as well. "Are you alright?"

"My ankle. I think I, like, twisted it or something."

So that was how Elfman ended up in his apartment, seated on the couch with his leg propped up on the table and an ice pack around it. That wouldn't have been a big deal, had Bickslow and Lisanna not been the ones to doctor him up.

"You know what I always do when I break something?"

"My legs not broken," Elfman told Bickslow. The guy only shook his head though, holding out a bottle of whiskey to Elfman that he'd found in the kitchen.

"Hurry and drink it though, before Lissy comes out of the bathroom," Bickslow said.

"Hurry," his babies insisted.

"She don't take much to self medicating."

"I don't want-"

"Hurry!" the visor wearing man yelled.

"Hurry!" the dolls yelled.

"You gotta drink it, Elfman!"

"Drink it, Elfman!"

"It's the only way!"

"The only way!"

And apparently he hadn't grown out of peer pressure, because he downed half that bottle before Lisanna got out of the bathroom. Then Bickslow downed some of it because, well, he didn't want poor Elfman to drink alone, before rushing to go put it back in its place.

"You sure you're okay, Elfman?" Lisanna asked not soon after. The alcohol was setting in though and he could only nod. He knew the scent of his breath would tip her off and he just didn't feel like getting lectured from her.

"Well, Bickslow and I will be back to check on you in a few hours, alright?"

"See ya, buddy."

"See ya," Bickslow's dolls mimicked as the man headed to the door, winking back at the muscular man as he left.

Of all the men Lisanna could end up with…

Evergreen was a little shocked when she got to the train station in Magnolia to find that her boyfriend wasn't waiting there like usual. Most of the time, he'd like to meet her there. Take her out to dinner. Something. Especially considering she'd gone on a solo mission.

Still though, she knew that Elfman was a big goof about most things and figured he just forgot. And if that was the case, he was probably up at the guildhall, which would give her some time in the apartment alone. The thought alone put a pip back into her step. She could take a bubble bath, have some wine, and maybe even get to sleep in bed alone. It sounded godly after such a hard job.

Upon entering her apartment though, she found her boyfriend passed out on the couch, one leg on the coffee table, a dripping ice pack against it. Frowning, she rushed over to his side immediately.

"Elfman! Are you alright?"

"Mmmm?" She awoke him at the sound of her voice, making him lift his head. "E-Ever."

"How did you get hurt?" She was quick to remove the ice pack, staring at his ankle. The swelling she was sure had been there had gone down. "Did you break it?"

"No," he said, still just blinking, as if in shock to see her. "Is it that late already? I was gonna come get you. I-"

"Elf, you smell like whiskey." She frowned. "Are you drunk?"

"I am not drunk," he told her, perhaps a tad too methodical. "I'm not."

"Then what-"

"I tripped and broke one of your figurines."

"What?"

Then he frowned. Maybe he was a tad drunk. He meant to say he tripped and twisted his ankle. The thing about the figurine just somehow got entwined in there on accident.

"I-I mean…" Then he sighed. Might as well get it over with. "Ever, I sort of broke one of your-"

"Elfman, I don't care about that right now," she said, glaring at him before looking back down at his ankle. "Is it broken? Do you think?"

"Huh?" He just looked at her. "You're not mad about-"

"What did you trip over?" She still thought that he'd tripped in the apartment and broken her statuette at the same time as he had his ankle. "Did I leave something out on the floor? I'm so sorry. Do you need something? Let me get you some-"

And then the front door was opening again and another person was walking in.

"Hey, buddy? It's me! Lissy had to stay up at the bar and work it with Mira, so I came. Me and the babies. Brought some addresses of a few, you know, whores for when- And Ever's here. Wow." Bickslow just stood there for a moment, in the living room, as if in shock. "I'm totally dead now."

Evergreen frowned as Bickslow just closed the door behind them. There was no point in running from her. She'd hunt him down.

"What the hell are you talking about?" She glared at her teammate as Elfman only closed his eyes. His life was one big mess. Constantly. "What addresses?"

"Don't tell Lisanna!" He had a book in his hand and tossed it at Elfman then. "I don't even want it! It's was Laxus', you know, before he got with Mira. And then he gave it to Freed, but, well, come on, and Freed gave it to me. But then I started dating Lisanna and I didn't have nobody to give it to. I thought about, like, Gray or somebody, but I thought we should keep it in the Thunder Legion family!"

Elfman frowned down at the address book. "Laxus had to pay women to sleep with him?"

"Oh, no, he got most of them for free. They were real weird though when I called them. Charging me and shit. I-"

"You two idiots have two seconds to tell me what's going on," Evergreen said then, though it was mostly directed at Bickslow still. "One-"

"Elfman broke a figurine and I assumed you were going to, like, kill him or kick him out or something, so I was going to get him some women to pass the time."

"You what?"

"And…and now I'm leaving. So-"

"Bickslow-"

"Bye, Ever," his babies called as they followed their master out as he hurried away. She glared at the door for a moment before looking back at Elfman.

"Give me that," she complained, snatching the book from him as he took to looking it over. "Seriously?"

"He threw it at me," Elfman defended. "And we weren't really going to, like, get a woman here. You know that. He's just… I don't know. He's crazy and I don't even really like hanging around him, but Lisanna's all stuck up on him-"

Ever only rolled her eyes then before slowly moving to sit down on the couch next to him. After a moment she asked, "Did you really think I was going too be mad at you? That mad at you?"

"Bickslow said you turned him to stone for breaking one once."

"Elfman, you're hurt," she said. It was then that he realized she still though that he got hurt breaking the damn thing. That was apparently his one out. Hmmm. He was totally taking it too. "That's all I care about. Now do you need anything?"

He only shook his head slightly as she stood, taking the ice pack with her, back towards the kitchen, no doubt to get him a new one. On the way there though, she passed the side table that the figurine had previously been home to. Her eyes happened to fall over it and single out the missing one easily.

"You broke Mr. Top Hat?"

"Ever-"

"You broke-"

"You said that-"

"If you broke any one except him!" She literally was shrieking then. "You big dope! Do you know how rare he was? Do you? I searched everywhere for him!"

And that was how Elfman ended up spending one week with Lisanna and Bickslow, in which time he found out that they were even more annoying in their own home, and another one with Laxus and Mira after they kicked him out too because Bickslow's babies just didn't like sharing the couch with him.

Seriously.

"I cannot believe that Mirajane has us both out here sleeping in the damn living room!" Laxus yelled randomly one night as he took the couch and Elfman tried in vain to get comfortable in the recliner. "All because I called her a damn hoarder!"

"I'm not a hoarder, Laxus," she volleyed back from the master bedroom, in the back of the house. The two of them did that a lot, or so Elfman had found out. Yelled. All night long. At one another. They were very volatile.

…Until they made up. Then they were loud for another reason and made Elfman wish that he could just either go back home or live out on the streets.

"Fucking demon," Laxus grumbled, shifting on the couch. Then he glared at Elfman. "The fuck you looking at?"

"Nothing." Elfman only shut his own eyes, praying Ever would let him back into their apartment soon. Living with his sisters had been fun when they were younger, but living with his sister's boyfriends was turning out to be hell. "Nothing at all."