Homeward Hours

By CrimsonStarbird


Chapter Twenty-Two – The Illusion of Control

It was far from the first time Zeref and Natsu had come face to face since Natsu had learnt the truth about who he was – although, watching the two of them glare at each other from opposite sides of the near-invisible barrier, one would have been forgiven for thinking otherwise.

Their encounters never became any less fraught. From the moment they had clashed in the guildhall at the end of the Alvarez War, every single meeting was accompanied by the same sense of catastrophe and dynamite and hesitate-and-die beneath a burning desert sun. It did not matter that they only saw each other rarely these days, each having their own relationships and roles within the guild. On the few occasions when something did drive Natsu up to the house in the woods, trouble was sure to follow.

Zeref, for his part, had felt rather bemused at being woken up before the sun had breached the horizon. Expecting an emergency at the guild, he had stumbled out of his house to find Natsu there instead, glaring like he wanted to fight once more with the fate of the guild at stake. At once, Zeref's relatively harmless exasperation evolved into something far more intense. Something like steel in his throat, like disdain hardened into a shield as unyielding as the Fairy Sphere. Natsu wasn't the only one to approach their encounters with something less than warmth.

But then Natsu opened his mouth: "I am going for a jog around the lake."

Zeref blinked, thrown. "Good for you?"

"Doyouwanttocomewithme?"

"…I'm sorry?"

A vein pulsed in Natsu's temple. Speaking couldn't have taken more effort if he'd had to wrest every word from Acnologia's jaws: "I said, do-you-want-to-come-with-me?"

"Uh, no?" Zeref was too baffled for it to come out as anything other than a question.

"Good!" Natsu spat, before turning on his heel and marching back into the forest.

Zeref stared at the spot where his troublesome brother had vanished, slowly rubbing at his temples. He wondered if he was hallucinating. It was safe to say he'd gone easy on the alcohol ever since that afternoon with Warrod, and he'd been too busy helping Lucy get back into running the guild recently to have spent much time experimenting with magic, which ruled out side effects from wild magic…

Just as he was about to go back to bed and forget about the whole thing, his ears registered the sound of an all-too-familiar voice in the pre-dawn stillness. "Well? Where is he?"

Zeref stifled a sigh. Trust Lucy to be behind everything bizarre in his life.

Curiosity held him in place as he heard Natsu respond defensively: "He said no."

"Of course he said no!" Lucy exclaimed. "You've got to persuade him, Natsu!"

"Why would I want to persuade him to do something that not only does he not want to do, but also I don't want him to do?"

"Because, Natsu, it's a good, harmless way for you to start spending time with him."

"Good?" Natsu snorted, echoing Zeref's own feelings for the first time in his life. "You've not forgotten what happened the last time I spent time with him, at Gajeel's wedding?"

"Well, yes, but that was ages ago. Besides, it only happened because you deliberately provoked each other," Lucy persisted doggedly. "With this plan, you'll be too busy exercising to actually talk to each other."

"Then what's the point?" he whined.

"Natsu! Go back out there and convince him."

"Fiiiiiine." The undergrowth rustled with disdain as Natsu dragged his feet like he'd dragged out the word, hauling himself back towards Zeref's prison. With even more anger than before – as if Lucy's idiocy was somehow Zeref's fault – he opened his mouth to snarl an invitation so unconvincing that the only legitimate reason to accept it would be spite.

Zeref stalled him with a raised hand. "Don't waste your breath."

Natsu's eyes narrowed. Zeref was the only person who could make him angrier by agreeing with him wholeheartedly. "I wish, but Lucy said-"

"I heard what Lucy said." Zeref's voice was cold, dangerous, and growing more so with every word. This wasn't a game, any more. It wasn't harmless banter or Lucy being quirky. He had warned her to stay out of this, and he had meant it. "If she knows what's good for her, she'll keep her nose out of things that aren't her business before someone gets hurt."

The Dragon Slayer took a menacing step forward. "Are you threatening her?"

"Yes, I am," Zeref hissed, leeching every degree of heat out of the air that Natsu attempted to burn into it. "And I'm threatening you, and everyone else in your guild, because if you do something as stupid as letting me out of my cage after provoking me like this, they will pay for your transgressions in blood."

"How dare you-?" Natsu snarled, stepping forward.

Zeref was faster.

Black magic smashed against the inside of the barrier – not flames, not energy, but pure hateful death, exploding across the Fairy Sphere with enough force to consume the pre-dawn light. He sensed more than saw Natsu jerk backwards. Even the dragon's rage bowed to the fear at the heart of all living things: the fear that knew it would only take one touch to snuff out the bonfire of his life.

If Natsu had been half a second faster.

If his fingertips had been an inch further forward, inside rather than outside the barrier.

Zeref's shoulders were shaking with rage, but his outstretched hand was terrifyingly steady.

Not even during the finale of the Alvarez War had he used his death magic in combat, and certainly never against Natsu. Not even in the depths of despair had he considered it an option.

But he had done so then, not caring for the risk, disappointed that it hadn't worked, that he'd mistimed it, that Natsu was still staring at him with such unbridled hate.

"Get out of here," Zeref spat. "Both of you. Now."

"Gladly!" Natsu retorted.


It took seven days for Zeref to calm down enough to listen to Lucy's apology.

"I didn't mean it that way, Zeref. I was only trying to help. I didn't think- well-"

Zeref turned a page of his book in silence and did not look at her.

They were sat in the fancy shed Warrod had talked Zeref into acquiring, which was more like a miniature wooden house than anything else. Rain lashed against the roof and windows, though it wasn't loud enough to stop Lucy's whisper from carrying. If anything, the storm added a cosiness that struggled to counterbalance Zeref's unwelcoming presence. He was sat in his armchair in the part of the room cordoned off by the tell-tale shimmer of the Fairy Sphere, while she perched awkwardly on the sofa in the accessible part of the room; together, but also not at all.

Zeref had not glanced up from his book when she'd entered. Hadn't answered when she'd asked if she could turn the heating up to try and dry herself off. Didn't give any sign that he was willing to interact with her.

Except for the fact that, after seven days of him being unreachable by lacrima or in person, he was here reading in the guest room when he could have still been locked away inside his house.

"I thought it was a harmless way of getting you and Natsu to spend some time together," she confessed. "He goes running nearly every morning. He's used to Gray or Erza occasionally joining him, so it wouldn't be much of an inconvenience if you tagged along. You could spend time together without actually having to talk. Without being able to talk, in fact, since I made the mistake of going with him once, and he sets a punishing pace. I thought you might be able to get used to each other's presence in an unintrusive way. Clearly, I got it wrong. I'm sorry."

Without looking up, Zeref said, "I believe I told you not to intervene between me and Natsu."

Sure, when they had spoken after the disaster at Levy and Gajeel's wedding, he had shot down her idea of reconciliation without hesitation. But that was over two years ago, and he had seemed so much better since she'd returned from the Hundred Year Quest. Maybe even stable enough, strong enough, to finally act like an adult and build a relationship with Natsu from the ground-up, the way he had with Mira and the others in her absence.

"I know, but-"

"I believe I told you that it was only going to make things worse."

"It's not as though you've never been wrong before!" she rejected stubbornly.

"Having seen the outcome of your efforts, do you still think I am wrong?"

"You didn't even try!" she bit back. "Zeref, you nearly killed him!"

"Yes."

She had been too far away to see it, and she'd hoped that Natsu had exaggerated his description in rage, but that one cold word tore it all apart. Zeref still would not look at her, although she knew the book no longer held his focus. If it had, the smouldering in his eyes would have burnt clean through the pages.

"Why?" she demanded. "I get that you were annoyed, but that was entirely disproportionate! It wasn't even Natsu who had annoyed you; it was me! You've never acted like that towards him before! You're supposed to be the older sibling, the mature one, the sensible one – and then you go and do something like this!"

He said nothing.

Didn't turn the page either.

"I know you don't want Natsu dead," she continued. "In fact, it's the last thing you want, so why-?"

"He should be dead," Zeref stated.

Lucy swallowed. "He told me," she ventured, bravely, because Natsu had only mentioned it the once, without details, and Zeref had never brought it up at all, "he told me that he'd died as a child, and you brought him back to life. He said that that was what cursed you…"

"It's not as simple as that." He let out a long, slow breath. "Yes, I brought Natsu back to life, but it wasn't for his sake. It was always about me."

"Zeref-" she tried, again, but he was having none of it.

"I mastered the magic of life because men who were older and wiser than me told me not to. I brought him back to prove that I could, after everyone around me insisted it was impossible. It's not Natsu's fault that I am the way I am. If it hadn't been resurrecting him that cursed me, it would have been some other forbidden boundary of magic. This cursed existence is the product of my own arrogance, nothing more."

"I don't believe for a second that you did it for any reason other than love," Lucy told him firmly. "I know you better than that; I know how you rationalize these things away. But if you believe that, even for a second, then please, tell Natsu so. One of the reasons why he finds it so hard to accept you is because he believes his very life makes him complicit in everything you have done. It would make such a difference if you-"

"It is irrelevant."

Utter, bleak finality.

Zeref closed his book and put it aside, fixing her with a stare that made her wish he hadn't stopped pretending to read.

"For four hundred years I have sought a way out," he explained. "Leaving Natsu to be brought up by Igneel, attacking your guild, obtaining Fairy Heart – one way or another, it was all for the purpose of ending my own cursed existence. Well, you know how successful that was. Natsu couldn't even beat me, let alone kill me. But then, at the end, after I'd given up on everything, I was granted one final chance."

"What happened?" Lucy hardly dared to breathe the words. He had never spoken about the final battle before; always refused to fill in the blanks between Natsu's guilty, flawed recollections.

"Mavis happened. The Curse of Contradiction can destroy itself; indeed, it is the only thing that can. Somehow, after all this time and everything I had done, she still found it in herself to love me. She could kill me, and I her. We were going to go together."

Another long breath shuddered through him, as if it were still trying to follow her even now.

"But I couldn't," he murmured. "I couldn't go with her. I couldn't."

"Why not?" Lucy whispered, and neither the rainstorm outside nor the half-shimmer of the Fairy Sphere could stop it from reaching him. His gaze flicked back to hers; the hopelessness in it hit her anew.

"Because if I die, so does Natsu. As END, his life is tethered to mine. I couldn't do it. I just… couldn't."

Lucy couldn't speak. No words could stand up to the overwhelming unfairness of it all.

"But I couldn't live on as I was, either," Zeref continued, without emotion. "For so many years, the hope of reaching Fairy Heart – of reaching the end – was the only thing that kept me sane. If I walked away, it would only be a matter of time before I was back to destroy everything. So I gave myself over to the Rune Knights. I prayed that they could hold me – not thinking, not living, just enduring in a place as close to nothingness as I could get. Fifty years, I thought. I'd already done four centuries; surely I could do another fifty years. That would be enough for Natsu to have a full life with his guild. After that, it didn't matter whether I destroyed him, the world, or anything else in my madness. I just had to hold on in the Council's prison for that long."

Lucy raised her head defiantly. "No matter what you say, Zeref, I do not believe that removing you from that place was the wrong thing to do."

"Nor do I," he conceded, at last. "But nor do I think you truly understand what you did to me, even now."

"You're right, I don't understand!" Lucy exclaimed. "You can't change the decision you made at the end of the battle – but you can make the most of the situation you're in right now! You have a unique opportunity to reconcile with Natsu. Wouldn't having him back make your decision to live on for him worthwhile?"

"Do you know how much it hurts to see that he will only speak to me when you blackmail him into it? Do you understand that every step forward makes witnessing how much he hates me hit twice as hard? All it does is confirm to me how foolish I was to pass up my only chance to die."

"I know," Lucy murmured. "But you're better than that. You're smarter than that. Maybe I had to force Natsu the other day, but at least he swallowed his pride and gave it a go. You know that if you can just put your hurt aside for a little while, and try to be civil to him in return, it'll be worth it in the end. You did it with me, you did it with Master Makarov, you did it with Warrod and so many others in the guild while I was away! Why is Natsu so different?"

"More to lose," he muttered.

"I'm not sure you have anything to lose with Natsu right now. Wouldn't it be better to try and fail than not to try at all?"

"Quite the opposite. There would be nothing worse for me than trying, only to have it thrown back in my face. At least by choosing not to try, I have some element of control over our mutual animosity."

"…You're an idiot, Zeref."

"Why do you care?" he snapped, suddenly. "You get on with me and you get on with Natsu, and the fact that Natsu and I don't like each other wouldn't affect you in the slightest if you stopped trying to force us together."

"I care for many reasons, Zeref, not least of which is that Natsu and I are officially engaged. You said it yourself: you and I are family, or we will be very soon. It would mean so much if you and Natsu were on speaking terms before the wedding-"

"Lucy, you are out of your mind if you think I am going to your wedding!"

"You went to Levy's wedding," she pointed out stubbornly.

"Yes, and how well did that go?"

"Well… it's been a long time since then. Things are better now. You are better."

"Not enough for this. If you let me out of the Fairy Sphere for your wedding, either you or Natsu will be dead by the end of the night. Maybe I'll lose control of my curse or maybe I'll do it on purpose; either way, the outcome will be the same."

"Then we'll bring the wedding to you," she retaliated. "We've got to have the reception at the guildhall, that's not up for debate, but there's no reason why we couldn't hold the actual ceremony here, in this forest clearing. Close friends and family only. If you're worried about your curse, you can stay behind the barrier the whole time-"

"Lucy!" he exclaimed. Even the rainstorm seemed to fall silent, scared into submission by the blaze of his eyes. "Can't you see that this isn't helping?"

"Zeref…?"

Abruptly, he stood, robes swirling around him, disturbed by a magical presence that might have been terrifying, if not for the barrier blocking the sense of it completely. "I don't want you to go out of your way for me, Lucy! I don't want you to ruin what should be the happiest day of your life by trying to work it around my difficult circumstances! I don't… I don't want to make things any worse for you and your guild than I already have. Watching you constantly go out of your way for me doesn't make me feel any better."

He wasn't looking at her. She didn't think he could. Instead, he stared up through a ceiling that strained against the pressure of his magic to a rainstorm that had fallen silent, each droplet suspended, unable to come any closer to him.

"I am trying so hard, Lucy."

He ran a hand through his hair.

It was almost childish, but it made him look older than ever before.

"I am trying to move on. I am trying to find other reasons to live than Natsu, other people to care about… other things to give my continued existence meaning. I am trying so hard to put the pain and the longing and all the horrific things I did for him behind me. And then you turn up, acting like my relationship with Natsu is the only thing that matters, like I can't possibly be a good person unless he loves me! It doesn't help, Lucy. It isn't fair for you to put me through that."

The rawness in his voice matched perfectly the prickling at the corners of her eyes.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I only wanted-"

"Maybe it is time for you to consider what I want," he stated. "Let me find my own peace, Lucy."

As he left the outbuilding, letting the rain slash at him as he strode back to the privacy of his own house, Lucy felt her shoulders sag.

Friendships in Fairy Tail were so easy. There was so much joy and forgiveness and love that it was nearly impossible to drive them apart, far easier to love than it was to hate.

But Zeref wasn't like her friends in the guild. His peace, his acceptance, his happy ending was measured against different criteria to theirs.


The happiest day of her life, Zeref had said, and Lucy had a feeling he'd never even planned a wedding before, let alone had to endure being the subject of one. Oh, there was plenty to enjoy, if she hadn't been too busy trying to find out what was holding up the caterers or worrying about tripping over the vows or guessing which of her friends was going to commit the ceremonial first act of destruction of the night. At least on that last count, the guild sweepstakes had raised a hefty sum for charity.

She'd look back on it fondly, she was sure, and the photographs she would treasure for all eternity, but really, she spent most of it wishing she could go home and sleep.

And she'd be sure to tell Zeref that, when she next saw him, so that he wouldn't feel like he had missed anything important. Maybe she'd talk to him the day after the wedding, or maybe she'd leave it a few days first. While Mira and the others had observed so few curse-related mood swings from him during the Hundred Year Quest that they had started to wonder if Lucy had made the whole thing up to scare them, it seemed that Natsu was the one thing still able to shake his newfound stability.

Having fun wasn't really the point of the wedding, though.

It was… expected. Required by society. A special occasion, yes, but the fact that it was supposed to be so special made it ironically a lot less fun for her than an ordinary Fairy Tail party. Natsu didn't really do ceremony, and though he was more than happy to do it for her, she knew it wasn't them.

Zeref probably wouldn't have enjoyed it much, either. He wasn't one for social events. There were still those in Fairy Tail who didn't trust him, and only a handful that he considered friends.

But that wasn't the point, either.

He was Natsu's older brother.

He was one of Lucy's closest friends.

By every unwritten rule sealed into society's evolution, he should have been there.

And the worst thing of all was knowing that she was the only person who felt it was incomplete.

But Zeref had asked her to drop it. He was trying to move on. As his friend, how could she stand in the way of that?