Fairy Tail belongs to Hiro Mashima

Warnings: Sexual content, adult themes.

Perfect Drug

I know he's a criminal. I see it every time I show up and he's not expecting it; those are the times he hasn't washed the blood off his hands. I see it in the plethora of guns and the fake money he makes. It's undermining the city and my father's efforts to clean up the streets but I say nothing when my father asks if I've heard from the Dragneels. He used our friendship to get to them one too many times and I'm smarter now. Neither one of them will be arrested again because I let something slip. They won't be found because my father follows me to the rooftop paradise they've made for themselves. When I visit them now, it's during the daylight hours when my father thinks I'm working. I imagine that other grown women don't have to hide their associations but not this Heartfilia. It's bad PR, I hear, for the Magnolia Police Department's Captain's daughter to be friends with people like the Dragneels.

Does the Coffin Ridge Cafe owner ever wonder why I come through every Wednesday at one and disappear into the back through the service entrance? I haven't been expressly told, but from what I've come to understand, Eileen Belserion with her hair as painfully red as sunsets knows the Dragneels and what they do and knows everyone they're affiliated with, too. I've never seen someone come through this entrance that Zeref wasn't expecting in one way or another.

The stairs I climb belong to a building that's much older than Eileen has portrayed Coffin Ridge. It's from the turn of the century and the steps are narrow and wooden. The third from the top squeaks; I don't avoid it because I don't like sneaking up on either of the Dragneels. The door that keeps the roof and the bar separate is made of solid wood, as ancient as the stairs, and the hinges squeal loudly when I open it.

Outside, the world is bathed in sunlight and Zeref stands on the edge of the flat roof with his foot on the ledge. He's drinking, though it's midday, and I imagine that he's had to do something hard. He hurts people and he doesn't like it. He's not even used to it, though I imagine sometimes when I'm lying awake at night, that one day, he won't drink a shot for every bullet he's fired or every time he's bruised his knuckles.

Though he's heard me, he keeps his back to me and takes another drink. I can't tell how long he's been out here for. The back of his neck is red by the sunlight and his skin is beaded with sweat. I don't see Natsu so I go to Zeref. The soles of my short leather boots aren't thick enough to protect my feet from the rocks I step on. It hurts but I welcome the pain. It's distracting. I don't have to think about what my father would say if he saw me up here. I don't have to think about what I'm doing when I stand at Zeref's side and take his hand.

Every time I touch him, he is at first as unyielding as stone. He must be coaxed. Led and teased and baited. The first time I touched his cheek like this, I was a child and he wasn't much older. What did thirteen-year-old Lucy know about anything? Nothing and then some. When I had kissed him then, he wouldn't speak to me for months. It wasn't until I got older and understood more about this world that I knew why. Too young, we were too different, his brother was too much in love. All it took was one bad night, too much whisky and a lack of inhibition to bend him my way.

It's still there but we don't talk about the stuff he thinks should keep us apart.

"Where is he?" I ask.

"With Yukino."

I imagine Natsu kissing Yukino as he tried to kiss me once. I feel a small longing for something that could also be as sweet as honey but know that despite the way I was raised, I cannot have everything. People are people, not things I can buy and keep indefinitely at my beck and call. Besides, this is enough.

He turns to me and I'm caught in eyes as hard and as cold as onyx, as deep and dark as black holes, as endless as the midnight sky, and I know why I'm in love. Danger and morality haven't hindered the emotion. I want something I shouldn't have and I want it fiercely. I want it as badly as I've ever wanted anything and I would do dangerous and insane things to get it.

"We need to stop this, Lucy."

"Why?" I ask and Zeref tells me all the things he's always told me, though today, they're told with even less conviction than usual.

"He drinks too much."

"You both do."

"It's hard on him."

"I know but I never asked him to love me."

Then he says something new. "You don't discourage it, either."

That's not fair and he knows it before I tell him so because he flinches. "Why are you trying to hurt me?"

"I'm trying to protect everyone."

"I don't want to be protected."

He laughs humorlessly. "I know." Abruptly, he changes the subject. "Have you turned on the news today, Lucy?"

"No." And I suddenly don't want to know why he's asking, either. I loop my arms around his neck and pull him in close to me. "I don't want to talk about that."

He holds my biceps like he's going to pull away but doesn't. Zeref has always had problems pulling away. "We should."

"Later." I raise on tippy-toe and kiss him and he doesn't push the subject again, though his response is slow. First, he won't open for me and when he does, he lets me do all the work. I know that there is something wrong. Something horribly, horribly wrong. I willfully ignore it and pour myself into this.

Zeref pulls away and gasps like he's short of breath. One in, two, three. He takes another gulp of his whisky. I want his attention again. It feels bold to take my clothes off on Coffin Ridge's roof when I first start. Who knows if that's truth, though? Can anyone see me from the ground? Or how about their windows? Will someone walk up the stairs and through the doors? If it's happened before, I never noticed, too enthralled with what I was doing.

Today, I've worn a dress that will be easy to get out of. Crochet and loose-fitting, it comes up over my head with ease and then I'm just startlingly bare. The wind plays over my skin and twists my hair in front of my face and Zeref's eyes go soft, the tenseness in his mouth disappears. He throws the bottle over the roof and it bursts below. With his hands free, he can't help but touch me. His skin is calloused and his knuckles knobby from too many fights, his trigger finger feels deadly sliding over my lips and down my neck. He fills his hands with my breasts and whatever has been troubling him eases. I am better than whisky and drugs. I am better than fighting and I'm better than killing and I live for the way Zeref's shoulders drop and his breath comes out in a giving-up-the-fight gust.

His kisses are the best I've ever had. Every single one of them is packed with we shouldn't be doing this and I eat it up, a girl starving for something I should never have. Sometimes, I've thought that I'm selfish. Sometimes, I don't care. Every little thing he gives, I take and I take greedily. His touches, his breaths, his moans. I forget about the hot sun beating down on the roof and making me sweat. I forget about the eyes that could be on my skin. I forget about hurting people I care about and I do what I want.

Zeref is dressed plainly today, though not practically. Despite the heat, he's in black and it suits him. He's dark and brooding and so is his clothes. His T-shirt comes over his head and I see he's filled with too many scars. He fights too much. He gets hurt too much. I love him too much for it.

Selfish Lucy.

His skin is hot when usually, it's cool. I press myself against his chest and know a kind of tortured peace. Nothing so bad for me should ever feel this good.

My heart jumps when he pulls me in by the hip and I can feel him straining against his pants. At my back is a wall. Gone is the ledge and here is a small corner. I can't remember how we got here. Zeref's mouth leaves mine and blazes a south-bound trail of anticipation. He gathers the skin of my neck between his lips and he's so, so gentle. Gentler than I think he's ever been in his life. Goosebumps come and I'm already lost. I let him work because I know it can get better and it will.

Sometimes, it feels like the only thing holding me together when we do this are Zeref's hands. He'll let his fingers dig into my sides and my hips hard enough that I think I should have bruises but I never do. On the brink is when he gives me pleasure. His lips close over my breast and I find the blackness behind my eyelids. Every cell in my body is singing from just that small touch and I want to ride it out. I've forgotten about the heat and almost about the roof; if I didn't hear Zeref's boots sliding in the gravel, I'd expunge it entirely and maybe I'd know peace.

Zeref never lets things go stale and is moving his lips again, down my sternum and toward my hips. Every so often, he gathers my flesh between his teeth and he nips. When he does that, I draw in a breath and open my eyes. Midday light is blinding. The city moves around us and we're separate. Cars and planes and trains, pedestrians, they have no place here. The roof is ours.

I lift my leg when he asks and Zeref pins it against the wall with one hand on my knee. Every time he uses his tongue, to speak, to pleasure, it makes me want to die. A kiss is left at the very base of my leg just inches from my favourite spot and he looks up. Zeref wasn't meant for sunlight, but its kind to him; it makes eyes that could be hard and cold earnest. It gives his skin just a slight olive complexion. It makes his hair warm beneath my fingers. It makes me absolutely believe him when he says, "I love you," and I tell him, "I know." It's not the kind of love that's absolute. It's built off secrets and it's built off 'I shouldn't have's' but I think it could be pure. It could be real. And I could fall to pieces.

His tongue leaves fire in its wake and I think I'm dying, Silks and furs and luxury can't compare to the way I feel standing on this rooftop. They have nothing on feeling the hot bricks beneath my bare body, on feeling Zeref's fingers cinch into my skin. I grip his hair tighter and he makes a small noise that could have been a protest but I know isn't. Chills soar through me, and again when he inserts his fingers. He does things methodically and I know he's pushed back whatever thoughts have been plaguing him. I am the perfect drug. With the knowledge comes power and with power comes pleasure. I'm teetering on the brink of what's sure to be a powerful orgasm and I can't think beyond enjoying the way he flexes his fingers both on my leg and inside of me, and the way his tongue twitches.

In the end, it's not his tongue or his fingers that push me over the edge, but his hot breath and his own pleasured sigh, knowing that despite all odds and morality and the differences between us, Zeref wants this as badly as I do. Badly enough to hurt the people we love and badly enough to ruin everything we have in this life.

I'm sensitive but Zeref caresses me for a few moments afterward, tasting me and feeling me convulse. He finally stands and his pants look uncomfortable. I help him with that, opening the button and the zipper and pulling him out. He sighs again when I stroke his length and the sound again moves through me like a physical thing. I work from the base to the flared head slowly, slowly because I know I could make him come just like this but I don't want to. Not yet. When his eyes close and his head tips back, I step into him and stand on tiptoe. His mouth is already cracked open for my kiss and I take another moan straight from his lips. He usually lets me lead this part but something is different today and the magnitude of what scares me. It scares me badly enough that when he pushes me back against the wall with some force and again tells me, "I love you," I let him take back control. His kiss is forceful but still given with care. He never mashes against me hard enough to hurt; sometimes, I wish he would, mostly because I know what he's capable of and I want to see it; need to because if I don't know the monster, then I don't know the man. Zeref wears his façade well, though, and never, ever lets the one beneath slip out in my presence.

When he picks me up from beneath the thighs and pins me to the wall like that, I don't stop to protest that we're being irresponsible. Zeref knows; he never thinks about nothing when he's in the midst of a thing. I scrabble at his shoulders and pull him into me and he fits just right, stretching me just enough that I'm on the brink of discomfort but never quite there.

He takes his time during this part. He once told me he likes to watch my cheeks turn pink. He likes to hear my breath build into a wicked gasp. He likes to see my eyes move beneath my eyelids and my mouth open in pleasure.

I think again that I am the Perfect Drug.

It's nearly lethargic but every time he draws his hips away, he comes almost all the way out and then comes back with enough force to make my breath explode. Every bit of movement is intense and I think I'm going to orgasm again. It's feeling his body inside of me but mostly, it's being trapped against the wall, lifted from the ground. This is the only way he'll let me be at his mercy; he's always so, so vigilant. When he sees me, he hides the guns and the knives and the drugs, he hides the him that people are afraid of and he becomes someone else. Which Zeref is the real Zeref? Maybe they are the same. Does it matter? Maybe. I know then without a doubt that our love isn't absolute. It's broken and twisted and I worry I need it to be that way because I've been told my whole life that it should be something else. Something beautiful and pure. In a strange way, this, loving someone wrong, is freedom from the suffocation of my father's home.

Zeref spills inside of me when I orgasm for the second time and I can feel every ounce. I will regret our decision in a moment when I need to clean up but for now, I stay exactly where I am, content. Zeref adjusts so he's not holding me up and my legs apart with his hands but with his forearms. I can feel his heartbeat through his chest and into mine. He rests his forehead against mine and I feel the sweat for the first time in long minutes. It's hot. So hot out.

"Lucy?"

I'm not sure I like the way his voice sounds; he's about to say something he's put thought into but isn't sure about and if Zeref isn't sure, I don't know what to think. He never hesitates. "Yeah?" I ask because I can't say nothing.

"Natsu and I are leaving. Come with us; with me."

I find his gaze to see if he's bluffing, though I know he isn't. Zeref isn't the kind of man to tell many jokes. I tell him the first thing that comes to my mind. "Yes."

It's in a motel on the province's border that I'm sitting on a broken bed, wearing the clothes I left town in the day before. The news comes through the television and I hear it only partially. Jude Heartfilia is dead. Beyond that? I can't say what other information the newscaster has offered. Zeref looks at me from the doorway of the washroom, warm and false light blazing around him. He is as awful as I've ever seen him. Natsu is asleep in the bed next to ours. Which of them did it? Maybe both.

"It couldn't be helped."

I don't know what to feel. Even when he comes to me and touches my chin. I look up and there is the man I love. And there—there is the monster I've been yearning to see.

A/N:

Wordslinger and I have created a joint account called Mira's Bar. There, you will find our collaborative story, Lies of a Lost Girl. It's a Jerza. And it's fucking beautiful. You would greatly honour me (us) if you checked it out.