/
"So, why don't you?" Freed asks her.
Ever sets her coffee mug down on his parqueted end table and remembers, abruptly, why she rarely meets up with her old friends when they're sober. "Why don't I what?" she asks. "Return to being a paramedic or bang my latest trouble student?"
"If you return to being a paramedic," Bicks points out, "you can bang that student and it won't be illegal."
"Technically, it isn't illegal now," Laxus helpfully puts in. "Just . . . frowned on."
"And you'd get fired," Bicks adds. "So, then you could go back to being a paramedic. Same conclusion either way."
"Or I could do neither of those things, and keep my life the way it is," Ever tells them. "You know, I like my life the way it is."
All three of her old team mates burst out in simultaneous peals of laughter.
"I have never heard a bigger load of shit in my life," Bicks cackles.
Ever resolves to never talk to them outside of a bar again.
/
It's not like she hasn't thought about it.
It's an idle thought, an innocent one. She'd never actually act on the impulse; but she really hasn't dated in so long, and one can fantasize if one wants. He's annoying, sure, but charming when he doesn't mean to be and often times Mira makes him walk Ever home and it's sweet. It almost makes her want to take him in.
"My sister's going into high school next year," he tells her one night. "My baby sister, I mean."
"There are more of you?" she asks, unable to believe that she missed this detail. She still hasn't gotten around to those stupid files; over half of them remain unorganized, so that students with last names from M to Z will have to wait an inordinately long time for medical care while she shuffles through two-hundred or so identical forms.
"Just me and my sisters."
They reach her door, Ever carrying a new piece of him with her. Maybe this means that they're friends?
She unlocks her door and looks back over her shoulder. "Thanks for walking me," she says, and he nods like, Yes, Well, It's A Man's Duty, and she kind of understands now that he is a man. He had to become one for his sisters.
It's a nice thought. It gives her the bravery-maybe the stupidity-to jerk her head, a little awkwardly, towards the inside of her apartment. She can't voice the words, but it's an obvious invitation.
He smiles at her. It's almost condescending, the way he slowly shakes his head, blue eyes focused solely on her, making sure she knows that he's aware of the gravity between them in this second. His mouth quirks up a little more on one side, turning the smile into a smirk, and his head shake flows to the rest of his body as he turns in a fluid motion. Someone so big should not move so gracefully.
"Good night, Ms. Green."
/
"Another one?"
Ever is beginning to think that he's getting injured on purpose-and when did he have the time to get into trouble? The bell hasn't rung for the day and only a handful of students have trickled into the building so far.
She closes the door behind him and gestures for him to sit on the plastic-covered doctor's table that's really only there because it's the closest thing to a couch she could convince the principal to get her. He thinks it looks professional. She thinks a couch would be better for dizzy students and napping teachers.
But now she's rather glad for the table, because it means that he isn't bleeding all over some nice couch, he's bleeding on a sheet of plastic that can be replaced in a heartbeat.
"Where are you hurt?" she demands, and he strips off his school blazer at once, discarding the black coat on the floor. The white shirt underneath has a blossoming red spot just under his rib cage; he peels the shirt off, too, large fingers fumbling with the tiny buttons.
"Dumb fucks had a knife," he mumbles. "I might need stitches."
"Who had a knife?" Ever asks, taking out her first aid kit and helping him slip out of the shirt. To her dismay, he's wearing a wife beater underneath that; they're never going to get to the wound at this rate. "Was it a student? Were they on school grounds?"
He shakes his head. "Um, at the bar. I . . . Ms. Green, listen. I don't wanna tell you, but if I do tell you, then you can't say anythin' to anyone and I know you're gonna want to so . . . don't make me tell you."
"I think, from the sound of it, you'd better," Ever says grimly, scowling at his roundabout explanation. Is it too much to ask for a straight answer?
She finally gets the wife beater off, revealing a whole lot of muscled, tanned chest and, oh yeah, what she's actually here for, a two-and-a-half-inch wide cut just below his last rib. Ever breathes a sigh of relief, the images of fatal stab wounds fading from her mind. This is just a nick, hell, barely a nick, she could do worse damage with a cheese grater, it's just bleeding a lot because the knife hit flesh instead of bone and it's kind of scary how relieved she is.
"I work as a bouncer at Mira's bar," he says, all in a rush. "I know I shouldn't, 'cause I'm under twenty-one and all, but she can't afford the help and-"
"Stop," Ever sighs. Dear God, she thought he was about to confess to being in a gang or something. In comparison, giving his sister a hand at the bar is small potatoes, kind of noble, really. Not the type of thing she has to tell the principal about. "That's fine. I-honestly, I shouldn't be going to that bar, so we'd both be in trouble if this got out."
"Really? So we're, like, partners in crime?" he asks, eyes lighting up with the idea. He grins, not at all fazed by the dour look she shoots him.
"More like idiots who need common sense," she grumbles, and she patches him up okay and offers to wash his shirt. He refuses.
"You can't wear it like that," she objects.
"I'll just put my jacket on, no one'll know."
Crisis over, she puts her kit away and goes to open the door. It's two and a bit minutes before the bell.
So she locks the door instead.
"Your name's Elfman, right?"
He looks surprised that she remembers, probably given that the only time she heard it was once while she was drunk and rambling about puppies. "Yeah, Ms. Green. It is."
"You can call me Ever . . . for the next minute and forty seconds."
Except, she doesn't give him a chance. She closes the distance between them in a flash, hands pressing to his shoulders, knee on his thigh, and lips-
Yeah. It's been a long time.
/
He-Elfman-basically avoids her office like the plague for the next week, and Ever does not blame him. Fact time: she threw herself on him like a slut and now he's freaked out, understandably so. Ever herself has no idea why she did what she did, only that she did it and now the geeks that she drinks with are all laughing at her. Well, it isn't as though it's the first time she's been rejected, though truthfully she is rarely rejected so it does sting her pride some, and she does her best to not let it get her down. The vodka shots help.
Laxus tries to pick up Mira. All of his witty lines fall flat.
Freed has a new boyfriend; they don't expect him to last long. He refuses to follow the directions when he's putting together furniture; a sure sign of trouble in the future.
Bicks wants to move on, go back to being an RN in a surgical hospital. His parents want him to give up on that "smarty-ass career" and come back home, take over the family business, but he isn't having any of it.
Ever listens to all of their troubles, whether over the phone or in person, and she helps Gray work on not flashing the girls coming out of the restroom, and she sees Lucy Heartfillia every day for counseling though the only problem the girl seems to have is an abundance of idiotic friends and she's pretty sure that quiet girl in class 2A is in an abusive relationship with that biker because the both of them keep showing up with bruises . . . There's so much to keep track of, it's easy enough to forget about Elfman, at least until she shuts the door to her apartment and-
Oh.
"You keep a spare key in your desk. I swiped it," Elfman says without guilt. It should bother her, the lack-of-guilt thing, because that's one of the signs that she's supposed to look for in possibly psycopathic students but that's bull because she's dealing with high schoolers. Seventy-five percent of them don't have a conscience to their name but that doesn't make them all dangerous, just major assholes.
"Why are you here?" Has her voice always been this high? "I'll call the police."
He looks at her impassively, calling her bluff.
"You shouldn't be-"
"See, the thing is," he interrupts her, obviously ignoring whatever she's saying. "You kinda came on to me. And I wasn't really sure that was what you were doin' at first, but then it dawned on me this morning."
This morning? It's been a full week. Clearly, Ever is dealing with an idiot.
"And then I had to decide what to do. Because I don't want you gettin' hurt or losing your job . . ." he goes on, and he's actually being honest, like he actually means that he really doesn't want her to be troubled, and it's the strangest damn thing. Most boys would just be itching to screw her right now, and if she's honest, that's all she was really looking for. Geez. He has to go and make it all serious.
"But I really, really wanted to . . . um . . ." He's talked himself into a corner. His face turns red. "Uh . . ."
It's cute.
Ever kicks off her heels, unzipping her skirt as she crosses the front room. "You should shut up."
He does.
/
When you are in an illicit relationship, Ever discovers, it's harder than usual to make it through the day without sneaking a sip from the little flask that sits in the bottom drawer of your desk, just begging to be sipped from.
"That is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard," she hisses, leaning forwards across the desk in a pointless attempt at keeping their argument a secret from the curious eyes venturing by her door.
"It could happen," Elfman insists. "Mira gets really-"
"She isn't going to just walk into my apartment to see us doing it!" Ever practically screams, but screams in a whisper, because school is in session. "And short of that, there's no way that she'd find out!"
The guy is so terrified of his older sister, it's funny. And sad. And, honestly, pathetic as hell.
"She has a sense about these things," Elfman insists. "I know that she's suspicious."
"Then get a damn girlfriend," Ever proposes crankily. "Throw her off your scent."
The horrified look on his face answers that question. Ever banishes him from her office, reminding him not to come back unless there was a "real emergency"; regardless of what he claims, no one is suspicious right now, but they will be if he keeps dropping in every hour to ask her, "Are you still sore?" and "I didn't . . . um, rip anything, did I?" and other stupid questions like that.
After another week, it sinks into his fat head that they should be using protection, and he almost blows everything by barging in when she's with another student to demand, "ARE YOU PREGNANT?!" in a VERY LOUD voice that carries down the hall and leads to an uncomfortable meeting with the principal. Ever has to explain to Elfman what the birth control pill is, and when he declares, appalled, that neither of his sisters would ever take something like that, she also has to explain to him about Mira's long string of nightly visitors, which she only knows about because when it's slow, the barmaid will sit down and have a few with their group in order to shut Laxus up.
Then there are the awkward, morning-after conversations and clumsy exchanges that actually occur around twelve-thirty a.m., when he showers and redresses to dash off to do his bouncer thing for Mira until the bar closes at six. Ever tries to give him breakfast, and he tries to kiss her goodbye, and neither of them succeed in their ventures. She isn't doing so well, with so little sleep and even less alcohol. She's only going out twice a week, now; her buddies say they miss her and she can't look Mira in the eye.
All in all, it's not the kind of situation she wants to face while sober.
/
It isn't Mira who catches them out in the end, at any rate. It's just some random student who needs a Band-Aid at the wrong time, and he sure gets the show of his life before running off to the principal and the next thing Ever knows, she's fired and sitting alone at a bar and Mira keeps shooting her those sad, disapproving looks.
/
"You never told me," Elfman begins, tracing his finger along the curve of her back, "about your Past." He says it with a capital, and it pleases her that he knows it should be said with a capital, because some things are just important like that, and while she wants to give him the same kind of pat answer she would give anyone who wasn't Bicks, Laxus, or Freed, she sighs and gives in because he's been living with her for seven months now and it's kind of a big deal that he doesn't know.
"Well, I knew exactly what I wanted to do with my life," Ever says. "But when it got down to the reality of actually doing it, I just . . . couldn't. I started drinking to handle it and so I was fired." She doesn't embellish-doesn't recount the god-awful months when she wasn't sure if she'd manage to pay her bills, the days when Laxus would look at her as though she was an idiot because she'd gone too far, pushed to hard. She doesn't mention that she lost three good people because she wasn't sober enough to do her job.
But she says, "I've gotten better since I met you," and he beams and it's okay. Sure, she's been fired in disgrace twice in less than three years, and sure, she's not making any friends with her zero-bullshit attitude and none of the places she's applied to have called back and her in-the-meantime work at Mira's bar is turning into a permanent thing because who doesn't get hurt at a bar? It's so much easier to have a CN right there then to have to call an ambulance.
Elfman, with his adolescent smiles and protective nature and all of the little, noble things he does every day to help his family, really is too good for her.
But she's so very glad that she met him.