You might love me like a saint, but you'll lose faith eventually
Eight-year-old Natsu loved to hide in snow forts. He'd dig them into the snowbank outside their house and wait for Zeref's bus to arrive. When he'd step off, Natsu would hold his breath and remain perfectly still until Zeref was up the driveway a ways and then the snowball fight would begin. There was never any fooling Zeref, he always had a snowball primed and ready to go, meaning when Natsu would stick his head out of his fort, it was to a face full of snow. He gave back—not as good as he got—but it was fun all the same.
He could still remember—vividly—the day that fun stopped. He remembered being crouched in his fort. He remembered the cold leaching in through his snow pants. He remembered his snowballs already neatly rolled and piled up in front of him. He needed any advantage he could get, after all. He remembered the way his breath fogged and how, out of the hole he'd crawled in through, he could see snow falling from the sky, huge, fat flakes that made a thick layer on the ground. He remembered the rumble of the snowplough and he remembered the scrape of the blade pushing back piles of snow.
He remembered the walls of his fort shaking. And then not just shaking. Crumbling. He remembered backing up and having nowhere to go. He remembered all of the snow falling down on him. Even as he was trapped, he remembered thinking that getting out should have been easy. It was just snow, after all. He couldn't find the way, though. Everything was a peculiar shade of dark blue-white and everything was cold, down his neck and against his face. Natsu sucked in breath and the snow was in his mouth and up his nose. He couldn't breathe.
Panic came so viciously that he didn't even hear digging in the snow until hands clad in black finger gloves broke through the top of the pile and reached for him. Natsu remembered Zeref picking him out of the snow and pulling him in against his chest. He remembered the way Zeref breathed heavily. He remembered the way Zeref yelled at him, too.
Natsu didn't have long to wonder if he was too old now to be yelled at in the same way. Just as soon as he was able, Zeref burst through the door into the room where the holding cells were and called him every name he knew of and some he made up on the spot. He then promised that he'd fix it. Zeref used to always make promises like that, those he couldn't keep; it hadn't been that way in a long time, though, and it was unnerving to see him falling back into old habits.
"It's fine," Natsu said.
"It's not fine, idiot," Zeref made sure to tell him.
"Your brother's right." Gildarts lounged against the concrete wall, watching the whole scene. "This is serious, Natsu."
"I've gotten into fights before," Natsu said.
Gildarts said, "You weren't nineteen before. You never had the cops called on you before, either."
Zeref rubbed his hand under his nose and sniffed. "Fuck."
Gildarts straightened and touched Zeref's back. "Come on, we got some stuff to talk about."
They were alone again, just he and Ultear. Natsu filled his lungs with one deep breath after the other. The holding cells smelled like stale nicotine and coffee and unwashed clothes. They were cold, too. And uncomfortable, not really good for leaning his back against the bars and staring at the fluorescent light overhead until he felt blind, but he did it anyway.
It was hard to say how much time had passed, though his head was ringing and his hands were aching and Ultear kept huffing, so he knew that time moved forward.
Eventually, the door at the end of a drab hallway opened again and Gildarts came through. He looked as weary as ever, unshaved and unbrushed and untucked in his uniform.
"Zeref?" Natsu asked.
"Gone home." Gildarts pulled on a card attached to his belt and swiped it in front of the reader on the wall. A loud buzzing sounded and the door unclicked.
"Finally. Are we getting out of this fucking dump?" Ultear asked.
Gildarts had only a dry expression for her. "You're staying right here, Miss Milkovich. Natsu?"
Natsu got to his feet. He'd been buzzing off adrenaline for an hour and now that it was leaving his system, he was exhausted to the point of barely being able to walk. He made it out into the hallways and down to the door without stumbling so he counted that as a success. Gildarts opened that door with the same card and brought Natsu into a part of the precinct that didn't smell quite so foul. Coffee dominated the air here and paper. Gildarts brought him into a small room that looked like it was used for interrogation and pointed to a chair that was bolted to the floor. Natsu sat and slouched.
"Tired?" Gildarts asked.
"Yeah."
He dropped into the chair opposite. "I'm fucking bagged, too. Been here all night." The clock on the wall read six in the morning. "I have my other statements, I need yours, and then Ultear."
"Okay."
"Tell me why you attacked Mister…" He searched through a messy notebook. "Mister Taka?"
"Because he's an asshole."
Gildarts' look turned dispassionate. "Help yourself, Natsu, and don't give me bullshit answers."
Natsu sobered. "He was the guy that attacked me. A couple weeks ago, him and his friends. He was waiting for me again when I drove Angel back from the hospital."
"Angel?"
"She was there tonight. Or last night. Whatever." He hadn't been to bed yet; it felt like one, long day. "The blonde one."
"Right. Sorano Agria. She was one of the witnesses."
He knew Angel wasn't her real name.
Gildarts said, "So what you're saying is you acted in self-defence? Because from the reports I got earlier, they said you attacked them out of nowhere."
"Well…"
Gildarts sighed through his nose. "Shit, Natsu."
Natsu said, "I may have thrown the first punch but they weren't there because they wanted to be friends."
"You can't know that."
"Really? Because the lump on the back of my head says different." It was tender still and would be for a while if Natsu was any judge. "All three of them joined in. Who knows what would have happened if Ultear hadn't been there?"
Gildarts scribbled in his book. Natsu couldn't read what he wrote. "I need to talk to Ultear but you're in deep shit, Natsu. This guy's family is rolling in it and they're going to rake you over the coals as much as they can."
"What's that mean?"
"They'll probably be in favour of pressing charges."
"Those guys attacked me first."
"Weeks ago—maybe. I don't have proof of that."
"The truck," Natsu said.
"The only vehicles registered to the Takas are a BMW SUV and a sedan. The truck that those guys got out of was a beat-up old Ford."
"The other guys, then," Natsu said.
"Wally Buchannan and Fukuro Aria are both from the same part of town. Rich kids that don't own hand-me-down trucks that crawled out of the '80s."
"So what?"
"So I can't prove anything, Natsu. You say one thing, they say another, and the only evidence I have is what I collected tonight and by all accounts, you attacked them unprovoked when Taka asked you for a lighter. That has to go into my report and that has to go to the prosecutor."
"This is fucking bullshit. You know I didn't go after them for no reason!" Natsu wished yelling about it was more satisfying. He continued. Gildarts let him, sitting back in his chair and listening to the rant, at the end of which, Natsu couldn't even remember what was said.
Gildarts waited a moment more to make sure he was finished. He wasn't but Natsu was too burned out to continue, and Gildarts took advantage of the situation. "I'm going to finish this up. I need to talk to your friend."
"And then what?" Natsu's voice was hoarse.
"Then I get this sent off this morning, the prosecutor goes through it, decides whether or not to press charges."
"If they do?"
"You'll go to court, the prosecutor will present the evidence and the judge will decide."
"Okay. But what if I'm hit with an assault charge?" Natsu asked. He didn't care about the rest.
Gildarts didn't try to sugar-coat anything; he was always good like that. "Usually it's fines and up to six months in jail."
"This is bullshit," Natsu pressed again.
Gildarts stood. "I'll take you back, come on. I'll get you some aspirin on the way."
He didn't want to go back there to that dumpy, smelly cell but the promise of aspirin got him to his feet.
Natsu had been dozing for the better part of an hour when he heard the door open. He cracked open his eyes and his stomach filled with lead. "Mister Heartfilia." Behind him was an even more run-down looking Gildarts.
Jude Heartfilia put only the tips of his expensive, shiny boots in the cell and clasped his hands, along with the file folder he held, in front of his waist. His eyes were the same shade of brown as Lucy's but they were cold. "Mister Dragneel."
Natsu didn't think he'd ever heard his name spoken with such scorn. "What are you doing here?"
"I'm the prosecutor."
Natsu swallowed his aggravated swear. It wasn't going to earn him any points with a man like Lucy's father. "Oh."
"We should talk. Privately. Follow me, please."
Natsu glanced at Gildarts to see if this was supposed to happen. Gildarts' expression was ghost-blank. He didn't say don't, though, and Natsu trusted Gildarts as much as he trusted anyone. He followed Mister Heartfilia out into the precinct again and into a room that was different than the first he'd been in. This one was painted dark green, clean, and had a solid, light hardwood floor. It was nice, considering. There were two chairs and a table. Jude took one seat and waved Natsu into the other.
"I've looked over the report from last night. It doesn't look good for you, Mister Dragneel."
Natsu's stomach got heavier if that was possible. "Okay."
"An assault charge on your record is damaging."
Though the magnitude of it all was still a bit lost on him, Natsu didn't want to play ignorant with Jude. "I gathered."
"We can proceed in a variety of ways. This can be processed directly by a judge with no need for a jury or we could treat it as an indictable offense, which will require a more formal court process. You don't want that."
"No." Obviously.
Jude tapped his file folder. "This kind of thing sticks with you for some time, Mister Dragneel. Getting a job will be difficult, loans. If you run into hot water again, which if I may be so blunt to say seems likely, given your current trajectory—"
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
Jude gave him no quarter. "Should I remind you that at nineteen you're facing assault charges?"
Natsu didn't have a good reply to that. His sweaty palms left wet marks on the table. "So what you're saying is I'm screwed."
"Certainly, if these charges are laid no one will go easy on you." Jude pursed his lips. "There is another way we could do this, though."
"There is?"
"I have the power to drop the charges."
The relief came hot and fast. "Would you?"
"I could be swayed to, yes." Jude arranged the papers in front of him, though they were already neat and tidy.
"That's great." They couldn't afford a fine and it was already hard enough getting a job. Natsu almost laughed. "Thank you, Mister Heartfilia—"
It didn't look like Jude ever smiled; now wasn't an exception. "You have to do something for me, though, Mister Dragneel."
Some of the wariness came back to Natsu. "What?"
"I need you to stop seeing my daughter."
"What?"
Jude held his eyes as he explained, "Stop calling her. Stop texting her. Delete her from all forms of social media and never contact her again. If you see her out in public, pretend that you don't. If she tries to engage you, make it known to her in no uncertain terms that you're through."
Natsu waited for the punchline. It never came. "Are you serious?"
"I never joke in matters of business."
"So I can be charged with assault or I can stop seeing my girlfriend." Just so they were clear.
"That sums it up nicely, yes."
"This is—" There was a fancy word for it that Natsu couldn't remember. "Blackmail."
Jude said, "And this is the rest of your life."
"I don't care."
One of Jude's blonde brows went up. "This is the kind of attitude that makes me wish Lucy had never met you. You're impulsive, Mister Dragneel, you don't think with your head, you just act. You have no job—"
"I got laid off."
"—No future, no plans for school, no money to go to school—"
"I can get a student loan."
"Not with a record," Jude countered.
Natsu chewed his cheek hard. He had no idea if Jude was right or not and didn't want to make a fool of himself.
"You live in a squalid little movie shop drowning in drugs, you steal from the hospital—"
"I didn't—"
"In the police report there was a pill bottle found on the ground made out to a Missus—" Jude flipped open the file. "Abagail Hope. Who is a very nice old lady that lives on the north side of town. Currently, she's in the hospital and has been there for weeks recovering from a hip surgery. I wonder how her pills got all the way out there by you when she can't even walk?"
Natsu's ears buzzed. "No one said anything about those pills to me."
"Not yet, but I promise you, they were in the report and if you don't agree to my terms I am going to pull every trick I know to make this process as painful and serious as I can."
"You can't do that."
"I can, and I promise it won't just be you that gets dragged through the mud, I'll drag your brother right through it, too."
"For what?"
"For anything and everything I can."
There was plenty of ammunition if Jude cared to look, Natsu knew. He looked down at his busted up hands. "I love Lucy."
Jude surprised Natsu by saying, "She's a special girl. It's hard not to love her."
"What if I changed things? I—"
Jude's voice got soft. "Somethings you can't change, Natsu. Your family or yourself. Accept who you are, accept that you're no good for Lucy, and do the right thing for everyone involved. This," He tapped the file again. "Can all go away. Even your friend's, the one that attacked with a tire iron. Gone. Just make a promise to me, man to man, that you'll do what's right and let my daughter go."
Natsu squeezed his fingers into a fist tight enough that the scabs on his knuckles twinged. "She's not going to accept some bullshit line—"
Jude said sternly, "I don't need you to talk to her. I need you to be a ghost."
What could he say?
