They could both be extremely silly and frivolous people. He was known to be a bit of an eccentric, buying toys, still, at his age, painting little wooden dolls for his 'babies', living, at times, with little to nothing other than sugar and cigarettes (typically laced). Though she was nowhere near as bad, she was mostly known for, of course, being the girl who beat death, if not just Mirajane's baby sister, but also for the silly antics she and Natsu could still get into, even as they edged into their early twenties. Her new lease on life had granted her a desire for more than just guild jobs and, though she hung around frequently, mostly helping her sister tend bar, she was one of those less likely to be out on a job.
Though it was different levels of the word, they were both known to be rather upbeat and, on her part, optimistic.
What most didn't catch, however, were their down times. They both had them. Lisanna didn't so much, in her adolescence. Though she'd had a great tragedy in her parents death and the eventual way they were run out of their village, those memories faded quickly for the little girl as she slowly scoped out a new future. It was rather easy, actually. There were so many other kids at Makarov's guild in those days that she hardly had any time to carry the heavy stain the village had left on both her sister and brother. Though they faced their own demons, both physical and mental, regarding the place, many of her thoughts of the place felt more like fever dreams than actualized situations she found herself in. She could remember her home, somewhat, her parents, a little, and the rural area they grew up in, but that was about it.
Her early memories had been replaced by those beginning years in Fairy Tail when they were all so young, yet so talented. The future wasn't set in stone, but it was certainly bright.
And he, well, he didn't have that ability. That she did. To just push the early memories away. Maybe it was because he was older when it all turned to shit or because he didn't have siblings to assist in caring for him, but no, he couldn't just easily forget all about his life on the road with both his parents and eventually just his father and, finally, just him. And the souls he would collect along the way. He'd come to have good childhood memories, after that, of joining Fairy Tail and befriending Freed and Evergreen. Discovering the practical religion that was Laxus Dreyar. But it didn't cancel anything out. Not for him.
He remembered everything.
Sometimes, when it all came flooding back, he just had to get away. From everything. From the guild, his two best friends, the constant chase of Laxus, the jobs, the training, all of it. Except his babies. He could never leave them behind. Never. Not when they never had him. But the other things, well, they'd all be waiting for him when he returned. It was just time that he needed. That was all. Time to...think. Think so much, about all sorts of things, enough so that when he returned, he wouldn't have a single thought left in his head. Not one, at least, that he hadn't already figured out.
They'd return though. The thoughts. In ways he wasn't ready for. Eventually. No time soon, usually. It only happened about every six months or so. He could feel it too, as it approached. Crept up on him. That darkness that, if he tried to fight it, he'd only lose more of himself in the struggle. No, it was just easier to go with it, to allow himself to be led along, alone, until it was finished with him. Led him where it wanted to go, down whatever treacherous path it had awaiting him, took him as close to the edge as you could get only to, slowly, edge him right back off and then leave him, high and dry, caught in something he didn't understand, but knew was over. It was over.
For the moment anyways.
It would be back. It would always be back. With all the hopeless, self-loathing crap that he never really knew what to do with.
He'd never met someone who got it that bad.
Most of the people he grew up with in Fairy Tail had some sort of trauma that brought them there, fine, but none of them seemed to get that feeling. That urge. None of the ones he talked to, anyways. Either that or they hid it well. Even Evergreen and Freed, his closest of allies, his brother and sister, really, couldn't understand where he was coming from.
Evergreen handled all of her pain and turmoil internally. She never spoke to him on her past and, as far as he knew, she kept it from Freed as well. All that mattered was the present. Fairy Tail. Laxus. The Thunder Legion. Elfman Strauss. Maybe. Sort of. Anything else she felt or thought about was never vocalized and he assumed that she handled it well, but she did spent a good portion of her jewels on wine when they weren't out on a job and maybe she just had her own crutch.
Maybe.
Freed and he talked extensively on their pasts. Both the shared and the prior. He could recount his friend's entire childhood, probably. Especially when he met Laxus. Freed told that story frequently. It was, after all, what convinced him to join Fairy Tail and changed the entirety of his life. Bickslow felt much the same. Of course.
So it was no surprise to him that Freed too held some darkness inside of him. But he channeled it quite efficiently in those days. He didn't sit and brood, as he once had, in their teenage years, but rather, when he was feeling lowly about the past, he merely went to the hall and attempted to help one of his guild mates with their training. Or suggested to the lesser ones that he might accompany them on a job. To assist them. It didn't kill the pain or pangs of sadness, but it did well to keep him preoccupied.
It wasn't like that though. Not for him. Not like it was for Freed. Though the rune mage frequently suggested similar tricks such as those to him, they didn't fix what was going on inside of him. It went deeper than that. He didn't feel as if his pain was any more strenuous than Freed's, but it was certainly processing in his brain differently. That was all. His felt more like a sensory overload or something. There was no asking to help out around the hall or just drinking it away. He had to get away. Physically away, from everything, and just sulk for awhile. Hardly eat. Hardly drink. Just be. Alone.
He thought he'd never find anyone else that understood it. That didn't think it was odd. That didn't suggest, as Evergreen and Freed did, at times, in veiled ways, about maybe seeking someone more...professional to assist in all of this. They didn't get it though. How could they? He was a dark knight, the baddest of the good, the saddest clown of all. No one could help him with that. No one could understand that. It was just someone he was.
Which is why he was so bummed, only a few months into his relationship with Lisanna, when he felt it creeping up. It was coming and he knew it. That horrible period of days to weeks where he just had to be away, not on a job, not anywhere, really, just away, from everything, just to stop his mind from eating itself alive.
It wasn't exactly the most trustworthy sounding excuse in the world.
"Can't hang out, kid," he informed her when she showed up on the day he was packing a small bag, planning on heading out to the woods and not coming out until his mind wasn't so clouded anymore. "I'm busy."
"Oh, really?" She seemed rather disappointed. "Did you guys take a job? I didn't see Freed or Ever up at the guild-"
"No."
"Were you going training then? Or-"
"Nope."
"Then what?"
"I'm just," he told her and he hated how his voice sounded so final, so distant, already, "busy."
He didn't feel bad in that moment, for Lisanna, really. It was difficult for him to feel for anyone when he got like that. But he knew he would, when he came back. It was weird, knowing you'd feel something, but being unable to actually experience it in that moment. He couldn't describe it, really, but it was extremely disconcerting.
Lisanna seemed suspicious, or perhaps just a bit crushed, but she only backed off and out of the apartment, much to the dismay of his little wooden dolls who'd been looking forward to hanging out with the youngest Strauss sibling that day.
He only ignored them though.
When he came back, he expected Lisanna to be distant. Or upset. Annoyed. Apathetic. Something. But she only greeted him two weeks later with a smile, up at the bar, and quickly launched into a story about how she and Levy had discovered this super rare book the other day when they were shopping in Hargeon. And he just nodded as she then explained that they were having a special on fish, but not the order it, because it was just the Master and Mirajane trying to get rid of some nearly rotting product.
"Oh," she added as she still stood there, serving tray tucked under one arm, looking as chipper as ever, "and I get off, by the way, around seven tonight. If you wanted to hang out or whatever."
"Hang out, Papa," his babies pleaded and Lisanna rarely mapped things out between the two of them. It was usually his doing. But still, he just nodded and said he'd swing by the Strauss home at eight, then, to pick her up.
When Elfman was the one to answer the door that night, he was sure he'd get an earful from the man as Lisanna definitely had to have bitched about him to her siblings, at least, right? Maybe her friends? But Lucy was inside too, hanging out with Mirajane, and none of them seemed to even recognize him as having been absent. At all.
"Did it not bother you?" he asked much later when, after catch a late train, they found themselves in only a vaguely familiar city where they planned to explore until the wee hours and then crash at a sleazy motel. Their standard date. "Lisanna?"
"What?" she questioned back with a bit of a frown. "The train ride? No. I-"
"Me being gone," he corrected, trying not to get snippy. His tongue fell out of his mouth slowly and his guild mark caught a breeze. "Lissy. You weren't upset with me?"
"Should I have been?"
"Well, I dunno. I'd be, I guess, if we had plans, but then you up and left for a few weeks."
"I'm not your keeper, you know," she pointed out. "And yeah, canceling our plans was pretty shitty of you, but you are a pretty shitty person, overall."
"That's hurtful."
"Most of us are," she pointed out.
The truthfulness did little to soften the previous blow.
Kicking some at the ground as they walked along the expansive city, he let out a long breath into the cool of the night, disappointed winter wasn't upon them yet and he was, therefore, unable to see his breath.
"Freed and Evergreen," he accused almost under his breath, "told you, didn't they?"
"Told me what?"
"Lisanna-"
"I haven't even spoken to them."
"Are you telling me the truth?"
"Bickslow," she complained and she glanced up at him then, frowning though she didn't fall out of step with the seith. "You're being weird."
Still, he only shook his head. "If they told you-"
"They didn't tell me anything." Rolling her eyes, she said, "And apparently, you aren't going to either, so stop trying to pique my interest. I mean, gosh, Bickslow, why did we go out? If you're just going to be so uptight about this the entire time? You went and did whatever it is you did. Who cares? I don't. So why do you?"
He'd built the whole thing up in his head, when he was coming back, but apparently it was all for naught. Or at least so far. He didn't right her off as always being so accommodating, but it was nice to see, so far, that she wasn't too bothered by his absence. So he just tried to put the worry out of his mind and, eventually, they did have a pretty decent time out there, goofing off.
When it grew late, they checked into a hotel room where he only sat at the tiny desk, smoking, and she spent time over on the bed, his babies resting there with her, neither talking. For a good while, at least.
Eventually though, he did shove up, going to offer her a few drags and, after being declined, to sit on the edge of the bed, taking them for her.
"I just need breaks sometimes, is all."
"Huh?" Lisanna was actually pretty busy trying not to fall asleep, not until he truly came to bed, but listening to him talk had not been on the suggested methods. "What are you talking about?"
"About where I went," he told her simply. "I went- Well, I went campin', I guess, technically." He paused to take a drag before, around the smoke, adding, "But I just had to get away."
"You don't have to explain-"
"Maybe I want to."
He probably did. The best either could figure. It was why he couldn't shut up about it.
"Maybe I need to," he even insisted then. "Tell you. So you understand."
"I do understand."
"You don't even know what I'm talking about."
She sat up some then, to stare at him in the darkness and he offered her the smoke again, but she didn't even wave it off. Just kept her eyes locked with his.
"I get it," she insisted a bit harsher that time. "Needing to be by yourself. I need that sometimes too."
"Not like me."
"Maybe not," she agreed. "I mean, no one needs the exact thing as someone else, you know? But I like to be by myself sometimes too."
"I don't like it, Lisanna. I need it. It has to happen or else… Or else. It's just how things are."
"I'm not fighting you on this."
He knew. And yet, everything he'd prepared for these moments was under the anticipation that she would.
She was making this a lot harder, being all accepting and shit.
"It's not normal, Lisanna," he insisted. "It's not."
"Okay."
"But it's something that happens sometimes. That I need sometimes. To keep it all on straight."
"Alright."
"And it's not something I plan. Or use to get out of practice or jobs or something stupid like that. I really do just feel real low sometimes and I just… I… It's just how it is."
"I understand, Bicks."
But did she? He wasn't sure, but the idea of her being so didn't bring him near as much comfort as it should have.
Maybe he just naturally wanted things to be complicated.
Heh, yeah, probably. He only went to snub his cigarette out before, finally, falling into bed which allowed her to shut her eyes and truly get some rest.
They didn't talk on it again. Not for a long while, at least.
Things kind of had their own natural flow in their relationship. He went on jobs, he came home, she was usually just returning from one as well or working heavy shift rotations up at the bar, with her sister and Kinana, which meant she definitely deserved a break if he deserved one and he always deserved one, and they'd just goof off. For awhile. Until he had to go on a job again or she was needed down at the bar. It felt like a safe, nice pattern. He usually didn't stay around the same woman for long. They usually didn't want much to do with him outside of those first few dates, if he even got that lucky. But Lisanna felt different.
She was different.
Because for as alone in the world as he felt in his own despair, Lisanna wasn't too far off from his feelings. Most people probably weren't, fine, he'd admit it, if he had to, but no one else had ever been so open about it with him. Not the way she was.
"I don't," she told him after he bounded into the bar one day intending to offer her a chance to go get smoked up at his place and watch some movies on Freed's lacrima that he definitely asked before borrowing, "feel like it."
"Oh." He tried hard not to be disappointed and quickly pivoted to his next idea. "We could go to the park. Hey, yeah! I've been working, kid, on this super hard trick with the babies that I could show to ya if you-"
"No."
"But… Well, what do you wanna do then?"
"Nothing," she told him with a bit of a shrug as she bused one of the tables for her sister. "That's what I meant before. I don't feel like doing anything."
"Well, we can just go home, I guess, to my place-"
"With you, Bickslow." Then she felt like that was too mean and sighed some, glancing down at the mugs she was pulling off the table. "With anyone. I just wanna go home, you know? And be alone for awhile? After work? We can talk later. Maybe in a few days."
He was confused and almost felt like he must've done something wrong. Clearly. Why else would she being so cold to him? Unless…
Did she just have other plans? That she didn't want him to know about? That she didn't wanna tell him he wasn't invited to? He knew that a lot of her guild friends didn't exactly line up with his and, yeah, he could hang with Natsu and Erza just fine, but it wasn't always completely enjoyable. Not everything meshed, after all.
But Team Natsu was out on a job and Levy seemed to just be hanging around the bar, bothering Gajeel, and who else would she not want to bring him around?
"No one," Mira said with a bit of a bemused smile when he asked this, not an hour later. Lisanna got off and left after kissing him goodbye. He just skulked from his table with the bickering Freed and Evergreen (they were disagreeing about some sort of practice shit he should probably be listening to, but he was too heartsick for that) over to where Mirajane was behind the bar. She knew everything about the woman, after all. "Why would you even think that, Bickslow?"
"She don't wanna hang out with me. She just wants to be alone, she said. For days. I mean, one day, fine, but could you go without talking to a guy you're super interested in and attracted too because he's just so awesome for days? Huh? Could you?"
Mira thought hard. "Well, I dunno. Does he have a car?"
"That's not the point."
There rarely was one, between the two of them, honestly.
"Lisanna's not upset with you or anything, Bickslow," Mira finally told him with a bit of a sigh. She even shrugged. "She's just… It's not my place to say, I guess, but sometimes she gets like this, you know? She just needs to be alone for a bit."
"Like… Not like me. I'm different."
"Okay," Mira agreed easily because she didn't even know what that meant. Still, she added, "Just give Lisanna a few days. Like she asked."
He wanted to. He knew he should. But it was so fucked, really, because every day he went up to the bar, there she was, working her shift like usual. Each time he asked to hang out after though, she declined him and he started to fear he was coming off as desperate. So he backed off. The only time he truly felt comfortable was a few days later when Team Natsu returned and they invited her out with them (well, Happy did; he'd missed her bunches), but she turned them down too. Not that he was spying on her or anything…
Maybe she just really didn't wanna hang out with people? Seemed kinda sucky…
Still, he didn't wanna leave on a job until she bounced back from it and, luckily, it didn't take too long. One day when he went up to the bar to get some breakfast, she was there, but not on duty, sitting with Lucy and Gray, talking about something or other. When he looked at her, she waved him over and even gave him a hug when he took his seat beside her.
It wasn't until Lucy headed off to go on a job with Erza and Gray found himself spending some time with Cana that, alone at their table, Lisanna truly spoke to him.
"Did you," she asked as his babies, glad to have her back, had taken to landing anywhere on her they could find, from her head to her shoulders to her palms, "wanna go for a walk?"
Anywhere to talk.
The morning was really in swing then and the streets were a bit crowded, the further into the city they went, but they only walked in silence, together, for a good half hour before, finally, he felt comfortable in speaking.
"What's been going on?" he asked simply. "Lisanna? These past few days? I thought that you were mad at me."
"Why would you think that?'
"Because… I dunno. Because that's how I am. When people cut me out, it's usually for a reason."
"It's usually because you were being creepy again."
"Lisanna-"
"I told you, Bickslow," she said simply though she did frown some. "I just needed some time alone. Why's that a problem?"
"Alone? You were with people all the time!"
"What do you-"
"You were up at the guild," he complained.
"Yeah, working."
"Yeah. With people."
"Because I had to?" She asked it, rather than stated it, and it seemed like she was ridiculing him, just a bit. "If I didn't come in for my shifts, Bicks, then Kinana and Mira get screwed over. They deserve the days off that I say they can have. Shifts. Whatever."
"Yeah, but-"
"It's just like you," she insisted then. "You go into the woods, you said and-"
"Camin'."
"Yeah, camping."
"You weren't camping."
"No, but-"
"I'm," he insisted to her then, "different."
"Different, Lisanna," his dolls agreed as they floated all about. "Papa's different."
"Yeah, you are, he is, I know," she agreed with them all, even nodding her head. "But it's the same thing."
"No," he repeated, "it's not."
"Then it's not, Bickslow. Whatever. I wasn't mad at you or anything, so it's not some big deal. Alright? I just needed space for a bit."
"But not from work."
"Normal people," she told him simply, "can't just do that. What we do. As wizards. Pick and choose when to go to work. I was assigned shifts, so I went. After them, I wanted to be alone to think and decompress."
"Why couldn't you decompress with me?"
"Why couldn't you," she countered, "with me?"
"I just said it's different."
"But why. Explain it."
"Because… I just need to be alone. To get my head on straight. To get away from everyone else and everything and- No, Lisanna, it is not the same thing. I know that's what you're going to say, but-"
"There's nothing wrong, Bickslow, with needing to be alone sometimes." She stopped walking, there, on the sidewalk, and just stared up at him. "You get that, right? You're not...broken. And I'm not broken. But ever since I came back, all those years ago, from Edolas, sometimes I just get… So… It's not sadness, but… I can't explain it. Maybe you'd understand, maybe you wouldn't, but I won't explain it right, anyways, so I won't even try."
"Just," he insisted as he only faced her, "try. Lissy."
She paused to think, but started walking again, expecting him to follow. He did so with ease.
"It's like, sometimes, I just wake up and something's not right. I can't stop thinking about...about...Edolas and my other self and how she died. She died, Bickslow. But I didn't. Because I was saved. Because of her death or whatever. Do you know how fucked up that is? Because it is. Why did I live? Why did she die? I'm not even doing anything with my life. Not really. I'm not super important in the guild. Mira and Elf had gotten on without me. I don't even know if I want to be a mage, honestly. And sometimes… I love everyone here, but sometimes… I just miss it. There."
He was silent for a few long moments, after hearing her out, before whispering softly, "I don't think about anything. When I get that way. Or feel like anything. Sometimes, I think a lot about my life before and that stuff, but I think about it constantly anyways. It's not like a...trigger. Or anything. It's just like suddenly I can't get away from all these dark ideas and feelings and if I just separate myself off, off from everyone, they go away. What's wrong with that?"
"Nothing. I told you that before. If you're fine with it and think that you have a handle on it, then there's nothing wrong with it."
He wasn't sure about that and, honestly, wasn't too sure if he should be taking advice from someone who, apparently, got those same feelings as him, but only kicked once more at the ground.
"Thanks," he whispered. "And you're… You're real important to a lot of people, Lisanna, who are real glad to have you back and-"
"Yeah," she agreed. 'Have me back. That's what they were. And I'm glad to have them back too. But it's different, you know? No, I guess you don't. It's such a weird scenario, but to, like, get a second chance like this and then to just do the same, dumb stuff I was before… Sometimes I wonder if the only people who are really happy to have me here are the people who had me before, you know? It's not like, since I came back, I've touched someone else. Someone new. Someone who, if I didn't come back, wouldn't even have missed me. Not really. Do you know what I mean?"
He regarded her again in silence before, with a bit of a shrug, "I didn't miss ya none, other than, you know, when everyone was missin' ya a bunch. That first week. When everyone heard what happened. Other than that, I forgot all about ya, mostly, till I'd see your sister or brother."
She only made a face before replying dryly, "Thanks."
"You don't get it." And he elbowed her then. "Lissy. If you hadn't come back… My life would be different. You touched it. You touched a lot of me, actually, so-"
"Bickslow-"
"I'm just sayin', kid, that if you hadn't come back, then I wouldn't have this. And that would suck. Not to have this. This...this..." He smiled at her. "You. I wouldn't have you."
"We're just dating." She blushed though, as he said this, and looked away.
"That's not even what I mean."
"Then-"
"I wouldn't have," he told her simply, "someone who understands it. Freed, Ever, Laxus, no one in my life gets it. Why sometimes I just… But you do, don't ya? Lisanna?"
Her blush was fading then and, nodding her head, she assured him, "Yeah, I think I do, Bickslow."
"I dunno why you were saved. I dunno why I'm here. Why we're all here. If it means somethin'. But I'm glad that I'm here with you. Right now. And that's enough, huh? For right now?" He kicked one last time at the ground before snickering. "We get down sometimes, kid, me and you, but we always get up again, don't we?"
She nodded slowly, reaching over to lock her arm around one of his and when she beamed up at him, he only wagged his tongue at her.
It felt nice, he realized in that moment. Not to have himself cured, because he wasn't., not to have cured someone else, because he hadn't, but to have someone else understand what it was that was wrong. Understand what it felt like. Even if they were so different and the way it came about them was very different, it was just enough the same that it comforted him to know he had someone out there that got him. That understood him.
They'd get back up again.
Always.