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Wendy was not having a good week she had bitten her tongue badly Monday, tripped over Tuesday, ruined one of her favourite dresses Wednesday, and to add a cherry on top of that accepted a job request Thursday that had taken longer, and more out of her, than she initially anticipated.
The job was to capture a rogue magician who was vandalising a cluster of small villages a few hours south of Magnolia. She saw no immediate issue with this request and took it to Mirajane for approval. She had confidence in her magic and abilities after everything fairy tail had been through so she wasn't worried about taking down a singular mage.
The issue, she learned shortly after stepping off from her nauseating two-hour train journey, was the kind of magic the mage had used to vandalise. A type of sludge magic that smelled so awful Wendy had been forced to wear a mask during the job, only pulling it down to shoot out a breath attack every so often.
She had defeated the mage, as quickly as she could, and had thankfully been able to leave after receiving her payment, thankfully it seemed that helping with cleanup had not been part of the request.
She had returned to Magnolia early Friday morning. She had made an immediate beeline to the dorm's washroom, binning the outfit she had been wearing along the way, and had spent hours scrubbing at her skin and hair to make sure the smell had completely left. After the third hour of grooming, tears began to prick at her eyes, regardless of the scrubbing the scent seemed to linger and to make matters worse as a consequence of her long cleaning session Natsu’s and Gajeel’s scents had been completely washed away.
A pitiful whine subconsciously left her throat, more animalistic than human, as she found the situation too much and began to properly cry. By the time she had cleaned up and returned to her room, the crying had turned to a more subdued sniffling.
“Wendy” Charle asked, keeping her tone level neither wanting to upset Wendy further nor condone her moping around. The dragonslayer's ears flicked, confirming she had her attention.
”Why don’t you go to the guild, pacing around here won’t do you any good”.
Wendy sniffled quietly, rubbing the tears off her face, the frown on her face pulling up into a genuine smile.
“That’s a great idea Charle, maybe someone will be able to help me” Though she wondered if people would be able to smell the remnants on her, she hoped Natsu and Gajeel were there.
She hurriedly rushed to put on a more suitable outfit for going outside with; her white and red dress. She squeezed Charle in a tight hug, not missing the slight wrinkle of her nose as she did so, serving as a reminder to get to the guild as quickly as she could.
Upon arrival, Wendy immediately scanned the area for Natsu and Gajeel and bit back a frustrated whine when she noticed neither was there. The lack of any of Team Natsu suggested a group job. In the corner of her vision, she saw a flash of light blue, Levy.
“Ah Miss Levy, do you know where Gajeel is?” she asked, walking up to her.Levy must have noticed how tense she seemed, ears pinned low and slitted pupils sitting in rubbed red eye sockets.
“You just missed him by a few hours I’m afraid” she responded gently.”Do you need me to try contacting him, I can try and -
“No no no, it’s fine, it’s nothing, it’s just..”
“I smell”
Levy's eyebrows shot up, and she leaned in slightly and sniffed.” You don’t smell Wendy, well you do, but like it’s a nice smell, I swear”.
“I know I probably do to most people but I don't smell like Natsu, I don't smell like Gajeel, and I really don't smell like myself, and, and it’s stressful” Wendy whined.
“Oh! I see this is a dragonslayer thing, that’s why you need Gajeel” Her face pinched slightly.
” Unfortunately Gajeels not going to be back for at least a few more days, but if you need a dragonslayer to help why not Laxus?”
Wendy wiped the building tears from her eyes. Despite the year or so they’d been guildmates she still hadn't interacted with him a lot. She didn’t know if he even had the instinct to scent, or maybe he did but wouldn’t do it anyway.
It was during her pondering she noticed someone was watching her. Her gaze flicked upwards to the second floor. Laxus was staring at her pensively, his heightened hearing noticing his name being said. He stared at her a moment longer and sniffed the air, he didn’t wrinkle his nose, which she was grateful for but continued to stare at her, most likely intrigued by the change in her scent.
“Go on” Levy said gently, shooing her away in the direction of the stairs.
She set up the stairs quietly, trying to hide her presence as much as possible, despite being in Laxus’s line of sight. She took a deep breath to steady herself at the top of the stairs and was hit with Laxus’s scent.
He smelt like petrichor, with an underlying tang of ozone. His scent was more reminiscent of her own than Natsu’s smoky scent, or Gajeel's iron one. She shuffled up to Laxus, made more intimidating by the Thunder legion bordering him.
“Mr Laxus, I, erm” She stuttered. Laxus held his hand up, mercifully stopping her from making a fool of herself.
“I heard. I don't know how much help I’ll be, but I’ll try” Laxus said, watching the youngest dragonslayer's ears perk up; thoughts flickering back to his own ears that had started to become pointed.
“But I ain’t doing it here.” A few light-hearted boos came from Bixslow’s and Ever’s direction but were otherwise silent as Laxus lead her to the library door near the top of the stairs.
They walked through numerous shelves of books until they came to the end of the large, backroom, he really didn’t want to be seen doing this it seemed. It was almost sad in a way, Wendy thought.
Laxus thumped down on a plush, but slightly moth-eaten, orange chaise lounge.
“So how do we do this then kid,” he asked, and Wendy realised she’d been right about him not being familiar with it.
“Okay so ermm, every dragon and dragonslayer has a specific scent, this is pretty much always linked to their element” he nodded “You smell like ozone for example.”
“Makes sense.” He shrugged
“The mission I went on, erm, messed with my scent and when I washed the stuff off it still didn’t go and washed off Natsu’s and Gajeel’s scent, and for a dragon - and us- that can be really stressful”
Laxus raised an eyebrow “Is smelling like them a good thing?” he questioned. Whilst it came off as a barb, and she was sure that was part of it, she could hear the genuine curiosity in his voice when he asked.
“Yes! It's a super good thing to smell like them, and not just them. Whenever Sting and Rogue are around they scent us too. It’s like a thing to know you’re important to each other I guess and it’s comforting?”
“You seem unsure”
“It’s not really something you explain but more you feel”
She took a deep breath, subtly inhaling his scent again, and went and sat next to him.
“When we scent, we make sure it's super obvious to everyone - well everyone with a heightened sense of smell-that we belong to each other. To do that we focus on certain areas, here.” She said tapping Laxus's wrists. Her face flushed and she reached up and gently poked his neck
“ And here”.
“Hmm” Laxus growled thoughtfully. His lips pulled back slightly, probably working through how weird this was to him. She caught a glimpse of his fangs. His lower canines were slightly bigger than his upper ones, with both upper and lower being bordered by smaller but equally sharp incisors. Personally, Wendy couldn’t imagine him without them, they suited him. But apparently, they had only grown in after the Fight of Fairytail and had stuck around. She’d seen the incisors grow in over the last year.
Laxus held out his wrist.
“Let’s get on with it then”
“Yes!” she chirped, the noise catching him off guard.
“I’ll be careful” she promised, Laxus snorted.
She started off slowly, rubbing his wrist against her cheek and neck area, a low purr emitting from her chest. She moved on to rubbing herself against his torso, reminding Laxus very much of a cat, and was delighted to hear a very quiet rumbling from Laxus’s chest - it wasn’t quite a purr but it was close enough. She pulled back for a second and took in her own scent, whilst it was mostly Laxus’s the scenting seemed to have removed the lingering sludge smell and made it easier to detect her own minty fragrance underneath.
Technically she could stop here, she’d done what she needed and based on the red tinge to Laxus’s ears he wasn’t as nonchalant about this as he wanted her to think. However, there was something deep within Wendy that wanted Laxus to feel what proper scenting was like, which meant.
“Your neck,” she said, gesturing with flustered movements and an equally flushed face. Laxus stared for a moment and stood up - and Wendy worried she had pushed too far - before lowering himself to kneel on the floor so that his face and shoulders were level with Wendy sitting down.
She braced herself on the shoulder furthest from her and leaned into him, resting her cool cheek against his own warm one. She rubbed her cheek against his slowly, relishing in his scent and the rough sensation of stubble against her own cheek. She wondered if it was because he was older and bigger, or the fact that his scent had a passing resemblance to Grandeeny’s, but she found herself with her face pressed into his neck far longer than was needed, and -mortifyingly - felt tears pool in the corners of her eyes. It had been a rough week and she had needed this, needed the comfort of another dragonslayer desperately.
Laxus seemed to sense something was off -and probably noted the increasing wetness of his neck - and patted her on the back, Wendy bit back a laugh remembering what Erza had said about Laxus being an awkward guy back on Tenrou Island.
“...Shall I go get Mira or something?” he asked, knowing full well he was not emotionally capable enough to deal with a crying kid.
“No, no, I’m fine I promise” she sniffed, wiping away tears for what felt like the thousandth time today. Laxus started to push himself up, hovering briefly - hesitating - before leaning into Wendy and gently rubbing his cheek against hers. Wendy chirped in surprise and immediately reciprocated. It only lasted a few seconds before Laxus stood the rest of the way up and started making his way out of the library.
He turned back around “You coming kid or what?”, his ears were bright red. Wendy’s ears flickered cheerfully and she threw herself after Laxus. They walked together till the door leading back into the guildhall, knowing she’d lose confidence if she didn’t ask now “Mr Laxus, would it, be okay if we did that again sometime?” she asked, fiddling with the hem of her dress.
He shrugged “Sure, why not. See ya around kid”.He walked through returning to his previous spot next to the thunder legion, she could hear the teasing start up immediately.
Wendy followed through shortly after, making her way down the steps and towards the guild’s front door. The door slammed open.
“Hey, Wendy!” Natsu exclaimed,” Back from your mission, how’d it go, blow anything-”
“WENDY!!! WHY DO YOU SMELL LIKE LAXUS???!!”