notes: i don't know what amazon thinks i do in my spare time, but my prime email today was suggesting uranium ore, a banana slicer, a ufo detector, & ballpoint pens. apparently, i am secretly fox mulder? with a penchant for sliced bananas?
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" The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown. " — HP Lovecraft
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iii. discount cult shopping on craigslist
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One morning, when the sun is barely kissing the horizon hello, there is a rare occurrence.
Natsu wakes up before Lucy.
The two had fallen asleep the night prior researching information for the next vlog. Well, more accurately, Lucy had been researching and Natsu had been watching her psychotic self geek out about….cults. He had opted out of this fascinating curiosity sesh, like he always did, in favor of scrolling through Instagram and Facebook on his phone. And he really had turned his brain to mush for half an hour. But, there's only so much on Facebook these days—and if there is anything, it's just people complaining or sharing weird minion or old people memes with shitty and illegible font.
He'd even gone 20 leagues below the sea deep into Insta explore, or whatever the hell that was called. Then things had started to get too weird for him, so he had decided to secretly watch Lucy from behind his phone screen.
She had been, of course, extremely gung-ho researching cults and all that dark jazz. He had maybe even asked her some questions—cults were real, after all. Even he knew that. Natsu likes to consider himself a decently educated person, and cults were kind of morbidly interesting, in a way. Lucy had delved into her freak show Wikipedia file in her brain for him on all things occult, and she'd even made his favorite gooey chocolate peanut butter brownies.
Perhaps, if they had been cuddling together on the couch watching a movie (maybe horror, so he could put his arm around her when she got scared and he could berate the entire movie for his pure enjoyment), it might have been even better. But, of course spending a night in Lucy Heartfilia's apartment, while many a guy's dream, never turned out like one would hope. That was one thing about his, dare he say it, ghost-hunting partner and best friend. Her eccentricities tended to ward off the creeps and guys just looking to hit it and quit it. If a bro dude approached her whilst she was out living her life, he would soon find out that she wasn't just a pretty blonde. And if a creeper tried to do anything with her, well….he cites the September 6th incident of 2016, wherein Lucy and their friend Levy almost got mugged but the dude apparently chickened out when he was stalking them. The reason? Lucy's extensive knowledge of Fioré's unfortunate list of serial killers.
Natsu exhales, the remnants of sleep still trying to drag him back. His neck is killing him, and upon further inspection as to why, he discovers that he fell asleep slumped against the couch. Wonderful. Shifting into a more comfortable position, he tries not to wake Lucy, who is asleep on his chest. Damn, he can hear Gajeel cackling at him, not how you wanted to wake up with blondie, is it? Scowling, he ignores imaginary Gajeel and pulls a blanket over Lucy.
She didn't fall asleep until at least 12:30, so he's got some time before she wakes up, probably. The clock on his phone reads 6:37 am, and he groans. Tragic. Lucy would definitely be up by 8. If he wanted anymore sleep, he would have to get it now. Apparently their agenda for today was to go on some kind of shopping adventure. Now that—that he could handle. Although sitting at the mall waiting for Lucy to try on clothes was mind numbing, it didn't involve traipsing through the Woods of God Knows Where and almost falling into a dry well.
Natsu slips his arm around Lucy and closes his eyes.
He is, of course, awoken less than 2 hours later by the smell of pancakes and Lucy gently shaking him awake. Wow. That's a remarkable improvement. Usually she throws something at him and yells. She's also kicked him more than once. Maybe she was grateful because he let her use him as a pillow.
Except, of course, as he comes to, he realizes that she's gently nudging him with her foot. Alright, not that much of an improvement. "Natsu. Natsu? Natsu."
"Lushi?" he slurs, and wow is that bacon he smells? Dead pig slabs really get him going in the mornings. "Lushi, iss thasht begon?"
She snorts. "Do you even speak English, Natsu? Yes, it's bacon. There's also blueberry pancakes. Can you please get up now? You're drooling all over my nice hardwood flooring. Plus we need to leave in like half an hour."
"Haffawha?" he mumbles, unintelligibly. He doesn't even want to think about getting up right. Or opening his eyes.
But then he does, and there she is—hair in one of those fancy braids, in a nice fall dress and cardigan ensemble. Good, he decides. Another strong piece of evidence that they are not going into the godforsaken woods. Of course, she could always pull on her hiking boots, but he crosses his fingers.
"Rise and shine," Lucy announces. "We have a meeting in Kunugi this morning."
Hold up. What.
Natsu peels himself off the floor and quickly wipes away any drool from the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand. "Kunugi? I thought you said that we were going shopping?"
She slides a neat stack of pancakes onto a plate and smiles at him. It's her super top secret "I'm Up to Something" smile. It makes his heart feel funny sometimes. "Oh, we are."
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Natsu is not a fan of long car rides. There are only 3 ways that he gets through them.
I—He sleeps.
II—Lucy lets him lay his head in her lap.
III—He's the one driving.
As much as he prefers the first two, Lucy make him drive all the way to Kunugi. They have to stop for coffee first. He downs an entire 24oz of cold brew mixed with a RedBull and one of those puny 5 Hour Energy shots. Lucy frets the entire time. In fact, she even takes the little 5 Hour Energy away from him. She claims that it's 'detrimental' to his health. However, he pours it in when she isn't looking.
Now, in retrospect, that might not have been the best idea. The good news is, though, he isn't going to fall asleep while driving. The bad news is that he might not sleep for a week straight.
Lucy is bopping along to some indie pop music cover that she likes, and he rolls his eyes. Personally, he's more of an AC/DC and other old rock guy. But hey, if it makes her happy, then how can he stop her?
"Are you sure this thing is right?" Natsu finally queries, once they are almost through Kunugi. It's not that big of a town anyways, and they sort of just left city limits. "The uh, shopping district was back that way."
Lucy shakes her head, unfazed. "Yep. That's the correct address."
He makes a hmmmnngg face at the gps, squinting to see the address. The little red dot that is representative of them is still booping along, further away from town and closer to The Cuts. He is getting slightly suspicious.
"Lucy," Natsu begins, feeling his left eye twitch erratically from all the caffeine, "what exactly are we shopping for?"
She actively goes out of her way to avoid eye contact with him. "Oh, um, y'know...some recreational activity stuff."
What's that call, ref? Bullshit?
"And where exactly did you find this 'recreational activity stuff'?" Natsu's grip on the steering wheel tightens.
Lucy shrugs her shoulder. "Maybe Craigslist."
"Maybe Cra—Lucy. Dammit! Do you even know what kind of screwed up lurkers are on there?! What the hell?! What if you had come out here all by yourself?! What if—"
What if he hadn't been with her? What if she'd been snatched by some deep web creep using Craigslist as a place to find naïve, pretty girls—fuck. She's actually going to drive him insane.
She responds by simply shrugging again. "I would've taken Gray. Maybe Gajeel. He's beefy."
Natsu chokes on his spit. "B-beefy?"
"Wait! I think this is your road!" Lucy points to a small, barely noticeable dirt road ahead to the left.
They're down to a two-lane highway already. Natsu feels a headache coming on, but he's honestly not sure if it's from his cocktail of pure damnation or whatever is about to happen. Maybe both. Probably both.
"In 900 feet, turn left onto county road 45678," the sterilized automaton female voice of the gps announces, and Natsu swerves to miss a squirrel he could've sworn had blood red eyes.
He turns where the gps indicated, and a grim feeling of why the fresh fuck settles over him. The road looks like it hasn't been driven in years. It's lined with trees that are older than paper, probably, and more than half of them are dead. A beat up 'NO TRESPASSING' sign decorated with bullets holes is dangling precariously from one nail on a tree.
"You are now entering an unmapped area," the gps says loudly. "Proceed with caution."
Natsu turns to Lucy, a Look on his face. She sinks down in her seat a little. He sighs, takes a deep breath, and proceeds with caution.
Two minutes.
Five minutes.
The song on the radio changes to static, and that's the end of reception.
Lucy's phone goes from 3G, to 1X, to No Service, to saying absolutely nothing at all.
"The destination is ahead, on your right."
Dubiously, Natsu drives into the drive. There is a mailbox with some kind of animal skull on top. Beyond the trees, way over yonder, they can see part of a dilapidated trailer house.
"You've gotta be fucking kidding me."
Lucy beams, unlocks the car (Natsu cringes) and hops out. "Hi!" she calls out cheerily. "We're here for the cult stuff! We saw your ad on Craigslist!"
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[ this town is only gonna eat you ]
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tbc.
notes2: there will be a pt 2 for this one. congrats. prep yourselves for CULTS, yo. specifically, one of the not so heavenly kind. also cameo gray, ig.