A loud knock woke Natsu, and he groaned. The effects of his hangover came all out; splitting headaches and overall soreness that he hadn't felt for… months. He forgot how much it sucked.

The knocking came again, and he cursed under his breath. Only one person had ever had the decency to knock. He pushed himself off the mattress dizzily, staying on his feet just long enough to grab the door handle and begin to pull before falling back onto the mattress. Light from the hall flooded into the dark room, and he groaned again as he threw his forearm over his eyes to block it out. He ignored how the pressure hurt both his eyes and his bruised skin. Lucy would have a fit if she heard him complaining…

Memories of his drunken episode began to return at the thought of her, and he sighed. 'She won't care at all anymore,' he realized, the horror in her face blazing in his memory. He was impressed she was even here. That look, so familiar to him, made his chest ache to remember it on her face. He could handle it from the patrons, that stranger she brought with her; hell, he could even take it from Don.

But he'd never wanted to see it on her.

His mattress dipped as a weight settled next to him. Dim light bloomed from the cover of his arm. He figured she'd turned on the lamp, which almost made him groan again. He'd only been awake for five minutes, and he already to function like a normal person. An unwelcome lick of anger lit inside him, a remnant of the fights from what he figured were only hours ago. It was the only way he would feel this terrible so soon after waking up. He wished Don would bring him a glass of fire whiskey like he would when Natsu was younger, or when he wasn't afraid of him.

Natsu was pulled out of his thoughts by the silence in his room. It was hardly ever silent, especially when he was with Lucy. They were always talking; yet here they were, the silence deafening. He realized that he'd been hoping she would storm into his room and be angry, demanding explanations he didn't want to give. Her patience was frustrating.

"Hey," he said tightly, trying to keep his unreasonable irritation under wraps. His fingers twitched, and he felt a spark of panic. He couldn't afford to lose control in this half-drunken state. He reached for her hair to give them something productive to do, but the spark grew when he found the waistband of her jeans instead. "You didn't cut it off, did you?" A bit of his panic leaked into his calm facade.

She had the audacity to laugh under her breath. "No." She took a deep breath, and Natsu knew, with perfect clarity, that his biggest fear was going to happen, after all these months. She was going to tell him that she finally realized what a monster he truly was, and that she had made a mistake. She was going to tell him how she didn't feel safe to be near him, and that —

"Natsu, what's wrong?"

Her voice cut through his fear, and it was so full of concern that Natsu was floored. All of his irritation drained away, and he moved his arm to stare at her in awe. 'What the hell did I do to deserve her?' Natsu tried to think, but all he could see were bruises and blood. And here she sat, big brown eyes full of wary concern, framed in a literal halo by his lamp.

Her eyes became irritated then, and he realized he'd been quiet for a bit too long. She glared at him, and he figured he'd better react before she smacked him. It wouldn't hurt, but he didn't want her to hit his head and worsen his headache. He grimaced as he pushed himself up, poking her arm gently to let her know he'd heard her. His lips twitched at her offended pout.

"Natsu, seriously." Her voice was low. "I'm worried about you. What happened earlier…" Her voice faded away, and he winced. He tried not to think about what would have happened if she hadn't stopped him, how she wouldn't be here, but instead in her room with that jackass Cobeson comforting her. Suddenly, the trust in her eyes became to much to bear, and he looked away. He had been one second away from shattering it.

"Answer her, Salamander." Natsu's eyes jumped to the corner of his room, where Cobeson stood. Natsu sized him up in a second, seeing how his nonchalance was a weak attempt to disguise the tension in every line of his body. Still, he kept talking. "Tell her what you and I both know." 'Never,' Natsu almost answered. "Tell her how you were more yourself today than you've been the last six—"

"Stop, Jacob!" Lucy shrieked, effectively preventing Natsu from leaping off the bed and shoving Cobeson's face through the back wall. 'Jacob?' he thought, the name making his chest burn uncomfortably. Why were they so close, if she had wanted his help dealing with him? "I told you could come if you would be quiet." Natsu was pleased to see him shift at her disapproval. "Now shush!"

He snickered under his breath until Cobeson's next words. "It's not like you can actually leave me behind, Ms. Heartfilia." Natsu didn't miss Lucy's flinch at the title, and Natsu made up his mind. This asshole was going to—

A cool touch on his arm halted all thought. He let go of his anger, as her fingers pressed on a fresh bruise, and it took all the focus Natsu had not to make a noise. She would whip out that blasted liquid that stung like a bitch…

'Shit,' he groaned, the dreaded brown bottle resting by his knee like it had appeared out of thin air. Soon, bandages and other things he was used to seeing now joined it, and he watched in fascination at how quickly Lucy cleaned and wrapped his arms. She had gotten much better since the first time when she had wrapped them in a back alley.

All too soon, she finished and put away her supplies, and Natsu was proud that he had only sworn twenty-eight times when she used the stuff in the brown bottle. It was a new record.

"Okay, stop sulking." Before he knew what was happening, Lucy's face was directly in front of his, her hands trapping his head in place. He swallowed as she held his eyes with her gaze. "I'm here for answers, Natsu." Her breath was warm against his. "I…You really scared me earlier. What's wrong?"

Natsu's heart clenched at those words; the only ones he never wanted her to say. He leaned forward, pressing his forehead against hers in an attempt to comfort her and still his pounding heart. "Sorry, Luce. Really. I got a little drunk and wasn't thinking very clearly." It was the understatement of the year, but he could burn in hell for it later. "I fell back into old habits." He thought back to the horror in her eyes when she saw just what those habits were, and sighed. "Now I'm paying for it, apparently," he said quietly, hoping his trembling voice wasn't obvious.

"What do you mean by old habits?" Lucy asked timidly, and Natsu swore in his head. He had hoped she would accept his apology and drop it, but she seemed keen on getting her answers. He could see it all: he would tell her everything she wanted to know, and it would all end with her tripping over herself trying to get out the door. The police would come, and shut everything down. Everything he had fought to protect for Don, everything that made him just a little bit human, would be gone.

He met her curious gaze with as much sobriety as he could muster. "Promise you won't leave." 'Don't leave the pub. Don't leave to get the fuzz. Don't leave me.'

Her eyebrows drew together, like the thought of her leaving was preposterous. "What?"

"Promise you won't leave." Another thought occurred to him, and he nodded over at Cobeson. "And if you could get him to leave, that would be great." He didn't trust that guy just as much as he trusted Lucy. He had an agenda, and Natsu knew it had something to do with him. Lucy looked over her shoulder and they had a little stare off, before Cobeson huffed and stalked outside. As soon as the door shut, it creaked with Cobeson's weight as he leaned against. Natsu rolled his eyes at the weak attempt at a power move. There was more than one way out of this room.

Lucy, however, turned around with a bright smile at her success. "There, two birds with one stone. He's gone and I can't leave." Natsu raised an eyebrow at her. 'Great, Luce, now instead of running to freedom you can feel like a caged animal. Fantastic.' Natsu pushed the sarcastic voice away and watched Lucy crawl her way over to him. She rested her head in his lap, and his fingers immediately tangled into the horrendous pile of hair on her head. Braids looked much better in her hair, he decided.

She looked up at him expectantly, and Natsu knew that he couldn't avoid it any longer. He stared at her face, taking one last look before it disappeared forever. "Did you ever hear rumors about the Salamander?" he asked, already knowing the answer. The last five months would never have happened if she had. After she shook his head, he let out a breath. "Yeah, that's what I figured."

So he told her as much as he could think of; how he had grown up with Don and the other drunkards, never meeting kids his age, or kids at all, really. How he'd climbed to the top of the food chain and made a name for himself. He told her how he felt like nothing could ever hurt him, and how it took years for everyone's fear to affect him. He told her how he became a monster, a name to be whispered in the shadows of the pub lest they catch his attention. He tried to keep it light, but he knew it wasn't working from the sadness lurking in her features.

When he finally finished, she bit her lip and looked up at him. "Natsu, you said something about the end of the Salamander." Natsu's brain ground to a halt. Did he? "And you haven't been anything like that since I met you…?" She trailed off, but he knew what she was getting at. He sighed, trying to figure out how to word what he needed to say.

After a beat, he answered. "Well, excuse my wording, but…you killed the Salamander, Luce," he explained carefully. He thought back to when he had first seen her, standing in the middle of the pub's chaos like a ditz. He had dragged her out and away from any possible cop, ensuring that she would keep her mouth shut. His legacy wasn't going to end because of some idiot. But then, when he had been on his merry way, she grabbed his arm like he wasn't the most dangerous person in Hargeon and made him walk with her for nearly an hour.

Then she had asked for his name. A name that he had thought had been lost forever. After all, no one was brave enough to name the Boogey Man, or other terrors that haunted people's thoughts. But she was, and she had. And now he was tied to her, hopelessly, because she was the first one to have ever cared.