Fairy Tail belongs to Hiro Mashima
Warnings: Rated M for mature themes, sexual and get-stuck-in-your-throat content. Angst.
Atlas Downtown
Neon takes everything ugly and makes it beautiful. Crumbling sidewalk? As soon as it's hit with that electric green light, it transforms. Women whose makeup has been smeared from hours of sweating, doing the hard work on their knees? Bathe them not with water but with the light of a pink flamingo ignited in the window of some bar on the strip and she is golden. Good to go again. Cars with dents, men in cement, people doing anything to pay their rent. This city has it all and when the sun is up, its best to be sleeping because you don't want to see all that dilapidation creeping. Save your viewing for the midnight hour when everything is under that spectacular neon glow.
His knock on the door always sounds the same. It's his ring that makes what would be a rhythmic thump uneven. That ring. That ring. That ring makes everything uneven. Lisanna smooths her dress before she answers it. The ruffled skirt ruffles again in no time. It's been sitting in her closet for too long. Lisanna almost calls out 'one second!' so she can change again but now that she's in her dress, she doesn't want to get out of it. It's almost like she's there and Lisanna desperately needs to believe that. Everything's been a mess without Mira.
She pulls open the door and Laxus doesn't look at her immediately, he's watching the entertainment strip whirl by in its neon glory. Girls with crowns of feathers in their short hair, wearing dresses shorter than anything Lisanna has ever seen before, men with cigars between their teeth, shaking hands, laughing, getting into their Coupes and rolling down the streets with ladies hanging out the windows. Carts selling hotdogs beneath blinking signs that scream Casino! And Mafioso's sliding through the revolving doors, checking on their profits.
Laxus doesn't look overwhelmed. Lisanna thinks it's because like her, he needs the noise. "Hi," she says, because if they stand there any longer, immobile, she thinks she'll scream. Being stationary is hard now.
"Hey." Laxus looks away from a girl with huge breasts spilling out of a bunny suit and focuses on Lisanna. He sees the dress and his facial expression goes through several evolutions. Horror. Lisanna smooths the dress again. Distaste. She wraps her arms around her middle self-consciously. And then his expression softens into something she understands: relief. Mira isn't alive, but this dress makes it seem like she almost is. It's sick and it's gross and it's wrong but Lisanna doesn't take the dress off and Laxus doesn't ask her to. Lisanna takes her arms away from her middle and steps back, inviting Laxus in.
"Thanks for coming."
Laxus' shoulders are stiff. He's been pretending to be Atlas for months and Lisanna is waiting for him to shrug. He's a man, not a titan, after all, and men aren't meant to bear the weight of the world. Laxus, who is always one for few words, says, "Which sink is it?"
"The bathroom." Lisanna leads him into her apartment. It's small—it has to be. Living in the downtown core, in the entertainment district, no less is expensive. The hallway barely accommodates Laxus' shoulders. His foot scrapes one of Lisanna's many stacks of newspapers and almost sends them flying. He puts his hands against the darkly painted wall to guide his progress—only two lights are on in the apartment, one in the bathroom and one in the kitchen, and neither are very bright, certainly not bright enough to combat the black paint.
Laxus moves by Lisanna when they get to the small square she calls a bathroom and crouches beneath the sink. All of the piping is exposed so he'll have an easy time. Lisanna is almost sad for that—this connection to her sister will be gone before she can blink and she'll be alone once again. She supposes she could call Elfman over and would have if Laxus didn't agree to come do this menial task that she probably could have done on her own, but she likes having Laxus there—he knew a Mira that neither she nor Elfman did and it is a breath of fresh air. It's not just her same old memories bringing Mira back from the dead, it's Laxus' and she can never get enough.
He identifies the problem almost immediately. "The glue holding the pipes together's rotted."
"You can fix it?"
"Yeah." He gets himself a cigarette from his pocket first and lights it without asking if it's okay, then goes through the tool belt on his hip, getting out a pipe wrench and a type of glue Lisanna's never seen before. She leaves him there because Laxus is looking at her in a way she can't misinterpret. He wants to be left alone to work. He always does lately.
She goes to her kitchen first and finds him a beer in the fridge. It isn't anything craft, it's domestic and it's cheap but it's cold. She opens it and takes it into the living room with her. There, she puts the beer on the scored end table and waits for him to be done. Silence is interrupted by Laxus' clanging in the washroom and that's it. Lisanna puts a record on her turntable and listens to Petula Clark sing,
When you're alone, and life is making you lonely
You can always go
Downtown
How many times has she listened to this one song? It's what dragged her out of her country home after the accident and it's what keeps her here when she thinks that everything is terrible, that she's not got what it takes to cut it in the big world, because,
When you've got worries, all the noise and the hurry
Seems to help, I know
Downtown
She goes to the window and watches the nightlife thrive below. It seems to be in tune with Downtown.
Just listen to the music of the traffic in the city
Linger on the sidewalk where the neon signs are pretty
How can you lose?
A girl on the sidewalk tugs on the ballet-style skirt she's wearing in preparation for her show at the Casino. There's a man behind her that smacks her bottom when she does it. She straightens and she's laughing and leaning into him. Is he her beau or is she just putting on an act? Either way, she's not suffocating in an apartment painted black, she's living and loving and touching someone real, she's taking her mind off things. Lisanna thinks that tomorrow, she'll waltz into that casino in her best dress and she'll ask for a job. She's never danced before. A small, mean voice gnaws at her and she again thinks she's made a mistake leaving her home behind.
Just listen to the rhythm of a gentle bossa nova
You'll be dancing with him too before the night is over
Happy again
The lights are much brighter there
You can forget all your troubles, forget all your cares
So go downtown, where all the lights are bright
Downtown, waiting for you tonight
Downtown, you're gonna be alright now
She knows he's finished in the washroom because she feels him fill the living room. He's too large for this apartment. He looks at her for a long time, standing in the window. Lisanna lets him, knowing that sometimes he does this and sometimes, his shoulders look less burdened when he's through. She has no illusions, he sees Mira and not her. Her heart breaks all over again when she sees ghosts in Laxus' eyes. If she can just scare them away for a moment, then they could,
Forget all your troubles. Forget. Forget.
"It's fixed."
"Thank you."
Now comes the hardest part: goodbye, but he's still just standing there. Lisanna's fingers ache and she realizes she's been clenching her curtains. She doesn't let them go but she does loosen her hold until he steps in close enough that she can feel his body heat and then her fingers are aching yet again.
Laxus, the man of few words, speaks again and his voice is raspy. "It wasn't that bad."
"I know."
"You keep doing this to me."
"It feels better."
"And then it feels worse."
She knows that, too. It's like getting high and then crashing. It's like sewing a gash and ripping it open again. It is like breathing. She does it automatically and cannot stop. "I like seeing you."
He does what he never has before and touches her shoulder. His fingers tighten in the fabric of Mira's dress and he pulls Lisanna around. Neon lights make him beautiful, too. His pain. His confusion. Lisanna lets go of the curtain and takes Laxus' shirt instead. The white fabric is clammy and beneath it, his chest is rising and falling too fast. "I'm losing my mind."
Downtown, downtown
Downtown!
Downtown!
And you may find somebody kind to help and understand you
Someone who is just like you and needs a gentle hand to
Guide them along
"I'm sorry."
If he knows how inauthentic she is, he doesn't seem to care. His fingers squeeze her dress again and she realizes he's also taken her by the hip. Her heart beats and she thinks no, no, no. She doesn't do a damn thing because she wants to be like the girl on the street, feeling something other than the lead weight in her chest. He is leaning down and she is rising on tiptoe and Lisanna isn't thinking about how overwhelming everything is. She's living.
His kiss is full of abandon at first, and then it's full of desperation. He pulls her in and Lisanna feels the world lift, and then slump. Atlas has shrugged and the fall for the mortals is fine at first. She's weightless, she's without pain. She will eventually stop the descent, though, Gravity demands it.
For now, she kisses this man and lets him pour out his ache. She kisses this man and it's like bloodletting and mutilating herself all at once. She kisses this man and she's not suffocating in a black apartment, reaching for the neon lights, she's seeing in colour for the first time in months, she's bathing in it, and pink flamingo banners are a symphony. Synthetic, their glow.
Lisanna doesn't think and doesn't do, she lets Laxus lead. He starts to take off her dress but only lets it get halfway down her middle; it seems he needs it in a different way than Lisanna does. He touches her hair; he touches her breasts still confined in her white lace bra. He kisses her and his eyes are closed. The noise he makes is strangled and sharp and he's shaking. If Lisanna looks closely, the neon lights shine on his cheeks in two narrow lines. She brushes the tears away. It's a mistake. He breaks from her and turns her around so she can't see a thing and he can't see the truth.
She plants her hands on the window and leaves palm prints while Laxus feels an almost familiar body. She spreads her legs wide when the time comes and feels her dress come up on her hips. Her panties are shucked to the floor and rest wrapped around one of her bare feet. He steps into her and leaves kisses on her neck, packed full of things he can't or won't say. Things that aren't meant for her ears. She doesn't need him to talk, she needs him to make her feel.
He slides in and at first, it hurts, but he's the drug she didn't know she needed and he takes everything, the ache, and he pounds it out of her. Her breath leaves fog on the window, her cheek a smear of makeup because she can't keep herself up and Laxus is barely doing it for her. He's busy filling his hands and panting and keeping the noise from becoming a sob.
Lisanna touches between her legs and starts doing the work on her own. Laxus pulls himself out of his stupor just enough to realize what she's doing. He brushes her hand aside and his fingers work. She's shaking in no time, pressing her body into the window when her legs get weak. She feels Laxus' girth broaden and she anticipates his orgasm. He pulls out and comes on the swell of her behind. Lisanna just sits there for a moment, and Laxus, too. He's eyeing his art, Lisanna's dress, the smeared window. He takes a breath in and it's noisy, then takes a step away, and another, before pulling up his pants. He doesn't say anything as he re-attaches his tool belt, nor when he disappears into the washroom. Lisanna hears the taps turn on and shut off and she figures he was right, the sink really doesn't leak anymore.
He comes out again and stands in the doorway just beyond the reach of the neon lights. Lisanna feels his gaze. It's heavy. It's powerful. It makes her hate herself and love herself, too. He sighs and leaves without another word. Lisanna watches from the window as he takes to the street, Atlas escaping downtown.